Ok, yes, I realize it's been three months. In my defense, it was almost half an year before I managed to pull chapter two from my uncooperative brain cells. Anyway, this may seem like a filler chapter of sorts (it's actually not, all those things happening do have consequences *hint-hint* so pay attention, people) but bear with me. Pace will be picking up with the next few chapters or so I hope. Thank you for reading, as per usual, and see you whenever.


TYRION II

In which a dwarf entertains a whore, a nephew, and some siblicide-oriented ideas.

Shae was in the middle of making him forget why he'd reasoned with her to roll up her thong bikinis and sheer lace rompers and evacuate her buns up to his private condo when the doorbell rang.

Tyrion groaned. He was seriously thinking of putting up a foot mat at the threshold with a profound message for any bloodsucker that bothered to come by at all. Sorry for the inconvenience. Dwarves get blowjobs too. He was willing to sacrifice a limb and host a formal dinner for his father's entourage if only to watch the great lion's face as he stepped over the damn thing.

Ding-dong. It had a strangled sound, his doorbell, as though its battery was somewhat drained and yet it persisted in its job of giving him surprise headaches. Tyrion was starting to falter, or the part of him that was of any consequence anyway. Shae purred and redoubled her efforts, as if it was an extra challenge she was willing to take on. Tyrion squirmed, helplessly spellbound. He swore that girl could still have him glued to a chair if the damn house was on fire.

A third ring, a prolonged one. The bell wrangled with the final octaves, resulting in a screech more horrible than a drunk Cersei's impression of Mariah Carey. Well fuck me blue. No way in hell he was keeping that boner, now that his sister had elbowed her way into his thoughts, uninvited as per usual. He could hear his own miserable moans as he buried his face in his palms, growling or whining or weeping, or it could be all three for all he knew.

Tyrion considered his options.

Three rings. One was for taxers. Hookers. Pizza delivery. Two was for persistent dirt diggers on the great Lannister magnate, and of course what better place to start than the personification of the family landfill, though it had been a while since any of those had bothered with him in earnest. Then there was three. Three was for something urgent and nasty, something he probably hadn't accounted for.

Ah. Surprises. How he liked surprises.

He cursed, a half-hearted plea for his dick to be withdrawn from the sweet oasis of Shae's mouth.

Later, he'd ponder what might've happened had she disregarded his entreaties like she often did. He liked to think he would have proceeded to peacefully come all over her mischievous little face. A glorious memory to take to his grave indeed. Christ knew he didn't have many of those.

Alas, she listened to him for once.

With some difficulty, Tyrion hopped off his small personalized armchair (the good folks over at IKEA had redirected him to this wonderful custom manufacturer after he'd politely refused to be sold their children's furniture), already missing the rush in his groin.

He ran a stiff hand through his ruffled hair. Gave Shae a mitigating pat on the head as he trotted around her kneeling form.

Sometimes he wondered what beef the big guy up there had with him. All the time, really. His siblings could produce three children who on all religious accounts should catch fire when exposed to a Bible, but God forbid a dwarf tried to get a suck-off.

Maybe that's what the whole botched situation with Joff was all about. Doing God's work. Tyrion chuckled to himself, bitter and not funny at all. God must be one hell of a desperate guy, if he'd resort to using his help of all living creatures.

Tyrion sighed, resigning to his fate. He rubbed his temples as the doorbell kept whining. He felt like the damn button was hardwired to his brain or something.

With his luck it was probably some stray left-wing human rights activist, too. Although he deemed it a bit late for one of those particular oddballs to be making a pass at the hideous son and most sympathetic cause of a rich businessman.

Perhaps he was being too pessimistic. Being the black sheep of a high society family did leave you with a fair amount of scars. It was likely that the blood still hadn't swirled from his dick back up to his brain. Who knew? Maybe it was those butt plugs from EBay at long last. He didn't care much for experimenting but Shae would be thrilled.

It occurred to him it might be a good idea to bundle himself back in his pants just as he was reaching for the doorknob. He got rid of the residual erection by thinking very hard of Tywin Lannister doing the haka dance in his undies, a useful little trick he'd taught himself back as a teenager when he'd jerk off at the most awkward of places during family reunions, and his sessions had stood a fair chance of being abruptly cut short.

