Summary: As youâre finishing up your chores for the night at your bar, a close friend from the nearby Green Lanterns Corps pays a visit following a rough day at work.
Warnings: SMUT (MINORS DNI!), cursing, drinking, smoking, buildup, slapping, some angst, slight mention of death, cumshot
Dividers By: @uzmacchiato
A/N I: Came to mind as I am still finishing the first part of the series for him. I wouldnât classify this as a drabble since itâs more than a 100 words. A little rusty. Hope you enjoy this little treat and Gunn Man, youâre going to hell for that sex scene by the way.
THIS IS MY WORK, SO PLEASE DO NOT STEAL IT.
It was a late Saturday night, soon-to-be Sunday morning in Coast City, with you still being up, tending to chores in your now-closed bar.
You donât operate on Sundays as a way to give yourself to rest, but to restock on ingredients and alcohol that is out-of-stock or low on it.
Luckily, Saturdays is usually when the deliveries happen and your head cook unboxed everything just so it is a simple task for you to finish once the crowd cleared out.
So here you are, locs tied up, a blunt hanging from your lips, and skin slowly glistening from sweat as you align the bottles of alcohol and glass cups by size, a low, alt-R&B song is playing in the background:
You hummed along to the song since itâs a favorite of yours from this album, taking a quick break to blow out the smoke.
Suddenly, a few knocks from the blackened front door startled you, making you turn down the music, pick up your hidden gun, and head towards it.
Opening the door, a tall, tanned, chiseled man stood outside, his blueish-green eyes glowing from the light above as he had a serious, but tired look on his face.
âJohn Stewart.â as you took your blunt out of your mouth, blowing out smoke. âWhat a surprise.â
âThought you would be used to this by now.â he replied, his eyes roaming your body.
âYouâre up quite late.â you said, leaning against the door.
âHad a rough day today.â he replied, pecking your cheek before walking in.
You nodded, closing and locking the door before walking back to the bar, where he took a seat in front of you.
As he usually does since this is a weekly thing between you and him, the history going further back.
You met John back when you and your family moved to Detroit as a kid, thanks to your military serving father taking over a position he was offered. John and his family were your neighbors, being very welcoming to you all, especially when your fathers became friends and co-workers at the same base.
Unfortunately, a freak accident involving a Manhunter invading the base claimed both of their lives, with your family moving away after the funerals a few days before your 14th birthday, losing contact with John.
Until the first day you opened your bar, which is a few miles from the Green Lanterns Corps headquarters.
John, his partner, Hal, and a few other members came in for beers and some menu items, never forgetting his shocked expression of seeing you again after so long and giving you a huge, but soft embrace.
Now, here he is, sitting right in front of you again.
âHal did something again?â you asked, taking out a glass from the cabinet drawer.
âThe new trainees.â he replied, annoyance in his tone.
âGot them the wrong ring sizes again?â as you grabbed a cherry syrup bottle.
âCanât seem to focus on whatever Iâm teaching them.â
âYou might have to find a creative way.â as you turned the button on the soda gun.
âLike what?â
You shrugged as you filled the glass with ice, pressing on the button to fill it with Sprite.
âMaking references to something similar. Something thatâs fun and understandable for them. We are in a literacy crisis.â you said as you added a cherry to the drink before placing it in front of him.
âIâll figure out something.â he replied, watching you inhale your blunt again.
You blew out smoke as the bass to the next song began to play, feeling your body beginning to move to it:
Hey, Iâve been up, the voice of Kelela sanged as you handed your blunt to John, watching him carefully take it out of your hand.
Itâs been on my mind, as you turned around, leaning forward to poke your ass out a bit.
His eyes followed as he brought the blunt to his mouth, inhaling it a bit. You moved your hips seductively, feeling the song a lot as you stood up, swaying side to side.
Weâre running out of time, Kelela repeated a few times as you turned to face John again, making eye contact.
He blow out smoke, the weed slowly relaxing him as he watches you grind back and forth, doing a few squats before bringing it back up.
Something is wrong with the seed that weâre sowing. Weâre runnin, you mouthed along as you turned away, resuming organizing the alcohol bottles.
John smirks, surprised that you stopped doing your routine as he took a sip of his drink, a puzzled look on his face.
âBaby, what is this that you gave me?â he asked, making you turn around.
âThe classic: a Shirley Temple.â you replied nonchalantly.
âA Shirley Temple?â he asked in a confused tone.
âWhat, you donât like it? I can make you a dirty Club Soda if you want.â
âNo, no. Just you normally surprise me with a drink I never had.â
âOh, I was. But then, Hal told me he found you passed out drunk in on your lawn last week after you left here, even though I told you to rest.â as you crossed your arms.
John rolled his eyes, bringing the blunt back to his lips, inhaling some more.
âI had something to do.â he said as he blew out smoke.
âAnd thatâs why I told you to not drink too much.â as you took back your blunt.
âBut we were having fun.â
âThis is the second time you did that is my point.â
âCome on. It wonât happen again.â as he tried to grab your hand.
You pulled it back, not falling for his apologetic remark.
âWe can still drink, but for now, you lost the alcohol privilege.â you replied, watching his jaw flex.
âSo if I told you to stop wearing tops that showed your cleavage, would you listen?â he asked, watching you giggle.
âDonât know. I like how weâre both matching with our outfits right now.â you replied, eyes roaming all over his massive, thick body.
He wore a white shirt with the Lanterns symbol on the front and black shorts while you wore a white spaghetti strapped top that showed off a bit of your titties with black jeans.
âIâm serious.â as he crossed his arms.
âI would if you actually showed me off as your woman.â as you inhaled the rest of your blunt.
Silence filled the room as you both held each other gazes, the tension growing thicker as he leaned forward.
âSo this is not a relationship now?â he asked.
âNever said that. Just you only love me when no one else is around.â you replied, blowing out smoke.
His Lantern ring flickers as he takes another slip of his drink, leaning back a bit.
âI still show up for you, even if you donât want it.â he said.
âBecause I hate being alone here.â
âYouâre not alone when Iâm here protecting you.â
You rolled your eyes as you placed the final bottle on the shelf, putting out your blunt and slowly walking to the kitchen.
âWhat kind of burger do you want?â you asked, looking at him.
âThe usual. No tomato.â he replied quietly.
You nodded, turning back to the kitchen.
âComing right up.â as you disappeared into there, feeling his eyes burning into the back of your head.
John curses quietly, feeling annoyed that the conversation went left.
An hour passes as you slowly finish your half of the Western Tale burger and fries you were sharing with John as usual, watching him tap his glass a few times.
Deep down, you hated making him feel bad about how he couldâve lost his job had someone from there found him like that.
But your conversation with Hal, where he doesnât blame you for his drunken behavior, but he suggests that you should tell him to take a break or else, he might bring your business down with him.
Thatâs something you couldnât afford to lose.
âYou done with your plate?â his question interrupting your disassociation.
âHm?â as you looked at your plate, which is now empty.
You nodded as you slid it towards him, watching him take it and head to the kitchen, entering inside.
You already know the routine.
You two finishing eating, he goes and washes the dishes that you normally do after you finish cleaning the bar, but he does it because he wants to since you been working all week.
You two talk, make out, and boom. Sex.
Which is why you are now walking to the kitchen to watch him, seeing how calm and relaxed he looked at the dish sink as you got closer.
The quietness in the room accompanied the sound of the water running, dishes clanking, and screening as you leaned against the counter, staring at him.
âCan I ask you something?â you said, watching him pause.
âGo ahead.â he said, resuming.
âDo you mention you have a girlfriend when at work?â
âAlways. Even if they donât see your initials hanging off my necklace.â
Oh yes. The pendant he added alongside his Marines dogtog that he wears proudly, surprising you with it about three months into your relationship. It dangling in your face whenever heâs been your legs.
âHow do you describe me to them?â you asked.
âSmart. Beautiful. Independent when Iâm not around. And hellbent. Minimum as possible.â
âMinimum?â
John pauses again, looking at you.
âI donât like people in my business. You know this.â
âThen take me somewhere that your co-workers wonât see us. Or just have dinner at your place. Even mines.â
âAs if we donât have complicated schedules.â as he turns his attention back to the dishes.
âYouâre off before me? You can come visit without being with them or every Saturday after I close!â
âMy job revolves around protecting you guys and the people from space. It require all of my attention.â
âThen why get into a relationship?â
âBecause I love you?!â he snapped, tossing the plate and rag down.
You shake your head, moving away.
âI canât keep doing this with you.â you said, crossing your arms.
âDoing what?â he asked, washing the plate.
âComing in here after I close to talk, eat, drink, and fuck Saturday. Only communicating through text? Itâs like youâre ashamed of being seen publicly with me.â
âIâm not. Iâm being surveillance by some unknown person, thing, whatever and I donât want them to find you.â as he place the plate in the rack.
âYou think they possibly didnât follow you all the way out here to see me?â
John sighed, placing the rag on the rag holder before looking at you.
âI just donât want you to get hurt. Or you randomly disappear and Iâm losing it.â he said, grabbing your chin to look at him.
âWell youâre losing me. feel like Iâm giving my all and youâre just taking it for granted.â you replied, removing his hand.
âSo maybe you need to get with someone who matches that.â you added, holding back tears. âGo home, John.â
Just as you were about to leave, he carefully pulls you back, placing you on the counter to block you in.
âI didnât waste so many years praying for you to come back into my life just to let you walk out again. You know that.â he said in a serious tone.
You looked down, feeling his eyes watching you.
âYou making suggestions to find someone else is actually the worst thing to suggest to me. I donât want that. I want you.â
Wrapping his hands around yours, he gently squeezes it, connecting his head to yours.
âI want this to work. I do or else, Iâm not gonna find love in a different woman thatâs not you. Iâll come see you more on my own. Iâll take you places you wanna go to. IâllâŠIâll stop drinking.â he admitted, feeling you shake your head.
âI donât want you to stop drinking. I just want you to love me publicly and privately. And listen to me when Iâm worried about you doing something that might harm you in the end.â you said, looking at him.
Wrapping your hand under his chin, you examine his worn out face, tracing over his lips as he watches with a growing passion.
âYou need a break. Youâve been going at this job too hard that youâre starting to lose yourself.â you said quietly, watching him nod his head as he removes you hand, holding it in his.
Wrapping his other hand around your neck, he pulls you in for a steamy kiss, your lips connecting instantly.
You guys keep making out for a few minutes, feeling his hands roam all over your body and squeezing you, you letting out some whimpers.
âIâll change. Iâll get better for you, baby.â he said quickly, resuming the kiss.
You moaned in agreement, slightly biting his lip.
Wrapping your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck, he lifts you up, carrying you to a room that is next to your office, kicking the door closed with his foot.
Sounds of moaning and the bed creaking fills the bedroom, where the moonlight shined on the sticky, sweaty bodies through the blinds.
On the edge of the bed sat John, eyes focused on you as you grind and bounce on him, his member sliding in and out of your heat.
âOh my god, youâre so fucking big.â you whined, bucking harder against him.
His heavy grunting sounds like heaven as he sucks on both of your breasts, move your body up and down. The coolness of his dogtag and your initials pendant rubbed against the softness of your stomach, leaving some outline marks.
He had you all over the room, from the walls to the door, in positions you didnât no you can get into until you started dating him.
You quicken the pace, hearing the wet sound of your heat
âYour pussy keeps clinching around me. You miss me in there that much?â he asked in a teasing way.
âYes.â you said, biting your lip.
A quick smack to the ass surprises you, feeling his arms wrap around your waist to pull you closer to him. Then, he started drilling into you, not holding back.
âShit!â you yelled, enjoying his quick flip to control.
You moaned loudly, feeling his tip poke your sweet spot a few times. Your stomach begins to tighten a bit, signaling another release is approaching.
âJohn, youâre gonna make me cum again!â you said, trying to make him slow down by pushing off of him.
He didnât like that, quickly restraining your arms before continuing to stroke you, his hips thrusting your body.
âDonât fight it then. Let it out.â he said, sucking on your neck.
You obeyed, giving up fighting against it as your hips rode a few more times on him before finally, your release washes all over, essence dripping down his shaft and thighs.
But John didnât care, continuing his brutal attack on your pussy until he pulled out, stroking his member a few times before hot spurts of cum shot out, landing on your stomach and thighs as he cursed through his orgasm.
He held you for a few more minutes, both of catching your breaths before laying you down, getting up and heading to the bathroom.
Your body was still riding out the high from your orgasm, your pussy clenching around air a few times as your chest heaved.
Footsteps are heard as you look up. Returning with a wet rag in one hand, he cleans you off gently, hearing you quietly groan as he wiped between your legs.
âToo rough?â he asked, looking at you.
You shook your head, calmly rubbing his thigh as he continued cleaning, getting any spot he missed before leaning down and kissing you.
âHere.â he said, pulling a small ribbon box from behind him, watching your eyes raise up.
âWhat is that?â you asked, sitting up a bit.
âOpen it.â he said, watching you take the box from his hand.
You looked between him and the box before untying the ribbon, watching it fall, Opening the box, it reveals a small diamond band ring and matching dangling earrings sparkled under the light, causing your eyes to widen.
âYou got me the matching set I was looking at.â you said, examining the products.
âMmhm.â as he leaned in closer. âPerfect gift as a promise ring and earrings.â
âPromise ring?â as you looked at him, noticing his eyes were filled with love.
âYes. Iâm serious about us. And I want you to be too.â he said, taking the box out of your hand and putting it in front of him, as if heâs proposing.
âWith this ring and earrings, I see it as the next step in our relationship that will lead us to a future where we are married with kids. I donât expect it to be an easy path to that, but Iâm being serious when I say I am taking us seriously, baby.â he said, squeezing your hand.
A tear falls down your face, being moved by his commitment to making things better for you two.
âI promise to hear your needs, problems, and solutions, looking for a way to satisfy them. I promise to change what you think I need to change. I promise to love and cherish you every day, even if I donât see you. Do you take this ring?â he asked, a small smile appearing on his face.
You thought about it for a few seconds, watching him patiently wait for your decision
Taking out the ring, you slid it on your finger, which fits perfectly before looking at John again.
âI accept.â you said, holding your hand up so he can see the ring, a smile on your face.
