The Adventures of Super Jock and Awkward Girl
A/N ~ Thank you once more for all the amazing reviews! Now I'm nearing the end of the final planned chapter, writing-wise, I'm finding myself dreading the thought of not writing modern madness with this lot. So, yes, I am considering a sequel entitled Super Jock and Awkward Girl Take World, depicting a certain bunch at college. But let's hold our horses. We'll see.
Also, the goat is called Bart after Bart the Bear, because you have not seen the last of him.
Coming Up… Jaime has a hangover and doesn't handle it very well (No really, that's it, that's all that happens). Find out in The Adventures of Super Jock and Awkward Girl!
10. (Mayor of) The Asshole Association
He didn't get home until two thirty in the afternoon, and Tywin was ready to skin him.
By the godforsaken Seven, can a man get away with nothing these days?
Jaime Lannister remained quite unsure of why the fuck he was being berated for his late return, slouching, half asleep, before a solid stony father, in the middle of the Lannister kitchen. He'd been one of the nice ones, hadn't he? Who'd stayed to help Rhaegar T get Bartholomew the goat out of his kitchen. Only he and Arthur and Gerold had. It was a nice thing, a good deed. And he was getting ranted at by his father for it. Who exactly put the goat, Bart, into Rhaegar's kitchen was a mystery. Jaime only knew that it wasn't him, and yet he was still expected to get it out.
"You are my son, and you have disgraced the trust I put into you. I've told you so many times, Jaime – in before midnight. Your brother, who is younger than you, managed that. Your twin sister managed that. And yet you are inept. Are you still as bad academically as you were when you were three, and I tried to teach you counting? I expected even you to know how to tell time. And don't blame it on the drink – drinking clouds your head, and nobody forced you to drink. You're confined to school and the house for as long as I deem appropriate."
What? What about practise, what about his friends? "But Dad –"
"Not another word, Jaime. Midnight was your curfew and you come traipsing back in here at half past two in the afternoon. Actions have consequences and you need to learn that. If you haven't then I've not been doing my job properly. School, house. No more words. And if I send you to do something, you're going to do it."
"That's –"
"No. I've talked to Coach Selmy over the phone and he assured me you'd not be training due to your injury anyway."
That Jaime couldn't argue with. But even so, he'd been turning up to lounge around on the benches and take the piss out of the new subs, as only expected, and to just observe and be with those he admired and tolerated, and soak up the atmosphere of his haunt, and make certain that nobody on the team forgot him. Why did he have to get so roaring drunk? His head felt so achingly heavy that it was like to roll right off. Like it was being smashed to shards by an iron warhammer from the inside. Strings of thoughts were severed in their passage.
"I just –"
"Be quiet. There was a passing comment made about your grades, too, Jaime. They're bad. I can only hope you're not drinking your brain to rot – it might not be the most quick in studious activities, but it's a good brain. You only get one. He mentioned that you ought to gain a sudden, dramatic influx of school credit or it wouldn't be likely you'd pass your exams, get into university at all. You're a Lannister, not some washout. You're a Lannister, you hear me! You're going to start behaving like one. And getting your name back in the school's good books. Starting with that credit."
"If I'm not going to team practise how can I get more –"
"There are plenty of other ways, Jaime. Use your head. You can start with that upcoming Award Scheme camping trip the school's taking a few on. Healthy inter-school competition – and don't say you get that from football, because you went and got your hand broken, didn't you? You're going to go on that camping trip when it comes around. You're going to help out in any way you can. You're going to knuckle down and study or so help you, I will be forced to put in motion harsher consequences that you are not going to like. Do you understand me?"
Jaime, half asleep nodded clumsily and rolled his eyes. That hurt.
"I said, do you understand me?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now go and get some sleep, because I'm not giving you any special treatment in the morning, it's a school night. Go. Now."
