i'm full of jb inspo today for some reason so here's a lil post-long night snippet i just wrote (it's basically just love drunk in a different font but i like writing drunk brienne ok)
Winterfell’s Great Hall is warm and bright, full of music and laughter and celebration. On the morrow, Jaime knows, he will have to reckon with the Starks and the dragon queen, and decide what in the seven hells he’s doing next; but tonight, he has a brief moment of respite, and all he cares about is eating and drinking and Brienne, getting quietly tipsy beside him.
He has never seen her drunk before, and suspects it’s her first time. He keeps an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t go too far, but there was ever a night for getting drunk, it’s this one. Like him, like everyone, she is just happily surprised to find herself still alive.
She is quiet, as always, but her cheeks are pink and she is freer than usual with her smiles. He receives them all greedily, committing each one to memory; she does not smile enough, especially not in this sweet, unguarded way. She is freer with her touches, too—leaning into him to hear him better, absently touching his arm or his shoulder while she speaks, knocking her knee against his under the table—but he tries not to make too much of that. It’s just the wine.
He doesn’t realise quite how drunk she is, though, until she excuses herself and attempts to stand, wobbling so alarmingly on her feet that he jumps up to hold her steady. She gives him another smile then, such a dazzling one that his heart jolts.
“Come, my lady,” he says, as smoothly as he can manage. “Let me escort you to your chambers.” He holds out his arm, and she takes it, blushing. If anyone, Targaryen or Stark, makes note of them leaving arm-in-arm, he doesn’t notice or care.
“I’m not drunk, Jaime,” Brienne informs him as they make their way towards her chambers in the east wing. She pronounces each word very carefully, but he is not convinced.
“I think you might be a little drunk, my lady,” he says, smiling.
She scrunches her nose. “I think you might be a little drunk.”
He’s had a few cups of wine himself, but he’s certainly far more sober than she is. He grins, falling into their usual back-and-forth. If there’s one thing he knows how to do with Brienne, it’s argue. “No, you are.”
“No, you,” Brienne says firmly, then loses her balance and stumbles sideways, almost knocking him over. “Oh—forgive me—”
He laughs as he helps her right herself, and she laughs too, cheeks pink. “I think I win this one, wench,” he says.
She laughs again, a high, clear, girlish sound. He has never heard her laugh like that before, and it makes his chest ache to realise that Brienne has been always been capable of this sound and he is only now hearing it.
After strolling a little longer in companionable silence, they reach her chambers, and he opens the door for her. She smiles at him again before she enters – he is being spoiled with her smiles tonight, he doesn’t know what to do with them all – and he is struck, as he often is, by the beauty of her eyes. Perhaps it’s the softness in them just now, or the way they’re shining as she looks at him, but he feels moved to finally tell her: “You have very pretty eyes, Brienne.”
Her face slackens with surprise, and then, to his shock, those pretty eyes fill with sudden tears.
“What’s the matter?” he asks. Without thinking, he moves into the room, closing the door behind them. “Have I upset you?”
“It’s not your fault,” Brienne says quietly, sitting down on the bed. Tears are still streaming down her cheeks. Mystified, he sits down beside her.
“What is it? You shouldn’t cry, not tonight.” Not ever. “Tell me.”
She shakes her head, pain written all over her face. “I can’t.”
“Is it the battle? I know it was your first, and it was a terrible one. We can talk about it, if you wish. It might help.”
“It’s not that. But thank you.”
“Are you worried about your father?”
She shakes her head again, clumsily wiping her tears with the back of his hand. “He is well. I had a letter from him today.”
“Is it a man, then?” For some reason, that possibility makes him feel cold.
Brienne does not respond to that, and his heart sinks.
“Ah. So you’re in love,” he says, forcing lightness into his tone. “Well, they say love is pain. I can certainly attest to that. Who’s the man?”
“I can’t tell you.” Her voice cracks.
“Of course you can," he says gently. "I won’t tell anyone.”
She shakes her head, eyes on the floor. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll never love me back.”
“Then he’s a fool. It’s not that idiot Hyle Hunt, is it?”
“Good.” Jaime casts around for other names to guess. “Is it that bastard of Robert’s? The blacksmith? He looks very like Renly.”
He finds himself at a loss. “Give me a clue, then.”
For a long time Brienne is silent, gazing across the room at the empty hearth. “He’s very beautiful,” she says at last. “And very brave. He is a man of honour.”
Jaime forces a smile. “Is that so? Is he a knight?”
“Yes. A great one.” Brienne looks at him then, her gaze direct despite the tears swimming in her eyes. “People say he’s not. They say that he’s a bad man. But I know better. He’s been very good to me.”
Suddenly the breath vanishes from his lungs. “Brienne...”
“He has protected my life and my honour. I would fight beside him in any battle. I would give my life for him.” She gives him a tiny smile. “But he loves someone else. I understand.”
Jaime fights to keep his voice level. “I think I know the man you speak of,” he says quietly. “And you’re wrong.”
“He doesn’t love someone else. He loves you.”
Brienne frowns. He can see her trying to parse this through the wine-fog in her mind. “No, Jaime,” she says, clearly thinking he has misunderstood her. “I don’t think you’re thinking of the right person.”
“Am I not?” he says, and kisses her.
He keeps it chaste, a soft press of his lips to hers. Her lips are soft and warm and taste of wine. It takes all of his willpower to pull away.
She is frozen, statue-still, and as he draws back to look at her he briefly fears that he has gotten it all wrong, that she hadn’t been speaking of him at all. Then a slow smile dawns on her face and she looks at him with wonder in her eyes, and he is relieved.
“Jaime,” she whispers. “How did you know?”
He laughs then, a ragged exhale, and kisses her forehead and her cheeks and her nose and her eyes.
“We should talk about this on the morrow,” he says. “When you’re sober.”
She scrunches her nose again, and he commits that look to memory along with all of her smiles. “I’m not drunk,” she protests.
“Oh?” he teases her. “Do you swear it on Oathkeeper?”
Her face falls, and he laughs. “Go to bed, sweetling. On the morrow, we’ll talk properly, and I’ll tell you all of the things I should have told you long ago.”
Her face softens. “As you say,” she says reluctantly. “Goodnight, Jaime.”
He can’t resist giving her one more kiss; a chaste one, on the temple. He feels buoyant, invincible, and suddenly the morrow is a far less daunting prospect than it had been a few hours ago.
“Goodnight, Brienne,” he says. “I love you.”
