cowt 12 sett 5 M3: of being lost in the canadian wilderness (asoiaf, jaime/brienne, light r)

[janie_tangerine]

 “Jaime, just admit it – we’re lost.”

 

“Wench, we’re not in that drama class anymore – stop being that grumpy. We’re not. Right, we probably should have taken the right exit some twenty miles ago, but –”

 

“Jaime. It’s almost midnight. Even if we go back and take the right exit we won’t get to Hazeltown before one hour, if we don’t get lost again because it’s dark, and I’ve been driving for eight hours straight. Let’s just move on until we find the nearest exit, we can put on that precious tent of your brother’s and sleep in the woods somewhere and we head back to Hazeltown tomorrow.”

 

Jaime would like to argue just for the sake of it, but she’s right – it’s late, she’s the only one out of the two of them that can actually drive the damn car and he was the one insisting to take a detour to Hazeltown because Brienne, you can’t just not go to the place where one of the most famous bank robberies of Canadian history happened, and he can’t really complain about having to go camping.

 

Well, he’ll have to thank Tyrion for having forced him to take with his precious camping tent and his equally precious sleeping bags – leave it to his brother to be the only person named Lannister in the last couple of centuries who’d be proud to having been a fucking boy scout when he was in middle school. Jaime had definitely not planned on using them, but – they’re lost and it’s his fault, too, so whatever. He’s gone through worse.

 

“Fine, fine, just go find us a nice piece of wood then.”

 

She rolls her eyes and drives forward. Jaime takes his cell phone from his backpack with his left hand and takes a look at it. No calls, no texts.

 

Fine, nothing he hadn’t been expecting.

 

He texts Tyrion. You’ll be glad to know that we’re putting your stuff to good use.

 

A moment later, he gets an answer. Don’t you dare ruining it. PS: if anyone but me calls you and you don’t want to ruin your precious vacation, make yourself a favor and don’t answer.

 

Got it.

 

He rolls his eyes – nothing he hadn’t expected.

 

“That your brother?” Brienne asks as she slows down – there’s an exit somewhere near.

 

“Yes. He says to treat his tent well.”

 

“As if you would put it up. Anything else?”

 

“No,” he lies, but she doesn’t really need to know. He already can barely believe that they’ve been friends since late high school and that she’s stuck around even if every single relative of his but Tyrion has done everything in their power to make her life miserable, there’s no need to say out loud that this small vacation of theirs never got the Lannister seal of approval.

 

“Right. If you say so.” Clearly she doesn’t buy it, but he figures that by now she can imagine it too well. She turns on the radio as she drives out of the highway and he doesn’t even complain about it being Joni Mitchell – clearly Brienne is the kind of dork who will burn three mixtapes with a road trip playlist on them, and who will only put Canadian singers on it if she’s going on a road trip to damned Canada. And clearly, other than Rush, the only person on said playlist that doesn’t make him want to sleep after three listens is Sebastian Bach, and he knows that Brienne put some stuff of his on that darned tapes for him specifically (well, considering that when they only knew each other because they were on the football team in high school they had some ridiculously heated argument before practice about how much she detested Skid Row, it’s not that hard to put two and two together) so he can’t even say that she’s torturing him with folk music just because she can.

 

“Why, you don’t trust me?”

“Shut your mouth and try to see if there’s some camping site around here.”

 

“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.”

 

“Oh, I hate you,” she says, but she’s trying not to laugh so she obviously doesn’t mean it.

 

He’s about to answer, but then his damned phone rings – it’s Cersei.

 

He’s seriously tempted to decline the call, but Brienne has stopped the car before he can press the red button. He shakes his head and figures that he should just get on with it – he fumbles to open the door with his left hand and trying not to make his cellphone fall from his knees. Shit, it’s been three years since that fucking car wreck and he’s still not adjusted to do everything with his left hand, and fine, maybe he should have worn the stupid prosthesis, but he hates it and Brienne is the one person other than his brother who doesn’t bat an eyelid if he doesn’t put it on when she’s around.

 

Finally he manages to stumble out of the car and answers the call – and fuck, who told Tyrion to put that fucking Mozart ringtone? He was perfectly fine with the phone just ringing.

