To avoid any misunderstanding: This is a Jaime/Brienne story, but it also contains implications of romantic feelings of the Jaime/Cersei variety, which doesn't go anywhere because, well, have you ever seen or read Stephen King's "Christine"? Because yeah, she's a jealous car in this one ;)
Cersei
He'd found her on a Friday. Rusting and half-broken, on a graveyard of junk, down the road out of town.
Since then, Brienne had barely seen her best friend. Sure, they'd talked at school, but even then he'd been rather absent-minded and ready to run the second the bell rang.
And now, Jaime was here, in the car shop Brienne apprenticed for, showing her his baby. There was nothing paternal about the way he caressed the steering wheel.
The hot red sports car gleamed in the fluorescent overhead lights of the garage, and by some miracle still didn't reflect Brienne's face as she looked down at the dent-free hood. This was not the wreck Jaime had bought from that strange scrapyard attendant.
"You did this all by yourself?" she asked, an eyebrow lifted in disbelief. He'd been like a man possessed from the moment he'd seen the car, claiming to polish the metal carcass back to life and rejecting every offer of help Brienne had made at the junkyard. Bringing it into Goodwin's had been out of the question for Jaime. He would take care of his new girl.
Brienne hadn't been worried. He was prone to bouts of obsession – diving head first into sword play, medieval market culture or hand reading. The last one had been stranger than usual, but that particular fancy had died fast enough. She'd guessed the car would fall into the same category. After all, he was rich, his father's heir. He could get a Ferrari fresh out of the factory if he desired so. Instead he'd decided to claim something as his first car that had been barely more than garbage.
It had paid off, but.
But.
Jaime lovingly put the radio on, skimming the buttons and digital display. A ballad blared through the speakers, seeming utterly stentorian. The notes and dramatic lyrics echoed from nook to cranny and filled the whole garage with declarations of love.
"Yes, I took care of Cersei. Only my hands get to touch her."
But, he'd also named his car; something flowery, a name that should always be written with flourishes and rimmed with arabesques.
Brienne surveyed the front side again, searching for any sign that it had been a layman working on it, but nothing. She extended her right hand, wanting to check the side mirror's hinges, where just weeks ago no mirror at all had been. The instant her fingers touched the cool surface, the car horn screeched, a sound like a woman screaming, and cut through the music, which came to an abrupt halt.
Jerking her hand away, Brienne stumbled back, bringing a bit more distance between her and the car. By instinct, she cast a glance at the windshield and saw Jaime, grinning.
"Uh uh uh, only my hands, I said," and he waggled his finger at her. What made Brienne cringe, though, was his smile. Lopsided, with a sarcastic twist, his gaze unwavering – it was all wrong. Years ago, she might have thought it normal for him to look at her like this. After becoming each other's closest friend, there was now a stranger sitting before her.
Brienne's face must have hardened and tripped his guilt, for Jaime yanked the hand still stroking the radio away as if electrocuted.
He seemed to shake himself and opened the car door to climb out. The move was graceless and without the touch of adoration she'd witnessed before.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he mumbled, taking his hand off the door frame as early as he was out of the car.
"Okay, just don't do it again. Almost made my heart stop."
The radio springing to life and playing the Death March was jarring in the awkward quiet between them.
"Technology. I must have wired it wrong," Jaime said by way of explanation, but Brienne still caught the expression of unease crossing his face.
"Yeah, probably."
Brienne wrung out the sponge and let most of the suds drop back into the bucket before she passed it to Jaime.
After he'd introduced her to his new car, she'd tried to see him more often again. The car was repaired, so he should have more leisure time now, she'd thought. She learned fast that it didn't mean he would pursue any other interests in the foreseeable future. Wanting to spend time with Jaime nowadays meant spending time with his car as well, and despite being more than enough around vehicles at her job, she was not willing to distance herself from her friend because of his latest fancy, no matter how ill-settling.
This evening's entertainment consisted of washing and polishing Cersei in his driveway.
Brienne wasn't allowed to touch the car herself, but at least she could hand him the equipment and tell him if there was a speck of dirt he'd missed. It was better than watching her father flirt with their neighbor on this sunny Saturday.
