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janie_tangerine
Actually, she quite likes it. Fine, the old lady living next door who sometimes keeps an eye on her when Dad can’t come get her at school or needs to be out for work keeps on telling her not so subtly that she’d look better in blue or green, but she doesn’t pay her any mind.
(She will regret it later.)
After all, at age six, she doesn’t really think about how clothes look on her. If she likes it, why shouldn’t she wear it?
So: she actually does wear pink t-shirts or trousers at that age. Sometimes even dresses, even if she does notice that most of her classmates tend to laugh when she does, so she tends to not do it too often. She doesn’t know what would they care or what is the problem, but she feels her stomach clenching in something deeply unpleasant whenever they do. So, she avoids the dresses.
It also doesn’t take her long to notice that she’s taller than most of her class in the first two years of elementary school and that people don’t go out of their way to talk to her, but it’s not like she minds, she has books to read at home and movies to watch and homework to finish after all. She goes on with her life, she never asks why sometimes people stare at her and laugh when she turns her back, both girls and boys — it’s not worth it — and if in the end she has better marks than most people in her class, well, it’s a personal satisfaction.
She also knows she doesn’t get invited to birthday parties, but that’s all right, too — she doesn’t overtly care for them and hers is in the summer, so she couldn’t even invite anyone if she wanted. She’s fine spending it with her father.
At age eight, though, things change.
— —
First thing that happens: a new boy arrives in her class, after moving to London from Cornwall. His name is Ronnet Connington, he’s the only one in class who’s as tall as she is and when she walks inside the room and sees him for the first time, Brienne can’t help noticing that he has a pair of really nice blue eyes, a paler, clearer shade of blue than hers, and she likes his red hair, too, but of course she doesn’t dare say anything because all the other girls in class end up flocking to him, too, and while she has no issues with her looks
(not yet)
she knows she’s not the kind of girl boys call pretty or want to hold hands with.
Still, when a few weeks after school begins he comes up to her and says that in his previous school they were behind in both math and English and he could use some help catching up and he was told she had the best grades, so maybe she could give him a hand?, Brienne’s heart is beating at thrice the usual speed when she nods and says yes.
It keeps on beating thrice faster every time she sits down with him either during breaks and catches him up on what he’s missing. For the first time someone seems to value her smarts, at least, and she dares thinking, after the fifth time, that maybe there is one boy in existence who might actually like her. Brienne’s heart flutters in her chest at the thought. She never dared entertaining it. But — why not? After all, in all the fairytales she’s always read, the protagonists are usually the girls no one ever looks at but they do find their prince charming after all.
Maybe she could get hers, too?
She still doesn’t dare ask him or tell him that maybe she would like to hold his hand, but every time she looks into his pale, clear blue eyes her pulse beats faster and she feels like smiling, and when he smiles at her her heart beats even faster, and when she asks her father if maybe there’s hope, he says that if he’s nice and he likes spending time with her, well, why not, after all anyone who’d take care to get to know her would notice at once how great of a person she is.
She lets herself believe it.
(She will regret it later.)
—- —-
A month and a half goes by. She gets Ronnet caught on everything, and fine, it’s at the cost of not actually taking a break in the time they’re supposed to, but she really doesn’t mind. It’s all right, if it means she gets to spend time with him.
So what if during a lesson in which she’s bored out of her mind she doodles both of their names inside a heart in the corner of her notebook? It’s not like anyone ever pays attention to her.
(She’s wrong. She hasn’t noticed Edmund Ambrose watching her from the side, and she also doesn’t think about it before leaving the notebook under her desk when she goes to the bathroom during recess, and she also doesn’t notice that it’s not in the exact same position she left it in when she comes back.)
Then, two weeks before Halloween, she gets the first birthday party invitation of her life. It’s Ronnet’s, because his birthday is October 31st, so he’s throwing a masked party at his house, and would she like to come? He gives her the card himself, and he winks at her as he does, and she goes red in the face as she accepts.
She can’t believe he actually invited her, and for once her stomach isn’t contorting in half-excitement and half fear, only excitement.
Still, she needs a costume. She also needs a present. Surely Dad can bring her out shopping this week-end, won’t he?
— —
When she asks him, he’s only too happy to oblige — he confesses her that he was getting worried that she wasn’t making any friends, and if this kid is nice then of course they can get him a nice present. Does she know what he’d like already?
Brienne thinks about it — he had mentioned liking board games, so maybe they could get him one.
“Sure,” Dad tells her, “but after we get your costume, how about it?”
She nods enthusiastically as they head for a toy shop that might have both. The first one they visit has nothing she feels like getting, but the second —
A part of her says, Mrs. Roelle always says that pink doesn’t look so good on you as she eyes a perfect replica of the pink dress Ariel had in The Little Mermaid. But — it’s really nice, and she did like that movie a lot, and she does like both those shades of pink, and it comes with a red wig, too, and they have it in a size for older girls that would fit her.
She tries it on.
“Oh, it does fit you,” Dad tells her. She looks at herself in the mirror of the changing room.
She does like it a lot.
And who else should like it, anyway? After all, it’s not like she looks like any of the other pretty girls in the room in the first place, so even if her other classmates will hate it, what does she care?
“So — we can get it, then?”
“Of course we can.”
They get the dress.
She also gets him one of those new Star Wars Monopoly editions — he did come to school with a Darth Vader t-shirt a few times, so she knows he likes it, and so what if it costs slightly more than the regular one?
Surely, it’s going to be worth it.
— —
Dad drives her to the party on time. She clutches the present to her chest, smoothing down the skirts of her dress — she hasn’t worn a skirt in so long, it feels weird, but she thinks she likes the feeling. She checks in the car’s mirror that the wig is staying in her place — at least the wavy, red hair is a change from her usual straight blonde — and then she’s off, telling Dad that he can get her at eight. He tells her that he can take her trick or treating later if she wants to, she grins as she tells him of course, she’s always looked forward to it, and knocks on the door as he drives away.
