Chapter Text
Prologue
Brienne was wedged uncomfortably between the corner and the desk, trying to blend into the wallpaper. Its delicate rose and lemon print clashed jarringly with her faded navy t-shirt, but for a wonder no one seemed to notice. Maybe the bedazzled laptop obscured the bits of her too large to hunker behind the mahogany office set.
She glanced around the room and saw six girls as airy and delicate as the pillows they lounged on.
“Sweetie, work your colors.” Margaery rolled her eyes, batting the eye-dust from the grip of West Eros High’s freshman cheerleader to replace it with a jar of her own. The colors were indistinguishable to Brienne. “Gingers are hot right now.”
“You think so?”
Yeah, Brienne thought, pulling her eyes from Sansa’s small, sweet smile to the dull glimmer of pink rhinestones on Sansa’s macbook, definitely the computer.
“Ooh, Sansa,” Jeyne piped up from beneath the babble of conversation. “Sansa – sweetie – try the brown top. It’ll make your freckles pop.”
Jeyne hadn’t realized that Sansa’s popularity was Admit One. Brienne knew how much it would suck when she got the message.
“Freckles should be delicate,” Mel said breezily from her spot on the floor: curled up with Jeyne’s Magic 8-Ball, which Cersei had promptly turned into a joke. “Mysterious.”
Brienne winced. Brown, black, or blue, no color shirt would ever disguise her freckles. During hockey season they were apparent at best. Once football practice started, she’d have tan splotches across half her face.
“Pop mysteriously,” Jeyne tried.
Sansa gave her friend a small smile.
Brienne tried to squish herself further into the corner. She’d deposited herself there when Mrs. Stark bustled her in three endless hours ago, and—despite the pain knotting in her shoulder—she hadn’t moved since. Sansa’s mom was nice, but kind of unrealistic. She was in Junior League with Cersei’s stepmom, who seemed to know from Jaime that Brienne didn’t have many girlfriends.
Or any.
So when Arya hitched a ride with Brienne after hockey practice, her mom had all but strong-armed her towering teammate into the house.
“We’ll find you an old shirt of Robb’s to wear,” Mrs. Stark had promised. Her smile was reassuring, even if her words were not. “It’ll be fun.”
Like this whole slumber party was going to end in anything but disaster.
Brienne wished, not for the first time, that she’d stayed for Suicides with the boys who’d been late for practice.
Jaime Lannister showed up late, a part of her brain whispered.
Of course he did. He thinks rules were invented for people not named “Lannister.”
Her disapproval didn’t stop her from conjuring an image of Jaime after practice, tugging a sweaty jersey up over his head. He never paid attention when the pads caught his clothes . . .
“Cersei,” Sansa squealed, half awed, half disgusted.
Brienne startled out of her daydream. The story she was dumped into made her want to wash her brain with bleach.
“You did not hook up with all three of the Kettleblacks.”
Right, Brienne remembered. She had caught Jaime hooking up with his stepsister in the locker room her second night as first-string. That had put an end to her hero-worship in a hurry. No matter how beautifully he had boarded Ron Connington after word leaked about Brienne’s disaster date.
Cersei was playing coy. “Who’s to say?”
Her eyes spoke volumes, though, and they said things Brienne wanted no part of.
“I’m sure that went over well with King Bob.” Margaery’s smile could have said any number of things, none of which Brienne could translate. “I hope they taught Joff not to fall on his ass while he keeps an eye on his adoring fans.”
“You wouldn’t . . .” Sansa sounded uncertain and oddly fascinated.
“Oh please, she’d hook up with Ian Payne if he’d play her cousin Joffrey more,” Mel joked.
Cersei threw her a dark look. The middle school coach was in tight with her stepbrother, but he rarely said a word off the ice. Cersei apparently took it personally.
You don’t need words when you’re that good with a puck.
Not that these girls would understand that.
Taena Merryweather cackled. “Cersei’d hook up with that if it meant Joff got to play.”
It took Brienne a minute to realize that she was the ungodly creature in question.
“Doesn’t she wish.” Cersei smiled the sort of smile that Brienne read with ease.
A hot flush rushed through her, a bloody stain from her chest to her scalp.
“She does!” Jeyne gasped, falling sideways in a fit of giggles.
“That’s not– ” Moisture fled Brienne’s mouth. “I’m not– ”
The giggles pitched higher; the echo of laughter multiplied to the nth degree.
