Work Text:
It was almost easier facing school knowing she had no one than not knowing what to expect when she got there. Margaery was buried in prom campaigning, Sansa apparently only liked her when there was no one to see, and Jaime . . . Brienne didn’t even want to think about Jaime.
Loras grinned at her in 3rd period like he always did, and Brienne felt a rush of longing welling up in her.
“Cotillion must be kicking your ass,” he teased. “You’ve been MIA all week.”
Brienne cleared her throat, glued her eyes to her textbook.
“Yeah.”
“Is Kyle Hunt still redefining the word ‘tool?’”
Thoughts of Kyle brought Cersei’s parting shot vividly to mind, and Cersei and Jaime and her and Kyle all blurred together on the pages of her textbook.
She nodded this time, not trusting herself to speak.
Loras raised an eyebrow at her, then glanced deliberately over his shoulder at the back wall, where Cersei stared back at them from 4 different photoshopped poses.
“We should be able to beat Pentos,” Loras smoothly shifted into sports mode, giving Brienne her space. “Losing Jaime ripped apart our 1st line, but . . .”
Brienne listened to him dissect Coach Selmy’s strategy for the game Friday, and for a minute, it felt like she had dreamed the whole thing. Like maybe Jaime had gotten it wrong, and some other boy had used Brienne as a social shield.
But when Loras said, “Renly and I are seeing the new Iron Man after dinner. I’ll see if he minds –“ Brienne shook her head furiously, clutching her textbook so hard her knuckles turned white.
“I’ve got – with my dad. A thing,” she lied.
“Social overload,” Loras interpreted, rolling his eyes.
Brienne shrugged, letting him think what he wanted. It worked as well as anything. When she hurried out the door after the bell, he didn’t push after her.
She almost didn’t see Tyrion before she bowled him over, but the crowd thinned at the last second, and she stopped so abruptly someone smacked into her.
It turned out to be a sophomore cheerleader, better friends with Taena than with Mel. The girl glared at her as she huffed down the hall, but mercifully had no well-crafted comment to demolish what was left of Brienne’s self-esteem.
Tyrion pressed a palm just above her knee, nudging her back in the direction she had just come.
“Follow me,” he instructed, scooting around her and moseying down the hall.
“I’ve got Varys,” Brienne objected, taken aback.
Tyrion turned, clearly annoyed but unsurprised that she wouldn’t simply obey.
“Mr. V owes me a favor,” he gestured again for her to follow. “And you’ve got more important places to be.”
“Like where?” she challenged, peering down the hall to Mr. V’s office. His door was closed, but any minute now he could poke his head out and see her loitering.
He probably already knew. Rumor was he had the school bugged, but no one could ever find the cameras.
“Like the old equipment room behind the football field.”
It sounded like something guys said in elementary, when they wanted to trick her into knocking over a bucket of neon paint.
Big Bird, Big Bird.
Brienne’s hackles rose, and she balked.
“I’m not ditching,” she crossed her arms tightly, anchoring her resolve.
“It’s in your best interest.”
“Why?” she demanded, digging her tennis shoes into the tile beneath her feet.
Tyrion shook his head at her, rolled his eyes.
“For Jaime.”
Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Because you need a friend,” he said, when she did little more than gape at him. “And because he’s damn near determined to be it for you.”
The bell rang, shrill and ominous. Brienne wanted to dart back down the hall, apologize profusely to Mr. V for being late, and spend the hour hiding in his office, pretending to get career counseling.
She wanted to be in the equipment room, crying into Jaime’s shoulder about Renly and Cersei and her stupid, stupid crush on him.
Her throat felt sticky, and every time she shuffled her toes her shoes squeaked, echoing down the nearly empty hall.
“I’m fine,” Brienne told him, because she couldn’t think of anything better.
She’d had a lot of practice being alone over the years. It felt easier, somehow.
Tyrion gave her a pointed look, not buying. His mouth twisted, a little wry and a lot serious.
“Jaime’s smile is like Prozac for people like us.”
People like us.
Tyrion was a year above her, and Brienne had never seen him as anything but calm, cool, and cynical. All of a sudden, she found herself wondering how old Tyrion was when his dad had married Jaime’s mom. How old he was when he got his brother.
What was it like, living with Cersei, with Jaime’s stepdad, and no one around to make you smile?
“Why do you care if I talk to him?” she softly asked the space above his head.
He grunted, rolled his eyes, but there was truth beneath the sarcasm.
“Because unlike some members of our family, seeing Jaime happy makes me happy.”
And I do that?
Brienne felt a mess, detached and off-kilter and rooted to the floor.
