Brienne sits on her Recamier, knees drawn up to her chest so that she can lean her chin on them, eyes narrowed at the object standing on her kitchen counter as though it was some vicious animal about to strike the moment on she left it out of sight.
A bunch of blue roses.
Brienne didn't even know those existed.
Blue roses.
Jaime slept over at her apartment yesterday, and today, after he had left for work, those roses suddenly stood there on the counter.
Not to mention that Brienne still finds herself frowning a lot more these days. Jaime and she date regularly now, and he pops up at her apartment almost daily, standing true to his weirdest antic he admitted to her back in the archery range. One time Jaime really swarmed inside her loft and said that he had loads of work to do and that he can't talk to her – just to sit down at her kitchen counter to get to the task. When Brienne questioned him why he didn't stay at the office or his apartment for the matter, he only offered a shrug, seemingly not knowing himself. That really is his weird antic.
But except for kissing and a bit more, nothing much happened, and that even though they had at least eight real dates already, and spent almost every day with each other in this way or another.
Whenever she had a boyfriend before, it never got past date five without him making advances.
Yet, here is a man who eats up everything she has in her fridge, rearranges her furniture when she is taking a shower, is into just the same things she is, who is a gentleman like out of the handbooks, teases her to the point that she shoves him back and forth, who looks like a real-life prince, and apparently rescues messed-up women from dying the death of red stilettos.
And brings blue roses.
Brienne is pulled out of her thoughts when her phone beeps. She doesn't even have to look to know who is on the other end of the line. She guides the phone to her ear, eyes still fixed on the blue roses.
"I hope you found my present. Or are you hissing at the unfamiliar object like a cat?"
"You don't even own a cat," she argues.
"I watch cat videos online," he chuckles. "Do you want a cat?"
"No? And if you dare bring one, I will kick you both out," she warns him.
"You have the oddest ways to say 'thank you'," he chuckles.
"… Thank you," she grimaces.
"Are you staring at the roses right now?" he grins.
"No?" she lies.
"You are such a bad liar," Jaime chuckles softly. "So? How about dinner tonight? I mean, fancy dinner – which means that you have to use fork and knife like normal people?"
"I can't handle chopsticks, so I use a spoon for Chinese takeaway, crucify me," she grunts.
"Yet another thing I will have to teach you, then. So, I will drop by once I get out of work. I hope you have something pretty to wear. Hotpants are only fine for the shooting range. I will…," Jaime stops on his way down the hallways of the Lannister firm when his eyes fall on a red dress.
"You will what?" Brienne frowns.
Jaime gapes, "I… I forgot the punchline. I'll talk to you later, Blue Eyes, alright?"
"Are you okay?" she frowns at the change of tone.
She never heard uncertainty in his voice so far.
"Perfect, as always," he replies in a monotonous voice. "I have to hang up."
"Oh, alright, bye," she grimaces. Jaime hangs up, setting his jaw in a straight line as he walks forward.
"Jaime, it's been so long."
"What are you doing here? I thought Father sent you abroad?"
"And now I'm back, brother."
Jaime swallows thickly.
Brienne is not the only one who is a mess, just that his messes are… a lot messier.
…
"Yes, Margaery, the dress fits fine, thank you. No, I won't send pictures. No. I told you… No! I am hanging up now. Yes, no. I am hanging up. Hanging up. Tell Renly hi from me, bye. Bye. Bye!"
Brienne looks at herself in the mirror. Margaery dropped by earlier the day after she had called her, lamenting about not having anything to wear for a fancy dinner other than the blue dress she still wants to shred. Margaery almost flew to her apartment with a black chiffon dress that runs up to her knees, sweetheart-neckline, but lace running up to close high around her neck, making her feel much more comfortable, since it reveals a bit, but not too much.
Margaery is really good with these things.
And Brienne, after she contemplated with herself a long while, decided to actually put on red lipstick. Normally she doesn't, fearing to look clownish because she has rather broad lips, but it actually looks not halfway bad with the black dress.
And then again, Jaime knows her in sweatpants and loose shirts – and he still tells her each time how stunning she looks just wearing this, though she takes it more for a tease.
There is a knock on the door. Brienne shuffles over to open. She tilts her head at Jaime, dressed in one of the finest anthracite suits, crisp white shirt, and navy skinny tie, the jacket hugging his body in just the right places. Though that is nothing new. He'd look just as good in rags, "You are really early this time."
Because he is always five minutes early for some reason.
"You look stunning," he blurts out as he comes inside. Brienne frowns as she closes the door. She tries to get used to him making her compliments, but his expression isn't the usual smug grin that he sports when he makes her a compliment, and that is what irritates her more than words can say.
"Blue Eyes?" he asks, kneading his hands, pacing like a lion in a cage.
She never saw him pace.
She never saw him… nervous?
"Is everything alright with you?" she grimaces.
"I'm fine, it's, uhm, I have a confession to make," he goes on.
He has to tell her, before she gets to.
"What confession?" she looks at him with unnaturally wide eyes.
"I, uhm, there is something I didn't tell you, really, and… and I should have, I know, but I… I didn't know how, to be honest," Jaime says, his mouth nervously flexing. "You hear it, even now I can't say it without talking complete gibberish."
