Attention, Jaime x Brienne shippers. Before you get any ideas, be warned that you're at the wrong place. This pirate ship knows no captain but Sir Twincest of Casterly Rock. Only lions bed each other here on my watch. Abandon ship or bend the knee to the Jaime x Cersei mothership and its tragic but oh so beautiful (and love triangle free) fate. (Well except Taena...) (And formerly Lancel...) (Possibly Euron...) (Um) (Cersei is a slutty slut, ok?) (JxC forever in the mean time)
JAIME
In which there is an unhinged sister gone missing, and a cripple haunted by everyone's ghosts navigates a family-friendly funeral.
Cersei was mad again. That was her default state these days. Either that or colder than the fucking Antarctic. No damn toggle.
He'd probably said something, or done something, but he'd be damned if he knew what. All he knew was, the funeral fare was still going strong, upscale suits and designer dresses swishing aimlessly to the aria of plastic laughter, and his sister, their son and the limo were nowhere to be seen.
She'd probably stormed off after Tyrion—poor clueless bastard—waltzed in on their little argument earlier. Jaime had tried chasing her down the corridor afterwards, she'd threatened to throw a shoe at him. The last he'd seen before she'd disappeared round the corner was her giving him the finger, then she'd swirled her perfect ass and stomped off to the clank of her monstrous ten-inch mountaineering godzilla shoes, and that was it.
Jaime grunted, remembering their final exchange. He still wasn't sure what to make of it all. Apparently that fuck Stannis was blaming them for old Arryn's death. As if anything but pneumonia would bother with the boring little man. Or so he'd thought. A screwed bolt was looser than Stannis but he didn't have the reputation of a man who blamed people for the fun of it. He'd asked Cersei if she'd had a hand in it, she had denied. Jaime didn't even know anymore. More people had died at his sister's hands these past two years than he'd seen murdered on the streets.
Shit, Cersei. Shit.
Curses seemed to form easier than love professions these days when it came to his dear sister. But then again—when had it ever been different? It was never easy with her. Easy was not part of the package you got with fucking your twin sister. Even less so when you had been in love with her since before you knew how to spell your own name.
Things had been bad between them, ever since she got out of that godawful clinic in the middle of New Jersey, all thumbs and vindictive and just so fucking unmanageable damn near all the time. Jaime had wanted to gut every member of the medical staff like an otter for what they'd done to her. She needed all the help she could get.That was the only reason he'd stood and watched as their father dispatched her from one mental wellness freak house to another.
Christ, the way she'd looked. She'd lost half her weight, most of her hair and two front teeth. She'd always been obsessed with appearances but she'd rushed to meet him barefoot and bruised that day. Her wan face had trotted an almost junkie-like look, deep half-circles creeping under her disoriented eyes. Her skin had been whiter than the restraining jacket they'd only conceded to wiggle her out of after her personal psychiatrist Qyburn had signed the formal paperwork. Her luxurious golden curls had been chopped sloppily and rearranged into a matted copper mess that barely crept down to her jaw line.
She'd tossed herself in his arms straight away, sobbing in a very unCersei-like display of emotion, beating against his chest like a little girl, reprimanding him even as she shook and cried. Don't leave me, J. Never let them drag me to this place again.
He'd held her tight on the plane back from Jersey, humming gently in the crown of her head. Then they'd arrived back home, and her sobs had subsided, and the animosity had rolled back in. She didn't need a knight in shining armor, she'd said. She needed him to get involved. Whatever the fuck that meant. Nothing was in its rightful place since that day. Things had only been going downhill since that damnable Sunday afternoon, a fucking nebula of disagreements and complications, cans of worms and quagmires, pushing and pulling.
She'd come out a different kind of damaged. If anything, her treatment had made her all the angrier.
She didn't just blame Tyrion for Joff's death these days (although she still blamed him plenty). She blamed everyone, from the cleaning lady she'd assaulted for trying to wipe Joff's bracelet with a rag to the hairdresser she'd gotten fired because he'd apparently made Tommen's haircut look just like Joff's. (I swear to God, J, just like his, he fucking did that on purpose.) Jaime had made sure these kinds of slips stayed well out of their father's earshot, for fear that he might send her away again, this time somewhere even more isolated and remote, but he knew it was only a matter of time before she tried to claw out the eyes of some poor close-ranged personnel while he wasn't around to prevent it.
