Chapter Text
Winter.
She fucking hated it.
Snow, in her opinion, was just sludge colored white. Snow was cold and thick, wetting through the thickest clothes. Left unattended on the ground it became slick and a nasty accident waiting to happen. With each passing day, she worried even more about the old radiator in her old apartment giving out in the dead of night. The landlord made a drunken sloth more efficient so she doubted if anyone would be able to repair the fucking thing if it broke down.
While shop windows were strung with fairy lights and began to twinkle as night began to fall, and swaths of banners and every kind of cloth the color of brilliant red and vivid green adorned displays from the most humble to bakeries to the stateliest of homes, she kept her little apartment devoid of any cheer of the coming holidays. Extra lights meant increased electric bills and again, put at risk the ageing radiator in her aged apartment.
On the short walk to the subway where she took the train that took her to connecting one that brought her to the small college in Fishmonger’s Square, she kept her ears plugged with the hardest, loudest metal rock. Why must every shop blast Christmas songs all day? And the goddamned carol singers. On the sidewalk. In the shops. In the fucking train! She didn’t even know her school had archways, so small it was, until acapella singers thought to station themselves there at all hours.
On what was another long, cold, gray winter day, she sat up in bed rubbing her eyes. She still had fifteen minutes to go before the alarm rang but her mind was already wide awake. The rest of her would rather stay in bed but that was a luxury. A luxury she looked forward to come Christmas Day.
She got up and looked at the calendar. Two more weeks before she earned it. Yawning, she stretched and padded to the bathroom.
School won’t be until ten in the morning today but she had an early shift at the bakery around the corner. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, she was a part-time bakery assistant. The pay was peanuts and the position meant any job needed during her shift could be thrust at her without even a moment’s notice. But the manager of Hot Pie let her bring home the dumpy baked goods that would otherwise be shoved in the dumpster. And coffee. Unlimited, searing hot, coffee so bitter she was convinced it was dragged from the deepest bowels of the earth. That and misshapen rolls kept her fed and wide awake for the rest of her classes and until she reported for her afternoon jobs: a stock clerk in a grocery store every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and a store associate in a department store on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Finished with washing her face, she stared at herself in the mirror. Water dripped from her pale forehead down to her chin. Because of the cold weather her freckles were not so prominent unless one looked real close. She pinched her cheeks. They were still firm. Supple. The flesh of a twenty-four-year old. The eyes she wasn’t sure about. Round and a clear blue except for the dark shadows underneath. She sighed, briefly resting her forehead on the mirror. She had a paper due in a week. and hadn’t gone over the outline after drafting it.
Sometimes, and on days like when deadlines loomed and she was exhausted and grumpier than usual, sometimes, sometimes, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was all worth it. School. The jobs. Being better acquainted with her bed than a living person.
But she’d made a promise.
She’d be on her senior year in the next fall. One more year. And then she’d graduate. She’d graduate and for the first time in years, work only one job and probably not feel so ragged all the time. Twenty-four, she thought, straightening up and giving herself a final look in the mirror. Twenty-four yet feeling like she was at least twice that age.
In fifteen minutes, she was locking up the apartment then walking past the elevator that had never worked even before she’d moved in two years ago. The lights by the stairs were either dim or flickered, so she had to use her phone to better see the steps while climbing down. In her scarf, heavy sweater and bulky coat, she couldn’t see that well. On top of which she had to hold on to the railing while making sure to keep her backpack on.
It was still dark outside, being only five-fifteen. She had to be at work by five-thirty because that was when the baking and other preparations began. Huddling under her coat, she began to walk on the snow-slicked ground, praying that her worn boots were still slip-proof. The last thing she needed was a broken ankle.
The rest of the day flew by although she felt every effort her body was put through. Never had she been more grateful to be back home, where she could at last resume work on her paper and study for the upcoming finals. As the clock struck midnight, she was finally able to crawl under the sheets. She was asleep before the blanket fell over her shoulders.
This would be repeated for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Nothing warned her about how different Friday would be. Or how much things would change.
She woke up at the usual dark hour, rubbing her eyes before the alarm rang then dragging herself to the bathroom to wash her face and lament at how dark the circles under her eyes were. She dressed in her worn jeans, a newish camisole, t-shirt, sweater, then coat before taking her boots from their spot by the radiator. She shook out the clumps of newspaper stuffed in them the previous night then put them on.
At the bakery, she removed her clothes to put on the uniform: tan pants and a white shirt with pink piping, a tan-and-pink checked apron. As she was ringing up a sale of half a dozen muffins, one of the staff dragged a full bin bag through the shop. At that very moment, a man came in and announced he was from the city health inspector’s office.
There couldn’t be a worse timing. With the shop slapped with a violation and a penalty, the rest of her shift was tense, with the manager snapping at everyone and complaining loudly about sloppy work. In her rush, she forgot to help herself to any of the misshapen pastries and thus went to school with a stomach sloshy from coffee. Back-to-back classes meant she couldn’t even hit any of the vending machines for a candy bar. As a result, a painful throbbing began right behind her eyes.
Cold, cranky, and now dealing with a headache set to worsen if she didn’t get any food in her soon, she was out of her seat before the bell began to ring signaling the end of her Television Theory and Criticism Class. Her cheeks burned as she pushed the door open, embarrassed as the professor called her out, “While Miss Tarth is within her rights to get to a running start for the weekend—”
She darted past doors beginning to open and regurgitating students and professors, desperate to be not caught in the crowd and be delayed even more. Her stomach was ready to eat itself. She pushed open the heavy double doors leading to the steps then dashed down, cutting through the quad to get to the snack bar. She would have kissed the floor finding there were no lines, but she was too hungry and hardly seeing straight.