She’s not the first. Ronnet’s mom smiles politely as she walks in and tells her that she really is tall for her age. Brienne thanks her, and then she’s in the living room where half of her class already is — they’re all dressed like some Disney character, too. Ronnet is the only one who’s not — he has a very cool pirate costume and she takes care to tell him as she hands him the present. He thanks her and goes to put it with the others.
“Well,” Edmund says from somewhere on her left, “what a chance that he’s a pirate and you’re a mermaid?”
She blushes at that, but it didn’t sound… mean. “Not right now, I guess,” she admits. “But — I guess.”
“Imagine that,” Edmund says, and then goes back to talking to Ben and leaves her alone.
She smooths down her skirts again.
— —
The first hour of the party doesn’t go so bad. They play some games, for once the girls in class don’t seem to want to avoid her at all costs, she sips her Coke, everything is fine. Of course, whenever Ronnet even glances at her she thinks she blushes at least half as red as her wig, but it’s not the bad kind of.
That is, until someone suggests playing spin the bottle.
No one disagrees and she’s just thankful that the bottle never lands on her, given that this is the type of where you have to kiss the person the bottle points at.
She just hopes that it keeps on not landing on her until the others get bored of it, but just as soon as she’s thought that, Ronnet, who has just been kissed on the cheek by some girl named Randa with whom she’s never talked once in her life, spins the bottle and it lands on her.
Oh.
Suddenly the room falls silent — some of the girls giggle, but Ronnet looks deadly serious as he stares at her. Her eyes meet his, and she can’t help thinking again that his shade of blue is so clear and pretty, she could stare at it for days.
He stands. Since everyone else has until now, she stands, too. They’re of a height.
“Hey,” Edmund says, “I did say you had matching costumes.”
Some of Edmund’s friends laugh, but it’s not the good kind of, she can feel it, and now that Ronnet’s coming closer she notices that there’s something wrong in the way he looks at her.
“So,” he says, “I guess you couldn’t wait for this to happen, could you?”
Her blood runs cold. “… What do you mean?” She asks, her voice not as steady as she’d like.
“Someone told me you like me,” he goes on. “Is it true?”
She shakes her head immediately, her instinct screaming deny deny deny deny before it comes back to bite you.
“Too late, Tarth,” Edmund says. “I saw your notebook. He did, too.”
Oh.
Oh.
She left it one the desk, didn’t she?
She figures she’ll try to get out of this with her head held high. She takes a breath. “So what if I do?”
He scoffs. “Well, sorry to say, but I don’t think I could ever like someone as ugly as you are. And honestly, with that costume? You look even uglier, what were you even thinking? Pink looks like shit on you.”
“And that wig,” one of the other girls says, and a moment later the entire room bar her is laughing, and she feels her cheeks get hotter and hotter and her eyes burn, but she’s not going to do it in front of him. She tears the wig off, though, because suddenly it’s itching and she can’t bear the thought of wearing it anymore, and she takes another breath.
“All — all right,” she says, her voice tinier than she’d like, hating how it sounds, hating that her tongue feels all constricted and that she can’t find a way to tell him off or some kind of smart comeback, and then everyone is laughing harder.
Then he leans down and kisses her cheek, and she about pushes him away, but he moves away before she can do it.
“Here,” he says, “that’s the most you’ll get from me. Satisfied?”
No, she wants to say.
The others are laughing so hard she thinks she’s going to die of embarrassment.
“I want to call home,” she says, desperately trying to hold on to some scrap of dignity.
“Well, the phone’s in the hallway,” he shrugs, and then sits back down.
His parents are out, they left them alone for the moment, so she can’t ask them if it’s a joke or not, but fine. She turns her back on them, walks out of the room.
The phone is indeed in the hallway.
Everyone else keeps on laughing and she hears Edmund’s friends calling her pathetic and such a joke to be made fun of, and her fingers are shaking so hard as she tries to call home that she has to try three times before the call finally goes through.
When Dad answers, she merely asks him if he can come get her now, and she’ll explain it later, and can he bring a change of clothes? He sounds worried as he says yes.
“Nothing pink,” she says, knowing that most of her wardrobe is, but she must have some other color in there. Hopefully. She can’t even look at her dress right now — it seemed so nice until half an hour ago but now she just wants to tear it out and never see it again, and when she realizes it’ll take Dad half an hour to get here, she wonders, can I be in that room for half an hour with them?
The answer is no, she doesn’t even have to think twice about it.
She opens the door and goes to wait on the stairs outside the house.
No one comes back to get her or make sure she’s actually there.
She hadn’t expected otherwise, after all.
Five minutes later, she bursts out crying, wiping at her eyes with the fake silk of her dress, burying her face inside it, and that’s how her father finds her later — she hasn’t stopped yet, and when he asks her what’s wrong she just bursts out crying all over again and says she’ll tell him at home, and can they please just drive away now, and no, she doesn’t care for trick or treating this year.
She tears away the dress from her in the back of the car — she left her wig at Ronnet’s, she realizes, but who cares. She puts on a pair of jeans and a blue sweater, thankfully it’s not pink.
After they get home, she stuffs the dress inside the trash while she still lets out bursts of tears.
Then, after she’s cried herself out in her father’s arms, has had dinner and feels slightly less like she’s doing to die of embarrassment, she methodically takes out every single pink piece of clothing in her wardrobe, piles it up neatly and tells Dad to give it away to the Church or wherever they’ll take second-hand clothing for the poor.
“Are you sure?” He asks her, sounding worried. “You liked them.”
“Not anymore,” she says.
She most likely sounds like she’s sure, because he just nods and doesn’t argue with it.
The next morning, when she goes to school, she finds the red wig on her table, with a note saying that she should keep her boring hair because at least it doesn’t make her look like an overripe strawberry.
