Work Text:
Brienne sat on the edge of her bed, the uncomfortable point of a triangle. The other two sides were staring down at her with a mixture of pride and resignation.
“That’s as good as it gets,” Loras observed, arms crossed with a pensive hand propping his chin. Sansa had shoved him into the desk chair the minute he’d arrived, but for all that he hadn’t budged, he’d managed to have his say’s worth.
“If only she’d let me . . .” Sansa frowned, dismissed the thought with a shake of her shiny red hair. She turned slowly on bare feet, examining Brienne from every angle, never quite satisfied with her handiwork.
That probably had something to do with Brienne putting her foot down about the makeup. And the skirt. And the heels.
Chapstick was her only concession to Sansa’s bag of cosmetic tricks. Sansa had refused Brienne’s refusal, and in the end Loras had double-teamed her and the pretty freshman had claimed victory.
It would all be rubbed off by the time Jaime got there anyway. Brienne couldn’t stop biting her lips nervously, tonguing the seam and tasting wax.
“Shouldn’t you go?” she asked Loras, shooting a meaningful glance toward the clean lines of his suit and tie. After 2 hours in a creaky desk chair, he looked as pressed and perfect as he had the moment he’d barged into her bedroom. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from – “ she tried to say his name, but other words fluttered from her lips, “ – your boyfriend.”
Loras checked his watch, drummed antsy fingers on Sansa’s mahogany desk. He didn’t budge.
“Lannister better hurry the hell up. I’ll miss our reservations.”
Loras had hazarded his best guess as to where Jaime was taking her, and that was where Renly had booked their pre-prom dinner. Brienne thought she might rather go hungry than run into the happy couple, or anyone from West Eros High.
Her stomach gurgled, nerves shifting like dead weights slogging through turbulent seas. Brienne realized dimly that she might be going hungry anyway.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Sansa told him sensibly, but her words were hollow, spoken for Brienne’s benefit. The look she exchanged with Loras promised that Orlando Bloom himself could not pry her from the window before Jaime showed up.
Brienne pressed insistent fingers to her nail beds, unable to reconcile the sensation of her normally jagged cuticles gliding demurely under her fingertips. Sansa had attacked them with all sorts of lotions, buffers, and nail scissors, and her hands felt strangely slippery in the aftermath.
If Jaime tries to hold my hand, he won’t be able to get a grip.
The thought was terrifying and all too possible. It almost sent Brienne scurrying to her closet for a worn, familiar tee, to shed the pretty blue shirt that bared bashful freckles on her shoulders and hinted at curves that hadn’t developed beyond the barest pretense.
Fear must have sprawled plain across her face, because Loras stood, edging over to block the door, and Sansa decided it was time to invade Brienne’s personal space again. The girl flitted about, fluffing the gauzy material of the blonde’s shirt, nimbly brushing dry hair from her forehead, swatting Brienne’s large hands as they tried to twist along her jeans.
Brienne took a deep, steadying breath and found her feet. Standing felt final somehow; no turning back.
For all of their disparaging comments, her friends were practically beaming.
“Perfect,” Sansa hummed, craning her neck to take in Brienne’s wide, unattractive features.
Brienne shifted on unfamiliar ballet flats. Their shoebox was still spilling paper, abandoned in a corner of her room with the bags of clothes Sansa had brought and systematically rejected. The unyielding uppers reminded Brienne of fresh hockey boots, unbroken and full of promise, bruising forgotten calluses through the holes in her socks.
“You look like you,” Loras added.
The way he said it made Brienne almost believe that was a good thing.
The crunch of tires hit the driveway, echoing up to her second story window and reverberating into everybody’s nervous system. Sansa bounced in place, clapping her hands enthusiastically. Brienne’s hands started shaking, and Loras clasped them hard between his.
It felt almost normal, relying on Loras again.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, stifling his curiosity to face her fears. “If you start freaking, just remember: you’re not at prom and everyone else is.”
“Thanks,” Brienne’s smile was forced and unsteady. “Have fun at prom,” she added. He had a big night, too. “With – you know. Renly.”
“Can I tell Margaery? After the crowning?”
It was clear that Loras enjoyed holding information that neither his boyfriend nor his sister had rooted out. Gossip was not usually his forte.
Brienne considered Margaery, who talked about prom primping like a general strategizing battle plans. There was no way she wouldn’t win next year, after Cersei graduated to rule some hapless college freshman somewhere. But her friend would probably need a pick-me-up tonight.
Brienne nodded shortly.