“I bet she just longs for you, Cersei,” Taena went on, trailing her fingers along her friend’s thigh. “Surrounded by all those boys and dreaming of nothing but girls.”
Sansa scrunched her nose.
Brienne wanted nothing more than to bolt for the door, but horror kept her rooted. Just like the night Red Ron had given her his bouquet of dead roses, or when Kyle Hunt had kissed her, his camcorder pulled wide for that perfect shot.
She was always the punchline.
Margaery snorted, disrupting the glee of the girls watching Brienne silently spiral.
“What,” Cersei demanded, “is so funny?”
Margaery made a show of turning to face her, cheer squad smile slipping into place. “Cersei, sweetie, have you ever actually talked to Brie?”
Cersei looked affronted, and Taena spoke up. “Like she would talk to Brienne the Beauty. Besides, it’s not like boys have to talk to her before wanting to shove a hand up her skirt.”
“If you had,” Margaery continued lightly, “you’d know she has about as much interest in girls as– ” she made a show of looking at Taena, then scooted her eyes to a different target “– well, Mel.”
“Keep that mystery far from me,” Mel added helpfully.
Cersei looked annoyed and entirely unconvinced, but Brienne could breathe again.
“You two are friends?” Sansa asked, tentative, as her eyes flitted from the brunette to the blonde and back again.
“No, but she did have a monster crush on my brother’s boyfriend.”
The room seemed to gasp as one, and Brienne wanted to sink beneath the floorboards.
“Gaydar much?”
“You did not have the hots for Renly No-Straight-Man-Has-Hair-This-Good Baratheon.”
“He wears Chanel, for goodness sake.”
“Ladies.” They fell silent as Cersei spoke. It must be a cheer captain thing. “Don’t tease poor– ” she scrunched her stunning features, making a show of thinking.
Brienne knew Cersei knew her name; she was the one who orchestrated the “pop Brie’s cherry before semi-finals” bet. And it’s not like Brienne hadn’t given her and Jaime rides that summer when Mr. Lannister confiscated Jaime’s car so he’d “focus on football.”
“– Brienne just because she lacks experience with men. It’s hardly her fault they find her unappealing.”
And Cersei smiled at her with two parts sympathy, one part victory.
Sansa spoiled it.
“Mar, your brother’s gay?”
The girls dissolved into giggles again. Friendly, this time.
Brienne took the opportunity to scoot from behind the desk and crawl towards the door.
“Whose gaydar’s worse?” Mel’s question stilled the room. “Brienne or Sansa?”
Brienne froze in a crouch, trying to decide if she should make a run for it.
Mel tossed back her hair, shook the 8-Ball vigorously, and raised it dramatically aloft before she calmly read, “‘Not today.’”
“What a let down,” Margaery commiserated, but her eyes were twinkling.
At Brienne.
There really was no escape.
“So wait, if Renly’s dating Loras– ” Sansa began.
Cersei caught on. “Who is the unfortunate object of your affection?”
Is this what girls do for fun?
“No one,” she squeaked. Her as-good-as-an-admission met an embarrassing and, frankly, obnoxious round of oohs as six girls descended on Brienne like an offensive line. Even Margaery looked curious, and Brienne had thought the girl was on her side.
I should have known better. I can never pin Loras down either.
Well, in hockey maybe. But that was where Brienne’s skill set ended.
“Is it a boy?” Taena asked archly.
Brienne’s burning face must have shown indignation, because Cersei huffed, waving off the question.
“We’ve established that, T. What we haven’t established,” she paused; her shifting eyes reminded Brienne of hungry lion, “is just how far out of her league he is.”
“The stratosphere,” Jeyne chimed in.
Sansa discreetly kicked her.
“I mean, I’m sure he’s charming,” the freshman hastily recovered.
“She does have a type,” Margaery ceded.
“Since when?” Taena snorted.
“Kyle Hunt, Renly Baratheon . . .”
“She went out with Red Ron before he was Red Ron,” Mel reminded them.
“He’s charming at times,” Margaery ventured, but her faint distaste reminded Brienne starkly of the time he wasn’t.
“He’s kind of a douche, though.”
“Egotistical,” Margaery said, and Mel shrugged, nodding.
What does that have to do with anything?
“Why’s he Red Ron, then?” Sansa wondered, and Taena muttered, “Freshman.”
Brienne scored her bottom lip, disliking this turn of conversation almost as much as the conjecture about her non-existent love life.
