he’d been born and bred for public events –– everything from having at least three topics up his sleeve, tried and tested jokes he always told, and that one story about his mother’s prize cactus and the motor-oil. but if all else failed? he just took a turn about the dance floor and wowed them with his years of ballroom lessons, tripped just enough to seem modest, then tripped for real because he’d never had any natural rhythm, and then, finally, laughed his most charming laugh and moved on. but even with all that ; even after years in office ; even after walking in tonight with the lyanna stark, rhaegar targaryen wasn’t ready to find out how the other half lived.
he’d heard the stories, he had. about the tullys starting everything by the river. about his grandmother basing bills on what the greyjoys allowed or didn’t allow. about robert baratheon making more money in a single transaction than the city’s yearly budget. but he wasn’t prepared for this. he’d always known this world existed –– of course he did, his first wife was part of it ; as was his second –– but he hadn’t really expected any of this.
rhaegar smiled as lyanna came up behind him, a smile that was just for her. years and years and years ago, when he’d been stuck in an unhappy marriage and exhausted from pretending his way through a whole life in the public eye that he’d never even wanted, he’d dreamt of a little less and a little more. he’d dreamt of a house by the beach. he’d wanted to barbecue on the weekends and sleep in on monday mornings. he wanted to with his kids –– all of kids –– in the water and kiss lyanna in the sand. he wanted to laugh so hard he cried because he’d never done it, not really. and he wanted to be allowed to love again. and maybe he didn’t get all of that, but fuck, he got close. and that was more than enough. he paid a fair price for all of it ; rhaegar would do it all again in a heartbeat. only sooner.
“ lost my tongue a while ago, ” he replied through a widening smile, taking the glass of scotch from her but catching her hand in his. “ is every family meeting like this? ” rhaegar glanced around, and sure, he’d asked her enough about the syndicates over the years, but. he was in wonderland’s third cousin, twice removed. “ and why don’t we have a vault in our house? ”
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Sometimes Lyanna forgot that he didn’t come from this world, they had just always seemed so evenly matched in almost all aspects, that she forgot this was the one where the puzzle pieces didn’t click. Their families were both powerful, but in very different ways (although, not so different any more), and that point she forgot. While he had grown up in what she assumed was a gilded life filled with charity events and country clubs and golf courses and glad handing, her life had been filled with all that and much more. It was filled with back room deals and blood and bullets. She had shaken on them, she had spilled it, she had fired them.
It was due to this oversight that she felt like she hadn’t prepared him quite enough, and wondered if he felt like she had sent him into the lion’s den (literally) before skipping away. Although, to be fair, she didn’t have much experience in family meetings herself. Robert’s had come in the wake of their scandal and Hoster’s had been whilst they self-exiled themselves, neither one she had felt it proper to attend.
“Tongue, huh? Gonna have to find out who managed to do that and get their secrets.” She teased, whispering in his ear before she brought herself out of his rearview, to be standing in front of him. It was hard, Lyanna hadn’t been a touchy-feely type before Rhaegar, but after? All she wanted to do was have a piece of her skin touching his, even if it was in the most chaste of ways. But she knew after their entrance, it probably wasn’t smart. But Lyanna never claimed to be such, and found her self picking up his left hand and holding it in hers, finger tips whispering over where she’d know she’d find a tattoo if she looked. Left ring finger. “To be fair, there’s only been two before this, and I was not in attendance for either.” She sighed softly, she didn’t realize how out of the loop she was, and didn’t appreciate the feeling. “--But also, generally they don’t masquerade themselves as a dinner only to be a surprise wedding. Honestly, with the entrance we made I might as well have worn a white dress just to top it all off.” She rolled her eyes, the relaxation she had begun to feel while in her life partner’s presence had dissipated and she could already feel her shoulders creeping towards her chin. “We may be wealthy, but the Lannisters are the type of wealthy that they could bribe God. We don’t have Bribe-God-And-Build-A-Vault money. Unless you’re hiding something from me that is.”
