Chapter 14: Royally

~o0o~

"Oh God, not again…" Melisandre sighed as she entered Viserys' room after minutes of knocking politely. Even though her salary was decent, she didn't get paid enough to deal with this.

Viserys was lying in the middle of his canopied bed, naked as the day he was born, passed out cold. Melisandre always wondered what these girls saw in him other than the heir to the throne, because he was gangly and didn't have much going on down there. Or anywhere else, really. When she turned on the lights, the two girls lying on either side of the future King were startled awake and they groaned.

"Get dressed, time for you to go." Melisandre said and she felt like a broken record, repeating this mantra to multiple young women more days than not. They pulled on their skimpy dresses, grabbed their heels, and shuffled meekly past her out the door with messy hair and smeared eye-makeup.

His whole room was littered with remnants of whatever bender he had gone on the night before, including half a dozen empty hard liquor bottles and remnants of coke on the glass tabletop. Every time this happened, she told Petyr, and Petry told the King. But nothing ever changed.

As if conjured from her thoughts, Petyr appeared in the doorway, his arms crossed as he surveyed the pathetic scene before him. "Did you check for a pulse?"

"I was too busy getting the girls up and out," Melisandre grumbled and walked over to Viserys, placing two fingers on his neck. "He's fine." She feared the day she wouldn't feel anything.

"He's going to kill himself." Petyr stated the obvious. He had been putting off broaching the subject of treatment with the King for a while, but it needed to be done. Viserys needed rehab, otherwise his sister would be staring the monarchy in the face. And that wouldn't do. He wanted his dear Sansa to be Queen consort. He promised her that. And besides, she would be much easier to influence than Aerys.

Petyr left Melisandre to finish cleaning up and walked tersely to the other side of Buckingham, giving the staff he saw along the way his usual strained smile. When he reached the King's office, he knocked twice and was bid entry.

"Your Grace," Petyr inclined his head. Aerys was reading over some documents, preparing for his weekly meeting with the Prime Minister.

"What is it, Baelish?"

"It's Viserys, I'm afraid…" Petyr started and Aerys looked up suddenly, panic in his violet-tinged eyes. It was the same panic as the night Rhaegar was pronounced dead and Petry was quick to calm him. "He's fine. It's only that Melisandre and I have seen some disturbing patterns to his behavior lately that aren't doing him any favors. As the heir, he needs to act as such, not do lines of cocaine off of strippers and pass out drunk until one in the afternoon."

King Aerys sighed. It wasn't as if this was news to him, but it stung to hear it all the same. Rhaegar and Daenerys were very similar, but Viserys had always been the wild card. He was prone to extreme narcissism and addictive behaviors, much like Aerys was without his wife to keep him in check.

"What do you suggest?"

"I'm sure the Prime Minister will surely speak with you when he gets here about your families' approval ratings. And how yours is rather low after no public appearances since Rhaegar's death and Viserys' is even lower. Only the Princess is keeping this family in the public's good graces. Viserys needs to go to rehab, do some charity work in front of as many cameras as possible, marry Lady Stark and produce an heir." Petyr said.

"Rehab…" Aerys slumped in his chair. "And how do we spin that?"

"He's off on a polo intensive, or to spend some time with his friends hunting. Anything. We'll get him in and out in a few weeks, and put the fear of God, the Crown, and his country into him. He'll come back sober and we'll put him in the spotlight once again. And Daenerys…"

"What about my daughter?"

"Everyone loves her. But she's overshadowing him. And we know what that does to Viserys' already fragile ego," Petyr reasoned. He had all of this planned out and now was the moment to execute it, "She needs to continue to be herself while giving Viserys some breathing room. She should go on a Commonwealth Tour. Both boys went on one and she's never traveled. She should before she's married to Robb."

Aerys seemed to consider it. It was a fine plan and he trusted Petyr implicitly. "Alright, make the arrangements with Captain Mormont for the tour. And have Captain Lannister go as well. Three weeks. Have them end in Scotland and Viserys and I will join them there. And as for Viserys, find somewhere discreet and have him leave as soon as possible."

"Of course, your Grace. I'll…"

"Get out of here, Baelish." Prime Minister Lannister hadn't bothered to knock. He never did with King Aerys, and as his shorter than average legs carried him to the middle of the room, he waved his hand to dismiss Petyr.

"You're late…" the King had gone back to making some notes on the papers in front of him.