She stuffs it in the trash, too, and begs her father to change schools regardless of how much work she will have to do to catch up because one day is enough to make her know for sure that she can’t possibly spend years with these people anymore.
He agrees.
She’s just relieved she won’t ever have to look at Ronnet’s face again, nor at his damned pale blue eyes.
— —-
From that moment on, she doesn’t wear pink anymore.
— —
She meets Renly Baratheon on her first day of secondary school, when they’re both twelve.
For the previous years, she had carefully avoided talking to people beyond necessary, especially if they wanted help with homework, and she’s survived just fine. She’s shrugged off most of the comments anyone had about her appearance — by now, she knows she’s ugly, thank you very fucking much. She also knows that her hair looks like dull straw, that her freckles are too dark, that she’s too tall, that her nose is a lost cause especially after she broke it two years ago breaking up a fight in between people older than her, that her shoulders are too large. She’s heard it in so many variations she could recite it in her sleep. It’s not that they don’t hurt, but after that party… what else could hurt more anyway? That said, it left her with a healthy distrust of people who seem to want to be friends.
Renly Baratheon is not that kind of person. He’s the kind of person who makes friends with everyone in the span of two days. He’s also breathtakingly handsome, with that flowing black hair and those clear, green-blue eyes that seem to change with the weather, his impeccable clothing, his grin that shows off perfect, white pearly teeth, and Brienne can recognize the signs when the day he introduces himself to her personally her stomach clenches on itself and her heartbeat speeds up.
Why am I such an idiot?, she wonders as she stares at Renly’s bright smile when he turns it towards other people.
She doesn’t know. She really doesn’t.
— —-
What she knows, though, is that Renly is generally nice to her even if he doesn’t ask for homework nor goes out of his way to involve her in anything, and when after six months later she has to admit to herself that he hasn’t turned out to be some kind of arse yet, she figures that she could do worse than thinking he is really too pretty for this world.
Of course, she’s never going to tell him.
She’s learned better.
— —
She maintains a friendly-ish relationship with him for the next two years or so.
That is, until it happens that she wakes up with blood on her sheets and within the span of her fifteenth year she finds herself so much taller than half of the people she meets that she honestly feels like shit looking down at them all the time. Added to the fact that she’s taken up boxing at the gym because it does not so moderately help her unload a lot of frustration, when she looks at herself in the mirror the first day of the third year of secondary school, she sees muscled shoulders wider than anyone else she knows, men or women alike, and to her frustration her breasts haven’t grown past a miserable A cup.
Given that these days she only sticks to jeans and band t-shirts when it comes to clothing — she’s not making herself a target for more assholes, thank you very much —, when she looks at herself in the mirror she has to sadly admit to herself that the one feminine thing about her is that she has long hair.
She considers cutting it just because she’d look less ridiculous, but — she likes it long. She kind of really doesn’t want to give that up, even if it’s hard to style and no braid ever stays on if she tries to make it.
She ties it up in a bun when going to school and gets ready for a new year of new insults. She wasn’t this tall, before summer started.
— —
She was right, of course. She loses count of all the jokes about how she looks like a man she hears, and when some of the girls suggest her that she could go to the men’s bathroom, she just shrugs and takes it in stride. At this point she has wholly given up on having female friends anyway.
Then it happens that Hyle Hunt asks her out.
Hunt has never once talked to her before, and suddenly he shows up with flowers and leaving nice notes on her desk and telling her that he hadn’t noticed her before but now that she’s so tall and so on he kind of really did, and for a single, blissful moment she wonders, could it be that he really does like me? He’s not Renly, of course, but he’s not hard on the eyes either and it’s not as if she knows him, she could get to know him better.
She’s this tempted to tell him yes.
That is, until Renly sits down next to her during recess.
“Listen,” he tells her, “I know we don’t talk and I know you have no reason to trust me, but if I were you, I wouldn’t go on dates with Hunt.”
“… And why wouldn’t you?” She asks, cautiously.
“Because I heard him and his friends talking in the bathroom and he’s asking because they bet money on it.”
“… They did what?”
“They have a bet going on. They said he wouldn’t find the guts to actually ask you out and, er, pop your cherry, so to speak. He asked how much money they’d bet on it, and if you say yes and put out and he comes to them with proof, he gets two hundred quid.”
For a moment she wants to decide he’s lying, but he doesn’t sound like he is, and he actually looks kind of disgusted at the prospect, and after all what were the odds that anyone would want to actually date her?
“All right,” she says, sounding as defeated as she feels. “Thank you. That was… very decent of you.”
He sends her a stare. “I suppose it was,” he agrees, “but — you sound a bit too fine about it.”
“Not the first time anyone would want to stage a public humiliation,” she sighs. “Really. I’m fine. Thank you.”
He looks somewhat worried. “Hey, I mean, from what I see you’d deserve way better than that idiot anyway. He’s not even good-looking.”
“… And what would you know about that?” She asks.
And then he laughs, but it’s not mean. “Wait, are you the only person in this school who hasn’t spent half of their time gossiping about the reasons why I would?”
“Why would I mind other people’s business?”
“Man,” he says, “you really are a special snowflake in the good sense. Anyway, long story short, case is that I’m not into girls, that’s how I know Hunt is nothing special. Also, I’ve seen him in the gym’s changing room. You’re losing zilch.”
At that, Brienne has to laugh, and for once it’s not because she has to hide something else.
“Okay,” she says, “I’m going to tell him to fuck off.” Meanwhile, she’s really glad that she never even considered telling him that he was the person he was thinking about when she touched herself the first time.
Actually, scratch that, she never will.
“Good. That said, I never said I couldn’t do with friends who aren’t waiting on the sidelines to bet on who is my infamous secret boyfriend.”
“Why, you have one?”
“Not in this school,” he winks at her. “Maybe if I decide you’re trustworthy, you’ll learn.”
