31 or 38!
Hi @ddagent thanks so much for the prompt! Again, it turned out longer than I thought. I went with number 38, Cop/person getting a ticket. I hope you like it!
Being a cop in King's Landing was nothing like Brienne had envisioned while growing up in Tarth.
King's Landing was supposed to be a metropolis, multicultural and exciting and a lot more progressive than a little backwater island where everyone knew everyone else and Brienne couldn't take two steps without it being reported to her father, Tarth's Chief of Police. She had imagined that once she was away from his sphere of influence and the island's people's preconceptions of what a woman should and shouldn't be, she would be able to rise through the ranks with her abilities and hard work. And yes, King's Landing was a metropolis; women wore shorter skirts and less cloth on their bodies, or lots and lots more of cloth and only black. They had colourful hair or shaved heads, and tattoos and piercings, and they dated when they wanted and who they wanted, or not dated anyone. They could wear no make-up or tons of it, they could wear heels or flats or walk barefoot for all people cared.
There were just two things women were not allowed to comfortably be, ugly and a cop in KLPD. At least not under Captain Tarly, who made the people of Tarth feel modern and seemed to have a special hatred for Brienne for daring to be good at her job but not pleasant to look at.
That was the reason she was on the night shift for the third week in a row, relegated to traffic duties while there was a spate of crime that required all hands on deck.
"That's why you're on traffic, Tarth," Tarly had told her when she protested that they needed everyone in the investigation. "So we can have all the real cops working."
Just remembering his words made Brienne's blood boil, though there was nothing she could do unless she put in for a transfer or quit, and she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. Not to Tarly and definitely not to Lannister.
As if summoned by Brienne thoughts, she heard the speeding car that announced the arrival of her nemesis. Regular like clockwork, a red convertible took the corner at least ten miles over the speed limit, ignoring traffic laws and Brienne's presence equally, and rushed past her car. She sighed and turned on her sirens, lights only in deference of the late hour, and gave chase. It had stopped on the next street like Brienne knew he was going to, and the driver was already leaning on the window with that infuriating smirk she wanted to wipe.
Jaime Lannister, son of the mayor and brother of the DA, whose early retirement from the KLPD to start his own security firm had been surrounded by scandal and covered in his father's fingerprints. The first time Brienne had stopped him he had been doing just two miles over the limit, something that normally wouldn't warrant a ticket, especially at night on empty streets. Brienne had always been a stickler for the rules, though, and it had been the day she had realized that no matter what she did, she was not going to make detective in that precinct. She was never going to be more than a glorified traffic warden.
Brienne had intended to let the driver go with a warning, but when she had approached the car a man who could be the Warrior himself, golden and beautiful, had turned to her with a fearsome scowl. "You've got to be kidding me, I was barely two miles over..." he had been saying when he got a good look at Brienne, the scowl melting from his face as he trailed off, his eyes roving all over her before they narrowed sharply. She had flushed at the way he was looking at her, feeling tongue-tied as it always happened when she was around beautiful people. Then he had opened his mouth again. "Are you a woman?"
That was the first time Brienne gave Jaime Lannister a ticket.
It had not been the last.
Every single night Brienne had been on duty in that intersection he had turned up, always speeding in his very expensive car, always taunting Brienne with a smile on his face.
"Do you ever smile, Officer? Are you as boring as you are tall?" he had asked the third night as Brienne handed him a ticket, frowning down at him. Why was he there again? He must have known she was going to be in the same intersection she had stopped him the previous two days.
"So what's your name, Officer Tarth?" he had asked on the fifth day with a quirk of his mouth.
Brienne had ignored the way her heart had skipped a beat at his smile. "It's Officer," she had said, because she had learned her lesson a long time ago that no attractive man smiled at her like that without ulterior motives.
"No, you don't look like an Officer, you look like a Wench," he had said while Brienne narrowed her eyes at him and practically threw the ticket through his window.
She'd half expected to be called into the Captain's office after that, but nothing had happened, except that Lannister kept speeding past her and taking his tickets with a smirk and a taunt. Brienne had learned to anticipate his arrival, the butterflies in her gut had nothing to do with his smile and everything with whatever insult he would deploy that day.
His favourite was Wench, his voice fond when he said it.
"Officer Wench, long time no see," he said, his tone friendly as if he was genuinely pleased to see her. Brienne knew better, he was just pleased to annoy her. "I've missed you these past days."
"Mr. Lannister," she said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible while she wanted to wring his perfect neck. "It's Officer Tarth, as you well know. Licence?" He extended it to her with a smile. "You know why I stopped you?"
His smile widened, eyes shining with mischief. "Because you couldn't resist the temptation to spend a few minutes with me?"
"You were speeding again, in the same stretch of road where you've been stopped for speeding at least ten times," she said, holding onto the frayed remains of her self control. Tonight was not the night for Lannister's taunts. "Don't you have anything better to do with your time, Mr. Lannister, than wasting mine?"
"It's Jaime," he said as he leaned back, taking the notebook with the ticket and signing his recept, doodling something on the side like he usually did. Brienne expected it would be a dick if she ever looked at it, not that she ever had. He appeared to be the type to have a twelve-year-old sense of humour. "And not really, no." He handed it back and Brienne put it in his pocked pointedly not looking at it. "Neither do you, officer, since you are always here waiting for me instead of chasing real criminals."