Jaime, by some miracle, managed to heave his leaden limbs up the stairs and into his room and onto his bed before he slumped into some kind of bottomless sleep. Bottomless blackness, more like. He dreamed, and he dreamed strangely, jerkily. It took dream-Jaime a while to realize the blackness was part of the dream, not an untroubled sleep. And he was squinting through the blackness. He didn't want to be there, but he knew he had to be. He knew the way out and he couldn't bring himself to go there. This is your place.
And he knew that there was so much more to dream, but he had to wake up, because he was being screamed at, someone was screaming, right in his ear. It was the loudest thing he'd ever heard in his entire life, and the very sound of it split his skull with more searing agony that he'd ever felt, more than when his hand broke, even. Jaime groaned, and the sound of it tearing so violently from his throat crippled him, roaring and burning. It took him several bewildered moments to realize the excruciating shrilling was his alarm clock.
He lifted his good arm to shut it off, but in the lifting his arm was the heaviest thing he'd ever lifted, and the effort of letting it drop over the clock send spears of agony stabbing up to his head.
He resolved, not for the first time, to never drink alcohol ever again.
Jaime did the only thing he could do – he let his leaden eyelids crash thunderously down. Then, he heard Tyrion yelling through his door that he was going to be late. He realized he'd clunked down into solid sleep once more and now had under half an hour before school started. Wow. Thanks, Chataya, what wonderful skills you have in waking me up on time as you agreed to. Bitch. But he lacked even the strength to go and berate her.
By some miracle, he managed to dress himself with minimal damage to his hand and brain, and squash his necessary books into a pack, and lace up his Chucks – one of his default Timberlands was probably still wrapped in toilet roll and whipped cream, in one of Rhaegar Targaryen's trees. He managed to roll out of the door and into Chataya's car, after Cersei gave him a look of the upmost loathing.
He didn't care. He didn't care about anything except the steady throbbing in his cracking skull. That was all he could focus on right now. Tyrion was laughing. Distantly, Jaime was glad he hadn't gotten his drivers licence yet – if he had, he'd have caused eighty six fatal accidents by eight thirty.
Either way, Jaime was late for school by ten, fifteen minutes. He managed to stumble his way into the harsh fluorescence of the electronically-lit corridor, the sudden sharp vividness stinging his eyes, like soap or grief. He was shambling and shuffling into homeroom, where he endured the rushing, roaring, horrible intensity of hungover life only long enough to be berated by his homeroom teacher, before the bell shrieked and cleaved his skull apart.
What was comforting was that he was definitely not the worst off. Robert Baratheon was in a perpetual slump of moaning, groaning, zombie-like sluggish torture. And quite a speckling of kids were almost equally hungover. Jaime – and them too – allowed the surging crowd of subdued students to carry him along the painful corridor. Gerold H had to actually jab him in the ribs outside the door to their first class, or he would have carried on on a mindless drift across the school. Jaime found his way into a seat, and slept off most of his first period. He wasn't quite sure what class it actually was. He thought maybe it was French, because everyone seemed to be screaming incomprehensibly, but then he remembered he didn't take French, and stopped bothering to try and figure out what he was doing.
Nonetheless, his hangover did ease up as the day relented. By the time lunch was done, he was pretty much awake, although that in no way constituted a good mood. That mood worsened further when someone pointed out to him that Science occupied his next hour. A whole hour of boring nonsense that he was never going to understand, and – holy shit. Brienne Tarth. Memories of Rhaegar's party were returning piece by piece. The pool. Brienne. What the fuck had he been saying to her? What did he – why? Why? Jaime collapsed against a wall and decided he hated his life.
Despite his futile attempts at mind-controlling Principal Aerys to shut down the establishment, the bell was screaming again and Mr Hoster Tully was calling his students inside the classroom. The first thing Jaime noticed as he slunk to his allotted seat at the back, by the far window, was Cat Tully standing by her father's desk and talking at him in a pleading tone just low enough that Jaime could not strain to hear what she was saying. By which point, most of the class had filled in their seats, and Tully stood, motioning his daughter to stay.