John smile happily, crashing his lips onto yours as you two made out for the rest of the night, celebrating a new chapter in your relationship.
synopsis . valarr became king, knowing he was not as good as his grandfather nor as steadfast as his father. Still, he tried to be a good husband, as he had sworn before the gods. words. ~5.6k
contents. +18 (MDNI) â wife! reader â canon divergence â grief/mourning â pregnancy â emotional hurt/comfort â established marriage â gentle sex â masterlist â akotsk taglistâ àČŁ notes. I have a bit of an addiction to giving my boy happy endings. đ
The throne room was empty when the last voices faded away. The torches crackled in their iron sconces, casting dancing shadows that climbed the carved stone columns until they vanished into the darkness high above. Valarr remained seated on the Iron Throne, his elbows resting on the arms of fused steel, his chin propped on interlaced fingers while the crown rested on his brow, and he felt its weight grow heavier with every passing hour.
It had been a long day of pleas, of lamentations, of men and women kneeling before him with eyes full of hope and despair. A day of councillors speaking of grain and taxes, of disgruntled lords in the riverlands, of the need to strengthen the defences in the south while winter crept slowly down from the north. Maekar had stood beside him through the whole afternoon, offering counsel that Valarr knew to be wise, yet still it could not silence the voice inside his head that kept asking: what would my father do?
He closed his eyes for a moment, and beneath him the throne creaked faintly, as if the thousand swords that made it up were alive, always ready to remind the one who sat there that this seat had never been made for comfort.
Valarr opened his eyes and looked towards the doors of the hall. They were closed, of course; the guards had withdrawn to the outer corridors when he had ordered that he be left alone. He needed silence, needed to think, but silence, he had discovered, was a luxury a king could rarely enjoy in peace, because silence brought memories.
It was like this every night.
He saw his father in every corner of the hall, walking towards him with a smile that said he knew exactly what to say; saw him tilt his head while listening to the petitions of minor lords, saw him pause for a moment before offering an answer that seemed so natural, so certain, that everyone around simply nodded. Baelor had made it look easy, had made it seem that ruling, even as a prince, was like breathing or walking.
Valarr did not feel that way. He never had.
As a child, he had watched his grandsire on the Iron Throne. Daeron the Good, they called him. A king who had brought peace and prosperity to Westeros, who had unified the kingdoms through marriages and diplomacy. Valarr remembered sitting at the foot of the throne while his grandsire listened to the lords, and he remembered thinking that here was a man who never doubted himself. A man made for the throne.
Afterwards, it seemed that Baelor knew exactly how to balance the weight of the crown with the humanity he carried inside him. He had taught Valarr everything he knew, had sat with him for hours, explaining the intricacies of politics, the subtle games the lords played among themselves, the art of listening more than speaking. Valarr had learned, had listened, had noted it all down in his mind.
But learning and knowing are different things. Knowing and being able to do them, too.
The door of the hall creaked.
Valarr looked up, his body tensing for an instant, but the tension dissolved as quickly as it had come; you were there, in the entrance, wrapped in a dress of pale grey wool that barely hid the curve of your belly. The torchlight danced in your hair, and you were looking at him with that smile he knew so well, the one that came because you were happy to see him.
"You look handsome wearing the crown," you said, and your footsteps echoed softly across the stones of the hall as you drew nearer.
Valarr felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards, despite everything. You always did that, always found a way to remind him that he was more than just the crown he bore. He lifted his hands and removed it slowly, and the weight seemed to lessen a little.
"It never felt like it belonged to me," he replied, holding the crown before him. "You know that."
You stopped a few paces from the throne, tilting your head.
Your eyes met his, and Valarr felt something unfold in his chest. This was the look you had given him since the day you met, eight years ago, when he was only a prince and you were a young woman who did not seem intimidated by his lineage. You had always seen him â not the prince, not the heir, not the king â just Valarr.
"Do you think anyone is born belonging to a crown?" you asked, stepping forward. "Your grandsire wasn't born with a crown on his head, and you⊠you are learning. Every day you are learning, my husband."
Valarr took a deep breath.
You were so gentle with him, so patient that there were days when he wondered how he could deserve that patience, that love that seemed so unshakeable. There were days when he felt that everything he did was fail, and yet you remained there, looking at him the same way, as if he were the man you had known at eighteen, before any responsibility to Westeros.
"Come here," he murmured, reaching out his hand.
You approached the throne, but instead of sitting beside him, you stopped before the iron structure, your eyes tracing the blades that made up the seat. Valarr watched as you slowly raised a hand, your fingers brushing one of the swords with curiosity, and he felt his heart quicken.
"Careful," he said, his voice sharper than he intended. "These swords cut."
You turned your face to him, and a smile bloomed on your lips.
"Cut?" you repeated, tilting your head. "Does that mean I would be unworthy of being the king's wife? I've heard that the throne cuts those who are not worthy."
Valarr felt concern mingle with a flash of exasperation. He stood, the crown still in his hands, and descended the iron steps until he stood before you.
"This is a throne made of swords," he retorted, gently.
You stared at him, your smile fading gradually as you looked at him. Your hand moved away from the throne and found his, and you laced your fingers together.
"I know," you murmured, smiling genuinely. "I just wanted⊠I don't know. Maybe I wanted to see if it would cut me too."
Valarr felt something tighten in his chest. He raised his free hand and touched your face, his palm resting against your soft cheek.
"It wouldn't cut you," he said. "Because it's not the throne that decides who is worthy. And even if it meant something, you could never be unworthy of my love."
You closed your eyes for a moment, leaning your head against his hand. When you opened them again, there was something â a softness â that made him remember why he had fallen in love with you, all those years ago.
"You're worried," you observed.
Valarr let out a sigh and allowed his body to relax slightly. You always knew, always noticed, even when he tried to hide it, even when he believed he was being the king everyone expected him to be, you saw right through him.
"I'm always worried," he replied, and the honesty of the words surprised him.
"I know," you said, holding his hand more tightly. "But today seems a little worse, doesn't it?"
Valarr looked at the throne behind you, at the rows of swords that gleamed in the torchlight. He remembered the day he had first sat upon it as king, feeling the hardness of the iron against his back, the cold of the blades against his skin through his clothes. It was as if all those who had occupied that seat before him were watching, waiting, judging.
"I heard petitions today," he said, shifting his gaze from the throne back to you. "A man whose daughter was taken by bandits, a widow whose lands were seized by a neighbouring lord, a merchant who lost everything in a shipwreck. And I stood there, listening, trying to decide what to do. My uncle was beside me, offering counsel. Other councillors too. Each with a different opinion, each telling me what I ought to do, and I stood there, thinking about what my father would say."
You said nothing for a moment, just listened.
"I don't know what he would say," Valarr continued. "Because he isn't here, and I⊠I don't know if I learned enough. I don't know if I was a good son, a good heir, a goodâŠ" He hesitated. "If I am being a good king."
"Valarr," you said, and your name on your lips always sounded so kind. "You are being hard on yourself."
"Someone has to be," he replied, with a bitter smile. "Won't the realm be hard on me? Won't the lords? They look at me and see Baelor's son, King Daeron's grandson, and they expect me to be like them, but I am not. I am not like my father or my grandsire, I am just⊠me."
You pulled him closer, and Valarr let you guide him. You were shorter than him, your pregnant belly preventing him from embracing you fully, but even so he wrapped his arms around you, resting his chin on top of your head.
"I knew you before you were king," you said, your voice muffled against his chest. "I knew the man you are, not the king, the Valarr who laughed when I said something foolish, who got embarrassed when he caught him off guard. The Valarr who wept with me when we lost our first child."
Valarr squeezed his eyes shut.
The mention of the boy still hurt, even after all those months. The firstborn who had been born with a strong, healthy cry, who had grown too quickly, who had learned to walk too early, who had run through the castle after his grandsire Baelor; and then the illness, the fever, the small body that grew cold in his arms. He still saw the boy sometimes, in dreams, and afterwards he would wake with a tight heart and a guilt that never seemed to fade.
"I know," he murmured against your hair. "I know."
You pulled back slightly, enough to look at his face. Your eyes were damp, but you did not cry. You were stronger than him in that way. You always had been.
"You don't have to be your father," you said. "You don't have to be your grandsire. You don't have to be anyone but yourself, and if the realm expects something else⊠well, they'll have to learn. Because I know you, Valarr. I know you're a good man, that you love your children, that you try, every single day, to do the best you can. And that⊠that is more than many kings have done."
Valarr kissed you then, a soft, brief kiss. You always knew what to say, found the words he needed to hear, even when he did not know he needed them.
"You're too good for me," he said, resting his forehead against yours.
"Maybe," you replied, with a small smile. "But you're the king, and I'm stuck with you. What can I do?"
He let out a laugh, a short and genuine one that seemed to surprise him. You always managed to make him laugh, even on the hardest of days for both of you, and that was one of the many reasons he loved you.
"Come," you said, tugging at his hand. "The children are waiting for you. When I left, they were playing and saying they wanted their father to put them to bed tonight, that I don't know how to tell dragon stories."
Valarr felt the guilt stir again in his chest.
He spent so little time with them, whole days would pass without him seeing the boys, trapped in meetings and audiences, and when he finally returned to their chambers, it was already night. The little ones were asleep, their toys scattered across the floor, and Valarr would sit beside their beds and watch them, wondering if they knew he loved them, if they understood why their father was always absent.
"How are they?" he asked, as they walked side by side towards the doors of the hall.
"Well," you said, your hand still in his. "Aethan asked today if you're the most important king who ever lived. I said yes, of course."
Valarr shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips.
"You shouldn't say things like that, he'll grow up thinking his father is a god."
"He'll grow up knowing his father is the man he should admire," you corrected, and there was something in the way you said it that made Valarr look away. You saw him in a way he could never see himself.
You walked through the torchlit corridors, Valarr's footsteps echoing against the stones alongside yours, lighter. The guards nodded to them as they passed, but Valarr barely noticed; he was focused on you, on the sway of your body as you walked, on the way your hand rested on your belly.
You were a few months along now, enough that the baby could be felt moving, enough that your dress curved around your growing shape.
"How's the baby?" he asked, gently.
You smiled, and your smile lit up your whole face. You always smiled like that when you spoke of the baby, even after so many pregnancies.
"Clever," you said. "Hasn't stopped moving for hours. I think he's impatient to be born. Or maybe it's a girl. Girls are more restless, aren't they?"
"Do you think it's a girl?" Valarr asked, stopping in the middle of the corridor.
The question caught him off guard, because the three previous births had all been boys. Three sons, all healthy, all strong, the loss of the eldest still hurt, but the other two were alive, growing, filling the castle with their games.
You tilted your head, considering the question.
"I don't know," you admitted. "But perhaps the gods will decide to give us something different this time."
Valarr touched your belly with one hand, feeling the soft curve beneath the fabric. There was no movement at that moment, but he knew that he â or she â was there, growing, waiting for the time to come into the world.
"If it's a girl, I'd like to call her Alysanne," he said, and the word came out more easily than he had expected.
He had thought about it, of course. Thought about many names, many possibilities, but he had never said it aloud.
"Alysanne," you repeated, pleased. "That's beautiful. Like Jaehaerys's queen."
"Exactly," said Valarr. "She was a great queen. It would be a good name for a daughter."
You smiled and kept walking, and Valarr followed, his hand still resting on your belly, as if he could feel the baby through the fabric, through the skin, through everything that separated them.
He wondered if the boy they had lost would have grown up to be like him, if he would have inherited his grandsire's smile, that calm way of observing the world. Valarr would never know. That hurt more than he was willing to admit.
When they reached the children's chambers, the door was ajar. A candle flickered inside, and Valarr heard a low voice â the nursemaid, probably â humming a song he recognised from his own childhood. A song about winter coming, about wolves and snowflakes, about a hero who never came home.
He pushed the door open slowly, and the two boys were sitting on the floor, surrounded by painted wooden blocks, but their eyes lifted immediately when they saw their father. The older one now, who was five, jumped up.
"Father!" he shouted, running towards him.
Valarr knelt to receive him, opening his arms as the boy threw himself against his chest. He hugged his son tight, feeling the small, warm body against his own.
"I heard you were waiting for me," he said, his voice muffled against the boy's hair.
"Yes!" the boy exclaimed, pulling back to look at him with his mismatched eyes. "I wanted to show you the dragon I built with the blocks. He's enormous! As big as the Red one Uncle Aerion told us about."
Valarr looked past his son and saw the block structure on the floor. It was, indeed, an impressive attempt at a dragon, with wings made of flatter blocks and a tail that snaked across the floor.
"It's magnificent," he said, letting out a genuine smile. "Did you build that all by yourself?"
"We helped," said the second boy, who was three, approaching shyly. He held a block in each hand and looked at Valarr uncertain whether he should feel proud or embarrassed.
Valarr reached out to the younger one, pulling him close too. Both boys were against him now, and Valarr felt that this went beyond guilt, beyond the feeling of failure. Something that felt like love, simple and unquestionable.
"Are you ready for bed?" he asked.
"No!" they said in unison.
The nursemaid, who was leaning against the wall with a tired smile on her lips, shook her head.
"They haven't stopped since sunset, Your Grace," she said. "I knew they were waiting for you."
Valarr looked at the nursemaid and nodded. She was an older woman, with greying hair and kind eyes, who had cared for the children since the eldest was born. He trusted her more than he trusted many of his councillors.
"We can stay a little longer," he said, looking at the boys. "But afterwards you need to sleep, because Mummy needs rest too. Promise?"
"We promise!" they both said, and Valarr knew they were lying, but he let it pass. It was so rare to have these moments with them that he didn't want to spoil them with discipline.
He sat on the floor with them, helping them build a castle around the block dragon. You sat in a nearby armchair, watching them with a smile on your lips. Valarr could see you in his peripheral vision, your hand resting on your belly, your eyes following him as he played with the children.
"You need another block here," he said, pointing to a gap in the castle structure. "Otherwise the dragon will knock it all down."
"But dragons are like that," said the older one, with all the seriousness of a five-year-old. "They knock down castles."
Valarr laughed, and it was a free laugh, without the weight of his worries. Perhaps, somewhere deep down, his father was watching. Perhaps Baelor was proud to see him like this, kneeling on the floor with his children, laughing as if there were no kingdom to rule.
After a while longer, the nursemaid led them to bed, and Valarr picked up each of them, one at a time, and placed them in their beds. The older one was already heavy-eyed, the younger one completely asleep before his head even touched the pillow.
Valarr watched them for a moment, the two small bodies nestled under the blankets, their chests rising and falling serenely. He thought of all the nights he had arrived too late, when they were already asleep by the time he returned to the chambers. He thought of the times he had promised to spend more time with them and hadn't managed to keep his word.
"I'm a terrible father," he murmured to himself, but you were there, standing beside him, and you heard.