Tyrion nudged the door open, eyes automatically set to search for a visitor skyward. Surprisingly enough, his guest was not that far from his own modest stature.

Never did Tyrion imagine he'd find himself so thoroughly spooked by the sight of his seven-year-old nephew's adorable face randomly popping up on his doorstep.

He politely excused himself, tripping back behind the screen of the door. Then he was scrambling to kick away the dozen condoms he'd ambitiously laid out on the couch, muttering for Shae to quit toying with her clit and put on some clothes.

"What's wrong, my lion?" she purred, that throaty, disarming sound she made whenever she was on the verge of pouting. "Are you ashamed of me?"

"No," Tyrion shot out defensively. Bit on the meat of his cheek as he gave the matter some actual thought. "Yes." He sighed, watching a pretty frown settle in-between those thick dark eyebrows. "I'm not ashamed ashamed. Just, you know… ashamed. Small a. Look, under any other circumstances, I wouldn't mind dancing naked with you on my front porch if that's what you asked. It'd be stupid and we'd go to jail, well, at least I would, or if I miraculously managed to get away with it my father would personally lock me in a dumpster for the rest of my life, but I'd do it. For you. You know it's true."

Shae crossed her arms, causing her small pear-shaped breasts to swell and almost spill from her pink-and-black lacy bra.

"So why are you all worried now, if you love me so much and don't care what others have to say about it?"

"Now's a bit different," Tyrion tried his half-assed explanation. He grinned up at her, offering the best sheepish apology his mismatched eyes could give. How do I say it without playing the asshole? The thing about eloquence was, it was never really there when you needed it most. Ask me to tell whore jokes at a Christmas table, on the other hand, and watch me own the damn floor. Shit. He hated his wits for betraying him, when it should be his dick he cursed the most. "Just… just get dressed and go play with your jewels upstairs, OK? I'll come get you later."

He ignored her hurt expression with a heavy heart. I'm sorry, Shae. I've another child to worry about tonight. Props to my crazy sister.

Tyrion instinctively reached for a roaming bottle of Glenrothes 2001 Vintage at the thought of his blonde backstabbing Louboutin abusing Cruella of a sister, drowning a curse in a lake of parky liquor.

Dear fucking siblings, that was tacky of you, real tacky. Dumping your kid on the brother who blew your last one to hell… you must well and truly be at the end of your rope.

He had to hand it to Cersei, her fingers were proving to be long and sticky, more so than he'd given them credit for. Once they got ahold of your scalp, they were incredibly difficult to shake off. Till death do us part, huh, sis…

It might sound like some far-fetched paranoid bullshit if he tried explaining it out loud. But even when she did nothing, his sister, it somehow came back around to bite him in the ass.

When he was five, she'd left her doll on the floor and his pug had ended up snuffing it at the vet emergency, in his best effort to cough out the largest mash of synthetic hair and plastic replicas of human body parts ever swallowed by a dog his size. As a high-school junior, he'd had to show up to school with a fractured nose and a real shiner, sequential to being smacked by a door when a certain college dropout had shown up on Daddy's doorstep all broke and jobless and ready to wash feet and suck toes to get back into the family's good graces. And of course the worst one, when he was twelve and his recently crowned prom queen sister's blood-soaked pads had caused a clogging to the central plumbing that had required a highly resourceful repairman supervisor, preferably of dwarf size. Well, at least she's not preggers, Tyrion had told his father, in his small act of revenge. Which is quite the miracle, considering how familiar most of the football team is with her... cheerleading techniques. The comment had earned him an icy stare and some extra work hours, but Cersei had been removed from the cheerleading team approximately three days later. That wasn't the end of it, though. There never was an end to his rotten break with her.

And now this. It was very much like his sister to inadvertently ruin his perfectly reasonable plans for a stress-relieving evening of debauchery with a whore he was growing to love.

In all fairness he doubted very much that Cersei had any idea this was being thrown down into his of all laps. If she did, she'd be storming the place with a nail file and an eyelash curler if that was what it would take to wrest Tommen back into her toxic care.

No, this was all his brother's work. Damn you, Jaime. Every now and then, Tyrion would regret the love he had for his sibling.