Brienne was no exception; she'd hung back as much as possible before, a spectacular shade of tomato, sat herself down, distanced and stiff and blaring embarrassment, beside him.
"Due to personal concern that may affect scientific production, Brandon Stark, you will, as of now, be swapping seats and, hence, lab partners with someone. Any volunteers?"
Jaime had to stifle a whoop of laughing jubilance. This was perfect, this was everything – all because of Brandon's brawl with Baelish, and how Cat had probably dumped him (word was that both their Facebook statuses were now single.) he would finally be rid of all the horror and guilt that accompanied his science attachment. In a daze of joy, Jaime was just thrusting his hand up in the air to volunteer when he realized it was his bad hand, and it fucking burned. So he winced and swapped hands, hungover mood soaring. No more regret. No more hate. No more dread. No more Brienne.
"Thank you, Eddard. Brandon, if you please move your things and sit next to Miss Dustin, we can –"
Jaime nearly leapt from his seat and was glad he didn't when realism set in. Eddard. Eddard? Eddard?! Eddard. Jaime hadn't even known perfect, pure little Ned Stark had skipped a year. A year in science at least. Brandon sighed, grey eyes flashing, as he wove through rows of desks to clump down next to Barbrey Dustin, and Jaime watched in horror as his little brother took his place beside his ex-girlfriend.
Half of Jaime was thankful he didn't have problems such as those involved in the great Stark-Tully-Baelish Pentagon, and the other half wanted to smash something and impale someone.
Oh well. There went his hopes of salvation.
As the teacher went on rambling about some sorts of rock types they were supposed to be identifying, Jaime sunk lower and lower into a more vile mood, until he was resting his head on the desk and glowering, a stone's throw from spitting and swearing. (Or should he say, an igneous formation's throw from spitting and swearing.) (What a fun class.) (Why was he actually still taking it?) (He resolved to go immediately to reception after the final bell went and try and switch classes.)
By the time three variants of sedimentary rock had been handed out to each pair, Jaime was in such a foul state that he was past avoiding and dread. He was in full on cruel, self-adoring bastard mode. Each other pair were discussing the rocks they were supposed to be identifying, or otherwise still scrawling down the notes Mr Tully had written up for them to copy (apart from Eddard and Catelyn, who were quietly yet animatedly discussing Petyr Littlefinger Baelish; if Jaime had been feeling any other way, he'd eavesdrop.) while Brienne set about doing the work, and Jaime set about muttering and criticizing the way she did so.
"You know, Lannister, you could help. Try and do something for once in your life." Her tone was measured and restrained and her face was, as always, flushing. He didn't respond, because Hoster Tully was wandering the class as he often did, and he didn't want a further lecture from his father as would naturally follow should he be noted aggressively cursing. "Of course not." Brienne went on tightly. "Rich Jaime, all you've ever had to do was talk about your father and your family and things are done for you."
He noticed she was talking quietly, to herself more than anyone else. But he could still hear. So the world still needed to be punished.
That evening, Jaime stormed through the back door, slamming the worthless polished glass shut in a sable-souled cloud of irate hate. He threw down his bag in the porch viciously, and shoved the cushions aside on the sofa, lunging for the remote and stabbing at the change-channel buttons furiously. Tyrion, naturally, found this very amusing.
"Bad day, big brother?"
"What gave me away?" Jaime spat, and then hated himself for it. He wasn't sheer, undiluted fury. That was Cersei. He was supposed to be the calmly cruel one, he was meant to be calculating and measured, he was supposed to have enough sense to know that proper cold anger made you stupid, and stupid never earned any redemption or revenge. He paused. "Idiot teaching schedules meant I couldn't switch classes. I'm stuck with Science and Brienne Tarth all year."
"You weren't so mad about this even when your dreadful plight was first announced. What changed?" Tyrion seemed far too smug for Jaime's liking.
