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In every life, Jaime Lannister finds her.
In every life, he chooses her, too, although some choices are harder than others. He vaguely remembers that time in Westeros, where he’d been so under his sister’s thumb that he’d nearly left Brienne behind and broken her heart. There was the time when they were Pokemon rivals — that one had involved a lot of stubborn refusal to acknowledge feelings, and even some assuming on Brienne’s part that he was just doing it as a publicity stunt.
Oh, and he can’t forget the time he was supposed to be a contestant on a show to find love and he’d gone and fallen for Brienne his producer instead of one of the 30 girls vying for his heart. That had been a particularly memorable one, too.
Of course, Jaime can’t remember these things just from seeing her. He doesn’t know them until much later, until their next life has tossed them together again. When he realizes that he loves her, when he realizes that she is and always will be the person for him… that’s when all the pieces click into place, the visions of life before flood him, and the feeling of rightness becomes impossible to shake off.
Sometimes it really is simpler than other times, though.
This is not one of those times.
It’s absolutely batshit insane, this new world they’re living in. Jaime doesn’t remember the other lives he’s lived, not yet, but he kind of longs to have been alive at a simpler time, one where there aren’t tornados full of sharks threatening the planet.
His father was one of the very first people he saw get eaten by a flying shark. He’d probably been more relieved than he should have been. One moment, he’d been in Tywin’s office at Lannister holdings, getting a lecture about what a disappointment he was to the family again , and then the next, a shark had smashed through the window and gobbled Tywin up right before his very eyes.
Jaime’s been on the move since then. He’d found Podrick and Brienne when he’d been the only person insane enough to be charging back towards a sharknado, but the inaction is driving him crazy. He can’t single-handedly kill off the world’s shark population, but he can at least take action instead of running away.
Jaime doesn’t recognize that Brienne’s his person the second he meets her. Mostly because she’s trying to usher Podrick away from the sharknado, trying to keep him safe, and her motherly tendencies are in overdrive when they first meet. She grabs him by the scruff of his neck, stopping him from turning back towards where the flying sharks await, and she literally drags Jaime out of harm’s way, despite his protests.
It would be incredibly hot, the way she can toss him around like a ragdoll, if it weren’t incredibly irritating.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” she hisses at him when they make camp later that night and he tries to sneak away. Jaime’s fending for himself; aside from his siblings, he’s never really had someone specific to take care of or look after, and he isn’t planning to start now.
Except the way she glares at him, Jaime knows he’s not going anywhere. Somehow, this stubborn, straw-haired woman seems like she’d be willing to track him to the ends of the earth to keep him safe, even if they’ve only just met.
Jaime really doesn’t know what to make of that.
He takes his time figuring it out, really. He doesn’t try to sneak away again; he just accepts that he is a part of Brienne and Podrick’s fold now, and they stay together for weeks on end. Scientists on TVs that they catch snippets of here and there announce that they’re no closer to stopping these sharknados than they were two months ago.
Hundreds of casualties now exist. Jaime’s seen plenty of them with his own eyes. Brienne has, too, although they take turns reaching their hands out to cover Podrick’s eyes whenever they can, trying to protect the boy from the harsh reality they’re living in.
They start to feel a little bit like parents, Jaime thinks wistfully one day, as he hacks at a shark with a chainsaw, keeping it from getting anywhere close to Brienne.
Jaime still doesn’t understand why that thought, why them being such a team , makes him feel so warm inside.
But there’s too much danger everywhere they go, so he never really lets himself think on it too much. He’s just glad to have someone to protect him, someone to actually give a damn if something happens to him.
And he’s not complaining about the way they seem to fight completely in sync, either. No shark stands a chance against the combined powers of Jaime and Brienne Tarth.
Except sharks, it seem, do stand a chance against them when they have the ability to fucking fly , and when some of the ones that are swirling around inside of every storm are large enough to swallow them whole .
Jaime learns this the hard way.
