janie_tangerine: (asoiaf > jaime/brienne)
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 Tyrion knows that he might have made a great mistake bringing Tommen along to see Bohemian Rhapsody when, ten minutes into the movie, his nephew turns towards him and whispers, “Did he really have that many cats?”

 

Tyrion, who knows exactly how many cats Freddie Mercury had and the names because when it’s your brother’s favorite band you will know, and who knows also that Cersei would hate the bare concept of her offspring being into this one band, doesn’t have the heart to lie to him — he’d find out on the internet, anyway.

 

“Yes,” he whispers back. “Actually, I think he had more.”

 

“I see,” Tommen replies, and when they get to the point where he finds out that Freddie Mercury not only owned an insane amount of cats but each of them had its own room, he can see on Tommen’s face that he came inside this cinema probably only knowing We Are The Champions and will walk out of it wanting to buy that band’s full discography.

 

Thing is: he brought him because Cersei dumped babysitting on him at the last moment (of course) since she had to go distract herself after the divorce, and he and Bronn already booked tickets, and Tommen had said he’d have loved to see a movie with them, and so he figured there would be no harm in it.

 

But Tyrion also knows that Cersei barely tolerates those two cats in the house, never mind Joffrey, and he also knows that Cersei hates Queen with a vengeance since they were Jaime’s favorite band growing up and while it never was a problem before, well, before, now that not only he finally cut things off with her also by leaving her a mixtape of Queen songs (that she hates) and that he’s with his fellow history TA who also is into that band, she never actually wanted any of her kids to come into contact with things Jaime liked, never mind really was into.

 

Christ. Most of the time he can’t believe they actually —

 

Tyrion is so not going to think about the amount of wrong in those two’s relationship that always was there since he can remember, same as he remembers even too well how Jaime seemed to turn into a different person whenever discussing her or thought they actually were the same person (as if, they couldn’t be any more different), how he pretty much never had any friends outside the two of them until he went to university (and how Cersei was pissed off he went for history instead of taking economics with her), and oh, right, how he knows perfectly that Jaime is the father of her kids but she never let him get too close to them because God forbids Robert found out. Not that it matters, since Robert fucked off to Brazil a few months ago. But it’s not as if anything changed, other than that.

 

He’s also not too surprised that Jaime finally gathered the guts to cut things off with her after she (as far as Tyrion knows) had promised him she at least would make him attend Tommen’s birthdays and then of course she took it back.

 

And then he wonders why Jaime has been trying to straighten his shit out for years and why he’s only ever found the guts to ask Brienne out a year ago when they’ve known each other since they were both TAs for Catelyn Stark and they went together to Queen cover bands concerts for years.

 

Anyway, long story short: Cersei is going to kill him if she finds out that Tommen actually likes Jaime’s favorite band, so, after he’s handed his nephew a copious amount of tissues just as the Live Aid section starts and after he’s bought him ice cream after they leave so that he cheers himself up, some, he begs him to not tell his mother that Tyrion brought him to that movie.

 

Tommen, who at eight should not understand immediately why Tyrion is horribly worried about the possible consequences, nods and says that of course he won’t, he’ll just say some friend of his at school talked about it or something.

 

“I guess there’s nothing from them at home, is it? Because I really liked all of the songs, actually,” Tommen says.

 

If you went to your uncle’s — pardon, your real father’s, you’d find also the solo records, he wants to say, but then keeps his mouth shut. “No,” he sighs, “but let’s make a deal. Your mother doesn’t find out we came here, I’m getting you the Greatest Hits for Christmas and she’s not going to know. Deal?”

 

Tommen’s green eyes suddenly turn brighter as he says, deal.

 

Tyrion, who knows that Jaime is most likely not getting invited for Christmas in the first place, sighs and shakes his head before they head back to Bronn’s car.

 

They drop Tommen off at home just in time.

 

Then —

 

“Tyrion,” Bronn says, “you are aware you just signed that kid’s death sentence?”

 

“What was I going to tell him, no? Come the fuck on. He was really into it.”

 

“Yeah, and is Jaime going to know?”

 

Tyrion groans. “I should probably tell him, but — probably not now.”

 

Not when he’s pretty much been banned from coming over because Cersei has put her foot down and said that she doesn’t want him around until he’s with Brienne, and Tyrion knows that he’s not going to break it off just to come back for Christmas parties with the family, and good thing that — it was time that asshole put his own well-being before their fucking sister’s.

 

And still, he was the one who had to listen to Jaime getting drunk out of his mind just after he cut things off with Cersei for real and regretting he never even got to see any of those kids of his up close.

 

Honestly, if Jaime knew, he’d probably feel even worse about this entire bloody mess.

 

Better that he keeps his mouth shut.

 

Still, it’d really have been an asshole move if he had tried to kill Tommen’s interest in Freddie Mercury and his cats just now.