And that was it, Brienne could practically hear her self-control snapping at that. "Out of the car," she said, her voice almost a growl. Lannister's eyebrow's climbed up his forehead but he did it when Brienne took a step back and opened his door. He climbed out of the car and unfolded next to her. He was almost as tall as Brienne, though he still had to look up to her, and just as wide and fit though his clothes were better tailored to showcase his powerful body. Taking complete leave of her senses, Brienne put her hands on his arms and stepped into his personal space, pressing him back against the car. Lannister's breath left his lungs in a rush, his face flushing in anger, eyes dark and mouth half-opened. He licked his lips. "You think this is a joke? That I have been put here for your amusement? That I'm not a real cop just because I am too tall and too big and too ugly?" She hissed on his face, hands hard on his biceps. She could feel the muscle under the expensive weave of his suit jacket, and the still rational part of her brain catalogued it. He was strong enough that he could push her away, and yet he stood there just staring at her with wide eyes, glaze flickering between her eyes and her mouth. "You and Tarly are not going to make me quit. He can keep me in traffic forever, can keep hiding me in the night shift so my face doesn't offend him while the real cops are out there investigating. I've dealt with sexist pigs stuck in the Targaryen era before." She couldn't believe those words were coming out of her mouth but couldn't stop herself. "You can keep insulting me, it's nothing I haven't heard before, you can even keep pretending to be nice to me so I humiliate myself thinking you like me. Again, you wouldn't be the first, though I don't know what's in it for you." She took a deep breath, her anger draining out of her when she realized how close to him she was, their bodies almost pressed together, his breath on her face. He wasn't flushing anymore, his face appeared pale now, his eyes sharp and narrow. She took one step back, then another. "I guess I won't have to quit, after all."
He didn't say anything for a moment that felt like a lifetime, then Lannister got back inside his car and drove away.
…
"Tarth, the Captain is waiting for you in his office."
Those were the words Brienne had been expecting to hear for the past few days, the only surprising thing that Tarly had waited an entire week and put her on the day shift to do it. For maximum humiliation, she was sure. She had known it was coming when Lannister had stopped bothering her the day after she had snapped, not that she had missed him, and Tarly had been strangely absent as well. She had heard some snatches of conversation, had heard her name in whispers and felt some more glares than usual. She had made her peace with it, at least she had not quit.
"Captain Tarly," she started entering the office with her head held high. Then she stopped and looked at the man inside the room. He was definitely not Randyll Tarly.
Sitting comfortably in the Captain's chair was a man in his late thirties or early forties, tall and solidly built, with an attractive face, sharp blue eyes, and a full head of ginger hair to match his ginger beard.
"Office Tarth, I'm Captain Addam Marbrand, I'm replacing Captain Tarly who has come down with a case of 'being a sexist pig' and 'being stuck in the Targaryen era'," he said with a straight face, though there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. "I hope I'm a better Captain than he was, not that it's going to be too difficult."
Brienne choked on air and dropped on one of the chairs. "What?"
Marbrand took some folders from the desk drawers. "It had somehow escaped the attention of everyone that this precinct was staffed with just men, like this was the old Kingsguard instead of a modern police department, and whenever a woman dared appear she ended quitting or requesting a transfer in under six months. We have spoken with a couple of them, and there is an interesting pattern everyone in HR had missed." It hadn't been just Brienne, then. "There were other irregularities, especially in a certain type of investigations, that once had come to the DA's attention couldn't be overlooked. Captain Tarly has been kindly invited to retire early and his cohorts are being reassigned." The DA, Tyrion Lannister. Brienne was now more confused than before. This couldn't be because of what she had said, or shouted, at Jaime. She was supposed to be the one fired, not Tarly. Marbrand was still talking as if Brienne's world hadn't been upended in the last minute. "I have taken the liberty of examining your file, and you have been wasted since you came to this precinct, your scores in the Academy are exemplary and you have a recommendation from Tarth Chief of Police."
"He's my father," she said, faintly, surreptitiously pinching her arm. She was awake.
Marbrand smiled slightly. "So he is, still a good recommendation. I'm pulling you from traffic, you will be assigned a partner and will join the Mummers investigation effect immediately. Officer Snow will get you up to speed with the case."
Brienne nodded, knowing a dismissal when she heard one. "Thank you, Captain."
She still had no idea what had happened but she had been given everything she wanted, she wasn't going to complain.
"Oh, and Brienne," Marbrand said before she could open the door. "Can I call you Brienne? Regardless of what the rumours say, I haven't been given this position because of my connections, and I won't treat you differently if you choose not to go out with Jaime."
"What are you walking about, Captain Marbrand?" Brienne asked, now certain she had fallen through the rabbit hole.
"Jaime Lannister, blonde, pretty, rich? The guy who won't shut up about you for the past couple of weeks? You've given him a ticket or a dozen? Has been waiting for your call for weeks and missing sleep to see you?" Her shock must have been plain to see because Marbrand sighed, long and heartfelt. "I have told my idiot of a friend that insulting and annoying a person is not the way to flirt with them. You have to excuse him but being so pretty means he's never had to woo a woman, he's completely useless at it." Brienne blinked at Marbrand, mouth opening and closing uselessly. "Please check your ticket notebook and decide whether he's too much of an idiot to go out with, but please put him out of his misery before I have him murdered."
Brienne walked out of the Captain's office and went to her desk, still feeling like she had landed in a parallel universe. She grabbed her notebook and flipped the pages. Some part of her was convinced she was going to find drawings of dicks or more insults, and that her new Captain was going to be not so different from the old one.
'Call me, Wench' was written on the margins of the latest tickets, and next to it was a phone number.
Her heart lurched in her chest, the same butterflies that usually appeared at the same time as his car fluttering in her stomach. She took out her phone and dialled before she could think better of it, half expecting the number to be fake.
"Wench?"
"Jaime."
...