She was still pressing the sponge into Jaime's hand as a shadow scurried past them to the front door of the Lannister's home and slammed it shut after entering.
Jaime was already inspecting the floodlights, crouched down to eye-level with them, when Brienne noticed a flicker in the right window of the upper floor. The curtain was drawn closed the second she turned to look at it.
"What is going on with Tyrion?" she asked. Jaime's little brother had never been the shy sort, always throwing grand speeches and doing his best to appear older and more daring than his middle schooler lifestyle warranted. Upon meeting her for the first time, he'd welcomed her into the club of misfits and gifted her with a paper badge.
Nicking at a persistent smudge of unknown origin, Jaime's focus stayed on Cersei. "She doesn't like him."
Brienne snapped her head down to stare at him. "What?"
His finger rubbing over the brown fleck, Jaime blinked. "I said he doesn't like her." He used his other hand to pat the hood.
The lion-themed curtains flickered again in Brienne's peripheral sight.
"Why?" She had more than a few theories, the most pressing that Jaime's behavior since getting the car bordered on obsession. It could be frightening for a child to witness, she imagined.
Jaime shrugged, still scraping the spot of crusted brown off. "I guess he's jealous I don't have time anymore for his childish escapades," he answered while giving her back the sponge, with no visible care about the insinuation of his statement.
There had never been a day Jaime thought Tyrion a bother. Brienne had seen him drop everything to humor the little boy, to give him support and a friend in a world that was not kind to people with hyposomia.
The guy currently blowing hot air over wet spots on his car was too occupied to think of the needs of the brother he loved.
Crunching the sponge between her fingers, Brienne took the setting sun as a sign. She had no interest in watching this demonstration of ignorance any further.
"It's late. I'll go home. Dad's probably done bewitching Olenna." She crouched down to drop the sponge back in, when she saw a glint of gold from the corner of her eye. Between the car's left front tire and the bumper hung something, catching the light.
She reached out, and brushed Jaime's side while doing so, to grab the item. After she pulled it down, she retreated and opened her hand. In it lay a locket. The chain was broken, she couldn't say if from the tug she gave it or before, but the heart shaped body was intact. Squinting, she studied the lines drawn on it. Scratched up as the whole thing was, the initials M.H. were still readable.
Her hand cramped around the medallion in recognition.
"Jaime," she dared, "what's Melara Hetherspoon's necklace doing here?"
The head cheerleader had never shown any interest in socializing with people associated to "size freaks", as she'd liked to declare whenever in hearing distance to them. If she'd meant Brienne or Tyrion, who often came to surprise his big brother, she hadn't clarified.
He questioningly hummed, barely turning his head to her. "She came up to me yesterday after practice and tried to get me to take her on a joyride. Said something about my new baby pushing my rep up a few notches or something."
"And did you take her up on it?"
Jaime snorted. "Over her dead body, I told her." Distracted, he threw Brienne a smile as he straightened up. "Only people I care about get that privilege." The one time he'd tried to make it up to Brienne by meeting her after closing time, the battery had died three times before they'd given up and Brienne had just went home on foot while Jaime had tried to coax Cersei back into action.
"She must have lost it then."
Brienne held the locket up by the remains of its chain, dangling it in front of his face. "On your bumper?"
He shrugged and worried with a nail at the dried dirt he'd removed from the floodlight now stuck on his other hand, flaking it off.
In this light, it looked more red than brown.
Come Monday, Melara Hetherspoon was not in school.
But twelve police officers were, picking Melara's friends out of class, one after another.
Brienne was ready to corner Jaime, to ask all the questions she'd swallowed before, but he too was absent.
After the third ring she gave his mobile, she switched tracks. A recorded message would have to suffice as long as he was probably stuck under his stupid car's hood.
The beep came and Brienne went off. "Jaime, it's Brienne. I don't know what's going on, but the police are asking around about Melara. If you–" She faltered. "I don't know why you're not here. Maybe you're sick. Maybe you overslept and called it a day. Just–" She took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder for any cocked ears. "I need to talk to you. When you hear this, get in touch with me. I need to know you're okay, that everything's fine. I'm always here for you, Jaime." She lowered her voice. "I care for you, never forget that."
