ALL MEN MUST SERVE
Chapter One: Milkshakes
She regretted taking the ad already. She'd breathed it in, hands shaking at the thought of one thousand dragons, notes wadded into a supple bend as she stashed it away into her college fund. She'd known it was sketchy, would probably end up doing her more harm than good—yet here she stood, leaning against the hot white of her Honda Civic. Her arms rested on the hood of the car, sweat pooling down the back of her hooded black t-shirt. What's he doing? She ran her fingers through the prickly hairs at the base of her skull, wet. It's been an hour.
She could see the sea from here, the whispery waters ablaze with the yellow of the noon sun. Part of her vaguely desired to jump from the shorter cliffs into the ragged and warm waters, chilling her body. Brienne had lazed in the car at first, daydreaming in the air condition. Twenty minutes later, she'd cranked down her windows and silenced the engine and the radio in an effort to conserve gas. Within three minutes her skin was melting into the seat, her fingers burned against the steering wheel, and her knees suddenly seemed too close to her chest. She'd thrown open the glove compartment, slathered on some deodorant, and stumbled out of the car.
She would have hazarded that being near the sea might have had more of a bearing on the temperature, but only the slightest of breezes buffeted her slick biceps. Brienne laid her head against the hood of the car with her eyes closed, felt the heat eat at her eyelids, and looked again at the mansion, perched on a distant hilltop. She could not make out any details except for lavish beauty. It was huge and modern, with what appeared to be two high-ceilinged floors. Wide and stately entrance steps led to mauve archways that enshrouded a breezy wrap-around porch. A fountain gurgled in the center of a massive and well maintained courtyard, buzzing with wild-colored flowers. After the initial ten minutes, Brienne had driven up the long, gravel pathway through the trees. Sadly the mansion was surrounded by a large gate; security guards were posted outside, and entry required a numeric code. The guard had attempted to call him twice, to no avail.
Calling was worthless. She'd attempted twelve times with no luck. The only time she'd heard from him was when she'd answered the ad. He'd texted her a time and a place.
"Jaime Lannister," she grumbled, kneading her sunburned eyebrows with her fingertips. What a great first start. She could feel the energy leaving her body in the heat's slow kiss…
"Are you gonna pass out already, lightweight?"
Brienne's eyes jerked open, searching wildly for the source of the voice.
"Dude," he said, approaching her from behind, "You look like a fuckin' tomato."
She turned to face him—he hadn't come from the direction of the house—and slicked her sweat-greased hair back from her forehead. She saw him grimace, but she hardly noticed. Jaime Lannister was shirtless: he was chiseled and bronze, approximately her height, with broad shoulders and a relentless cocky sway. His eyes were deep and green, and his hair… woven gold that fell in waves to his jaw.
Brienne knew she was going to hate him from the moment she saw him.
"It's been over an hour," she said shortly, "Where exactly were you?"
Jaime combed his hair with his fingers and shoved a backwards baseball cap on his head. "I thought I'd take a quick dive before snoring my life away for the next year. Is that too much to ask?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you a woman?"
Brienne ignored him; she felt her face heat, but it was already beet red. "You could have texted me a later time. You specifically told me this time."
"You are a woman—you sound like one, anyway. Kinda husky."
"I'm glad your summer away from school hasn't dulled your observational skills."
He neared her, eyebrows furrowed. "You've got like six million freckles. My fault, I bet. Accept my apology."
She felt her shoulders stiffen as he entered her personal space. The freckles weren't nearly as bad before, but after an hour of standing out here waiting for someone to finish his swimming lessons… "Where are your bags?" she asked curtly, eyeing his hands, which were hooked on the lip of his sagging sweatpants. Empty. She looked around his figure to the front of her Honda, hoping to find a sports tote bag at the least. She stifled a groan and it came out as an exasperated sigh.
"I don't have any baggage today, I'm a free man," he smirked. He maneuvered around her and grabbed the handle of her back door. "Mind unlocking it, Freckles?"
Brienne fought the urge to slam his face into the tinted window. "You're telling me you don't have any bags? You're going to school hundreds of miles away and you don't even have a change of underwear?"
"Why, you planning on having some fun in here?" he patted his hips. The question seemed forcibly suggestive.
Brienne didn't reply.
"I've got my wallet, that's all that matters. And I've got all your wages right here in its leather pockets. I shipped the rest of my shit ages ago. You worry too much, Frecks." He tugged on the handle again, raising his eyebrows at her. "Unlock it, please."