Tyrion pursed his lips at her like he knew what she was thinking.
“Are you coming?” he craned his neck to stare at her pointedly, exasperation and amusement in the crinkles beside his eyes.
Wordlessly, she followed him down the vacant hall. She watched the doorways warily, like at any moment Cersei might jump out to laugh at her, or Stannis may stomp over to give her detention.
They slipped out an unalarmed side door, Brienne’s heart thudding out of control, and not just from breaking school parameters. The air was crisp with impending snow, but the sun fanned out across her forehead as they trekked around the football field to the free-standing concrete storeroom. The cool air reminded her of the rink, soothed her tremulous hands.
The door was ajar. Tyrion pushed it wide, but didn’t lead her in.
“He’s all yours,” he announced, and Brienne stuffed down her nerves and pushed into the low-ceilinged building.
“Jaime?” she called, hesitant, as she shifted warily past shadows of broken scoreboards and dusty water coolers.
Jaime was leaning against a grimy row of tackle dummies in a dark corner of the equipment room.
He looked a little surprised to see her, and she wondered for a moment if his brother had gotten the wrong girl.
“You know this is the start of every horror movie ever, right?” she fell back on scolding him to cover her discomfort.
“I’ll club you with my cast,” he threatened, a small grin sliding up the shadows on his cheekbones. “No one would ever know.”
“Except Tyrion.”
“You think he’s on your side?” he asked, a smile almost touching his hazy green eyes.
Brienne frowned, feeling uncertain.
“Are there no more lights in here?” Brienne asked, glancing up at the ceiling and the single, string-pull lightbulb.
He shrugged.
“You’d think with all the money my dad donates . . .” Jaime rolled his eyes. “This school.”
“I’m sure they’re using it on school necessities.”
“Like prom?” he asked, giving her a disbelieving look.
She rolled her palms on the worn fabric of her jeans, unsure what to say. She wasn’t the biggest fan of prom either, but at least she didn’t have to go.
Jaime worked his jaw as he waiting for Brienne to uncover the next piece of the conversational puzzle. She wanted to get past all this politeness and on with whatever he asked her here for.
“How’s campaigning?” she asked, feeling completely asinine.
“Nonexistent,” he dismissed, evidently as fed up with small talk as she was. “Rumor has it you and Kyle are a thing.”
She’d heard that, too, spread through West Eros High by Cersei or Jill or Ygritte and reverberated back to Brienne by half the people she knew, and all of the ones she didn’t.
Brienne blanched, furiously shook her head.
Jaime nodded as if he’d expected that, but there was relief in his eyes as well. Brienne wondered if he knew what Kyle had done to her, and cared enough to be glad the guy hadn’t suckered her back in.
Brienne blurted out, “Jaime, why am I here?” before she could decide that it would only serve to embarrass her.
Jaime sobered, his casual veneer ripped away.
“Can we – “ he trailed off, nodded to indicate the parts of his sentence left unsaid, “ – about Cersei?”
“Oh,” Brienne blinked, bit back her sudden anxiety. She leaned beside him on a stuffed-vinyl training dummy, studied the concrete under her sneakers. “Um. Sure.”
Her stomach was full of knots, and she couldn’t make herself peek at his expression.
His voice was rough and familiar. It filled the air, drifting in and out of the faded hues of forgotten football gear. She thought he might start with last night, or maybe last year. But the memories that floated up dated back to his mom’s wedding, and the years in between.
“I met them all day of,” his eyes drifted toward the door, as if he could see right through it.
Brienne wondered if Tyrion had made it back to class yet.
“I never had . . . peers, y’know? My mom’s awesome, but,” he shrugged, and she got it.
She used to dream of having a big brother, a little sister. Someone who could be there for her on her level.
“Me and Tyrion made an ace team,” he told her, and the fondness in his tone was endearing. “But Cersei – “ he shook his head, mouth tight. A blonde lock of hair edged down to frame his face. “We were inseparable.”
Brienne bit her lip, listening to him reminisce. Hearing his confession.
“She was fun, and smart, and pretty. We were 10. When we were 13, my mom caught us in Cersei’s bedroom. We’d started fooling around one day, and –“ he broke off, darting a glance at Brienne from the corner of his eye.
She was sure her face was on fire.
“She reamed us out, and we stopped for a while, but,” he sighed. “It was Cersei.”
He sounded bitter and longing and Brienne’s heart broke just a little.
Yes, Brienne thought, wishing she could work up the courage to comfort him somehow. It was Cersei.
“When?”
“My fourteenth birthday.”
