Only six hours, he mused, Might be the best time I've ever made on this drive.
Jaime rubbed his eyes wearily, willing the numbers on the gate datapad to stop swimming, and drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel while the heavy gate pulled back.
He hated this place, hated every memory.
Well, maybe not every memory, but they were all interconnected. Thinking of one made another follow, a chain of threads that inevitably led to shame, guilt, or anger.
This place is tainted, he thought as he stared up at the castle that was his ancestral home and left the car unlocked right there in the front drive.
A member of his father's staff he did not recognize answered the door in short order.
"Sir, I will inform your father you are here."
"No need. I will only be a moment," Jaime said lightly, stepping to slide past but the man moved with him.
"Sir, I have a standing order for all visitors to be announced." He paused and fixed Jaime with a meaningful look. "Along with their business."
"Always so warm a welcome back at my childhood home. You may tell my father I am here to take what is mine."
He walked past the valet, down the main hall, and took the stairs to the library. It was a lavish room, more focused on displaying the family relics than the books it contained. It had been Jaime's favorite, the room where he could look upon his family history and read about the tales it inspired, spinning him off into near-frenzied imaginings.
His echoing steps halted at the threshold, as they always did, to take them in. Oathkeeper and Widows wail's display was positioned directly beside his father's chair, a location Jaime greatly disliked. His father had never been a swordsman of any great skill and a hypocrite with an abundance of it.
He ran his finger along the glass case edge, debating how to remove them.
"Does that community university pay so little, that you've been reduced to stealing from your ancestral home?"
Jaime closed his eyes and filled his lungs with a fortifying breath. "Good evening, Father."
Tywin Lannister stood in the entryway, his face drawn into the deep lines of bare tolerance Jaime knew so well.
"Evening? It is damn near one in the morning."
The older man stepped into the room, slowly circling Jaime. "What do you need them for?" he barked. "If you were your sister, I'd guess something as vapid and frivolous as herself. If your brother, I'd wager a high-priced whore." He paused, his head tilting with scrutiny. "But you lack their proclivities."
Jaime shook his head. "There are things, Father, that I can't explain, but trust me when I say I need these. They have purpose yet to serve."
Tywin's lip curled in contempt. "And there it is. Still a stupid child looking for grumkins and faeries in the garden hedge."
The lash stung, though Jaime merely grinned. "It was merlings and selkies on the beach, actually..." I found the Evenstar, you miserable old shit. "At least on the days I wasn't locked away."
"Perhaps if you or your siblings had an ounce of decorum and obedience, that would not have been necessary."
The grin dropped from Jaime's face. "Necessary? We were treated like criminals for simply being children!"
Tywin scoffed. "Criminals, truly? It is far too early for such dramatics, Jaime."
"You once struck Tyrion so hard in the face, he still bears the scar. You put us in solitary confinement for weeks on end! There were days I never spoke a word aloud."
"You come here, ungrateful and complaining like a nagging fish wife? You grew up with all the privileges and resources anyone could ever hope for. You wanted for nothing."
Love, Jaime thought. I wanted love.
"She would be disgusted by you."
The words had seeped out almost of their own accord, a thought he'd carried with him for years that could no longer be withheld. His heart raced but he could not bring himself to regret it.
"What did you say?"
"Mother," Jaime said through clenched teeth. "You would disgust her."
Tywin stilled and for a moment he neither blinked nor breathed.
"I am grateful she died before she could see what her children became. You think I would disgust her?" asked his father cooly. "I'm sure she would have reveled in a malformed imp as a son and twins whose perversions, thankfully, did not lead to any abominations."
It was the first time his father had spoken openly about his and Cersei's affair. The cool prick of shame burned between Jaime's shoulder blades and his throat grew tight.
"And why did that happen?" he hissed, his vision watering at the edges. "You kept us isolated from the outside world and desperate for any scrap of love and affection. What did you think would happen when we became teenagers and had only each other? We stopped once we escaped this place."
"You dare blame me-"
"Cersei moves from one abusive relationship to the next and Tyrion's promiscuity borders on self-destructive. They both drink to forget while I prefer the Old Tales to escape our reality. And as far as Tyrion being a dwarf, I'm fairly certain genetics are inherited. "
Jaime ignored the tear that escaped the corner of his eye as his voice lowered and steadied.
"So, just so we're clear, everything we are, everything you hate about us... it all came from you."
Neither man moved and Jaime felt the last fragile thread of familial bond between himself and his father unravel to lay at their feet.
"Get out of my house," snarled Tywin. "Or I will have you removed."
"Do what you must. As will I," Jaime replied and grabbed the poker from the fireplace by his hip. He swung the poker out, striking the glass cage surrounding the swords and the pieces clinked against the stone floor.
Taking one scabbard in each hand, he turned and walked out, shouldering past the servants who stood gawking in the hall.
Jaime barely noticed the road as he tore down it, his thoughts a confused jumble of rage and melancholy that had him slamming his fist into the dash. An hour into the drive, his phone buzzed with a call.
