.

.

Jaime backed up, away from his sister, until he felt the wall at his back. Even hiding at Bronn's dorm hadn't worked; Cersei was relentless when it came to what she wanted. And what she wanted was her twin's undivided attention for all time, no matter who she dated, fucked, or got engaged to.

"Listen, Cersei—" he began, figuring he'd give her one more chance to leave him alone before he extricated himself from the cage of her arms and fled. He'd considered transferring to another college, possibly one in Essos, to get away from her, but dismissed the idea as too extreme.

Not any longer.

Had Jaime truly found her alluring, once? Had he truly loved her? Had he really believed she'd loved him? Gods, he was a fool, and she was far more lion-like than it was healthy for any human to be: lacking mercy, a conscience, and any ability to genuinely care for another person. There was a flatness to her eyes, a native malice, that had come to frighten him increasingly as the years passed and her behavior grew ever more imperious, erratic, unrooted in reality.

"No, you listen," she hissed. "If you think I'm going to just accept your decision— you don't get to make decisions. You're too stupid to make decisions. You're lucky I let you pick out your own clothes every morning. You're lucky I let you anywhere near me with that—"

Cersei paused, shuddering in disgust at the tiny glimpse she permitted herself of his prosthesis, eyes shut tight for a moment as she inhaled deeply, gathering herself.

"If you think I'll let you walk away from me, you're even stupider than I already think you are." She raked her eyes, identical to his own, over him with seething contempt. "Bad enough you're a cripple, but—"

thud

A blur of brown and yellow dropped from the sky and landed directly on Cersei's head.

"Aieeeeee!" she screamed, as if she were being murdered, hands coming up to ward off any other projectiles that might come her way.

The object, having bounced off her noggin, fell to the ground. Bemused, Jaime bent and picked it up. Advanced Organic Chemistry, read the cover. It was tattered and possibly a few editions out of date, but for the purpose of assault-and-battery, it served its purpose well. Bonus: Cersei had fallen silent. Jaime loved that book.

"Oops," said a voice from above, and he craned his head skyward to find they'd been standing below one of the dorm balconies. Bent over the railing, looking down, was a very weird-looking girl. Her features were all over the place in terms of shape as well as position. She put him in mind of a Picasso he'd seen once. But wow, those eyes…

"Dropped my book," she continued. "Toss it back up?"

"Uh," said Jaime intelligently. "Sure." And up he threw the book, awkwardly since it was his left hand, and its trajectory was less-than-ideal.

She caught it anyway, one long, freckled arm stretching out to grasp it in mid-air.

"Will you be okay?" she asked him.

"Don't you mean 'will she be okay'?" Jaime fired back. Cersei still just stood there, looking shocked that such a thing could possibly have happened to her— she was usually the one making people feel as if they'd suffered a head trauma, not the other way around. She still blessedly quiet, too, to the relief of his aching temples.

"Nope," the girl replied. "I meant you."

He just… blinked at her, confused, and then he wasn't: she had dropped that book on purpose. She'd heard everything Cersei had said and taken action to interrupt it.

Then he was confused again; most of the time, when his sister or, more rarely, his father decided to take him to task in front of others, those others looked away and pretended it wasn't happening. On occasion, if he truly had been a dolt, they'd agree, tell him to be more careful, to do better next time.

If this girl wasn't doing either of those, that meant that—

"Gross that she treats you like that," the girl was telling him. "I beat the crap out of the last guy who spoke to me like that." She paused. "Though I guess you can't beat her up."

"No," said Jaime, numbly. What was happening? It almost seemed as if this girl was telling him Cersei was being unreasonable, that her words were cruel instead of justified, that he might not actually be as useless as everyone seemed to think now that he'd lost his hand.

"Who are you?" he asked in wonder. She wasn't in any of his classes, that was for sure. He'd remember someone so… so… so everything. She seemed to be everything, all at once.

"Brienne," she replied, flashing him a smile that displayed an appalling snarl of teeth that still managed, somehow, to be… charming. It was the shyness of it, he decided. She smiled at him tentatively, as if she were waiting for the same reaction from him that Cersei would have given her, scorn and derision in equal measure.

"Jaime," he told her, pointing to himself, as if she couldn't figure out which of them he meant, and almost rolled his eyes at his own idiocy when he realized what he'd done.