Loras grinned like she’d handed him her Facebook password and told him to update her relationship status within the hour. Well, it was pretty much the same thing. If she thought Loras and Sansa were excitable . . .
The doorbell clamored through the house like a war drum, and Brienne froze, listening to the low hum of voices that followed. Sansa’s smile twisted Brienne’s nerves like a blade, and Loras came to attention, giving her a final once-over.
“Guys don’t like unresponsive slabs of wood,” he said firmly, flattening his hand on the small of her back and gently shoving her from the room.
She had no choice but to let her feet carry her down the hall and towards the stairs. Her dad was blocking Jaime from view, and Brienne felt relief down to her toes that Sansa’s dramatic “descending the staircase” moment had been thwarted. She felt ridiculous enough without the anxiety of watching Jaime’s reaction to the sight of her. Who invented shirts girls couldn’t wear a sports bra with?
Still, it was kind of nice when she reached them and Jaime abruptly stopped talking.
“Hey,” she pushed an errant lock of hair behind a large, unpierced ear, suddenly shy.
The thrill of her first, mutual date whispered that Jaime looked better in a red button-down and khakis than he ever would done up for prom, tux and tie and slicked hair. His blond hair was brushed back, tousled and free, and she had to remind herself he had very definite flaws to balance that jaw line.
Jaime opened his mouth, swallowed, and reconsidered whatever semi-suggestive, mildly insulting greeting he’d been about to offer.
“Hey.”
Brienne curled her toes in her silver shoes, pretended they were armor that could stave off nerves and awkwardness and expectation.
“Have her back by midnight,” her dad ordered.
His daughter’s date stood straighter, acknowledging the older man’s authority, and her dad smiled. Then he shifted back, brushing his shoulder into Brienne’s. The soft cotton of his rumpled button-down caressed her skin, reminding her of warm nights and stories and summer songs. She tangled their fingers together, taking comfort in the familiar pen calluses and smooth palms that had gotten her through her first days of kindergarten, Junior Hockey, and West Eros High alike.
“Have fun,” he pressed a kiss to her temple, murmured against her hair, “No curfew.”
“Thanks,” she smiled softly, pressed her lips together as she turned to face her date.
“We’re kind of on a schedule,” Jaime tilted his head to indicate the car waiting outside.
Brienne nodded, marched towards the door.
Jaime’s good hand brushed the bare skin between her shoulders as he ushered her through, and all of Brienne’s carefully crafted calm scattered. The night lay endless before them, stretching and spinning like the scenery in a cheesy cartoon when the hero was about to lose consciousness. The day that had limped along felt suddenly rushed, impossibly small, sealed up in a patched box with the books and games and plastic swords of her childhood.
Jaime’s fingers trailed a fizzling residue, like pop rocks bursting through the fabric on her spine to tingle against her sweaty skin.
Brienne picked at her cuticles, using the sting to anchor her in the moment.
“You booked reservations?” she asked, her voice cracking embarrassingly.
He eased in front of her and tugged open the passenger door. Brienne swore she saw his gaze flicker to her bedroom window, and his lips twitched knowingly. She wondered if he was more amused or annoyed.
“We won’t run into Loras and Renly,” he said. “Trust me.”
Trust seemed like a tall order just then. With the stress of Sansa’s brand of helping and the walking heart attack that was Jaime Lannister, her fingernails were beginning to look distinctly worse for wear.
He moved around the car and slid into the driver’s seat. Jaime’s strong, handsome profile was striking against the dull glow of streetlights through tinted windows. Brienne couldn’t help but think he belonged in some teen rom com, not stuck in a car with her.
“I can practically hear you psyching yourself out,” Jaime cautioned, turning to raise an eyebrow at her.
Brienne jumped, frowned at him.
“What if you win prom king and aren’t there to claim your crown?”
Mirth simmered in the green haze of his eyes.
“I figure they’ll start a war,” he humored her. “We should probably stay out late to avoid the fallout.”
Brienne imagined Renly trying to claim the crown, fighting with Robb Stark for the bit of golden plastic, while Stannis argued that they were all usupers and as principal’s aid he should win by default.
She shuddered despite herself, and Jaime laughed.
“You’re doing me a favor.”
He thumbed through his keys, fumbled, twisted his left arm at an unnatural angle to turn them in the ignition around the steering column.
Brienne’s heart thudded halfway up her throat, but her nerves were drifting further away with every thrum of her pulse.
“Want me to drive?” she offered.
“Trying to emasculate me already? You’ve only just uncovered your femininity.”