"Don't say that," you said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're here now, and they know you love them. That's what matters, and they understand."
Valarr looked at you, and there was something in your eyes that made him want to believe you.
"Come," you said, tugging his hand gently. "Let's go rest."
He let you guide him out of the room, closing the door carefully behind them so as not to wake the boys. The corridor was silent, and your hand was in his, and he followed you without thinking, letting you lead him back to their chambers.
Your room was large, as expected for a king and his queen, but it was not ostentatious. There was a big bed with red velvet curtains, a bronze bathtub that they filled with hot water brought from the kitchens, and a window that looked out onto the sea. Valarr liked to look through that window on nights when he couldn't sleep, watching the waves break against the rocks below, thinking of everything he should have done differently.
You stopped before him and began to undo the fastenings of his cloak. Valarr watched you, your nimble fingers working at the leather knots, your gaze focused on the task.
"You don't have to do that," he said.
"I know," you replied, without stopping. "But I've missed my husband, and I'm making the most of him while I can."
The cloak fell to the floor, and you reached for the crown, which he still held in one hand, and took it gently, placing it on the table by the window. Valarr felt the immediate relief, as if part of the weight he carried had been lifted.
"You look so beautiful," he said, admiring your face. "As beautiful as the day I met you."
You looked up at him, a smile playing on your lips.
"I was wearing a hideous yellow dress. You said I looked like a chicken."
"I was nervous," he admitted, feeling his cheeks warm. "I didn't know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to mind."
"You called a lady a chicken, and yet she still married you."
"She must have had terrible taste."
"She must have seen something no one else saw," you said, placing your hand over his heart. "Perhaps something you still don't see in yourself."
Valarr closed his eyes for a moment, letting your words wash over him. He didn't believe them, not completely, but hearing them from you made them feel more true than anything anyone else could say.
You continued to undress him, removing his tunic with gentle, practical movements. The clothes fell to the floor as you worked, until he was left in only the light breeches he wore beneath; you guided him to the bronze bathtub, where the water still steamed. The heat rose to meet him as he climbed into the bath, the hot water enveloping his tired body.
You sat in the chair by the window, your hand resting on your belly, and watched him relax into the water. Valarr closed his eyes, feeling the tension in his muscles slowly dissolve.
"What did you think about today?" you asked, after a long silence. "About the petitions."
Valarr opened his eyes and looked at you. You were leaning forward, your elbows resting on your knees, your chin propped on one hand.
"I thought about how complicated everything is," he replied, after a moment. "A man loses his daughter to bandits, and I have to decide whether to send soldiers to hunt them, knowing I might be leaving another village unprotected. A widow loses her lands to a neighbouring lord, and I have to decide whether to intervene, knowing I might anger other lords who are watching. Every decision has consequences beyond what I can see."
"Your father felt that too," you said. "He told me once that ruling was like playing cyvasse. You can never see all the pieces, and even the ones you see can be moved by someone you don't expect."
Valarr remembered that conversation, many years ago. His father sitting with him on a damp night on Dragonstone, explaining the complexities of Westerosi politics. He remembered how confident his father had seemed back then.
"I'm not as good as he was," Valarr said, and the confession escaped before he could stop it.
"No," you agreed, and the honesty of the answer made him look away. "You're different, and that's not a bad thing, Valarr. You may not be your father, but you are you. And the realm needs you, not a ghost."
Valarr was silent for a moment, the hot water swirling around him. You were right, of course. You always were, but accepting that was difficult.
"I love you," he said, and his voice was barely audible. "I've always loved you."
"I know," you said, and your eyes were damp. "I love you too."
The silence between you stretched, and Valarr could hear the wind outside, the waves breaking against the rocks. He could hear your breathing, calm and steady, and he felt his own heart settle.
"Come," he said, reaching a hand out to you. "Get in with me."
You smiled and shook your head.
"I can't," you replied, touching your belly. "I don't fit in the bathtub anymore."
Valarr laughed, and it was a genuine laugh, that vibrated in his chest and echoed off the walls of the room.
"You're beautiful," he said. "You know that, don't you?"
"You've already said that today," you replied, with a smile.
"And I'll say it again tomorrow, my wife."
You stood, your movements slow and careful, and walked to the edge of the bathtub. He saw the happiness in your eyes, that happiness he had seen so many times before, and felt his heart quicken. You leaned down and kissed him, your soft lips against his, and Valarr felt warmth spread through his whole body.
"You need to rest," you murmured, pulling away. "Tomorrow is another day."
"But I don't want to rest," he said. "I want to stay with you."
You laughed, stroking the white streak at the side of his hair.
"You have a whole kingdom that needs you, and I'll be here, waiting for you. As always."
Valarr watched you as you moved about the room, your graceful, familiar gestures. You had been with him through everything, through the grief for his father and his brother, through the grief for the lost child, through the endless days when he felt the world was caving in on him. And you were still there, still loved him, still looked at him as if he were something precious.
He climbed out of the bath and wrapped himself in a robe, the water still dripping from his body. You were in bed, the velvet curtains partially drawn, and he went to you, his bare feet cold against the stone floor.
"Do you think," he said, lying down beside you, "that the gods chose me for this? To be king?"
You turned to face him, your eyes meeting his in the dim light.
"I think," you said, "that the gods don't choose anything. It's people who make the choices, and you chose to be a good man, and you chose to love your family. That's more important than any choice the gods might have made."
Valarr smiled, a small one, and he pulled you close, your bodies meeting in the darkness.
The kiss came slow and deep, a kiss that spoke of years of love, of shared losses, of a connection that transcended the weight of any crown. You were warm against him, your belly a constant reminder of the life growing inside you, and Valarr touched you with the reverence of one who understands the miracle you represented.
His fingers traced your soft skin, learning every curve and contour as if for the first time. There was no hurry in that moment, no urgency beyond the desire to be closer, to feel you against him, to remember that despite everything, there was still this. There was still you.
"I love you," he murmured against your lips, and the word seemed so small beside everything he felt, but it was the only one he had. "I love you so much."
"I love you too," you replied, and your voice was full of everything he needed to hear. "I love you too, Valarr."
His hands found yours, lacing fingers together as he moved over you with a slowness that bordered on devotion.
The room was dark, lit only by the trembling light of the candles, and Valarr felt as if he were somewhere between dream and reality. You were there, beneath him, your eyes meeting his with an intimacy that no throne could offer. And in that moment, he was not king, he was your husband, the father of your children. The man you had chosen to love, against all expectations, against all conventions, against the whole world.
His fingers traced your soft skin, learning every curve and contour as if for the first time. Valarr moved over you, positioning himself carefully, his body hovering above yours. He supported his weight on his elbows, ensuring no pressure fell upon your belly.
His mismatched eyes found yours in the half-light, and for a moment he just looked at you, the trembling candlelight dancing in your hair spread across the pillow.
"Are you sure?" he asked, but it wasn't about desire, he knew you desired him, just as he desired you. It was about care, about making sure you were well, that the body carrying their life was not being pressed beyond what it could bear. "I don't want to hurt you."
You raised a hand and touched his face, your fingers sliding along his jaw, tracing the outline of his mouth.
"I'm fine," you said, serenely. "I'm always fine with you."
Valarr tilted his head and kissed the palm of your hand before lowering himself slowly, his lips finding yours again. The kiss was sweet, almost shy, as if it were the first time you had ever kissed; he felt your body relax beneath him, felt your hands slide across his back, pulling him closer.
He positioned himself between your legs and entered you calmly, always careful, his eyes never leaving yours, watching every change in your expression, every small sigh that escaped your lips.
His hand slid between your bodies, finding your belly, and he caressed it with his open palm.
"Is it uncomfortable?" he whispered, pausing for a moment, his forehead resting against yours.
You shook your head, a smile forming on your lips.
"No," you said, slightly breathless. "Don't stop."
He continued, his movements slow and deep, and he felt the warmth of you around him, felt every small tremor that ran through your body, felt the tightening of your hands on his back, but above all, he felt the love that seemed to fill every inch of the room, thick and warm like honey.
You arched your back slightly, a low moan escaping your lips, and Valarr slowed even more, concerned, but the smile on your face dispelled his anxiety.
"It's good," you whispered. "So good."
He kissed your forehead, your cheeks, the tip of your nose, as he kept up the gentle rhythm. His hand never left your belly, stroking it with the same tenderness with which he stroked your face. With every movement he asked: are you all right? is this good? can I continue? And each answer came in the tightening of your hands, in the parting of your lips, in the happiness in your eyes.
The pleasure grew slowly between you, and Valarr felt his body begin to tremble, felt the limits of his self-control approaching, but he did not speed up. He wanted this to last, wanted to stay there, wrapped in you, feeling you, loving you, for as long as possible.
"Valarr," you murmured, his name escaping your lips like a prayer. "Please."
He didn't need to ask what you wanted. He knew. And he moved a little faster, a little deeper, his lips finding yours as you came undone beneath him, your body trembling, your moan muffled against his mouth. He followed you moments later, a hoarse sigh escaping his lips as he lost himself in you, in the warmth, in the love, in the certainty that this moment was sacred.
For a long time, you lay in silence, your bodies still intertwined, your breathing gradually calming. Valarr rested his forehead against your shoulder, feeling the rhythm of your heart slow beneath his cheek.
His hand rested on your belly, and he felt the weak movement of the baby against his palm, little kicks.
"He's strong," Valarr murmured, a smile forming on his lips.
"She," you corrected, with a tired smile. "Alysanne."
Valarr laughed softly, the sound vibrating against your body, and you were quiet for a moment, your hand finding his on your belly.
"Valarr," you began. "What would happen if you weren't perfect?"
The question caught him off guard, and he hesitated, thinking about the answer.
"The realm needs a king who knows what he's doing," he replied finally. "It can't afford an imperfect king."
"But all kings are imperfect," you reflected, your voice a whisper in the darkness. "Your grandsire was imperfect, many others were, and yet they are remembered as great kings. Why? Because they tried, and they loved their kingdoms and their families."
Valarr didn't answer immediately.
"Perhaps," he said finally. "Perhaps you're right."
"I'm always right," you said, and he could hear the smile in your voice. "You should know that by now, after all these years."
He laughed again, and the laugh seemed to dissolve the last traces of tension still lingering in his body.
"Come," you said, pulling him closer to you. "Sleep. Tomorrow is another day."
He closed his eyes, feeling your breath against his chest, feeling the warmth of your body, feeling the peace that only you seemed able to offer him. The realm was still there, waiting for him, the councillors, the petitions, the problems that seemed never-ending. But that night, at least, he was not carrying it all alone.
You didn't mean to fall in love with the Red Hood.
It crept up on you slowly, like the cold seeping through the cracks of your shitty apartment windows during a Gotham winter. You didn't notice it happening until it was already too late, until your heart was already racing every time you heard the sharp rap of knuckles on your fire escape, until your hands already knew the geography of his wounds before you even looked at them.
He was terrifying. That was the first thing you noticed that first night, when he crashed through your bathroom window, blood pouring from a bullet wound in his shoulder and a snarl on his lips. The white-out lenses of his helmet were inhuman, unreadable, like staring into a sharkâs eyes. The red bat symbol on his chest mocked everything it was supposed to represent. This was not a hero. This was something darker, something dangerous.
But then he'd spoken.
"Don't scream," he'd rasped, his voice distorted by the modulator but still somehow recognizably human. "I'm not going to hurt you. I need... I need help."
And you, against every instinct of self-preservation, had helped him.
That should have been the end of it. A one-time thing. A moment of madness that you could chalk up to shock and adrenaline and the general insanity of living in Gotham.
But he kept coming back.
And somehow, impossibly, you started to look forward to it.
It wasn't just the excitement, though that was certainly part of it. There was something addictive about being the one person the Red Hood trusted with his vulnerability. You'd seen him at his weakest, bleeding, broken, barely conscious, and he'd never once raised a hand against you or raised his voice at you, even when you did a bad job at patching him up. He was gentle with you in a way that seemed to surprise even himself, his gloved fingers careful as they brushed against your skin.
He asked you questions. About your day, your job, your childhood. He remembered the things you told him. He brought you coffee sometimes, a peace offering for the blood he inevitably spilled on your floor. He made you laugh with dry, sarcastic observations about the absurdity of Gotham's criminal underworld.
And he touched your face. Every time he left. A single, deliberate gesture that left you breathless and confused and aching for more.
You knew it was wrong. You knew he was dangerous, that he'd killed people, that he was probably going to get you killed just by association. But when he looked at you through that helmet, you felt seen in a way you never had before.
You were falling in love with a ghost, and you didn't know how to stop.
It was raining. Of course it was raining. This was Gotham, and the city seemed to have a personal vendetta against anyone trying to have a halfway decent day.
You'd ducked into a cramped little used bookstore in the East End, one of those places that smelled of old paper, dust, and the faint ghost of someone's pipe tobacco from three decades ago. The owner, an ancient woman named Gertrude who seemed to communicate through grunts and pointed fingers, barely glanced up from her crossword puzzle as the bell above the door chimed.
You were there for a specific book. Slaughterhouse-Five. You'd been meaning to read it for years, and something about the relentless misery of Gotham's autumn had put you in the mood for Vonnegut's particular brand of fatalistic humor.
You found the V section easily enough, your fingers trailing along the cracked spines until you located it. But as you reached for the book, a voice spoke from behind you.
"You'd probably like Brave New World better."
You startled, spinning around to find yourself face-to-face with a man who looked like he'd stepped out of a particularly moody noir film. He was tall, very tall, with shoulders that seemed to fill the narrow aisle between the bookshelves. His black hair was damp from the rain, with a striking white streak at the front falling across his forehead. He had a jawline that could cut glass, a nose that had clearly been broken at least once, and eyes the color of a calm pine forest on a foggy day.
He was holding a stack of books that would have made your arms ache just looking at them. Dostoevsky. Austen. A worn copy of The Art of War. A collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry. The contrast was so absurd it was endearing.
"I'm sorry?" you managed, your brain still catching up to the fact that a very attractive stranger was giving you unsolicited literary advice.
He shifted his weight, looking almost embarrassed. "I just meanâŠÂ Slaughterhouse-Five is good. It's great, actually. But it's also⊠bleak. Deterministic. So it goes, and all that." He gestured vaguely with one hand, nearly dropping his books in the process. "Brand New Day has more hope in it and actually lets the characters push back against the idea that they are trapped by what happened to them."
You blinked at him. This was not the kind of conversation you expected to have in a dusty bookstore on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
"That's⊠a very passionate defense of a book I've never read," you said slowly.