Working his throat free of knots, Tyrion reopened the door, poking his head back out into the cool of the night. He listened to the poor sitter hovering over Tommen as she gently covered his nephew's ears and babbled on about Cersei's sudden hysterical episode (he shouldn't be surprised, really, after all this time—being dismissed was never something his sister handled with particular grace, even as children, her damn ego and her goddess complex always made for an explosive stew), about her short-lived conversation with Jaime, about the risks, her job, those obligatory broccoli in Tommen's salad.

Tyrion nodded slackly through all of it.

What else was left to do? The choice had been made for him. Damn you, Jaime, you dog, damn you for knowing me so well.

At the end of the day, there was very little he wouldn't do for his big brother. The only one who'd ever treated him with any respect, any trace of sibling concern. And Tommen, too. He was still fond of the boy. Christ knew he could use a night away from his mother's reeking bullshit. Still, what Cersei would do when she found out her son had spent the night in the custody of the brother whom she blamed most if not all her misfortunes on…

Fuck that. I'm doing it.

It was like taking a shot too many, really. He'd worry about his hangover of a sister in the morning.

Tommen was a sweet kid, and Tyrion would see to it that he ate his damn broccoli and went to bed with his teeth brushed. Cersei could raise a whole army of bureaucrats and bitches in high heels to go on some sort of messed up witch hunt after him for all he cared. If his house suddenly became the target of a massive yet stupidly planned out terrorist attack during the night, at least he'd know who to hold responsible in his farewell note.

Tyrion chuckled to himself, imagining the words, bloodied and splayed on a burnt piece of paper.

Sweet sister,

You're supposed to blow up a house AFTER you've made sure there are no gas pipelines nearby. Of course I must forgive you this one slight since we both know how you would spend the better part of your physics classes kneeling under Jaime's desk. Anyway, congrats on killing us both! Now neither one of us gets to spend time with your son. Race you to hell's booth for special service?

Love and hate,

Your dead brother

Tyrion suppressed a sour smile. At least his late nephew would be there, the little shit, probably as personnel-in-training or something.

The sitter handed him the emergency contact list Cersei had left (herself, J. Lannister and 911), and walked back to the cab to scrape a grey, damp-proof sack the size of a hog. The way she was expertly handling the trunk and hauling the luggage like a professional concierge, Tyrion didn't dare offer her any help. Then the zipper came undone with a mocking purr and a kaleidoscope of stuff went poking out like it'd come from the fucking Narnia wardrobe, and then the the sitter was explaining to him what was what in a rather strained tone of voice.

Tyrion nodded, attempting to look reliable. He cleared his throat as he regarded the small kitbag of lifesaving child provisions such as Lego collectibles, various expensive remote control droids and cairns of comic books that was being dumped at his feet, trying not to seem overly intimidated by the fact that the whole thing stood a good chance of outweighing him.

"I think we can manage. Sorry for your trouble," he assured the sitter towards the end of her educational talk. "Should we expect you tomorrow, Miss…?"

"Dorcas," the woman breathed, face—ever so dryly—going through the motions of a smile. The hasty introduction struck Tyrion as that of a conscientious woman who wanted to go home. He didn't blame her. Hell, if he was ever forced to work for his sister he'd be more than a tad impatient to abdicate the front lines and retreat to a nice cellar stacked full of drinkable things, too. "Just Dorcas. And yes, my shift starts at noon. Should I pick him up from your place again?"

Tyrion frowned, scratching his side, the short shoots of his newly grown stubble protesting beneath the drag of his fingers. "Noon? I can't watch him till noon, I have an early briefing at—you know what, never mind."

All of a sudden, the prospect of bringing Tommen to the office building of Lannister Inc., just the spine of a street away from Cersei's high-flown kingdom of hell didn't seem like such a great idea. Chances were his sister would be incapacitated for the day, but he couldn't risk one of her messenger lap dogs (he swore those vampires were constantly whizzing in and out of the perimeter) sniffing out Tommen's whereabouts.

Ah, hell. One minute into this good uncle one-act and already adjustments to plans needed to be made.

"Just… You can pick him up from here, sure," Tyrion resigned with a miserable twitch of his lips. The grateful exhale that left Dorcas' chest considerably compressed was not lost on him, though he made no mention of it as he winked at Tommen, far more casually than he felt on the inside. "We've a lot of catching up to do, hm?"

With that, he beckoned for his nephew to come in. For some reason, the door felt exceptionally heavy as he was pulling it shut.