“Must not take much,” she muttered.
Jaime snorted, and his eyes raked her unexpectedly. His gaze was heavy, insistent, like coarse hands pressing into her skin.
Brienne pressed back against the leather seat, pleased and uncomfortable and turning a familiar shade of red.
Jaime’s gaze met her own, and his teasing smile softened.
“Blue’s hot on you. Your eyes, and all.”
Brienne had never been called hot in her life. She wasn’t really sure how to take it.
“You look really good,” she mumbled.
Jaime shrugged off the compliment with an unabashed quirk of his shoulders, shifting the SUV into drive. She doubted it was news to him.
They descended into silence. Brienne could never be called chatty, and it wasn’t unusual for any and all conversation starters to flee her head without a moment’s notice. But usually Jaime filled the gaps with jokes and insults and sports trivia that spurred her to heated argument. His running commentary was missing tonight; it’s loss felt heavy in the reds and pinks of the sunset.
His iPod shuffled to Rihanna, and she flicked her eyes sideways to watch Jaime mindlessly mouth the words. Watching his lips form shapes for “You Da One” was doing funny things to her insides, and she had to bite her lip and turn to the window.
“Jaime,” Brienne said warily as he pulled around an abandoned street and into a dingy back lot. “Where are you taking me?”
She couldn’t decide if this was some poor attempt at being covert or if he just sucked at dramatic effect. His was by far the nicest car parked beyond the row of dumpsters, and likely the only one that didn’t belong to an employee.
“To eat,” he answered as if he were being helpful.
Brienne clambered out of the car, and Jaime bumped the back of her knee with the front of his to get her moving. The pathway was lined with trees, deep shadows in the fading sunset. When they emerged onto the sidewalk Brienne almost choked on her tongue.
Jaime titled his head, too casual to be truly relaxed, “The list of restaurants not overrun with prom kids is, well, pretty much this.”
“This” was an immense polished castle with flags flapping from every turret. The red stone loomed above them, turning burgundy in the dying daylight. Heavy ropes suspended a portcullis above the wide front doors, casting odd, dark shapes on the families and medieval enthusiasts streaming through the gate.
Brienne remembered being 7, begging her au pair to take her. She remembered the lecture, too; it was Ms. Roelle’s firm belief that The Seven Kingdoms would only give her an unhealthy interest in Renaissance fairs and a lifetime of ridicule.
Jaime shifted restlessly while Brienne fumbled for something to say.
“You like dinner shows?” was the best she could come up with.
“Jousts and melees,” he shrugged, smiling carelessly. “What’s not to like?”
His words echoed in her thoughts, rebounding and compounding and tugging at the little tendrils of excitement peeking through her nerves. Brienne felt childlike fervor bubbling beneath her ribs, anticipation of adventures and swordfights and Jaime.
He bowed ironically, offered her a jaunty elbow.
“My lady.”
Brienne slid her arm through his, giving her grin free reign.
“Ser,” she played along, skirting wry completely and wondering how she’d missed that Jaime Lannister was secretly cheesy.
He bought her ticket along with his, snorting at her irritation when the greeter plopped a coned princess hat on her half-tamed hair. The souvenir was tacky and unwieldy, and Jaime stole it before she could protest.
“She’s a knight,” he told the man, who disappeared to root through a large wooden chest behind his station.
Jaime twirled the pilfered headdress on one finger, watching the glittery fabric dance on its pedestal. Brienne raised a pale eyebrow and he raised a golden one in return, settling the paper-and-gauze cone on his tousled blonde head. She didn’t know whether to find that sweet or absurd, but she smiled regardless, biting her lip when Jaime caught her stare with a wink.
The attendant gave Brienne a feather-light plastic helmet, and she followed as Jaime navigated a hidden stairwell and two dingy corridors that deposited them in a row of empty seats. He urged her around a carved column draped in blue to a table that overlooked the area designated for one-on-one combat.
Brienne absorbed the jovial bustle bounding through the stands, aware that Jaime was watching her.
“When did you stop coming?” she asked as he absently waved off a serving wench who caught sight of them two sections over.
Jaime began flipping through the program. For a minute, Brienne thought that she’d overstepped some first date line, that he wouldn’t answer.
“When my mom got married.”
Brienne nodded, though he wasn’t looking, and picked at the pink and blue flag stuck into a corner of their little table.
“Thanks.”
She ran a finger along the scarred wood, focusing on the worn grain, and wondered if Joanna Lannister had once sat in this very seat. The thought lent an unexpected weight to the plastic helmet half-hiding her, protecting her from Jaime’s memories.