Brienne digested that. Imagined Jaime before she’d known him, young and mischievous and twice as golden as the boy beside her. Imagined a fresh-faced Cersei with ambition in her eyes and an alluring smile on her red bow lips.
“You were with her for two years?” Brienne wished her voice wouldn’t crack like that when she wanted to sound indifferent.
“And a half,” he kicked at a half-deflated football on the ground.
Brienne watched it squelch under his sneaker.
“I was in love with her,” he admitted, looking up at her sideways. His eyelashes were gold, impossibly long, casting bruise-like shadows under each of his eyes.
She kept her face still. It was nothing she hadn’t known, but hearing him say it made her feel bulky and unpretty and not at all good enough.
This isn’t about you, Brienne told herself, hoping she would listen.
She worked up the courage to scoot a little closer. She was trying to decide how he’d react if she put her hand on his arm when he spoke again, all faded anger and jaded eyes.
“Apparently she was sleeping with my cousin.”
Brienne’s breath caught, and she looked at Jaime with horror.
“She cheated on you?”
Jaime snorted.
“It wasn’t cheating,” he mocked, as though he’d heard the words a thousand times. “It was utilizing the skills she had to get her the ones she needed.”
She blinked at him, feeling like she was missing something obvious.
“Geometry,” he clarified, rolling his eyes.
“So,” Brienne grasped, trying to imagine a world where everything he’d told her was normal. “Bob . . .”
“Was her – “ he cut off suddenly, hastily recovered, “status symbol.”
It wasn’t hard to guess what he’d been about to say.
It almost made her hate him, just a little.
He grasped her hand, fingers pinning her own, and his thumb swept an intent, disjoined rhythm across her knuckles.
“Sorry,” he whispered to the ghosts in the room.
He wasn’t speaking for Renly, though, or for Cersei. He was speaking for all the things he’d done he couldn’t justify to her.
“Yeah,” she made her voice steady in the vacant room. It echoed off the walls and landed hollow on her ears. “Don’t do it again,” she joked weakly.
Jaime scoffed halfheartedly through his nose.
“No chance of that,” he admitted, eyes tracing her wide, plain features.
Brienne curved her neck, met his eyes. Her pulse felt heavy, her heart felt tight.
“Jaime, I . . .”
Jaime had practically bared his soul. She felt like she should offer something back.
“You – ” she swallowed, let her eyelashes dust the freckles on her cheek. “You know about the bet?”
There was no need to specify which one.
She pulled her fingers free of his, unable to deal with the flutter of butterflies against that old, familiar panic.
Jaime nodded, his expression feeding off the shadows in the room.
There was bile in the back of her throat, and Brienne fought it down.
“Kyle – Kyle was sweet. Charming. He – liked me. I thought.”
She couldn’t stand to look at him as she talked, so she distracted herself by studying the faint yellow imprints in the old LED scoreboard.
“But I – still liked Renly,” even his name burned in her mouth, “and Kyle laughed when I told him ‘no.’”
It clogged her chest, watching Kyle’s careless grin turn adamant in her mind’s eye. Hearing him laugh, Don’t pretend you don’t want it.
And she had, a little bit, before.
“His hand was up my shirt and I couldn’t get him off me, and the camcorder.”
Jaimie’s eyes were livid in the orangey light of the bare bulb above them.
“Cersei was going to – with whoever got me to –“ she couldn’t say it, not to Jaime, not to anyone.
That exposed feeling swelled, as coarse and powerful as ever. She thought it might drown her.
Jaime slid away from her, inching fluidly down the tackle dummy, until she couldn’t feel his heat anymore.
The space beside her felt cold and endless, but Brienne could breath again.
She looked over at him, watched the anger and frustration and helplessness play out in the shifting muscles of his jaw.
Had Jaime even known what Cersei had offered in reward?
“He didn’t win,” she said hastily, trying to seem less affected than she was. “I smashed his lip and his camera, and you know Cersei –“
“– wouldn’t do something for nothing.”
Her throat closed up, and she looked down at her feet, scuffing them on the layer of dust that had shifted on the concrete.
He muttered an expletive, and it tripped dully along the gritty cinderblock walls.
The silence tried to descend, and Brienne watched Jaime’s shoulders twitch uncomfortably.
“I should have shoved his face into the boards,” he shook his head and turned to her, like they already understood one another. “Basketball players.”
She laughed, and it sounded a little congested, so she swallowed the sound.
Jaime inched nearer, and Brienne didn’t tell him to stop. When he came to rest beside her, he was much closer than he had been before.
She pushed a dry hunk of hair behind her ear, spun the brittle ends between two fingers, dropped it back to needle her cheek.