He wasn't even sure Cersei realized any of it. It was all about fashion with here these days. Wear this, sell that, never talk about the fucking children. Jaime could only sit and watch her slip away, bit by dreadful bit. Immediately reassuming her duties as editor-in-chief of that dratted magazine had not helped her sanity much. That place corroded her like red rust, but she needed it and the sense of power it gave her like a junky might crave a drug. Power was her fix when it should be him, Jaime, her twin who made her worries go away.
She was too deep in her own shit to care about the two of them anymore. Her negligence was maddening. It was scary, how she could still drive him nuts with just a few words, or even with silence. Especially with silence. There were days when he longed to shove his stump in her face and give her a piece of his mind, bare his teeth down at her and tell her he'd rather not have tried rescuing the boy at all. (What good had it done anyway?)
Perhaps she'd slap him. Perhaps she'd finally fuck him. Anything was better than those missed calls.
That was the problem with his dear sister. She'd always sent some mixed signals but lately she was worse than a fucking radiator. Everything about her was sexy, fierce, sharp, and as fickle as a damn Hollywood commercial. They were always fighting over something, something stupid and insignificant that she insisted mattered enough to waste minutes of their trysts. At least before he'd always made sure to have her under him at the end of it all, and that was what ultimately made the cut. But recently...
Jaime supposed the fact that he was stuck in an empty hallway at Robert Baratheon's funeral, dialing his sister's number and debating whether she was alive or murdering someone was telling enough.
And now his dear sister couldn't be bothered to pick up her damned phone to let him know she wasn't locked up in her apartment dying from medical drugs abuse, like the last time she'd ignored his calls. Of course the time before that she'd been at a bar with her slut friend, the Spanish woman with the fake breasts, wiggling her ass in front of a bartender. Jaime had to drag her out of the perimeter heels first slung over his arm, struggling to remain unaffected as she tried to give him a drunken suck-off in the car for old days' sake, him swallowing hard around the lump in his throat when bile rose quicker than his dick and she puked all over the leather upholstery of his silver Aston Martin.
She'd been sweetness incarnate the next morning, she always was when she wanted something from him, smiling up at him and nibbling playfully at his fingers as he reluctantly slid one of those oval pearly pills she loved so much, the ones that Qyburn freak insisted didn't compromise her main treatment, between her swollen lips. He preferred fucking to talking and her apologies were always worthwhile, so when she reached for him, he'd complied. Midway through she'd purred something about tampering with Tyrion's drink and his gut turned all over again. She'd blamed everything on him once again, on his love for Tyrion, his lack of spine, his missing hand.
For all the humiliating rehab procedures, these were moments that really felt like a punch in the gut. When he felt useless to Cersei and Tyrion. Because two years ago Jaime would've knocked any prick's teeth out for gawking at his sister the way that guy had the previous night. Arrested him, if he was being a particular douche. No more of that. Without his badge and his gun and his good hand, all it'd taken was a couple of drunken rockers that were a tad too eager for Cersei's attention and a snarl on his sister's part to have him stranded in a hospital bed with a broken rib, an awry, purple nose and a concussion. It had been one of the first times it would dawn on him that he was a sad and sorry mess now, a shadow of his former self. Tyrion would never know what he might've prevented by sitting around in his brother's infirmary room, making stupid comments about the food and torturing the nurses with his horrible boob jokes…
Jaime hadn't tried punching any more men for being flirty with his sister since then. These days he mostly just settled for schlepping a cross-eyed, stumbling Cersei out of whatever seedy dump he discovered her in, carrying her bridal style—ah, the irony —or, when he was in a rush, throwing her over his shoulder as she attempted to fight him in her drunken state, resisting the urge to clamp his good hand over her mouth whenever she started muttering about some three-way she'd promised Taena Merrywheather.
