#like it's nice they have hotline numbers but who is looking up the word misery to sad post

[caslesbo]

im just. looking for a gifset of misery (1990) .

[wackygoofball]

Moodboard: Jaime x Brienne - Accidental Phone Call AU

!!!Trigger warning ahead for mentions of suicide thoughts!!!Which is why this all goes below the cut!!!

It's late at night when Brienne receives a phone call from an unknown number. At first, she is tempted to just let it ring and put the phone on silent mode to go back to sleep. However, curiosity gets the better of her. She answers the phone, only for a very upset guy on the other end of the line almost instantly dropping the bombshell that he is having suicidal thoughts.

Brienne gathers from what he is saying that he wanted to call a suicide help hotline, but somehow ended up dialing the wrong number, ending up with hers. Since he seems very much on edge, Brienne fears that if she were to tell him that he got the wrong number, the man would only lose more hope and hang up – and maybe follow through with it.

But Brienne can't have another person die on her watch. Never again.

Thus, to the best of her abilities, she tries to help the stranger on the other end of the line, looking for a lifeline. And so, Brienne does the one thing she believes she can do – she listens.

The man breaks down, having kept all those things inside himself until this night. How he is a war veteran whose hand had to be amputated after a mission gone wrong. How many people he saw die at the hands of his general – until he ended it. How guilty he feels. How he was in a bad relationship with someone he thought he could trust, only to find out that he couldn’t believe a single word she ever said. How he broke with his family when he was expected to take over the family business after his military career ended abruptly. How he doesn’t see a way out anymore. How he wouldn’t be missed if he was gone.

“I did more than one bad thing in the past, so perhaps that's just payback, you know?”

Brienne momentarily loses her calm an does something you are certainly not supposed to do – she tells him that it would be “craven” to slip away, that if is sincere about redeeming himself for his past actions, he has to keep going.

“You have to live for that. You have to live.”

Brienne starts to panic when the man meets her with silence. She already fears that she just messed everything up and may just have driven a desperate man over the edge. Just as Brienne is about to shower him with apologies, the man blurts out:

“… You are right. Damn.”

They talk some more after that, and Brienne dares to believe that he finally calmed himself down, even starting to joke again. By the time they hang up, the man on the other end of the line assures her: “I think I am fine now… maybe not fine but… better.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“And I think I just found a new direction, thanks to you.”

Once they hang up, Brienne simply prays hat she didn’t make matters worse for the man after all.

On the other end of the line, a still rather confused Jaime Lannister gets up and dumps his bottle of booze in the drain and stuffs the gun away he had put on the table to end his misery. He picks up the phone and, for the first time ever, calls up his little brother Tyrion, to ask if he wants to spend time tomorrow. Tyrion, still rather shaken to finally hear from him again after all this time, instantly agrees.

“You work from one day to the next,” Jaime mutters to himself once he hangs up, recounting Brienne's words to himself. “Or from one night till morning. Let's see where that goes.”

Because he shall be damned if her accusation remains true that he is being craven for the act. He has a challenge now – and Jaime hates losing.

On the next day, Jaime meets up with Tyrion who is taken aback by how different his brother seems since the last time he basically forced himself inside Jaime's apartment to check up on him. Jaime still looks worse for the wear, but there is some spark again Tyrion thought died out when he lost his hand. When he presses for details, Jaime won't say, but he finds the courage to ask Tyrion to help him keep on track, under the condition that the rest of the family remains uninvolved. Tyrion wholeheartedly agrees.

“Just you and I – works perfectly for me, brother.”

Around the same time in another part of King's Landing, Brienne meets up with her friend Catelyn.

Tough times brought them together as both were forced to witness Renly's murder at the hands of an anonymous person no one could identify, though Brienne remains convinced that Stannis hired someone to have Renly removed from line of succession of the family company. Catelyn owes gratitude to Brienne after she protected her from the attacker who was about to lunge at her as well.

Ever since, Catelyn has been keeping an eye on Brienne. She observes with growing worry that her friend seems to be walking circles in her life ever since Renly died. She knows Brienne was hopelessly in love with the guy and just can't seem to let her guilt or the man go.

To Catelyn’s mind, Brienne stopped living the day Renly died in her arms.

After some prodding, Brienne tells her about what happened on the phone the night before. Brienne still beats herself up about it because she can’t shake off the fear that she did more harm than good. Catelyn assures her that it’s likely all fine. After all, from what Brienne told her, it sounds like the man was hopeful again by the time they hung up. Brienne can’t buy into that hope, however. Catelyn suggests that she may call back to the number and explain the situation, something Brienne is totally petrified by.

