A Game of Textbooks
(To head off all of the "Well that's original, isn't it?" reviews, it's been seriously about 8 months since I touched fan fiction, so I didn't want to start off on anything serious or challenging. It's just a humor fic, really nothing much to it unless I really like it, so basically… Don't read it like it's Shakespeare. Read it like Fan Fiction. Enjoy.)
Jon
Jon slowly, blearily opened his eyes. "Crazy night, Jon. Crazy night." He murmured.
A warm cannonball hit him full force in the chest. "Someone's happy to see their favorite drunk, aren't they? Aren't they?" he muttered into Ghost's fur.
He rolled out of bed and glanced at his alarm clock. Four in the morning. Of course that's when his body chose to awaken. I mean, why bother actually operating of a normal schedule?
He stumbled into the bathroom of his dorm and started shaving the stubble his face insisted on growing, but going no farther.
He started to climb into the shower, and then looked back at a certain pitiful looking German Shepherd.
"You're not showering with me. Not again."
Ghost didn't break eye contact.
"No. Not this time."
Ghost stayed where he was.
"One of these days, you're going to the pound, you hear me?" he sighed. "Fuck it. Fine. Get in the shower."
Slowly, the tail started wagging. Jon turned the faucet on far too hot, then flipped it back down, almost stumbling over the furry form at his feet as he did so.
A few minutes later, he walked into the living room wrapped in a towel and shadows by a rather ripe wet dog.
One of the doors in the house was flung open, sending Jon into standing position like a bullet. Gilly, a Native American girl, and also his friend Sam's girlfriend, stumbled in. Jon froze for a moment, clad in nothing but a small bath towel.
Gilly stared at him.
He stared at Gilly.
The towel fell off. "Ah shit!" Jon snarled, catching it, and holding it in impromptu position as Gilly turned very deliberately, and walked back into Sam's room.
It really was amazing, Jon thought as he pulled on a pair of jeans, how human-like Ghost's smiles could be at times.
Jaime
Colonel Jaime Lannister of the United States Army had a very specific way of living. A very, as he called it, traditional way of thinking. As some people called it, chivalrous. As described by multiple feminists, downright sexist.
But not to his face.
Colonel Jaime Lannister was a very intimidating man. He bore the Purple Heart, as well as countless other military awards.
He was, in a word, a hardass.
And he permitted no anomalies, no abnormalities, in the way his life was lived. That is, until he met a certain anomaly named Brienne. An anomaly that for the first time in living memory outshot Colonel Jaime Lannister on the shooting range. This sort of thing was the fodder for infinite water cooler chats in the very normal, everything-goes-in-its-place sort of town that was King's Landing.
A small port on the coast of California, it got its name from the legends of a Hebrew King landing on its shores. This town had no room for such things as Brienne Tarth, the ugliest, shiest, and most downright deadly woman that may have ever walked the earth.
And the thing was, after completing a feat unaccomplished in living memory, she didn't say a word about it. She didn't bother collecting on all the lost bets.
She just smiled shyly and muttered "Well, I suppose you'll owe me one." This was an intolerable situation for Jaime, on account of the fact that, as he had been taught when he was a child, a Lannister always pays his debts.
And Jaime wasn't willing to postpone the paying of this one. This unfortunate mentality led him to his current predicament; namely, being stuck at an Italian dinner with Brienne Tarth.
"She won't ask for anything you can't pay for," you said to yourself, thought Jaime bitterly as he sat in the candlelit booth he had reserved. "You are, after all, a man of means." You had to go and approach her and bloody insist when she said that she would count it even for the honor of besting you.
Now that he thought back on it, it was unfortunately similar to angler catching a fish that thinks itself clever. You lay out a situation that is just too good to be true, and the fish is just clever enough to think they can take care of it, but not wise enough to know that they're biting a hook.
"No, I must insist that I pay this debt."
"No really, it was an honor shooting against you."
"Ma'am, I won't be able to rest peacefully until I repay you."
"Well, you could always take me out for dinner."
Not that he thought back on it, he rather looked like a fish as well, his jaw hanging open, making an unfortunate gulping motion.
He returned to reality and saw the damned girl raising an eyebrow at him across the table. He shook himself off and returned to the present.
Come on, man, it's a dinner with a girl, not a death sentence, he scolded himself. He glanced at her face. Well, not quite, anyways.
She sighed. "You seem quiet." She muttered quietly, almost to herself.
"Oh you'd be surprised how loud I can be. But for the most part, I try to avoid swearing at women." He grinned.
She turned her head down shyly.
Jaime shrugged and gave her his most winning smile. If you succeed at seducing here, you're not going want to reap the rewards, he reminded himself.
She shrugged and flagged a waiter. "Yes, I think I'll have the shrimp dish." She asked quietly.
Jaime sighed and murmured "The usual, John. Yes, with the Cabernet." He turned his attention back to Brienne. "Well, if you're not going offer a world renowned sense of wit, I'm not quite sure why you brought me here, woman."
She looked at him and protested softly "My name's Brienne."
"Oh, I know what your name is, you've said it often enough. But, you may have noticed, I haven't changed my terminology for you. Perhaps I'm sending mixed signals. Allow me to make myself clear." He leaned forward. "To me, you remain 'woman.'"
She glared at him. "And you remain stuck-up. But we've ordered our food, so let's try not the bring the house down with witty humor."