He shrugged.
Brienne caught her finger on an edge, scraping off a layer of skin. She steeled herself and reached across him to tug half of the program from his grasp, scooting closer so she could read alongside him.
“The show’s ridiculous,” he warned before proceeding to pick apart sham politics and mock battles like they were sports plays.
It was ridiculous, and ridiculously fun, and somehow the smell of horses and the greasy chicken skewers and the chanting crowd felt like the weirdest hockey game she’d ever been to.
Jaime laughed at how invested she got in the finale—“You know this thing is rigged, right?”—but when the Blue Knight won the tourney & kissed his lady’s hand, he smiled as Brienne tried not to mist up.
“Kiss me, Blue Knight,” Jaime mocked a swoon.
“Shut up,” she swatted him and he pulled her to her feet and for a second she thought he would kiss her, but she blinked and the crowd surged and the moment was gone.
He slung an arm around her, a move stuck in the foggy terrain between team camaraderie and first date cliché, towing her towards the exit.
“If we get trapped in this,” he nodded toward the milling crowd of kids and parents and laughing older couples, “You’ll wish we’d gone to prom.”
Brienne snorted, but her heart was trapped beneath Jaime’s casual embrace and she was having trouble concentrating. It was almost a relief when they escaped into the breezy, star-speckled night and Jaime released her into unfettered air.
She breathed out chants and competition and hoarse laughter, traded and compounded between her and Jaime until it had knotted them together with some indefinable cord. She inhaled them again, diluted, savored, memories in little jars waiting for their corks. They were fragile, she knew; she prayed some unguarded motion wouldn’t smash them at her feet.
She and Jaime wound their way back through the trees, shoulders bumping rhythmically, anchoring their path in the near-black. His hand brushed her fingers once, or she brushed his, and her knuckles curled and caught before her overwrought wits sent her scurrying up the path.
“Will your dad really kill me if you’re not home by midnight?” Jaime bolstered his voice to follow her through the branches.
Brienne slowed as she reached the car.
“No,” she bit her lip, unsure if she was breaking protocol by admitting her dad was all bluster.
Jaime studied her expression, shook his head, propped himself against the shiny grill of his black SUV.
“I meant ‘do you want to go home?’” he clarified.
She crossed her arms over the satiny blue ribbon sewn around the waistband of her shirt. The fabric captured tiny white hairs on her arms, making them stand on end.
“Then why didn’t you ask that?” She turned to lean against the bumper, favoring the passenger’s side.
Her date with Ron had consisted of a brittle bunch of roses and drive-thru window. He had dropped her off behind a shed in her neighbor’s yard so her dad wouldn’t ask Mr. Connington what had gone wrong.
Jaime took in her defensive posture, flicked an irritated glance in her direction.
“I swear you’re the thickest person I know.”
Brienne stiffened.
Jaime sighed, slowly worked his jaw smooth. “Mall or movie?”
“It’s too late for a movie,” Brienne objected, looking at the plastic digital watch Sansa hadn’t been able to wrestle from her. It read almost 9:30.
“Are you 16 or 65?”
His quip was met with a flat stare.
“Mall, then,” Jaime agreed, pushing up off the car.
It took some effort for him to pull her to her feet. Jaime rolled his eyes as she dragged her weight.
“Fro Yo and Sports Stop,” he clarified his idea of ‘mall.’
Sansa would have informed her that that sounded like the worst first date in the history of ever, but Brienne was suddenly lighter.
“My gloves are wearing through,” she said, tugging at the door to no effect.
She waited for him to hit the button on his keys, curling her fingers into the handle. She wasn’t prepared for Jaime to come up behind her, tracing rough knuckles untamed by Sansa’s beauty products. Her fingernails dug hard into the metal hinge; she could feel the ends splitting as clearly as she could feel the unexpected softness of him.
“Bauer has a new pair,” he said, clicking his remote and reaching around her to open the door.
Brienne scrambled into the car, nodding fervently and trying to ignore the way his body lingered, leonine against the frame. His grass green eyes crept through her skin, stalking some low feeling in her gut, coiling her reflexes to spring. She fumbled her fingers, clicking her seatbelt firmly into place, avoiding his gaze.
Jaime gave up.
Fear and hope and some heady harmony swept the evening away from her, and before she knew it they were strolling through the outdoor mall, ice cream in hand and a plastic shopping bag dangling from Brienne’s wrist.