The rest of the day went by in slow motion. People were sent home, were escorted to the police station to give statements, and the rumor mill went wild.
Melara was missing, Melara ran away with her Spanish tutor, Melara was trying her luck in Hollywood.
Melara was dead.
Brienne closed her eyes and ears and tried to get through the day, but never dared to put her phone down.
That night, a storm hit town.
Brienne hadn't heard back from Jaime and when the clock struck midnight, and her father had gone to bed like a sensible person, she still was up and sitting in the living room's reading niche, listening to the rain pelting against the walls and rattling the outer jalousies.
Jaime hadn't been at his house when Brienne had turned up there, uninvited, the second school had closed for the day. All she'd encountered was a distraught boy telling her he didn't know where his big brother was.
And still no call.
She sighed and gathered herself to turn in for the night, not that sleep was an option at this rate.
As she crossed the entranceway, a screech she knew by now shrilled over the sounds of the storm. Spurned on, Brienne ran for the door, turned the key and wrenched it open to see a car parking at the end of the street. The night was dark but the red varnish shone like a beacon to her. The rest of it was not discernible from here, yet she could recognize Cersei without a doubt.
All tension left Brienne's body as she sighed. Jaime had come after all.
She grabbed the hoodie hanging on the clothes hook by the entrance and sprinted out the door, shielding herself with the jacket while fighting against the wind and ice cold rain that obscured her view. The car's headlights were turned on, blinking at her in a constant staccato rhythm and making it even harder for her to see where she stepped. If he wanted to guide her to the car in all this darkness, he only succeeded in blinding her.
There at last, Brienne opened the passenger side door and slid into the seat, shaking out the hoodie as she dropped it from her head into her lap.
"I'm so glad you're here," she sighed and turned to the offside to greet Jaime.
All she saw was an empty seat.
"Jaime?" She turned around, checking the back row, but there was only clean white leather and no passenger. "This is not funny. Crawl out of the foot space and stop creeping me out," she yelled, her heart rate speeding up and goosebumps erupting on her arms.
What she got instead of Jaime squealing 'Boo' was the radio flaring to life behind her turned head.
"I need to know you're okay, that everything's fine. I'm always here for you, Jaime. I care for you, never forget that."
Her own voice sounded far more wistful and yearning than she remembered from this morning.
Before she was able to fully snap around to stare at the red shining display, her seatbelt shot out of its casing and draped itself with force over her torso, chirruping at her breast with vehemence when it clicked into the closing mechanism. The air was pressed out of her lungs and it felt as if the belt turned even tighter. The automatic locking activated and echoed in the car with finality that left Brienne frozen in shock to stare at the red blinking lights that blazed now from every surface on the dashboard.
Hell itself couldn't have looked more foreboding. And hell it was she was dragged into as the motor roared to life and Cersei took off into the night, flying over the asphalt and parting the sheets of rain like Moses parting the red sea.
Pressed into the back of her seat, Brienne's eyes sprang wildly from the dashboard to the driver's seat and to the world outside flashing by. Jaime's car didn't have an automatic driving system, no technology advanced enough for this, and nobody was standing in the dark, admiring their handiwork or cackling about their glorious prank.
She was alone, caught in a living nightmare with a demon on wheels.
But Brienne did what she did best in no-win scenarios – she fought tooth and nail to achieve her goal, in this case: surviving. The shock crippling her gave way to something more familiar to her. Determination.
She was not a slasher movie victim. She was the fucking Final Girl.
Fumbling with the seatbelt brought no release and only turned it more aggressive, if possible, closing in on her. But all she needed was to wiggle her hand into her trouser pockets, she thought. The little switchblade Jaime had gifted her on her last birthday was ever present and would now serve to cut the belt or hack into the dashboard, whatever got a possessed metal trap to lay off her. Finally in her hand, she was about to flip it open when her back rest dropped down without a warning and pulled her with it, and then suddenly sprang back up and forward as far as possible to smash her head against the airbag case. It didn't pop up though. Brienne was left dizzy by the crushing of her nose and could only blink while the radio started up again.
"Look what you made me do." The phrase was stuck in the refrain's loop, loud and carrying in the limited space.