His lack of forcefulness seemed to annoy Cersei somehow, even though she always used to scream and thrash and swear at him whenever he handcuffed her and escorted her out of any questionable establishment. (He often wondered what kind of headline they'd make if the paparazzi ever caught them in a compromising position like that, but Cersei always did her homework and went to places that were seemingly untraceable to the press.)
Ah, good days. They used to fight a lot then, too. It didn't matter. They were free to be teenagers all over again, those nights he'd pluck her from trashy clubs, spur-of-the-moment and unsolicited and without a last name to worry about. Sometimes she'd be so eager they'd end up doing it all over the hood of his car.
It'd been years since they last fucked anyplace but his basement. He'd gotten lazier, she'd gotten more cautious.
Jaime suppressed a sigh that would have been too nostalgic, too beat, only adding to the patheticness of his situation.
His father's authoritative voice carried down from the adjacent room, praising Robert's impeccable business instincts or something equally absurd. Jaime shook his head. The only thing the fat asshole had been able to sense in a ten-mile radius was a hors d'oeuvre of silicone and cheap perfume served on high heels; anything to disrespect his sister. Cersei would've snorted to high heaven if she was there to hear just how far up Robert's dead ass everyone had their heads, and he'd have to calm her down before she went and did something stupid—again.
Jaime cleared the screen of his phone. Rolled it between his thumb and index, then dialed her number once more. At least she'd be here, not off getting herself tangled up in more shit than she could handle. If only—
The number you've dialed does not answer. Please try again later. The number you've dialed does not answer. Please try again—
Jaime leaned his head back against the cold wall, muttering a low curse as he gave up trying to get through to his sister.
Looked like Cersei was lost for the afternoon.
His good hand dropped to his side, barely clutching the phone, not caring if the damn thing fell to the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces. Who was there to call besides Cersei?
His phone buzzed. His hand shot up instinctively, although he knew the odds of his sister actually calling him were about as good as him growing another hand.
PARTNER
He'd never gotten round to updating the names of his damn contacts. It stung every time he read it, stupidly, still.
He was tempted to drop the phone on purpose, or just let it ring forever. Tarth would disapprove, of course, bark out that he had plenty of friends down at the station, that he was being a sulker and a slacker and finding excuses again. He didn't give two shits. The big cow could do the job for the both of them just fine. He'd text her to fuck off but there was only so much you could do with dyslexia and five good fingers.
He picked up, slumping against the wall. "What do you want?"
"You know perfectly well what I want," came the familiar, hardline voice from the other end. "The same I've wanted for the past year and a half. I want you to quit being a rich jerk and reassume your duty—"
"I'm a rich jerk? Have you met the rest of my family?"
"Your family's overall degeneracy does not give you an excuse to bail out of your job."
"Well that's certainly news. There I was thinking it gave me plenty of excuse to do anything. Seeing as my Daddy owns the station and about every ass in it, including yours."
"I suppose your family's prickliness has started rubbing off on you."
"I'd answer that but surprisingly enough, I don't want to have a fight, Tarth."
"What do you want? It's been almost two years, Jaime. You've had plenty of time to recuperate. That's more than most people can say for themselves, more than many ever get. Do you realize how lucky you are?" Jaime snorted at the absurdity of it—being lectured on life by a woman whose world was reduced to the good guys, the bad guys and the just guys. "You are a lucky man, Jaime Lannister. If a horribly entitled one. Why do you keep acting like your life is over?"
"Am I acting like my life is over? I hadn't noticed. I guess I've been slightly preoccupied with my brother and sister's murder charges, oh and my oddly flat wrist. Truth be told I thought I was only acting like my cop life was over. Because it fucking is. And I suppose I'm doing it in hopes that you'll finally get the memo and stop fucking calling. But you keep persisting like this horsefly gene runs in your family or something, and it's fucking annoying, has anyone ever told you that?"
"Has anyone ever told you that you should be grateful to have people in your life who would still make the effort to call you once every week after two years of being completely shut out?"
"So I'm suffering from a case of the chronic ex-partner. Hurray."
"You want to be impossible? Fine. But I have spent the last twenty months doing a two-person job all by myself because of you, and I am not amused."
"Hold it right there, sister. Whoever banned you from getting a new partner? As far as I recall you've been, rather tenaciously if I might add, either turning down or scaring away every new guy that's shown up on your doorstep. Or was that your love life? I mix those up a lot."