 

Well, nothing to do about it. On one side, maybe it’s better if it’s a temporary thing.

 

Maybe it could be.

 

But if Tommen is anywhere like Jaime, and he is, that Tyrion has had ample proof of, there’s no way this is going to be temporary.

 

No bloody way.

 

——

 

As agreed, he sneaks Tommen the Greatest Hits for Christmas.

 

Somehow, for some kind of miracle, Cersei doesn’t find out immediately — Tyrion imagines that Tommen got smart when listening to it and only put it on if no one else was in the house. As it is, Cersei hasn’t found out when March rolls by, Tyrion is on nephew-watching duty again and Tommen says that he’s somehow found out that there is a volume two of that Greatest Hits, and they couldn’t go buy it, could they?

 

Tyrion curses his nephew’s ability to come up with that pleading stare that remind him of Jaime’s when he came up to him begging for algebra help and to please not tell their father he asked for it, and he says that if they are quick maybe they can manage before Cersei is back, there’s one surviving record shop some ten minutes from the house.

 

Jon Connington’s shop is indeed open, and has the blasted Volume Two.

 

Tyrion pays for it, they stick it into Tommen’s backpack and they’re back home with five minutes to spare.

 

“Thanks,” Tommen tells him as they go back home, “you’re the best.”

 

Tyrion about wants to say it’s really nothing, and only shrugs and says that hey, now that he owns it at least he can listen to it properly, right?

 

Fuck, he really hope Cersei doesn’t find out.

 

——

 

Cersei does find out.

 

Or better: Joffrey finds out thanks to a complicated system of school gossip that included some mean girl in his circle talking to another mean girl she’s related to in Myrcella’s class and whateverfuckingelse happens with children’s gossip these days, and by the time Tyrion finds out… she has threatened to finally get rid of the damned cats as Joffrey hates them anyway, she’s thrown both records into the trash and from what Tommen tells him on the phone in between fits of tears, she pretty much implied that if she found him listening to that crap which was also the reason their uncle apparently lost his mind and sense, he was never going to hear the end of it.

 

This would be the perfect moment to tell Jaime, he sighs. Also if anything, that crap was one of the reasons Jaime actually didn’t completely fuck up his life, but that’s neither here nor there.

 

“You know what,” he says, “maybe I can get you another couple for your birthday. And maybe I can keep them until she’s reasonable, how about it?”

 

Tommen thanks him after saying I don’t understand what was so wrong with it, and Tyrion thinks, you don’t even want to know the half of it.

 

Honestly, the day Jaime decided he was done with her and with their creepy unhealthy relationship, he sent her a mixtape and the first song on side A was I Want To Break Free.

 

There is a lot that is horribly wrong with it, according to Cersei, and Tyrion is sure as hell not going to be the person explaining to Tommen that he’s the result of his siblings re-enacting Flowers in the Attic in real life.

 

(He read that book once. It was the only time he threw a book in the trash in his entire life and he doesn’t regret it for one single second.)

 

Still. He goes to the record shop, buys another two copies of both Greatest Hits volumes, and hopes that Cersei doesn’t really follow through on that threat or he’s going to have to keep the cats, because like hell she’ll be fine if Jaime gets them.

 

Actually, she’d most likely drown the poor things if she knew Jaime got them.

 

Yeah, better not risk it.

 

Better fucking not.

 

——

 

In the next months, Cersei does not drown the cats, thankfully, and neither does Joffrey, even if Tyrion strongly suspects he might one day. Tommen’s birthday in May passes in the usual barely-there recognition — the only person in the house who gets large parties thrown for their birthday is Joffrey, for that matter, and of course Jaime isn’t invited, Robert calls from Brazil (he’s apparently not moving back to the UK anytime soon, but then again after the divorce he pretty much disappeared and Tyrion doesn’t think he’ll ever show up again before his supposed kids turn eighteen), Tommen only gets presents he most likely doesn’t care for, and it’s probably sad that he looks happier when he’s over at Tyrion’s the following week and he gets to listen to A Night at the Opera and Tyrion slips him some book with the band’s history that he bought along with the record.

 

Of course Tyrion keeps the record, but it’s also obvious that the kid really, really loves it. He brings the book home.

 

A month later, he says he managed to read it before Joffrey found out and threw it in the trash, and Tyrion is about to ask if he needs to get another that he will keep.

 

“No,” Tommen says, “I don’t want another one. I mean, they’d find out at some point. It’s just, I don’t get what’s wrong with it?”

 

“Nothing,” Tyrion sighs. Just your mother, he doesn’t say. “But she’ll stop caring at some point. I mean, how long does she think she can keep you from listening to people that popular?”

 

Tommen shrugs. “It’s just — I really like that they have songs about pretty much everything and in all those different styles but at the same time you can recognize them, and the lyrics are really good, the ones I heard anyway, and… I don’t know but it sounds like they’re saying you can be and do whatever you want and it’s a good thing and… I think it’s great?”

