The Unyielding Stag (Game of Thrones AU/Invincible)
Chapter 46: Cornered

A/N: Petyr Baelish has not been having a good time…

-x-X-x-

"What are we going to do Petyr? What if they find out about everything you've done? What if they find out about us?!"

Sitting in his quarters, Petyr Baelish sighs as he feels the pain between his eyes building. Pacing back and forth across the room in front of him is none other than Lysa Arryn and at this rate the woman might just wind up wearing a rut into the floor with how long she's been at it.

He's definitely regretting telling her everything that he's been dealing with now, but at the time Petyr had needed an outlet for all of the bullshit. Unfortunately, the outlet that he picked was the highly neurotic, mentally unstable wife of the man that he's been cuckolding for more than a decade.

It's not the kind of mistake Petyr would have made under normal circumstances, but recent times have been far from normal. Even as Lysa is having a quite loud, external freakout in the middle of his quarters, Petyr has to admit that he's busy freaking out internally, considering just how fucked it's all become and what he's going to do next.

And the worst part? The worst part is that his enemies still don't even know that they're ruining him. The King and his Hand and the rest of his Small Council… they still have no clue that Petyr has had his fingers in every single pie they've been cracking down on since Renly's war ended.

It'd started with Lord Seaworth, of course. The new Master of Ships was far more down to earth and self-aware than Stannis had been. And that made it all the harder to get anything past the man.

When Stannis was Master of Ships, one could always count on there to be both sailors and Captains who were willing to take on an extra bit of work on the side for some extra coin. Not to mention plenty of people at the docks all up and down the coast who were happy to turn a blind eye for the right bribe.

See, that was the thing about people. People were greedy and self-serving and trying to stop them from being greedy and self-serving with as blunt and heavy handed tactics as the Baratheon Lord used was a lesson in futility. Stannis had always gone that heavy handed route, but it didn't stop them or convince them to change their ways, it merely made them sneakier.

Someone like Stannis Baratheon couldn't possibly fathom the minds of the thugs, ne'er dowels, and criminals who made up the sorts of people that Petyr had been tapped into. But someone like Davos Seaworth, who had spent much of his life as a smuggler and only found his calling towards justice and righteousness later on… that was different.

But Petyr was smart enough to have seen that coming. He'd made sure to divest himself of volatile assets that he was certain Davos would be going after. In the end, while he hadn't been made completely whole, his losses had been negligible at best. At least at first anyways.

That was only the start though. A premonition of what was to come. Because between Stannis and Jon, nothing was safe anymore. Nothing was sacred.

Stannis was far more suited for being Master of Laws than he had been Master of Ships, and he'd been proving it in a number of ways, including a steady string of men who had been sent to either the block or the Wall. Men who Petyr had found very useful. Men who he'd had to burn every connection with so that their actions couldn't be traced back to him.

The only saving grace, at least where the new Master of Laws was concerned, was that Stannis had to split his time between King's Landing and the Stormlands rather equally. He'd done his duties admirably enough so far, but ultimately the amount of work he had on his place left him unable to focus on the true problem… Petyr himself.

That would have been great for Petyr's purposes, but then there was Jon. Jon Arryn, Hand of the King, was finally acting like a proper administrator of both the Realm and the Capital. It was just too bad that it was at the expense of everything Petyr had been building for more than a decade now.

And of course, Axel wasn't causing nearly as many fires for Jon as Robert had. Even with Sansa Stark and Arianne Martell both in the city vying for the young King's attention and time, Axel required far less maintenance than his father ever had.

Petyr had even considered making a mess of things regarding the search for a Queen. Such as poisoning Sansa Stark and pinning it on the Dornish Princess to provide a crisis for Jon to get bogged down in. Unfortunately, there were two major problems with that plan.