There was a pause. He could sense the press of her lips, the solemn groove between her knotted eyebrows.
"You lost a hand. It's a thoroughly traumatizing experience, I understand that. But you haven't lost your life and I hate that you're so bloody determined to ignore that. I have been very patient, and I have been willing to be there for you through your hardships." The rare hurt in her voice almost made him curse at her. Apologize to her. Something. She cleared her throat. Her voice dropped back to her usual, dully professional tone. "Now I've had it with your ascetic, self-pitying episodes. We must go on. You've sworn an oath, Jaime Lannister, and you've made me a promise. Partners. Now be the man I know you can be, the one you hate to be because it disables you from being a spoilt, apathetic asshole, and do the right thing. We've seen so much that is not right out on the streets, we've seen it together, and we've dealt with it as a team. I want us to do our share again. I want my partner back."
Jaime felt his jaw tighten, unshaved cheeks flexed into hollowness. The damn cow was too hardheaded for her own good.
"Were you just born, or are you plain stupid? Cripples don't generally get assigned to deal out justice."
"You don't have to be out in the field like a bloody bullet magnet to do good. You could always accept that lieutenant promotion. We both know Dayne's been trying to sway you for years."
Jaime brought his stump to his chest; beat dramatically where his heart was buried even though she could not see. "Oh. Wait."
"What?"
"I… I think I've just had massive revelation. Yeah, sure, that's what I'm going to do. I'll be a lieutenant. I'll sit behind a desk all day, look at case files I can no longer investigate, maybe even order in a cheese burger or two. I might not have the longest arm in the station anymore but I sure as hell can acquire the fattest ass."
Tarth half-sighed, half-growled. Annoyance crept in her voice as she cut him off. "You know my father always said that if you have nothing of value to contribute, you should just shut up."
"We're having a conversation," Jaime cut her off in kind. "I'm making some valid points here. Perhaps I can even sign some governmental papers, yes! Oh wait. Can't do that, either. Being an amputee and all. Jeez, partner, I guess your plan has a couple of cracks in it."
A loud thud rippled through the earpiece, causing Jaime to cringe and move the phone slightly away from his ear. He couldn't help the grin from scrunching the corners of his eyes, imagining his ex-partner kicking a dent in her desk like a gorilla. "Nine years ago, you took the job. You swore an oath."
And held my right fist to my heart as I did. "Yeah, well, I also told fat Walda she should try herself at the cheerleaders' auditions. Words aren't worth a great deal these days, are they?"
There was a pause. "You're a coward, Jaime Lannister. You have your comfortable life and your father's bank accounts, and you let yourself forget about all about justice. You choose to be a materialistic craven, fine. But don't mock what we are." Her version of a coarse language caught him off guard. Tarth's whole face could pass for an insult in itself, but she wasn't usually the verbally abusive type. She preferred butting heads to spewing insults. That much they had in common.
The line cracked and quivered. From the other side, he could hear that Tarth's breathing was heavy and riled.
Jaime's grin faded. He pressed the phone back to his cheek, parted his dry lips to utter in the most genuine tone he could muster, "There's no 'we', Brienne. I'm nothing you are. We're worlds apart, and not just because I'm a cripple and you can't turn a blind eye to shit to save your life. It was fun beating up little drug lords and putting handcuffs on people and waving our guns around, but let's be real. A spoiled, one-handed rich jerk and a justice-obsessed dumb bodybuilder… Just wasn't meant to be."
~oOo~
The old lion was standing tall and mighty, making the corner he occupied feel like the geometrical center of the room. He owned the hall through his commanding presence alone, without so much as saying a word.
Black structured suit, golden hair and impeccably groomed whiskers, he might've been forty if it wasn't for the single deep furrow that grid his forehead like a surgical incision. That and his thirty-something sons that wandered about the hallways like lost sheep.
Jaime stepped into the circle of ass-kissers that seemed to surround his father like an orbit at any given time. Perfumy clothes swished past him, making him crinkle his nose. Faces that meant nothing to him smiled and flirted as they politely excused themselves from the upcoming father-son parley.