"Why?" Brienne whispered, out of it, her head turned to the side on the dashboard and blood from her nose painting a trail to her lips. The knife lay somewhere on the floor, out of reach, leaving her hands empty.
The frequency numbers switched too fast for her to discern, getting high and low in turn, but never stopped glowing an eerie red. It found what it was searching for, hitting the oldies station.
"He talks about you in his sleep
and there's nothing I can do to keep
from crying when he calls your name,
Jolene."
A distant part of her was disoriented enough to want to protest that her name was Brienne.
Only slowly was she able to gather her wits again. How long they'd driven became clear once she was capable of sitting up again and recognized Goodwin's welcome sign grinning at her.
Any other day, Brienne would have smiled when seeing her mentor's face, right now though it filled her with dread as the electronic garage door was pulled up by an invisible hand.
Leisurely, tauntingly, Cersei rolled into one of the few places Brienne had ever felt accepted at and parked in the middle of the working station.
Brienne's head was filled with cotton and her breathing was labored, and no matter how much she tried to pull herself together, it was for naught. Then she heard it. The hissing of the vents. Why would…
All the knowledge Goodwin had hammered into her head in her time at the shop ran through her mind. She could not breathe properly, she was woozy, and a parked and possessed car had turned the vents on.
The damned metal box was trying to kill her with carbon monoxide poisoning.
Grappling for the window buttons, Brienne didn't have any real hope of them working. It was just the last resort before she hammered against the glass panels with her bare hands, trying to crack them.
"You're mad!" The irony of screaming at a car didn't escape the still rational part of her brain. The rest of her was shutting down, bit by bit.
A cough took her over, making her hack up her lungs, and the collar of her shirt she haphazardly pulled over her mouth and nose couldn't change that anymore.
Still, she kept battering at the window, drew up her legs and started kicking at the windshield.
Cersei's motor just purred louder, smug and self-satisfied, and pumped the deadly gas with more ferocity.
Brienne's sight was beginning to wane, she could feel it in the slowing of her punches, in her left leg dropping back to the ground. She was almost done for.
The spray of glass and Cersei's long-drawn screech came as an utter surprise. Jaime's face on the other side of the caved-in window as an even greater one.
He plunged the arm holding the metal rod he'd used to shatter the glass in the car and deep into the radio dock. Sparks flew and forced Jaime to leave off it, let it stay stuck there, but it had achieved what he wanted – in a wrecking motion akin to a shudder all locking knobs and seatbelts snapped open.
Jaime almost ripped the door out of its hinges, grabbed Brienne's arm and propelled her out of the car. Not a second too early, for Cersei went into reverse, her tires screaming.
"You good to run?" Jaime cried at Brienne while his eyes flew to the still open entrance of the garage. Thanks to Cersei's smugness he'd gotten in, and so they would leave.
Pulling herself together, Brienne swallowed another lung full of blessed gas-free air and nodded, even when it was a lie.
They began to sprint, keeping to the edges of the room, an eye out for Cersei, who stayed on the other side of the working station, her motor running but not doing anything else.
Brienne imagined Cersei would have played a haunting melody or screaming rage metal song, could she still have done so, since the feeling of betrayal rolled off her in waves Brienne couldn't explain to anyone who hadn't experienced what she had tonight.
"How did you–" Brienne tried to ask Jaime.
He just interrupted her, tugging on her hand to get her to run faster. "The GPS."
They were almost there and the crackling night sky had never looked so inviting.
Then everything crashed.
The garage door was set in motion, closing with a dull thump, so severe it dented the wall. Trapped. They were trapped now.
Jaime whirled them around, trying to keep Brienne behind him. Shielding her with his body was a gallant move, but it seemed to enrage Cersei even further, because she gave a garbled screech and raced forward. She was obviously set on running them over.
"She wants to keep you to herself!" Brienne screamed and used the hand Jaime held to yank him to the side and with the momentum away from her. "She doesn't want to hurt you if she doesn't have to." Brienne steeled herself. "It's just me she wants out of the picture."
Cersei rumbled in agreement and slowed down enough to give Jaime the chance to jump away from her nearing hood. That it presented Brienne with the same opportunity was just a side effect.