A flush crept up his neck. He looked down at his stack of books as if they might offer him an escape route. "Sorry. I get carried away. It's a problem."
"No, it's⊠refreshing." You found yourself smiling, despite the rain soaking through your shoes and the general misery of the day. "Most people in this city barely look up from their phones long enough to notice the world is ending around them. It's nice to meet someone who actually has their own opinions about things."
He looked back up at you, and for a moment, something flickered in those green eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or wariness. Like he wasn't used to people being kind to him.
"I'm Jason," he said finally, shifting his books to free up a hand.
You told him your name, shaking his hand. His grip was warm and calloused, his fingers rough against your palm. He held on for just a beat longer than necessary, as if he was testing the reality of the moment.
After that first meeting, you kept running into him. Or rather, he kept finding you.
The first time was at a coffee shop three days later. You were hunched over your laptop, trying to meet a deadline, when a shadow fell over your table.
"This seat taken?"
You looked up to find Jason standing there, holding two cups of coffee. He looked slightly less disheveled than he had in the bookstore; his hair was dry, at least, but there was still something rough around the edges about him. A faint bruise on his jaw that you didn't remember from before. Dark circles under his eyes that suggested sleep was a luxury he rarely indulged in.
"Jason?" You couldn't hide your surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"Getting coffee," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "This place has the best cold brew in the East End." He paused, then added, almost shyly, "I saw you through the window. Thought I'd say hi."
You gestured to the empty chair across from you. "Hi."
He sat down, sliding one of the cups towards you. "I didn't know what you liked, so I got you a latte. If you hate it, I'll drink it."
"It's perfect," you said, wrapping your hands around the warm cup. "Thank you."
That was the beginning of a pattern. Jason would show up at the coffee shop when you were there. He'd bring you books he thought you'd like, annotated with his messy handwriting in the margins. He'd walk you home after dark, his presence a solid, reassuring wall between you and the dangers of the city.
He never talked much about himself. You knew he had a complicated family. You knew he'd grown up in the Narrows, one of Gotham's roughest neighborhoods. You knew he'd been through something terrible, something he hinted at but never fully explained, that had left him with nightmares and a tendency to check for exits in every room he entered.
But you also knew he made you laugh. That he argued with you about movies with the same passion he brought to literary debates. That he remembered small details about your life you would briefly mention like your favorite author, your hatred of cinnamon, the name of your childhood pet, with a startling precision.
And you knew that when he looked at you, sometimes, there was something in his eyes that made your heart stutter in your chest. Something tender and desperate and achingly vulnerable, but he was still a mystery.Â
But Jason was different; Jason was real in a way that Red Hood never was.
It gnawed at you constantly, a relentless voice in the back of your mind that whispered accusations every time you were with one of them.
You're lying to Jason, it would say when the Hood was in your apartment, bleeding on your floor. You're hiding this from him. You're betraying his trust.
You're lying to the Hood, it would say when Jason held your hand on a walk through the park. You're keeping secrets from him. You're not the person he thinks you are.
You were torn in half, stretched between two men who couldn't have been more different and yet somehow both felt like home. You loved Jason's softness, his humor, the way he made you feel safe. But you craved the Hood's intensity, the danger, the way he made you feel alive.
You hated yourself for it.
You started having nightmares. Terrible dreams where Jason would find out about the Hood and look at you with betrayal in his green eyes. Where the Hood would remove his helmet and reveal a face you didn't recognize, a monster wearing human skin. Where both would turn away from you, leaving you alone in the dark.
You woke up crying more nights than not.
Something had to give. You knew that. The tension was building, a pressure in your chest that threatened to burst at any moment. You couldn't keep living like this, torn between two halves of a whole you didn't understand.
There were times when you almost figured it out.
Like the time Jason quoted a line from The Count of Monte Cristo, a book you'd mentioned to the Hood the night before while you were stitching up a small stab wound. You'd frowned, something telling you at the back of your mind, but then Jason had smiled, and the thought had slipped away.
Or the time the Hood had touched your face, and you'd caught a whiff of something familiar underneath the smell of cordite and blood. Coffee. And a faint hint of caramel. The same coffee Jason always brought you. And a scent of mint gum, the one Jason would always chew.
Your heart had stopped in your chest. For a brief, wild moment, you'd let yourself consider it. Could it be? Jason Todd could be the Red Hood.
But no. It was impossible. Jason was gentle, kind, soft. The Hood was violence incarnate, a killer with a heart of ice. They couldn't be the same person.
Could they?
You pushed the thought away, buried it deep, refused to let it take root. Because if you let yourself believe it, if you let yourself hope, and you were wrong, the disappointment would destroy you.
And if you were right... you didn't know what that would mean. For any of you.
The night it all fell apart started like any other.
Jason was out of town. A "family emergency," he'd said, his voice strained over the phone. You'd told him to take care of himself, to call if he needed anything, and he'd promised to be back soon.
You missed him. That was the truth. The apartment felt empty without his presence, without the sound of his laugh and the warmth of his body next to yours on the couch.
So when the knock came on your fire escape, you felt a terrible, shameful relief. The Hood was here. At least you wouldn't be alone.
But something was wrong from the moment he stepped through the window.
He was moving wrong. His usual predatory grace was gone, replaced by a halting, jerky gait that spoke of pain and guilt. He collapsed into the armchair, his armchair, the one you'd designated as his without ever saying so, with a muffled groan that made your chest ache.
"Are you hurt?" you asked, reaching for your first aid kit.
"Not... not in the way you think," he rasped.
"Let me see."
He didn't answer. Just sat there, his chest heaving, his hands gripping the arms of the chair so tightly you could see the leather of his gloves straining.
"Hood," you said, your voice sharper now. "Let me help you."
"It's not... it's not that kind of wound, beautiful."
"Then what kind is it?"
He was silent for a long moment. The only thing he was doing was looking up at you as you stood across from him. The only sound was the distant wail of a siren and the harsh rasp of his breathing.
Then, slowly, he reached up and began to unclasp his helmet.
The hiss of the pressurized seal was the loudest sound you'd ever heard.
It seemed to echo in the silence of your apartment, a sound that would be burned into your memory forever. The helmet came off with a soft click, and the man underneath
Your world stopped.
You forgot how to breathe. Forgot how to think. Forgot everything except the face staring back at you.
Black hair, damp with sweat, the white streak plastered to his forehead. A strong jaw, stubbled with days of stubble that looked like he just forgot to shave. A nose that had been broken more than once, the crooked bridge you'd traced with your finger so many times. Eyes the color of a pine forest on a foggy day, wide with exhaustion and fear and something that looked terrifyingly like hope.
Jason.
Your Jason.
The man who'd recommended Brand New Day in a dusty bookstore. The man who'd walked you home through the dangerous streets and made you feel safe. The man who'd burned your eggs and quoted poetry and held your hand like you were something precious. Something he could take care of.
The man who'd bled on your floor, night after night, and left you with a ghost's touch on your cheek.
It was him. It was always him.
The realization hit you like a physical slap, stealing the air from your lungs. You stumbled backward, your hip slamming into the coffee table, but you didn't feel the pain. You didn't feel anything except the overwhelming, crushing weight of the truth.
He said your name in a quiet pleading whisper, and his voice, not the Hood's modulated growl, was cracked and broken. "Please. Say something." He reaches out for you
You opened your mouth, but no sound came out. What could you possibly say? What words could encompass the enormity of this moment?
You're the Hood.
You're the man I've been stitching up for months.
You're the man I've been falling in love with, both of you, both versions, and they were the same all along.
You lied to me.
You let me tear myself apart, and you said nothing.
The anger came first. Hot and sharp and blinding, cutting through the shock like a blade.
"You Asshole," you breathed.
He flinched. Flinched, as if you'd struck him.
â I can explainââ he said, your name in a pleading manner.
"Explain?" The word came out as a yell, raw and unhinged. "Explain what, Jason? Explain how you've been living a double life? Explain how you've been sneaking into my apartment at all hours, bleeding on my floor, letting me patch you up, and then sitting across from me at coffee shops pretending to be normal?"
You were shaking. Your whole body was trembling with the force of your rage; your hands balled into fists at your sides.
"Do you have any idea what you've done to me?" you demanded. "Do you have any idea what it's been like, thinking I was in love with two different people? And hating myself for it? Feeling like a monster because I couldn't choose between the man who made me feel safe and the vigilante who made me feel alive?"
He opened his mouth to speak, but you weren't done.
"I've been tearing myself apart for months, Jason. Months of guilt and confusion and self-loathing. Months of nightmares where I lose both of you. Months of wondering what the hell is wrong with me that I can't just pick one and be happy."
Tears were streaming down your face now, hot and angry. "And the whole time, it was you. Both. You let me suffer, and you said nothing!" you yelled at him.
"I know," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I know, and I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix this!" you shouted. "Sorry doesn't undo all the nights I cried myself to sleep because I thought I was a horrible person for loving two men at once! Sorry doesn't erase the fact that you've been lying to me since the day we met!"
"I was trying to protect you."
The words hit you like a slap. You stared at him, dumbfounded.
"Protect me?" you repeated. "Protect me from what, Jason? From the truth? From you?"
"Yes!" He surged to his feet; his face contorted with anguish. "From all of it! From the Hood, from the killing, from the enemies I've made, from the target that's been on my back since ive come back!"
He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, his hands shaking at his sides.
"Do you think I wanted this?" he demanded. "Do you think I enjoyed lying to you? Watching you struggle, knowing I could end your pain with a single sentence, but being too much of a coward to do it?"
"Why didn't you?" you shot back. "If you knew how much I was suffering, why didn't you just tell me?"
"Because I was terrified!" The words exploded out of him, raw and desperate. "Because I knew, IÂ knew that the moment you found out the truth, you'd look at me differently. You'd see the monster instead of the man. You'd realize that Jason Todd is just a mask the Red Hood wears to pretend he's human."
He laughed, a bitter, broken sound. "And I was right, wasn't I? Look at your face. You can barely stand to look at me."
"That's notâ"
"Don't." He held up a hand, cutting you off. "Don't lie to me. I've been lied to enough for one lifetime."
He looked away, his jaw tight, and for the first time you saw the weight he'd been carrying. The exhaustion. The loneliness. The desperate, aching need to be seen as something other than a weapon.
"I fell in love with you," he said quietly. "As Jason. The first time we met, in that bookstore, when you looked at me like I was just a person... I knew I was done for."
He turned back to you, and the pain in his eyes was almost unbearable.
"And then, that night, when I stumbled through your window as the Hood, bleeding out and half-dead... you saved me. You didn't know who I was, didn't know what I'd done, and you still helped me. You treated me like I was worth saving."
His voice cracked. "And I fell in love with you all over again. As the Hood. As the monster."
He took a step toward you, his movements slow and careful, like he was approaching a scared animal.
"You were never in love with two people. You were in love with me. Just me. All the broken, contradictory pieces of me, that I am giving you.â
You stared at him, your chest heaving, tears still streaming down your face. The anger was still there, burning hot in your veins, but underneath it was something else. Something softer. Something that felt terrifyingly like hope.
"You're an idiot," you whispered.
He blinked. "What?"
"You're an idiot, Jason Todd." You wiped at your eyes with the back of your hand, smearing tears and snot across your face. "You think I fell in love with a monster? You think I spent months stitching you up and making you coffee and listening to your stupid jokes because I was afraid of you?"
You stepped closer, closing the distance between you until you were inches apart.
"I fell in love with the ghost," you said, your voice shaking. "And I fell in love with the man. And they were both you. They were always you."
You reached up, your fingers trembling, and touched his face. The stubble on his jaw. The crooked bridge of his nose. The lines of exhaustion around his eyes.
"Does that sound like someone who can't stand to look at you?" you asked softly.
He stared at you, his storm-grey eyes wide and disbelieving, and whispered your name.
"I'm still mad at you," you said, your voice breaking. "I'm so mad, Jason. You let me suffer. You let me think I was crazy. You should have told me."
"I know."
"But I understand why you didn't." You swallowed hard. "And I... I don't want to lose you. Version of you. I want all of it. The good and the bad. The man and the crime-fighting lord."
A tear slipped down his cheek. Then another. His face crumpled, and he pulled you into his arms, holding you so tightly you could barely breathe.
"I'm sorry," he choked out, burying his face in your hair. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I should have trusted you. I should have told you sooner."
"It's okay," you whispered, clinging to him. "It's okay.â
He pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy.
"You still want me?" he asked, and the vulnerability in his voice broke your heart. "Even knowing everything? Even knowing what I've done?"
You cupped his face in your hands, forcing him to meet your gaze.
"I love you, Jason Todd," you said firmly. "All of you. The bookstore coffee guy and the crime lord. The man who burns my eggs and the masked man who bleeds on my floor. I love every piece of you."
He stared at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Then he kissed you.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't soft. It was desperate and hungry and full of all the things he couldn't say. His hands fisted in your shirt, pulling you impossibly closer, as if he was afraid, you'd disappear if he let go.
You kissed him back with equal fervor, pouring months of confusion and longing and frustrated love into the press of your lips against his. The taste of salt from his tears mixed with the copper tang of blood from a split lip, and it was messy and imperfect and perfect.
When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard, your foreheads pressed together.
"I love you too," he whispered. "I love you so much it scares me."
"Good," you said, a watery smile tugging at your lips. "You should be scared. "
He laughed, a real, genuine laugh that lit up his whole face, and you felt something loosen in your chest. Something that had been wound tight for months, waiting for this moment.
You laughed too, and then you were both laughing, clinging to each other in the middle of your tiny apartment, surrounded by first aid kits and the shattered remains of a secret that had nearly destroyed you both.
â«â«â«â«â«â« â«â«â«â«â«â« â«â«â«â«â«â« â«â«â«â«â«â«
Later, much later, after the tears had dried and the explanations had been given and the apologies had been made, you lay tangled together on your couch. His armor was gone, discarded in a pile by the door, and he was wearing a pair of spare sweatpants he had left one night and a t-shirt that was yours that was too small for his broad shoulders.
He looked softer like this. Human. Vulnerable.
"You're staring," he said, not opening his eyes.
"I'm processing," you replied. "Give me a minute."
He cracked one eye open, a small smile playing on his lips. "Processing what?"
"The fact that my boyfriend is the most feared crime lord in Gotham." You paused. "And that he has terrible taste in books."
He snorted. "My taste in books is impeccable. You're just mad because I was right about Brand New Day.â
You were quiet for a moment, just looking at him. At the face you'd learned to love twice over, in two different lives.
