#HAVE A PSEUDO S8 FIXIT GUYS

[janiedean]

A Twist: It's Brienne who says, "I've made my choice. What's yours?" She's come to trust him and she's coming to understand that he loves her as much as she loves him, or she wouldn't even ask - but that part of her that won't ever forget what it's like to feel not pretty enough, not good enough, still fears he'll choose his sister in the end. Jaime looks at her and then yells, "DAVOS!" Brienne gapes at him. "... Oh. OH. Right." Davos would like them both to focus on the ice zombies for now.

… you know what fuck it, this won’t ever going to be my best effort bc I’m riding out a cold and I’m still jetlagged but fuck that

also while I was writing this an anon said tormund would marry them and added

Forgot to add: when Tormund asks who stole who, they’re like huh? And then Brienne is like well if you mean me taking him to KL would that count? And then Tormund keeps asking all these questions and he’s like, it’s official. You’re effing married or whatever crap you call it. You stole each other many times. And he’s satisfied that Brienne stole Jaime and no one can convince him otherwise.

I already started this one but I thought I might add that too ;)

– 

The dead are still fucking coming.

Brienne feels like they’ve been cutting them down for years by now and they still keep on fucking coming, and by now it feels like most of them have retreated to the same place in the castle - Ser Davos is behind them, Pod is somewhere to her left, she’s seen Gendry and Tormund somewhere ahead, and by now she barely can feel her arm. She can see Jaime next to her and she’s thanking all the gods that he’s still on his feet and he hasn’t risked dying since she went and cut down that walker that was just above him and about to kill him, and he did the same for her just before, and -

They cut off two at the same time and he turns to her for a second -

“You know,” he says, his sword cutting another wight’s head, “I’m just -”, another wight falls down, “regretting I got here this late.”

“This late?” She shouts, lifting Oathkeeper to kill off the next couple coming.

“Well, I had plans,” Jaime says, “and before, uh, I was about to say I also came North for you, but somehow there wasn’t time, you know.”

For her? Brienne can barely process it, and that’s how a couple wights almost get to her, but she manages to cut them down in time.

“For me?” She shouts back.

He smiles at her for a moment, almost sad -

“I realized that if I had to die I wanted it to be in the arms of the woman I love,” he says, and then gets back to cutting down the next ice undead coming over and Brienne about wants to faint because what he just said -

What he just said -

He came here to die with her or because she was the one he wanted nearby when -

And because he has honor, of course he does, she knows he has -

She doesn’t know why she asks. She hasn’t slept for what feels like ages, she’s cutting down zombies mechanically by now, her muscles feels numb and the man she’s been in love with for years that she never thought would or could actually care for her as anything other than a friend just told her she’s the one he wants to die with and he knighted her and, and, and -

“Jaime!” She shouts, realizing that she hasn’t called him ser for the first time and honestly not caring because it feels good, “Jaime!”

“Yes?” He shouts as he turns to her, his sword held out to impale another wight.

She doesn’t know what is possessing her to ask, but suddenly she wants him to know that she does love him back, she does -

“Marry me?” She shouts, and a part of her expects a refusal, still expects a refusal even after he told her that because she knows she’s not the kind of woman people want to marry and usually women do not propose -

He meets her eyes, and his own are wide in shock, so bright green even in the darkness of the longest night they’ve ever seen in their entire lives -

“I don’t know if now is the best time!” He shouts back, a zombie impaling itself on his sword before he takes it back.

Well.

It wasn’t a no, at least, and that’s probably why she finds the guts to actually press.

“Now might be the only time, if we don’t win,” she says as Oathkeeper slices through a wight headed his way. Then she takes a breath, feeling the sweat running down her face, and right now she’s covered in blood and gore same as him and she doubts she’s more attractive than her usual, as in, none at all, but - “I love you,” she says, meaning it, wishing she had told him before, but this is what she has now and so she’ll make do with it, “and I’ve made my choice. What’s yours?”

For a moment, the wights seem to slow down, enough that they can look at each other, and he looks - floored, for lack of a better word, as if he can’t quite conceive she just asked, and suddenly she hates herself for doing it because he might have told her what he just had but who says that he’d want her like that, that he won’t think about his sister and decide that maybe he should go back to her, because surely Cersei Lannister would have never asked him such a thing while covered in undead flesh with her armor sticky with blood and fluids -

And then he smiles bright enough that for a moment she feels it brightens up the entire place even if it’s still dark and the undead are still coming -

“Davos!” He shouts, and wait, what, why is he calling for Davos -

Wait.

He’s -

He’s the hand of the King, or maybe one hand of the kind, and he’s the only one up here, and -

“What?” Davos shouts back, busy handling a few zombies himself.

“Marry us!” Jaime shouts back, and Davos looks down at them like they both lost their minds.

“Not that we hadn’t thought it would head there,” Davos shouts, “but are you aware we’re all a little busy at the moment?”