First, there was the fact that Sansa Stark was Catelyn's daughter and she had all of her mother's beauty from when Catelyn was younger. Petyr was loathe to kill such a beautiful young woman if he was being honest. But secondly and much more importantly, they'd doubled the taste testers in the Red Keep ahead of either prospective Queen's arrival.

Petyr hadn't thought much of that precaution at the time, but all of the sudden it was all but impossible to arrange a 'surprise illness' or 'accident', even if he wanted to. No, poisoning anyone staying in the Red Keep was an exercise in futility at the moment, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Jon had wanted all of their records audited, reorganized, and checked over because the Hand had found discrepancies in the Crown's debts to various lenders. These discrepancies were all Petyr's fault of course, but fortunately he had one good stroke of luck going for him.

Namely, Jon Arryn couldn't fathom that Petyr would betray him. The old man was so blinded by his own sense of honor that he truly didn't think Petyr was capable of even the slightest hint of treachery.

That was, quite frankly, the only reason Petyr had survived until this point. But the situation was growing more and more desperate by the day, hence his unloading upon Lysa in the hopes of dealing with some of his stress.

Especially when some idiot on his payroll had not only made the mistake of trying to shakedown an Ironborn ship captained by the daughter of Balon Greyjoy for 'protection fees', but he'd then gone on to send some men to try and kill her or extract the gold from her person in some other heinous way.

Petyr wouldn't have cared that much if Asha Greyjoy had actually died or been 'disappeared' to be fair, but obviously that hadn't fucking happened. Instead, she had killed her assailants and done so with the help of the King of all people at the same time. And seeing as the original man had been trying to collect those fees in the name of the Master of Coin, Petyr had to act very fast and very carefully.

Blaming it all on one of the only Goldcloak Captains who had managed to fly under the radar of Jon and Stannis' reforms regarding the City Watch had been a move made in desperation. One that had in turn burned one of Petyr's last capable contacts within the City Watch, leaving him without any eyes and ears in the Goldcloaks whatsoever at this point.

He hadn't had the chance to rectify that matter in the slightest just yet either, because the imminent arrival of a representative from the Iron Bank had taken up all of his time. Petyr had been forced to worke tirelessly day and night from the moment that he'd been informed of the Iron Bank's arrival, making sure everything was in order.

Because the thing was… it hadn't been in order. It hadn't even slightly been in order when Petyr first found out that a representative of the Iron Bank was on his way.

Finding a way to balance things and make it so that the numbers did in fact line up between the Crown's records and the Iron Bank's records had truly stretched Petyr's skills to their utmost limits… but he'd done it in the end. He'd gotten the number on the Crown's books within eleven golden dragons of the number that the Iron Bank Representative brought with him.

That was good because it had earned him quite a lot of good will with Jon, and at this point Petyr needed that if he was going to make something of this mess.

He needed Jon to continue inadvertently shielding him from all of the others, including the King, until Petyr could finally figure out what he was going to do next. And he needed to decide what that was going to be before Stannis finished settling his affairs in the Stormlands and was able to focus all of his attention on his duties in King's Landing.

"Petyr! What are we going to do?!"

Shaken from his thoughts, Petyr blinks as he realizes that Lysa is still in his quarters, still frantically pacing back and forth, and still having a panic attack. Yes, telling her anything important about what was happening had been a monumental mistake… but given how sleep deprived, stressed, and overburdened he currently was, he would forgive himself all the same.

… Then again… the longer he stares at her, the more he realizes that Lysa might just be the answer to all of his problems. So what if the noose was slowly shrinking around his neck here in King's Landing? He just had to slip that noose and go somewhere else. Opportunities and costs. It was all just opportunities and costs.

Smiling with more feeling than he had in weeks, Petyr chuckles and shakes his head at Lysa's worried look.

"Don't fret my dear Lysa. There's no need to worry. I know exactly what we're going to do."

Lysa blinks in surprise, clearly caught off guard. But then to be fair, Petyr had just spent over an hour tersely detailing all of his struggles and woes to the woman. It was no surprise that she's confused by the sudden change in his mood.

