Gaery Steward Baratheon was sure of his stance on this. And he knew that it was better he bring this to a head now before his opponent had time enough to formulate a counterattack or prepare for his plan. As he waited for the one he'd asked to meet him in this room, the one he was sure was the source of the solution to his problems, he looked to the full moon as his hand ran across the back of his neck absently.
Despite his being the second rather than the firstborn prince, he had managed to inherit the best features of his mother Cersei Lannister and his father Robert Baratheon. His green eyes flashed with intelligence that more than one courier had whispered reminded them of a younger Tywin Lannister, his charming smile and boisterous laugh able to effortlessly charm just as his father and his uncle Tyrion did. He was particularly proud of his black hair however: its longer length and rougher feel making him a more down to earth, masculine contrast to his brother Joffrey's almost angelically blonde hair.
Though the thing two things that had won so many people to his side had to be his wit and his charm. His wit that he'd used to maneuver himself into his mother's good graces despite her inexplicable coldness toward him in addition to impressing Tywin Lannister himself with his tactical acumen. And his charm that had managed to bring a warm smile even to the frozen faces of the northern based Starks. From the Tyrells to the Starks, he was on decent terms with most every highborn family in the Seven Kingdoms.
That wasn't as much of an accomplishment as many would've thought. One simply had to know how to deal with each family on terms where they felt they could gain the power. The Tyrells were courteous but always scheming. His own mother's family appreciated the power of the cunning mind he brought to the Lannister name. His Baratheon uncle he actually liked (Renly of course) liked his sense of fun and humor while his other Baratheon uncle granted the appropriate respect that was due to a son of the king. The notoriously stand-offish Starks were impressed by his sense of honor while the Tullys had no complaints about his behavior when he'd seen them.
He was sure that given enough time and resources he could even manage to bring the Martells back to the fold: to get them to see that he was not his father, that he wanted to see justice for the murdered children, that this could be the era of a new peace in the seven kingdoms.
But then the cameras would shut off and the director would yell cut.
And then everyone would promptly begin to disperse to their own little groups while throwing him dirty glances: muttering something about interlopers and writer's pet.
He'd tried to ignore it for a time and find someone who liked him. More often than not he only found it in the supporting crew or cast. The unnamed extras who desperately wanted to get their face in front of a camera by any means necessary but hadn't been talented enough to make the cut. They all seemed to feel a strange kinship with him for some unknown reason. Yet still the named actors gave him a wide berth, scoffing if he tried to add his opinion to their thoughts on storylines or character development. Even going so far as to tell him to cry to his cheerleading shill (their name for his personal writer not his) if he didn't like the way they treated him when he protested.
Many a massage session with his writer had left him feeling relaxed, reassured of his high place among them. Knowing that he belonged on screen with them. But then it always faded once the next scene was done and the reality of their true feelings for him reasserted itself. So he'd decided to go all the way to the top. To find the inspiration behind the writer. He'd successfully arranged a meeting with this man, this Mr. Martin.
As he came into view, he wondered at this man who had been the origin of everyone but himself. Why was he so revered if he couldn't have conceived of someone as great as Gaery himself? He was a slightly overweight man with a greying beard and an ordinary cap, his hands hidden in pants that were apparently attached to his body via suspenders that came over his shoulders and a plain collared shirt. He even wore correction lenses upon his eyes, as though he were one of the maesters who spent so much of their life peering at the words by candlelight that they couldn't see properly anymore.
As he came forward, Gaery took a deep breath before slowly exhaling. He knew that if he could convince this man to tell the others he wasn't so bad, that things would work out for him. And that even if he couldn't convince him that he deserved their respect off-screen as well as on, than perhaps he could make their lives on-screen better and so win their off-screen respect that way. It was a plan that couldn't fail.
"Mr. Martin?" He inquired politely, standing up and feeling much more confident in his leather armor embroidered with the royal symbol of the lion and crowned stag meeting upon his chest.