“Are we friends?” she asked, tentative.
“I fucking hope so,” his mouth twisted sardonically, and he turned that expressive brow on her. “Or I’ve gone through the hell that is Cersei for nothing.”
She didn’t really know if he meant now, or in a broader sense. She didn’t really care.
Brienne bit her lip, but it did nothing to hide the smile making painful dimples in her cheeks.
Jaime rolled his eyes, knocked her shoulder with his own, but he was smiling, too.
The sound of shoes scuffing on dusty concrete made Brienne jerk upright. She cast about for whoever might be lurking. Spying on them.
Tyrion observed her from beside an old plastic water cooler, giving her the most infuriating, self-satisfied grin she’d ever seen on an actual human being.
“Well, that’s settled,” he said definitively, brushing the heaviness from the air simply by standing there snickering at them. “What’s next?”
Brienne bolted to her feet, panic sweeping over her as she looked at her watch.
“I’ve missed fifth!”
The brothers had a grand time with that one, snickering to themselves and exchanging glances around her that were clearly intended to offend.
“Shut up,” she grunted at them, crossing her arms around her ribs and rearranging dirt with her heel. “I’m leaving.”
“It’s lunch,” Jaime reminded her, scooting over so she could lean beside him again.
Brienne ignored the invitation.
“For me. You have Phys Ed.”
“I get enough Phys Ed,” Jaime groused, turning a baleful expression on his bright red cast. “Dad and Cersei saw to that.”
But Brienne was resolute, and Jaime and Tyrion shuffled to the door under her expectant stare.
The February air was barely colder than the equipment shed, but it seemed less forgiving than the space inside.
“Hey,” Brienne stopped them just beyond the door. The concrete walls still blocked the worst of the wind. “Um,” she looked down at Tyrion, over at Jaime, not really knowing how to proceed. “My dad’s having his new girlfriend over for dinner, and I’d rather. . .” she trailed off, mumbled, “You guys want to come?”
They were silent for an endless second. Brienne looked up at them, wondering if she had overstepped some boundary.
“Trainer,” Jaime grimaced at the fingers of his right hand, flexing them experimentally. He actually looked disappointed, almost.
“Right. Uh, Tyrion?” she asked, because she had offered and because, against all odds, he was a little bit her friend.
Tyrion shook his head at her, looked significantly at Jaime.
“I’ve always wanted to know how it felt to be mercilessly beaten at dad’s expense.”
Brienne looked from Tyrion to Jaime, entirely confused.
“Seriously?” Jaime asked his brother, expression grim.
Tyrion nodded, long-suffering in his mismatched eyes.
“Cersei wants us to look our best for prom pictures.”
There was something cunning in his tone. The brothers exchanged knowing glances, and Tyrion’s mischief was reflected in Jaime.
“Doesn’t your dad talk to your trainer about – “
“My progress?” Jaime grinned at her, that old familiar smile that told her she was being incredibly naïve. “As long as someone swipes my card at the gym, I’m golden.”
“You’re not going to train at all this week?” she reproved, the intent spoiled by her slowly widening smile.
“Eh,” Jaime shrugged, playful and mocking.
“What do you mean ‘at all?’” Tyrion asked, narrowing his eyes at his stepbrother. “You missed yesterday, and . . . ?“
The bell rang, and Brienne used the excuse to slip away. She told herself she wasn’t really abandoning Jaime and, anyway, he probably deserved whatever Tyrion threw at him.
He had thrown enough at her the last few days to merit an outright family war.
When she slipped through the kitchen door that evening, a tall, attractive, blonde athlete trailing behind her, her dad stopped murmuring at the brunette on the barstool and choked on his wine.
“Another place for supper?” she asked, grinning sheepishly at her dad and pretending she wasn’t pink in the cheeks.
Her dad found his feet, absently dabbing wine from his blue button-down, looking back and forth between his daughter and the spots of red.
Jaime slid past the pair, making himself comfortable next to the middle aged woman Mr. Tarth had brought home. They chatted like old friends, and Jaime caught Brienne’s eye as he deliberately, rudely snatched a roll from the basket and began munching.
“One more place,” her dad agreed, snatching a placemat from the drawer to cover his fatherly faux pas. He recovered himself enough to smile faintly at her, to shoot Jaime a stare that flitted between pleased and suspicious. “Coming right up.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling a little out-of-place in her own kitchen until Jaime hit her in the nose with a pea, and she was forced to retaliate.
“Make peace, not war,” her dad’s new paramour joked, and Brienne was having so much fun she didn’t even realize she had replaced ‘peace’ with ‘love’ in her head.