"Good luck with her," Brienne said, nodding at where Cersei continued to stand, weirdly placid.

"I'll need it," he muttered, but flashed her an answering grin as he took his sister's arm and began leading her away from the dorm, toward his car.

"Who was that?" Cersei muttered, rubbing at her forehead with a dainty, manicured hand. Brienne's hand was neither dainty nor manicured; it was a huge, capable paw. It had dropped a book on Cersei in his defense. He was still marveling over it.

"Just a girl," Jaime replied, but no, Brienne wasn't just anything.

He dropped her off at the apartment she shared with one of her minions, Taena, before hastening back to his own place. He was unsurprised to find his brother there, halfway to blitzed despite being only fifteen.

But a drunk Tyrion was a subdued Tyrion, and Jaime tucked a blanket over his brother's sprawled-out form and pulled out a textbook of his own— though considerably smaller and lighter than Brienne's weapon of choice.

It wasn't long, however, before he realized that he'd left off studying and begun doodling idly in the book's margin. Not even the usual doodles of curlicues and swirls— a poem. A ludicrous poem. Not even a poem, really. Nothing rhymed.

roses are red

you dropped a book on my sister

i have nothing else to say

that was just awesome

Jaime hadn't intended to follow Brienne. It just seemed like wherever he happened to be, at a given moment, there she was as well. He didn't mind passing her in the hallway three times a day, or looking up from lunch at the dining hall to find her seated at the next table over, or plucking a book from a library shelf and seeing her through the shelf, in the next aisle. Those were all just happy coincidences, as far as he was concerned.

What he was overhearing now, though, was nowhere near happy.

"I shouldn't be saying this," said a man in a smarmy, confiding tone, "but… there's a bet."

"A bet?" Brienne sounded confused and bored at the same time. "Hyle, we really need to get moving on this project, it counts for half our grade—"

They'd been sitting on the other end of the row of carrels, bent over something-or-other. She'd been both trying to motivate the guy— Hyle, apparently— to work, and fending off his wandering hand for at least an hour. He'd been alternating between huffs of frustration and smirks that would not have been out of place on Cersei's face. It had given Jaime an unpleasant feeling— a gross feeling— in the pit of his stomach, and he was starting to understand why. Bets were rarely made for benevolent reasons.

"A bet on who could convince you to give it up," Hyle clarified.

Brienne went still. "It?"

"You know," Hyle said, his tone leading, implying something that she clearly was not cottoning onto. "It." When she just stared blankly at him, he huffed yet again and said, with a roll of the eyes, "Your virginity."

She blinked rapidly for a full ten seconds, her face undergoing truly magnificent contortions as its expressions flitted from confusion to shock to hurt to anger.

"I'm telling you because I thought, if you went along with me, I'd split half the pot with you. It's gotta be at least a thousand dragons by now." He nudged her with a jocular elbow. "You can't tell me 500 dragons wouldn't be welcome, scholarship kid like you."

Jaime leaped up, at that, intent on mayhem. He might not be as handy in a fight with his left hand has he'd been with his right, but he still had both feet and, if it came down to it, his skull. He'd gladly head-butt that asshole into another dimension.

No need, however; Brienne was doing it for him. She hadn't lied about beating the crap out of the last guy who'd been rude to her; her punch sent Hyle sailing through the library so hard that even when he hit the ground, he kept sliding along the worn linoleum a few more feet.

Brienne looked up, then, and saw Jaime, and for a moment, humiliation flashed over her homely countenance. But maybe she saw his anger, his outrage and sympathy, because it melted away and she nodded, then gathered her things together and left.

"Wow," said Hyle as he picked himself up off the floor. He flexed his jaw, prodded at his cheekbone, rolled his shoulders. "Some girls are so sensitive, aren't—"

Jaime's punch might not have sent him skidding along the floor, but it did make blood geyser from his nose in a very satisfying arc.

roses are red

hyle's a douche

i'm going to kick his ass

and punch out his tooth

It took a bit of fancy footwork— and an exorbitant bribe to Bronn, who had friends in low places— but Jaime soon discovered who the ring leader of the betting pool was. 'Red' Ronnet Connington was a stocky ginger with a fleshy, petulant face so full of freckles that his skin looked to be a mottled tan color rather than the fish-belly white that showed through the pigmentation on his arms and neck.