"What happens now?" you asked finally.
He sighed, his thumb rubbing slow circles on the back of your hand. "Now, we figure it out. Together. No more secrets, no more lies. Just... us."
"That sounds nice," you said softly.
"It does," he agreed. "Terrifying, but nice."
You smiled, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips. "I can work with terrifying."
He grinned, pulling you closer. "Good. Because I'm not going anywhere."
And for the first time in months, you believed it.
WARNINGS: MDNI, smut, p in v, unprotected sex, riding, whiny gwayne, sub!gwayne, dom!reader, slight dirty talking, porn no plot, lmk if I missed something
A/n: nothing just a short dirty thing because I miss him already
masterlist | wc: 1k
âFUCK, YOUâRE doing so good, my love." Gwayne's voice was a ragged breath, pushing against his lips to come out.
You moaned loudly, resting your hands on the soft skin of his muscular thighs. Your nails gripped hard, drawing red lines on it that made him cry out. You hips shuddered, you could feel his hard length throbbing inside you. Your walls clenched around him, as whiny breaths came out of his glistening lips at every roll of your hips. Leaning down, you captured him in a passionate kiss, pressing your breasts on his sweaty chest. "Do you like it? Do you like being inside me?" You whispered heatedly against his mouth before starting to ride him with more intensity, finding a steady pace.
"Gods yes, I love being inside you." Gwayne groaned, his large hands gripping the fat of your backside as he guided your movements. He thrusted up to meet each roll of your hips with a desperate whine, burying himself deeper and deeper into your welcoming cunt. It was so warm he could barely open his pretty eyes to watch you, so warm he didn't want to ever let go. "Soâ so perfect and warm around me."
His blue eyes shined with glistening tears, roaming all over your body in hunger, from your bouncing breasts to where you were joined. The area was wet, covered in your shared essences. He leaned up, chasing one of your nipples between his teeth, sucking and nibbling gently while one hand slid around to grope your ass. Gwayne panted against your skin, his mouth greedy on your soft skin. The bed creaked beneath you as your passion intensified, sweat-slicked bodies moving together in a dance of pleasure.
You cried out, feeling his pulsing cock grinding against your insides at every roll of your body, sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core. Your inner muscles fluttered and clenched around him, drawing him in even deeper like a vice. "Look how pretty you are under me." you keened, rolling your hips faster and harder. The obscene sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the room along with your wanton moans. Your nails raked down Gwayne's chest as you rode him with wild abandon, chasing his mouth once again. Leaning down, you crashed your lips against his in a searing kiss, all tongue and teeth, muffling his loud moans. "My pretty boy."
He returned the fierce kiss with equal fervor, his tongue dancing and twining with yours as he swallowed your words. Your scent enveloped him in a lavender haze, make his head spinning and his heart racing. Gwayne's belly was filled with the most lively and sweet butterflies, tickling and dancing against his insides. His fingers dug into the supple flesh of your rear, kneading and squeezing as he helped guide your increasingly frantic movements. "Mmph... oh fuck..." Gwayne broke the kiss to gasp out a cry, his face flushed red and eyes glazed over with lust. He arched his back against you, pushing his hips up to meet your downward thrusts, burying himself to the hilt inside your tight heat. "I need to cum. Please, please, please make me cum!" One hand released its grip on your ass to slide up your spine, coming to rest at the nape of your neck. He looked at you with a frown, tears finally sliding from his pretty blue eyes.
You felt his desperation, his urgency, his need for release. It spurred you on, making you move faster and harder. Your hand pressed against his chest, pushing him to the mattress, hips slamming down onto him with enough force to rock the bed. "Do you want to cum?" you chuckled, your voice husky with desire.
"Yes! Gods yes, I want to cum so badly!" Gwayne nearly sobbed, his body trembling beneath you as you rode him mercilessly. Sweat dripped down his temples, matting his reddish hair to his forehead. His cock throbbed almost painfully inside you, the base already starting to swell as his orgasm approached. "Please, my love, I'm so close. Don't stop, don't ever stop!"
He wrapped one of his hands around your waist to pull you impossibly closer, while the other flew to your breasts, cupping and massaging the soft mounds roughly, thumbs and forefingers pinching and tugging at your hardened nipples. Gwayne threw his head back against the pillow, exposing the column of his throat to your hungry eyes as he let out a guttural moan.
"Then cum for me, Gwayne. Let go and fill me." you commanded, your voice sweet honey into his ears. You could feel his member pulsing inside you, stretching you deliciously. Your own peak was fast approaching, your walls beginning to quiver and clench around his thick shaft. You leaned down, capturing his lips in a bruising kiss, swallowing his cries of ecstasy as you continued to grind against him relentlessly.
With a strangled cry, Gwayne came undone. His hips bucked erratically as he spilled himself deep inside you, his hot seed painting your inner walls white. "Fuck!" He screamed into your neck, his arms wrapping around you tightly as if afraid you might disappear. His cock jerked and pulsed with each wave of his intense climax, prolonging both of your pleasure. Gwayne's entire body shook and trembled through the aftershocks, spurred by the sheer intensity of his release. Tears streamed freely down his face, overwhelmed by emotion and physical bliss. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
You held him close, your own walls fluttering and milking him for every last drop. As the waves of pleasure began to subside, you peppered his face with soft kisses: his cheeks, his nose, his tear-stained eyes. "I've got you." you murmured soothingly, stroking his hair. "You've done so well, my love." Slowly and carefully, you rolled off him and gathered him into your arms, letting him rest his head on your chest. Your fingers traced idle patterns on his sweat-dampened skin as his spent still leaked from your dripping cunt.
â Okay, in this case. Basis is that you're probably skewing towards working on John side. Wether it be psychically with him on a mission or seprate, maybe a more diplomatic role even. So you're somewhat on Ocelot's side considering all his double-triple agent stuff, but he can't let Volgin know that. He needs to keep the facade up.
â You probably knocked him on his ass like John did and or helped John when he did it. Now he has two people to obsess over. Fun. So the behavior is gonna be similar to how he treats John, but not the exact same.
â Your stuff? Your ammo, weapons, food, trinkets, some of your hair? Um yeah, no, that's his now.. not like you'll likely even notice. Steals it off you when you're unconscious or if you happen to drop it. Excuses it to others as trying to dwindle your supplies and gathering info on the "enemy".
â He's twirling his revolvers somehow even more. He's got two people to impress with them. Watches your reactions. It's also probably a good time to run away or get in an attack.. although he ain't gonna be very pleased about it. Don't surprised if there's a pain in your leg after.
â He's finding an animal to associate you with in his mind. I mean Naked snake is well, a snake. Whatever animal it is they become a favorite. Gets livid if someone kills the animal too, what it was trying to them, well they should've let it. Also may try to gift you said animal.
â You may also feel eyes on your back. Ocelot or one of his unit keeping an eye on you. There's a good chance you might spot them, you might not, Adam can be good at stealth. Key word can. He can also trip and knock into several things and then that results in an akward moment where he shoots at you before scampering off. Embarrassing.
â Speaking of shooting, he does it a lot. Trying to challenge you. A rematch, goad you into fighting him. Shooting just past your head, or just by your feet, ricocheting bullets, taunting you. Come oonn! Fight him! He's worthy of your attention. He's worthy of your fight. If he proves he can beat you, surely that proves he can protect you, no? Any time you reciprocate the attacks with your own he gets a rush.
â Gets fiercely angry if someone that isn't him actually manages to injure you. It should've been him dammit! They don't even know what they're doing. They'll end up killing you. Tries to use it as an opportunity to capture you. To which he'll immediately patch you up. Although trying to keep what he's doing away from certain prying eyes.
â If Volgin captures you he's panicking. Trying to insit he takes over interrogations with you. By himself. He'll unfortunately still have to hurt you to sell it to Volgin. He'll be careful. He promises. He's slow and methodical about it, teasing and taunting, backhanded compliments, and borderline worship. It's hard to tell how he feels about you with how flippant he is with his words.
â He is nervous, you can just barely see it on his face, hands shakey as he inflicts the next cut after another. Brows furrowed slightly as he adjusts the electricity voltage. Carefully making sure he dosen't go over.. he already messed up with John and the whole accidentally shooting out his eyeball thing. He dosen't wanna do that to you too.
â Every successful cut he pries and messes with. Hands running over and pressing on them, maybe even breifly kissing them. Knowing that he did it. Not Volgin, not Eva, not anyone else. In a way that didn't permanently scar you either. He takes sick pride in it. He believes the only one who can torture you "properly". Whatever the hell that means
â Definitely putting a tracker on you at some point. Chipped like a dog so he can keep any eye on you. What if you need help and snakes not there?? He can't have you dying on him because of something stupid like getting lost in the jungle. Anytime you're in danger or gettinf attacked, suddenly some men are retreating or dropping like flies, maybe if you look quickly enough you can get a glimpse of someone moving around at a high point. You're injured and passed out? Even if snake didn't find you, you're all patched up and somewhere else.
â There may be a turn where he won't kidnap as much. You, snake, and by proxy him still have a job to do. He's supposed to aid in that. As much he'd love to just snatch you up constantly and keep you the CIA is likely to complain a bit about it. He'll make a more permanent arrangement after you complete your goal.
â Just keep an eye. You and John won't be the only one going to the states. A certain cat is stalking close behind.
genre: fluff, domestic softness, married idiots in love
warnings: none really â one (1) mention of the coming war, some mild kissing, gwayne being insufferable about his hair
summary: a morning in the gardens beneath OldTown, a basket of peaches, and a knight who has never once in his life won an argument with his wife.
(set a year or so before the dance. everyone is alive. everyone is happy. we do not speak of what comes next.)
âââŠâąâŠâ„âąâŠ
The gardens of Oldtown were at their best in the hour after dawn, and you had learned in two years of marriage that you were the only person in the whole keep who believed it.
The stone paths were still dark with dew. The bees had not properly woken. Fog came up off the Honeywine in long grey ribbons and caught in the myrtle hedges, and the great tower itself stood behind you with its beacon gone dim and pale, the way a candle looks when someone opens the shutters. Everything smelled of wet earth and lemon blossom and, faintly, of the sea.
You had a basket on your arm, half-full of peaches, and grass stains on the hem of a gown that had cost more than a horse.
"Now, my lady," came a voice from the top of the terrace steps, "I have been told a great many things about you, but no one warned me you were a common orchard thief."
You did not turn around. You had known him by the sound of his boots on the steps for a year and a half now; Gwayne walked like a man who suspected there might be an audience.
"They're my peaches.â
âThey are my father's peaches."
"Your father is in King's Landing," you said, choosing another, turning it in the light to check the blush of it. "The peaches have been left in my care. I am inspecting them. Rigorously."
"You've eaten two already."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Because I've been standing here since the bell," said Ser Gwayne Hightower, coming down the steps in that ambling unhurried way of his, "watching my wife commit crimes."
You turned.
He had come straight from the yard, which meant he had come straight from the yard and then gone somewhere to make himself presentable about it, because his hair was damp and combed back off his brow and his shirt was clean and open at the throat, and no man alive had ever left a morning's swordwork looking like that by accident. There was a bruise blooming just under his jaw. He was grinning about it.
"You've been watching me for an hour," you said.
"A quarter hour."
"An hour, Gwayne. The bell rang at dawn."
He came to a stop in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your chin, and he did not deny it. He looked down at the basket instead, took out a peach, considered it with the gravity of a maester examining a wound, and bit into it.
"Well," he said, with his mouth full. "Now I'm complicit."
"You're a knight of the Reach."
"I am. And this is the finest fruit in the Reach, and my wife stole it, and I intend to eat the evidence." He wiped his thumb along his lip. "Nobody hangs for a peach."
"Your father might."
"My father would write a letter about it," Gwayne said. "Six pages. With citations."
You laughed before you could help it, and he looked so pleased with himself, the way he always did, like a boy who had just cleared a fence he wasn't sure of. That was the thing nobody told you about him, back when your marriage was still ink and seals and two families shaking hands over your head. They told you he was vain. They told you he was clever and quick and difficult to pin down. Nobody told you he would look at you like that when you laughed, as if the sound were a coin he'd found in the street.
"Come," you said, and hooked your free arm through his. "Walk with me before the fog goes."
The path curved down past the fountain and under the arch of climbing roses that your good-mother had planted before she died, white ones, heavy-headed, dropping petals into the water. Gwayne finished the peach and threw the stone into the hedge with the underhand flick of a man who had spent his life throwing things into hedges.
"That'll grow," you said.
"Then Oldtown will have one more peach tree and my father will have one more thing to be irritated by. Everyone profits."
"You're very cheerful this morning."
"I'm very cheerful most mornings."
"You are cheerful in company," you corrected. "This morning you're cheerful with me, which is different, which means something has happened. Did you win?"
He put a hand to his chest. "You wound me. You think I only smile when I've won."
"Gwayne."
"I won," he admitted immediately. "Twice. Ser Robin has developed a habit of dropping his shoulder before he comes over the top, and I have been very patient about not telling him, and this morning I collected on my patience."
"That's cheating."
"That's observation."
"It's cheating dressed for a feast."
"Which is what all the best things are," he said, and stole a second peach out of your basket without breaking stride.
You let him. You had learned to let him. In the first months you had counted every little liberty he took as a battle lost, because you had come into this marriage braced for something; you weren't sure what, only that women told you to brace and it had taken you the better part of a year to understand that Gwayne Hightower was not laying siege to you. He was just like this. He took peaches. He talked through the septon's sermons under his breath. He put his cold feet on your legs in the night and pretended to be asleep when you shoved him. He was the least dangerous man in Westeros and he was armed at all times.
You reached the low wall at the garden's southern edge, where the ground fell away and the whole of the city lay out below you in the mist: the tangle of roofs, the river, the Citadel's blunt towers, the masts down at the harbour crowded together like a burnt forest. Somewhere a dog was barking. Somewhere else, someone was singing badly.
Gwayne set his hands on the wall and breathed out.
"Say it," you said.
"Say what?"
"Whatever you climbed all the way down here to say. You've been circling it since the peaches."
He glanced sideways at you. Green eyes, Hightower green, the same as his sister's, though on Alicent they always looked like a held breath and on him they looked like a joke you hadn't heard yet.
"You're a witch," he said. "I married a witch. My father will write a letter about that too."
"Gwayne."
"There's a letter from King's Landing."
Your stomach did the small ugly drop it always did now. Two years ago the words there's a letter from King's Landing would have meant nothing to you at all. Now everyone said them the way they said there's a storm coming in off the sea; flatly, and while already looking for the shutters.
