A/N: So... Robert is extremely washed up in this and Stannis is kinda a jerk. It's not that I dislike the characters, on the contrary I have fond spots for both of them. It's just that if you put them in the same room together their worst sides tend to shine through.
Anywho, I hope someone enjoys this. I'm not sure if I managed to get across what I was trying to with the characterisation, so opinions and comments, both negative and positive are most welcome. I am always trying to improve.
Iron and Steel
King Robert missed being drunk.
Yes, he drank his way all through the day every day, and yes, it felt better than being cold sober, stopped him feeling completely dead at least. But he could never feel drunk, not like he used to. He couldn't get that buzz, that careless delirium of being on top of the world and untouchable like he did when he was younger. The Gods apparently had taken that away from him, like they did everything else. In present days he drank at least three times as much, but it still made no difference. If when drunk he couldn't give a damn, it was no longer bravado, but bitterness. More than that the drink just left him numb.
Robert poured himself some more wine. He was alone in his chambers, the sun well set, the hour late, and it was better to feel numb than dead.
When he slopped some of the rich red wine down the outside of his goblet, he laughed. At least drink hadn't lost all effect on him.
Of course, Robert preferred to drink in company, but if there was no company he preferred to be drinking than be alone and sober. Truth be told he couldn't put up with the company of most people these days, least of all himself, without at least three drinks in his belly. No, the wine didn't make him feel young again like he wanted, but neither did it ever nag him, lie to him, judge him or call him King. No doubt the drink would kill him in the end, but for all the things it didn't do wine was already counted amongst his closest friends.
Luckily for him, Robert had well passed three drinks when he was interrupted by an abrupt knocking at the door.
Robert cursed under his breath. Only those who had something tedious to say about the running of the kingdom knocked like that, and just when he thought he was done with kinging for the day.
The knocking came again, louder and more irritating than before. This knocker was clearly not going to be ignored, and Robert had already guessed who he was. There were only two people who would dare disturb him at this hour, and with Jon Arryn dead that left only one. Gods knew what he bloody well wanted.
"Enter!" Robert bellowed at the door.
There was a pause, then sure enough the door opened to reveal the forever frowning face of his younger brother. The last person Robert wanted to see. He looked grimmer than usual even, standing awkward and aloof just inside the door with his arms crossed, and his face gaunt enough to make you believe he was still starving at Storm's End. All the while his dark blue eyes were set on trying to bore a hole into the table where Robert sat. Though better the table than their usual stance of trying to bore a hole into Robert's head, he thought. Those eyes were so cold he could send Stannis through the seven hells and still they wouldn't know warmth. One day he might try it.
"Your Grace."
"Brother."
The end of civilities.
Stannis took a few stiff paces to stand in front of the table, his ridiculously imperious expression already becoming unbearable in Robert's chambers. If it had been anyone else who walked through that door, Robert could have made them his drinking partner and best friend for a night, but Stannis was ignorant of the good company of wine. Another of his many failings.
"I'd get out if I was you brother, I've two pretty maidens coming I plan to make wenches of before they leave. If you met them you'd wet your breeches."
Stannis' jaw clenched a little tighter, "I'm here for reasons more important than your whores, Robert."
"Ha! I'm in no mood for your damn griping. Complain to the council of it on the morrow and leave me be."
"If it could I would, believe me, speaking to you gives me no pleasure."
Robert snorted, "Gods know why you persist in doing so then."
Stannis finally stopped trying to bore holes in the table top to rest his eyes on Robert's face as he said coldly, "Duty. Only that." And sure enough, in his brother's eyes, there was the all too familiar gleam of the perverse pride he took from doing things he didn't enjoy. As if that somehow made him above other men.
Times like these Robert did seriously wonder if Stannis had been dropped on his head as a child. But if Stannis thought he was here for his so-called duty, then the only way to get him to leave would be to physically push him out of his chambers. Robert was sure he could do so, but that would first require standing up, and for a man of Robert's weight that would be a serious endeavour indeed.
Instead Robert used his foot to push a chair out from the other side of the table, poured himself another goblet of wine and made a large flapping gesture to get Stannis to sit.
Rigidly, he did so.