She obliged. He slid into the backseat, lounging with his head against the opposite door so that he could have an unshielded view of Brienne. She ducked into the driver's seat, aggressively jabbing the key into the ignition. The engine wearily grumbled to life. She reset her rearview mirror (she'd adjusted it so that she could watch for his descent from the mansion) and found Jaime's incredibly attractive face in its reflection. Brienne sighed again inwardly.
"You look sad, wench. Is it because I'm not sitting shotgun?"
"Yes, that must be the reason," she said dryly. Her arm draped over the back of the passenger seat as she turned to look out the rear window. She slowly gassed the small car in the reverse and swung around in the gravel. Jaime's bristly cheek grazed her right forearm and she jerked it back to her side.
"I'm sitting back here because I just want it to be clear that you're the chauffeur," he breathed, tipping his hat off into the front seat, "And that this is an unbearable but irrevocable arrangement. In case we see anyone I know. You understand."
Congratulations on your use of multisyllabic vocabulary words, she thought bitterly. "Fine by me," she said. I don't fraternize with insufferable, spoiled brats. He was lucky he'd promised her such a handsome purse for putting up with him, otherwise she'd be tempted to stomp on her brakes and watch his head bounce violently off the back of the passenger seat's head rest.
The drive out of Lannisport was calming. The busybodies hustling at the ports, the mostly-white, preppy kids shooting soccer balls through field goals, the frilly dogs strutting down residential sidewalks… all of it stilled Jaime. It filled Brienne with a nervous energy that she couldn't account for, and she thought, I want to come back to this place someday. She didn't know if she could speak for the isolated residence some miles back, looming over the city like a sunbathing lion. Something could be said for Jaime's family—they were rich—they were influential. The whole city seemed to have one fat ear perked up for the Lannister name. Lannister was on warehouses, it was on a few company signs, and she spotted one law firm… someone or other "& Lannister." She suspected his name was on places that she couldn't see.
"Your family appears to be quite far-reaching," Brienne said civilly, slowing to a stop at a cross-section in the road. She waved the go-ahead to a woman in a minivan.
"You might say that, wench," Jaime replied. He'd taken a liking to that word. "But it's mostly my father who is far-reaching. Quite the menace on Wall Street."
"I see," she said appreciatively. In reality, the thought made her slightly nauseous. "If you care to know, my name's Brienne."
"Cute that you think I care, chauffeur."
"Thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt," she muttered as she turned down an asphalt road that smelled distinctly of dead fish. She rolled up the windows and glared at him in the rearview mirror, infuriated by his sloppy grin, like the whole world could have belonged to him, if he'd only asked.
He met her eyes and winked. "Here, let me give you a shoulder massage. How would you like that, Brienne? Just drive." Jolts went through her when his thumbs pressed circles into her lower neck and firmly grasped her shoulders, kneading her knotted muscles. But she wasn't sure if that was due to the massage, or the way he'd purred her name, rolled it around on his tongue like a piece of candy.
"You have traps the size of a linebacker," Jaime grunted, and she violently shrugged him off, feeling more and more stupid the longer he spoke. He was incapable of saying anything good about her. She was pretty thick-skinned, but she would be surprised if her self-esteem wasn't in tatters by the end of the trip.
Brienne sped up the ramp of an overpass and merged into traffic. The speed helped her to blow off some steam. She wanted to gas it some more, just to feel the thrill gust out the anger that was mounting in her chest, red-hot embarrassment that might soon well over in tears. She followed the speed limit religiously, thinking, Dragons, dragons, dragons.
Jaime slithered up to the back of her seat, breathing on her neck. His arms were crossed behind her headrest, and he just stared at her rearview mirror hoping to make eye contact with her. He's just bored, she realized finally, though that didn't make the situation easier. She still had another eight hours to deal with his short attention span and sadistic, recreational jabs. She felt the curled ends of his hair tickle her shoulder and she resisted shivering.
But he noticed the goosebumps and laughed.
Her breathing slowed as she focused on the black highway slipping beneath her wheels. "Don't worry. I have no interest in you."
"Of course you do," he scoffed. And his easy authority made her heart both sink and boil. "I know you must wonder… what it's like, to be touched."
Brienne's ears were on fire, but her face remained hardened. She turned up the air conditioning and impressed herself with her own cool tone. "I don't see why it's any of your business, I'm just your driver."
"It's okay, you're not the only one who's curious," Jaime retorted breezily. And she heard the implication. Are you a lesbian? Or perhaps, have you ever done desperate things? And sometimes they asked her things they never said aloud, things they didn't know that they asked, things that they didn't know they were dying to know. How does it feel to be totally unlooked at, not invisible, not brushed over, but too visible, so visible that you have to look at people intentionally dismiss you, instead of unintentionally?