Cersei
He closed his eyes briefly and ignored it. He couldn't deal with her right now, not when he hadn't had time to properly pack away the memories of her that he kept buried deep.
His phone trilled with a message and he glanced at the screen.
Cersei: What the fuck did you do? I just got woken by Father's lawyers-
"Godsdammit," hissed Jaime into the quiet of the car and picked up the phone. A second later, a surprisingly awake Tyrion answered.
"Jaime, care to explain why I've already fielded three phone calls regarding you this morning? One from Father's lawyer, one from law enforcement, and one from Cersei. Thanks for that last one, especially."
"I took them, Tyrion. Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail."
Even through the phone, Jaime could hear Tyrion suck in a sharp breath. "Were you let into the house? You didn't break in, correct?"
"No, the doorman let me in."
"Did you damage anything or hurt anyone?"
"I destroyed the display case, but other than that, no."
He could hear Tyrion's sigh of relief. "If they charge you with anything, it should be minimal and I'll make sure it doesn't stick."
Jaime scoffed. "You actually think Tywin will allow you to do that?"
"I haven't given a fuck what he will or will not allow for many years now," replied Tyrion dryly. "They were your swords, Jaime. Mother left them to you in her will, from her Lannister side."
At that, Jaime rolled his eyes. "Right, right. Second cousins." Ever the fucking hypocrite.
"You were invited into the home and retrieved your rightful property with minimal damage caused in the process. It's no more than if you had dinged a doorframe. Small claims at the most."
Jaimes, sighed, some of his anxiety washing away with Tyrion's words. Business lawyers, contracts, succession, and wills... those were all the domain of Tywin and Tyrion, a world Jaime never cared to understand.
"And while I don't put it past father to pay thousands in legal fees to only get you to eventually pay for a destroyed glass box, he's forgetting one thing."
"Oh? What's that?"
"I'm far more petty than he is."
At that Jaime laughed, a broken, almost strangled thing.
"Though Jaime, you should know, I'm certain he is writing you out of any future inheritance as we speak."
"That's fine. I have plenty from Mother and I'm employed. I want nothing from him regardless."
"What happened?"
"The usual. He told me how worthless and what disappointments we were and we argued. But this time, I told him Mother would have found him and his treatment of us repugnant."
Tyrion let out a low whistle. "Yes, that would do it."
"He..."
Jaime swallowed heavily and cleared his throat, the tears pricking once again at his eyes. They didn't speak of this beyond the occasional allusion from Tyrion with a look that said 'I know'.
"He said we would be the ones who disgusted her, all of us, but namely myself and Cersei for what we did."
"Jaime..."
"And he's right. Of course, she would be. Who wouldn't?"
He thought of Brienne and a cold sort of terror curled in his gut of her ever finding out. The woman had barely warmed to him as it was. Anger, annoyance, and exasperation were all familiar expressions she wore around him but the thought of her revulsion made bile rise in his throat.
"We're broken, Tyrion. He broke us and then we broke each other."
"You didn't break me. I'd never survived without you."
Jaime shook his head in disagreement.
"I didn't protect you enough. Not from Tywin, and certainly not from Cersei. It was my responsibility."
"It never should have been. I don't blame you. And although I can't stand the cunt, I don't blame Cersei either."
"She blames you."
"I know. But nothing you ever said or did was going to change that."
They were silent except for the slight sniffling on either side of the line until Tyrion spoke.
"I can take a flight in the morning and be back in the Riverlands by nine."
"No, um, that's okay. I won't be home anyway."
He could practically hear Tyrion's brow raise. "Oh, and where will you be, brother?"
He considered lying but found he had no desire to.
"Brienne's."
He thought of the woman and the ordeal they had been through with the Nārhēdegon.
Gods, was that just ten hours ago? No wonder I'm exhausted.
"Ah, wanted to show her your mythical sword, I see."
"Tyrion, it's not-" he hesitated and glanced over at Oathkeeper and Widows wail, their visages incongruous with the sleek black leather interior of his car.
Armed by her love
"It's not what?"
"What?" asked Jaime, tearing his eyes away from the swords and back to the road.
"I implied, quite cleverly, that you were on your way to try to fuck that giantess I met at your apartment two days ago and you were about to deny it."
"I..."
His eyes drew back to the swords. The slightly smaller one was ornate with filigree and embedded rubies in the crossguard while the other contained but a single brilliant sapphire in the hilt, the gold designed to mimic an expertly done wrap.
"Jaime?"
The tires on his car slipped a fraction as he came to the northern snow line and flakes lightly dotted his windshield.
"Sorry, Tyrion. The hour must be getting to me and I need to focus to drive in the snow."
"Of course. Text me when you arrive at the lady's house."
Jaime hung up and felt himself start to go away to that spot in his mind where the childhood stories he told himself lived.
The shaking in his hand steadied as he dissociated, the rhythmic hum of the road luring him deeper.
He knew when he surfaced, he would have to deal with his family fallout and examine his thoughts on Brienne, take them out and turn them over until they made sense.
But not right now.