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threewaywithdelusion · 5 days

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GOT Fic

Feedback (and title suggestions!) welcome, as this is a work in progress! This is based off GOT, not ASOIAF, so we have Mad Queen Dany, sorry.

Jaime may have been reluctantly permitted into Winterfell by Daenerys Targaryen and Sansa Stark, with the help of Brienne’s shocking and unwavering faith in him. But that didn’t mean he had been welcomed.

Everywhere Jaime went, he was watched with wary, distrustful eyes. Whispers trailed in his wake, words like Kingslayer and sister-fucker and Lannister hissed with equal venom. The wildlings, including that savage redheaded fucker who stared at Brienne wherever she went, watched him with open curiosity. His presence here had apparently done a lot to mend the rift between the wildlings, the Northerners, and the armies from Essos, gossip uniting them against a common enemy.

It seemed the whole world hated a Lannister.

Jaime had never felt so far from Casterly Rock. Here, he wasn’t Jaime Lannister, Lord Tywin’s hair and future Warden of the West. He wasn’t Jaime Lannister of the King’s Guard. He wasn’t even Jaime Lannister the fearsome knight, now that his fighting skills were mediocre without his right hand. A few days ago, he had watched Brienne teaching men in the yard, where she was eventually joined by Arya Stark, and had been dismayed to learn that he would almost certainly lose to the Starks’ youngest daughter.

Jaime did his own training, sparring with Brienne in the yard and with Podrick Payne in a clearing in the woods, trying to strengthen his left arm. He ate meager rations of flavorless gruel, despairing at the thought of eating such terrible food for the next several years. He helped the blacksmiths distribute Dragonglass weapons, helped fortify Winterfell’s soot-stained walls for if (when) the army of the dead got past them, and tried desperately not to think of Cersei at every turn. Jaime was never allowed into the war room and he was never left alone. He felt a bit like a prisoner, constantly watched and never allowed near anyone of import.

That was why he was so surprised, after he’d been there a week, to walk into the bedroom he was sharing with Tyrion and Podrick and find Jon Snow waiting for him.

The last time Jaime had seen Jon Snow, he’d been a mere boy, sat away from the high table and sulking about it. Since then, he’d been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, King in the North, and was now Lord of Winterfell, despite his bastard origins.

Jaime had never felt his fall in the world more acutely.

“My Lord,” Jaime said stiffly. He had no idea what Snow wanted with him, but it couldn’t possibly be good.

“Ser Jaime,” Jon Snow said, sweeping an arm at Tyrion’s bed. “Take a seat.”

Jaime stepped over his and Pod’s bedrolls and took a seat on Tyrion’s bed. Jon Snow shut the door and gave Jaime a long, unreadable look.

He had brought no guards with him, but one of his hands was resting over the wolf’s-head pommel of his Valyrian steel sword.

Jaime did not think that could mean anything good. “Am I being banished?”

“No.”

“Punished?”

“No.”

“Has Daenerys Targaryen decided she can’t forgive the man who murdered her father?”

Something in Snow’s expression twitched. “No.”

Jaime spread his hands. “Then I can’t imagine what I’ve done to deserve the honor.”

Jon Snow frowned. He opened his mouth several times, but no sound came out.

Jaime sighed and began rooting around the furs on Tyrion’s bed. There was nothing under the pillow, or tucked between the bed and the wall, but a glance under the bed led Jaime to his prize: a skin of wine.

Snow frowned as Jaime took a swig of it – it was disgusting Northern swill, strong and flavorless.

“We’re on rations,” Snow said. “You’re not meant to have wine.”

“It’s not mine,” Jaime said. “Clearly your Queen has seen the wisdom in keeping my brother supplied with alcohol for as long as humanly possible. Here.” He held out the skin.

Snow hesitated for a moment and then took it, gulping down half the wineskin and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“So?” Jaime asked.

Snow took a deep breath. “How did you do it?”

Jaime waited, but that appeared to be all. “I’m going to need more than that.”

