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janie_tangerine“She said what?” Brienne almost shouts over the phone as she tries push the extra-heavy cart in front of her — she had figured that she’d buy a lot of groceries since they’re about to end up quarantined for who knows how long, and she had been this close to the check-out when Jaime had called in a hurry.
“Yeah, I know, I know, which is why I kind of did an emergency intervention and now — shit, sorry I didn’t warn, but — I have all three cats in the back of the car.”
Brienne sighs, not even getting angry at it — if Cersei told her poor kid that she was going to leave the cats out to starve because his menace of a brother kept complaining they’d pass the virus along regardless of how it’s been proved fake news for days at this point, of course Tommen called at once and of course Jaime rushed out. Also, they’re lovely cats. It’s not like having them around would be that much of a problem.
“Let me guess,” she says, “I have to go buy them food.”
“Well, er, he was in time to hand me the litter boxes and all, but then they were apparently coming back from shopping rounds, too, and I’m not supposed to even go there, imagine that, so —”
“Well, it’s everyone’s luck I hadn’t checked out yet,” she says. “I’ll throw in the cat food. Just drive safely.”
“Oh, shouldn’t be a problem. They’re in their respective carriers and they’re all scared to death, I think.”
Brienne can absolutely believe that.
She closes the call, turns the cart around and hopes that the ton of cat food she has to get won’t be what breaks it.
— —
“Look at them,” Brienne says a while later, as all three black cats eat from their respective bowls in what feels like terrified silence, “they’re cute.”
“I know,” Jaime sighs. “Except that he was terrified she’d really leave them to die. Admittedly, she never liked cats. Or pets in general, for that matter. And from the way he talks, his brother can’t wait to try and drown them.”
Brienne shudders in horror as she puts down her glass of water. Fine, they might be in a tiny two-room apartment, but how bad can it be? It’s cats, fuck’s sake, they’re well-behaved and she doubts they can do anything more than trying to scratch around, and their furniture is all old.
“That kid has issues.”
“Don’t I know that,” Jaime says, bitterly, and she drops the topic because it’s not like he seems like he wants to talk about it now and it wouldn’t bring anywhere at this point.
She goes to get tea for the both of them and when she turns back to their tiny kitchen table one of the cats has jumped on Jaime’s leg and he’s running his hands through the soft black fur with a small smile on his lips.
“Which one is that?”
“Miss Whiskers,” he smiles.
“Oh, of course the only girl of that bunch jumps on you. Should I feel jealous?”
“As if. Nothing could compare to such a lady,” he snorts, not even able to say it straight.
Brienne laughs along and drinks her tea.
At least they will have company for the next month or how long this quarantine is going to last.
— —
“Jaime?”
“What — wait, oh, is that —”
“I think two of them,” she yawns as she notices that two of the cats are now sleeping in between the two of them, on top of the covers.
“How did they even sneak in?” He mutters, running his hand through the nearest one’s fur. “Right. This one is Boots. The other’s Miss Whiskers. Guess she likes you too, at the end of it.”
“A true equal opportunist,” Brienne snorts, and she decides that it’s nice and she’s not kicking them out of the bed.
— —
Three days later the third cat joins them.
“Good grief,” Jaime groans, “now even Sir Pounce got up with the program? Did the other two say we were comfortable or what?”
“Come on,” Brienne says, petting the closest one, “I think it’s adorable.”
“Yeah, I also would like not to have them in the way of our morning fuck.”
“I think they will get the hint,” she smiles before trying to get some more sleep.
— —
Turns out: they do get the hint as far as not being on the bed counts.
They don’t when it comes to not being in the room counts, but if the choice is getting out of the mood to make sure they leave and worrying about Jaime moving under the covers and slipping off her underwear, well, Brienne would like to think she has her priorities straight.
But they’re never telling Tommen that his cats spent the entire time watching the two of them go at it for a good half hour — after all, they don’t have to go to work, so why hurrying it up?
— —
“I think Sir Pounce jumped on the counter and ate my fish,” Jaime sighs a few days later.
“I hope you don’t plan to reiterate by eating his food.”
He makes a gagging noise. “Please, I have standards. And probably Sir Pounce has them, too, if he ignores that smell from the cat food. Because it’s fucking disgusting.”
Brienne can’t disagree on that.
She supposes that at the next grocery run she can get some more tuna.
And she can throw away the old shirt Miss Whiskers ripped to shreds the other day out of what was most likely boredom.
— —
“Tommen says that if they sleep with us is a very good thing. Because they usually sleep with him and don’t go near strangers. Well, they don’t go near anyone but him and Myrcella, so we should be delighted of it.”
“Who says,” Brienne says as she stirs the pasta she’s trying to cook while Sir Pounce perches on her shoulder, “that I’m not delighted? As long as this one here doesn’t decide to commit suicide by jumping into boiling water when he can’t even eat this.”
Jaime stands and gets him off her. “See, now I even saved the poor thing.”
“Hilarious,” Brienne winks, “now if you keep the others off me that’d be great. Maybe you could feed them their food. Not the tuna. We are finishing the food I bought on the first day.”
“Got it, boss. Come on, let’s go eat your shitty cat food,” he sighs, and if she’s smiling when he can’t see her… well, can you blame her?
— —
“She hasn’t said that,” Brienne blurts as soon as she hears Cersei speak on some idiotic tv show they invited her to (without an audience, of course) where she was discussing how to care for your pets during these tiring times of quarantine.
Now, never mind that she doesn’t understand how Cersei is that kind of tv personality when she’s pretty sure the only good advice she has to give on anything is using make-up, but she supposes it’s because she’s… well. A famous person and apparently being on gossip magazines means you’re a universal expert in various topics and so on.
But now she just said that if your pets go outside you should use fucking diluted bleach on them, and she thinks of those poor things now huddled all over Jaime on the couch getting their paws getting cleaned with bleach, and suddenly she knows that the moment she sees Tommen after this quarantine is over she is telling him she absolutely understands why he doesn’t want the cats anywhere near his mother or his brother.
“She… has, I guess,” Jaime mutters, obviously not appreciating it either. He’s holding on to Ser Pounce a bit tighter than usual. “Gods, bleach, where the hell did she get that from, Joffrey’s fake news?”
“Yes,” Brienne says, “and since they’re airing tweets in reply to their guest’s opinions, I think I need to dust off my account.”
“Brienne, you used it once,” Jaime says.
“Well, it’s time I use it again,” she says, and she feels absolutely in control and not at all angry as she logs in — thankfully she remembered the password — and types, without even checking twice, the moment this quarantine is over and I see you again it’s the time I will shove you a bottle of diluted bleach where the sun doesn’t shine if you don’t stop spreading this bullshit, and then hits send.
The tweet shows up on screen ten seconds later and then is immediately censored, but Brienne has noticed Cersei’s disgusted face the moment she saw it.
How terrible, she thinks, putting the phone down.
“What?” She asks when she realizes that Jaime has been staring at her and is still staring at her without saying a word. “As if I haven’t thought she deserves bleach where the sun doesn’t shine since the first time I met her and I realized that you had entirely good reasons behind your not insignificant number of issues, I just thought this was too much and people should know before listening to her bullshit.”
At that, Jaime stands up, delicately letting the cats move from his legs, and then —
“That was the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, and then he’s kissing her, and —
Well.
If the cats have the full show because they don’t leave the couch while Cersei most likely talks shit about her on television, who cares.
Right now she can only think about kissing Jaime harder.
And she is absolutely giving Cersei a piece of her mind the moment they’re able to leave the house.
End.