"From your father."
"From my sister, in fact, which is worse, because my father tells me what to do and my sister tells me how she is." He turned around and leaned back against the wall with his elbows on it, tipping his face up to the thin sun. "She says she is very well. She says the children are very well. She says the king's health is much improved, which is the sort of thing you write when a man cannot hold a spoon."
"Gwayne."
"I know." He shut his eyes. "I know."
You said nothing for a moment. Below, the mist was pulling apart over the river.
"Does she ask you to come?"
"She never asks. That's the trick of her. She writes six pages about the weather and the septs and how Daeron is growing, and then at the very bottom, in a hand so small you'd think she was ashamed of it, she writes, it would gladden me to see you." He opened one eye. "Which is asking. That's my sister asking with both hands."
"And your father?"
"Oh, my father asks like a battering ram. His last letter said, and I quote, I trust the pleasures of Oldtown have not made you soft."
You considered this. "Have they?"
"Grievously," said Gwayne. "I sleep on feathers. I eat three times a day. I have a wife who steals fruit for me. I am the softest man in the Reach and I intend to defend the title."
"Then we shan't go."
He was quiet. That was the thing that told you it was serious; Gwayne Hightower quiet, for the length of three heartbeats, with the sun on his throat.
"Not yet," he said at last. "Not this year, I think."
"Not this year," you agreed.
"They'll want me eventually. When my father runs out of Hightowers who'll answer him and comes back round to the one who won't stop making jokes." He said it lightly, and it landed the way a light thing lands when it's made of iron. "But not this year. This year I'm going to stand in this garden and watch my wife rob an orchard, and if my father wants an accounting of my time, he may have it."
"He'll be delighted."
"He'll be apoplectic," Gwayne said, brightening. "Write it down, would you? Ser Gwayne rose at dawn, defeated Ser Robin twice, ate two peaches he did not pay for, and spent the remainder of the morning being soft at his wife. Send it under seal. Make it look important."
"You are a terrible son."
"I am the firstborn son," he said. "It's practically a vocation."
You made him carry the basket after that, because he was there and because he complained about it in a way that clearly meant he wanted to be asked, and you walked back up through the terraces to the little walled garden your good-mother had called the Quiet Court a square of grass and old fig trees with a bench nobody ever sat on, because it faced the wrong way for the view and the right way for the sun.
You sat on the grass instead. You always sat on the grass. Gwayne dropped down beside you with the graceless thump of a man in his own home, stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankle, and put his head in your lap without asking, as though it were a chair that belonged to him.
"Comfortable?" you said.
"Extremely. Don't move."
"I have to move eventually."
"No, you don't. I'll have your meals brought."
You snorted, and set your hand in his hair, and he made a small pleased sound in the back of his throat that he would have denied under torture.
The sun was properly up now. It came down warm through the fig leaves and made moving coins of light all over him, over his shirt and his forearms and the bruise under his jaw, and the bees had woken and were going seriously about their business in the lavender, and the whole garden hummed with it. You could hear the Citadel bells, far off. You could hear a maid laughing somewhere up in the keep.
"Tell me something," you said.
"Anything. I have a great many opinions."
"When they told you who you were marrying⊠what did you think?"
He opened his eyes. "That's a dangerous question."
"It's a very safe question. You're lying in my lap. I have all the power here."
"You have all the power," he agreed, "at all times, in all places, which is a matter I intend to raise with the septons." He was quiet a moment, and then, in a slightly different voice: "I thought, well, that's that, then."
"Charming."
"No â listen." He shifted so he could look up at you properly. "You must understand what it is to be the firstborn son of Otto Hightower. Everything about my life was decided by other people in rooms I wasn't in. My sister was decided. My name, my knighting, my horse was decided. So when they said you will marry her, I thought: well, that's that, then. Another thing that happened to me."
"That's worse than charming. That's tragic."
"And then," he went on, ignoring you entirely, "you came to Oldtown, and on your third night here you told me at table, in front of my septa that my hair was too long for a fighting man and that vanity was one of the seven kinds of sin, though you couldn't recall which."
You winced. "I was nervous."
"You were magnificent. My septa choked on her wine. And I sat there and I thought, oh no." He grinned. "Oh no. She's going to be the great catastrophe of my life."
"And was I?"
"You are," he said. "Ongoing. Sustained. No end in sight."
You looked down at him for a moment, at the sun-coins sliding over his stupid handsome face, and then you leaned over and kissed him, upside down and badly, and he laughed into it and caught the back of your neck with one hand as if to say yes, that, do that again.
When you sat up your hair had come loose on one side. He looked immensely satisfied about it.
"Your hair is still too long," you said.
"My hair is perfect."
"It's not."
"It is better than yours."
"Gwayne."
"I'm sorry, my love, but it simply is. The gods gave me one gift and I am obliged to be a good steward of it." He settled back down. "Criston Cole wears his cropped like a scullion and look at the state of the man's disposition."
"You've never met Criston Cole."
"I've heard about Criston Cole. That's worse."
You said nothing. You reached over, very quietly, and picked a stem of lavender.
Gwayne, eyes closed, said, "What are you doing."
"Nothing."
"You're doing something. I can hear you doing something."
"You cannot hear nothing."
"I've been married two years," he said. "I can hear nothing better than any man in the Seven Kingâ don't."
You had already begun. You took a thin section of hair at his temple and started plaiting the lavender into it, and he made a noise of pure theatrical anguish and did not, you noticed, move his head one inch off your lap.
"This is an assault," he informed the fig trees. "This is an assault upon my person."
"Hold still."
"On the honour of House Hightower."
"You'll look lovely."
"I will look like a hedgeâ"
"Gwayne."
He held still.
You worked slowly, because it was slow work and because there was no reason on earth to hurry. Lavender, then a sprig of rosemary because it smelled good, then three of the little white roses from the arch, snapped off short. His hair was fine and slippery and hard to keep hold of, which he would have been delighted to hear, so you didn't say it. Somewhere in the middle of it his breathing went long and even, and you thought he'd genuinely fallen asleep until he said, without opening his eyes.
"Are you happy?"
Your hands paused. "That's a dangerous question," you said.
"It's a very safe question. My head's in your lap. You have all the power."
You looked down at him. There were fine lines at the corners of his eyes now that hadn't been there when you married from squinting into the sun, from laughing, from a life spent mostly outdoors and mostly amused. There was a white knot of a scar through one eyebrow that he claimed was from a boar and that his squire claimed was from a door.
"Yes," you said.
He waited.
"Truly, yes," you said. "Which frightens me a little."
"Why?"
"Because I've read enough songs to know that no one's happy in the middle of a song."
Gwayne opened his eyes. "Then we shan't be in one," he said.
"You can't decide that."
"I can decide a great deal. I've decided about the peaches. I've decided about my father." He reached up and caught your wrist gently, his thumb over the small bones of it and held it there against his chest, where you could feel his heart going along steady and unbothered underneath. "Listen. Somewhere out east there are dragons and there are men writing letters about dragons, and one day someone will come up that road and knock on that door and I will have to go and be a Hightower at them. I know it. You know it. My father has known it since before I was born, I expect; he's a man who plans that far ahead."
"Gwayneâ"
"But that's not today," he said. "Today there's fog on the river and my wife has put a garden in my hair and I have eaten two stolen peaches and won two bouts, and if this is the middle of the song then it's the best part and I refuse to hurry it." He kissed the inside of your wrist, quick, careless, like it was nothing. "That's all. That's my whole philosophy. I've been working on it for years."
"It's a very short philosophy."
"It's a very efficient philosophy," he said. "You could have married a man with a long one and been bored to death by midwinter."
You laughed, and your eyes stung a little, and you covered it by tugging his hair.
"Ow."
"Hold still. I'm nearly done."
When you were done he sat up and shook his head like a dog, and about half of it fell out, which was frankly less than you'd expected.
"Well?" he said, turning his face to give you the good side, which was the same as the other side. "Tell me honestly. Ruined?"
You looked at him. Lavender and rosemary and three white roses, sun through the leaves, grass on his shoulder, that bruise going purple under his jaw.
"You look," you said, "like a maiden in a song."
"Excellent. Which one?"
"The one who gets carried off."
"By whom?"
"By her husband, in a moment, if she doesn't stop talking."
He grinned so wide it must have hurt. "Threats. In my garden."
"My garden. You said so yourself. You've told everyone in Oldtown it's my garden since the day I asked for it."
"I have," he admitted, "because when I say my wife's garden the maesters look at me as though I've done something worthwhile, and I've found I like the feeling." He plucked one of the roses back out of his hair and, with great ceremony, tucked it behind your ear. "There. Now we match. Now nobody can say anything."
"Everybody will say something."
"Let them," said Gwayne Hightower, and kissed you.
It was a slow one this time, unhurried, one hand at your jaw and the other braced in the grass, and you tasted peach and he smelled of lavender and clean linen and horse, and above you the fig leaves shifted and the light moved and the bees kept up their work in the lavender, entirely unimpressed. You had a fistful of his shirt. You did not remember deciding to take it.
Which of course was the exact moment that somebody came through the gate at the far end of the Quiet Court.
"Ser â oh. Oh. Ser, Iâ the master-at-arms saysâ"
Gwayne did not let go of you. He turned his head, with the rosemary sticking out over his ear, and regarded his squire with the calm of a man who had been interrupted in gardens by squires his entire adult life.
"Yes, Willem."
"The master-at-arms says you're wanted in the yard," said Willem, aged fourteen, magenta from the collar up, examining the sky. "He says. He says you promised him. He says you swore."
"Did I swear?"
"You swore on your sword, ser."
"That does sound like me." Gwayne sighed and let his forehead drop against yours for a moment. "The trouble with being charming," he murmured, "is that you make so very many promises."
"Go," you said.
"I don't want to."
"You'll want to in ten minutes. You'll want to enormously. You'll come back at noon and tell me about it at extraordinary length."
"...That's true," he said, wounded by the accuracy of it, and got up.
He brushed the grass off, and put a hand up to his hair, and stopped; you watched him remember what was in it. You watched him weigh it. You watched, delighted, as Ser Gwayne Hightower, first born son of the Hand of the King, decided.
"Willem," he said. "How do I look?"
The boy, trapped, said: "...Very well, ser."
"Very well," Gwayne repeated. "You hear that? Very well. The lad has an eye." He pointed at you as he backed toward the gate. "Noon. Don't eat all the peaches."
"I make no promises."
"You never do. It's the worst thing about you." He was at the gate. He turned, one hand on the stone, sun in his eyes, lavender in his hair, and for a moment; a small one, a moment you would take out and hold a great many times in the years that came after, on the road, in the dark, in rooms full of men shouting about dragons; he just looked at you across the grass, and didn't say anything clever at all.
Then he said, "I love you, my wife," in the offhand way he said everything that mattered, and was gone down the steps two at a time with his squire trotting after him.
You sat back in the grass with the basket in your lap and the rose behind your ear.
The bees went on. The fog burned off the river. Above you the Hightower stood white and enormous against a sky going properly blue at last, and somewhere far away in King's Landing a sick king was being helped to sit up in bed, and a queen was writing six pages about the weather, and none of it, this morning, had reached the gardens.
You ate another peach.
a/n: no i will not be writing the sequel. gwayne stays in the garden. gwayne stays in the garden forever. reblogs and tags are my bread and butter đ€
â summary: no matter how many years of marriage pass, gwayne hightower remains completely defenseless against his lady wife's flirtations and teasing.
â pairing: gwayne hightower x wife!reader
â word count: ~2k
â content: suggestive language, implied marital intimacy, established relationship/married couple, domestic fluff, lots of flirting & teasing, theyre so in love with each other, pda, gwayne blushes a lot, pregnancy, family dinners with daeron & ormund. just a little something to help me cope with the mess that was the finale...
writerâs note: english is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me if there is a grammatical error. hope you like it!
After all these time of marital bliss, Gwayne Hightower should have gotten used to his lady wife by now. Really, he should.
With so many years of marriage, one would think he wouldn't get flustered anymore when you smiled at him a certain way. That he'd know how to respond to your sweet words of praise by now. That he could cope with you leaning in close, adjusting the collar of his tunic, and whispering little sweet things in his ear, without getting tongue-tied and as nervous as a cornered rabbit.
But no.
You still make him blush.
It was almost insulting, really.
Not to you, of course. You find it utterly delightful.
Your little courtship ritual would typically start in the morning.
You're both still tangled together beneath the bedding, lying naked and wrapped up in your own blissful world of love, still floating on the afterglow of last night's wild love-making rounds.Â
Gwayne is still half-asleep, one arm lazily draped around your waist, his fingertips leisurely trailing over your curves, lost in the feeling of your perfect body melting into his.
Your fingers trace lazy, feather-light patterns across his chest, trailing down to the line of his hip where his skin feels warm and soft in the dim morning light.Â
His auburn hair is a mess, his beard slightly unkempt, and there is a faint crease between his brows from sleep, absorbed in some dream world of his own, most likely one where you're right there with him, too. Because, what else could he possibly dream of other than you?
He looks nothing like the man everyone else knows out there in the Realm.
There, in your arms, he simply looks like your husband.
Your handsome husband.
You reach up and brush a stray lock of hair away from his forehead and at that, he reacts immediately, letting out a low, contented hum.
His hand glides down your lower back, caressing your soft flesh appreciatively, always revelling in the sensation of your naked body pressed close to his.
âMmm.â
You smile, âgood morning, handsome.â
His eyes remain closed, âgood morning, love.â
âYou know... I think you're even more beautiful in the morning.â
One blue eye opens slowly at that to find your pretty face smiling innocently.
âWhat?â you ask, your eyes flashing with that mischief he knows all too well.
He sighs, lifting his spare hand to lay it on his face, already blushing. âIt's too early for this.â
You let out a soft laugh, reaching up to gently pry his hand away from his pretty face.
âToo early for what?â you ask him again, even though you already know perfectly well what he means.
âFor you, you wicked girl.â
Despite himself, a dimpled smile spreads across your husband's lips, and your heart melts at such beautiful sight, knowing that you just can't resist to kiss his blushing cheeks multiple times when he does.Â
His smile infectiously expands yours even more, and you climb onto his body, straddling him. His hands instinctively find their way to your thighs, caressing your warm skin as he looks up at you with love eyes.
âThat's hardly an answer,â you remark astutely.
âIt is the only answer you're getting,â he replies, though there is zero bite to his tone.
The blush on his cheeks deepens to a brilliant, furious shade of crimson as you settle over his hips, and of course, he's already halfway hard since your face was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes that morning.