 

Ouch.

 

Jaime told him exactly the same thing when he was seventeen or something.

 

Tyrion really needs some alcohol here, but he figures he’ll have a drink later.

 

“She’ll see it. Or she’ll start ignoring it.” He shrugs. “But don’t let her ruin it for you. I mean, you should like what you like.”

 

“Yeah, but — I mean. What I like seems to always be… not right. But whatever Joffrey does is fine. I mean, is there something wrong with me?”

 

Ouch.

 

Tyrion really, really hopes that something changes and either Cersei stops being like that or… he doesn’t know what, but it’s ridiculous that the kid is eight and he can’t even enjoy a damned singer in peace.

 

——

 

Then Cersei shows up drunk at the next corporate meeting at the company (good thing Tyrion is there because he’s the top of the accounting department but he just has to be there, not to talk), tells extremely unprofessional and mean things to poor Melara Hetherspoon from PR who apparently hasn’t done her job well enough (she has, but she’s the least-ranking person in this room and the newest hire and newest promoted, so she’s the perfect target) and it ends with Cersei pretty much slapping the poor girl in the face hard enough that she loses her balance and hits her nose on the table.

 

She breaks it and blood gushes all over the floor.

 

Someone else films the entire thing and puts it on YouTube.

 

Tyrion is not, for once, the subject of his father’s ire when he learns about it, but it’s bad enough that he doesn’t even think, well, now you know how it feels.

 

——

 

“We cannot let social services show up,” his father finally says after screaming loud enough that Tyrion is honestly surprised the windows didn’t break. “And my contact in the police just warned me that Melara Hetherspoon pressed charges.”

 

What? That little —”

 

“Cersei,” Tyrion says, “given that she bled all over the goddamned floor and you broke her nose and she has evidence, she’d be a fucking idiot if she didn’t sue.”

 

“He’s right,” his father says, and Tyrion about falls off his chair. Is he fucking agreeing with me now? Sure as hell he has to be pissed off beyond belief. “The girl would be a downright idiot to not do it, especially because someone has most likely told her that we’d settle before bringing it to court and she wouldn’t need to work ever again. And given that you went off on her for no bloody reason —”

 

“That campaign’s plan was awful!”

 

“That campaign’s plan was fine and we had all voted for it,” Tywin says, and his voice sounds so cold that Tyrion doesn’t know how the hell Cersei hasn’t just given up and let him handle the mess. “And her work was good. I hired her, and I don’t hire slackers. Anyway, she is going to sue, and on top of that, my contact also informed me that unless we take very quick measures now, they’re sending social services to your house.”

 

“They’re sending who?”

 

CPS, Cersei,” Tyrion groans. “I mean, you showed up drunk at a meeting and hit her in the face, you have three minors in the house, she’s pressing charges, it doesn’t matter how rich we are, they are going to send them.”

 

“Exactly,” Tywin says. God, is he agreeing with Tyrion twice in a row?

 

Fucking hell.

 

“Which is we need to act before they actually send them over. I suppose Joffrey can come staying with me, it’s high time he learns the ropes.”

 

Sorry?” Cersei protests.

 

“Right, I forgot. Of course, I will settle with Miss Hetherspoon, but I am not bailing you out.”

 

“Father, you wouldn’t —”

 

“Cersei, you’ve been out of control with both your drinking and your… sleeping habits since the divorce. And since your damned brother left the company, you are the only family-related face we have in PR, which means that I cannot bloody afford this. You can’t be drunk out of your mind at board meetings, you can’t hit your bloody employees and since Robert left you’ve been worse and worse, so I think some time away from the scene will do you good and we can spin it making him look bad for leaving you while you put your shit together.” Woah. He swore. Tyrion is really, really happy that he’s not at the other end of this conversation. “Which means the children cannot stay with you or on their own. A few months will do the trick, I suppose. Now, as I said, Joffrey can come stay here. Myrcella would most likely be better off with Genna,” he mutters. “But she can’t take Tommen, too, I think.”

 

Well, given that Aunt Genna lives with her husband’s family, which automatically translates into some twenty cousins/nephews/whatever named Frey around it, Tyrion can believe that she doesn’t have space for two people in separate rooms.

 

Cersei doesn’t dare breathe as their father stares at Tyrion. “He could go with you, I suppose.”

 

“Like hell!” Cersei protests. “My son is not going to live with him. Anyone but him, I forbid it!”

 

Tyrion had suspected she’d say it, and he’s not particularly hurt, but then

 

Then he realizes that since it seems like for once his fucking father is on his side, as unlikely as it seems, maybe he can have a little revenge here and do some good.

 

Anyone?” He asks.

 

“I’d rather have him with Satan than with you,” Cersei spits.

 

Tywin looks increasingly pissed off.

 

Good.