“You didn’t have to buy them for me,” she grumbled again. The gloves bumped her hip as she walked, steadily reminding her that Jaime was either the world’s best pick pocket, or she was the world’s most oblivious shopper. “When can I have my wallet back?”
“When you stop trying to pay for things,” he bumped the bag with his hip, and Brienne graced him with an unimpressed stare. “I guess I’ll have to take those swords back to The Seven Kingdoms’ gift shop.”
“What swords?” she asked sharply.
They had spent intermission coveting the replica weaponry, fine balanced steel and delicate scrollwork and sturdy leather grips that fit wide fingers as well as any hockey stick. Some of those things were expensive.
“Plastic ones, Brienne,” he huffed.
“Wouldn’t put it past you,” she muttered into her waffle cone. His excuse about napkins had been paper thin, and she felt like an idiot for not realizing his alibi had nothing to do with memory lane.
“Wouldn’t have been a big deal,” he retorted. “But it would have scared you off anyway.”
He was right, of course. She was already in knots figuring out how to reimburse Sansa for the clothes she was wearing.
“It’s not worth it.“
Jaime caught her arm, turning her into the concrete of a storefront. His eyes weren’t teasing anymore.
Brienne dropped her ice cream. It landed with a squelch, spraying his shoes and the tops of her feet with cold, sticky droplets.
“I say you are.”
The words brooked no argument.
Brienne offered none.
“Why?”
It wasn’t a faint question wrenched from unsure lips; it was a demand. Brienne almost couldn’t believe the word had come from her.
Jaime blinked. His shoe crunched the fallen cone as he stepped forward, tracing stubborn lines along her temple with the tips of his fingers.
“That,” he said lowly. “And a million other things.”
His good hand fell along the smooth fabric of her shirt, snagged at her hip and lay lightly as a perched bird. The catch of his fingertips seemed tied to her heart, tugging from hipbone and cheekbone, coaxing uneven jolts with invisible strings.
She read the intent plain in his warm, green eyes and felt a moment of dread.
“I don’t—know—“ she finished her confession silently, lips fluttering in a hesitant mimicry of her lashes.
“I know,” Jaime smiled, undeterred.
Brienne flushed redder than her new gloves, fear and anticipation zipping through her so fast she couldn’t process which was which. Her face felt cool under his fingers, four points of rest amidst the chaos of her skin, each digit tied to a mooring line, steady against her eddying pulse.
“Okay,” she breathed, eyes screwing shut as her blood tried to burst through the weak fabric of her skin.
She felt his breath first, hot and familiar. It made her shiver.
She was suddenly hyper aware of her lips, chapped and cracked from long afternoons on the ice. Why hadn’t she let Sansa put chapstick in her pocket? Her lips were drier than they’d ever been, desperate for moisture. Her tongue edged out to wet them, and Jaime closed his mouth around hers, lips, tongue and all.
For a moment there was only panic, rushing and churning, receding, leaving faint lines of silt in its wake. Then there was blustery salt-wind, sun-kissed sand, sated exhaustion. His mouth was so warm, and his hand was on her neck, guiding her head, and she felt tiny waves of thrills to her toes.
Her body lurched into his, sluggish and yearning, and he caught her weight with his hips, maneuvered them around until he pressed flat against the wall. She didn’t know what to do with her arms, and her lips moved haltingly, out of time with his. Jaime was patient, though, coaxing her and teasing her, small shifts like they were back on the ice and he was teaching her how to waltz. His tongue feathered across her bottom lip, never lingered long, and every time he retreated to soft, persistent kisses Brienne felt grounded again.
“Okay?” he asked when Brienne began to gasp faintly into his mouth, fingers clutching at his shirt as if she might drown without it to steady her.
Jaime pulled back, leaning his head against the concrete of the wall, breath ghosting across the pink freckles on her nose. He wasn’t breathing hard, but air caught heavy in his throat, turning his voice to an intoxicating rumble.
Brienne felt like she’d run a marathon.
“Okay,” she rasped, swallowed, smiled.
The bell on the clock tower chimed, one – two – three all the way to twelve, each new peal ringing brazenly across the nearly empty shopping center.
Jaime’s eyes were bright, blond hair mussed, lips pink and pleased.
Brienne focused on her breathing, wondered what he was seeing.
Were her lips swollen beyond too full? Had her friends’ painstaking care of her flyaways come to nothing? Were her eyes as vibrant as his?
She didn’t care as much as she thought she should.
Brienne tilted forward and pressed her lips back to Jaime’s, and the world became sweetness and discovery.