He winks at her and goes back to his place.
Huh.
Well, if he wants to be friends… why not?
At least, she figures, if she ever told him that she was into him, he’d have said no because he’s not into women in the first place, and he had no other reason to warn her about Hyle unless he meant well, right?
Shit, she can’t be that unlucky, she reasons.
— —
Turns out, Renly hadn’t lied about the bet — she goes into the men’s bathroom at the next break, surprises them discussing it, tells them they’re all assholes and leaves them there. At least Hyle has the decency to not try to talk to her anymore.
Turns out, Renly actually meant it.
Brienne decides, in the next months, that having friends is actually a good thing, and her father about weeps in relief the first time she invites both Renly and the mysterious boyfriend over — his name is Loras, he goes indeed to another school and they’ve known each other since they were ten or something and they always knew they were meant to be. Of course, Loras is breathtakingly handsome — soft chestnut curls, warm brown-gold eyes, pale skin. Sure as hell she’d have had no chances even if Renly wasn’t gay, she decides, and puts her heart at peace. That says, Loras is pretty nice, and he also likes Arthurian legends same as she does, and the three of them hang out fairly often and it’s actually pretty nice, and she decides that she had missed out on human contact until now.
Well.
Two friends are better than nothing, and if the both of them have somehow at some point decided that one day they will set her up with a nice guy they approve of, she won’t stop them.
It’s useless, anyway. If there’s one thing she’s sure of is that there is no damned way she’ll run into one that would be into her in the first place.
— —
When he turns eighteen, Renly asks her if she wants to come with him and Loras for drinks.
Brienne says yes, sure, why not — she’s younger than the both of them, slightly, but it’s not as if anyone ever asks for her ID in bars. Given how tall she is, it’s a given.
She’s not surprised that they went for a bar whose clientele is not straight, but she doesn’t tell them that maybe it’s not the case that she goes in. After all, who’d even hit on her in the first place?
They go inside. They get drinks. It all goes swimmingly until Renly and Loras decide to go dancing a few rounds and she declines — fuck, she’s not dancing at any point whatsoever.
She nurses his drinks.
Then some guy she doesn’t know from Adam drops sitting in front of her.
“You know that the women are all on the other side?” He asks her.
The fuck —
“Uh,” she says, “I’m — I’m here with a couple friends, they invited me. I’m, uh, I’m into guys.”
She nods towards Loras and Renly. The guy nods in understanding. “Right. Sorry for the bother then.”
He leaves and she finishes her drink, figuring that it was a given he’d assume she was just in the wrong place.
Then she goes to get another one —
And then a small hand with golden-tan skin covers her wrist. Brienne turns and finds herself face to face with a young woman that has to have a few years on her, way shorter than she is, with curly brown hair, a generous bosom, dark eyes and pearly white teeth, and she’s grinning up at her.
What —
“I was wondering,” she asks, and wait, is she flirting?, “are you here with someone?”
Then she winks.
Oh, damn.
Brienne is fairly sure she’s so red in the face she would resemble a ripe strawberry.
“Uh, I’m — no, but a couple friends invited me, those two over there. I’m, I’m really flattered, but —”
She can see the moment the other girl understands, but thankfully she just gives her a pat on the arm and moves her hand back. “No problem,” she says, “I get it. And I’m not in the habit on pressing myself on people who aren’t into me. Arianne, by the way.”
“Brienne,” she says, shaking her hand. Fuck, now that she thinks about it, given that she looks the way she looks and of course she’s wearing her usual jeans and men’s fitted t-shirt and jacket, the moment she walked into a gay bar people would assume she’s not here to hit on men. “I’m — fuck, this is so embarrassing, I hadn’t even thought —”
“Hey, it’s okay.” She takes a sip of her drink. “No offense taken. If you’re not into girls then you’re not, even if too bad for me.”
“Too bad for you?”
“Hey, if a girl is into taller girls, you’re a pretty good option. If you ever want to give it a try, I’m here pretty often.” She winks at her again and then disappears to the other side of the bar.
Brienne downs her entire drink at once.
She also resolutely doesn’t tell Renly that it ever happened. She figures it’ll just be a one time thing, and if for one moment she had felt a pang of sadness at the fact that for the one time someone hits on her she really couldn’t reciprocate, well, it’s just her luck.
— —
She’s relieved when she’s finally done with secondary school — bar Renly, she about hated everyone in her class, she couldn’t take all the comments about how she should just go to the men’s bathroom so it’d be less lines for the girls’s, she hated every single time when people told her to just put on some make-up or dress more nicely for the yearbook picture and she resolutely went dressed in her usual way, she couldn’t take people telling her to just cut her hair so at least she wouldn’t look like she was pretending to be more girly, she couldn’t take people asking her out as a joke and she couldn’t take having to look at Hyle in the face regularly.
She hopes that when she starts university things might be better. After all, there’s a wider choice of people to hang out with there, and maybe she could finally find other friends. She’s not even going as far as thinking she’ll find something more — as much as sometimes she feels a deep, ugly pang of jealousy watching Loras and Renly looking at each other like they’re the center of the other’s world, she knows she will never get it with anyone else, that she’ll never hold hands with anyone in public, that she certainly won’t share horribly sweet pink milkshakes with some significant other and that if she wants to go beyond fantasies rated PG-13 she’s way better off investing in vibrators than on hitting on men who will never want her. She wants to think she’s made peace with it.
She’s not so sure she has. But then again, she’s going to have to, at some point.
— —
Of course, it doesn’t go as swimmingly as she had hoped for.
People don’t talk to her first, and some glance at her as if they’re weirded out, so she sits at the last row, takes her notes about Medieval history and figures that at least no one makes fun of her out loud.
Then, two weeks into the semester, Renly and Loras show up at her place saying she has to go out, her father tells her that he thinks they’re right.