“Davos, now!” Jaime shouts again, sounding like the commander Brienne knows he is, and he’s grinning as his sword cuts through the umpteenth dead body -

“All right, all right! I think we don’t need to address the audience, even if I’m pretty sure everyone around here would have loved to witness the wedding, and in lack of cloaks we’ll pretend you just exchanged -”

Suddenly, Brienne sees it. As Jaime kills one of the wights and she offs another, she moves in front of him, takes his sword and thrusts Oathkeeper into his hands. For a moment, he looks like he’ll drop it, but then he lifts it up, still grinning -

“That’s good enough,” Davos nods. “So, we’re all standing in the sight of men and dead men to witness the union of man and wife. Will you two pledge your love already?”

Brienne had never thought she’d end up kissing Jaime Lannister first as they killed wights in the middle of a battle - he grabs her neck, standing up on his toes and pressing his lips to hers. “With this kiss I pledge my love,” he says, and then his sword cuts through yet another wight.

She does the same as another three are coming up to them, then grabs his neck and does the same. “With this kiss I pledge my love,” she says, exhilarated, and she can’t believe she got to say it -

Davos kills another wight himself. “Jaime Lannister, you take this woman for your lady wife?” He shouts.

“I do!”

“Fine, Brienne of Tarth, do you take this man for your lord husband?”

“I do!”

“Good, then you’re one heart, one flesh and one soul, now and forever, and if you want to kiss again no one is stopping you, but please do keep on killing those wights!”

Brienne snorts, handing Jaime his sword back and taking hers, and then -

“I am hers and she is mine, from this day until my last day,” he says, his back meeting with hers -

“I am his and he is mine, from this day until my last day,” she says, loud enough that he can hear, and then she kills another wight, wipes at her mouth and turns just to see that he’s going up on his feet again, their armors clanking together as his mouth meets hers again -

“Let’s see to not make this the last one, all right?” He winks at her, and she decides she’ll make her damned sure to try to make sure they both live.

–

“Jaime,” Tyrion wheezes not long later, as they celebrate around some good wine that somehow survived the entire battle, “I can’t believe you two actually married like that, shit, if only Father or Cersei could have seen it -”

Jaime wheezes back and Brienne is inordinately pleased to hear that this is his reaction to Tyrion implying his sister should have been there -

“Wait a moment,” Tormund says after taking a swig of beer, and he doesn’t look like he wants to argue, at least, “it’s not a proper marriage if neither of you has stolen the other.”

“… If any of us hasn’t done what,” Jaime blurts.

“Stealing the other! It’s a custom! It’s how you prove you’re worthy of the person you want!”

“… Do explain…?” Brienne asks tentatively, and a moment later Jon Snow shakes his head and stops Tormund before he can launch into what feels like a detailed explanation.

“It is a wildling custom,” he sighs, “basically if you want to marry a woman you have to sneak into her tent or house or whatever, overpower her and drag her out to your own tent or house. If she can fight you off you’re not worth her time, if she can’t fight you off she can accept your offer because you showed her you could do that and you’re not weaker than she is.”

“See, you did belong with us,” Tormund says fondly, ruffling the man’s hair, and Jon Snow actually smiles at that?

All right.

“So,” he says, turning back to the two of them, “did any of you steal the other?”

“Uhm,” Brienne says, “I, uh, brought him to King’s Landing? He was in chains for half of that trip, admittedly -”

“Hey, we did fight on the bridge and we were evenly matched!”

“Yes, but then I did drag you around after your hand was cut.”

“But I did come back for you in that bear pit,” he winks, and Brienne’s heart maybe grows a size or two as his hand finds hers, and he sounds so happy with himself as he says it -

“But I did stop you from drowning in that bath now, didn’t I?”

“Fine, you did tell me to fuck loyalty, I guess, but -”

“All right,” Tormund stops them, “all right, she stole you, Lannister.”

“She did what -”

“She obviously stole you and that’s obvious, and I can’t be in the way of that if she actually went and did it, so fine, you’re definitely married or whatever. Probably have been for a while. I’ll take my leave then, if the king is up for some more drinks.”

“I might,” Jon Snow smiles back, and then, “well, congratulations to the two of you!”

Then he disappears with Tormund back to the main table.

Tyrion is laughing so hard he’s crying and Davos is staring at them with a knowing look from the other end of the table and Pod is congratulating the both of them, and -

“You know what,” Jaime says, “we’re missing the bedding here, lady wife.”

“You know what, lord husband,” she grins back, “I think we should go to my room. And I could make Tormund definitely happier about upholding wildling customs.”

“Really,” he grins back. “How about that?”

Brienne had not ever imagined that her wedding night would start with her bringing her husband inside it after picking him up in a bridal carry, but as she does get out of the room while everyone cheers her on, Jaime first and foremost, she decides that she couldn’t have asked for a better wedding.

Not at all.