“Jaime shoved his face into the boards.” Cersei toyed absently with the hem of her skirt, fixing Brienne with a look of idle speculation. Brienne prayed she was fuzzy on the details of that particular penalty.
“He matched his hair for a week,” Mel remembered fondly.
“Why would he do that?” Jeyne grimaced and looked to Sansa, as if a lifetime with Arya might help her explain the unfathomable world of senseless violence.
Brienne bristled. “He’s not as self-centered as people seem to think, okay?”
Crap. She tensed as she realized what she’d done. But God must not hate her entirely, because the girls seemed to think she was interrupting their conversation, not complaining about it.
“Who, your crush?” Jeyne scooted eagerly to the side of the bed, glancing back at Sansa before adding, “I knew you had a type.”
“The repressed butch falls for the bad boy.” Cersei settled back against a cushion, unimpressed. “Old as fucking time.”
Brienne flinched. She’d been ignoring Jaime’s effect on her for months now, but as the conversation crashed towards the truth, his smile flared to life behind her eyes.
She was still struggling with it a bit.
“He’s not– ” She winced, wondering how that slipped out. “I mean, I don’t– ”
It’s not like he’d ever looked at her twice. Beyond friendly high fives and that frustrating, know-it-all glance when Brienne had realized she’d wound up as his chauffer.
Appreciative looks in the heat of the game did not translate to anything real world. Or else she was in huge trouble.
“Look, it’s not even a real crush, okay? It’s just, you know, a – friend crush or something.”
She hoped the small admission would get them off her back. Did predators give up if their victim played dead? She thought so.
“You love him!”
She was not expecting Taena’s giddy conclusion or the eager nods of assent from the other girls.
“No.” Brienne was fighting to control the fight or flight instinct clawing at her chest. “We’re friends. He’s just– he gets it, and we’re friends. Sort of,” she backtracked hastily. “Not even that, really.”
“A kindred soul?” Mel was fishing, tossing the Magic 8-Ball from hand to hand as she thought. “Someone– ”
“Sensitive,” Cersei interrupted with a derisive snort.
“No.”
“Another Renly?” Margaery mused, twisting a lock of shiny brown hair between her fingers. “Or . . . the anti-Renly?”
“Someone tall,” Sansa considered dreamily. “Strong. A girl wants to feel delicate, you know, and– well . . .” she trailed off, looking embarrassed.
Brienne looked down at her hands, cracked and freckled, sitting palm up on her thick, jean-clad thighs. She felt less like a girl than ever.
She didn’t have to think twice to know Jaime was shorter than her. Barely.
But what guy would take that blow to his ego?
“Isn’t he just going to break her heart?” Cersei lilted, as one might ask a child, ‘Aren’t you just the darndest thing?’
Brienne blinked and her hands seemed to blur. She shook her head, frustrated. The only guys at WEH who were taller than her were the Clegane brothers. She’d known that since freshman year, and the facts hadn’t changed in the last twenty minutes.
Besides, it wasn’t like her height was the thing scaring guys off. She had a pretty long list of things getting the job done just fine on their own.
“But who is he?” Jeyne nearly whined the question.
“He’s no one,” Brienne mumbled, knowing it was hopeless.
“Here’s what we’ve got so far.” Mel ticked each point off on her fingers. “Ripped enough that she won’t squish him, animal-magnetism, hot—kind of seems like a given, but we’ll throw that in there anyway—sensitive– ” she rolled her eyes in Cersei’s direction “– but kind of a bad boy. And someone she sees a lot, probably. I think that covers it?”
Margaery nodded. She seemed vaguely amused, like the whole conversation was just a game.
Brienne was pretty positive she was losing.
“She’s been hot for two brunets and a redhead, so unless she’s planning on rounding out the list, I’d say physical types are a bust.”
“Oh!” Realization dawned in Sansa’s eyes, and Brienne felt desperation welling in her. “You– ”
“No!”
That only made it worse.
“Sansa knows something.” Cersei rounded on her, and suddenly it was Sansa looking wide-eyed at Brienne.
Please. Brienne couldn’t bring herself to mouth the plea.
“How do you know when Loras couldn’t tease it out of Renly?”
“For real, even I don’t have this dirt.” Mel scooted closer to the bed, looking expectantly up at Sansa.
“I don’t know anything, really,” Sansa backpedaled.
Cersei leveled a look at her, and Sansa swallowed. “I swear. I just– ”
She glanced guiltily at Brienne.
Brienne was sure humiliation was slapped plain across her face.
“Who, Sansa?” Cersei demanded.