 

“Then I think I have the perfect solution,” he grins. “If Father agrees, of course.”

 

“Share,” Tywin says.

 

“Well,” Tyrion says, “I was going to say that my place is rather small and — my friends aren’t really good company to have around an eight-year old.” Who also doesn’t need to know that Bronn and I are fucking. “But Jaime has a nice two-story house, he lives on his own except when his girlfriend is around and maybe one day she’ll move in, but it’s still two people in a two-story house with, like, three guest rooms. He’s been doing fairly well actually, so he could afford it, and while Cersei probably can’t attest to it since she’s never been there, Miss Tarth is actually very nice and only drinks casually, so if CPS should show up there they would never have an issue. And who knows, maybe that could convince him to not be so estranged with you all anymore if the ban on his girlfriend is lifted.”

 

Cersei opens her mouth, enraged, but Tywin raises a hand and she immediately closes it. He seems to be thinking about it. And — while Tyrion knows that their father wasn’t too big into the idea of his firstborn getting together with his former-TA-colleague (now they’re both full-on teachers) who happens to not look very photogenic, to be middle-class and not to come from that much money, he also never liked that his precious firstborn had pretty much raised a middle finger at all of them, and he could probably tolerate the middle-class unattractive girlfriend if it meant he’d get grandchildren with his surname to continue the legacy. Honestly, the one reason Jaime’s not even keeping civil relations was Cersei’s ban, not his father’s.

 

“That’s actually a good idea,” Tywin finally says.

 

What —”

 

“You said anyone but him,” Tywin says. “Jaime is not him. Tyrion, I suppose that as the only person he speaks to in this family you will ask him?”

 

“I can call him now,” Tyrion smirks.

 

“Well then. I will arrange things for Myrcella if you worry about it. Cersei, this is not negotiable. I don’t agree with his choice in girlfriends, either, but if he won’t bend on it, then it’s nonsensical to wait for him to change his mind. Call him.”

 

Tyrion, who knows that the more time passes the more Jaime regrets having gotten along with Cersei’s shit when it came to his damned children and that he regrets having barely been in their lives, smiles slightly to himself, takes his phone out of his pocket and leaves the room so he doesn’t hear Cersei trying to protest the decision.

 

Then he finds Jaime’s number and presses call.

 

Jaime better realize how much he fucking owes him.

 

——

 

“I forgot something, didn’t I? Fuck, I know I didn’t clean under —” Jaime starts, for the fifth time since they actually put away the cleaning supplies.

 

“You did,” Brienne interrupts him. “Under both beds.”

 

“… Right,” Jaime sighs, dropping on the sofa. “Sorry, it’s just, I really don’t want to fuck this up.”

 

Brienne, who has been aware of Jaime’s issues when it came to the kids he never actually fathered

 

(he told her the day they were both accepted for their second PhD and went for drinks together to celebrate and he couldn’t seem to keep up the good mood after his sister called him and he was already buzzed and he was sure she’d be disgusted, as if she could after knowing him for four years and having had a crush on him for at least two of them)

 

and who had about decided she’d buy Tyrion a lot of drinks after he told her how exactly this whole thing had been arranged, sits down next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Listen, you actually cleaned the attic when you’ve set foot there twice in the entire time you’ve lived here, I think those cats can see themselves in the floor, you about completely remodeled the guest room, even if he hasn’t seen you in years he will recognize the effort.”

 

Jaime gives her a terse nod, but then he sighs wistfully while looking at the walls. “Fuck, maybe I should have taken that stuff down.”

 

What?” He’s had those Queen framed posters up since he moved here and he had a couple of them in his dorm in uni, why would he need to take them down?

 

“It’s just, Cersei was here just once and she said it looked like a teenager’s room but just, well, all over the place. Maybe he’s going to think —”

 

“Stop it right there,” Brienne says, and fine, when they met being around him felt like being around a sixteen year-old half of the time when he was twenty-five, but when she learned that it was when he and his sister, well, had sex for the first time and that he only ended up things with her a few months before they met… a lot of things were clear. And like hell she’s going to begrudge him for putting on posters on his living room’s wall when it’s not as if she’s that much better about it. “Or should I remind you that the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning and the last before I go to bed is —”

 

“Brienne, I’ve woken up in front of your blow-up framed poster of Roger Taylor drumming half-naked enough times, thank you.”

 

“And would you say I’m not a functional adult?”

 

“Please, you were a functional adult at nine, probably.”

 

“Thanks, but that’s the exact point. Jaime, fuck’s sake, do I have to remind you that we started being civil to each other when we were both about to kick Ronnet Connington where the sun doesn’t shine for having said Freddie Mercury was an overrated singer?”

 

“… No,” he replies, sounding fond, but she also did.