"Jaime, I'm driving," Brienne said quietly. She went cold. It was some time before her senses came back to her one by one as she fought the roiling nausea, malodorous waves at the base of tongue. Brienne the Beauty. He'd kissed her so tenderly at her jaw, her neck, his chapped lips cold from the lip of the beer bottle, raising heated bumps like cherry red rashes. She'd felt so… female.
Brienne imagined herself weeping silently, but did no such thing.
Nobody spoke for three and a half hours. Brienne realized after the first hour or so that the Jaime had fallen asleep, sprawled out over the backseat. His nap afforded her some peace of mind. She watched the trees change in morphology. Long to short, thin to fat, fat to fatter. Then color. Somewhere along the way the trees had adapted yellows and reds, more readily available for autumn than Lannisport. The sky turned a hazy, orange-blue, getting sleepy in its dome over Westeros. Maybe I'll pull over in a bit, and we'll eat. The thought of spending waking hours with him dulled her spirits.
Brienne regretted meeting him, but there was no visible escape route. The two of them were probably only four hours outside of King's Landing, and four and a half hours outside of the high intensity traffic at Valyrian University, centralized there. It was a prestigious university, bested by no other, and equal to perhaps one or two other prestigious universities. It made sense for such a conceited, spoiled-rotten jerk to be enrolled. Brienne rubbed her right eye.
She, herself, was there on an athletic scholarship: basketball. Her grades remained pretty above average, but weren't enough to score her an education that cost roughly fifty thousand gold dragon notes per year. Basketball had done that for her. Brienne glanced behind her, eyeing Jaime's disheveled, sleeping form with some disdain. I'll have to look at the dorms again. Or maybe the cafeteria. One of them is bound to be named after his father.
Despite her full-ride scholarship, there were unforeseen costs. Outside expenses added up quickly at such an expensive university with so many tenured professors; even food could cost a leg and an arm when you had no money. So she'd been doing odd jobs off and on since freshman year and through the summer. She'd liked them, for the most part, and that was probably why she had been so cocky. How bad can he be, right? She'd said when she'd found the ad, three months old and unclaimed. The thousand-dragon loot had driven all suspicion far, far from her mind.
A couple months into her freshman year, she'd helped move boxes for her basketball captain. Renly had been moving from the western dorms into an apartment. He'd needed her strength and alacrity. Between Brienne, Renly, and his uppity friend, Loras, they'd managed to move him into his new apartment before dinner… Brienne frowned. She didn't want to think about those times. During Christmas break of the previous year, she'd done her Bio professor a favor and babysat her up-and-coming high school freshman while said professor went to a conference out of town, in the north. The girl's other siblings had gone to stay with some relatives, while Brienne had promised to chaperone Arya during the week of national championships. Brienne had taken to Arya—she reminded Brienne a lot of herself—though the young girl was a good deal fierier, more mischievous, and wordlessly prettier. The two had ended up getting into a lot of trouble themselves; in the kitchen, at least. They'd burnt popcorn and microwaved hamburgers which were still encased in the crinkly and matted aluminum foil. They'd both had a good laugh about it after they'd doused the meat patty in the sink.
A grunt from the backseat.
Brienne's stomach dropped a little. She took note of the exit sign.
"Where are we?" Jaime asked flatly, sleep cluttering his voice.
"Silverhill," said Brienne too casually. "I… I thought we'd stop in about two miles to grab a bite to eat."
Jaime grunted again and sat up, combing his hair with his fingers twice (good as new, Brienne sighed) and stretched. Brienne averted her eyes from his lean pectorals and shapely triceps. She noticed he had green bruises along his obliques and under his belly button. His face was also beginning to color bluely.
"Like what you see?" Jaime quipped with a yawn.
Brienne rolled her eyes. "Seeing as you're naked, looks like I'm just going to have to go through the drive-through." She paused at a red light for some moments, awkwardly avoiding any mirrors lest she make eye contact with Narcissus. She eased into the gas as the light turned green, pulled alongside the cemented median, and switched on her blinker. It ticked obnoxiously until Brienne turned into the McDonalds parking lot. Her Honda slid into the drive-through lane and she rolled down her window.
"Welcome ta McDonalds, how kinna help yew?" said drawled a viciously unamused woman via the little intercom.
"What do you want?" Brienne asked Jaime over her shoulder.
"Three orders of the eight-piece nuggets and two milkshakes."
"Are you joking?"
"Would one milkshake be enough for you, giant?"
