ONE CLICK AWAY

Night Three - The Artsy Artisan (2)

Very early on in his life, Tyrion had realized that he was different than most people around him. When everyone started growing, advancing, reaching, achieving, he had to work twice or even thrice as hard as anyone else, mostly to only achieve half of what children his age were able to master. There had been times in which he had felt alone in this world, not knowing whether he belonged, whether the world had a place anywhere for a little dwarf like him. As if he were responsible for the weird jumble of chromosomes that formed his DNA. As if he were responsible for killing his mother during childbirth.

Being dwarfish had advantages, too, Tyrion learned early on. When you were a dwarf, at least in the circles him and his family convened in, there was little to no expectation as to what you could potentially be achieving in life. Other people looked at you mostly with pity, some with disgust but most, really ... with pity. They started to doubt you'd ever catch up and were tremendously surprised when you'd do more than people expected of you ... ever.

Tyrion never had had high hopes to achieve great things when he was younger but quickly learned how convenient it was that no one did count on you to do anything ... right. People underestimated Tyrion Lannister and people tended to make that mistake just this once. Once, and they'd understand just how smart, quick-witted and funny he really was.

People also did underestimate how much Tyrion saw.

Despite his brother's unexpected qualities in that department, Tyrion's unique vantage point at the world was an asset. Just like tonight.

Upon entering the room, Tyrion felt the tension and could not quite pinpoint who had reacted to him ... them? ... entering so he scanned the room. Mostly, they were familiar faces, the usual suspects of social get-togethers of any sort, really. Some cousins of Robert Baratheon, Cersei's new husband had made their way into the city, most likely because of Danaerys Targaryan, Tyrion assumed. Danaerys never went anywhere with her best friend, fashion blogger Missandei Naath, so her beautiful body could be seen among the female socialités in the room, His glance went past Missandei's dark curls over to the long, silvery blonde hair of the youngest and most fierce Targaryan when he saw a rather tall (everyone else was really tall apart from him, let's just face it!) blonde woman towering over the crowd, conversing with the Targaryan girl in hushed whispers.

Could this be ...?

Yes, indeed. There she was.

Brienne Tarth.

Before Tyrion could even take a step toward her, hopefully before Jamie could spot her, the blonde woman had started to have a slightly panicked look on her face and she reminded Tyrion of a deer in headlights. So frightened, so naive, so ...

'She's scared,' Tyrion thought as he watched Brienne's panic turn into a blush that crept up her long neck toward her cheeks, Brienne was now fidgeting and she rummaged in her small handbag, apparently looking for her phone. Relief overtook her as she found it, she nodded at Danaerys and scanned the room.

Their eyes met. Then she looked straight past him at his older brother, her panicked expression intensifying and then Brienne was off. Gone. She had run away. From the art gallery opening, from her friend Margaery (whom Tyrion spotted seconds later, conversing with several rather dashing looking men, sipping champagne out of a very delicate looking flute), from everyone.

All of this because of Jamie?

Tyrion could not be sure but gods be dammed if there was another, a better, a more valid reason for her sudden departure, he longed to hear that story. Thankfully, Jamie didn't seem to have realized what had transpired. He was chatting with no other than Davos Seaworth himself, eagerly questioning the older artist about his recent vacation in Naath which apparently had inspired a few pieces of his new art show.

So he would not notice his little brother gone.

Good.

Quietly Tyrion snuck back out of the main entrance of the gallery. If he was correct, a certain blonde warrior-like woman would be curbside, waiting for a taxi. What if, instead, she was up for a coffee in the diner nearby?

Tyrion sighed, lifted the collar of his jacket and stepped back out into the autumn night. One of these days his curiosity would cause him to catch a serious cold. Or worse. Damn his nosy little self!

' Did you really think anyone was really interested in you?'

'Oh by the Seven, you really had no idea that we had a bet going on, right Brienne? You really didn't know we bet on who would get to see you naked first?"

'No, guys, she really had no idea. Brienne, let's face it, you might no be easy on the eyes but you're easy to fool."

'Stop it!'

'Says who?'

'I SAID STOP IT!'

"Again, Brienne, says whoooo?'

'Me, I said you should stop or I swear - by the Seven - that I will make sure no one ever finds the bodies of you disgusting little shits!"

'Renly!'

"Brienne, are you ok? They're gone, now, hey ... shhh ... what's going on? What happened? Want me to take you home? Yes, ok, come on, let's go!'

"No luck?" Tyrion offered, as he approached Brienne curbside, a few feet away from the entrance to the art gallery. Startled, the blonde turned around, seemingly unable to place the voice she must have remembered as familiar but not quite where to put it.

"Oh," she said, her blush intensifying once again, "I had ordered a cab but it isn't here yet." Her hands fumbled with the strap of her black purse and the blush that had crept upon her face hadn't quite faded just yet, it colored her cheeks and flushed them, blotchiness gone, lovely rosy hue remaining.

"So eager to leave already?" Tyrion tried to tease the blonde but his joke fell flat. Her eyes narrowed and the dwarf realized his mistake and backpedaled. He lifted his arms up in defense and Brienne's expression softened.

"Why don't you cancel that cab and we hop into the diner over there," Tyrion jerked his head toward the diner at the corner of the street, "I mean, I kinda do wanna know why you frantically ran for the next available exit once I entered the room. That never gets old, don't get me wrong, it's happened to me before. Yet, I feel like for once in my life I am not that is responsible for such a reaction. So do tell ... what's going on?"