“Give me the chicken pot pie sandwich,” she told the guy behind the cash register, ignoring how his eyes widened upon realizing that her short hair and being over six feet tall did not make her a man. “And—and—” she pointed at the pastry shelf. “I want the Uber-Xocolat brownie. And iced tea. A large iced tea.”
“You think you’d want a salad to go with that?” There was no mistaking his snide tone.
“If it means I can break your nose then yeah,” she shot back. “Ring it up so I can pay and perhaps I won’t think about smashing your teeth in as well.”
“Alright, alright. Geez. Someone’s on her period today.” He said, rolling his eyes. He started putting her order on a tray.
“Keep that up and I’ll make sure you’ll have a period beginning today.” As soon as she saw the figures on the screen, she yanked a twenty from her wallet and slammed it on the counter. “Keep the change. You’ll need it to fix your face.”
“Don’t you mean your face?”
“If that’s all you’ve got, maybe you should start saving up for a brain transplant as well.” She snapped, snatching the tray.
At a booth in the corner, she wolfed down the brownie first, ate half the sandwich and glugged the iced tea before seeing on her watch that she’d either have to run really fast or wish for wings to make it to the bus stop on time. She tore out of the snack bar, once again charging through the crowd of students like a bat out of hell.
For all her best efforts, she missed the bus and had to wait fifteen minutes for the next one to pull up. By the time she arrived at Silver Avenue, she had less than two minutes to make it.
Of course, she didn’t.
Brienne hurried into her uniform in the locker room, snatching the ridiculous Santa hat from the box by the door. By the time she huffed her way into the accessories section of Velvet Row, the manager, the stern, grim-faced Randyll Tarly was tapping his watch and glaring at her as she approached.
“You’re late, Brienne.”
“I know,” she responded, reddening when she realized what she’d said. As he looked at her with what only could be described as irritation and maybe even murder, she said, “I mean, I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again. I mean, I’ve never been late—”
“I don’t need to hear your excuses. You’ve no right to work here given your—” he gestured at her loosely and she swallowed a sigh, knowing what was coming next. “Look, we both know you’re not Velvet Row material, Brienne. You don’t have the looks to convince any of our female customers to buy even one makeup brush from you, and you’re not the sort that would entice our male customers to buy colognes for themselves. But I put my neck out for you despite your—” he gestured at her again. “The least you can do is actually be grateful and that’s by showing up on time.”
She nodded. “I understand, sir. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Go.” He looked at the clipboard. “You’re assigned to Phone Cases and Tech Accessories today.”
She hid a sigh but turned and walked there. Phone Cases and Tech Accessories was a joke of a department. With the abundance of online selling as well as actual shops that dealt only with such products, only a fool with a fat wallet would spend hundreds on a designer phone case. She walked past the colorful displays of stuffed reindeers, boxes in shiny wrappers tied with fat satin ribbons, heard a bouncy, pop rendition of a Christmas classic about sleigh bells. For the first time, she wished herself surrounded by tinsel, by lights, and all things Christmas.
But here she was. Off to Phone and Tech. Though still dressed up with red and green accessories of the season, there was no denying that this was not only the most boring department in the entire store. It also saw the littlest foot traffic. Brienne reported to the supervisor.
“Good. You’re here.” He hardly gave her a glance, although she saw him frown at her legs. Because she was so tall, the uniform ended a few inches above her knee rather than exactly at the knee. She hid them with dark hosiery but that was as far as its job could do. It didn’t make her any shorter. Mr. Tarly had tried to persuade management to let her wear flats because she was too big already but they were strict.
“So you’re Brienne. I’m Hyle.” He marked her name on the clipboard. “We have a sale on the phone cases today. We’ve put up the signs but you’re working the floor.”
Brienne gritted her teeth behind her smile. Working the floor meant she would have to traverse the entire department trying to get some idiot to whip out his credit card for a stupid designer case that hardly anyone was going to see. She believed that when one spent huge, it was to show off whatever the thing was, not hide it.
For the next two hours, she walked back and forth through the entire store, trying to spot a possible idiot with a fat wallet or an expensive cellphone. She said nothing else but the spiel: “Velvet Row is having a sale of our best phone cases today. Why don’t I show you the rest of our collection?”
Not surprisingly, no one was interested.
She would have kissed Hyle’s feet when he suddenly called her back to the department and had her take over a counter. “I can’t think of a better person to help you out with a gift to your niece, sir. This is Brienne,” he said, pulling her by the arm. “She will be more than happy to help you.”
“Good afternoon,” she said, taking note that the man was quite tall although she still had the height advantage in her heels. Because he was turned away, she saw his hair was thick, golden waves that just about brushed his wide shoulders under a black coat. He turned around.
Heavens.
She never understood what people meant when they spoke that God was in the details. She wasn’t even sure there was a God.
This man, his looks, his build, told her there definitely was. Only a divine being could have made someone that looked soo very divine. Those emerald eyes framed by long eyelashes. The straight, elegant ridge of a nose. Those lips. That hair—she’d never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just blond. It was gold. Spun gold. She thought that kind of description didn’t exist outside of poetry or a silly romance novel. As she blinked at him, she not only understood at long last what it meant for God to be in the details.
He’s got to be half a god at least.
“Well,” his eyes didn’t widen at the sight of her although they did look at her from head to toe. “I suppose you can pass for a woman and therefore can make the proper gift suggestion for my niece.”
Half a god and half a fucking dick, that’s what he was. Why the hell can’t I have nice things?