He heard the sickening sound of flesh hitting the pavement, and the red shroud that had covered his eyes disintegrated, leaving him in the darkness, alone and aghast. He did not remember how he had made his way to Tyrion's apartment. His little brother had to pour several glasses of whiskey into him before he could tell him, however poorly, what happened.
"Oh, Jaime, you idiot! You fucking idiot!" Tyrion exclaimed in anguish. "How could you have been so stupid?!"
"He'd have found a way to hurt her, Tyrion." His voice was dull and toneless. He had suddenly stopped caring for anything at all.
Tyrion squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Even if you needed to kill him, why not be smart about it?"
Jaime had no reply for this. He had never decided to kill Aerys — he had simply felt an unstoppable drive to annihilate the mad monster after his despicable threats had registered in Jaime's mind.
Tyrion was intelligent enough to help his brother, drunken on shock and Stormlands' whiskey, to change into new clothes. He cleaned his bloodied knuckles meticulously, but Jaime's hands, so graceful when he danced, were bruised and bloody. As he fussed around, his short legs more of an obstacle than ever, Tyrion could barely bite down his panic and anger. Anger at them both for their indiscretion; at Cersei for her absence, on an evening like this; and despair at the thought that his brother, his hero and champion, could be taken away from him, because he was so foolish as to have put his life on the line for a woman who did not deserve it. Tyrion hated his sister more than ever and blamed her for Jaime's predicament. For the first time in his life, he kept thinking of his father's face with hope and had a mad need to speak with him. For the first time, Tyrion mentally turned his eyes to his father for protection and help. For the first time, he was glad that Tywin's influence knew practically no bounds. His father was the last thing standing between Tyrion and the dark abyss his life would become without his brother's smile. When he had put an almost unconscious Jaime to bed, he dialed. The wait felt like an eternity.
"I hope you have a good excuse for calling at this hour," his father's cold voice was music to his ears.
"I do. I can't speak about it on the phone. You must come to the apartment immediately. It's Jaime. I can't say more," Tyrion's voice poorly hid his anxiety. He did not feel a shred of the pride that, in any other circumstances, would have made him choke on his words: "Please, father, come right away. Make sure no one sees you leave your house and use the backdoor to come up." Not wishing to hear anything that would diminish his hope, Tyrion hung up. He kept pacing, his brain running in circles, as he tried to find a plausible alibi for Jaime and to steel himself against whatever came next. Tywin arrived at the apartment within forty minutes.
"If you dragged me here for anything that is not a matter of life and death, Tyrion, you will regret it," he said in his condescending, threatening voice.
Tyrion nodded, closing the entrance door softly and went straight for the bar, pouring his father a generous glass of scotch. He knew that, regardless of his father's cold tone or his words, Tywin's appearance at his apartment within an hour of the call was a sign of his apprehension.
"Will you tell me what's the matter, or keep up this charade?" the father bit out.
Tyrion proffered him the scotch:
"I think you better sit down," he said.
"What's the meaning of this?! I will not sit down, until I am fully informed about Jaime. Where's he?"
"Asleep, in the bedroom."
"Asleep?!" Tywin looked menacing.
"He just returned from a meeting with Aerys Targaryen, who threatened to brutalize Cersei. The King of Ballet is dead."
He had never seen his father pale before. Tywin sat down heavily into the armchair, almost as though his strong legs would no longer support him. Some of his scotch spilled, but he did not seem to notice. The Lannister patriarch closed his eyes and stayed still for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning, but kept feeling as though the ground had been pulled right out from under his feet.
"How?" was all he managed to say, eyes closed still, his strong voice, for once, not backed by his general appearance.
"He — " Tyrion began but had to swallow against the strange tightness in his throat; he went to the bar and poured himself another drink. He did not know how many glasses he had already drained — the agitation seemed to evaporate all alcohol from his bloodstream before it could take effect. He swallowed a large mouthful of the burning liquid. "He threw punches until Aerys stumbled and fell from the balcony on which the fighting took place."
Tywin opened his eyes and drank a generous swallow of scotch.
"Did anyone see them?"
"He doesn't know, but he would've certainly been seen coming into the club and coming out of it. Considering it was dark, whoever saw them on the balcony won't make for a convincing witness."
His father did not seem quite himself yet, but there was no time. Tyrion shared the most terrible idea that had occurred to him while he had paced, waiting for Tywin:
"The club has cameras, even in the private rooms where Jaime found him, if they caught it on tape — "
His father's motion was so swift it barely registered. He dialed.
"Give me Roose Bolton," he barked into the phone and waited. "Bolton? Tywin Lannister speaking," he turned to Tyrion, "what club was it?"
"The Flaming Dragon," his son supplied.
"No one sees tonight's tapes from the security cameras of the Flaming Dragon, do you hear me? No one. Not you, not your men. I don't care how you do it, have them destroyed. Now."
He hung up and looked at Tyrion.
"What else?"