 

Okay, then he found out that he had been an ass to her and asked her out on a bet when they were in their last year of master’s, which had turned into Jaime punching that ass in the face anyway because hell, they might have disagreed about everything up to that point but she knew her Middle Ages and she wasn’t a pain to work with and asking people out as a joke is just a damned dick move anyway… but yeah. They did start getting along after finding that out.

 

“Right. I mean, you love that band, you’ve always loved that band and honestly, I wouldn’t change your tendencies when it comes to blathering for one hour about how Brian May is a superior human being for the world, why the hell should you hide it? Because your sister hates them? Tough luck, I don’t remember you caring until now.”

 

He runs a hand over his eyes. “I don’t,” he sighs. “But I don’t know what she told him or what he’s going to think, and just, I can’t tell him the truth, obviously, but I don’t want to fuck it up for the time I’ll get, you know?”

 

“From what your brother says he really is not Joffrey,” she says, hoping she sounds encouraging. “Also hey, at worst you can discuss cats.”

 

Jaime glances at the corner, where all three of the house cats are currently having dinner. “Yeah, hopefully they’ll get along with his own. Fuck, five days wasn’t enough time to get even barely mentally ready for this.”

 

“Please,” Brienne says, “you’ve been mentally ready for years, I think.”

 

What —”

 

“We met when he was what, two?, and you started discussing how much you regretted it some four years later, which means it’s been another two years, you’ll be fine.”

 

“Maybe you have a point,” he admits, his fingers finding hers. “Fuck, please swear to me you’re not leaving me on my own with this.”

 

“Come on, I’m not that kind of asshole.”

 

“Well, you are not the asshole in this relationship. Then again, since you have a type —”

 

“Roger Taylor is not an asshole,” she protests, but weakly.

 

“Oh, so you’re saying that I am and he’s not?”

 

You called yourself one,” she says, and she’d have kissed him if they hadn’t heard someone ring at the door downstairs.

 

“Oh, fuck,” he says, “can you open?”

 

“Jaime, no. At most we are opening, I’m not letting you worry about it while I make pleasantries.”

 

“Right, can you tell them we’ll be down in a minute at last?”

 

Okay, fine.” She opens the window, looks down at the street — Tyrion is there, Tommen is there, Bronn is on the car, they have two cat carriers in between them and the luggage is probably still in the trunk. “We’ll be down in a moment, hold on,” she calls out. Tyrion tells her it’s fine. Good.

 

She closes the window.

 

Jaime has changed from his old, worn-out t-shirt that he bought at one of the Queen concerts they did with Paul Rodgers to a normal green one. “Right, now we can go.”

 

She wants to tell him that he doesn’t have to pretend he doesn’t wear band shirts in the house, but there’s no time for this now, so she drags him down the stairs, wishing she had put on one of her damned band t-shirts just to prove a point. The living room is spotless clean, the kitchen is, too, and Jaime looks like he might faint. She wants to tell him that no eight-year old in existence gives a damn about spotless floors, then she remembers who Jaime’s father is and doesn’t even go there.

 

Then she pushes him in front of her while she opens the door so that he can’t send her forward or anything of the kind.

 

The sadly hilarious thing is that Tommen looks even more nervous than Jaime — he’s holding on to that cat cage like someone’s going to take it from him and for a moment they look at each other and  say hi and it’s just… awkward.

 

Then again, as far as she knows the last time they saw each other it was Tommen’s fourth birthday party, Jaime had shown up for about half an hour and his sister about sent him away forcefully, so… it makes sense, she figures.

 

Tyrion clears his throat. “So, are you going to let us in or what?”

 

“Right,” Jaime says. “Sorry, we can — sure.” He moves to the side. “Just get in. Is Bronn —”

 

“Bringing the suitcases? Yes, don’t worry about it.”

 

“By the way,” she says, “since your uncle is rude as hell and won’t introduce people to each other, I’m Brienne.” She leans down a bit so that she’s not looming over him.

 

“Hi,” Tommen says, smiling shyly. “Wow, your eyes are very pretty — I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —”

 

She leans down, figuring that like this she won’t look too overbearing. “Oh, I’ll take a nice compliment. He wasn’t as courteous when we met.”

 

“You’re not perjuring my case here, darling,” Jaime snorts from behind her, but he sounds slightly less tense now. “Also, I always thought your eyes were the clearest, most beautiful shade of blue in existence.”

 

“Yeah, you just didn’t say it outright.”

 

“Why, you’d have taken me seriously if I did?”

 

“Point taken. Anyway, never mind my clear blue eyes. And they are?” She asks, pointing at the two black cats inside the carrier in Tommen’s hands. Tyrion had a smaller one with just one cat.

 

“Oh, the one with white paws is Boots and this other one is Miss Whiskers. The one inside the other cage is Pounce. I mean, it’s kind of stupid names, but —”

 

“They’re nice names, don’t worry,” she smirks, “and it’s not like Jaime here isn’t a dork as well.”

