A/N Sorry for the delay! Hopefully this longish chapter makes up for it a little.
I'm getting spoiled, Tyrion thought as he struggled to keep up with Tywin's long strides. Sansa, Bronn, Chella, Jaime...they all had made a point to walk to accommodate his speed in the past month but his father made no such concession. By the time they made it to the royal chambers, Tyrion was out of breath and his stunted legs were cramping.
The Lannister guards covering the entrance didn't say a word as Lord Tywin passed them, walking unannounced into the king's own chambers. Once again, the Lord Hand held uncontested power in the Red Keep. As they came into the room, Tyrion was almost knocked over by the powerful smell emitting from the bed. The smell of rotting flesh. Pycelle, as well as a team of lesser maesters, were flitting around the room like a flock of panicked birds. At the center was Joffrey, laying motionless on the bed. The boy king's skin was a sickly, translucent, green color with deep, purple bruising below his eyes. His lips were bloodless and chapped which provided a stark contrast to the torn flesh about his neck where he had clawed at in desperation. Instantly, Tyrion was glad that he and Sansa had missed the horrifying moments when he had choked. He lay unconscious, but the soft rise and fall of his chest proved that they boy still clung to life. At his side, clutching his limp hand in hers, sat Cersei, looking only slightly less sallow than her son with her limp hair in a tangled mess falling down her back and her eyes swollen and weeping. She turned upon hearing them enter, but after a quick, poisonous glare towards the both of them, turned her attention back to her child muttering soft prayers under her breath.
Tyrion stared on in shock. He knew the king may never recover from this attack, but he didn't expect to see him with one foot already in the seven hells. His monster of a nephew had days left, if not hours. And although he knew it was best for the realm and for his wife that Joffrey breathe his last sooner rather than later, he couldn't help how his heart clenched. This was his nephew, his blood-though there was no love lost between them. It was Jaime's son. And though she had always been an absolute witch to him, he was his sisters son as well. Seeing her now, kneeling at her lost son's bedside, tears silently running down her cheeks, looking more vulnerable than he had ever seen her, he couldn't help but be sympathetic. Even her next words did little to harden his heart.
"Come to see the fruits of your labor, you little monster?" She snarled, though all Tyrion could see was a wounded animal lashing out. Indeed it seemed as if she was powerless as Tywin only strode closer to her and snatch one of her hands away from her dying child.
"You will stop with this nonsense" he hissed lowly, so that no one else in the room could overhear him. Though the maesters were giving the Lannister family a wide berth, they knew all ears were on alert. "Don't you know they are all watching us? Waiting for us to topple? I will not have it said that the Lannisters are falling apart or battling each other."
Cersei jerked her hand away from her father glaring furiously, but she kept silent.
"Where is Jaime? I asked him to meet us here." Tywin asked, annoyance evident in his tone. Cersei just shrugged and their father sent her a withering glance. If it were less of a horrid situation, Tyrion would laugh. Who would have guessed that he would be his father's favorite child in the moment.
"Fine." He turned to the Grand Maester. "Pycelle, you are dismissed. I would speak with my daughter and son alone." The man began to protest, to try to say that he needed to be present in case the king took a turn for the worse, but a steady, leveling gaze from the old lion had him backing down. Once they were alone, Tywin addressed them both.
"We need to discuss our next steps. All the visiting families have been confined to their quarters and I am having our guards question them all. It seems as if we have lost our Master of Whispers. Lord Varys has not been seen since the wedding party left the sept. "
Cersei's eyes burned like wildfire. "I told Robert that eunuch could not be trusted!"
"And yet you made no move to remove him once your darling husband was dead." Tyrion murmured, earning another deadly stare from his sister. "Varys always seemed to play his own agenda, but if he is behind this attack, you can bet he did not act alone."
Tywin nodded thoughtfully but his sister only growled. "It was those damned Tyrells. That crone and her slut of a granddaughter."
"The Tyrells have lost their biggest playing card." Tywin clipped. "As long as Joffrey breathes, we can argue that Margaery is not free to remarry."
"The marriage was unconsummated. He was poisoned before they could be put to bed. We know they will push to have the union set aside on such grounds." Sansa had confirmed as much when she had returned from her visit with the roses that morning. He would get a detailed report once he returned to her this evening.
"I have it on good authority that the maid Margaery may not be quite the maid she claims to be." Tywin said in the closest to smug Tyrion had ever seen. "As long as Joffrey is alive, we have the right to demand the girl prove her purity before she can marry again. If they know that I will insist upon it they will have to wait. While they are waiting, I will be sure to let it be known that we are encouraging other families to come forward with their daughters. It will keep the Tyrells from demanding more than they are owed. Lady Olenna fancies herself clever-but she will remember her place soon enough."
Cersei had been surprisingly quiet, but now her head jerked up. "They mean to match her with Tommen?" she squeaked. Tywin just ignored her, but Tyrion could see the annoyance etched on his brow. Cersei had never been as quick as she had always thought. Was she just now catching on?
"But what of the supplies and men the Reach is providing?" Tyrion questioned, following his fathers lead in ignoring Cersei. "What's to keep Mace and his mother from shipping it all back home and leaving should we not give them what we want?"