âI suppose that is my fault, too?â you tease, leaning down until your breath warmingly brushes against his parted, rosy lips.
You trace a slow line down his throat with the tip of your nose, reveling in the sudden, sharp intake of air he lets out.
âYou take entirely too much pleasure in tormenting me, my lady,â Gwayne groans, his hands tightening their grip on your thighs, fingers digging softly into your skin, always so needy for you.Â
âTormenting?â You pull back just far enough to look into his brilliant, pleading blue eyes, watching the way his chest heaves beneath you. âIs that what we're calling it now? I thought I was simply fulfilling my marital duties. Showing my husband proper appreciation, just as he deserves.â
Gwayne shifts beneath you, the friction of your bodies driving a low, involuntary hum from the back of his throat.
The flush has spread down his neck now, staining the pale skin of his chest a delightful pink.Â
âOh, you're terrible,â he groans, though his hands slip higher, tracing the curve of your waist to pull you down on him and clashing his lips against yours into a slow, deep, devastating kiss. His lips are warm and desperate, tasting of sleep and sweet familiarity.
When he finally pulls back, his breathing is weak, his dimples peeking out despite his best efforts to look exasperated. âUtterly terrible. Now... are you going to finish making a mockery of me, or are you going to take care of your husband properly, hm?â
The afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows across the stone corridors as Gwayne finally managed to escape his duties. He had spent the better part of the day enduring endless council meetings, the clatter of steel in the training yard, and the tedious posturing of visiting lords. All he wants now is a goblet of wine and quiet moment with you.
Instead, he finds you standing in the crowded solar, surrounded by half a dozen noblewomen and knights, laughing softly at something Lady Redwyne had said.
The moment Gwayne steps over the threshold, his posture straightened out of habitâthe noble Hightower back on display, rigid and composure personified. But then his eyes meet yours across the room, and the guarded edge in his gaze dissolves into pure warmth.
âSer Gwayne,â a young lord calls out, raising a cup. âWe were just hearing of your brilliant maneuvers during last week's tourney. A fierce display on the field, truly!â
Gwayne offers a polite, practiced nod, stepping closer to your side. âYou flatter me, my lord. Simple training and luck.â
âOh, don't let him fool you,â you chime in smoothly, a dangerously sweet smile playing on your lips as you lean into his personal space. You reach out, trailing your fingers through his own and he gives you a squeeze right awayâmaybe out of love, maybe as a warning. Maybe both. âMy husband is far too modest. He was absolute perfection out there. Definitely the most skilled, and the most handsome.â
Gwayne clears his throat, his posture stiffening as he feels that warmth instantly begin to creep up his neck. âMy love, please...â
âNo, really,â you continue, turning your dazzling smile toward the gathered crowd, though from out of the corner of your eye, youâre enjoying the sight of Gwayne's rapidly warming face. âYou should see the way he holds a lance. The massive strength in his shoulders... though, to be fair, I've always said he looks far more handsome when he's taking his armor off after a long day.â
A few quiet giggles erupted from the noblewomen nearby, while a couple of knights snort into their goblets.
Gwayneâs breath hitches. A vibrant, furious crimson flood his cheeks, burning all the way to the tips of his ears. He looks around the room in mild panic, utterly helpless against your public teasing, his sharp-tongued courtly persona completely dismantled in three sentences flat.
âL-Lady wife,â he warns under his breath, his voice dropping an octave as he grabs your wrist, not to pull you away, but to desperately stop you before you said anything worse. âHave mercy.â
âWhat?â you ask innocently, whispering for only him to hear. âI'm just boasting about my handsome man. Unless you'd prefer I show them exactly what those strong hands of yours are capable of?â
Gwayne closes his eyes briefly, letting out a low, defeated sigh. He tightens his grip on your hand, ducking his head to hide his flustered smile from the court, completely speechless once again.
The afternoon sun gently bathes the gardens of Oldtown, casting a warm golden glow over the flowers, as the breeze, bearing the scent of jasmine, eases the dayâs heat. Seated around an elegant stone table, the Hightower family shares a quiet dinner.
Ormund sips slowly from his glass of wine, glancing over some papers between courses, while Daeron methodically cuts a piece of poultry, observing the scene in front of him with that spark of amused resignation that has become his trademark every time he looks at you two.
Youâre sitting next to Gwayne, so close that your skirts get tangled with his legs under the table. His hand rests casually on your thigh, and every time you brush your fingers across the fabric of his doublet, you can feel the mild thrill that courses through his body.
âYou should eat a little more, my love,â he suggests in a honeyed voice, picking up a grape from the silver tray. âThe babe will surely need it.â
You open your mouth obediently, accepting the sweet fruit.
âYou donât have to feed me like a little bird, husband,â you whisper playfully.
He smiles, his hand shifting from your thigh to lovingly caress the rounded curve of your swelling belly. âBut I love taking care of you two.â
The movement of his thumb over your belly is so tender, so steeped in devotion, that it brings a soft, lover's sigh to your lips.
Even with a child on the way, Gwayne hasn't lost an ounce of his endearing susceptibility to you. If anything, the pregnancy has made him twice as attentive and twice as easy to turn into a flustered mess, now that his whole character and physique is evolving and preparing to be a father.
âIs it my fault my husband is so terribly sweet, hm?â you tease softly, leaning up to brush your lips right against the warm skin of his jaw. âOr that he looks so utterly handsome when he's playing the protective, attentive father?â
The heat surges instantly. A brilliant, rosy waves floods Gwayneâs cheeks, blooming rapidly across his cheekbones and spilling down the column of his neck.
He clears his throat, âMy lady, please. We are at the table.â
At the head of the table, Ormund sets his wine glass down on the surface with a sharp but controlled clink, without even looking up from the parchment he is reading.
He rubs the bridge of his nose, exhaling a long, weary breath that speaks of a man who has witnessed this exact routine every single day for years.
âIf youâre going to start feeding each other like two lovebirds in spring, let me know so I can ask for the strongest wine,â remarks the Lord, resting his elbow on the table with a bored demeanor, having grown thoroughly accustomed to such scenes. âSome of us are attempting to to review the city's winter provisions and eat.â
Daeron, for his part, dramatically drops his cutlery and leans back in his chair, letting out a low chuckle.
âYou are swooning like a maiden at her first tourney, uncle,â the young prince chuckles, shaking his head with a grin.
You let out a soft laugh, resting your hand over Gwayne's where it still cradles your bump, feeling the fast pulse in his wrist.
âIgnore them, my love,â you coo, pressing one more lingering kiss to his burning cheek. âI think you're absolute perfection.â
Ashamed, Gwayne closes his eyes with a helpless, dimpled smile breaking through his flustered face as he presses his forehead close to yours, completely defeated by your affection once again.
summary: After a long journey from King's Landing, Gwayne returns to Oldtown, bringing along little Prince Daeron and his dragon egg. Reunited with his bride, Gwayne shares a tender, romantic moment in the nursery as you rock the baby to sleep with a lullaby.
notes: This can also be read as a sequel to my previous work here. Gwayne arrives to Oldtown with baby Daeron, and his lady wife, you, welcome them. Pure Hightower fluff. There will be a part three with a different theme, 3.1k words, no warnings. see the part 3 here and 4 here
characters: Gwayne Hightower, Ormund Hightower, Daeron Targaryen
pairing: Gwayne Hightower x You
As the towering shadow of the Hightower stretched across the streets of Oldtown, the salty breeze rising from the harbor carried the scent of the sea through the avenues. The cityâs distinct air was a world away from the gloomy, treacherous atmosphere of King's Landing. Inside the manse, you sat by the window, your eyes fixed on the grand courtyard where the gates opened. During Gwayneâs long, perilous journey to the Red Keep, your heart had known no peace. You were still a newly-wed bride; the deep, vibrant excitement of being newlyweds and the aching longing for your husband had weighed heavily on your chest for days. You and Gwayne had grown up together, attending tournaments, festivals, and trade pacts side by side. The gods had shown mercy in your fate: what appeared to be an arranged match was actually a genuine marriage of love.
You looked breathtakingly beautiful in your gown of deep green cloth, embroidered with intricate silver thread; yet far more than your beauty, it was the impatient longing and loving light in your eyes that illuminated the room.
Your waiting finally ended with the sound of hooves echoing against the stone streets and the heavy rumble of carriage wheels. The manseâs massive wooden doors groaned open.
The moment you heard those hoofbeats, your heart began to race. Without a second thought, you left your room and hurried down the broad marble staircase of the manse, rushing toward the courtyard. As your skirts glided across the marble steps, your eyes were locked solely on the man dismounting his horse.
Gwayne released the reins from his black stallion and stepped deftly down to the ground, spotting you the very second his feet touched the earth. His faceâweary after days buried under road dust, royal burdens, and heavy armorâlit up in an instant at your sight. The exhaustion in his eyes dispersed like morning mist, replaced by absolute relief. As you ran toward him, he opened his arms wide, utterly indifferent to the cold hardness of his armor or the presence of the surrounding servants.
When you threw your arms around each other, time seemed to stand still. Holding you tightly, he buried his face into the crook of your neck, drawing in a deep, trembling breath to inhale your scent. You wrapped your arms around his neck, melting the longing that had gnawed at your heart for days into his warmth.
"I missed you dearly, husband..." you whispered, your voice quivering slightly with excitement and relief. "I counted every single day since you left, Gwayne. My eyes never left the moonlight, nor our window."
Gwayne pulled back slightly and took your face between his hands. As his thumb gently caressed your cheek, his gaze held the deepest, most protective adoration a devoted husband could feel for his bride. He leaned in and pressed a long, warm kiss to your forehead.
"My beautiful bride..." Gwayne said, his voice thick with desire and tenderness. "Every moment I drew breath in the Red Keep, I thought only of returning to you. To the city, to you, to our home... Your presence alone made these endless roads bearable for me."
Gwayne intertwined his fingers with yours, bringing them to his lips to kiss each of your knuckles one by one. "I promise you, my lady, I will never leave you alone for this long again."
As you smiled at his sweet words, the enchanting bond between you swept away the courtyard's chill. You gazed into each otherâs eyes for a long moment, revived by one another's presence.
Just then, the door of the ornate carriage behind him opened. A serving woman carefully stepped out, holding a tiny infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. Gwayne shifted his gaze from you with a soft smile and placed a hand on your lower back, guiding you gently toward the carriage.
"Iâve brought you Oldtownâs newest guest," Gwayne said in a gentle tone.
Together, you approached the baby. As the servant drew back the cloth covering the swaddle, you saw Daeron inspecting his surroundings with curious blue eyes. The curls peeking out from the swaddle were not Targaryen silver but a bright, auburn, just like Gwayneâs. He waved his tiny hands in the air, smiling innocently.
The sight made your heart melt. You leaned down and touched the babe's cheek. As you extended your finger, Daeron grasped it tightly with his small hands.
"Gods..." you whispered, your eyes shining as you looked at Gwayne. "Gwayne, he looks so much like you. Look at his tiny nose, the color of his hair... It feels less like looking at a prince from the capital and more like looking at you as a babe."
Watching the genuine, motherly affection you showered on the infant, a proud and incredibly sweet smile appeared on Gwayne's face. He leaned over your shoulder to look down at the baby, then brought his hand to rest on your shoulder, gently squeezing it.
"I knew you would welcome him like this," Gwayne said, his voice filled with hope and love. He stroked the baby's hair softly. "Daeron will grow up here, surrounded by your warmth, with us. Far from cold court, as part of a real family..."
Gwayne leaned in closer, whispering as he met your eyes: "This shall be a practice for us, too. When our own children are born, Daeron will make a great older brother to them. Heâll protect them and teach them to run through these streets together."
At Gwayne's mention of "our own children," a sweet feeling touched your heart, and a warm flush rose to your cheeks. Moved by his words, you rested your head against his chest. As Daeron held fast to your finger, Gwayne wrapped his arm securely around your waist.
"This is his home," you said with firm love. You offered the little infant into his uncle's arms.
Gwayne drew you even closer, and together you stepped toward the entrance of the manse with the tiny life cradled between you.
With Gwayne's arm wrapped snugly around your waist, you both looked down at the infant in his arms. Daeron seemed to have built a little throne for himself within Gwayne's broad, safe hold. Just then, the baby reached his tiny hands into the air and caught a lock of hair tumbling over your shoulder. His small fingers wrapped tightly around the silky strand; pulling it gently toward himself, Daeron let out a cheerful, gurgling giggle.
Seeing the sweet scene, Gwayne let out a low, warm laugh. "It seems heâs already made his first conquest," he said, his eyes sparkling.
Smiling, you leaned in and placed your fingers gently over his tiny hands to untangle your hair without hurting him. "Not a very painful conquest, I must say," you whispered merrily, pressing a soft kiss to Daeron's cheek. Your heart swelled as the baby released your hair and tried to touch your face instead. The natural, motherly warmth on your face did not escape Gwayne's notice.
Seeing you embrace the child not with mere formal court courtesy, but with pure affection, Gwayne felt all his inner troubles melt away. Yet another thought lingered in his mind. Tightening his hold on your waist, he leaned closer, his voice turning slightly more serious, though still tender:
"Did my cousin Ormund cause you any trouble?" Gwayne asked, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Bringing a carriage full of palace belongings and a Targaryen prince into the middle of his city couldn't have kept his spirit calm."
You smiled and sighed gently, without taking your eyes off Daeronâs red curls. "Ormund was in his usual state," you replied with a sweet touch of irony. "He grumbled constantly, of course. You know how much he hates seeing Oldtownâs order disrupted and the court's troubles brought to his doorstep."
"Just court matters?" Gwayne asked with a smile, knowing his cousin's moody nature all too well.
"Of course not," you said, looking up into Gwayne's eyes. "He slipped in his usual talks. He couldn't pass up the chance to point out that despite moons of marriage, we are not with a child yet. He kept asking when we'd hold our own babe."
Gwayne offered a faint smile at those words. "I sometimes forget Ormund does not come from the House of Patience and Courtesy," he murmured, leaning down to whisper in your ear: "But let him not worry... When that day comes, he will be forced to hold his tongue and leave you in peace."
As his words painted a sweet rose blush on your cheeks, Gwayne turned his gaze back to Daeron in his arms.
"He was uneasy about a Targaryen arriving in the city," you continued, bringing the focus back to the child. "He believed the capital's curse was settling upon Oldtown. But..." You ran your hand over the bright auburn curls on Daeronâs tiny head. "...seeing this little one in his arms, looking nothing like them, will change things."