The man looked at him, his gaze raking up and down him for a few moments before his mouth turned downward in the slightest of frowns. Gaery got the distinct impression he had been weighed, judged and found wanting.
"You know I am. You called me here." He said quietly, his words heavy in the air.
"What do you want?" He asked.
"I want you to make them respect me." Gaery said, getting straight to the point. He had expected Mr. Martin to argue, to ask for clarification. Instead he just looked at him. His gaze boring into his. Despite his on-screen accomplishments, despite his vaunted charisma and wit, Gaery felt himself breaking contact first.
"What did you say?" He asked.
Gaery looked back at him again, the low volume giving him the hope that Martin was considering what he had asked.
"The other characters, once the scenes are over, they don't show me the respect I deserve. You're the one they listen to. The one they take their cues from. If you told them to respect me as one of them they would do it." Gaery said.
"I don't think I'm asking much: I am Cersei and Robert's second child after all." He added as a carefully calculated afterthought.
"Why would I do that?" He inquired, tone still low and quiet.
Gaining confidence, Gaery flashed him a winning smile.
"Because we both know I deserve it. Because I can make their lives better for them and improve their stories." He said simply, knowing that the results that he and his own personal writer had collaborated to create would speak for themselves more than any embellishment he could add.
Instead of talking terms however, Martin simply scoffed dismissively at Gaery.
"Do you sincerely think you're the first one to make that claim?" He asked him.
For the first time in their conversation thus far Gaery thought he detected a note of menace in Mr. Martin's tone. The sliver of nervousness that shot through him was merely nerves at the abrupt dismissal he told himself. That's all it was. Nothing to be afraid of at all.
"I don't think Mr. Martin. I know." He answered, knowing that his confidence would win him over as it had so many others in the story his writer came up with. After all, his writer couldn't put it to paper if it wouldn't be true to life right?
Martin held up his right hand, middle finger and thumb held together in that pose that meant he was about to snap them.
"You know what Gaery?" He said to him as he took a step closer. "The others usually made the same claims. But you've finally convinced me. I think I can finally give you what you deserve without any reservations."
He smiled, his teeth showing in the moonlight. His fingers snapped like a whip cracking through the air.
Out of thin air what appeared to be a tall, bulky and black-haired smith's apprentice and his brother Joffrey took hold of his right and left arms respectively.
"Hold still brother." Joffrey hissed with a sarcastic emphasis on brother. "This'll only hurt a little."
Before Gaery could even process his words, Mr. Martin's right foot slammed into his (in his own humble opinion anyway) fairly impressive package. As he did, he could've sworn he felt like his crotch was trying to tunnel into his abdomen. With an undignified sound stuck somewhere between a mouse being trodden upon and a raven receiving a proctology exam, Ramsey and Joffrey let go of his arms as he collapsed to the ground on his right side. As his hands instinctively came down to shield one of his most vital areas from further harm, Mr. Martin was on his left side: facing Gary's front.
His foot impacted Gaery's ribs with a loud crack.
"You don't-" Martin began, interrupting himself to kick Gaery in the side again.
"Fucking-" He continued, another kick slamming into Gaery's nose with a loud thunk.
"Talk-" The fourth kick made a crunching noise as it shattered his nose.
"To me-" the fifth came into his sternum and made it difficult to even wheeze for an agonizing moment in time.
"Like that-" The sixth returned to Gaery's face, swelling one of his beautiful emerald eyes shut.
"You little-" A seventh kick to his chest. Gaery was starting to lose track of them he was in so much pain.
"Piece of Shit!" A final stomp on Gaery's left knee that had come to the stone ground trying to get him onto his front. He thought he heard a crack. He could barely gurgle as his lungs tried to get him to cough through the copper he smelt and tasted and saw.
The hits had stopped coming. Martin's voice was as cold as a white walker's non-existent bollocks as he commanded the others with him.
"Pick him up."
Gaery was hauled up by his shoulders, the pain robbing him of even the thought of putting up a fight. This wasn't a scripted fight scene where he knew he'd be alright. This was real. This was happening. And he had no idea how it was going to turn out.