She sighs and goes out, and when they go to the usual bar she tries to keep to herself.
Until she goes to the bar and a guy sits down next to her.
“Hey,” he tells her, winking from under his red hair and beard, “you free?”
Brienne knows how it goes by now. “I’m a woman,” she sighs.
“Just so you know, I’m not blind. Now, if you’re just into ladies —” Redheaded Guy says, and Brienne is about to drop her drink.
“Uh, actually not,” she says. “I’m — sorry, it’s just, it’s happened that — people took me for one. When here. I came with a couple friends,” she stammers.
“No problem,” Redheaded Guy goes on. “Hey, some of us are into both, I was hoping you’d be, score for me if you’re willing. By the way, I’m Tormund.”
“Brienne,” she says, cautiously. She sort of can’t believe that this is happening, but — who would approach a total stranger in a bar to make fun of them? And — well. Tormund is not technically the kind of guy she usually thinks of when making good use of her vibrator, he’s a bit too burly and sadly the more it goes on the more she realizes that her type is… pretty much Renly’s, which means she has zero hopes in that sense with anyone, but he’s not… bad looking. Certainly she could do a lot worse, and he does have nice, clear blue eyes, too, and he’s smiling sincerely at her and doesn’t seem to mind that she’s taller.
Well.
She doesn’t have to date him or anything, she figures, but if he’s willing, maybe it’d be the damned time she actually scores, for once.
“Nice name,” he says. “So, you never answered my first question.”
“Let’s say I am,” she says, cautiously. Like hell she’s going to tell him she’s technically a virgin, but she does have an imagination. At worst she can say it’s been a long time. “What about that?”
He raises an eyebrow in satisfaction.
“Well, if you can’t wait, there’s a room upstairs for people who want to hook up.”
She had no idea, but good to know.
“Do you have condoms?”
“I’m not some fucking irresponsible arse.”
“Okay,” she says, surprising herself at how sure of herself she feels.
Maybe it’s the right time.
— —
Fifteen minutes later, she’s dead of embarrassment.
Good thing he seems to find their current predicament funny.
“Well,” he says, “I could ask you if you’re willing to compromise, but I wouldn’t want to because it’d be shitty of me.”
“I’m really sorry,” she blurts, putting her shirt back on. “I just — I can’t. I mean, I’d be willing, but — I don’t know if I could do that.”
Turns out, she hadn’t realized that when she fantasized about having sex with other people, it was always with her taking charge. Whoever was the other guy — Renly, Roger Taylor, whoever — she was the one jerking him off, she was the one taking him in his mouth half of the time, she was the one deciding the pace if the guy had his head in between her legs, she was the one on top —
And turns out, Tormund has the exact same preference and just thinking about being underneath another guy in a fairly vulnerable position is enough to make her run for the hills and to make her arousal die down.
“Hey,” he says, “it happens. If people aren’t compatible, they aren’t. Nothing to feel bad about.”
At least he’s not telling me I’m not womanly enough for that, too, she doesn’t say. “Thanks. Still, that was — never mind. Thanks anyway.”
“You shouldn’t be thanking me for hitting on you when I wanted to. But if you want to grab coffee sometime in a totally friendly way, I’m good with it.”
“I — I’d like that,” she answers, not lying.
They do hang out once in a while after then. For being a casual friend, he’s fairly okay.
Still, she can’t believe she found one guy who was into her, and then it turns out that she couldn’t even let him be on top.
Fuck.
She knows rationally that there’s nothing wrong about it, it’s not like it’s fucking biological, but right now it just seems the umpteenth thing about her that would make people snicker behind her and ask if she does have anything womanly about her, period, same as they did in high school.
Well.
Now if she ever wants to get laid, not even have a relationship, she has to find a guy who’s actually into her and doesn’t care about not topping during sex.
Something tells her she’d be better off giving it up now and getting a cat the moment she’s economically independent.
— —
Then, two months into the first semester, she decides that she has to make an effort, goes to the students’s union to see if there’s anything she could volunteer for and finds out that they have some free tutoring thing going on.
“If you want,” says the guy in charge, who introduces himself as Sam Tarly, “you can tell us what subjects you’d be okay with tutoring other people in, and if anyone signs up for it, we call you, set an appointment and then you can decide how many times per week you want to do it. Of course, if you have some experience teaching people with learning disorders, that would be great because they go undiagnosed.”
“Well,” Brienne tells him, “I don’t know if it qualifies for experience, but at some point I did help out with homework the kid next door who had dyslexia. I was half-assing it, admittedly, but it did work.” Pod was a nice kid, really — he moved a few years ago, but he definitely only had nice things to say to her, and he certainly didn’t think anything bad of her. She misses him sometimes.
“We have no one with that specific skillset,” Sam says, “I’ll note it down. What else?”
Brienne gives him a list and he nods, satisfied, taking her number. “I’ll call you if I have anything for you, all right?”
“Thanks,” she tells him.
She doubts this will be what changes her life, and she hates thinking that it might be another Ronnet — she knew Pod, she doesn’t know whoever they might assign her —, but she’ll have to get over it at some point.
She leaves the office feeling somewhat better for having done it, then looks in distaste at her sweater — it’s the first time in years she wears anything pink, but it was a gift from her aunt from last Christmas and today it was really cold and it was the only one she had around heavy enough. She needs to bring down the heavier ones, she decides, and she’s heading to the mess hall when suddenly two other women who should be at least master’s students move in front of her.
One of them is dark-haired, with tanned skin, dark eyes and wearing a bright red pantsuit, the other is… well. Blonde, long hair, green eyes, a generous bosom but not exceedingly so, perfectly put make-up, wearing a green dress that fits her perfectly and shows off her curves. Brienne feels a distinct pang of envy for a moment, then she silences it. Both of them have perfectly manicured nails, she notices.
“… Can I help you?” She asks when neither of them says a thing and just stares.