Brienne returned to the intercom, repeated Jaime's order and added the double cheeseburger meal and a cup of ice. When they rolled around to the pay window, Brienne begrudgingly paid, although Jaime offered. When they received their food, Brienne pulled away and parallel parked between a large, red Ford and a tiny, black Mini Cooper. She handed Jaime his order, glowering at him in judgment. Then she emptied half of her cup of ice into a wad of napkins. She turned somewhat awkwardly and pressed the shoddy ice pack against side. Jaime jerked initially, taken aback by the sudden chill. But then he relaxed into the cold and put his hand over hers in order to hold it for himself. Brienne's cheeks colored a little, but she doubted he noticed, as he was stuffing his face with fries. She removed her hand and turned off the engine.
"Look, I'm really sorry," said Brienne, "I tend to maybe overreact. Usually I have a better head on my shoulders about these… er, types of things."
"Yeah, yeah," Jaime said insensitively, dropping the ice onto the seat beside him. He seemed to sense that she was apologizing more out of pity than guilt.
Brienne turned to face her food, removing her fries and burgers from the thin paper bag. She took a large swig of her coke. Then she, too, felt a crisp cold. Jaime pressed one of the milkshakes to her arm without looking at her. A drop of condensation slid off of her elbow.
"I knew you were too stuck up to get one for yourself, wench," Jaime smirked, "So I took the liberty of buying you one. Enjoy yourself for once. Your face is always scrunched up like you're about to shit out a stone."
Brienne chuckled and took the milkshake, taking a small sip before docking it into a cup holder. "Thanks for the genteel gesture, Jaime, but… uh, I did still pay for them."
"Oh, shut up. I offered."
"So you did." There was a few moments pause while they indulged in the chemical oasis of fast food. The burgers tasted a little spongy but the ketchup and pickles were just right, and the fries were hot and straight out of the oil, doused in salt. Brienne watched Jaime dip a handful of fries into his milkshake.
"Hey," Jaime started, cocking his head to the side. His hair fell down to his shoulder while he looked at her from below. His eyes were even more magnetic when they were really watching you. But she regretted her attempt to mend any sort of botched relationship; she knew that she had nothing to say to him that he could ever understand. They might as well have come from two different planets. Solar systems. She ate a few more fries, attempting to hide the pensive scrunch of her eyebrows and the anxious gnawing of her chafed lips.
"Can I ask you a personal question?" said Jaime, rubbing his thumb along his lower lip.
Why not? She thought. "Why not?" she said.
"How the fuck are your arms almost as big as mine? Can I get some pointers? I wanna grow up to be like you, wench…"
Brienne shook her head, throwing up her hands in exasperation. She buckled her seatbelt, stowed her food within reach of her prying fingertips, and stuck the key in the ignition. With a swift twist the engine revved. And died.
"Piece of shit," Jaime breathed from behind her.
The rest of the drive was uneventful, as Jaime fell into a food coma for several hours. He was startled awake by the sound of city traffic: violent horns honking, tires screeching, police sirens, the works. He talked her ear off about nothing important, and it soothed both of them for a short time. Jaime was pleased when she got lost downtown because it gave him a chance to 'prove his worth as a man to a maiden.' He articulated the directions well, and they were on campus before nine.
The campus was still mostly empty, as classes had yet to start and orientation was still a week away. The buildings were as beautiful as ever in the night glow. The purple sky seemed to glisten behind the gothic buildings covered in long-tailed ivy. The clouds drifted low and lazily on the heat and the streetlights cast white halos over the large, gated archways of Valyrian University. Brienne stopped in the main Quad near a couple of frat and sorority houses because he said he wanted to meet someone there.
She'd thought she would have been glad to be rid of him, but now that she was getting ready to exorcise herself of his traumatic character, she felt somewhat lethargic. Jaime opened the backdoor and rolled out of it without any hesitation. Brienne stepped out somewhat awkwardly, unaware of how they should say goodbye to one another. They both walked out of the street towards a large, bronze statue at the entrance of the main quad. It was some famous maester, standing bent under the weight of the hardened chain, which thickened into the base of the statue. At his feet, the inscription read VALAR DOHAERIS.
"Thanks, wench, it's been great." Jaime opened up his wallet and pulled several hundred-notes out, slapping them casually into her huge, white palm. "And by 'great' I mean, let's not do this again."
"You have a way with words."
Jaime slapped his baseball cap on again. "Call me if you ever get laid, so I can do him one better."
"I think it's likely that I'll pass on that offer," Brienne intoned, though swathes of pink licked down her neck like wildfire.
But Jaime was already strutting in the direction of the open quad, still shirtless, back tightening in such a way that had never appealed to her before as the moonlight hit his muscled shoulders and sank down between his shoulder blades.
"We'll see!" he shouted without looking back.