“I don’t know. It’s just– ” she hesitated, then blazed on, “I just figured it was someone on the team.”
The girls exchanged glances, speculative and enthusiastic.
“Which team?” Jeyne wanted to know.
“Both,” Margaery breathed, looking at Brienne with newfound appreciation.
Cersei shrieked. Honest to God, in the middle of the slumber party, shrieked. “I knew you were a little schemer. Giving us rides, practicing all the time, walking in on– ” She cut herself off, and with effort resumed a more neutral expression. “As if you needed another unattainable target.”
“That’s perfect.” Margaery smiled, a smug expression Brienne was used to seeing on Loras. “You can double with my brother, and when Renly lets his ego get out of control Jaime can kick his ass.” She paused, tilting her head to consider. “Or you can.”
“Jaime’s taste in women is . . . questionable,” Cersei said delicately. Brienne wondered if that meant he was the one to dump her, all those months ago. “But even he would never think twice about sleeping with someone so repulsive.”
“Jaime thinks you’re awesome,” Sansa piped up before the blow could do more than graze half-healed scars. She smiled at Brienne, clearly offering an olive branch.
Brienne was too flabbergasted to care. Jaime thought she was awesome?
“Since when?” Jeyne sounded even more confused than Brienne.
“Since always.” Sansa bit her lip, smoothed her dress, and shrugged. “Says Arya.”
“Guys, I’ve got the solution,” Mel slid back across the carpet until she sat in the center of its sprawling design. The girls paused to watch. She smiled, flipping back her cherry red hair as the tension built slowly across her stage. When she sensed her audience growing tired of the theatrics, Mel grabbed the Magic 8-Ball from where it lay on the floor.
“Are Brienne and Jaime meant to be?” She shook the toy, but before she could see the prediction Cersei had snatched it away.
“Can we please not act like children?” She tossed the 8-Ball toward the bed; it bounced off the headboard and disappeared beneath a ruffled pillow. “She’s not even part of this slumber party.” Cersei curled gracefully into a chair and smoothed her skirt. “So if we can please get back to what’s important?”
“Who even invited her?” Taena complained. “Sansa’s mom?”
Mel shrugged. Margaery frowned. Sansa opened her mouth, whether to defend Brienne or defend against her, the older girl didn’t know.
“You’re all such bitches.”
Seven heads whipped around.
Arya was standing in the open doorway, arms crossed, still in her hockey pants.
“Go away, Arya,” Sansa hissed.
Cersei sniffed, and Taena mirrored her expression.
“Whatever.” Arya turned to Brienne, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Jon and Robb are watching the playoffs. It’s way more fun than these gossipy airheads.”
It wasn’t an invitation really, but Brienne hauled herself off the floor and gratefully followed Arya to the entertainment room, where her brothers had built a stockade of snacks and surround sound.
“Thanks,” Brienne made herself say when the game went to a commercial. I hate girl talk, she almost added.
“Duh,” Arya mumbled around a mouthful of queso.
Brienne settled into the cushions, relaxing for the first time since hockey practice.
They were reliving the finer points of the game when Sansa wandered into the kitchen a few hours later.
“Sick of girl time already?” Robb sounded torn between sternness and amusement as he took in his sister’s outfit. She’d changed since Brienne had seen her, but she couldn’t remember what the cheerleader had been wearing before.
“We need snacks.” Sansa darted under her brother’s attempt to ruffle her hair, shooting him a dirty look as she pilfered a plate of lemon squares from the fridge.
“Those are for your mom’s Junior League thing,” Jon warned her.
“And now they’re for my friends,” Sansa retorted.
Robb shook his head, shooting his sister a look that promised a firm lecture when the guests had gone. Sansa made to leave, the fancy ivory dish balanced on one hand.
Brienne was startled to feel something press into her palm beneath the table. Her eyes flicked down to see her large, freckled fingers cradling the Magic 8-Ball.
Sansa maneuvered her tray, hiding the toy from the others as she leaned in close to Brienne’s ear. Brienne clutched the ball tighter, not quite comprehending until Sansa murmured a confirmation.
“It is known.”
And then she was gone, breezing back up the stairs to her friends.
Brienne shook her head to dispel the whisper, but the words clung to the brittle hair beside her ear, rustling anew with each jerk of her chin. The Magic 8-Ball drew her eye like a moth to the flame—a childish trick teasing the words she wanted to hear.
Brienne bit her lip against the faint stir of hope in her heart.