“Oh,” the black-haired one says, “we were just wondering if there was a reason you haven’t joined Salem yet?”
“… Excuse me?”
“Okay,” she goes on after handing Brienne a flyer, “maybe you might be in the other one, but honestly, those people are sell-outs of the worst kind and they don’t get that —”
“Wait a moment,” Brienne says after glancing at the exceedingly pink piece of paper and after reading something about the sacral duty of maternity having to be a woman’s prerogative, biology not lying and men brainwashing us into thinking we should owe them our vaginas and having guessed what kind of association this might be, “you think I’m — no.”
“What do you mean, no?” The blonde one says, and shit, she’s rarely heard someone’s tone dripping with so much acid in her entire life.
She shoves the flyer back into her hand. “I like men,” she says.
“You can’t,” Blonde One says.
“… And how would you know?”
“Oh, come on,” she says, “you look like that, you have a pink sweater, and you’re telling me you’re not a sister? No way you like dick.”
“I’m not anyone’s sister and certainly not yours,” Brienne says, “and I don’t appreciate anyone insinuating that I think I like men because I was brainwashed into it. Are you even hearing yourself? Also, since when is wearing pink a statement of whoever I’m attracted to?”
“Well, then you shouldn’t be appropriating it,” Brunette One says.
“… You know what,” she says, “if the other club you mentioned is the actual LGBT support group, I have a couple friends going there and if I was questioning myself I’d definitely go with them. I’m not appropriating shit, I actually hate pink and I’d like to leave now.”
“But darling,” Blonde One says, “looking like that, you really think men would look at you twice? You should try the other side sometimes.” She puts an arm around her friend and Brienne can’t help thinking, are they bloody faking it?
“I’m not trying out anything if I don’t think I’d like it,” she says, “and I know men don’t look at me. I made peace with it. I still like dick, thank you very much. Also, you sound like those people who says you can pick and choose who you like so people could actually choose to be straight, think about it sometimes.”
Then she bypasses them and runs out of the hallway, not minding the fact that they’re calling her traitor or something.
Christ, what now, since she doesn’t look like whatever is the stereotype for straight women, she has to be something else if people don’t assume she’s not a woman or that she hates other women or that she thinks she’s not like the others or whatever?
She needs a drink or ten.
Maybe she’ll accept Renly’s invitation for tonight.
— —
She ditches the pink sweater and opts for a less heavy blue one, it’s not like that damned club isn’t always full of people. Before she goes out, though, she gets a call from Sam.
“Hey,” he tells her, “sorry to bother you so late, I just got home and they warned me now —”
“Sam, it’s eight PM. It’s not late. What’s up?”
“They called me from the office and said that someone dyslexic actually wanted tutoring. Would you be up for it?”
“Uh, yes,” she says. “Really, whenever. Did they have any preference?”
“The guy said as soon as possible and they said that if you were fine with it tomorrow morning at ten thirty would be fine, but of course —”
“It’s all right,” she says, “I actually have tomorrow free from classes. Where do I go?”
“Oh, we have a reserved room in the library. Just come here some ten minutes before, we get you there and then whenever the other guy arrives we’re bringing him, too.”
“Okay,” she says, not knowing if she should be wary of the fact that of course she’s paired with a man again. Hopefully if he signed up he’ll just shut up and follow her advice. “See you tomorrow, then.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Sam tells her.
Well then. At least that is happening.
She leaves. She really needs a drink.
— —
“No way,” Arianne says as Brienne tells her of the two women from before, “that those two are, like, real lesbians.”
Brienne cocks an eyebrow and sips from her drink — it’s not like they’re friends, but they ran into each other when she was here with Renly and Loras and she’s pretty okay to talk to, and since she’s also kind of the boss of the women-driven area of the place she’s warned everyone that she’s the token straight friend coming with those other two and therefore saved everyone embarrassment. “Tell me more.”
“Come on,” she says, raising up one hand. Oh. Now that Brienne notices, her nails are way short and actually don’t reach the tip of the finger. “You really think any woman with some self of preservation would want manicured nails as long as you said inside her?”
Brienne tries to think about it, even if it’s not a thing she’d ever consider trying out, and three seconds later she knows she’s blanching.
“Christ,” she says, “no. But like, why would they fake it?”
“… My sweet innocent friend,” Arianne says, “you aren’t aware that some people actually fake it because they can’t admit they like dick?”
“They do what,” Brienne stammers.
“Fake it. Because women are purer and better and so even if they aren’t into them, well, doesn’t matter, you can absolutely choose to be.”
Brienne downs half of her glass. “And then I am appropriating the fucking color pink,” she groans.
“Please. They’re most likely assholes, let them have sad lives in which no one will ever want to be with them because if they don’t understand they’re fakers first, they will definitely run away at the sight of the manicure. Also, no one who says you should try it out even if you don’t want to deserves your time.”
Brienne nods, not that she hadn’t gotten that far, but it’s kind of nice to have a confirm that those two were being arses.
“Well,” she says, glancing at Loras and Renly dancing to the side, “I’ll go to the bathroom, I think. Thanks for the enlightening conversation.”
“Always glad to expand your horizons, darling. Not in that way unless you want to.”
“Thanks,” she says, “but — believe me, never mind that I don’t really feel the need, I don’t think I could go with someone who looks the way I wish I did.” She admits that with a low voice. Arianne nods in understanding, not pressing it, and Brienne heads for the bathroom, feeling like maybe four margaritas were a bad idea. Of course, the line for the girls’s bathroom is long, and damn but she really needs to go.
The line for the guys’s is nonexistent, though.
For a moment she considers it, then decides that fuck it, for once she’s just going to go there. She slips inside and no one stops her, but then again it looks empty. Only one of the doors is closed. She moves quickly inside one of the empty stalls, relieves herself, zips her jeans, walks out breathing in relief at seeing that it’s still empty and quickly washes her hands.