This is the guy who thinks he's so above Brienne that he can bet on her? Jaime thought, incredulous. Assholes in glass houses shouldn't throw stones; he'd expected someone of at least middling looks and appeal, not this pasty loser. His neckbeard looked like his pubes had migrated northward until they'd been defeated by the insurmountable hill of his double chin.

"At least most females are good for sex," Ronnet was holding forth to his companions, all of whom shared his deplorable taste in grooming, choice of My Little Pony t-shirts, and vaguely potato-like shape. He slowly, grudgingly, handed over money to each of them, his reluctance to return their bets clear. "That freak wasn't even good enough for that."

"You know what to do, right?" Jaime murmured to Bronn, whose low-placed friends were helpfully going to wipe the floor with those assholes out of strongly developed senses of altruism and also because said assholes were each carrying at least a hundred dragons on them.

"Yep," said Bronn, and with a hand motion, gestured for his pals to get started.

roses are red

ronnet's a dead man

i'm going to stuff him

into a trash can

Jaime tossed the bottle of painkillers at his brother; Tyrion only just managed to catch them in his hand, instead of his face.

"You're lucky I don't toss the water at you, too," he grumbled, handing the cold glass to Tyrion instead. "Stop getting so drunk all the time. Or stop coming here when you're drunk. Either one."

"You're worse than Father," Tyrion complained, to which Jaime reacted with horror.

"Those are fighting words, you little shit—" He was interrupted before his tirade could really take off by the peal of the phone. Cersei, read the called ID. Jaime yearned to let it go to voice mail but he hadn't heard from his sister in weeks and was genuinely curious as to what had distracted her from him for so long.

"You have to come over," Taena insisted when he answered and put it on speaker so his brother could hear as well. Her shrill voice bounced off the living room walls and made Tyrion wince. "Cersei's been acting… well, she's not herself."

"Vague, but considering who we're talking about, literally anyone else would be an improvement," quipped Tyrion.

"No, you don't understand," said Taena. "Cersei… she's being… nice."

The brothers exchanged a glance, and then Tyrion asked, "How hard did you say that book hit her, again?"

So they went to Cersei's apartment, and lo, she greeted them with a sweet smile and warm hugs— for Tyrion, too.

"How are things with your girlfriend?" she asked him. "Tysha, isn't it? She's so pretty, and seems to really like you."

He was so weirded out that he began openly swigging from a flask of Arryn Peak bourbon he'd managed to secret on himself somewhere.

Next she inquired how they were doing with their studies, and if she could help them with any of their subjects.

"I know you sometimes have trouble, Jaime, that dyslexia," was said with a sympathetic glance and apologetic tone, as if she were reluctant and sorry to mention the topic when usually she'd be reminding him about it with the sort of malevolent glee one usually reserved for one's most despised enemies.

Jaime accepted the flask Tyrion held out to him and took a deep gulp.

"We'd better call Father," he said hoarsely.

roses are red

your eyes are blue

you are far too

good to be true

"But… that's horrible!" said Brienne, upon learning of Cersei's personality transplant thanks, apparently to her 'tragic clumsiness' with her org. chem. book. She stood up and started randomly packing things into her messenger bag. "I have to— I have to—"

"You have to stop stuffing my books into your bag, first of all," said Jaime. "Secondly, you have to calm down and listen to what I am saying."

She took a deep breath and sat back down. The student lounge in the rec center was hardly the most discreet place for a discussion of this sort, except that everyone in it was so absorbed in their own lives that they were hardly paying attention to anything Jaime or Brienne might be saying.

"I don't know how long it'll last— hopefully forever— but whatever you knocked loose in Cersei's head, it's terrific. Wonderful. The best possible outcome."

Jaime felt light as a feather. The heinous termagant his sister had been was replaced by a soft-spoken, warm-natured, loving girl who scared the shit out of everyone who had known the old her. Eggshells were walked upon as all and sundry waited for the situation to reverse itself, but as the days passed and she continued to be loving, sweet, kind, and gentle, tight-wound shoulders relaxed and people felt free to walk normally, instead of on the tiptoes as they were accustomed.

As for Jaime, he felt as if he'd been paroled. The queen had been dethroned by a knight with shining textbook. Cersei was gone; long live Cersei.