"If my new, absolute imbecile of a driver Bronn hadn't hit a pedestrian on the way here, I assure you, your Highness, I would have been on time," Tyrion took a seat opposite the King, clearly in a bad mood, "He had the audacity to say that if you hit a biker in London, that they should just shrug it off…"

"Keep calm and carry on," Petyr added with a smirk before leaving the two to their meeting. He couldn't believe how easy it had been. The Princess would be out of the way and she would take his dear Sansa's new crush with her. He just needed to get Viserys sober…

~o0o~

"I think this is becoming quite a bad habit of ours," Jorah frowned, sitting on the same pub bar stool next to Jaime Lannister as he did a few days prior. Only this time it was a rugby match they were watching.

"On the contrary, I rather like it. We haven't seen nearly enough of one another lately and we are simply making up for lost time." Jaime touched his pint to Jorah's and both men took a sip. The Princess was at her third fashion show of the day and both of them had received a call from Petyr earlier about going on a Commonwealth Tour. Jorah had invited Jaime over to Kensington to plan for it, but his friend had soon talked him into a few drinks.

"Soon we'll be travelling together, like old times," Jorah said. Those times felt like a lifetime ago, even it had only been a few months.

"Your girlfriend will miss you," Jaime playfully ribbed Jorah with his elbow before cheering along with the other pub-goers over a particularly skillful play on the telly.

"Sansa is not my girlfriend…"

"Don't think I haven't noticed your mobile blowing up this entire time. Last time we were sitting here, you had a choice to make and I'm guessing you chose her." Jaime didn't sound judgmental about it, but he was curious.

"I haven't quite made up my mind," Jorah admitted. He had been ignoring all of Sansa's messages for a few hours now, ever since he heard that he would be going on the tour with the Princess for three weeks. "But I will need to tell her that I'm leaving…"

"Sounds like something you would do for a girlfriend…" Jaime kept on, "But honestly, mate, I just started seeing someone and even though it's only a few weeks away, I think I'm going to miss her too."

"Are you taking the piss?" Jorah turned to look at him, laughing and almost spitting out his sip of beer, "You…Jaime Lannister, who has notoriously never been tied down to anyone, actually may have feelings for a woman?"

"Is it really so hard to believe? I'm not getting any younger and she's, well, she's different…"

Jorah smiled at the look on Jaime's face. Whoever this girl was, he cared a little bit more than he let on and Jorah was only too happy to take a break from discussing his complicated shell of a love-life for this much more interesting turn of events, "Tell me about her."

"Her name is Brienne and she is intelligent, and funny, and she also happens to be Norway's top-ranked women's MMA fighter and she can kick my arse seven ways from Sunday if she wanted to," Jaime sighed. If Jorah didn't know better, he would say Jaime looked rather wistful as he stared back up at the telly, but that could just be because his team was winning, "She teaches at a Jiu Jitsu place by me that I started taking classes at."

"If she can kick your arse, she sounds like a woman after my own heart," Jorah teased as his mobile lit up again. He was about to just turn it over and enjoy the rest of the game, but he noticed the text was coming through on the secure chat set up with The Princess, the one that only he and Grey had access to.

Khaleesi: Hi Jorah. I gave Grey the night off to go on a date. I thought I would be staying in, but Sansa invited me to a party she is hosting with Stella McCartney tonight. I need security – would you mind? If not, I can have Grey ask Cpt. Lannister.

"Is that Sansa again?" Jaime asked when Jorah picked up the phone to message the Princess back. As soon as he had seen the code-name Grey had given her appear on his screen, his heart started to beat faster.

"It's the Princess…"

Jorah: Text me the address and the time and I'll meet you there.

"And you have a smile on your face." Jaime smirked, "Did she send you a naughty picture?"

Jorah felt heat rise up his neck at the mention of Daenerys and 'naughty picture' in the same sentence and shook his head to get rid of the image threatening to take hold in his brain, "No, she asked me to cover for Grey as her detail tonight at a party that Sansa will also be at."

As soon as he finished his sentence, Jorah realized what a mistake he had made. He should have passed it off to Jaime or found someone else. But he had agreed so readily because he hadn't been thinking about anything more than making sure the Princess was taken care of. But now he would be spending the evening in the presence of one woman who wanted to sleep with him and one woman he wanted to sleep with.

And now he had just admitted to himself that he wanted to sleep with the Princess.

He finished his pint and then quickly ordered another round for them both. How could he have been so stupid to agree to this?

Jaime just laughed, "You are royally fucked."