Chapter Text
“No.”
Jaime paused at her refusal, tempted to gape nearly as widely as Brienne had when she first opened her door.
“Sorry, what?"
“No,” Brienne repeated firmly. “Absolutely not. You are not taking me within a mile of that place. I’ll be a laughingstock, and Marg really should have known better.”
Placing a hand to his temple and rubbing at the headache suddenly materializing above his left eye, Jaime let himself consider the situation. When Margaery had called him a few days ago and mentioned that he might like to be Brienne’s plus-one to their five-year reunion—a barbecue at the beach—he’d assumed that Brienne had known as well. He should have known better with Margaery’s penchant for meddling.
“Are you telling me,” he asked carefully, “that you were not expecting me here today?”
“Of course not!” Brienne answered explosively. “Look at you! How could I go to my reunion with you? They’ll all think I hired an escort or—or—” Jaime looked down at himself—loose tan cargo shorts and a red Hawaiian print shirt, unbuttoned over a black ribbed A-frame—and didn’t see anything that called for her wordless howl.
“Brienne,” he tried gently, but with no response. “Brienne!” he tried again sharply, walking her backwards into her apartment. She stumbled and he grabbed her elbow, nudging the door closed behind him. “Brienne, I’m more than happy to take you to your reunion. Say you’ll let me,” he asked with a mischievous smile and a courtly half-bow, trying to lighten the mood.
“Nooo!” she near-shrieked, and even—gods, did the wench just stamp her foot? “Look at me! Look at you! What was Marg thinking? This is a terrible idea! I’m only going to this stupid thing because she insisted on it!” And on and on—Jaime was sure he’d never seen anything like it from Brienne, whom he’d been friends with for well over a year now, and who was never anything less than steady.
He was starting to get a little offended—was he dressed wrong? was he too old?—and had become more than a little sick of listening to her negative self-commentary months ago.
“Wench,” he said carefully, “we are going to your reunion. We will have shitty beer, we will play volleyball, we will eat rubbery grilled food and potato chips, and then you can come home and change back into your rattiest pajamas for the rest of the night.”
Brienne shook her head mutely, then finally spoke. “I don’t know how you can stand to be seen with me,” she muttered. “I look like a mess and you look like—like—” she floundered, and Jaime raised an eyebrow, “like your usual stupid perfect self!” she finished in a rush, face and chest blushing fiercely. Jaime grinned and preened, stretching to raise his undershirt just so, feeling the shorts slide down one hip. He winked, watching her blush darken, and took a moment to really look at her. She thought she looked like a mess? He couldn’t have disagreed more.
Brienne was glaring at him, arms crossed and lower lip jutting out mulishly. None of it took away from her bright eyes rimmed with long, pale lashes. White denim shorts rode high on toned, freckled thighs—which, if he was being honest, he couldn’t stop staring at—and his palms itched to see if the sleeveless blue top she was wearing was as silky as it looked. His gaze ran down her legs, barely registering the flat, strappy sandals and apple-red toenails as a picture flashed through his mind of those legs wrapped high around his back, her strong arms pulling him tight as she arched under him, and—Jaime tried to swallow through his suddenly dry throat.
He absolutely was not going to think about the interest his cock was showing at the idea. Instead, he heaved a sigh and sat on the sofa he’d come to love so well. He crossed his arms and stared back, waiting for Brienne. After a few tense moments, she sat beside him, trying to pull her shorts down as far as they would go—not very, he noticed—and blushing furiously. She finally seemed to give up, heaving a sigh of her own and slumping back into the cushions.
“You wanna tell me what’s really bothering you about all this?” Jaime asked gently, and waited while Brienne fidgeted with her freshly-manicured cuticles, blowing a puff of air up through her bangs, still refusing to look at him. “Why did Margaery ask me to do this?” Why didn’t you?
“I’ve never told you about the bet,” she muttered. “I never wanted you to picture me like that.” Jaime raised an eyebrow, thinking of a night almost a year ago where she’d seen him at his most pathetic, heard the worst about him, but said nothing as she glanced at him. She sighed again, picked at her cuticles some more. “It was…just some guys in high school. I was new, it was my freshman year. Some of them were in my grade, some were in other classes. Um—” her voice cracked a little, “they had a bet to see who could, um, get me into bed first?” She risked looking at him again, and Jaime tried to keep his face neutral, but fuck, who even did something like that? Not convinced he could keep his own voice steady, he simply nodded at her to continue. Brienne took a deep breath.
“They didn’t—I mean, no one won the bet, it seemed too fishy, you know? All these guys wanting to sit with me or bringing me gifts or whatever. But when I found out, it just—I mean, I had school with these guys for the next three years, you know? I was a laughingstock. And I didn’t want to go to the reunion, but Marg convinced me that I needed ‘closure’.” She snorted, and Jaime smiled a little at that—he knew Brienne liked dealing with her feelings about as much as he did. She shook her head a little, and said, “You know Marg, she can’t take no for an answer. She said she’d get me a date for the day so I felt more comfortable,” and here she shot him a rueful smile, “and she did—all this, I guess,” and Brienne gestured at herself, from her face to the barely-there shorts to the sandals. “I just thought she’d ask someone I’d look like I belonged with,” she muttered to her knees.
At her last statement, Jaime sat straighter in his seat, burning with anger at everyone who had made her feel that way, that she wasn’t enough and never would be, when he knew she was better than he’d ever deserve.
“That’s it,” he rumbled and stood up. “We’re going.” She shook her head no.
“Briennnne,” he teased, leaning over and tugging on her arms, but she rolled her eyes, stubbornly staying in her seat. “It’s not enough to have closure.” She shrugged.
“Are you a coward?” Jaime grinned as he threw the words she’d spoken to him a year ago back at her. She looked outraged, her spine rigid, blue fire in her eyes. “Come on, you can use my ‘stupid perfect self’ to show them up.” He gave her his most winning smile, the one that never failed to make her blush and look away. He held out his hands palm-up, one smooth, the other lined with shiny, pale-pink scars.
She stared a moment at his offered hands, then grasped his fingers with her own, rising to her feet. “It’d be a shame to waste all of Margaery’s efforts, right?” He tipped his chin up a fraction to look into her eyes. She smiled tentatively back at him.
“Yeah,” she finally said. “Let’s go.”
“You’re gonna wear your bikini, right?”
Brienne growled and shoved his shoulder. “Don’t push it, Lannister.”