"Did you aim at a certain part of her skull?" he continued, unable to keep the gleeful eagerness from his voice. He wanted to know exactly where to aim, if she did revert to her usual, awful self, so the result could be duplicated.

"No!" exclaimed Brienne, looking horrified. "I only wanted to shut her up, not give her brain damage!"

Even knowing what a soul-sucking vampire Cersei had been was not enough to make Brienne ever exult in the suffering of others; warmth suffused Jaime, and affection, and a considerable amount of horniness. It would seem that kindness and character acted as a fiery aphrodisiac upon his loins, and he was nearly overcome with the urge to take Brienne in his arms and make the sort of passionate love to her that was usually seen on a movie screen with waves crashing o'er the loving couple.

"I admire your principles," he said judiciously. "And okay, strictly speaking, I suppose you gave her brain damage, whatever. But I'm trying to tell you that it's fantastic and we're all very glad. Not a complaint has been made. If you hadn't done it, I'm sure someone else would have, but with an ice pick or speeding car after she'd driven them mad."

And it probably would have been me, he figured it wisest to leave unsaid.

"You really have done the world a favor," Jaime concluded. "I can get you affidavits swearing to that, if you like."

Brienne looked dubious but susceptible to further convincing. He'd bide his time. In the meanwhile…

"I like you very much. Will you go out on a date with me?"

He knew his technique left much to be desired, but it wasn't as if he had any practice asking girls out. The only girl he'd ever been with was Cersei, and he'd only obeyed her commands when ordered to perform in whichever capacity she wanted him.

"Um," she said, staring at him, poleaxed with astonishment. Then she did that shy thing that made him long to tear off his pants and throw himself at her, cock-first: she glanced down, a little smile curving her lips, and looked back up through thick blonde lashes, sea-blue eyes glinting bewitchingly from behind the platinum thicket. "Uh, yes. Yes, please."

He couldn't stand it, he could not stand another minute without kissing her.

So he did.

roses are red

my eyes are green

you're the best thing

they've ever seen

"I'm so glad to meet you!" Cersei told Brienne, taking both huge freckled mitts between her own tiny hands and pressing gently. "Jaime's told me everything about you and it's so wonderful you're here at last!"

Brienne swallowed. Jaime's eyes tracked the motion, recalling with pleasure how he'd been raking his teeth down that sturdy column only hours earlier, and counting how many more it would be before he could do it again.

"Thank you," she said at last. "We've met before, actually."

Cersei looked enchanted at the very idea. "No!" she gasped. "We did? When was this?"

Brienne opened her mouth to, doubtless, blab out the whole bizarre tale. She was awful at holding back when her conscience was nipping at her ass to do the right thing and admit her fault. But since she was fabulous in every other way that counted, those conscience-nipping situations were few and far between, and thus when they did occur, she felt even worse.

He'd told her and told her it was unnecessary to admit to her part in Cersei's happy accident, that it wouldn't make a difference, only be confusing, but would she listen?

"It was— you and Jaime— you were— and then I—" Brienne stumbled along, groping without success for the words that would reveal her wrongdoing without upsetting the victim of said wrongdoing.

Jaime was just about to rescue her with a blatant lie about needing to be elsewhere— with full intentions of snogging her in the nearest coat closet— but Brienne shot him a glance full of resignation.

Perhaps all that talking of his had made an impression, after all. In the end, she just sighed and forced a smile.

"About four months ago," she finally told Cersei, who'd been waiting patiently with a loving smile, glowing with joy. "I, uh, dropped a book. You, uh, caught it." With your skull, Jaime finished to himself, internally giggling. Brienne shrugged. "That was it."

"Ohhh," said Cersei, not seeming disappointed by the anticlimactic tale in the slightest. "Well, it's a shame we didn't get to be friends then, but we can now!" She sent a warm glance at her twin. "And maybe, some day, we'll even be sisters!"

"Maybe," Brienne agreed faintly, her cheeks turning a seductively mottled fuchsia. She avoided eye contact with Jaime, saucy minx that she was, knowing how alluring it was to him.

"I'm going to be sick," slurred Tyrion, though whether it was due to already being soused by ten in the morning or because of Cersei's sugar-sweet sentiments, no one could say.

roses are red

Tyrion puked in the shrubbery

when you kiss me

my legs feel all rubbery