"I'm not going to outright refuse them. Hope will keep them here and answering to our every whim. They want their daughter to be queen-they won't give up as long as there is a chance that will happen." The chamber doors creaked open, and the trio turned to see Jaime enter. Tywin sent him a dry look.
"You are late."
Cersei interrupted Jaime's half-hearted excuse as she pitched herself into her brother's arms. "They are plotting, Jaime! To take another of my son's from me!" She looked back at them with an accusatory glare.
"Is there a chance?" Tyrion asked, pulling the attention back to matters of importance. "Of Margaery and Tommen, I mean."
"No! My son will not marry that whore!" Cersei cried hysterically as Jaime tried to calm her.
"The Tyrells are a useful ally." Tywin stated, much to the queen's dismay. "Their crops and their army seem untouched by this war. If Mace continues to provide for the crown at the price of one for his daughter, I see no reason to withhold it. But they have become too aggressive. Margaery shall be Tommen's queen, but I will not have her father or her brothers hold offices on the small council. After their coronations, the remained of the Tyrell lot, save her white-cloaked brother, shall be shipped back to Highgarden."
"So you will let them simmer, thinking they have lost their chance. Then you will give them what they want, but nothing else..." Tyrion saw the wisdom in that. Joffrey had been quick to promote the whole lot of them, but with this move, they will be cast back down. For half a second, Tyrion considered that his father could have had a hand in what had happened to his grandson. Joffrey had become quite a nuisance and the struggle would have only worsened as the boy grew older. He had not listened to any councilors, not even his grandfather. But no...that could not be.
Finally Cersei pushed away from Jaime and stomped over to them, her emerald eyes burning.
"How dare you plot against your king! How dare you seek to set that weak cub and that murdering harlot before my son!" The confusion Tyrion was feeling was mirrored in his father's face before Cersei spun wildly towards the bed. "Joffrey is king! He lives still and he will recover and then you will all pay for this treason! You are a traitor!" She pointed an accusing finger at her father, who looked on dispassionately. Jaime moved forward to grab her arm.
"Cersei, the boy is gone, clearly. You must look to the future. Tommen is your son as well and he needs you..." he implored her, but she would not be calmed.
"That boy is not half the lion Joffrey was!" She sobbed. "He is weak! He will never last! You will all eat him alive and he will ruin what Joff has achieved! You want my boy, your rightful king, gone so that you can rule the seven kingdoms! I will burn this house to the ground before I allow that to happen!" she screamed. Jaime held her tighter now, but she struggled in his arms like a lunatic. Losing Joffrey had clearly driven her over the edge into madness.
Tyrion watched on, almost as a spectator as Cersei raged and Tywin stared at her with that steely gaze. Never before had he clearly seen the overwhelming contrast between them-his father and his sister. Cersei was all consuming wildfire, destroying everything in her path and Tywin was pure ice-controlled and unforgiving. And while Tyrion had been on the brunt end of that calculating, judgmental stare plenty of times, he had never seen his father look quite so disappointed with either of his siblings. As if he looked at his golden, perfect daughter and finally seen the toxic, impulsive fool underneath.
"And how will you do that?" Tywin asked, condescension laced in his tone.
Cersei froze in Jaime's arms before a malicious grin curled on her lips, unsettling Tyrion. "I will tell everyone the truth..." she murmured quietly and the room fell deadly silent.
"And what truth would that be?" Tywin asked patronizingly.
No...
Cersei seemed confused for just a moment. "You don't know, do you? You never believed it. How is that possible?"
Jaime tried in vain to pull her away one last time but she shook him off, coming to lock eyes with their father. Jaime's gaze shot towards Tyrion in panic, but there was nothing either of them could do. They both stood by helplessly as they watched this scene unfold.
Now Cersei scoffed. "What am I saying? Of course it's possible. How can someone so consumed by the idea of his family have any conception what his actual family was doing? We were right there in front of you, and you didn't see us. One look in the past 20 years, one real look at your own children and you would have known," she sneered.
"Cersei..." Jaime warned again desperately. But there was no stopping their sister now.
Tywin stared at his daughter and Tyrion saw something he had never witnessed in Tywin Lannister before: fear. "Known what?" he whispered, frantically clinging to denial and in that moment he knew that to a degree his father had not been as blind as he had thought.
For half a moment the room completely stilled as if all their occupants were holding their breath-Tyrion certainly was. Cersei still had a manic, cruel smile painted on her lips as prepared to crush her father's ideals.
But if Tyrion had not thought too much of the Gods before, he was made a believer now. Just as his sister was about to light their family on fire, a gurgling sound came from across the room. All four heads jerked towards the dying boy king as his chest rattled. Cersei moved before anyone else had even grasped the situation and sprinted towards her son, grasping at his hands.
"Joffrey? Oh, Joffrey, my son. I'm here. I'm right here" she cooed, brushing his matted hair away from his sweat covered face. Gone was the menacing mad-woman she had been a moment ago-now she was a concerned, loving mother.
The rest of them took a sigh of relief. Jaime turned and ran towards the chamber door, ripping it open and calling for a maester. Tyrion turned to his father, who stood unmoving from where Cersei had left him. Tywin was all but unrecognizable. The iron mask that the great lion of Lannister had always worn was shattered and beneath it was a weak old man who looked crushed. Finally, emerald eyes rose at met mismatched ones before his father abruptly turned on his heel and fled the room.