"You called for me." Your father would like to see you in the main hall, whispered by a caterer that was so obviously gay it made Mercury seem almost straight. It was always a caterer, or an assistant, or some other form of personnel. Never Dad. The elder lion never came to any of his children to talk, no, they always waited on him. That was how things worked. It was a time-old system that never seemed to grow obsolete.
"I did."
Unlike his children, their father had never lost his British accent. Their uncles speculated that it made him sound more imperial, though Tyrion insisted it just made him come across like a pompous ass. Jaime tended to agree with the latter. Even though his sister had initially agreed that it was ridiculous to be in L.A. and not talk like an American—if you're in L.A., you have to be L.A., right? she'd whispered once—Jaime couldn't help noticing how she suddenly switched to her best imitation of Dad's voice during her conference meetings. (Not even her care-free southern lass accent. No. Just Dad's voice.)
"What for?" Jaime wasn't in the mood for anything but the bare minimum.
Tywin Lannister eyed his son in the most dispassionate manner imaginable. "I have a job proposition for you."
No, Jaime thought. Not you too. Taking that same crap from Cersei all day long was bad enough. Now he had to stand and listen to Dad try to feed it to him too, if from a slightly different spoon? There were days when Jaime Lannister positively hated his life. "There's a line of nabobs and kingpins waiting for you to give them a nod and you want me to take over? I'm not a businessman or a politician."
"No. You're not. But I have raised you to be one. You have wasted your life until now, and I have allowed it. I stood by and watched you play out your fantasies for justice. I witnessed you grow into a tabloid stamp bachelor. It is past time you were of some use to this family."
"I am being of use to the family," Jaime rumbled. "I'm taking care of Cersei. Your daughter, remember?"
His father just kept measuring him with a cold look of appraisal, face as unreadable as a face could get. "Only too well. Your sister has a score of first-class therapists and psychiatrists to aid her with whatever difficulties she might experience."
"She doesn't need shrinks, Dad, she needs family."
"Using your sister's frail mental state as an excuse to not participate in family affairs is impermissible. You are my son. Things are changing and I need a Lannister at the helm again."
"Offer the position to Tyrion, then. He'll do a far better job than I ever could."
"Be serious. I'm surprised that you would still seek after his company considering what he did to you but how you choose to occupy yourself in your spare time is no concern of mine."
Jaime bristled. "It wasn't his fault."
"Finding excuses for him is unhealthy but you may continue to do so if it makes it easier for you. As it stands your brother may have done you a favor by ridding you of your hand. This law enforcement escapade of yours was stretching out beyond all reasonable proportions as it was."
Jaime's good hand fisted his vest, hard enough to tear. He bit down on his lip, working open old wounds. Counted to five just like Cersei always instructed him to do before he made a risky statement to father. And if it hasn't worn away till then, just shut up altogether, you hear me, J? You don't talk back to father. "It wasn't an escapade. And it wasn't Tyrion's fault."
"I have not asked you here to quibble over small matters such as your brother's alleged innocence. The state court already had the final say in that. I've asked you here because I need my son to do his part for the family business."
"Tyrion is your son."
Tywin Lannister pressed his bloodless lips into a line that was thin enough to cut. "The chief executive is the highest-ranking position in all of Lannister Inc. It is crucial to the business' welfare and prosperity, and false steps will not be sanctioned. I turned down both of Robert's brothers and Walder Frey all in the span of an afternoon. I am not about to hand over a job that will carry the Lannister name—the family's future—to a drunken, lecherous little beast who killed your mother and my grandson, be it by mistake or design."
Jaime lost his cool. "Of course he didn't do it on purpose. Are you nuts to blame him for that?"
If Jaime didn't know better he would've sworn they'd just increased the air conditioning in the room. "Lower your voice. There are people staring at us."
"I'm not your errand boy, Dad. Never was, never will be."
A man in a fitted suit closed in, clutching some papers. Jaime watched as his father took them without a word or so much as a look at the delivery person. Then he extended the filing to his son. Jaime surveyed it with undisguised suspicion. "What's that?"