 

“I’m not — ah well, I might be,” he shrugs, and then two things happen at once.

 

First, while Tyrion opens the cages for the remaining three, Jaime’s three other cats appear on the top of the stairs and start walking down towards them, and Tommen immediately looks delighted at seeing more of them, but then he moves to take a better look.

 

And then he finally notices the full-length framed poster depicting Queen II’s cover on the living room wall, just above the record player.

 

(It’s the only free space, the rest of that wall is covered in shelves packed with records.)

 

His green eyes go so wide it would almost be adorable, if Brienne didn’t have a vague idea of why. (Tyrion told her something but begged her to not tell Jaime and now she can see why.)

 

“Oh,” Tommen says, “you — you like them?”

 

Well —” Jaime starts.

 

“I think you should just tell him how did you name those cats already,” Tyrion says, sounding like he’s having a lot of fun.

 

Jaime glares at him, then looks at the three cats that just got downstairs and are now sniffing around Tommen’s, but they look fairly fine with it.

 

“Right,” he says. “The one with the blue eyes and blonde fur is Roger, obviously, the grey one is Figaro and the orange one is Delilah, and yes, I know you’re judging me, I don’t give a fuck. Her cat is named Innuendo, I think she beats me.”

 

“I never said I wasn’t a dork,” Brienne says. “Anyway, you know what, I think that while Tyrion and I go help poor Bronn with the suitcases, you can show him to his room and give him the tour of the house, how about it?”

 

“Sounds great,” Tyrion says. “I’m in.”

 

“Yeah, maybe. So, you coming up? If you want me to show you my bootleg collection later, it’s fair game.”

 

Tommen’s eyes go even wider. “You have a bootleg collection?”

 

“I have videos,” Jaime winks, and at that point Brienne is sure she doesn’t need to trail him anymore.

 

They go upstairs while the cats keep on sniffing at each other.

 

Tyrion clears his throat. “Am I wrong or he really cleaned shit up around here?”

 

“You don’t wanna know,” Brienne says, “for the last two days. I don’t know how much crap we trashed. It probably was good, now he has more space for the bootlegs.”

 

“Sure he does,” Tyrion grins. “I suppose you didn’t tell him.”

 

“I told you I wouldn’t, of course I didn’t. And you didn’t tell Tommen, did you.”

 

“Oh, yeah, should I have told him your other uncle actually loves that band but if your mother knows you talk to him she’s going to ruin both of your lives even worse than she has already? Please. I just hope you don’t mind —”

 

“Of course not.” Brienne doesn’t even let him finish. “He’s been hating that he never actually had a part in — well, their lives since… early in our acquaintance, I wouldn’t mind if he gets to make up with some of it. Come on, who do you take me for?”

 

Tyrion shakes his head. “Never mind. I know, it’s just — well, it’s going to be good for him, I think. Should we go get that luggage?”

 

Brienne nods and they go take the suitcases — it’s two of them plus a backpack, nothing that much since they’re not even large even if they’re heavy, and then there’s a bag that’s obviously for the cats’s things.

 

“Right,” she says, “I can bring them up, it’s fine.”

 

“Sure?” Bronn asks.


“I’m sure, just go have your romantic evening,” she says — Bronn flips her the finger and Tyrion has the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. Then he clears his throat.

 

“Just, you know. Keep an eye on those two.”

 

“Don’t worry, I’ve handled your brother for years, I think I can handle them both.”

 

“I knew you would,” he grins, then gets on the car.

 

She watches them leave, puts the backpack on her shoulders and goes up the stairs after grabbing the suitcases — the cat things will most likely stay on the first floor anyway.

 

Then Jaime gets out of the guest room and sees her coming. “Oh, great,” he says, “I did give him a tour but I need to look for a thing in the attic, maybe you can help him start unpacking while I do?”

 

“I’ve got it,” she says. “Go to the attic.” She stops as he moves past her and heads for the stairs leading up to it, and then she brings the suitcases inside. Jaime picked the largest guest room, and he did put away the posters in here and pretty much anything that wasn’t furniture — he’s going to want to put his things in, I guess, he shouldn’t have my crap lying around — and Tommen actually looks like he’s not quite believing he lucked out this much.

 

If only you knew, Brienne thinks.

 

“Hey,” she says. “How are you liking your room?”

 

“Miss Brienne,” he replies, sounding awed.

 

“No need to be that formal,” she says. “Really, he’s the least formal person in existence.”

 

“All right. Well, it’s… really nice, actually. And he said I don’t have to keep the cats in at night, which is great because I think they found it a bit cramped back home, but eh, Mom didn’t want them to be around.”

 

“I see. And what did he go get in the attic?”

 

“Oh,” he says, and his face about brightens, “I told him that I got into Queen because I went to see the movie with Uncle Tyrion, so he asked who was my favorite and I said he was Freddie because, well, the cats, you know, and he said that he actually had a Freddie poster in the attic but he never hung it up because it didn’t fit anywhere, so he said he’d get it and that I can hang it up.”