"Welcome to my world," she snorts.
"Back on our first date, when we played truth or truth, you asked me about my former relationships," he goes on, licking his lips.
"Yes," she nods slowly, not liking the sound of that.
"I never explained to you what the thing with my first relationship was," he goes on.
"We both had relationships before, that's fine," she argues, tilting her head. He lets out a sigh," That's not the problem. I… uhm… you should have asked me what the most forbidden thing I have ever done was. Because it was this relationship."
"What do you mean?" Brienne breathes.
"I told you about my sister, right? Cersei?" Jaime says, licking his lips.
"You said she's been abroad for years because she handles international affairs for your father's firm," Brienne nods.
"Father actually sent her away because of something she and I did when we were still young, though he only found out way later when it was already a thing of the past," Jaime bites the inside of his cheek.
"What did you do?" Brienne asks, but then her mind puts the pieces together and her sapphire blue eyes open so far that her eyelids hurt.
"You… and her?" Brienne manages to say.
And the small nod is the confirmation that it takes to make it truth.
That no matter how hard Jaime tries to be a perfect gentleman, no matter how much he tries to be everything Brienne wants him to be, though she doesn't even know it herself, he will always have this shadow haunting him, the shadow that corrupted any attempt at a real relationship he ever had. Not because he told them and they refused him thus, but because it pulled him back, made him reconsider.
But with Brienne… he didn't even think about Cersei anymore. This all seemed so perfect. Rescuing a fair maiden. Winning her, wooing her. Finding someone who is just like him without being a mirror image of him, like Cersei was.
And Jaime doesn't want to lose that, lose her, because she makes him go crazy with her weird antics and with the fact that she doesn't see that she is a gemstone no matter how much she tries to make herself believe that she is no more than a shard of glass.
But here is the shadow. And now it's cast into her apartment, no matter how much Jaime tried to spread himself in her loft. It takes this one admission to have this shadow here.
And maybe it takes only this shadow to cast him out.
"How?" she can't help but ask.
"It's… we're twins, I told you. We always shared a very… close connection. At some point during our youth, our father was always away for business trips. We were mostly on our own, because I had no real friends outside the family. We lived away from the city, in a huge house… It was just us and… I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It happened, and we suddenly… were this. But I gave up on it and I never regretted the choice. It's… it's the one dark secret I didn't admit to many people yet… and the one secret I didn't want to tell you about," Jaime tells her.
"Why?" she asks. "You know that I don't like lies."
"I didn't want to lie to you. I just didn't know how to tell you such a thing. That's no real good warm-up to a date, let's not pretend. It's just… by the Gods, Brienne, I didn't want to lose you to this shadow from my past," Jaime admits feebly. "I wanted to prove it to you that I could be this perfect man, you know? But in the end, I am by no means perfect, not even good. And I couldn't even hold it against you if you said now that you don't want to see me ever again."
"Why are you telling me this just now?" she asks.
"Because she is back in town," Jaime admits. "Cersei, I mean."
"… and you want to… go back to her?" Brienne asks, leaning on the kitchen counter.
That must be it.
Brienne starts to have feelings for a man who apparently loves his sister, however twisted that may be.
She was just a gap-filler.
Again.
Like always.
And here she thought she found someone who was like her, who liked her.
She really should have known.
However, that is when Jaime pulls her to him by her forearms, "I swear by the Gods that I want nothing to do with her. I want to be with you, alright? I just didn't want her to dig her nails into you to surprise you with these news. I wanted you to get them from me. So that you can make up your mind about me. About us."
"Do you love her?" Brienne asks, her voice shaking. "Because if you still have feelings for her, then…"
Then what?
She will let him go?
Brienne doesn't really know if she can… or wants.
"I still have feelings for her as my sister, but not love," Jaime tells her. "Not what I feel for you."
"I guess things just got a lot more real between you and me," Brienne grimaces.
Because in fact they are both perfectly imperfect.
Jaime seems smooth and aloof to strangers, but is weird and a bunch of odd antics in private, beneath the pretty surface.
Brienne seems all mannish and freakish, but is also weird and fragile at the same time.
He has shadows from the past and so does she.
"Sorry for destroying the dream," Jaime exhales, but that is when she pulls him against her chest, "You know that I'm a bad liar. That's why I rather have the truth, no matter how hurtful it may be. I like reality better than a dream. Because that makes us real."
They are both a mess. And while Brienne is still uncertain about the content of his failure, she is relieved to see those defences breaking away from him, because he wore an armour the same way she did.
Just that his was harder to take off, to the point that he allows her to hold him.
She pulls away to guide him to her bed, but then pulls him back into her embrace.
Dinner shall be damned.
Jaime's hands travel over her cheek, her arms, getting lost in her kindness, in her understanding. That she seems to like him broken the same way she likes him whole.
That he doesn't have to be the Golden Prince for her.
That being broken is fine.
That not being able to fix the world is fine.
That this is no longer a dream, but reality.
"Brienne?"
"What?"
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
They simply fall asleep in each other's arms, a bit closer after both their armours came off a bit more this night.