Several things became clear in the first few minutes of Tommen's overnight stay—one, the boy was not going to eat his broccoli without resistance; two, Tyrion's kid-friendly jokes were nowhere near as funny as his adult ones; and three, apparently his fairly large Beverly Hills home did not contain a single decent toy to nudge between Tommen's down-in-the-mouth face and the table it drooped over.

"Come on, now," Tyrion cheered. His voice sounded overly injected with frolic even to his own ears. Great. It's not enough the kid's supposed father just died, now you've gone and made him cringe too. It was too late to back out of the stage play now though, unless he wanted whatever shreds of dignity he had left melting in that perfect mimeo of both his siblings' eyes. "I'm your cool uncle, remember? Show me your party teeth. Fine, no party teeth. Regular teeth. Any teeth. Eat something, at least. You love Chinese, don't you? I'm sure I recall your mother mentioning it at a certain point."

"That was Joffy," Tommen muttered, poking his noodles (they'd both given up on the salad) in clumsy, streaky stabs that entirely missed the point of the chopsticks. "The Spaghetti monster's asleep," he announced indolently, like it was almost the most obvious thing in the world. "Where's Mommy?"

Tyrion chewed his chicken rice emphatically, buying himself some vital seconds to think. It was too damn early for that question. He'd thought he'd have more time to prepare.

"How old were you again?" he asked finally, looking his nephew askance. "Seven?"

"And a half," Tommen corrected jauntily.

The spook of pre-teenage Cersei's notorious obstinacy shot across the boy's face as he perked his chin up defiantly, the pride of those extra six months shining brightly in his eyes. Tyrion blinked, staring at those round pools, half-expecting them to enliven with a gleeful rush of light, like a blonde girl kicking her baby brother's toys into smithereens.

The ill will never came though. It was just Tommen, with his big blue eyes. Tyrion would've liked to think they were more innocent than Cersei's ever were. (It'd be a lie.)

Tyrion cleared his throat. Fuck. Let's see. How did one explain the concept of detox, or late-night scheming, or drunkenly licking wounds and twin brothers, or whatever the hell it was his sister was up to these days to a seven-year-old?

"Your Mommy, she's, uh… She's at a special sleepover."

"A sleepover?" Tommen asked, more curiously than incredulously.

Tyrion decided to stick to his story to the bitter end, like a good uncle-soldier defending the innocence of a nephew who barely knew him, and the dignity of a sister who wanted him dead. "Yeah. You've had those, haven't you?"

Tommen didn't seem enthusiastic. "I don't really like sleepovers. Mommy says I have to, when she sends me to her friends' homes to play with their children, but I don't. I like to sleep in my room with my Gameboy and my books. They help me sleep when Mommy doesn't have time to tuck me in and say goodnight."

"Listen," Tyrion started, a strange feeling clamping the pith of his stomach, "why don't you go brush your teeth and you can have a snack in bed while you watch your favorite… ah, whatever it is you watch before bedtime, hm? How's that sound?"

Tommen sulked. "The Power Rangers aren't on tonight. And Dorcas forgot to bring my Gameboy. I can't sleep without the Power Rangers and my Gameboy."

Tyrion pursed his lips. He's just returned from Robert's funeral, he had to remind himself. Should I get him to talk about it, try to comfort him? The kid didn't exactly appear to be overwhelmed with emotion, or even curiosity about the otherworldly matters. He was just… Tommen, impassive and sweet as ever. Tyrion wasn't sure how he felt for this child, who had been acquainted with the death of close relatives so early on it probably made no sense at all in his odd little mind. I didn't realize I was a dwarf for a long time, he recalled, weirdly detached, what I'd done to mother. Everyone just treated him the way they did, and that was the reality he lived in, no questions asked.

"Yes, well, she didn't forget to bring many of your other things," he found himself saying to his nephew. "Surely you can find something to occupy your time while you drift off to sleep?"

Tommen shook his head, lip jutting forward in defiance. "I'm staying up."

Tyrion palmed his face. Cersei definitely is your mother. "You must go to bed. You've had a long day and I bet you're tired. It's already past midnight. I'm sure your mother would be furious if she ever found out you've stayed up this late." He didn't miss the way the boy wiggled uncomfortably in his chair at the prospect of an enraged Cersei, but it wasn't his place to interfere with that. It wasn't. It wasn't. It really wasn't. "Does your mother get angry a lot, about... stuff?"