Stannis always wore an expression as if he had a stick rammed up his arse, but tonight he looked as if he was keeping a hot poker up there. Robert had not seen his brother look so apprehensive for a long time, if ever. On that thought, Robert did what he would do if it was any other troubled man sitting across from him. He poured Stannis a goblet of wine and slid it slowly towards him. Robert knew he would never drink it, but at least he could now pretend he had a drinking partner.
Stannis looked warily at the wine for a moment and then, to Robert's great surprise, took the smallest of sips. He made a face and then said flatly, "You grieve Jon Arryn."
"I loved the man like a father and he loved me like a son. Gods, you drink like a maid who wants to keep her legs shut!" Robert laughed.
"As you loved Ned Stark like a brother," Stannis' thin lips curled.
"Yes. Don't start complaining how that for some fool reason 'injures' you, otherwise I'll put you back on the other side of that door myself."
Stannis raised his eyebrows, "You could try, I suppose."
That brought forth the fury. At the insult to his strength blood rushed to Robert's temples, face turning red, without thinking he could feel himself standing up... until he realised the sensation was just his chair tipping back a bit.
Stannis' frown only deepened, "Have another drink brother, you will need it."
At the mention of wine, the fury dissipated from Robert as quickly as it had come, and he laughed, a full belly laugh that made even the table vibrate, "Is that the first time you've ever offered anyone a drink?"
"Possibly."
Robert grinned, and rewarded himself by topping up his goblet to the brim. He would have topped up Stannis too, but his brother had not touched a drop since his first pathetic sip.
After a silence, Stannis cleared his throat, "What I have come to say, I do not speak of lightly. I know full well you will not take it kindly, but if my head still rests upon my shoulders when I leave here, I will consider that you took it adequately. Do not for one moment think that I speak from some sort of... brotherly jealously or a want to cause you grievance. It is only for the truth I speak, and all men deserve the truth... however otherwise lacking they may be." Robert bristled at that, Stannis continued, "First, I took my suspicions to Jon Arryn. During the past months we investigated that suspicion. Examined it past any reasonable doubt to come to only one conclusion. A conclusion he may well have died for."
"What do you mean 'conclusion he may well have died for'?" Robert said warily. The slow, earnest, mechanical way Stannis spoke was starting to make the hairs on the back of Robert's neck prickle. It was as if he had thought long and hard of how and what he was going to say, something so incredibly unlike Stannis; a man who so obstinately said what he thought, the personal feelings of others be damned.
Stannis didn't reply. Instead he put an immense, leather bound book on the table that before he had held on his lap. It landed with a thud and he pushed it towards Robert.
"The lineages and the great houses of the seven kingdoms... and so on," Robert read gruffly, "You wish to bore me, is that it?"
"No, I wish you to read," Stannis opened the book carefully, "If you can manage it."
Grumbling, Robert looked at the page Stannis had turned to and gazed at its contents. Truth be told Robert's eyesight was not what it once was. Maybe it was his age, maybe it was the wine, but the writing on the page seemed to swim before him. He could see he was looking at a Baratheon family tree with a lot of minute writing next to each name. So minute it was beyond him to read it, and Robert had a very certain feeling he did not wish to.
"What in the seven hells are you driving at? I already know you are older than Renly if that's what this is about," Robert laughed, but even in his own ears it sounded hollow.
Stannis ignored the jibe and continued to pour over the book, "Every Baratheon that was ever born is described as having coal black hair. There are no exceptions. The seed is strong." Stannis turned several pages back. "The Lannisters." The contempt was plain in his voice as he said the name. "Notorious for their golden hair, of course, but it is not always so. Particularly, if you see here, a previous marriage between a Baratheon and a Lannister..."
It was then that Robert stopped hearing the grating voice of his brother. Replaced it with the sound of grinding teeth, drowned out by the deafening throb of the blood through his head and a ringing in his ears. Though his eyes still saw Stannis' wretched face, white spots seared his vision. The face that minutes ago had flushed red, now turned a deep shade of purple to match the wine, then finally turned white. King Robert was not blinded by fury, he was made dumb by it.