“You and Cersei,” Snow said, making Jaime stiffen all over. “How could you…”

The word sister-fucker rang in Jaime’s ears.

“Fuck her?” Jaime asked angrily. “I assume you’re not asking me for instructions. I know the Night’s Watch requires you to take a vow of celibacy, but I don’t believe you’re an untouched maiden..”

Snow’s cheeks flushed red as he scowled. “That’s not what I’m asking. Of course I’m not! I meant, knowing that she was your sister, how could you feel… that way… towards her.”

Jaime forced himself to keep his hand off his sword. “I came here to fight the dead, not put up with Northern scorn. I know you’re the honorable Ned Stark’s son,” he said with venom and Snow flinched, “but that doesn’t give you the right to abuse me for my choices.”

“I’m not mocking you,” Snow growled. “I was just- forget it.”

Something about the look on his face, scared and ashamed, made Jaime sit up straight. He knew what men looked like when they were teasing him about Cersei. He knew intimately the disgust on their faces, the way they would look down on him, the way their mouths would twist like they had tasted something sour. He knew Euron Greyjoy’s leer as he said, “”. He even knew how his friends and family treated the subject — Tyrion mostly alluding slyly to Jaime and Cersei’s relationship, unless they were arguing in which case it was fair game, Tommen watching him with questions in his eyes, Bronn teasing lewdly but without making incest seem any worse than the other inclinations he frequently saw in brothels.

And Brienne. Incredible, honorable Brienne, who had been revolted with his reputation as the Kingslayer and Oathbreaker but had never questioned or begrudged him his love for Cersei. She had repeatedly asked him to be a better man, to keep his oaths to her and to Catelyn Stark, and to do what was right. But she’d never once implied that he should leave Cersei or told him that he was wrong for the way he loved her.

He wasn’t delusional enough to think that Brienne approved of his relationship. But she didn’t act like he was a monster for it, and that was much more than most people did.

It was the thought of her stalwart loyalty that made Jaime speak up.

“Snow,” he said, before the other man could leave the room.

Snow stopped at the door, shifting uncomfortably. He looked fearfully at Jaime and Jaime’s heart sped up as he recognized the mix of guilt-shame-longing on the other man’s face.

He really wasn’t being cruel. He was asking for himself.

Jaime thought of Arya Stark, laying grown men flat on their back in the yard with the skinny little sword she claimed her brother had given her. He thought of Sansa Stark, cold and beautiful, sitting at the high table beside Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen and ruling like she belonged.

Jaime supposed either of them could have appeal. But Arya Stark spent every moment she wasn’t training following Robert Baratheon’s bastard around the forge and Sansa Stark stiffened when men stepped too close.

That was the first important bit.

“We both wanted each other,” Jaime said. “People may judge my choices, but Cersei was no wilting flower who would have let me take advantage. I didn’t force her and I didn’t dishonor her with other women.”

Snow stared at him for a long moment, then said, “I didn’t think you had taken advantage. From what Sansa says, Cersei is formidable and I’m sure she would not have tolerated advances she didn’t welcome. What I want to know is how you were able to overlook your blood connection to love her that way.”

Jaime frowned. Was he trying to overlook a blood connection for marriage? If so, he could only be talking about Sansa Stark. Maybe he planned to marry her to become Lord of Winterfell in a way a bastard could never manage.

“I mean no insult, but Lady Sansa has had four betrothals and two husbands and I’m not certain she’s interested in another.”

Snow looked like he’d just been slapped. “I don’t want to marry Sansa,” he hissed.

Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Arya?”

She wasn’t nearly as beautiful, but Jaime couldn’t deny that he understood the appeal of a girl skilled with a blade. He would’ve already proposed marriage to Brienne if he wasn’t unworthy of her. He’d pried himself free from Cersei’s claws but she’d left only a tattered, bloody heart in his chest, struggling to beat without its other half. Brienne deserved a man with a whole heart, two hands, and enough honor to rival her own.

Snow made a face like he might be sick. Jaime tried not to take it personally, though Snow was the one who had started the conversation about fucking siblings and was now acting like the idea was disgusting.