While Brienne remains beaten down about the potential harm she may have caused, a new resolve soon starts to form in her. Inspired by that accidental phone call, she starts to follow Cat's advice to seek out help. She starts visiting a support group for those who lost someone and people who tried to commit suicide. She also starts to read up on the subject matter, reckoning that it might soothe her mind to be better prepared, should any other person ever call her number by accident in search for a suicide hotline ever again.

Jaime, meanwhile, does his best to get his life back in order. He gets a haircut, works out again, sees a very sassy therapist, Dr. Blackwater, who doesn't always strike him as particularly right. At least he humors him, though.

And all that because a woman called him craven on the phone.

As Jaime finally feels change for the better, the wish grows within him to thank he woman who talked him out of taking the life he finally starts to embrace again. Thus, he decides to call the hotline, hoping that maybe they can connect him to the person he spoke to that night. To his surprise, when he asks about the woman who introduced himself as Brienne, they inform him that no one with that name works for the hotline. Irritated, Jaime hangs up.

Who did he talk to, then?

Jaime goes through his phone and realizes that he ended up typing in a wrong number the night he phoned the suicide hotline. He hits dial and waits, and this time, the woman he spoke to that night picks up the phone.

Brienne is short before having a heart attack when she hears the stranger’s voice on the other end of the line. Jaime, as it turns out. When he makes mention of the little misunderstanding with the numbers, Brienne stammers one apology after the next, assuring him she didn’t mean to trick him, is a very honest person, and is, in fact, a terrible liar. She tells him hurriedly that she was simply afraid he’d take that as a last straw and follow through with his plan.

Jaime stops her at that point and assures Brienne that it is fine and that he is not mad at her.

"You are not?"

"You kept me from ending my life... I guess that excuses almost anything. In fact, I suppose I am to thank you for lying to me, or rather, not telling me that it was the wrong number. Even though that seems to be so much against your nature."

Brienne can’t believe what she is hearing. All this time she beat herself up about this night, and now the man seems fine – and even nice and charming, if a bit sassy. Her worst fears, for once, were not confirmed. She didn’t fail to protect that man’s life.

Thank the Seven.

The two leave on good terms and agree that it would be nice if the contact did not completely die down. In fact, it doesn't take long for Jaime to text her. Brienne is glad for the texting, not only because she gets to keep up contact with the man but also because it allows for some more distance than he phone conversations. It helps her ease somewhat. And soon, they text each other daily.  

It doesn’t take long for their surroundings to notice the sudden change in behavior – and the smirks at ominous text messages neither one is willing to share in. Tyrion encourages his brother while Cat encourages her friend to take this all as a wink of fate and act upon it and finally meet in person.

Jaime calls her one late evening. Brienne momentarily fears for the worst – that he is having suicidal thoughts again – but Jaime is quick to assure that he is more than fine.

"Unless asking you out for a coffee will get me killed. In which case, it would be suicidal in a way."

"... I wouldn't kill you."

"Good to know, wench. So?"

"… Alright."

“So it’s a date?”

“… I suppose?”

Both try to trust the wink of fate and act upon it, as Tyrion and Cat advised them to, but Jaime and Brienne find themselves struggling, both still caught up in self-doubt and guilt. Despite their insecurities, both keep moving forward, not wanting for that second chance to go to waste. Jaime, after Brienne opened up to her about Renly and how that night with Jaime inspired her to form her own support group, decides to join in. While he doesn't mention to other people of the support group that he talked to Brienne but to a woman he hadn't met before that night, he explains that this changed his life for the better and actually gives some of those people struggling hope that they can also get there.

It doesn’t take long for things to get serious between the two. And both just want to fall into that happiness and trust the wink of fate. Things finally look bright in life and both find that they are seemingly catalyst for one another.

For the first time in her life, Brienne realizes that there is a man to truly desire her and that doesn’t have to chase a man’s goodwill for the rest of her life.

And for the first time in his life, Jaime has someone he can trust, someone he can rely on, even when times are dire. He feels like a new man.

However, how else could it be, crisis is lurking behind every shadowy corner, as doubts and insecurities keep pushing them out of the light and back into the shadows, fearing that they rushed things, are demanding too much of one another, have moved too fast. Because this is all too good to be true.

Jaime in particular doesn't believe himself deserving of Brienne after she saved his life and fears that he may end up dragging her down, should he relapse in any way.

Brienne takes things more or less the wrong way as tensions keep rising between them, starting to believe that Jaime wants to be out of that relationship after all but feels obligated to stay because of what she’s done for him.

And all hangs by a single thread, one lifeline, when Jaime gets a voicemail from Brienne, telling him that she will take a job offer away from King’s Landing.

So what will Jaime do?

What will Brienne do?

Hold on or let go?

Pick up the phone or hang up?