His younger son was for a few moments too stunned by the swift solution of the problem to speak. Then:
"They could have been heard."
"That does not prove anything."
"Unless whoever heard them also heard the noise of the fight. Moreover, when Jaime came in, he was covered in blood. I don't know if anyone noticed it when he left the club, but if they did — "
"They might remember it when a body is found in the morning," Tywin finished.
"It's probably been found already," Tyrion said, "I think they'll come for Jaime in the morning…" he paused. "Which is why you should not be here, come sunlight."
"They may not come at all: there will be little evidence left by the time Bolton is through with the club's security footage."
"Unless they've already seen the tapes," Tyrion countered. "The witnesses are likely to have reported Jaime's presence in the night club. After the many altercations that have been observed between Jaime and Aerys over the past year, he will be the prime suspect."
Few times had Aerys seen Jaime without throwing insults at him, envious of his rival's success, and Jaime, short of temper and with the tongue of a wasp, had returned them with interest.
Tywin remained silent. Tyrion suspected he was still trying to come to terms with the cards life had dealt him that night. He knew he had to break through Tywin's denial.
"Father, they will come for him tomorrow or the day after that, at the latest. You must prepare yourself for that."
Tywin did not deign him with a reply. His son surmised it was because he did not have an answer.
"What will we do about the witnesses?" Tyrion inquired, looking up at his father with worry.
"They can be bought," was all Tywin said.
"And the City Watch?"
"I'll take care of it."
"He'll need a very good lawyer."
"The High Sparrow owes me a favor."
Despite the odd nickname, the ever-wrinkled clothes, and manic eyes, he was the most feared and successful lawyer in the Seven Kingdoms, maybe the whole world. He had never lost a case.
"What about the prosecutor?"
"I'll buy him, too. I'll have Varys start identifying the witnesses and persuading them that they have sclerosis. I will call him from the car."
"There's more," Tyrion went into the kitchen and returned with a garbage bag, which he handed to his father.
"What the hell is this?" Tywin asked indignantly.
If he were still capable of mirth, Tyrion would have laughed.
"It's his clothes. We cannot have them in the apartment when the City Watch shows up — they are covered in blood. Burn them when you return to the mansion."
Tywin took the bag wordlessly. The next moment he was gone, and Tyrion felt strangely more lonely and afraid than he had when his father's large figure had filled the living room. He went quietly into the bedroom and watched his brother's sleeping face, as he had done on many nights before, when they were children and Tyrion could not sleep. He had been right: the City Watch came for his brother at dawn. And with the first of their knocks on the door, Jaime had awakened from one nightmare and stepped right into the black hole of another.
Jailed, questioned, despised, and accursed, Jaime had lived the worst months of his life. The press, hungry for a story of a rebellious heir killing his rival to pursue a career his father condemned, latched onto it like a starved leech onto flesh. Daario Naharis, one of the most daring reporters in King's Landing, was the one to invent the nickname "Kingslayer," which caught on. Jaime hated it. In those days, he first began wondering if he was a murderer; if he would have killed Aerys, had the monster not lost his balance. The first scornful jibes and looks of contempt thrown his way lacerated his pride; he never dreamed that he would have to get used to them. He kept hoping Cersei would visit him in prison, but she did not come, offering various excuses the few times he got to hear her voice on the phone. Tyrion came every day.
Benjen Stark was the prosecutor assigned to the case. Impossible to bribe or persuade, he proved the biggest problem. Finally, Tywin was able to pull the necessary strings higher in the hierarchy to replace him. Soon after, the case was closed, and Jaime was released. But this was only the beginning. Ben Stark, outspoken in his accusations and backed by his brother, Eddard, decried the corruption of the justice system and dragged the Lannister name through the mud whenever they were asked to comment on the case, its result, or Ben's removal. And they were asked often.
After the effort he had put into liberating his son and the blow the family name had suffered on his account, Tywin expected Jaime to return to the fold. When Jaime refused, father and son did not speak to each other for a year. Tywin redoubled his efforts to crush the Lannister Ballet Company and force his children into the Lannisters & Co. But Tyrion and Jaime did not sleep nights, inventing new compositions, looking for donors and dancers to keep the company from going under. It was then that Ellaria Sand and Oberyn Martell had joined the LBC. Ellaria, who had given birth to Tyene a few years before, was unable to find employment in Dorne, but the moment Jaime and Tyrion had seen her dance, they knew that the few pounds she had yet to lose were immaterial. The Martell family joined the ranks of the foot soldiers in the Lannister Ballet Company. It was a difficult time, and Cersei did not care for it. Too soon, the last blow of that dark time fell on Jaime's head — his sister left the ship she thought was sinking and married Robert Baratheon, King's Landing mayor, two years later, plunging Jaime deeper into an endless, constantly spinning abyss, where there was nothing but a gruesome fight for survival. Regardless of his anger at her, his boundless jealousy, or his disappointment, getting lost in his sister's body became Jaime's only consolation.