Work Text:
I Said I Love the Air
By Balarion
Laundry day, one of the most stressful experiences of dorm living. At least in Brienne’s experience. The awkward moment when you’re hauling a stinky bag of sweaty hockey gear and the whole room looks at her with disgust. The awkward moment when you’re transferring laundry from washer to dryer and the boy next to you sees the one pair of bright pink panties you have that you dropped on the floor. The awkward moment when you come back from doing productive things and some asshat had moved your clean dry clothes out of the dryer and onto the linty counter. The awkward moment when you realize you forgot to actually put in detergent and you have to waste more of your precious quarters to rewash them. The list went on, and on and on.
Luckily through the strife Brienne had perfected the routine to avoid all those awkward moments from happening. First she would wake up early on the morning after a particularly popular party to bring her hamper to a completely empty laundry room. Second she would check off her entire list of essentials: detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets. Third she would bring a book or some assignments with her to the laundry room along with headphones so that she could hold vigil over her clothes and ensure no interference with the process.
This particular morning she had set her clock for 6 am, having heard from Jaime, who had heard from his scary twin sister that the Kappa Sigma whatever Shmelta fraternity was hosting their semi-annual toga party. She remembered Sansa, the girl from her sociology class, talking about it excitedly because some guy from her medieval european history class had asked her to it. It sounded stupid and like a bunch of drunken fools were going. She’d said as much to Jaime and he’d agreed, even said he had tickets to see that new Cat Canal movie instead.
Seven, Brienne was jealous, she’d been wanting to see it for weeks, but between the hockey season starting to really take off and midterms she’d had to sacrifice her leisure time. Oh, well, she could always wait for it to come to Redbox.
Brienne hummed off key as she loaded the machines, taking the time to separate her whites, darks and colors since all the machines were blessedly free. She’d splurge on her quarters this one time, she didn’t know when the next time she would have. But also she hadn’t realized how long she’d waited to do this. Going through her clothes she’d realized she’d worn everything except the jean shorts that Renly had convinced her to buy to show off her “killer legs,” and a worn out Westeros University t shirt she didn’t remember buying. She definitely thought it must have been from freshman year because it was a bit too tight over her shoulders and ended right above her belly button.
The Seven know that she hadn’t been small when she’d first started WU, but three years of NCAA women’s hockey training had her much more muscular and fit. She had abs that the men’s hockey team could only dream of having. Jaime had said as much the last time they’d lifted weights at the athletic center.
Brienne’s plan was working out pretty well until about an hour in her pen ran out of ink as she wrote her essay for Professor Aemon’s advanced Biochemistry class. Mentally adding extra pens to the list of laundry essentials Brienne got up to make the long track up five floors to her dorm room.
Her blessedly single dorm room after two years of rude, shallow roommates who didn’t understand that hockey gear was near impossible to keep fresh smelling constantly. She was lucky, apparently some senior last minute decided they’d rather do off campus housing and she’d apparently been top of the list. And added bonus was that the room happened to be next to Jaime.
Two years ago Brienne wouldn’t call that a bonus, she’d have called it another part of her terrible luck. About two years ago she hadn’t particularly liked Jaime. Back then she hadn’t really known him. All she’d known was he was the star shooter on the hockey team, wore the A since freshman year, was brother to some evil sorority president and son of the terrifying Provost. He also always had a smarmy smirk she associated with all the douchebags from high school. He had all the makings of being number one on her do not engage list. Because Brienne was good at two things: hockey and pretending that terrible people didn’t hurt or exist to her.
Trouble is it wasn’t in her nature to ignore a person in need. So last year when she had been exiting the arena after a late night skate and heard shouting coming from the dumpster area she had come running in a fury upon seeing four U of E guys beating up on some poor shmuck. She’d tossed her duffle into the back of one guy, while kicking another in the back of the knee. She’d gotten a few good punches before the guys had given it up for retreat and left a bloodied blonde behind.
It turned out to be hockey star Jaime Lannister, and at first he’d rejected her concern. Stubbornly saying he was fine. But Brienne was just as if not more stubborn than Jaime Lannister. Brienne practically dragged him to the nearby emergency room, stayed with him as they’d wrapped his bruised ribs, and shared a cab back to King’s Landing Dormitory. By the end of the night they’d formed a grudging friendship. And the rest, as they say, was history.
Exiting her room, now with two working pens, Brienne startled when Jaime suddenly opened his door as she was locking her own. “Jaime, Seven, you startled me,” Brienne said, hand to her chest against her rapidly beating heart. Forgive her but that summer there had been an incident with a bear while they’d gone camping and she was still jumping at sudden movements.
“Brienne, why are you bloody awake on a free day?” Jaime asked, har mussed and eyes still blurry from sleep. He was in his boxers with a robe unbelted so it revealed his naked chest. “Laundry day,” she said in amusement, playfully gesturing at her uncharacteristic outfit. On any other girl the short shorts with crop top would have looked cute, on her she just felt awkward. Jaime followed her hand gesture, lingering on her long legs and stopping abruptly at her flat chest.
“Heyyyy,” Jaime slurred, pointing accusingly at her solar plexus. Aw, so not just sleepy, but hungover too, of course. Must have gone after he went to the movies.“That’s my old shirt,” Jaime finished, squinting accusingly with his stupid grin. So that solved one mystery. Actually, yes, it did have a certain lingering scent of Jaime’s signature cologne.
“Oh, I found it while I was sorting my laundry,” Brienne said with a frown, wondering how on earth the shirt had gotten mixed in with her things. “I’m almost done, I can get it back to y-” “Oh no, no no no no,” Jaime muttered, his grin turning dopey as he leaned against his doorframe for support. “You keep it, it looks much better on you.” Brienne raised her eyebrows and gave him her patented “Jaime your stupid is showing” look, as he called it. Affectionately.
“I think you need some more rest, I’ll come by later with some water for your hangover,” Brienne said, gently pushing him back into his room, taking his words for drunk/hungover nonsense. “Nnnnn, I think I rather need a shower more,” Jaime muttered before she could shut the door on him. Brienne shook her head and gave the closed door a fond look. Her best friend was terrible, he should really get help for his drinking problem, always spewing nonsense and drivel. He was lucky she still put up with him.