“No,” Snow said emphatically. “Not Arya. No.”

The only other Stark Jaime had seen around Winterfell was the boy he’d paralyzed, who spoke eerie prophecies and acted too creepily composed for Jaime’s taste. But then again, the Starks followed the Old Gods. Maybe Snow didn’t mind that the boy acted possessed by forces beyond the Wall.

Jaime had never been able to understand the appeal in men, either, but he thought of Brienne’s devotion to Renly Baratheon and decided not to mention that part.

“Bran-”

“Stop talking,” Snow barked.

Jaime snatched the wineskin off the bed and took a long drink. “Either explain what you’re asking or go. I’m not here to watch you look revolted at me, and if this goes on much longer I’m going to take offense and we’re going to find out how much Brienne’s training has improved my left hand.”

Snow nodded jerkily. He held his hand out for the wineskin, took a long pull, then sank next to Jaime on the bed. “It doesn’t matter who this is about. Please don’t try to guess. Let’s just say… it’s a relation on my mother’s side.”

That caught Jaime’s attention. As far as he knew, no one had ever been able to discover the identity of Ned Stark’s secret lover. Robert Baratheon had asked Varys once, in the early days of his reign, but even the Master of Whisperers had been unable to discover the woman’s identity.

“Go on,” Jaime said.

“She- I met her before I knew my parentage,” Snow said. “She was beautiful and fierce. I gave her my heart and my body, and then found out that she’s my…”

He trailed off, looking uncomfortable, and Jaime filled in the word sister.

“It seems to me the damage has already been done,” Jaime said. “You already love her. You already fucked her. What could you hope to gain from staying away now?”

Snow looked miserable. “If I’d known, I wouldn't have let myself feel this way.”

Jaime snorted. “Knowing something is forbidden has very little effect on love. Letting yourself feel a certain way is a fantasy we tell ourselves to pretend we have any control over the matter.”

“I don’t believe that,” Snow said. “We’re not animals. My father always said that family and duty come first and we can choose who we love. He and Lady Catelyn weren’t a love match, but they did have true affection for each other.”

“Your father was an honorable man,” Jaime said. “Honorable to the point of madness, really. And yet, he fathered a bastard. If that isn’t evidence that we have no control over who we love, I don’t know what is.”

Snow flinched, but he didn’t contradict Jaime.

“Look, you said you’d given this woman your heart. Did you stop loving her because you found out she’s your sister?”

Snow shook his head.

“Did she stop loving you?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“She doesn’t know?” Jaime repeated incredulously.

“And I can’t tell her,” Snow continued.

“Then why are we even having this conversation? You can’t lie to her to take her to bed — that would be dishonorable. And once she knows, she may not even want you.”

“I wouldn’t lie to her,” Snow said hotly. “I haven’t touched her since I found out. But she grew up… I don’t think she’ll be deterred by knowing we’re family. So I might have to be the one to walk away.”

“Why?” Jaime demanded angrily. “Society’s scorn? If you’d walk away over that, you don’t truly love her. Do you know what I put up with to be with Cersei? Even before the world knew, I had to watch her marry that pig Robert Baratheon. I had to guard his chamber door while he took her to bed and hear what they did together. I had to pretend that disgusting man was the father of my children and keep my distance from them so no one would ever realize he wasn’t. And ever since your father saw fit to announce our love to the world, I’ve been sneered at and disrespected and called every foul name in the book. I endured it all — everything — because I love Cersei. She was worth it.”

“It’s not that,” Snow said quietly. “The world doesn’t even know we’re related, so I’m not worried about people’s reactions. At least not yet. It’s just… the possibility of children.”

“Children?” Jaime echoed, pulled up short.

Snow glanced at him, then looked away. “There’s a reason we’ve had so many mad Targaryen kings. Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land. They intermarried, they all went mad, and the realm suffered for it. And — I’m sorry, I know he was your son — but you can’t deny there was something truly wrong with Joffrey. I’ve heard what he did to Sansa. I don’t want to have a child like that.”