Words finally found his lips. Though his voice was not a bluster nor a bellow, but a slow, seething rumble.
"You think I do not know that my children look nothing like me?"
Stannis fell silent, his teeth clamping together like a vice.
"You think I am damn well blind?" Robert ground out again.
"They are not your children."
"They have my name."
For a moment, Stannis' jaw looked as if it were about to fall open.
"They are not yours," he repeated obstinately. "I have seen your bastards, Robert. Every last one of them from those born of whores in Flea Bottom to my nephew in Storm's End, they all look identical to you. Joffery, Tommen, Mycella, they cannot be of your blood."
Robert's mind swayed as blood and fear and anger surged through it, the ringing in his ears becoming shrill, each word he heard picking away at a scab from long festered wounds.
"They have my name," he growled again. "You wish to take my last shred of dignity away from me? Would my humiliation give you satisfaction for all the times I 'wronged' you? To let the kingdoms know their king has horns."
"It is the truth. Jon Arryn was murdered for it."
"Ha! A damn convenient truth it is for you. Humiliate me and name yourself heir. No wonder you considered it your duty to present it to me," Robert scoffed. "You want truth? Let me tell you another, the boy Joffery has no Baratheon blood as you say? Good. He will be a better king without it."
At that Robert threw back his head to drain his goblet, the red wine dribbling out his mouth into the thick, black beard. Every last drop gone, he smashed the empty goblet back into the table, then let his lungs take a gasp of air before letting rip a satisfying belch. Eyes wide, Stannis did nothing but stare and grind his teeth.
"You knew, and yet you did nothing."
Robert shook his head, "I do not know."
The teeth grinding came to a crescendo, "Assuming I am to be the next Hand of the King, I cannot let you resign yourself to-"
"You? Hand of the King? Is that a jest, brother?" Robert loosed a great, bitter booming laugh.
Stannis did not get the joke, "Who else could you trust? I've already spent the past fifteen years running the kingdoms for you. Or did you not notice?"
"Jon Arryn ran the kingdoms. You played with ships."
"I built a fleet!" Stannis retorted, the fury lacing into his own voice, "You could have easily made me Master of Laws, but you did not."
"If I let you loose writing laws, there would be rebellion from every corner of the seven kingdoms within a fortnight. That I could trust you to manage. That, and to come to my chambers to insult me with lies."
"Insult you with the truth, as you well know it," fists clenched, eyes furious, Stannis rose to his feet. "No, Jon Arryn certainly did not love me like a son, how could he? But on your council of fools and vipers, I was the only man he could trust. The man he confided in. You may have been blind to this, as you are wilfully to so much else, but if Lord Jon chose a successor it would most certainly have been myself. There is no one else."
Robert's eyes flashed at his brother's arrogance. The fury boiled. He would break him now.
"Know this, brother, I'd rather give into my wife and let the bloody Kingslayer be Hand over you. Seven Hells, I'd rather have the boy Renly than you. Only when every other man in the seven kingdoms is dead, then and only then, would I ever make you Hand, and even then I'd rather give up the kingdoms back to the damn Targaryens."
From his chin to all the way over his bald head, Stannis flushed red from the insult. His lower jaw vibrated, it was clamped so tightly to the upper you'd expect his teeth to crack. Deep in his face, those blue eyes flashed the same way Robert's had done only moments before for Robert to think Stannis was about to strike him.
Go on. Do it, damn you. Hit me. Hit me hard. I'm ready for you.
"Make Tywin Lannister Hand. He was Hand for the Mad King. You too will suit him well."
Stannis swiftly turned on his heel as Robert launched Stannis' untouched goblet of wine across the room for it to strike against the wall with a clang. The King watched as the spilt blood of the wine seeped slowly down the wall, the empty goblet rolling away across the floor.
Stannis opened the door to leave; Robert stopped him with one final bitter growl to his back.
"Joffery is a Baratheon in more than just name. He too acts the bastard to his brother."
Stannis paused, his head half turning back towards Robert before he seemed to think better of it and stalked away. The door shut behind him with a slam, leaving the King once more alone in his chambers.
King Robert did the only thing he could. He drank. Gods, how much he drank. Enough to forget Jon Arryn. Enough to laugh at his brother's lies. Enough to sink the iron fleet all by himself.
