He's his father's favourite son, he always has been, and yet it's not enough this time.
He has refused, he has argued, he has even stooped to pleading with his father. It does him no good. His words falls on deaf ears and still his father refuses to listen when he begs him for a final time not to make him go through with the marriage to Sansa Stark.
Margaery has been sold thrice, to three different kings, each as far removed from the other as the relentless snows of the North are from the hot sands of Dorne, and yet each with the Baratheon name.
It's his turn now and there's nothing he can say or do to change it.
"It's past time you grew out of these childish... games you play son." his father says and Loras knows without having to be told that he's talking about Renly.
His mother puts a hand on his shoulder when he says that, her fingers are soft and sympathetic and if they had been alone in the room, Loras might have turned and clung to her, grown knight as he is. He wants to find it in him to protest, to lash out angrily and make his father understand that what he had with Renly was no game and yet the fight has long been knocked out of him. As it is, he can only stand there and shake his head vehemently, angry tears threatening to well up despite the press of his mother's hand on his shoulder.
His father continues. "Sansa Stark could very well be the key to the north. You will do your duty as Margaery has done hers."
Willas steps forward then, limping as he leans heavily on his cane and tries to reason with their father. He volunteers once more to take Loras' place, to marry the Stark girl in Loras' stead if the poor girl will consent to a cripple.
Their father will have none of it however and he waves Willas' kind selfless words aside like he did their mother's pleas earlier and blusters about the room. "You are the heir to Highgarden Willas." He says. "If the young wolf survives this war then his sister will be all but worthless. I will not have my eldest son and heir wasted on such a gamble." He pauses and nods curtly, his face set. "No Loras will do well enough."
It is not said but Loras knows what their father is thinking. For a son who was always going to be hard to marry off, the Stark girl is too convenient an option for his father to pass by. She is too young, too naïve, altogether too alone in the world to protest at such a match. She will walk up the aisle with no idea as to the sorts of things Loras has engaged in behind closed doors, acts of love which he knows most call sins.
Willas quietens then and Loras sees him exchanges a defeated glance with Garlan. The only person that could turn their father now is their grandmother, and yet for once the Queen of Thorns is silent.
Loras knows then that his fate is sealed and he turns away, walking out of the door with his head held high and yet running to his chambers as soon as he is out of sight.
Sat alone in his rooms, he longs for Margaery, for her kind words and her sisterly caresses. Most of all though, he longs for Renly, for his gentle touch in darkened rooms and his soothing voice in his ear.
His brothers do their best however and they come to sit with him the night before Sansa Stark is set to arrive, the girl having been stolen out of Kings Landing a week past to meet the fate she is not entirely yet aware of.
Their union will be the very same day and whilst weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions, there are no jokes, no japes and even Garlan does not smile as the evening slips away into darkness and beckons on the dawn. Instead both his brothers sit quietly beside him, Willas smoothing the bed covers as Loras sits silently up in bed, his arms around his knees as he tries to remember the last time he made love in this bed. It was over a year ago now he thinks, the night after Margaery's first wedding perhaps, or maybe the morning before they left for Bitterbridge.
The next time will be quite different he thinks and he turns to Garlan. "Is it difficult?" He asks, drawing the covers that Willas has just smoothed down back over his knees.
"Is what difficult?" Garlan asks.
"Taking a girl's maidenhead?" He meets Garlan's gaze. "Will I hurt her?"
Garlan sighs. "There will be pain, but if you're gentle it may be brief. Take your time, make her comfortable, let her tell you when she's ready."
Loras bites back a sigh. He has never gone to bed with a women, let alone taken one's maidenhead, and yet he knows better than most perhaps the pain of making love. His own pain had been almost unbearable the first time and even long after he had grown to enjoy such things, he had often found himself wincing, even crying out sometimes. Renly had always been there though, with soft smiles and gentle touches, loving words on his lips as he kissed away the pain.
He will have to try to do the same for Sansa Stark and yet he is not hopeful he can.