 

“What do you want?” he asks without preambles. He’s not in the mood for an argument and he knows that she hasn’t called to check on him.

 

“You need to come home.” She doesn’t sound happy with him at all.

 

“Right. Did something happen?”

 

“No. But it’s ridiculous that you’re in Canada with that – with that – with her. Dad booked you an appointment in three days with –”

 

“Cersei, how many times I told the both of you that I’m not going to work for any of his friends? I already have an appointment for a TA position when I’m back. I’m not coming back for some interview. I haven’t been on a vacation since Mom died and I’m damn well going to go through with it.”

 

“Wait. You want to be Arthur Dayne’s TA?”

 

“What part of ‘I didn’t major in Medieval History just because I wanted to piss Dad off’ did you miss? I’m not coming back before I’m done here. Now, is that everything you had to tell me?”

 

“What else should I want to tell you? You’re being unreasonable and you know it.”

 

“Save it,” he sighs before shutting the phone in her face and turning it off.

 

He feels mildly guilty, but he’s also done with this. If his sister can’t accept that he can take his own life decisions it’s not his fucking fault, not to mention that he really does not want to keep on with the family business. He can’t think of anything more boring than running his father’s multi-purpose company – he had wanted to play football, damn it. Sadly you can’t do that without a right hand, fine, but then doesn’t he have a right to just do what the hell he wants? If it’s teaching Medieval history then it’s not Cersei’s fucking business.

 

“Everything all right?”

 

He startles when Brienne walks up behind him and puts a hand on his arm – she looks mildly concerned. And slightly guilty. Then again she had been the one convincing him to just do what he wanted and to switch from economics to history three years ago, so maybe that’s why.

 

“My sister being herself, nothing to worry about and nothing I didn’t already know.”

 

“Right. Sure. Listen, there are no camping sites visible and there’s enough space to leave the car here – let’s just find a spot and put on the tent there.”

 

“Woah, woah, did you just suggest that we do something illegal?”

 

She rolls his eyes. “As if. You can pay the fine, in case they catch us.”

 

Well, at least after… almost seven years of knowing each other he did manage to infect her with some sense of humor. The girl on the football team in high school would have slept on the car rather than do something illegal.

 

“Fine. Let’s just grab the fucking tent.”

 

--

 

The thing is, he reminisces as he hands Brienne the tent pieces without trying to help her – she seems to know what she’s doing and he’d only make it more complicated – is that not even the two of them would have ever thought that they’d end up lost in Canadian woods when they met at sixteen. He used to be the kind of kid who could be the most popular person in school if only he bothered – good looking, good at football and he always had good grades even if he never put much effort in it, as he hadn’t put any effort in cultivating popularity the way Cersei did. He never gave a shit either way, he definitely couldn’t care less for having a storm of fake friends following him around just to get invited to his parties, and it all seemed just a ridiculous amount of work. He was happy hanging with his siblings and being good at football, thank you.

 

Brienne had transferred into his school when she was sixteen (on some kind of scholarship because it would have been way too expensive otherwise), and she would have been the kind of kid who only got endless woes because she actually put effort to get her top-notch grades, wore second-hand clothes and was also nowhere near attractive. She isn’t even now, for that matter – she’s as slightly taller than him and she was a lot taller than him for that first year – small breasts, huge shoulders, her nose had been visibly broken once, her straw-blonde hair was never her finest feature and she also has crooked teeth (she had confessed to him once that it was because they could never afford dentists when she was growing up). The only thing she has going for her are lovely, huge blue eyes that definitely weren’t enough to turn her into an attractive woman. But no one bothered her much after she enrolled in the football team. Then she had punched some asshole outside school ground who had pretended to ask her out on a date for a bet with his friends. The asshole had ended up to the hospital with an almost broken nose and she had been left mostly alone since then.

 

At the beginning, they hadn’t really liked each other much – Cersei and her circle of friends were the reasons she was left mostly alone and he used to tease her just to rile her up during practice, even if after he had seen that she was good at football he had at least grown some respect for her.