That night, after the whores, Robert stumbled his way to his wife's chambers. He fucked her bloody. Bruised every inch of skin. Made her cry out in pain, while he took only pleasure. Or so he imagined from the little he remembered.
The next morning he awoke in his own bed. He vomited into his privy, hangover dogging him as he stumbled into the next room. For a moment he thought hazily that there was a blood stain on the wall till he remembered the spilt goblet lying on the floor. He turned to the rest of the room to find the table bare. His brother's damn book was gone.
Robert could remember Stannis had left it there, he could not remember after what he himself had done with it. But it was gone, that was all that mattered.
Good riddance, he thought, as he drank the end of the wine from the bottle to soothe his head.
The following evening King Robert sat at the head of the feast tables in the great hall, doing what he did best, laughing, eating and drinking, surrounded by lords as ruddy faced as he was, and as empty as well. Further down the table to his left sat his three little blond demons, four if you counted their mother. Robert had not given them neither a word nor a thought the entire day, and the meal was no exception. Instead, between mouthfuls of meat, guzzles of ale and bellyfuls of laughter, Robert's eye, when it felt it wasn't being watched, wandered elsewhere to a man he could always be sure was more destitute than him.
The brother of the King should have been seated on the table of high honour, instead Stannis had elected to dishonour himself, for reasons obvious to Robert, and sit down with the lessers of the court. Sat next to him on the bench was his little Onion Knight, prattling away earnestly in his ear while Stannis sat scowling at his untouched plate of food. He seemed completely emotionally closed off to the world, oblivious to even the words of his Onion Knight. Robert could almost hear the sound of grinding teeth.
Ser Davos Seaworth was a weak man; his narrow arms and shoulders probably had never wielded a sword in his life. Undoubtedly, smugglers made for poor knights. Though you would have thought a smuggler would at least be good company, but from the few words Robert had exchanged with him over the years the Onion Knight seemed every bit as boring as his brother. In that sense they were made for each other. Though Robert could never understand how his puritanical brother, with all his lecturing about laws and justice, could stand the company of a smuggler. In his bizarre way, he seemed even to favour it.
At that moment, Robert realised the lord next to him had made some sort of joke about whores. Robert tore his attention away from his brother to force forth his customary booming laughter, and refill his tankard of ale that had somehow emptied without his realising.
When he next tossed a glance in their direction, he saw as Stannis, solemn faced as ever, put a hand on the Onion Knight's shoulder and squeezed it. Perhaps the King had drunk more ale than he thought, but it looked as if that gesture caused Ser Davos to smile.
For one absurd moment Robert was reminded of himself and Ned Stark. A balder and more poorly dressed version, but it was there all the same. King Robert had never felt more lonely than he did at that moment.
The Onion Knight seemed to realise he was being watched, as his head shifted slightly to look around Stannis and meet his eyes to Robert's. Robert stared back, not caring to understand the expression across the face of Ser Davos. He saw only Ned.
It was then Robert knew what he needed, what he was missing and what his brother had found. Robert had had it too, and somewhere in the midst of kinging lost it. Let it slip away while he buried his head in the mud.
He needed a man. Not a lord, a knight or a council member, just a man. A man to make him feel alive again. A man to take him back to the glory of his youth. A strong man. An honourable man.
The next morning, groggy, blurry eyed and late, King Robert attended the small council. If they were surprised by his presence they hid it admirably.
As he arrived, Littlefinger had just finished reading aloud a letter, or rather a curt note, from the Master of Ships. He had left for Dragonstone - he did not know when he would return. Robert paid it no mind. Neither did the council.
"Your Grace, on this matter of the Hand," Maester Pycelle began in his usual doddering tones, "I would like to put forth-"
"I have already decided."
Pycelle, Littlefinger, Varys and Renly, all exchanged looks across the council table. This time more obviously than when Robert had first arrived.
"May one ask who will be awarded this great honour, your grace?"
The King sat slowly back in his chair, partly to give them a little suspense, partly waiting for a throb at the front of his head to deaden.
The King spoke, "We will find him at Winterfell."