It’s not even a moment when they’re expecting it, is the bizarre thing. The skies have been clear, Podrick’s napping , and Jaime and Brienne are actually having a nice moment. Keeping watch together, but laughing quietly, bumping shoulders. It feels so normal . It feels like home , even though being on the road, fighting sharks at every turn, is hardly a way to live.
She laughs at something he says, unabashedly for once, and Jaime feels an overwhelming surge of emotion. He likes what his life has become. Jaime Lannister, Shark Hunter. Jaime Lannister, Sharknado Slayer. He’ll have to work on a fun title, later, one that he can share with Brienne. He likes her .
Hell, maybe he even loves her.
It feels like it might be too much, too fast, but Jaime has always been one to throw himself head first into things. He’s always followed his heart instead of his head, always let love guide him more than logic.
Still, that laugh, that sparkle in her eyes, that’s what has Jaime on the cusp of realizing that Brienne is it for him, in this life and every life.
It’s not until the shark falls out of the sky that he knows for certain.
It’s huge, the biggest shark they’ve seen yet. It makes Brienne look tiny, and she’s far from it. Jaime should know; he’s spent a lot of time checking out her long legs, strong thighs, and broad shoulders of late. He didn’t mean to do it, but they’re always so close together, always gravitating into each other’s orbits, and it’s impressive . She could kick his ass if she wanted to, and Jaime likes that.
She could probably also kick this shark’s ass, if she was armed and ready for it. She’s not, though. She’d let her guard down to talk to Jaime, and now she’s unarmed, seated directly below a falling shark, whose mouth is wide open.
Jaime doesn’t think , he just reacts. The world needs Brienne Tarth, or gods know he does, at least. If this shark has to take one of them, he’d rather it be him, he’d rather die protecting her than live in a world without her now, after everything they’ve been through.
Jaime uses all of his strength and shoves Brienne out of the way, and then his world goes black.
He’s not unconscious. It might be better, if he were. But his world is literally black, because the shark has swallowed him whole, and Jaime wonders how long it will take for the thing to digest him and put him out of his misery.
He can’t hear anything from in here; he’s not sure if Brienne and Podrick have gotten to safety yet or not. Jaime guesses he’ll never know, and that thought makes his stomach sink. He’d just found her, just realized that he cared more for another person than for himself. He’d just had that moment of realization, that second where everything clicked and he’d realized: It’s Brienne. It’s always Brienne .
Jaime knows they’ll have another life, another chance, because there are confusing images, dancing through his head now. Their other times, spent together. Their lives filled with happiness.
This isn’t very happy, is it? He hadn’t even gotten to tell her he loved her before he’d been gobbled up. He hadn’t even known for sure until their chance to be together had been ripped short.
He thinks his stomach probably hurts even more than this shark’s does, as he tries to punch at the lining of its stomach, seeing if there’s any way out. It’s probably hopeless — he can feel his skin starting to rot from the acid of the shark’s stomach, and he hopes it’s all over soon. The burning’s starting to be too much, and he doesn’t love the darkness, either.
Only… suddenly, it’s not so dark anymore. It’s raining blood, not sharks, and Jaime is tumbling out of its stomach, only vaguely aware of Brienne standing above him, chainsaw still roaring in her hands.
Her eyes look red-rimmed, like she’d found time to cry , and if Jaime hadn’t been so sure just three seconds ago that he was good and dead, he might have made a sarcastic comment. About how she could have sliced him open, about how she couldn’t have cut him out before he’d ruined his hand trying to punch his way out, about how much she'd obviously miss him…
But Jaime has no capacity for sarcasm right now. He’s overwhelmed, and relieved, and mustering up all the energy he has left, he wraps his gore-covered arms around Brienne’s legs and sighs, “I love you.”
Jaime wakes up and it’s much, much later. He is disoriented and groggy; he doesn’t even remember passing out. He looks down to see that he’s been rolled up in a sleeping bag somewhere, far far away from where the shark had swallowed him.