 

Then he needed extra credits and he had enrolled in the drama club because it was the option requiring less extra hours spent at school. And she was there, as well. Then it happened that the play for the year was Much Ado about Nothing and they both had been horrified when they were cast for Benedick and Beatrice – Cersei had teased him for months. But that had forced them to spend time together, including small rehearsals between the two of them at her house (because he knew that if she had come over to his it would have just created problems), during which he had found out that she wasn’t half as boring as she seemed, that they liked the same football team, that her favorite subject was history as well and that she could cook some mean chili.

 

He’s still not sure of how it went from finding out that her favorite movie was Alien, same as him, to actually having fun while going through their lines to the two of them going together to see Scream together (Cersei hated horror movies and Tyrion thought they were the height of boredom, and he didn’t really know who else he would ask).

 

At some point after he started spending recess with her so that he could explain her calculus and she could explain him philosophy, and when it had been clear that the both of them weren’t seeing each other out of sheer necessity anymore, the shitstorm had started. Mostly from his father – what was he thinking, being friends with her when he could do a lot better, and everyone but Tyrion following in his footsteps, but – Jaime never really gave a shit. He liked spending time with her, she obviously did the same and he really didn’t care about her looks or her secondhand clothes. It had escalated until one evening in the last year – while, admittedly, having drank two beers each – she had started complaining about every last girl she knew in school only discussing fucking prom, and he had chimed in saying that he couldn’t hear people asking him who was the lucky girl he was going to ask because he really couldn’t have cared less. He thinks he was the first proposing to go together not dressed for the occasion just to fuck with people, and he had been surprised when she had agreed – Brienne never really liked being in the spotlight, not even during football games, but she had told him that since she was done with school she might as well do it. So they had gone to prom wearing old jeans and Nirvana t-shirts and they had spent it snickering at everyone else. Jaime still thinks that it had been glorious. They even arrived in second for prom king and queen, which had made him laugh hard enough to cry (and Brienne as well).

 

Then the following year he hadn’t seen her as much as he would have liked – they attended the same university, but she had taken history and he had caved under his father’s pressure and went for economics. Which he couldn’t help finding fucking boring. On top of that, all the supposed friends he had around at college were somehow related to his father’s associates, and while Jaime never liked any of them, he knew better than to refuse hanging out with them on Saturday evening (even if he’d have rather gone to Brienne’s dorm room to discuss the NFL results). That rather sorry part of his life had been over when he ended up in a car wreck with his aforementioned friends that he never really liked – he hadn’t even been that drunk in the first place so he could have driven himself, but clearly fucking Petyr Frey had insisted to drive and had managed to smash the car against a guardrail as they drove back to the campus.

 

At least he hadn’t killed someone else in the process, but while him and the other two idiots inside the car had gotten out of it with minor injuries, he had been in the passenger’s seat with his hand on the lowered windowsill and had suffered the worst of the impact, not to mention a piece of metal almost cutting through his wrist.

 

When he woke up in a hospital room, his right hand had been amputated and his brother had been sitting at his bedside looking uttermost sorry for him. It had ended with Frey’s father settling with Jaime’s without pressing charges – Jaime hadn’t been too happy to hear about the large sum of money now sitting in his personal account, mostly because no one bothered to ask him if he wanted to press charges.

 

In all of this, Brienne had been the only person not related to him who visited as soon as she was allowed to. She had showed up the first day she could with a piece of pie, some books to leave there and looking relieved that he was alive at all, and then she had come back every two days or so. Jaime still remembers sort of fondly one time when she found Cersei outside the door and argued her way in. It was during one of those times that he told her that he was thinking about quitting economics and she told him that they could have used more people in history classes. In the end he never regretted doing it – he finally could spend his Saturdays discussing football or commiserating with Brienne about the fourth Alien movie not being half as good as any of the previous three, he was doing something he liked and Brienne’s friends might all be there on scolarships but they all were definitely nicer to hang out with than his previous ones. Not to mention that when your thesis advisor, who by the way is an authority on the subject of the institution of knighthood through the Middle Ages, tells you that your thesis is in fact the best he’s seen in the last ten years and that he’d be more than happy to offer you a TA contract, well, you are allowed to feel happy with your choices.