"It's your sister's release papers, from the mental clinic. They think she's stable enough to cease all therapy. And the second half is her discharge notification from the shareholders of Lioness. Both need my signature to be enacted."
Jaime stared at his father in dismay. "Why would she get fired?"
"There have been… complaints. Complaints I could either ignore or acknowledge. Your pick."
Jaime gritted his teeth. "I guess that's where you say Santa only drops one gift per kid and you can only sign one of the two, right? She only gets to stay in charge if her file's clean, and her file's clean when you sign the nuthouse release papers."
"Nonsense. I said it was your pick. You can choose to have me sign both, or none. I'm told you find her current occupation detrimental for her psyche. I'll do as you think best…"
"…so long as I take the job," Jaime finished for him.
"That is correct." Simple as that. Didn't even try to dance around it, the fact that he was gambling with his daughter's whole life like it was nothing; a chess piece. Jaime's stomach turned. His relatives had that particular effect on him, lately.
He snatched the papers from his father as deftly as his limited options allowed. His head pounded. Be Dad's pawn. Take Cersei off her fashion drugs. Protect Tyrion from Dad. Protect Tyrion from Cersei. Protect Cersei from Cersei. Everyone wanted something different from him, everyone cared only for their own shit and couldn't be bothered to look beyond it. They'd never be satisfied until they pulled him in a thousand directions and tore him limb from limb.
"Why the hell are you doing this to me?"
"Didn't you say yourself you wanted to take care of your sister? So here is your chance. Take care of her. And take care of the family."
Jaime looked up from the jumbled words that were scattered across the papers, meaningless. Held the old lion's gaze. He wondered if that was the passive disapproval Cersei and Tyrion always went on about, the thing that had both his siblings lower their heads and all but mewl like kittens whenever their father entered the room. It pressed him down like a flatiron, but it only made him more determined not to buckle under it. He wouldn't be doing Cersei any favors by becoming what she and their father wanted him to. He certainly wouldn't be helping Tyrion, either. That's for Cersei, and for Tyrion too. All of them had suffered long enough at the hands of Tywin Lannister's eccentric ambitions.
To hell with you, Dad, Jaime thought.
"To hell with you, Dad," he said, rallying the cop inside him back to life for a second. "To hell with your game plans."
Then he mashed the papers with his good hand, pitched them towards the nearest trash can like a baseball (it hit), and walked away.
~oOo~
He needed Tyrion. Cersei, their father, that loyal cow… Whenever Jaime grew sick of it all, he knew he could always count on his baby brother to provide some witty remark and make their shared misery sound awfully funny.
He found his brother standing by Robert's coffin, just where he'd last caught sight of Cersei with her youngest kid a couple of hours ago. The contrast between Tyrion's tiny built and Cersei's looming form on the dais, clad in her jade halter dress, exuding a certain predatory emanation that unsettled his guts, was stark enough to have Jaime blink the images away.
The dull echo of their father's magisterial voice wafted in from the neighboring hall as he delivered what was most likely a memorial speech for Robert. Cersei was supposed to be giving that, actually, but she'd explicitly refused to speak 'on behalf of the dead oaf', and given the history of the marriage, not even Tywin Lannister had dared push any of those particular buttons.
As luck would have it, most of the concourse followed Tywin Lannister like sheep around the rooms, with little thought of anything other than finding their way up the great lion's crack. (If he jumps out a window I swear half of that herd will jump as well, Tyrion had joked as early as this morning.) That meant Jaime and his brother found themselves standing in an empty hall, save for a couple of sweeping caterers, and of course, Robert. Even from inside that coffin, his presence was still audible between the two of them, falling thick like a curtain, turning the air foul. He's dead, Jaime told himself. It's done.
It didn't feel like a closure. Not the good kind, at least.
Jaime moved to stand by his brother, joining him in observing the obnoxious corpse of the man who—or rather, whose money and position—had stood between him and Cersei all these years.
"She's gone," he told his brother. He didn't need to specify. Her unspoken presence was looming over them both at all times. "You can relax."
"Now that's what I call a family-friendly funeral," Tyrion murmured, scratching his head. "Did she enjoy the smell of dead husbands as much as she hated the smell of me?"