 

He sounds so happy about it, Brienne can’t help grinning back. “Nice. Guess you’ll be the third person with the single picture in front of their bed around here.”


“The third?”

 

“He didn’t show you his room?”

 

“Not yet — well, the door only.”

 

Brienne is fairly sure that none of her underwear was around last time she checked, and Jaime cleaned it, so it should be safe. “I think you should come with me,” she says, and brings him to the room on the opposite side of the hall. She opens the door enough to show him that Brian May is taking up half the wall in front of the bed.

 

“And,” she says as they go back to Tommen’s room, “I have one at my place, too.”

 

“Wait,” Tommen says as he starts opening one of the suitcases, “don’t tell me who it is. I guess it’s one of the others, right?”

 

“It is,” she confirms.

 

“I guess it’s Roger then.”

 

She laughs. “That didn’t sound like you were guessing.”

 

“Well, he kinda looks like Uncle Jaime, sort of, if you’re together it just makes sense, right?”

 

Look at that. “Impressive. Sounds like you have my type figured out,” she says.

 

“Hey,” Jaime says from the other side of the hallway, “what are you saying behind my back?”

 

“He just realized I picked you only because you’re the closest to a Roger substitute I could find, don’t sweat it.”

 

“I’m flattered,” Jaime grins. “I wish I’d look that cool in my old age. Anyway,” he says, handing Tommen a poster with the full Live in Montreux cover, “there it is.”

 

“You know what,” Brienne says, “I’ll go make dinner and you two can undo the suitcases and hang it, how about it?”

 

“I’d say we can work with that.” Jaime is not sounding like he’s going to explode at any point soon, good, and so she leaves them to their poster-hanging.

 

By the time she’s done with dinner and she goes back up to warn them, the suitcases are unpacked and the poster is attached to the wall.

 

Well, she has a feeling all of Jaime’s worrying will end up being for nothing.

 

——

 

“Hey,” Jaime asks Tommen as he stares down at his pancakes without eating them (since he found out that he actually did like them but Cersei forbid any of them bar Joffrey to have sweets outside of special occasions, he’s made a point to bring him out for pancakes at breakfast every Sunday because he’s shit at making them and he can’t ask Brienne to come by every Sunday for that, and it’s nice to get treated anyway), “is there something wrong?”

 

“Uh, not really,” Tommen says, moving the fruit around the plate. He’s also not looking at him in the eyes.

 

Given that it’s been a good month and a half and Jaime was fairly sure they got both over the initial awkwardness caused by the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in years, it’s not an exactly good sign. “Yeah, and you’re obviously lying. Your uncle was like that, too.”

 

“What? Really?”

 

“He was, until he learned how to do it better. Come on, just dish it out. I swear it can’t be anything bad.”

 

“It’s just…” Tommen sighs. “Halloween’s in two weeks.”

 

“Sure it is. And? Do you want to go out? I can call up aunt Genna and ask her if Myrcella —”

 

“No, uh, I don’t think it would be a good idea.” He eats a blackberry. “It’s, well, the other years, Marcella goes with her friends but I always had to go with Joffrey, and, you know, he always picked the costumes and he got all of the candy, pretty much, which — I don’t want to —”

 

“Tommen, your brother is a dick and we all know it except my sister, and he’s been a dick since he was born, you can say whatever you want and I sure as hell won’t tell Cersei. I couldn’t, since she can’t even receive calls wherever they sent her.”

 

Tommen makes a relieved face and cuts a bit of pancake — good. “So — I kind of want to pick the costume, but no one else should know. I mean, maybe Uncle Tyrion can, but other than that — it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

 

“It sounds like the worst costume idea ever, but fair enough, in uni I bet while drunk I’d go as Flash to the one Halloween party I attended and I did, can’t be worse than that. Go ahead.”

 

Tommen takes a deep, deep breath. “Well. It’s just. I kind of thought it would be nice to go, well, as one of them, but I thought about it and a lot of those costumes are just complicated and stuff, and so I thought, maybe the I Want to Break Free video would be nice, but if I told Mom —”

 

Jaime pictures Cersei’s reaction at that kind of request — the one time she had seen that video she asked him how could he be into a band of such perverts forgetting that they totally switched clothes on her request when they were kids — and about throws up his coffee.

 

No,” he says, “she should absolutely never know. But — I mean, okay.”

 

“Wait, okay?”

 

“Sure,” Jaime says, “why the hell not? I mean, it’s women’s clothes, but there’s nothing wrong with it. And they’re, like, iconic. Who gives a damn.”

 

“Oh,” Tommen says. “But — wouldn’t people, like, hate it? If I went there dressed like that when I’m not a girl?”