Then she realizes that something’s wrong behind the closed door.
She hadn’t paid attention first, but there’s noise going on behind it, and it’s not someone doing their business. She takes a step closer. It’s muffled, but —
Oh, shit. Someone’s crying behind that door. Definitely a man. And it’s muffled, but it sounds pretty bad.
For a moment, she considers hightailing out. But if whoever this is is crying inside the damned bathroom, maybe they need help, except that she shouldn’t even be here, and —
The guy makes a literally pained noise.
Well, fuck that.
“Hey,” she says, knocking, “I — are you — I mean, do you need help?”
For a moment, she hears nothing. Then the door opens and —
Well, fuck.
In front of her there’s a guy who looks like some kind of platonic ideal of her type — just slightly shorter than she is, not as broad as her but with shoulders that are still fairly large, lithe muscles, golden blonde hair (or so it seems in the bathroom’s shitty light), square face, light beard, with a pair of bright, clear green eyes that for a moment seems to glow.
Too bad that he also looks miserable, the green of his eyes is rimmed with red, is face is covered in tears and he also looks way more than tipsy.
“Fuck knows for how many things,” he slurs, “but thanks for asking. Wait,” he squints. “I didn’t go into the women’s bathroom.”
She’s about to actually weep herself at that.
“No,” she says, “but there was a line and I really needed it.”
“Huh,” he muses. “Can see why you’d figure no one would notice, but who blames you. Was a fucking long line.”
Okay, well, at least it wasn’t a bad taste remark. And he didn’t ask her if she was a man first thing.
Then he sniffs. “Uh,” he says, “fuck —”
Then he turns and throws up inside the toilet.
Brienne doesn’t know what is even possessing her here, but she kneels down and raises his head gently, holding it up over the porcelain. He’s sick again, and again, and then he groans something about being fine.
“I think,” she says, “that you could do with some fresh air. Just assessing the situation.”
“Fuck, I might,” he agrees. “I think there’s, like, a yard. Dunno. Jon said people go there to hook up.”
Brienne has no idea who Jon is, but she knows about the yard, she went through it with Tormund, so she lifts him up, puts his arm around her neck and helps him out of the bathroom, thankfully no one’s come in yet, and slips out of the hallway and towards the backdoor. The moment they step out, he lets out a relieved noise. She helps him sit down on the only bench in the small yard and is about to ask him what’s wrong.
Then his head falls on her shoulder.
What the —
“Huh,” the guys says, “you looked less comfortable.”
“… Thank you?” She answers, not quite sure of what she should be saying here.
“Hm,” he goes on, “shit, I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Can I ask what…?”
“Hey, you’ve actually seen me throw up, you can sure as hell ask. Anyway, long story short, I’m having… issues with someone. Or better, saying she treated me like shit would be putting it very mildly but no one needs to know the bloody specifics, so I was miserable, so the best friend says I need to get distracted and he and some other, uh, common friends are dragging out the one out of ‘em who’s actually into guys because they think he needs to get laid, and do I want to come with.”
He stops the rant, then shakes his head. “So I went. Might’ve drunk too much.”
“Maybe,” she says, “but it sounds like a rough week.”
“Try rough years,” he says. “Ah well. She decided she’s into women now.”
“… What?”
He shrugs minutely. “Whatever. Sounded like right bullshit, but then again half of what she says is and I’m just a damned idiot for not figuring it out sooner.” He shudders. “Fuck.”
“Hey, are you going to be sick again?”
“No,” he says, in a way smaller voice. “No, it’s fine, I think I don’t have anything left to throw up anymore. Uh, you’re here with a girlfriend or something and I’m taking your time?”
Well, at least he hasn’t assumed she has a girlfriend. “No,” she says. “I was here with the, uh, engaged male friends. But I’m not into girls.”
“Huh,” he says. “Fair enough, that was what I was doin’ here after all. But if you’ve got to be with them —”
“They’re too busy making out like pros,” she says, putting an arm around him before he falls off the bench. “Really, no one’s waiting for me.”
“Guess what, me neither,” he agrees.
“Didn’t you come with friends?”
“Well, yeah, but Jon did find that hook-up and the others left, but I was getting drinks, so I said I’d get back on my own.” He does kind of half-sob on the last word.
Then he starts sobbing again.
Shit.
Brienne, who has zero experience in consoling people and has only ever been at the receiving end of it with her father, for a moment feels totally out of her depth. Then she decides that hey, she’s never going to see him again most likely, so she turns in order to make it less awkward and more or less hugs him — if he’s not fine with it, she left him room enough to leave.
Apparently he doesn’t want to. He bursts out crying on her shoulder, again, and she just lets him do it — at some point she puts a hand at the back of his head even if she doesn’t dare touch his hair or anything like that, and keeps it there until he calms down, some.
“Hey,” she says, “maybe you want me to get you a taxi? You don’t look like you’ll go anywhere on your own and you really should sleep it off. Wait, if you’re drunk —”
“I’ve got a roommate,” Jaime says. “Actually, two. Whatever. My brother’s not even in town but the other one is and he knows better than getting drunk mid-week. Not a problem.”
“Right then.” She takes out her cellphone, calls a taxi, brings him out to the main entrance of the bar and waits with him until the taxi arrives.
“You remember the address, I suppose?” She asks as she sees it coming.
“Yeah, yeah, ma’am, I do.”
She rolls her eyes. “Good. And whoever’s your ex, don’t give her that much thought. Anyone who has to fake their sexuality to get over a breakup isn’t worth your time.”
“Huh. Wise words. Now I just hope I remember them,” he grins at her, but it’s not mocking. And then —
“Thanks,” he says as the taxi slows down. “Whoever you are, you sure as fuck were more helpful to me in the last half hour than she ever has in her entire life.”
