Chapter Text
“Oh gods, it’s happening Margaery. Like, right now. What is breathing? Help me breathe!” Myrcella Baratheon gasped in air.
“I don’t even know! How is this happening to us! We don’t even deserve this!” Sansa Stark whimpered.
Margaery Tyrell hated whimpering. “We deserve this more than anybody has ever deserved anything! Shut up, just shut up. It’s happening!”
“You’re right, Marg. I might die. This might make me dead.” Myrcy resigned herself to death by fangirling.
Sansa jumped and pointed. “There she is! She’s there! Oh gods, she’s like a majestic unicorn of wonder! I think my heart might be exploding.”
“Sansa, don’t explode and get blood on her!” Marg demanded.
“She’s so tall…gah.” Sansa leaned against Myrcy for support.
“There’s more to her than being tall, Sansa. Besides, you’re tall.” Myrcy pointed out.
“Yeah, but she’s tall like goddess tall, and I’m tall like stringbean tall.”
“She is a goddess,” Myrcy insisted. “Whoever says she’s ugly is a hater and a troll with eyes made of butt.”
Marg tapped her chin with one finger. “You know, I used to think she wasn’t all that—”
“What? How could you?” Myrcy was incensed.
“Shut up! I used to think she was just sort of tall and maybe kinda freckly, but duh. She’s a goddess.”
“I might forgive you. Maybe.”
“Oh gods, she’s coming over. She’s like ten feet away. I can't even.” Sansa started jumping again.
Myrcy squealed as they all started talking at once. “That’s like two steps for her!”
“I think I’m going to faint. Or barf.”
“My hands are shaking so bad!”
“Oh gods, she’s here!”
An extraordinarily tall woman with a blonde bob strode past the three hyperventilating teenagers. There was something about their group that must have caught her attention on the way into the bookstore, possibly their matching t-shirts with her book cover on them, and as she paused to let the clerk open the door for her, she glanced back and smiled just a tiny bit.
“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods. Did that happen? Did that just happen! Help.” Myrcy was knocking on fan-death’s door again.
“I can’t even,” Sansa whispered as if it were a revelation.
Myrcy scrubbed tears from her cheeks. “Dead. I’m dead. I think I puked in my mouth.”
“Those girls are going in ahead of us! Push them! Slap those bitches! We were here first!” Marg shoved them towards the door. “Go, go, go! Move!”
“Oh gods, sign my book! Sign it!” Myrcy waved her hardback prize in the air like a trophy.
The three stumbling fangirls shoved their way into Mormont & Son bookstore to claim a place as close to Brienne Tarth as possible. It was crucial to their existence. They might actually die if they couldn’t get their books and shirts and possibly breasts signed by not only their favorite author, but their favorite person ever to have existed ever. After all, she gave them their O-T-P.
Jaime Lannister loosened his red silk tie as he crossed the foyer of his father’s house. Mansion really, but he’d rather not think of the luxury he’d given up by leaving the family business and living off his own income. He was only there to pick up Myrcella.
The span of golden hued marble on the floor had begun to seem garish. It must be a product of the old age Myrcy frequently accused him of whenever he didn’t understand her slang. These days, thirty-eight felt old.
He didn’t look down as he approached the small parlor in the back of the house where Myrcy liked to bring her friends when she stayed with Tywin. The shrieking laughter of adolescent girls poured from the room despite the closed door, but as he got closer, he heard a few distinct wails mixed in. Someone’s boyfriend must have dumped them. It was a frequent occurrence.
He eased the door open an inch to make sure Myrcy’s shameless friend Margaery wasn’t showing off new underwear again, and when he saw his niece supine on the plush carpet with her arms thrown over her face, he darted inside.
“What’s wrong? Are you ill?” He knelt beside the golden-haired young girl and laid his palm on her arm to test her temperature.
Margaery Tyrell’s annoying chuckle made him look up. “No, Uncle Jaime, she’s just suffering from a bad case of feels.”
Everything Margaery ever said to him had a distinctly sexual inflection, but he’d given up trying to fend her off with disapproval. Let her have her schoolgirl crush. “Feels? Is this some sort of female problem? Because if this is a female problem, I’m leaving immediately.” He rose from the floor to stand with his hand on a hip.
“No, Uncs, I’m just happy. And sad. All the things.” Myrcy’s sweet voice oozed from beneath her still-crossed arms.
“We were re-reading Chapter Fourteen. It makes you dead.”
Jaime’s head snapped up in surprise as Sansa Stark’s face appeared over the coffee table in front of Myrcy. He hadn’t even seen her there. She, like Myrcy, had drying streams of tears on her cheeks that carried bits of flaking mascara.
He let Myrcy remain on the carpet as she seemed to want and sat on the sofa. “Will one of you kindly explain what’s going on?”
“We met Brienne Tarth today. It’s made us a little crazy,” Margaery volunteered.
“Who?” he asked.
They moved as one, three wide-eyed vengeful angels turning unnerving stares on him. Sansa and Myrcy had even abandoned their places on the floor.
“What do you mean who! Brienne Tarth! The famous author?” Myrcy looked like she might want to spit on him.