 

“Your mom said that, I guess,” Jaime groans. “Well, you know what, fuck that, I can dress up, too. Who even would mind then?”

 

“You — you would?” He’s looking at Jaime with such wide, hopeful eyes that now he’d feel like a dick taking it back, if he actually wanted to. Except that he doesn’t want to. What does he even care?

 

“Sure. Why not?”

 

“Mom wouldn’t really — I mean, she thought it was stupid to dress up in the first place, and if I went like that —”

 

“Except for Joffrey, of course. Well, I don’t have any of those hang-ups, so shoot. Which one of them did you want to be? Freddie?”

 

Tommen, who now doesn’t seem so worried anymore, eats another piece of pancake as he shakes his head. “I mean, it would be cool, but I’d need high shoes, and… no. Also — I mean, I don’t really look like that. It wouldn’t work. Guess I should be Roger.”

 

Jaime is about to say that he would look adorable, honestly, but then Tommen’s face falls. “But crap, maybe you should be.”

 

“Uh, why not you?”

 

“You really look like you could pull it off,” Tommen says, shrugging. “And it would be weird if it was two of us dressed the same way.”

 

Fair, Jaime supposes, but — damn, he did sound excited before. And he’s right, Jaime really couldn’t pull anyone else off without looking utterly ridiculous, but —

 

“And what if,” he says, leaning forward, “it didn’t have to be just us?”

 

“… Because you know anyone else who’d be down with it?” Tommen asks.

 

Jaime grins. “Did you forget who is my girlfriend?”

 

Tommen’s eyes go wide in understanding. “Oh. She doesn’t look like — I mean, she always wears trousers and stuff, she said she doesn’t really like dresses once, I didn’t think she’d —”

 

“I think for this she might make an exception. Hey, let’s just call her, how about it?”

 

He takes his phone and calls her, hoping that she doesn’t kill him for that — on Saturday evening she volunteers to drive ambulances for the NHS paramedics so she usually goes to bed at six in the morning —, but she always did like that video, and they might have spiced things in bed a bit a few times through, well, Jaime wearing not exactly male garb, so maybe if he bribes her enough, she’d be up for it.

 

It rings five times, then she picks it up. “Jaime,” she says, sounding like she just woke up, “you’d better have an excuse for calling me after volunteering.”

 

“Sorry, but Tommen here has an urgent inquiry and we need your input.”

 

“Okay,” Brienne says, “if it’s Tommen I guess I won’t kill you. What’s up?”

 

“It’s Halloween in two weeks,” he says. “And he wants to go out in costume.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He puts her on speaker. “Tommen, how about you explain her the issue?”

 

“It’s just,” Tommen starts, “I thought I could go like Roger in the Break Free video, you know, but then if he’s coming too then he also should be Roger.”

 

“Of course he should be Roger,” Brienne declares, “I’d never let him live it down if he dared going as anyone else. So?”

 

“So, well, it’d be weird if it was just the two of us and it was the same costume, so he was thinking maybe you could join? Dressed as one of the others?”

 

For a moment, there’s utter silence coming from the other side of the line.

 

Jaime really hopes he hasn’t fucked

 

“I’m Brian,” she says. “And that’s final.”

 

“Oh. Okay, sure, that’d be great,” Tommen says, sounding ecstatic. “At least it’d be three —”

 

“Hold on,” she groans, “I think I know two people who actually couldn’t wait to go along with this.”

 

“Wait a moment,” Jaime asks, “are you actually thinking of asking —”

 

Now,” Brienne says, “I’m going to go back to sleep because I’m crashing, then when I wake up I’m going to call both of them hoping they’re free, then I’m going to tell them, and if they say no I’m going to be extremely surprised. Now let me sleep,” she says, and closes the call.

 

“… That was interesting,” Jaime says, putting the phone away and going back to his own pancake. “Cheer up, we’re getting the whole gang together.”

 

“But — do you know who she means?”

 

Jaime stuffs a piece of pancake, strawberry and whipped cream in his mouth. “Sure. Her bff from high school and his boyfriend. The bff is exactly the kind of person who’d jump at the chance to go around in heels, a miniskirt and fake tits, the boyfriend — well, he’s pretty much like that and has killer make-up skills and a grandmother who’d lend him clothes if he asked, so I think we’ve got this.”

 

“Wait, so we can go as all four of them?”

 

“Totally. I solemnly swear that the pictures are not going to leave my phone. Also, your whipped cream is going to go bad in a few.”

 

“Oh. Right,” Tommen grins, digging into it with a renewed enthusiasm, and Jaime goes back to worrying about his damned food instead of wishing that he had done something more to be in the kid’s life earlier than this and instead of reminding himself that Cersei’s apparently leaving rehab by Christmas and so he has to try and make sure he makes as much of the time he has as he can.

 

If it means he has to spend Halloween going around dressed in drag like a damned schoolgirl, so be it.

 

CONTINUES HERE

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