 

So they had graduated the same day and had gone to get a drink in the evening, and at some point Jaime had spilled the only thing he sort of had regrets about.

 

“You know,” he had said, “I just wish I could have done the damned road trip.”

 

“The what?”

 

“Nothing. My sister and I, we always used to say that after graduating we’d take two months off and drive somewhere. I thought Canada, she said Mexico, but I suppose I could have settled for it.”

 

“And why shouldn’t you do it?”

 

“I asked and she asked me how we were exactly going to do it if I couldn’t drive.” That had been a sore subject – Jaime was perfectly aware that in theory he could have managed, with an automatic shift and enough exercising, but he really, really hates the damn fake hand he has to wear when necessary and he never bothered to re-learn. “And anyway we have no time for stupid vacations.”

 

“I always thought it’d be nice to do something like that,” she replies quietly. “But – well. It’s not like I have a car.” Right. She had a license but she never bothered getting her own, and she obviously couldn’t borrow her father’s for two months.

 

And that was when Jaime decided that the problem could be solved. “What about… you drive my car? I haven’t used it in years but it should still be good.”

 

“Wait. You mean – you and me going to Canada for two months?”

 

“If you don’t mind being the only one who drives. But yeah, why the hell not? You want to do it, I want to do it, I have a car, you can drive and the contract Dayne’s offering me would start in September anyway.”

 

“I’m not so sure I could endure being alone with you for two months,” she replies, but she’s not even bothering to sound serious.

 

“Tarth, I’m wounded. So you would refuse a poor cripple’s request?”

 

“Well, Lannister, if you put it like that sure, I would be delighted to drive you to Canada. Is that better?”

 

“That’s how I like you, wench.”

 

“Will you ever get over that? Whoever showed you that list of insults Shakespeare used while we were in drama club should rot in hell.”

 

“Stop pretending that you don’t like it.”

 

She had thrown some of her fries at his face and that’s how they’re currently lost in the Canadian woods mounting a tent in a small clearing not far from the car and the highway.

 

Not that it’s been bad until now – they’ve been on the road for two weeks and other than being sick of Neil Young showing up on Brienne’s playlists every three songs or so, there’s nothing that he can complain about. They managed to always find decent places to sleep, Brienne doesn’t make him feel like a burden because he’s not driving and they actually never got lost until now, so everything’s been great all things considered.

 

“All right,” Brienne says as she finishes fixing the tarp. “It should work. Damn, it’s small, though.”

 

“Hey, my brother used that when he was eleven, what did you expect?”

 

“Right, right. Get the bags inside instead of staying there and waiting for me to do all the work, Lannister.”

 

“As if,” he huffs before dragging the bags inside – damn, it’s getting chilly outside. Well. It’s one in the morning and they’re in Canada – it might be July, but still. “Don’t you think we could have a fire, though?”

 

“Jaime, I might have suggested that we do something illegal, but that doesn’t mean I want the forestal guards to find out about it.”

 

“… right. Fine. Let’s get on with it.”

 

When he’s done, there’s barely enough space for the two of them and their duffel bags with their cash and basic necessities in it – they left the majority of the clothes in the car, but he’s not going to risk getting stranded in a Canadian wood without money. Not that any sane thief would pass by here, but you never know.

 

She leaves the tent muttering that men have a lot of fucking advantage when having to sleep in the woods. He figures he should as well attend to the same business while she’s at it – he pisses against a tree before going back inside the tent. It takes her a bit more to come back – he’s already in the sleeping bag by the time she crawls inside.

 

“You’re unfairly advantaged,” she repeats as she gets into the bag.

 

“Sorry if the only womanly part of you is useless, Tarth.”

 

“You think you’re so funny,” she snorts, but she hasn’t fallen for that particular teasing since the drama club times.

 

“You love it.”

 

“You wish. Go to sleep and shut your mouth.”

 

He could keep this going, but he’s too tired to do it, and he figures that he’ll just go to sleep and let her win it.

 

--

 

And then he wakes up when he hears roaring outside the tent.

 

“What the fuck –” He starts, and then Brienne’s hand is on his mouth, covering it.