At the same time, he'd spent most of their respective lives cultivating a certain image with the less attractive of the Tully Sisters. Lysa believes in him in a way that nobody, certainly not Catelyn Stark, ever had.

… He'd tried to reach out to Catelyn once since she'd arrived in the city, hoping to catch up with her and chat. But the North and childbirth hadn't been kind to the woman he'd once risked it all for.

Not only was Catelyn not nearly as attractive as she once was, but her personality had also become far more rotten than Petyr remembered. And if he had to deal with an unattractive and altogether rotten Tully sister, he might as well stick to the one who he had completely wrapped around his finger.

Case in point, Lysa's surprise melts away in mere moments, her eyes filled with absolute trust and devotion as she looks at him excitedly.

"I'm so glad, Petyr! I knew you would have a way out of this mess. What do you need of me? You know that I will always be on your side. I'm willing to do anything you ask of me!"

Indeed, he knows that very well. He also knows that Lysa is… barely competent at best and not to be trusted with anything too difficult. Still…

"You're finally getting your wish, my love. It's time for Jon Arryn to die."

Lysa's eyes widen and she gasps in excitement, as though her Nameday has come early. Before he can continue on, she's already crossed the room and seized upon his face with both hands, kissing him deeply and passionately. Petyr plays along of course, even as the woman climbs into his lap. Eventually though, she does pull back, beaming at him as she drapes her arms around his neck.

"Truly? How shall we do it? Poison? I could deliver it to him for you… no one would know, especially not my lord husband."

If not for the doubling of taste testers and the added security around the Red Keep, that very much would be how Petyr would have gone about this. He'd prepared Lysa for the role of her husband's killer for years, after all.

But… no. No, he knew he couldn't rely on Lysa to deal with her husband now. He needed competence. He needed to make sure that everything would go off without a hitch. Therefore, Lysa could not be involved. Of course, when he tells her that, he words it… differently.

"I have something better in mind. Something you won't have to dirty your hands for, sweetheart."

Lysa pouts at him in what she probably considers a 'cutesy' manner.

"Awww… but I want to! For you, my love!"

Forcing a chuckle even as he's cringing internally, Petyr shakes his head.

"I know darling. I know. But the plan I have in mind will require us both to keep our hands clean. All I need you to do is be ready to leave the city when I tell you to. You, me, and your darling son will be leaving King's Landing and going to the Vale together. Doesn't that sound lovely?"

Lysa nods her head along obediently.

"It does! It sounds wonderful. But… won't the King suspect us if my husband dies as we flee the city?"

Petyr just grins and this time he doesn't have to force it.

"You let me worry about that, Lysa. I want you to go and begin making preparations now… but be subtle about things. It will probably still be some weeks before we're ready to depart, alright? Don't let them know anything is amiss until the time comes."

Reluctantly, Lysa climbs out of his lap and slowly nods.

"I understand, Petyr. It will be as you say, do not worry. I'll make sure my Sweet Robin is ready to leave the moment that you give the word."

With that, she departs from his quarters and Petyr has blessed quiet at long last. He basks in it for a moment, his eyes drifting shut as he lets out a sigh. Then, they snap open again and he turns to his desk, moving and grabbing a piece of parchment.

He was going to need to move some things up a bit if this plan he'd just thought up was going to work. Originally, he and Euron Greyjoy had both agreed to wait a little bit longer before making any moves… but given just how desperate things were getting for him here in King's Landing, Petyr couldn't afford to wait any longer.

Euron Greyjoy was just going to have to be ready to take advantage of the chaos that Petyr was planning on causing. And if he wasn't… well then, that was the Ironborn's own fault. Petyr would give him ample warning… and it would be up to Euron to capitalize on it or not.

-x-X-x-

A/N: And so Petyr finally decides that Jon Arryn has to die. Hm, but how will he do it? What is he planning…

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