Jaime’s heart ached dully. His children, his wonderful, beautiful children, were all dead. Tommen had jumped from a window as a result of Cersei’s machinations. Myrcella had died in his arms, right as he’d begun to hope he could be a real father to her. He missed them both so, so much.

He missed Joffrey too, but differently. The boy had always had an appetite for cruelty and Jaime had feared what he would become. He’d loved Joffrey because he was his son, but he’d never managed the unadulterated love for him that Cersei had.

Say what you would about Cersei, she had loved her children more fiercely than any mother in the world.

“I don’t think intermarriage is the problem,” Jaime said quietly. “The Targaryens already had madness in their bloodline — of course it was going to be passed down. And Joffrey… I loved him, yes, but I realize he was flawed. He could be cruel and selfish and vindictive. And… I know where he got those traits from.”

Cersei had known as well. When Myrcella had died, she’d said I don’t know where she came from. She was nothing like me. No meanness, no jealousy, just good.

There had been no similar words said for Joffrey.

“As long as your lover isn’t mad, you don’t have to worry,” Jaime said. “Besides, I’m assuming she’s baseborn if she’s a relation on your mother’s side? The Targaryens and Joffrey were only problems for the realm because they sat on the Iron Throne. Your children won’t be a danger to anyone else.”

If possible, Snow looked even more miserable at that. He flinched violently, as if Jaime had slapped him, and Jaime’s blood ran cold.

Snow wasn’t in love with Sansa or Arya Stark. Everyone knew Snow had been conceived while Ned Stark was fighting in the South, which ruled out any Northern ladies or wildlings as his relations. No love for a lowborn girl would put that look of fear on his face, and the only southern Lady present was Brienne of Tarth, who Jaime was certain hadn’t had a madly passionate affair with Jon Snow sometime in the last few months.

The only highborn girl left as a viable option was Daenerys Targaryen.

Jaime thought back and suddenly it seemed stupidly obvious. He’d heard the men whispering about Jon Snow riding one of Daenerys’s dragons. He’d heard the dirty jokes about how Daenerys had gotten the King in the North to bend the knee and give her his crown by spreading her legs. He’d seen her looking at him in the Great Hall as he walked away from her, trying to hide her hurt.

“Who was your mother?” Jaime growled.

Snow shook his head.

“Rhaella Targaryen?” Jaime asked.

Snow’s head shot up so he could look fearfully at the door, as if afraid of being overheard.

Well he would be afraid if he was a Targaryen bastard, wouldn’t he?

“Rhaella Targaryen was your mother?” Jaime repeated incredulously.

“No!” Snow snapped. He glanced at the door, lowered his voice, then said, “Lyanna Stark was.”

Jaime blinked. Ned Stark had fucked his sister? But no, Snow hadn’t been asking about being the mad child of an incestuous union. He’d been asking about producing such a child. About being in love with a woman.

That meant Ned Stark wasn’t his father at all. And given the boy’s age and the fact that his mother was Lyanna Stark…

“Your father was Rhaegar Targaryen,” Jaime breathed, horrified.

Snow looked like a hunted thing. Only he wasn’t a Snow, was he? Was he a Waters? A Sand?

“No one can know,” Jon said.

It made sense now why he hadn’t told his lover. Daenerys Targaryen had never truly been in the line of succession for the throne, as Aerys’s third child and a girl. But Rhaegar’s son, even a bastard one, would have a fairly legitimate claim.

He didn’t want to steal her crown.

“Neither of you is entirely in the line of succession,” Jaime said, stretching the truth to ease the look of misery on Jon’s face. “She’s a woman and you’re a bastard. I’d say you have about equal claim.”

“No,” Jon said hoarsely. “We don’t.”

“I know you want her to sit on the throne, but speaking from a historical perspective, a bastard-“

“I’m not a bastard,” Jon said.

Jaime stared at him. “What?”

“Rhaegar had a Maester annul his marriage to Elia Martell. He married Lyanna Stark under a weirwood tree.”