Jaime closed his eyes a moment. His ears still rung and his head still ached. "She was at Rhaegar's party the other night. After you left, maybe. Or were off with your precious Tysha."
"Is that meant to be insulting, Jaime? Tysha is precious to me. And I still don't see how one innocent girl's appearance at a party is anything to dampen anyone's mood about. The only times that's understandable is after a lovers spat, such as –" Jaime's fist tightened on a nearby cushion. Tyrion clearly sensed his brother's furious tensing and smirked, holding up open palms as a peace treaty. " – I only meant to reference Catelyn Tully and Brandon Stark. Take no offense. Nothing to do with you and Brienne Tarth."
"Tyrion, stop talking now, for the sake of your life."
"Although they do say it's a skinny little line between love and hate."
"Paper thin ice."
"Don't be like that. I only meant to –"
"Don't think I won't tear you apart just because you're my beloved brother and the one family member I half respect."
"Okay, okay, you hate Brienne Tarth, what does this have to do with me?"
"We weren't talking about you."
"Weren't we? Everyone talks about me. I'm the only one with a thimbleful of sense around here."
"Shut up."
"Fine. Back to your torturous troubles."
Jaime hesitated, thought it through, then, after thinking physically pained him due to his killing hangover, resolved to inform his baby brother of only a fraction of the party's events. Perhaps slice away at the more regretful parts that made him want to punch himself (and everything else). Not that he was in the wrong in any way. Just because he could. "After you and Peanut Girl went off into Rhaegar's guest room, I ran into a certain resentful science partner on the stairs. She seemed to be rather upset that her little friend liked men and not her – I still don't get it, she's manly enough – and I, being the astonishing human being that I am, showed her Rhaegar's swimming pool. We had a little splash fight. I was purely humouring her, though, poor hopeless fool, and then I went back in to the party and somehow I get the feeling this has given her cause for even more embarrassment than her existence usually calls for."
Tyrion studied Jaime for a while after her finished speaking, mismatched eyes sharp and sparkling. "Alright. Makes little sense. Now tell me the unedited version and I may be able to figure some things out. You know what a good people person I am."
Jaime swore violently. "Screw you, Tyrion."
"No, Tysha's not here right now. Jaime. I'm your brother, after all, though I'm clearly the more handsome one, you know I'll help in any way that I can. As long as it doesn't involve physical confrontation. Or recognition. Just tell me what actually happened. Go on."
"Fine, little bastard." Jaime muttered, shifting on the sofa, kicking his shoes off with his opposing feet – a particularly well-honed skill. "We were in the pool. We had a splash fight. We talked. Civilly. Sort of. I think. I was very, very, very drunk and Brienne agreed to save me if I drowned myself. I said some… holy crap, what did I say? Something about self-adoring good people having anger with football…? Or bastards being bastards to avoid bastards? Whatever, the charming brute called me a coward, and then we laughed and had a bit more of a splash fight. We got out on her suggestion of avoiding pneumonia. We dried off. I –" Jaime frowned. All his rainbow-hazed recollection provided was that he was in the pool with Brienne, and then he was back in the house when all the lightweights went home, and the real fun began, with the glitter and foam and Bart Goat. How did the two combine, how – oh, right. "I ran. I didn't just leave her there, I – I ran off. No warning, no explanation, I just ran off, and I left Brienne there."
Oh gods, I'm the mayor of the asshole association.
He'd apologise, he told himself. He'd apologise on Facebook, or tomorrow, for being the biggest dick the world had ever seen. And oh, shit, his behaviour today – that was so much worse now, he'd ran, oh gods. (But then again, he always told himself the same thing regarding everyone else, when he couldn't sleep at night, and never followed through.)
Tyrion had once more considered all that Jaime had said, with a slightly more serious lightness to his look and to his demeanour than his previous uninvested amusement. After a long time, he finally spoke, with all sincerity, "You know, Jaime," He said, "You used to call her Tarth."