Brienne was tempted. Tempted to tell the younger Lannister everything about the time she spent in school, bullied, teased, joked about, excluded. She somehow felt that the dwarf had his very own stories to share in that particular department. He, of all people, would probably know what it felt like to be underestimated, excluded, laughed at, ridiculed. Surely, he must know. Still, there were so many things Brienne didn't tell people, not even Sansa and Margaery. Yes, Tyrion would probably understand her more than even her best friends, still, Brienne wasn't ready to re-live the pain of her childhood and early adolescence, especially not with a stranger.

So she said no.

Politely.

"I appreciate the offer, Mr. Lannister, I really do. Sometimes, though," Brienne sighed with relief as her cab pulled up to the curb, "there's only so much someone can share because they don't understand it fully themselves. Let's just leave it at 'I have a headache and I wanna go home to go to bed and sleep it off', just in case anyone asks you?"

Tyrion opened the cab's passenger door and let Brienne sit down comfortably before he nodded.

"Understood. If there's ever any time you fee like you would wanna ... I don't know, talk about any of this, I am sure we will bump into each other again. It seems to happen an awful lot lately..."

Brienne quaffed and he closed the door when he saw her answering nod. Tyrion still didn't know why Brienne had decided to suddenly leave the event upon Jamie's and his arrival but the tension leaving her body and the fact that they talked for a little bit lead Tyrion to believe that, indeed, the culprit was his older brother and quite possibly his sudden departure from Chez Shae a couple of weeks earlier.

A small voice inside Tyrion hummed: 'If she's at least a little bit like little Tyrion, she's feeling scared, hurt and misunderstood. Just as you did back then before you decided you didn't care. Or pretended not to care. One of the two..."

"Yep," the dwarf sighed and made his way back into the art gallery, thinking whether or not he should tell his brother.

Tyrion did end up telling his brother. In the car, on their way back toward Casterly Manor. It had become a rather pressing issue he could not evade for much longer after an agitated Margaery Tyrell had started to look for her friend Brienne, hadn't been able to find her and potentially was on the brink of calling the police to initiate a city-wide search.

Eventually, Margaery had spotted Tyrion (he was quite easy to miss, he got that now, thank you very much, normal humans, thanks!) and he nodded in encouragement, nudging her closer with another nod and a smile.

"Tyrion?" she asked, when she came to an abrupt halt right in front of him, her golden heels adding to her height so that she, too, was towering above him.

"Margaery Tyrell, good to see you, you look very lovely," Tyrion said, fully admiring Margaery's overall appearance, from hair to dress to shoes.

"Stop the flattery," the other high-born cut through him like a warm knife through butter, "do you know where Brienne went?"

"Brienne...?" Tyrion feigned to not know who she was talking about but Margaery just snorted. He gave up.

"The official answer is, she has a headache and went home to sleep it off..."

"Do I look like I seem interested in the, what you call it, the official answer?" Margaery towered above him now, her eyes glimmering like wildfire and her expression determined. She was in for the kill and Tyrion needed to be careful. Whilst the Lannister banner was adorned by a roaring lion, Margaery Tyrell was a lioness in her loyalty to her friends and family and tonight was no exception. If anything, she could be very frightening in her determination to protect Brienne.

"Ok, if you must know, dearest, she was chatting away with Danaerys Targaryan when I came in and a little while later she made a dash for the side exit and I went out to make sure she was alright and safe in a cab. That's it, that's the story," Tyrion said, leaving out the most important bit. The WHY.

Apparently, that was also what Margaery immediately realized but she wasn't able to say something right away as Jamie slipped right next to his little brother, holding two flutes of champagne, one of which he gallantly offered to his brother, sipping from the other as he flashed Margaery a stunning and blinding smile.

She remained unbothered, though.

"You!" she gritted through her teeth and Jamie leaned away from her ever so slightly, surprised by her sudden aggressiveness. Margaery retrieved her phone and saw a hastily sent message from Brienne - relief overtook her, she had sent her location, too. She was home, she was safe, she was ok.

Margaery collected all the strength she could muster to calm herself down enough to cooly say: "It was nice seeing you, Tyrion. Good to catch up. I fear I have a rather excruciating headache coming on, if you will excuse me, I will want to go home and go to bed."

One more disgusted glance at Jamie and Margaery Tyrell was out the door.

"What the hell just happened?" Jamie asked as soon as the honey-brunette had brushed past them toward the exit.

"Do you think we've stayed an acceptable time for it to be considered appropriate if we left right now?" Tyrion asked.

Jamie just shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'what do I care?' and Tyrion sighed. Of course, he didn't, why would he.

"Let's go home, then, and you shall learn about the problem Margaery Tyrell seems to be having with you, old man."

The 'old man' comment earned Tyrion a slap on the arm but he gladly took it.

"Oh and you wanna hold on to this," Tyrion gestured toward his champagne-filled flute, "or get a refill in, one for the road..."

"Why?"

"Trust me with this brother, I will be needing this and there's a slight chance that you will wantto be drinking with me..."

Once they had left the art gallery, slipped into the waiting town car Tyrion had hailed to pick them up, Jamie learned that a certain warrior-shaped blonde appeared to have been so frightened or so disgusted - or both? - by him, that she had left the art gallery as soon as he'd come in.

Jamie was disgusted and vowed to make it up to her, somehow. He didn't know how. All he knew was that he wasn't supposed to be an utter jerk, yet, there they were, sitting in a town car, speeding toward one of their family's estates and his stupid Lannister genes had - once again - and even without him actively doing so, hurt someone.

Again.

That night Golden_Phoenix went online.