 

“For the love of – I don’t know what, please don’t shout,” she whispers, and then there’s roaring outside again.

 

“The hell is going on?” He whispers through gritted teeth.

 

“There’s a bear outside,” she replies, curling closer to him, not that the tent leaves much space.

 

“A what?”

 

“A bear, showed up a few minutes ago and I’m doing the one thing I remember from the damned girl scouts training before I gave up on it.”

 

“And what did the training say?”

 

“That we should stay still and don’t move and hope it doesn’t smell us or come too close, which he will if we start moving or kicking or whatnot, so please don’t, like, do anything and just hope he decides we’re not food.”

 

“We don’t have a chance if --”

 

“Just don’t talk,” she whispers, putting a hand over his mouth again and curling against him just as the bear roars again and passes closer to the tent. Fuck. It’s on the other side, so he can see the shadow over Brienne’s shoulder – no way any of them would have a chance in hell of doing anything but getting mauled the moment it found out they’re alive and there, and since he’d rather not become a bear snack just when he was having a damned vacation with someone he likes, he nods, closes his eyes and lets himself press against Brienne and fuck she’s so warm he could burn with it, and it’s a damned pity that he’s been wanting to do this for ages but this is the first time in years that they actually had a chance to be this close, and –

 

And then he realizes that if that stupid bear smells them and decides they can be his midnight snack, he’ll die without having done the one thing he’s wanted to for years when it came to Brienne Tarth, and –

 

Fuck that, he thinks, and he moves back slightly, her hand falling from his mouth.

 

“Sorry,” he whispers, as low as he can, “but if it goes badly, I want to do this first,” and then he leans forward and puts his mouth on hers and kisses her right there while that damned bear is outside the tent stalking the ground and roaring again, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to push him away but she kisses him back, her tongue sliding into his throat just as she presses him closer and at this point he doesn’t even care about the bear, not when Brienne is kissing him, and –

 

He closes his eyes, stops fucking caring, and groans into her mouth, once, twice, thrice –

 

He doesn’t realize the bear fucked off into the woods until he parts for breath and he feels like his face is on fire.

 

“Did… did it leave?” He asks, panting.

 

“It seems so,” Brienne whispers, and, “wait, did you do that because –”

 

“Because I’ve been wanting to kiss you for years and I realized that if we got mauled then I would have lost my only chance, and you kissed me back, didn’t you?”

 

“Guess what,” she sighs, “I thought the same but I couldn’t bring myself to.”

 

He grins, moving closer. “Then,” he says, “since the bear is gone, maybe if we are very quiet we could see what else we have been wanting to do for such a long time.”

 

“Oh,” she says, a hand going to his sleeping bag, and then she’s cupping his dick through his trousers oh fuck, “like this?”

 

“Fuck,” he groans, “yes,” and then her mouth is on his and her fingers are around his cock and he doesn’t even dare being too noisy, and kisses her back again, and again, and again.

 

If they ruin the sleeping bags, he can just pay Tyrion back for them later.

 

– –

 

“Fuck,” he sighs the next morning, “it did eat all the food we had outside.”

 

“Well,” Brienne says, her face flushed and her lips kiss-swollen the way they always are after you spend a whole night fucking in the good way, “then I guess we can try to have breakfast in Hazeltown? If you don’t read the map wrong, again.”

 

“Now that would be lovely,” he grins, “even if I did have some good breakfast this morning.”

 

She flushes – well. Considering he woke her up with his mouth on her, that was definitely good as far as he was concerned.

 

“Get on the damned car,” she shakes her head. “We can find the diner and a motel and take a look around and talk, but not here. Imagine if the bear comes back.”

 

“… Fuck, no,” he wheezes, letting himself grin a bit wider as he gets into the car and waits for Brienne to come to the driver’s sea, put on her sad Joni Mitchell songs and drive off.

 

Oh, yes, this is absolutely the best idea he’s ever had, even if after this like hell they’re ever camping out in the open.

 

But if they’re near some kind of natural park and that bear lived there… well, no one stops him from sending them a donation when he comes back home.

 

 

 

End.