Martin's somewhat pudgy fingers gripped Gaery by the hair in a manner that, had he not been wracked with agony all up and down his front, might've made him hiss in pain. He brought his face down next to Gaery's left ear before he whispered to him: his voice as sibilant as an enraged Dornish viper.
"I am so sick and tired of idiots like you. You puff up your own hot air, you stroke your own ego incessantly by inserting yourself into stories that are not yours to tell. And to make it worse, you show no respect to the world you claim to love so much while insisting that it must show the utmost love and respect to you." He angrily whispered.
"Most of the time I don't have a problem with your kind. I don't like them, but I tolerate them. I tolerate you and all the others like you for the same reason one tolerates a pimple on their ass: because the effort of lancing it out isn't worth it when it'll simply wash away to nothing given the unforgiving passage of time." He revealed.
His left hand flashed out and cracked Gaery across the side of his face he could still see with. His stinging cheek barely registered among the orchestra of injury that his front felt.
"But if you ever" Martin's fingers tightened in Gaery's hair for a moment.
"And I do mean ever, think to demand what you 'feel you deserve' from me or these people again, you and I will officially have a problem." He finished.
He let go of Gaery's hair and let his head limply fall to his chest as the secondborn Baratheon focused on getting his breathing to the point where it didn't hurt every time he inhaled and exhaled.
"So I'll only ask you this once. Do. We. Have. A. Problem?" He enunciated carefully.
Gaery took a few moments to get his breathing under control while trying in vain to keep the tears of pain and humiliation from his eyes.
"No." He whispered brokenly.
"What was that?" Martin asked crisply.
"No Mr. Martin sir." He repeated a bit louder, his voice in a slightly higher register than it had been at the start of this meeting.
"Good." Martin said smiling again. He waved his right hand dismissively as Joffrey and the black haired boy let go of Gaery's arms again.
"Now stay the hell out of my sight you pathetic insignificant little speck." He commanded as he walked away, loyal actors in tow as Gaery was left to try and stand on one uninjured leg, wondering how he was going to explain this unfortunate incident to his writer.
A/N: In case the above story isn't clear: I've found myself growing sick to death of the surprisingly big subset of fics where Robert & Cersei somehow conveniently have a trueborn kid AFTER Joffrey who, wouldn't you know it, proves he's just the solution to everyone's problems we didn't know we were looking for. Not just because they all seem to be following roughly the same tired plot with minor variations in pairings or things that make the "trueborn" [read: author self-projection] such a super special little snowflake of awesomesauce wrapped up in a perfect package or even because the only one that acknowledged how completely improbable the premise itself is was cxjenious's Harry Potter crossover wherein the only thing that kept "Harry the trueborn" alive was literal magical intervention. I'm mostly sick and tired of them because it's always a second born, he always is black haired with green eyes, he always gets sent to foster with Tywin, he's always almost perfect and he's always so drearily fucking above these "petty political games." I mean, if you're going to stack bullshit on top of self-insert fantasy on top of contrivance anyway, you may as well go for the gusto on it. Make the trueborn a princess instead of a prince. Make them a rash whoremongering hothead like daddy dearest. Make him long for the days of manly men and think he's gods gift to women while most of them would've slapped the taste out of his mouth if he wasn't the prince. Make them grow unhealthily obsessed the way both the parents are so very prone to. DO FREAKING SOMETHING TO CHANGE IT UP FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!
And to be clear, I don't have a problem with the ones that make Robert's trueborn the eldest because that at least was something from the show and the books you could use to explore new ideas and see about changing relationships and characters while growing things in new directions. I severely dislike the ones where after Cersei is already at the point of constantly avoiding having Robert in her AND being only with Jaime AND using moon tea on the few nights she can't avoid it AND having succeded in bearing Joffrey, somehow Robert impregnates her and against all odds the kid lives long enough to matter to the actual plot and the characters who matter. Just a personal opinion.