“She wrote The Mighty Fool? On all the bestseller lists?” Margaery had lost her apparent fancy for him in favor of disdain.
“How do you not know who she is? I can’t even.” Sansa shook her head like a teacher disappointed in her pupil.
Jaime sunk back into the protection of sofa cushions. Teenage girls were utterly terrifying. “I think I’m too old for this.”
Myrcy scrubbed her eyes with her palms and abruptly launched herself onto the sofa next to him, still looking at her friends. “He needs to know. It’s so important, you guys.”
They nodded in unison like bobble-heads.
Myrcy grabbed a dust-jacketed book from the table, its edges clearly worn and the pages loose as it flopped open in her hand. “Uncle Jaime, this book is just…everything really. And the author is just as amazing. She’s our hero.”
Sansa waved her thin arms in circles with no apparent purpose. “She stands for being yourself and not trying to be a supermodel or pop singer and stuff, and she’s this crazy tall elf goddess who hates attention.”
“We met her today at her book signing.” Margaery sighed.
“She signed our books!” Sansa seemed to shake with emotion.
“Well, that seems to be the purpose of a book signing.” Jaime had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.
“And she signed our shirts, too!” Myrcy stretched out the front of her t-shirt carefully to display the Sharpied signature.
Sansa did the same, and Margaery pulled hers over her breasts and pushed them as far in his direction as she could. He looked away immediately, refusing to be caught for a split second in that situation. He’d speak to Margaery’s grandmother about her if the old woman weren’t so terrifying.
Myrcy shoved the book at his chest. “You have to read it. You just have to!”
“You know reading isn’t really my thing.” Jaime shook his head vehemently, trying to defuse the awkward ambush.
“This is different. It’ll make you want to read every book ever but nothing will ever be as good!” Myrcy insisted.
“Until the sequel comes out!” Sansa reminded.
“A hundred and forty-two days,” Margaery stated off the top of her head with a shrug.
If it meant something positive for Myrcy, he’d have to try. There was obviously something about the book that she needed, a thought that only made him doubt for the millionth time his ability to be an effective guardian.
“All right, then. I’ll read it, but it might take a whi—” Myrcy’s arms wrapped around his neck choked off his words.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you! You won’t regret it, I swear.”
“And Chapter Fourteen—” a lone tear trickled from Sansa’s eye.
“Yes, I know. Dead.” Jaime chuckled as Myrcy let him go.
She drew back to peer at him with owlish eyes. “It’s the O-T-P chapter. Pretty much everyone agrees.”
“The what now?”
Sansa rested her chin on her palms like a cherub. “O-T-P stands for one true pairing. Two people who are not only meant to be together but are like, mega soul mates.”
“So much soul, like if they only had one soul between them and it got split in half and they can’t even live or breathe until they find the other half again.” Myrcy leaned back on the sofa and sighed.
“Um, I’m probably being obtuse, but aren’t you speaking of fictional characters?” Jaime immediately wished he’d never said such a clearly dimwitted thing. Their withering glares stabbed like knives wielded by angry kittens.
“It’s meta for life, Uncle Jaime,” Margaery hissed. “It’s about love.”
“Everything’s about love.” Sansa sighed the same way Myrcy had.
The girls’ dedication to this…thing seemed a little dramatic, but he supposed it was better for them to obsess over a book and an author than some drug-addicted singer who’d take them backstage at concerts for fun.
“Well, um…thank you for enlightening me.”
“Oh gods, we’ve done it, you guys! We’re going to convert him and we get to watch his journey.” Sansa seemed to withdraw into her mind as her eyes grew unfocused.
Margaery, the sort-of put together one until that point, scrunched her face up like a small child too excited to breathe. “He gets to meet Ian on the road, people. He get to see Quil for the first time. I’d cut off my arm to relive that!”
Sansa sighed dramatically, but Myrcy flinched and stole a glance at her uncle’s right arm with its notable absence at the end. He was used to slips of the tongue. They didn’t bother him.
“Gods, you guys. Unsensitive much?” Myrcy cringed.
“I’m so sorry, Uncle Jaime. I didn’t mean it!” Margaery looked like she was about to cry.
“It’s fine, I promise. I’m not offended.” Still, he drew his arm back subconsciously.
“The book will fix it. The book fixes everything.” Sansa sucked in air hard enough to make her nostrils pinch.
Jaime used the moment of silence to gain some semblance of control, rising from the sofa. “On that note, Myrcy, we need to head home. Your brother shouldn’t have to suffer Mrs. Stokeworth’s company for so long.”
“Ugh, I can’t stand her.” Myrcy stood reluctantly with her precious tome clutched to her chest.
“Housekeepers willing to put up with our situation are not easy to find.”
“Whatever.” Myrcy turned to her friends with a tragic expression. “Oh gods, I don’t want to leave you!”
“Don’t leave us!” Sansa jolted from the carpet and wrapped her arms around Myrcy.
Margaery did the same. “Come stay with me, both of you! Loras has a friend over, too, and we can watch Brienne interviews on ViewTube!”