"No," Tommen mewled, softly, as if embarrassed by his own words. "When Joffy was here she hugged us more. She took me and Cella to Disneyland and let us take the Jungle Cruise with Uncle Jaime." Tommen brooded over his noodles with all the blue devils of a pre-school philosopher. "But Cella's away at that boarding school now and Mommy's busy 'cause she's back from her trip and she's making the magazine again." Ah, Tyrion thought. Her 'trip'. That's what they've told him. There was a grain of truth to it, he supposed. "She doesn't like it when I cry now. She scolded me when I cried for Daddy today. And Uncle Jaime doesn't come to see us anymore."

Tyrion gulped. He felt like a voyeur, glancing into something that was supposed to stay private even if the kid was talking of his own accord. "You miss him, your uncle Jaime?"

Tommen nodded, sniffed a little. "He had time for us. Daddy didn't."

Tyrion patted his nephew, hand awkwardly resting in the fresh hay of his hair. Jaime's hair. "I'm sure he'll pay you a visit again one of these days."

"Why don't you come visit us anymore, uncle?" Tommen blurted out, crinkling his little nose in true Lannister suspicion. Guess it runs in the family after all.

"Do you want me to?"

"Mhm," Tommen affirmed, head bobbing in an enthusiastic nod. "I like playing board games with you. Cella isn't any good and Joffy just kicked it all away."

"Then I guess I better start showing up again more often, huh," Tyrion said, grinning sadly. If only your mother would let me forget I'm a murderous little beast for a day. He rose from his chair, suddenly unable to stand the immobility any longer. "Let's see… I'm pretty sure I have a Battle Sheep laying around somewhere in here. What do you say? We can play tomorrow morning."

Tommen's eyes lit up. "We can play some now!"

Tyrion groaned. "I really walked into this one, didn't I? Heck… OK, kiddo, one round and then you go full mummy on the bed upstairs. I mean it."

"Five rounds."

"Two."

"Four."

"Three it is."

Tyrion shook his head and grinned to himself as he climbed over a chair, reaching up a shelf to retrieve the rectangular box that lay snuggled in-between a coppice of old and rare liquor bottles.

The way the kid bargained, he might prove to be a better successor to Robert's position than anyone might have ever suspected.


Four rounds later, Tommen showed no outer intention of upholding his end of the deal. Tyrion scratched his nose, eyes darting towards the wooden cuckoo perched on the wall clock ever so stealthily. It was 1:30 and he was seriously beginning to question the depth of his uncle reliability.

The image of Shae's querulous face was poking at the back of his mind, too, growing more and more insistent by the minute. She was keeping quiet for now, but Christ knew quiet did not necessarily equal good with that vixen of a girl. She'd probably exhausted most of the sex toys he had stored away upstairs by now. He hoped she could still be persuaded to have him at least once, but after flirting with the thought for a bit, he decided he was probably too exhausted to get it up.

A pathetic dwarf with no sex drive. Damn, so that's what life feels like at thirty. But hey folks, there's perks. Less hair means less hassle over shampoo, plus the elder discounts are just a block away. It was like a bad middle age commercial slogan, all of it. No, Tyrion thought, he was definitely not old enough to be dealing with that. I suppose I do understand what married couples kick up a fuss about, though… Tending to a child, even a gentle one like Tommen, did take its toll.

"Ah, darn, there you've beat me again. I've been utterly crushed. Spare your uncle the shame of losing another round. How about we call it a night?"

"Two people isn't any fun," Tommen rasped.

Then his eyes went wide and round, and with uttermost horror Tyrion watched his nephew wave clumsily at something right over his shoulder.

He should have gone check up on her sooner. I was an idiot to think she would sit tight and behave for so long.

Tyrion smiled the most frigid smile of his life as his chair creaked away from the table.

"Could you wait here for a bit? Your uncle needs to have a chat with his maid." He turned slowly towards the lingering silhouette gracing his hallway, praying to God she'd at least have her panties on. And a bra, too. A bra would be nice. "His maid should know it's not polite to interrupt people in the middle of the night," he intoned pointedly, smile threatening to spill into a full-blown grimace.