"He should've died two ago, she said." Jaime sighed, betraying more tiredness than he'd meant to. His own words startled him. Had it really been that long since they put Joff in the ground? Since he heard a genuine laughter from Tyrion? Since he last held a gun in his grip without fearing he'd blow off his damned toe?
"Two years, huh." Tyrion whistled. "Two years is a long time." That Jaime could agree with.
It's not right, Jaime, his sister's words rang in his head. He felt weird, torn between his siblings' voices, as if he was their battle arena or their damn Walkie Talkie. Joff died and that stubborn letch of a man got to live for another two years, J, two whole years. Jaime couldn't see the relation between the two for the life of him. It wasn't like Robert's life had drawn from the boy's death. If that death fucked anyone's life, it's ours.
"She'd be in prison though, our sister," Tyrion was saying. "You tolerated her getting a husband. I imagine you wouldn't just sit around while she got a wife too."
The joke was a bit too flat to exactly fly.
"What were you thinking, Tyr?" Jaime asked softly, ignoring his brother's light tone for once. "Approaching her like that."
Tyrion chuckled. It was that bitter, disturbed snicker that always made pity surge through Jaime like a razor, although he knew it wasn't what his little brother was gunning for. "I don't know. I wasn't. What would Daddy have to say about that, huh? A Lannister acting without playing out at least five of the most likely possibilities in his head first. I don't know," Tyrion repeated. He leaned against the coffin, eyes going dark in the most honest of ways. Jaime admired his brother for having the balls to show his disrespect for Robert out in the open like that. He seemed to be the only one. "I guess… I guess letting her prowl about like some macabre personification of the Black Widow just seemed wrong, at the time."
Jaime grinned, though the amusement somehow dissolved into concern before it reached his eyes. He tried a more light-hearted vein. "She was holding a fork, you know. We both know what happens when she gets her hands on a utensil of any kind and gets crept up on by someone she doesn't like. At a funeral."
"Yes, yes, I get your point." Jaime watched his brother wave his little hand dismissively, fighting the empathy he felt for him, an empathy that threatened to spill into a full-blown hug. "Clearly I see things differently now."
"It was still a stupid move to make, baby brother. I'm supposed to be the impulsive one, remember? Dad's already pissed as fuck that he's had to keep this career guy version of me on life support all by himself for the past thirty years. Don't go around taking over my other, actual version as well." They both grinned at one another, lifelong pain and disappointment peering through the cracks between their perfect Lannister teeth. "Besides, other than endangering your own life, you sort of put me at a disadvantage there as well, little bro. I would've had to twist her arm one-handed, you know, if she came at you. Not nice to make a cripple do these things."
Tyrion smiled sadly. "That might be the sweetest thing anyone's ever almost done for me."
A warm silence settled between them. Jaime wondered how long it'd been since he'd last had a comfortable silence with anyone. Probably before his accident. His last comfortable silence with Cersei—certainly long before that.
The plangent strains of Behind Blue Eyes cut through the quiescence like nails on a board. Tyrion answered Jaime's questioning look with an apologetic grin. "It's a personal joke."
Jaime shrugged. "What isn't?"
Tyrion peered into the screen of his phone, blinking. "Well that's odd."
"What is?"
"It's Bronn."
Jaime frowned. Bronn was possibly the most corrupt cop in L.A., which was saying a lot. He worked as Tyrion's hit man slash bodyguard these days. Jaime remembered collaborating with the man on a murder case once. The guy had been transferred from Vice to aid the Homicide department when a junkie whore had apparently decided to X-out her former dealer. Jaime didn't remember much of anything as far as the man went, past the sharp tongue and the slack moralities.
"Why the hell is Bronn texting you in the middle of the day?"
Tyrion's malformed fingers tapped in a quick sequence across the flat display.
"Well fuck me."
Jaime craned his neck to get a better view of what was going on on Tyrion's screen. "What is it?"
"Jaime, I have some news, but you've got to promise you'll keep cool."
Jaime immediately went into alert mode. "Fuck cool. Is it Cersei? Is she alright?"
"It's not Cersei. It's… It's your partner. Ex-partner. She's had an incident during a manhunt."
