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Renly stormed into the office of The Insider, the biggest newspaper in town, pissed as all hell. All day. All day he had been on the phone trying to get in touch with someone, anyone with any kind of power and kept getting dodged. They had printed a front page story about him that day. And the problem is, IT WASN’T HIM THAT IT’S TALKING ABOUT. His brother Robert was the one the story was about but somehow the reporter had written Renly instead of Robert for the entire article. Twenty-seven times. They messed up twenty-seven times. The bloody headline read RENLY BARATHEON CHEATS ELECTION AND CHEATS ON WIFE. Renly doesn’t even have a wife, he’s gay, and he wasn’t running in an election he’s a campaign manager for one of the MPs that won.
“Look, Lancel, I’m usually a nice guy but I’ve had a long day. So I’m gonna need you to get me in the office of whoever is somewhat in charge in the next five minutes, or I will go upstairs myself and I will find someone myself and it will be a lot less civilised. You see I’m Renly Baratheon and this paper printed an article today that said some not nice things about me that aren’t true because they meant the article to be about my brother. So find someone!” Renly yelled at the scared looking blonde guy at the receptions desk.
“Yes sir” The guy said before picking up a phone. Renly moved to stand off to the side and admire flowers sitting by the window, while watching the time. When the five minutes were, he was still in the lobby.
“Time’s up!” Renly told the receptionist as he walked to the elevators.
“No sir! Please wait!” The blonde yelled as the doors closed.
He’d been to the offices before to do an interview so he knew where to go. When the doors opened he stormed to Tyrion Lannister’s office. The guy was reasonable and he had power, he could get this sorted out. When he got to the door he pushed it open without knocking.
“Lannister, you know full well that article is wrong in so many ways! It was about Robert! You know older, fatter, and why less cool! I won the election I was running fair and square. And last I checked I don’t have wife, I’m fucking gay! I have been trying to get in touch with you or someone all day over the phone and have been getting dodged. I waited downstairs and your receptionist was useless. You should get better security, I just walked right up. Print a clarification or a retraction or I swear to god no one will ever buy your paper again!” Renly yelled at the man sitting in the chair.
“Renly, always good to see you. You’re level-headed as ever. I’ve fired the reporter who wrote the article and have just finished assigning another reporter to fix the article along with printing a clarification and apology. Meet Loras Tyrell” Tyrion smirked as he gestured to a tall blonde man standing off to the side.
“You could have called me. I’ve been calling your office all day, you couldn’t acknowledge me?”
“I was just about to”
“It’s been seven hours since the paper came out!”
“I like watching you panic, I wanted to see how insane you’d go”
“You’re a dick Tyrion” Renly said, turning and walking out of the office. He was almost to the elevator when he heard someone running up to him and stopped.
“Hi, I’m Loras” The blonde from Tyrion’s office grinned at him when he caught up to him.
“Renly, but you already knew that”
“I was wondering if since you’re already here I could ask you for a couple quotes on the story and then possibly ask some questions for an article on you. That second part could be done over dinner though” Loras winked. Renly would admit the guy is very attractive. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a very pretty face.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to that. But I wanna ask you something in return”
“What?”
“That article treated my brother way to kindly. I want you to slam him” Renly smirked and Loras grinned.
“Oh I can definitely do that”
“Then I’m in”
Loras led him to his office where they discussed the Robert story and Renly hung around while Loras wrote and submitted the story, along with doing a few other tasks. Once he was done for the day they walked down the street to a nice restaurant and got to know each other. Loras did take some notes to use in an article about the campaign Renly ran and their win. They talked non-stop, thoroughly enjoying each other's company. Tyrion noticed Loras wore the same clothes to work the next day and just smirked and congratulated him.
Two years later Loras would tell the story of how they met at their wedding and Tyrion would say he saw it coming as soon as he introduced them.