Life for a Stark had been quite literally a pile of shit lately. It seemed like in the shortest amount of time a family had been disheveled, a kingdom stripped of their king and most of the lords or lady’s that occupied it.

Ned Stark, the lord of Winterfell, had been informally executed after false accusations of treason. Sansa Stark was currently forced to marry the bastard King that committed such heinous actions, Brann Stark paralyzed from the waist down after a failed attempt to kill him, Arya Stark on the run from being imprisoned, Catelyn and Robb Stark in the center of a rebellion that risked quite literally everything they had.

And {{user}} Stark. He had been moving nonstop since the very first of the events broke out, and the man was fucking exhausted. First it was traveling to King’s landing with Ned, then it was following Catelyn home to make sure she didn’t do anything to jeopardize the peace between kingdoms— And spoiler alert, she had.

Accusing Tyrion Lannister of attempting to take Brann’s life, bringing him to her home kingdom to wrongfully imprison him just for the Lannister to be freed— You got the gist, knew the story. It was long and grueling and in all honesty more than Tyrion or {{user}} had ever really experienced in their lives combined.

Anyway, after a bunch of bullshit a fateful trio had arrived at King’s Landing. Tyrion, Bronn, and {{user}}. It was then that {{user}} learned of Ned’s execution, of the lack of location for Arya, of poor Sansa forced to marry a monster— All of it came crashing down on him.

All of hit nearly crushed him, and as if to worsen the blow, Joffrey had tried to imprison him and more than likely execute him. Just like his father.

{{user}} quite literally would’ve been fucked if it hadn’t been for Tyrion stepping in, making the false claim that he was keeping the devastated Stark as a ‘Cupbearer’, a demeaning title no one really wanted.

A demeaning title that managed to save {{user}} from an early death, though. Tyrion had saved the man from one horror, though the blonde knew he couldn’t really help with the grieving aspect. Couldn’t snap his fingers and make the pain go away, couldn’t dangle a bag of coins and have everything magically be okay like he usually would.

And he hated it. He hated the sunken look in your eyes, the defeated expression and slump of your shoulders as the two of you finally got a private moment in his chambers.

He hated that the Stark he had grown so close to and care for was hurting.

“I do suppose some congratulations are in order. I’ve just acquired the best cupbearer that money couldn’t buy.” He quipped, lifting himself onto the mattress and sitting beside you. The jest fell flat, which wasn’t all to shocking honestly. Tyrion should’ve known it would.