Myrcy turned a pink face towards Jaime. “Please? Can I?”
“It’s a school night,” he said reluctantly, always hating to say no to either of his charges.
“We all go to the same school. We wouldn’t be late, promise!”
The three girls clung to each other as if the apocalypse were coming. He didn’t have it in him to refuse. “Fine, fine. But, Margaery, I’m calling your house to make sure you don’t stay up all hours.”
Margaery winked. “Why don’t you just stay, too, and watch out for us?”
There was no hope. “Myrcy, please tell your friend that hitting on an old man is not a habit she should engage in.”
“She thinks you’re hot.” Myrcy shrugged.
Margaery just grinned, so he turned to the door to leave in awkward silence.
“Wait, the book!” Myrcy tucked it under his arm with great care and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. “Say goodnight to Tommen for me. I’ll make him those pancakes for breakfast on Saturday.”
Jaime smiled fondly. “You’re a good big sister to him. Thank you.”
“You’re a good uncle.” Her returning smile was just as fond, and he felt a little pressure release in his chest. He wasn’t completely failing at least.
As soon as hot Uncle Jaime had gone home, Margaery pulled out her phone to call the Tyrell driver. “Anyone want to grab a bite before Grandmother makes us go to sleep at an ungodsly hour?”
“Cheesecake,” Myrcy said immediately.
“Obvs.” Margaery texted the driver with her desired route, naming Brienne Tarth’s favorite restaurant for dessert.
She wished beyond reason that Myrcy’s uncle was not old enough to be her father, and not related to one of her two best friends in the whole world. He just so hot.
“Stop thinking about him, Marg. It’s gross.” Myrcy flopped back on the sofa to wait for the car.
“It’s only gross to you because you’re related. Come on, you’ve got to admit he’s fine.”
“He really is,” Sansa added with a small smile.
“You just want to be part of your own O-T-P, and Uncle Jaime looks like an old version of Ian. It’s transference, or whatever Mr. H’ghar says in psychology.” Myrcy grimaced and pulled out her phone.
“It’s seven. Fumblr check.” Sansa also retrieved her phone.
Margaery sighed and tried to banish thoughts of Jaime Lannister’s tweed-covered butt or that one time she’d seen him re-learning to swim in the big pool, all chest muscles and dripping hair.
“You know,” she murmured dreamily as she joined her sister-friends on the sofa to scan Fumblr tags. “He really is like Ian. He’s so broody and tries so hard to take care of people. Brienne Tarth should write a book about old people love and use him as a model.”
Myrcy bolted upright so quickly her phone flew out her hands and landed with thud on the carpet. “Oh my gods, you guys! This is huge, this is like…this is nuclear huge!”
“What is?” Sansa picked up the phone since she liked to keep things neat, but her eyes never left her friend.
“Okay, hear me out…” Myrcy held up her palms to make sure the seriousness was understood. “Brienne Tarth is our favorite person, right?”
“Yes,” Marg and Sansa said simultaneously.
“Right. And who’s our second favorite person?” Myrcy glanced between them before shaking her head. “Not you, Sansa. Sorry, but you have terrible taste after liking my psycho brother and Marg’s gay brother, and your mom’s creepy old man friend. You can’t be trusted in this matter.”
“That’s true.” Sansa nodded.
Myrcy plowed ahead without waiting for Margaery to answer. “Uncle Jaime is definitely my second favorite person, and I think he’s probably yours, Marg, right?”
“No question.” Margaery nodded.
“Well then?” She slapped her hands together, making Sansa jump from the noise.
Sansa looked as clueless as Margaery. Then for Margaery, the clouds suddenly vanished and all was clear blue sky like Brienne Tarth’s glorious eyes. “Oh my gods, Myrcy! Oh my gods!”
Margaery jumped to her feet and started pacing, Myrcy soon joining her.
“I don’t understand!” Sansa nearly wailed, but joined their pacing anyway.
Marg took her by the shoulders. “We’ve never heard anything about Brienne dating anyone, and even if she was, they wouldn’t be as good a person as Uncle Jaime. And Uncle Jaime hasn’t dated anyone since that stupid Pia girl dumped him for the guy at the copy store. So…?”
Sansa’s face transformed from a wide-eyed child to a conniving young woman in an instant. “Oh my gods.”
“Totally!” Myrcy clapped a hand on each of her friend’s shoulders. “It’s perfect. It has to be. It’s going to be amazing.”
“We have to figure out how to do this without making it too obvious. It won’t be easy,” Margaery warned.
“Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.” Myrcy repeated her grandfather’s often used phrase.
“Gods, you guys, they’re going to be like Ian and Quil. We’re going to have two O-T-Ps. I don’t know if I can cope. I can’t even.” Sansa started breathing harder and harder. She was close to hyperventilating.
Myrcy’s eyes glazed over as she stared off into a dreamy distance. “No Sansa. It’s going to be better than that. They’re real. It will all be real.”
“We’re going to watch their journey.” Margaery’s lip quivered in anticipation.
“This will be the greatest thing we ever do in life, like ever,” Myrcy asserted. “Brienne Tarth and Jaime Lannister, O-T-P.”