He should be traumatized, but instead he has a bit of a dazed smile realizing Brienne must have carried him here, wherever they are now. Gods , isn’t she amazing?
His hand is bandaged, from where he felt his skin burning earlier. She’s taken care of everything, hasn’t she? She’s always taken care of him, and he feels a little bit lighter, knowing he’d taken care of her, too, at least a little bit. In Westeros, when he’d helped protect her from wights. In Kanto, when they’d been attacked by a swarm of Beedrill — he vaguely remembers that. Oh, and protecting her from the media, after he’d fucked off of his season of the Bachelor to be with her.
And today, he’d been swallowed by a shark , so that she wouldn’t have to be. He feels a little proud, because it always feels good to be able to do something good for someone you love, doesn’t it?
Jaime looks around, his whole face beaming when he sees her sitting there, watching him. She looks relieved that he’s awake, but aside from that, she doesn’t say anything. Jaime looks at her, maybe a bit more expectantly than he should but he hadn’t imagined it, right? He’d told her he’d loved her right before he’d lost consciousness, and maybe she whispered it back to him when he was asleep.
He wants to hear it, though.
“Well?” he asks her, and she narrows her eyes at him.
“We’ve gone a mile further inland, to a little motel that supposedly hasn’t had any trouble with sharks at all. Normally I wouldn’t waste our money on it, but well, you were in rough shape. Quite delirious, feverish from your hand, muttering nonsense as you dreamed — I suppose being eaten by a shark is a bit traumatic?”
Jaime wants to laugh. Of course she’s matter-of-fact, and thinks he wants to talk about practical things. As if he cares where they are — he doesn’t , Jaime only cares that he’s with her, and it makes so much sense now that he realizes who she is and what she’s always meant to every version of him.
“Delirious?” he asks her incredulously, wondering if she thinks that he’s only been calling out for her because of his injuries. “I seem to recall saying something fairly important before I was delirious, if you’d care to comment on that.”
Her face turns beat red — the cute, embarrassed flush she gets when he teases her, not the blotchy red of exertion she’d had earlier when she’d cut him out of that shark.
“Jaime, it’s all right, we can forget — I know you weren’t yourself,” Brienne says, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Wasn’t myself ?” He repeats, shaking his head at her. Of course she wouldn’t believe him. She never did take his genuine compliments very well, did she? Even when she’d saved his life and he had every reason in the world to be sincere, she did better with his japes.
Jaime didn’t want to jape now, though. He’d come so close to losing out on this lifetime with her. Some were short, some were long, and he wondered — maybe there were worlds out there, where they never met at all. Maybe there were lives he had that he’d never remember, ones that just didn’t matter because he hadn’t had her .
“This is the most me I’ve ever felt, Brienne. Or at least the most me I’ve felt when being chased by sharknados ,” he says, rolling his eyes. She must remember it, too, though. Doesn’t she? Or if she not in love with him enough yet to see their pasts, too?
“I don’t want to forget. I want you to let me love you — when sharks are chasing us across the country, when the dead rise and are after us, when you’re an Olympic swimmer, or even if you break my nose because you think I’m being an ass.”
He sees it, the recognition in her eyes. Jaime played it off so that if she didn’t recognize, it wasn’t too specific, wasn’t enough to overwhelm her and force her into a realization she wasn’t ready for.
She knows, though. He knows she knows, and so he does his best to prop himself on his elbows, getting as close to on her level as he can.
“ Now . I’d advise that you go ahead and let me kiss you, before any more sharks can eat me and you never get the chance,” Jaime teases, and this time, mother nature doesn’t interrupt his moment, as Brienne’s lips tentatively meet his and Jaime sighs into the kiss.
He thinks that maybe now the sharks could take him and he’d at least die a little happier than he might have been last time.
Or, and maybe it’s stupidly hopeful of him to think — maybe the sharks will fuck off and leave them to this for a very, very long time. Just because he knows that in some strange shape and form they’ll have forever together doesn’t mean he can’t stop to appreciate every moment they have right now.