And then he kisses her cheek and stumbles inside the taxi. It drives away at once and Brienne stands there stunned, her hand going to her cheek, wondering if she has dreamed that entire thing or not.
Most likely not, given that her shirt is wet, but — what the hell.
Well.
Fine. She did a good thing and tomorrow she has tutoring. She probably should go home as well. And if for one night a handsome guy actually didn’t sneer at her or laugh at her first thing and actually — let her help or whatever, well, she figures it’s the closest thing to her fairytale endings she used to wish she would get for herself, once upon a time when she still wore pink because she liked it.
— —
The next day, she bothers putting on an actual button-up shirt rather than her usual old band t-shirts — not that it will make the impression better, but she doesn’t want to look… like she doesn’t care, she supposes, even if it’s useless. She finds Sam, he’s only too glad to bring her to her room in the library, says that he’ll bring her student over as soon as he gets there and tells her to wait. She does, her stomach contorting with worry, a part of her whispering over and over please don’t be like the last time I did this, please don’t, until the door opens.
“And here we are,” he says, and ushers in —
Blonde Haired Hot Guy from yesterday.
The moment he notices her (and she can see he’s nursing the hangover) his clear, green eyes go wide, and hers most likely do, too, because Sam does notice.
“Uh, do you know each other?” He asks.
“Sort of,” Brienne says. “It’s fine. How long do we have?”
“The standard session is one hour,” he says, “but no one’s booked after you, today. As long as you like. Have fun!” He says, waving, and then he closes the door.
Brienne looks back at Hot Guy, whose cheeks are kind of slightly flushing now.
“Well,” he says, “this is embarrassing as hell,” he says a moment later.
“Doesn’t have to be,” she cautiously says. “I mean, you were drunk and you needed someone, it’s fine.”
“I — fine,” he says, “it’s just — never mind. Shit, I threw up in front of you and you’re saying it’s all right?”
She shrugs. “Why not? I mean, I wasn’t doing that much better. Also, you look like you’re about to fall down. Take a seat already.”
He does, nodding. “Well, fuck me, obviously I do this after years of stalling and — I guess it is somewhat amusing.”
“After years?”
He shrugs. “My father is the kind of person who thinks my kind of issue is laziness. My brother is the only close relative who doesn’t agree but he has no decisional power. My sister isn’t helping either.”
Wait, his sister? Now that she looks at him, those eyes and hair are way similar to —
“Wait a moment,” she says, “is your sister the one in the… Salem club or whatever?”
“… Yeah,” he says. “With her right hand-friend, Taena. Why?”
“… Because she might have stopped me yesterday and informed me that I must be into women because of, uh, the way I look, and if I didn’t like them it was society brainwashing me and a lot of nonsense, and a friend at the club informed me that no one with nails like hers could hope of getting laid with another woman.”
He stares at her for a moment.
Then he bursts out laughing so hard that for a moment she thinks someone will come and kick them out, but it’s not the bad kind of, and when he raises his head his eyes are sparkling green and for a moment her heart skips a beat. “That,” he says, “was the most satisfying thing I’ve heard this last month. Please tell me what you did when she told you all of that.”
“… I informed them that while I’m aware that men don’t generally find me attractive I still like dick and I’m not interested in people speaking like they approve of conversion therapy.”
He bursts out laughing again, but for some miracle it’s not directed at her.
What is going on here?
“Okay,” he says, “let’s do this from the start. I’m Jaime, I should’ve probably said it before, I’m aware that yesterday I wasn’t at my best, I actually haven’t been for a while but I guess I’m trying to get back on track, and let’s just say that not many people ever tell Cersei no and get away with it.”
“Cersei is —”
“My sister, yes. Which means you have my full admiration, at least. Also, given that yesterday you about saved my hide in there before I could do something stupid, I think that maybe you deserve me actually thanking you.”
“It’s — it’s all right,” she says, smiling tentatively. “I’m Brienne, by the way. And if it consoles you after talking to your sister for five minutes I can’t imagine how living with her for years must be, so condolences.”
He laughs again, moving a few strands of hair away from his eyes. “You know,” he says, “this is wildly surpassing my expectations.”
“… As in?”
“Well, I kind of was expecting someone who’d think I was either being lazy or downright, well, wasting my time here.”
“Why’s that?”
“Usual reaction when I say that I read like shit. There’s a reason why I’m behind with anything that’s not multiple choice tests.”
“If you didn’t do anything about your problem that’s not really surprising, but it doesn’t mean you’re wasting your time. That said…” She wonders if she should trust him out of everyone, when she’s known him for not even one hour, but — fuck’s sake, he cried on her and he kissed her cheek unprompted and now he really does look like he’s not disappointed in her being his tutor or whatever.
Fuck it.
For once she can take the leap of faith.
“I was terrified,” she says.
“Of what?”
“Of whoever came through the door, well, having issues with — me, I suppose.”
“… Why would people have issues with you?”
She shrugs. “You've seen me.”
“And so what?” He says. “I like to think I’m not so vapid I judge people on their looks, if that was your problem. And yesterday I couldn’t have cared less.”
“Well, uh, the last time I helped anyone catch up with things, they… kind of abused my trust. Let’s put it like that.”
“Brienne, not to sound pathetic, but I really would like to catch up with my damned reading and my damned finals before it ends up with me having turned thirty before I finish my bachelor’s, so I have literally zero interest in being an arse to whoever might want to help me with it. Especially if they’re the kind of person who’ll hold strangers’s heads while they throw up.”
She can’t help it — it was terrible, but she does laugh a bit at that.
“Well then,” she says, “I see this can turn out better than we both thought.”
He grins back at her, tiredly but real, those green eyes of his looking so bright with mirth, she can’t believe she put it there.
“Oh, I’m sure it might,” he answers, and he sounds like he means it.
She just hopes she put her trust in the right place.
She really does.
END CHAPTER ONE
