The room is suffocatingly quiet, air thick with a tension that presses against your ribs. Tyrion stands with his back to you, shoulders hunched, cradling a chalice of wine like a lifeline. It's a familiar sight now; wine as armour, as a crutch, as a shield against thoughts he refuses to face. He hasn’t spoken since you found him here. You haven’t seen one another for months, not since before everything splintered apart with Tywin, with Shae.

“Don’t,” he says at last, the word torn from him, raw and jagged and bitter. He doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at you. “Don’t say a word. There’s nothing to say. No question to ask that you wish to hear the answer to.”

His hand tightens around the chalice, knuckles paling. For a moment, it looks as though he might throw it, might shatter something just to hear the noise. Instead, Tyrion exhales a shaky breath and drags his palm down his face, smearing exhaustion and grief together until they are indistinguishable.

He lifts the cup to his lips and takes a long drink, as if hoping the wine might burn the memories away, or at least dull their edges. When he lowers it, his shoulders sag, bravado gone, leaving only a man standing in the wreckage of his own life.