At least she had some underwear, now that he was looking at her, over her, and she'd thrown on an old T-shirt of Jaime's, the one his brother had given him as a trophy after winning the high-school football championship in it.

Unlike Joffrey, who would have no doubt scrapped together an entire list of questions barked out in the form of demands, Tommen just nodded his head—bless his brother's bed efforts for gifting Cersei with one normal kid—and dove his nose back into the game manual, eyes eagerly devouring the words as if the carbon box contained scrolls of ancient Tibetan wisdom. Well, Tyrion thought, suppose he is as normal as they come in our family.

Tyrion nudged Shae into the cellar, a tad more roughly than he usually got with her outside of some very specific occasions.

"I had. To pee," came her brisk hiss, cold enough to plant the seeds of some rather uncomfortable images in his head of her taking ice-bitch lessons from his sister.

"I seem to recall there's a bathroom upstairs," Tyrion huffed through the rocks that were his teeth and tongue.

Shae flattened her palm to the inviting incurve of her hip, one of her less sexed battle stances. A single vein throbbed on her freckle-sprayed forehead, sour and demanding of his immediate attention.

"It's clogged. You were supposed to unclog it after you were done unclogging me, remember?"

Right. That. Tyrion could have smacked himself on the face if he didn't have a seven-year-old in the adjacent room to explain the edema to. Then again, if the murderous look on Shae's face was any guide, she might as well take care of that choice for him, too.

"Shit. Sorry. Must've slipped my mind. I had a lot on my plate, you know," he shot back, almost but not quite belligerent. Talking to women required a certain degree of spinelessness, you see. Even those you paid by the hour, apparently. "Alright, we can do this. I'm Tywin Lannister's son and employee. I can have a full-time maid, there's nothing suspicious about it." A gorgeous, eighteen-year-old maid who walks around the house in her underwear. In the middle of the fucking night. A good thing Tommen paid about as much attention to the world outside his fiction as his mother paid to him these days. "Just act normal, there's no need to panic."

Shae had to bend at the waist to jab a manicured finger into his undersized chest. "I'm acting normal, you're freaking out. Why are you all thumbs, my lion? He's just a child."

"A child whose mother hates me and would use any means to knock me into the dirt," he corrected, catching himself before he'd raised his voice to improvident heights. "She'd take you away from me, if she could, do you understand that?"

Shae strode away and then back down towards him, face possessed by a sudden, buckled-down determination. She bracketed his face between her pale hands, small enough to be dwarfed by the size of his head. And then, in the most naively driven tone he'd ever heard, "No one is going to take me away from you. You're mine and I'm yours, and I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to."

Tyrion exhaled softly. Stop, stop, you fucking idiot, stop falling for that, that girl... That whore, he corrected himself, that beautiful, naive and fierce whore of his… She'd be the end of him. For the time being, he wholeheartedly didn't care.

He gave her half a grin, feeling every bit the frog who needed kissing. Somehow, he doubted he was prince material. Not even your lips can fix what I am, darling. If they could, father would've not only let me near a whore but locked me in a room with one ages ago.

"Wish someone would tell that to my sister," he muttered once he trusted his voice again, and even then it came out thinner than he'd hoped, spoiling the effect of his banter, "so she'd stop wasting her time on us and go terrorize some clueless villagers instead."

Shae didn't laugh. Wits were never her strong suit, and his eccentric jokes often flew right over her. Her mouth stretched though, it did, as she slung her arms over his shoulders, her lips parted, for him, and he watched a sensual, o-like festoon form around that sly simper that reminded him of her scholarship in other areas of life. So she wasn't an intellectual trove. So what? Aren't warm hands and a slick cunt worth more than a sharp, bitter tongue?

He should ask Cersei the next he saw her; it'd give her something to think about while she was slowly aging away from the former, and drinking and scheming her way towards the latter.

He walked back into the dining room, Shae casually strolling behind him. They found Tommen as they'd left him, head replaced by the fully unfolded game manual as his little hands kept it up at eye's level.

"Hey buddy, ready to go to bed?"

Tommen peered from behind the large piece of colorful paper as if playing peek-a-boo, shaking his head vigorously. "Nu-uh. Oh hi, lady."

"Hi there handsome," Shae greeted, raising hairs on Tyrion's neck.

"Who are you?" Tommen asked, putting the manual down.

