Work Text:
Having his brother back soothes some of the anxious energy that has filled him since the breakfast with Cersei and Sansa. Tyrion is back safe in King’s Landing, or at least as safe as King’s Landing ever is. Catelyn Stark never took him prisoner, Lysa Arryn never dangled him over the Moon Door. Because I killed her before she had the chance.
He has no remorse for that move, feels no guilt at ending Lysa Arryn. He had hoped that it would prevent the Winterfell journey altogether, though he should’ve known Robert would have his way eventually. And could he truly be overly sad about the possibility of seeing Sansa again?
“You, my brother, look like the seven hells frozen over. I would know because I’ve seen all seven of them, at the Wall. Dreadful place.” Isn’t it, though? “I can’t deny, it did have an austere beauty to it. Perhaps that was just the cold freezing any common sense I had, though…”
“If I’m not mistaken, you just called me beautiful. The North has changed you,” Jaime quips with a smirk. He and Tyrion are sharing supper in Tyrion’s chambers, much finer than Jaime’s rooms in the White Sword Tower. He had lost his taste for finery by the end in his last life. Actually, he had lost his taste for finery right around the time Cersei had fitted him with a golden hand. Finery hadn’t fixed his hand, gold hadn’t kept his captors from maiming him. Gold hadn’t fed them when they faced starvation, hadn’t even armed them when they faced the dead. Who was there to buy steel from? No, in this life, Jaime kept a soldier’s chambers, adorned only with the gifts his niece and nephew had occasionally given him, and a finely painted map of Westeros. As close as he could get to a painting of the North, of her, without raising suspicion.
Naturally, Tyrion despises ever being forced to attend Jaime there, so they end up in his rooms more often than not.
“Not as much as it seems to have changed you, brother,” Tyrion remarks, his gaze shrewd. “My spies have sent reports of you smiling , Jaime, actual grins! Though I’m not sure I believe them looking at you now, the fact remains I have whole missives dedicated to chronicling your expressions. Even father is intrigued. I think he was starting to suspect you might take after him after all, what with your allergy to emoting. Imagine his crippling disappointment.”
“You have spies watching me,” Jaime remarks dryly, though he’s not terribly surprised. He is, after all, the one who encouraged Tyrion to cultivate his own network of spies in the first place.
“I have spies watching everything , you just happen to be a high-priority target.”
“I think I’m flattered. Should I be flattered?”
“You should be afraid. Father intends to visit King’s Landing soon. I think he is anticipating filling the gap left behind by Jon Arryn—”
“Arryn isn’t even dead.”
“ Yet. And he’s not here, is he? So he might as well be food for the worms as far as father is concerned. News of your sudden about face regarding doom and gloom and duty was no doubt the cherry on top. What exactly caused this about face? Even Cersei has noticed, I hear.”
Just what he needed, a horde of Lannisters falling down on him, nonplussed by his suddenly not-dismal attitude. Lovely.
“Perspective? I have expanded my horizons to include the utter waste that is the North. Perhaps I’m merely grateful to see sunshine more than once a decade.” True. There had been a time they weren’t sure the sun would ever rise again. It’s hard to take sunny days for granted, even now.
“No, that’s not it. You had already seemed different in the North. I remember intending to ask you about it, only I could never seem to find you. Could it be like my chaste and pure brother of the white cloak found himself a maiden to sully?” Well. Yes. Though there hadn’t been, and won’t be any sullying in his near future, if he has anything to say about it. He loves his wife dearly, but she currently has all the feminine wiles of a baby deer. The intimacy he craves from her has little to do with intimacies of the flesh, and everything to do with reassuring himself that she is here .
“And just who is it I’m meant to have sullied? As far as I recall, you ruined the whores for any other man, to hear you tell it, and the only other women of note were either children or in possession of cunts as cold as those seven hells you traveled to.” Technically true. It’s amusing to him now, how much his sister and his goodmother have in common.
“Hm,” is all Tyrion says, which is not a good sign, but he lets the silence sit for a moment.
“Speaking of children—” he begins abruptly. Sorry, wife. “—I believe Cersei has chosen her latest target.”
“I mourn their loss already.”
“It’s Sansa Stark, Tyrion.” Tyrion’s eyes cut to him, and Jaime’s not sure what he sees in them. There’s apprehension, but also a fair bit of intrigue. Fuck. “Cersei must’ve, I don’t know, spied us riding together, or talking at some point—”
“And do you do that often? Ride and talk with the Daughter of the North?”
Jaime ignores his brother and continues. “She invited Sansa to breakfast and proceeded to mutilate one of those archaic Reach birds she so loves—”
“Oh good gods, I thought she had outgrown that phase.”
“Unfortunately not. She nicknamed Lady Sansa little dove , then just about ripped the head off the bird with her teeth.”
“Charming. Poor girl, how did she fair? She seemed like a good gust of wind could blow her over when we were in Winterfell.” That’s because she’s a better mummer than anyone you have ever met, dear brother.
“Surprisingly well. She excused herself shortly after Cersei’s display, but she didn’t seem too rattled. Perhaps she just thinks its another Southern delicacy the North doesn’t have the culture for.”
Tyrion took a long sip from his goblet. “Hmm. Ned Stark is not a man we want an enemy of. Any more so than he already is, rather.” Yes, that would make family gatherings rather awkward. Rather more awkward. He’s sure Catelyn Stark will hardly be a loving goodmother. His father once considered betrothing Jaime to her sister, he suddenly recalls, one of those long-forgotten memories from the distant childhood of his past life. That’s… unsettling.
Then again, the age difference between he and Sansa is not so startling as that of Lysa Tully and Jon Arryn. Perhaps Lady Stark wouldn’t blink at this match. After all, this time he’s not responsible for the crippling of any of her children, nor is he waging war against her son. It does bode well for their relationship.
“Precisely. Perhaps a delicately phrased word of caution to the man might be advisable,” Jaime suggests hesitantly. This is an old game between them now, Jaime gently nudging Tyrion in the direction of the things he most needs done, Tyrion being the hands and eyes and ears Jaime cannot afford to wield. He’s also a much better mind for these sorts of things than Jaime.
Unfortunately, he’s much more astute as well.
“ You want me to speak with Ned Stark about his daughter’s safety, on purpose? ”
“She’s an innocent girl, Tyrion. Would you like to sit back and see what is left of her when our sister is through? She’s been pushing Joffrey on the girl. I think she’s angling for a betrothal.”
Tyrion shivers and grimaces. “A fate I’d not wish on a pox-ridden whoreson from Flea Bottom, let alone such gentle beauty.”
“Quite.”
Tyrion swirls the wine in his goblet, eyeing his brother before nodding succinctly. “Alright, I’ll do it. But I want something in return brother.”
Jaime rolls his eyes. “You already have access to the finest wine and whores of Westeros. What more could you want?”
“I want to know why someone could actually mistake you as happy recently.”
He drums his fingers against the table, hides his own grin in his goblet of water. “All in good time, little brother, all in good time.”