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Tyrion wouldn't have been backwards in telling him that it was a bad idea, that a forty year old man shouldn't still believe that everything he'd seen in the movies would work the same way in real life. Today wouldn't be the first time his brother had disapproved of his life choices and very occasionally, deep down, some part of Jaime would agree. But there was something that felt so right about this particular plan that he couldn't deviate even an inch. Besides, they both lived in Nashville and if he'd learnt anything over the past twenty years in the industry, he knew that there was magic in the music.
Maybe if he hadn't been tasked with picking up his niece from school during what seemed like an endless rehabilitation after the accident that had all but ended his career as a touring musician, then he never would have heard the song that sparked his imagination into overdrive. Gone were the days when Jaime used to deliberately turn on daytime country radio, surreptitiously listening to who was requested and who had his songs on their usual rotation, every spin keeping his record company sweeter than honeyed whiskey. Now that he'd set up his own label, Casterly Rock, he no longer had to deal with the same crap, despite spending more and more of his downtime perusing through practically identical tunes by perfectly throwaway country pop pretenders.
So, while Myrcy sang along to a song he was sure he'd heard a million times before, with only the odd word penetrating his subconscious, Jaime found himself wondering how Brienne was coping having just completed supporting the last leg of the newest teen sensation's debut tour. He kind of hated Sansa Stark for taking Brienne away from their settled routine for so long, perfected years ago when working on his sister’s final studio album together. They'd butted heads repeatedly during that recording, but one day things had clicked, like puzzle pieces falling into place, and they had been best friends ever since.
They were both good musicians but had the potential to be among the best songwriters in the business as a duo, especially since the giant blonde never courted the spotlight the way her friends did. She was more likely to want a good night's sleep than to drink or dance the night away after a concert. Their last goodbye had him humming a deeper melody than just a working relationship, though.
Brienne had called, and emailed, from time to time, pushing past whatever embarrassment remained over the initial rise of fonder than friendly feelings to add notes to his latest attempts at writing without her physically being there at his elbow. Their clients now ranged from the Sansa Stark types, eager and ambitious but wanting a co-writer's credit for two additional words, to the Renly Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell kinds, all fake smiles and faker affection, to The Dothraki Khals, big guns, hot girls and beer. He could just about write the latter on his own, having Tyrion's years of experience to fall back on if he hit a wall, but needed Brienne's sweetness and youth to tap into anything else.
She must have been home for at least a few hours but he knew better than to call before she'd settled properly back in, no matter how much he wanted to share the news that they were on the precipice of selling one of the only songs they'd managed to write long distance, a piece that was arguably their most romantic, heartfelt ballad.
"...and before that was our current number one by Nashville's own shooting star, Sansa Stark." A familiar voice danced over the last few notes of the song Myrcy was still enjoying, finally pulling Jaime from his thoughts. "Next up on Varys in the Afternoon, we have one of our most requested songs today, Carry You Home, written by Miss Stark's support, Brienne Tarth. It seems a lot of you were at their closing show last night and saw her duet with opening act, Hyle Hunt. Hashtag you-belong-with-me, hashtag true-love."
The host chuckled as the car glided to a halt in front of a stop sign. Jaime gripped the wheel tight enough for his knuckles to turn white while the smug voice filtering out of his speakers droned on and on about Brienne like he was privy to all her deepest secrets.
"For anyone who doesn't know, this particular song was co-written by renowned Nashville bad boy Jaime Lannister. Rumour has it that's he's planning on making a comeback and we here at WVCRN would love to welcome him back to-"
"Why doesn't that guy just stick to playing music?" Myrcy asked no one in particular, putting down her phone to change stations, cutting Varys off mid-sentence, only to find the same damn song they'd just heard. "I don't want to listen to gossip on the way home. I get enough of that at school."
Jaime nodded half heartedly, trying not to focus on the fact that this godforsaken tour might have found Brienne at the very least a new singing partner, having wondered from the start if Sansa herself had handpicked Hyle for more than just his voice. "How was school?"
Myrcy pulled a face. "How's Brienne? She tweeted this morning that she was happy to be home. You could have taken her a welcome back breakfast bagel or something."
"A welcome back what?"
"Bagel," she repeated as if he was dense. "When you're writing and Brienne stays all night, you always have bagels in the morning. Like forever always. Since I was a kid always."
"You're still a kid," Jaime pointed out, aware that there wouldn't be too many years left before she could legitimately argue otherwise. "And just because you don't like to eat much in the mornings, doesn't mean breakfast isn't still the most important meal of the day."
Myrcy rolled her eyes. "I'm not too much of a kid to be completely oblivious to how you feel about Brienne. You've been moping for weeks since the tour got extended. Uncle Tyrion says-"
"You shouldn't listen to what your Uncle Tyrion says. Especially if it involves advice about the opposite sex."