Jaime seized the wineskin and drank until it was empty. He was sitting beside a trueborn Targaryen son, a man who could possibly have ended the War of the Five Kings had he known his real identity at the time. A man who could cause a new war if he joined Cersei and Daenerys in vying for the throne.

“You’re fucked,” Jaime said eloquently.

Jon Targaryen laughed humorlessly. “Yeah.”

They lapsed into silence. Jaime didn’t know what Jon was thinking of, but he was remembering the honorable, lovable prince that had been Rhaegar Targaryen. He remembered the Mad King screaming, “burn them all!” Remembered the smoke of the burning Sept of Baelor and the cold look on Cersei’s face as she sat on the Iron Throne. Remembered Daenerys and her dragon setting fire to his army in the field, terrible and unstoppable, the smell of burning flesh permeating the air.

“You asked the wrong question,” Jaime said finally. “You asked me how I could still love Cersei, knowing she was my sister. I don’t think that’s what you’re wondering. You still love Daenerys, even though she’s your aunt. You’re wondering if loving her is going to doom you and everyone you love.”

Joffrey, eyes bulging as he died in his mother’s arms. Myrcella’s sweet smile before she was murdered for Ellaria’s revenge. Tommen, jumping from the window when he saw what his mother had done.

Brienne’s Renly, killed before her eyes. Alton Lannister, Jaime’s cousin who he’d beat to death with chained hands in Robb Stark’s war camp. The army Tyrion had burned to death with wildfire. Catelyn Stark and her son, murdered at a wedding. Oberyn Martell’s failed vengeance for his sister. Jaime’s father, shot to death on the privy by his own son. Tyrion’s dead whore. All the innocents who died in the sept.

How many had died because of his and Cersei’s sins? Because of Cersei’s thirst for power and his undying loyalty.

“She’ll ruin you,” Jaime said hoarsely. “She’ll kiss you, and you’ll love her. She’ll bear you children, and you’ll love her. She’ll frighten you, and you’ll love her. You’ll give her all you have — your heart, your honor, your dignity, your life — and it won’t ever be enough. As long as she sits on that throne, there will always be enemies and there will always be sycophants and if you aren’t the one, you’re the other.”

He looked at Jon’s eyes, dark and frightened and pained. Stark eyes. Nothing like his father’s.

Daenerys? She reminded Jaime all too much of the Targaryens of old.

“Daenerys isn’t Cersei,” Jon protested.

“No? Jaime asked wryly. “Because she’s beautiful, strong, and kind? Cersei was all those things once.”

“It’s not the same!”

Jaime pitied the boy. But he was what, four and twenty? Older than Jaime had been when he’d been thrust into the game of thrones by Cersei’s ambition and Aerys’s madness.

“Aerys burns them in their homes, Cersei burns them in their septs, Daenerys burns them in their fields. Kings and Queens — they’re all the same. They want power and they’ll do anything to keep it. And when she’s destroyed all you care for, killed your children and wasted your honor and done the one thing you can’t forgive — you’ll love her still.”

Jaime still loved Cersei. He hated her too, perhaps in equal measure. But Cersei was part of him — not in the way she’d always said, we came into this world together and we’ll die together, but someone who had shaped who he was for so long that he didn’t truly exist apart from her.

Jon’s face was a blaze of fury. “I think you should leave.”

Jaime stood and walked towards the door, ready to ask Tyrion to hunt down more wine for him to drink.

“I’m not you,” Jon tried, when Jaime was almost to the door.

“No,” Jaime agreed. “You aren’t.”

Jon slumped with relief and that was how Jaime knew, as an absolute certainty, that Jon was on the path to loving Daenerys the way he had loved Cersei — irrationally, unconditionally, and irrevocably.

“You’re not me,” Jaime repeated sadly, looking at Jon Snow’s somber, despairing face. “Not yet. But you will be.”

And Jaime walked out the door.

#game of thrones #game of thrones fanfiction #jaime lannister #Jon snow #daenerys targaryen #got season 8

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