Tyrion contemplated his next words carefully. If he acted strangely around her then Tommen would definitely pick up on it, even if he didn't necessarily understand it all. Besides, Tommen seemed to still love and trust his mother, even if that trust was beginning to dwindle. He'd be talking in front of her one day, maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but then the subject would come into mention and even Cersei would be able to put two and two together. One way or another, the news would probably worm its way back to his sister.

Fuck. I really need to sell this. Play it as average as humanly possible.

"That's Shae… Sheila. My maid, remember? She was just heading back upstairs."

"Ha! Mommy's receptionist lady is also called Sheila," Tommen exclaimed, mussing and teasing his hair as he spoke. "The current one. They never stay long. I really liked the last one. She always gave me candy."

"Well then your mommy should have asked you before she gave her the boot, shouldn't she?" Shae purred. Tyrion was not liking the sugary tone she was taking with the kid, not one bit. "Your mommy should listen to a handsome little fella like you."

Tommen smiled. "You're nice. And you talk! Mommy's maids don't talk. Unless they come to ask us what we want for dinner. And they never stay over for the night like you do. Or are you a night nanny? We have a night nanny but she's always gone by the time we wake up. I used to think she might be a ghost but Mommy said that's silly. That ghosts don't charge you $30 per night. I suppose she knows more about ghosts than I do…"

Shae frowned. Helplessly, Tyrion watched the highly unlikely exchange unfold before him. "Now that's just cruel. You won't treat your maid like that when you're all grown up, will you?"

"Nope. I'd play with her and buy her stuffies."

"Aren't you a sweetheart?" Tyrion nearly jumped when Shae ran her fingers up his neck. "Take care, Mr. Lannister, I might be switching employers in a few years," she hummed, giggling like a schoolgirl. Could he blame her? She might as well be a schoolgirl, if she wasn't a dropout, a voice thundered at the back of his mind, thick and heavy and one he usually managed to keep half-dormant. She is closer to Tommen's age than she is to yours. You're fucking an adolescent.

"Ahem, Sheila, weren't you heading upstairs? The master bed needs fresh sheets, I think."

Shae gave a foxy smile, hinting at the probable state of his furniture. He'd have to spend hours getting the smell of her juices off them. "It sure does." She sent Tommen an air kiss. "Later handsome."

"Sheila! Sheila! I've got a great idea!"

"No, nuh-uh," Tyrion intervened, already having a clear idea where this might be headed. "No more great ideas. That's enough revolutionizing for a single night—"

"Let's hear it, baby."

"Oh for f—"

"Let's play a game! All three of us!"

"That could be fun. Certainly more fun than fixing beds all by myself, all night long. If only your uncle would stop being such a nasty, sulky buzzkill…"

"Come on, uncle Tyrion. Pwe-e-ease."

Tyrion tried to ignore the two adorable, pleading faces that stared up at him in shameless charm porn, and failed miserably.

"One round."

"One round!"

"And then you go to bed."

"Well…"

"You have to promise now, handsome."

"Both of you," Tyrion stressed, earning himself an eye roll.

"Fine."

"Pinkie swear."

As he was setting up the board, Tyrion's thoughts seemed to slow down to a crawl.

What the hell am I doing here? He, the dwarf, playing family. With a whore and a nephew, at that. The only way this could get any more ridiculous was if Cersei herself barged in straddling a unicorn, carrying a peace offer.

Cersei. Right. Fuck.

What if he tells his mother about that nice little maid his uncle keeps as a pet? Do I tell him not to tell? He's a damn child. How did he even make sure the kid would follow through? Do I offer him fucking candy in exchange for his silence? What kind of an uncle bribed his kid nephew into not telling on his secret whore? Oh right, the lecherous kind that ran another nephew over with his car.

"Alright handsome, let's see what you've got."

"Let uncle Tyrion start, he's been so good!"

"Oh, he really has." Shae grinned, flicking her tongue at him suggestively when Tommen wasn't looking. "Come on, uncle Tyrion, it's your turn."

Tyrion settled back in his cushion, not showing but feeling a weird tremor pass through his body. He reached for his set of pawns, listening as Tommen engaged in poor imitations of animal battle cries to the accompaniment of Shae's husky laughter, grudgingly admitting to himself that this was what he'd always wanted.