Running behind a column and fisting Brienne's shirt to pressure her into doing the same, Jaime shouted from behind the cement pillar, "Fat chance!" Brienne looked at him in rising horror.
"You want me to choose?" the rhetoric question dripped with sarcasm. "Not as hard as you want to believe." The car horn wailed.
"I loved you. But you know that already, don't you?" The 'How much of that was me and not your doing?' hung unsaid in the air.
Cersei's tires rubbed the asphalt raw, the rotational speed was cranked up and she flew at the pillars before her, hitting them dead on. Jaime and Brienne were felled by the vibration of it, but the columns were still intact, giving them a minimum of protection. And by doing so gave Brienne an unhindered view of the controls for the garage's technical machinations, which the old man liked to keep neatly in one place, like the hydraulic lift or…the hook keeping Goodwin's first repaired bodywork up as a monument of good work ethics.
Brienne gripped Jaime by the neck and turned his head first to the switch, then to the car parts on the hook, silently explaining what they had to do.
Jaime looked at her for a moment, while Cersei sounded like she made another attempt at bowling the pillars over. Then Jaime nodded.
The next hit made parts of the columns break off and sail to the floor. Cersei took an inrun again, driving back to the other side of the garage until her exhaust pipe touched the battered gate.
"I'm going to bait her and you–" but Brienne shook her head at Jaime's plan.
"No, it has to be me."
She saw the argument coming on and curtailed the process of endless discussions by pecking Jaime on the lips. The half-dried blood on her mouth was sticky between them, though Brienne didn't waste a single thought on that as Jaime pressed forward, adding more heat to their millisecond of a kiss before Brienne had to end it. Time was essential.
She took position in front and in between the columns.
"Come and get me, bitch," she called to Cersei, "because I just kissed your man."
The headlights ignited and set straight on Brienne, the screech of tires and car horn merging into one earsplitting wail of hate and desperation. Cersei drove on, focused on Brienne and Brienne alone.
The closer the car's chrome bumper came, the more Brienne's survival instinct pleaded with her to run. She just squared her shoulders, telling that inner voice to fuck off. She had a job to do.
She was blinded once again by the lights, her ears were filled with metallic rage coming off a devil on wheels and her limbs and mind refused to budge when the rattle of chains loosened made her grin.
The body of a Datsun Cherry plummeted from the ceiling and, by Fortuna's will, fell onto Cersei, pushing in her parts, wherever the older model touched her, and therefore anchoring her to the ground. The motor wailed again. To Brienne's ears is sounded like the pathetic whimpers and final gasp of a dying woman.
At last, the noise vanished, and the car kept still.
Brienne looked to the control station, where Jaime took his hand from the drop off switch, his eyes fixed somewhere between Brienne and what used to be his first car.
"I think I'm going to walk from now on."
A laugh erupted out of Brienne's mouth. It was a bit hysteric and premature, but Jaime took it gladly and grinned back.
When they'd secured the area, had drenched both cars – not daring to lift the vehicle body from Cersei, not even for this – in gasoline and had lit the match, fire extinguishers at the ready, only then they walked out of the garage.
The sun was rising, painting the sky in pastel colors.
"I don't think Goodwin will believe me when I tell him what happened to his shop," Brienne said, casting a glance at the sun. It was so much nicer than the glare of headlights.
"You mean that vandals broke in and trashed the place? I think he'll believe you."
"I'm not going to lie to him," she answered, indignant.
Jaime took her fingers into his and swung their hands. "Then we'll have a lovely time in the asylum."
Brienne's mouth turned downwards. "True." She squeezed his hand. "Fine. Vandals did it," she declared and vowed to save every penny she could get her hands on in the next five years and invest them in the repairs of the garage. Though it would take some time. Her thirst for mechanics had all but dried up in one night.
"Hey, Brienne," Jaime piped up after a minute. "I owe you something. Think you want to cash it in sometime?"
That and the twinkle in his eye told her plain as day that he hadn't forgotten the kiss.
And he wanted more.
Smiling, she bit her lip and held his hand tighter.
In the distance, the radio in Goodwin's office sprang to life, the crooning lyrics of "Only you" echoing in the silence.