"Uncle Tyrion says," Myrcy continued, barely missing a beat as she glanced down to read directly from her phone screen. "That if you don't want to sit on the sidelines while that talentless twat, sorry, breaks the woman you love's heart then you need to make your move."
"My move?" he asked absently, humouring his niece just until they got off the interstate and back into suburbia. And, if he kept Myrcy talking, then he wouldn't need to dwell on the reasons why Brienne had become his every third thought.
"Maybe you need to take a page out of the Sansa Stark playbook." She pointed at where twangy guitar chords were blaring out of the radio, her smile bright and buoyant despite the plan clearly forming in her head. "Call dibs."
"I don't even know what you're talking about anymore."
Myrcy sang along for a couple of stanzas, innocently staring out of the window. "This isn't our usual way home, Uncle Jaime. Doesn't the next junction take us right past Brienne's house, rather than yours?"
Silently cursing the muscle memory that had allowed him to travel that far north without making a conscious decision, he thought about telling her something about lane priorities changing on this road or that they were going to grab take out from her favourite Pentoshi restaurant. But he shrugged the whole thing off before the right explanation could form.
"Uncle Jaime?" she asked softly, her phone abandoned on the dashboard so that she could rest her texting hand on his arm. "It's okay, you know, if you've fallen for her. I've never seen anyone make you as happy as Brienne does and she doesn't exactly hate being in your company either."
As they pulled up to the last intersection before he'd have to choose to turn down Brienne's street or keep driving into the hills and plains, Jaime took a few quiet moments to really consider what missing her more and more meant, finally listening to the recklessly romantic voice he'd pushed down over the years. Maybe he should have said something to Brienne before she walked out of his apartment to join Sansa and that rat bastard, Hyle. She had looked so sad just saying goodbye, and he'd longed to take her in his arms and make her believe his promises that they'd see each other soon. But he hadn't had the courage to speak up, his last gesture a small wave from the second floor window as she turned over the engine of her lurid green car.
His fingers trembling as they hovered over the indicator, Jaime glanced over at Myrcy, suddenly struck by all the potential problems he could cause by taking his teenage niece along with him to see the woman it was finally dawning on him that he wanted more than anything in the world.
"It's fine," Myrcy insisted, without the question needing to be asked. "I could just drive myself home if everything goes well?"
"Okay," Jaime agreed after a moment of indecision. "Just be careful at the intersections and don't tell your mother."
"Cross my heart."
He had driven through Brienne's family friendly slice of suburbia on multiple occasions since their friendship had began in earnest, but today was the first time he was seeing it as the developers had intended, sidewalks full of children coming home from school, couples finished with their working day walking dogs or jogging, the whole block teeming with life. It was almost enough for Jaime to get the appeal of not living in the city, though it was the sound of twanging guitar strings and a strong, clear voice coming from the house at the end of the lane that soothed and startled his heart in equal measure. He would know the start of her first hit anywhere, still as melancholy and beguiling as the first day she'd played it to him, bringing to mind the now devastated tiny island she'd grown up on. Her front door called to him like a blue beacon in a sea of grey and green, guiding lost souls towards the shore.
It wasn't until they were pulling in behind her car that he noticed Brienne had thrown open every single window on the second floor, letting the warmth bathe the rooms that had been left vacant for months, allowing words and chords to flow out. The melody suddenly changed, becoming something unfamiliar and radio ready but holding onto the same personal feeling as her earlier choice.
'Losing him was blue like I'd never known, Missing him was dark grey all alone...'
"I haven't heard that before," Myrcy interrupted his thought process. "It's pretty, though. Is it something you're working on together?"
Jaime shook his head. "Must be something from the tour. Sansa likes to have at least one song on her albums 'inspired' by the road."
'But loving him was red, Loving him was red.'
"It sounds like something she'd would want to record." Myrcy eyed him knowingly. “But isn't it the Lannister and not the Hunt family crest that's all red?"
'Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in front of you'
He stared at his niece for a second longer than was entirely necessary, disbelieving the insinuation that Brienne could have been harbouring the same depth of feelings that made him want to write a song about it. About him. About falling in love with him. They wrote love songs all the time, of course, but he'd seen each one as a different, hypothetical situation and decided she thought the same way. Even with the way Brienne had looked at him before she'd left, Jaime would have never thought that her affection had existed for long enough to turn to ardour. As much as he'd started to hope, he was still an old, crippled man, barely capable of providing adequate accompaniment when Brienne played in downtown clubs and cafes from time to time.
Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answer
Jaime was out of the car and at Brienne's front door before he could talk himself out of saying anything, feeling strangely nervous, checking back to see Myrcy had already switched to the driver's seat, in the process of turning the radio back on. It was hard to hear over the sounds of peppy teenagers singing about homecoming but the music coming from the house stopped as soon as he knocked, being replaced by eager footsteps running down the stairs. When Brienne appeared at the threshold, in patterned pyjama shorts and an oversized Casterly Rock t shirt, her eyes just as her remembered, blue and beautiful and as deep as the ocean. Before she could say more than 'hello', he was wrapping Brienne up in an open hearted hug, lingering just long enough to feel all the tension leave her body, releasing a deep breath as her arms drew him closer still.
Eventually, he knew, she had to pull back, though it still came too soon for Jaime's liking.
"I thought you were going to call before coming over," she said, narrowing her eyes as she checked him over for visible bruises or breaks. "Especially after last time."
Jaime grimaced. Last time had been a drunken, midnight cab ride out after a physio session had gone badly, resulting in her neighbours calling the cops and his face being splashed over the pages of PBZ. It took months for his father to even acknowledge they were related after that.
"I didn't think you'd mind a surprise visit today."
"No, I don't. It's nice to see you. It's been too long since I got to spend some time with my best friend." She took a moment to think that over, chewing maddeningly on her lip. "Maybe next time I go out on tour, you might want to come with me?"
"Really?"
Brienne nodded and all her rationales and reasoning escaped in a rush like she'd been saving them up for weeks. "I mean I know you have so much going on here, with the kids and the label, but I was thinking maybe you'd want a break at some point and...and there's always loads of room on the band bus and I-I missed you and we both found it weird writing long distance and-"
Jaime stopped her ramble by taking a shuffling half step towards her, grinning in a way that he hoped came off closer to genuine giddiness than ridiculously smug. "I missed you, too, Brie. "Every day."
"So...you'll think about it?"
"I've already decided. Sign me up. I'm sure Nashville can survive without me for a couple of months." He very deliberately caught her gaze and held it for several long, lascivious seconds. "Maybe we can even persuade the organisers to give us our own bus."
"Until I'm selling out arenas on my own, I don't think that's going to happen." Her cheeks turned the sweetest shade of crimson Jaime had ever seen as she laughed nervously, the heat frantically caressing her skin looking like it wanted to burn her freckles one by one, embarrassment or self-consciousness or, dare he hope, excitement playing a game of joining each speckle to the next until they all were floating in a sea of red. Loving him was red, after all.
"Unless you've got a plan to get around that," she continued. "I...We'll be stuck on the back up bus."
"You underestimate me, Brie. I always have a plan."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"Why wouldn't I," he grumbled, good-natured banter taking a back seat for a moment. "If it meant not having to share you with the rest of them."
Brienne blinked twice, her pale eyebrows knitting together in adorable confusion. "Sansa did warn me, but I told her you'd never feel jealous over something as silly as having a few fans."
"Jealous?" he rolled the word around in his mouth, instantly disliking the taste it left behind. "You could be the most famous woman in the world with a million screaming fans following you and I'd still be happy waiting for you off stage, as long as you were coming home with me at the end of it all."
If it was possible, Brienne's flush deepened, becoming a burgundy colour he was more used to seeing in a wine glass. "Oh."
"I think the song goes..." he cleared his throat and found an approximation for the melody Myrcy had enjoyed. "If you've got a Friday night free and a shotgun seat, well I'm just saying, I ain't got nowhere to be."
Jaime wasn't sure what kind of reaction he'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't the snort of laughter that escaped from her well bitten lips. "I had hoped you weren't going to change your mind about our Friday night dinners now that I'm back, but that's got to be the weirdest way of letting me know."
He took another step forwards, reaching out to tap her on the shoulder until she swallowed what remained of her laughter. Not for the first time he wanted to hunt down and hurt each one of the men who'd damaged her self confidence, little by little, so that she couldn't recognise a genuine, though clumsy, attempt at wooing.
"I wouldn't mind having dinner with you every night."
"Jaime, I don't understand what-"
"I've listened to that song twice today, just on the drive coming over, but you must have heard it hundreds of times on tour," he smiled up at Brienne, holding back from touching her further though the urge to soothe the groove of confusion appearing between her eyebrows was overwhelming. "If we'd written it, we'd have been millionaires in just a few days."
"Aren't you already a millionaire?"
"Not quite, but I've most definitely got a kiss on my lips that I'm looking for a special someone to take."
Strangely for a songwriter, Brienne tended to believe that actions spoke louder than words, but none of that seemed to matter as his world melted away into the feel of her mouth against his, her arms around his shoulders while his hand delved into her hair, and after a few moments of throughly enjoying each other's company, Jaime couldn't deny that loving her in return was just as red as she'd promised.