Gwayne nodded in agreement, looking at Daeronâs red hair. "People will expect a Targaryen prince, only to find a Hightower child standing before them. He carries no scent of the Dragonpit, nor those silver locks... Everyone, including Ormund, will soften once they see this boy growing up behind these walls as one of our own."
When Daeron grabbed Gwayneâs finger and yawned with sleepy eyes, Gwayne pulled you close and pressed a deep kiss to the side of your head.
"You, me, and this little man... Nothing else matters."
As the carriage pulled up in the courtyard, the babyâs belongings, chests, and the royal servants began descending one by one, carrying items through the grand doors of the manse. Just then, one of the attendants carefully lifted a heavy, wooden chest draped in velvet covers out of the carriage. As the edge of the cloth slipped slightly, the strange, scaly, matte surface beneath gleamed for a moment in the sunlight: it was the dragon egg sent from the court to be placed in Daeron's cradle.
Gwayne looked at the servant carrying the chest and let out a soft sigh. Tightening his arm around your waist, he leaned down to your ear: "Ah, yes... Thereâs this as well," he said, his tone lighthearted yet weary. "I only hope it doesn't hatch in Oldtown. We hardly need to raise a dragon in the middle of the manse."
You smiled softly at his reaction. With Gwayne holding the babe and you nestled at his side, you stepped into the entrance of the manse. The fatigue of the road and the gloom of the court were left behind as the heavy wooden doors closed behind you.
Together, you climbed the wide staircase and walked toward the nursery you had prepared for Daeron. Upon entering, Gwayne paused to look around. You had arranged the room over the past few days with immense care; soft sunlight filtering through the windows illuminated the light draperies and the wooden cradle resting in the corner. The room smelled of dried roses.
"Youâve prepared the room beautifully," Gwayne said, looking at you with deep admiration in his eyes.
"It has been my sole occupation for days," you said, walking toward the small table beside the cradle. You gestured to the embroidery hoop resting on the table and the soft baby blanket framed within it. "Look, I began stitching a pattern for him. I wanted little songbirds, falcons, and colorful wildflowers on it... Something cheerful to brighten his spirits. It isn't finished yet, but..."
Gwayne seemed enchanted by your thoughtfulness. He extended Daeron toward you. As you took the infant into your arms, Daeron rested his tiny head securely against your chest. You walked over and sat in the spacious, softly cushioned rocking chair beside the windows.
Gwayne leaned against the edge of the cradle, folding his arms across his chest. Without taking his eyes off you for a single moment, he watched you and the tiny life in your lap.
You began to rock the baby gently in your arms. As Daeron's sleepy eyes slowly fluttered shut, a low, peaceful lullaby drifted from your lips, filling the room. Your voice, floating into the quiet air, lulled the baby's breathing into a rhythmic calm.
Gwayne stood mesmerized. Watching you rock the babe, the strands of hair falling across your face, and your gentle grace as you sang the lullaby, he could not conceal the profound love surging within him. He stepped toward you soundlessly and knelt beside the chair. Placing his hand over yours, he brought his head near your knee and whispered:
"Here..." Gwayne said, his voice thick with emotion. "I could stay right here until the Stranger takes me."
Just as Gwayne placed his hand over yours, looking up at you, a heavy set of footsteps echoed at the doorway, instantly shattering the peaceful enchantment.
"So, you have finally graced Oldtown with your presence, Ser Gwayne."
Ormund Hightower stood at the threshold with his arms crossed over his chest, stepping heavily into the room. With a distant expression on his face, he looked first at his cousin, then at the babe in your arms.
Gwayne let out a quiet sigh and rose from his kneeling position. The soft smile on his face vanished, replaced by a formal demeanor; he seemed entirely unperturbed by Ormund's arrival. Rather than trading words with his cousin, he maintained his composure and met him with calm silence.
Ormund slowed his pace as he approached Gwayne. "Are you engaging in women's work now, carrying babes?" he said, his voice dripping with dry mockery. "Though... I see you have finally found a way to present your wife with a child, Ser Gwayne. Compensating for your own shortcomings by bringing one ready-made from the court is quite an accomplishment."
Ormund's tactless jab at your marriage and your lack of child hung heavily in the room for a brief moment. Gwayne did not lose his temper; knowing his cousin's ill-humored and blunt disposition, he merely squared his jaw and stood in mature, dignified silence.
Ormund then shifted his gaze from Gwayne to you and Daeron. He walked heavily toward the rocking chair. He gave you a brief, respectful, yet stern nod. Then he leaned forward slightly, bringing his imposing frame down to the babe's eye level.
Ormund inspected the child's face intently, as if assessing this "Targaryen burden" sent from King's Landing. He narrowed his eyes, expecting a child of dragonblood to disrupt the order of Oldtown. But as his gaze caught the bright, gleaming red curls spilling from the edge of the swaddle, his expression softened for a fleeting instant.
The baby possessed no Targaryen hair. Daeron looked back at Ormund with half-open, peaceful eyes, his red curls shimmering in the light streaming through the window.
Ormund's sharp, furrowed brows gradually relaxed. The tense line of his face gave way to a mixture of surprise and hidden relief. At least he bears no resemblance to those dragon-riding savages, he thought to himself. The infant's Hightower-like appearance somewhat tempered the Targaryen resentment in his chest.
Ormund extended a finger gently toward the child. When Daeron wrapped his tiny hand around his rough finger, a faint, proud smile played at the corners of Ormund's lips. He raised his head, looking first at you, then at Gwayne.
"Good," Ormund said, the harshness in his voice softening for the first time. "At least he does not look like those savages." Still, he had no intention of displaying affection at length or embracing the child as you and Gwayne did. Maintaining his distance, he continued to inspect the baby's face with detached curiosity.
Just then, little Daeron reached out his arms toward the large man standing before him. He wriggled playfully within his swaddle, lunging forward as if wanting to go straight to Ormund.
Seeing the infant make a move toward him, Ormund recoiled slightly in surprise. Such close contact with a baby was entirely foreign to his world.
Gwayne, catching his cousin's sudden startle and clumsy hesitation, could not contain a loud laugh. "What is the matter, Ormund?" Gwayne asked, a thoroughly mischievous smile on his lips. "Does a Lord who commands a whole army pull back when a tiny babe wants to be held?"
Ormund's pride was instantly wounded by Gwayne's remark and mocking laugh. He squared his chin and knitted his brows. "Nonsense!" he snapped, stepping forward to take Daeron from your arms with somewhat rough yet proud movements. Positioning the baby against his chest, he began to rock him awkwardly and rather stiffly. "There is no simpler task."
However, this moment of pride was short-lived.
As Ormund rocked the babe in his arms, Daeron suddenly screwed up his face, and a distinct sound echoed through the room. The little prince had thoroughly soiled his nappy, right onto the Oldtown Lord's smooth, expensive doublet. The moment the warmth and sharp odor seeped into Ormund's clothes, his face twisted into a sight of absolute horror.
Ormund's dignified posture collapsed in a fraction of a second. His face contorted in utter disgust, his eyes bulging as if they might pop out. He thrust his arms forward as if holding a burning coal, practically throwing the baby back into your arms.
"Take him! Take him now!" Ormund panicked, his voice straddling disgust and desperation.
While you bit your lip to suppress your laughter and quickly gathered Daeron into your lap, Ormund lost no time reaching for the small sachet filled with dried lavender and cloves tied to his leather belt. Unfastening the pouch, he pressed it directly to his nose and began inhaling the fragrance deeply.
With an expression of sheer revulsion, keeping the scent sachet glued to his nose, he turned around and marched hastily toward the door. Fleeing the room, his voice boomed muffled yet commandingly from behind the sachet:
"Clean this child! And see that Gwayne is cleaned as well!"
As Gwayne watched Ormund sweep down the corridor like a storm, he caught your eye, trying in vain to stop his laughter.
As Ormund's hurried footsteps faded down the hallway, Gwayne walked over to your side. A sweet, radiant joy shone on both your faces.
You handed Daeron over to the safe arms of the maid who entered the room. As she carried the babe over to the changing table to change his clothes, Gwayne intertwined his fingers with yours. His gaze returned entirely to you; cleared of the road's exhaustion, the court's gloom, and Ormund's ill temper, his eyes held only one thing: his pure, undiluted love for you.
SUMMARY. . . Peter has always been good at noticing things. Unfortunately, that now includes your habits, your routines, your secrets, and far too much of your life. The more he learns about you, the harder it becomes to convince himself he's still one of the good guys.
pairing: peter parker/spiderman x reader
content warnings: obsessive idiot peter parker, morally gray peter parker, stalking, surveillance, hacking, digital privacy invasion, peter parker knows way too much, unhealthy attachment, questionable coping mechanisms, trust issues, relationship tension, codependency if we're being honest, emotional angst, psychological thriller undertones, loneliness, pining, secret identity drama, poor life choices, love as a horror genre but not rlly, relationship paranoia, possessiveness, post brand new day, guys bear with me it's going somewhere good i promise </3. not betaread. lmk if i missed anything!!
comments and reblogs are appreciated âĄ
â amazing support banners used are from @moonstoneandmoonlight !
w/c: 8.8k
a/n: peter parker support group starts here!! unfortunately, I'm not offering support.
I made him worse :p
Peter first noticed you because you dropped a pen.
Not in any interesting way. Not in slow motion, not with a dramatic little gasp, not the kind of thing anyone wrote poems about unless they were trying too hard. It slipped out from between your fingers halfway through Professor Menkenâs lecture on genetic ethics, hit the edge of your desk, bounced once against the leg of the chair in front of you, and rolled beneath Peterâs sneaker.
He looked down at it because he heard it before anyone else did.
That was the thing about the new edges of him. The mutation hadn't settled cleanly after everything. It had sharpened in odd places, overcorrected in others. Sound arrived layered now: the scrape of chalk, someoneâs gum clicking against a molar three rows back, the pulse in the throat of the guy beside him who had definitely not done the reading. The city beyond the lecture hall kept pressing itself into his skull in a dozen distant frequencies, sirens and pipes and pigeons beating frantic wings beneath the eaves.
And then there was your pen.
Cheap black ballpoint. Cap chewed, not recently. A faint crescent of teeth marks near the clip.
Peter picked it up before he thought better of it.
You turned in your seat, a little embarrassed but not enough to make a performance of it, your brows rising when you realized someone had retrieved it. âOh. Thank you.â
Your voice did not do anything impossible. It didn't rearrange him. It just sat warmly in the air between you, lower than he expected, slightly hoarse like you had been up too late or had laughed too much the night before.
Peter gave you the pen. âNo problem.â
You smiled, quick and polite, and turned back around.
That should have been the end of it.
Peter knew that. He knew it with the same blunt clarity he knew not to crawl across ceilings in public or listen through apartment walls just because he could. Some lines were simple because crossing them made everything else complicated. You were a person in one of his classes. He had handed you a pen. That was all.
For nearly four minutes, he managed to leave it there.
Then you tapped the pen twice against your notebook, paused, and wrote something in the margin instead of on the lecture line where everyone else had written CRISPR and informed consent and somatic inheritance. Peter saw the movement from the corner of his eye. His vision caught too much when he let it. A tilt, a shadow, a word half-formed before your hand covered it.
He should not have looked.
He still looked.
You had written: who decides what counts as damage?
Peter stared at the back of your head for one second too long.
The question stayed with him after class, needling under his skin while students packed laptops and shoved water bottles into canvas bags. You stood slowly, stretching your fingers once before sliding your notebook away. Someone called your name from the aisle. You glanced over your shoulder and gave a tired little laugh when a girl with chipped blue nail polish asked if you were coming to the library later.
âMaybe,â you said after you gave a few experimental blinks. âI have work first.â
Peter bent over his backpack, pretending he had not heard.
He had heard too much.
Your keys clinked inside the front pocket of your bag. Your phone buzzed twice. You smelled faintly of vanilla shampoo and rain-damp wool, though it had not rained since morning. Your heartbeat was steady, quicker when your friend mentioned a party, slower when you said, âIâll see how dead I am after closing.â
Normal details. Human details. None of them belonged to him.
He walked out ten paces behind you anyway.
Only because the door was in that direction, he told himself. Only because everyone was leaving through the same narrow hall, shoulder to shoulder, voices bouncing off institutional beige walls. ESUâs biology building had bad ventilation and worse fluorescent lighting. It made everyone look slightly ill. You squinted against it, one eye narrowing more than the other.
Peter noticed that too.
He hated that he noticed that.
Outside, late autumn had made the campus restless. Leaves skittered over the pavement in dry little bursts, trapped briefly against bike racks before the wind worried them loose. The sky hung low and silver behind the brick buildings. You tucked your chin into your scarf and walked toward the Square with your friend still talking beside you, one hand moving as she described something, the other hooked around the strap of your bag.
Peter stopped at the stairs.
He could have gone the other way.
He had laundry. He had a chemistry problem set. He had a rent reminder folded under a magnet on his fridge and a suit stuffed behind a loose panel in his closet that still smelled faintly of smoke from a warehouse fire in Queens.
You crossed the quad and his senses followed before his body did.
Your laugh carried back once, loose and surprised, and Peter felt something in him lean toward it. Not physically. Worse than physically. Some quiet, starved part of him that had been living on memory and obligation and the bruised discipline of not needing anything.
He watched until the crowd took you.
Then he went home and searched your name.
He didn't call it that at first.
Peter called it checking. Curiosity. Normal curiosity. The kind people had when they met someone in class and wanted to know whether they had mutual friends or if they posted notes online or if maybe they were in a study group. He sat at his small desk with the radiator clanking beside him, his laptop open beneath the yellow cone of his lamp, and typed in the name he had heard your friend say.
The first result was an ESU page with your department listing: Undeclared concentration, biology track. A campus volunteer archive from last spring. A photo from a charity 5K where you stood at the edge of a group shot, squinting into the sun and holding a paper cup too tightly. Your social media accounts were not private enough.
Peter exhaled through his nose and sat back.
âNo,â he spoke aloud to his empty apartment and the only response to his words was the radiator hissing.Â
Peter shut the laptop so hard the sound cracked through the room.
He stood, paced three steps, turned, paced back. His hands flexed at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling with leftover strength he had nowhere to put. The window showed him his own reflection layered over the city: too thin, too tired, hair still damp from a shower he barely remembered taking.
âYouâre not doing this,â he told himself with restriction, and even his reflection looked unconvincing.
You did not think about Peter Parker after class.
Not really.
You remembered the pen only because you found it later at work and noticed the cap had a little dent from where you always chewed it during exams. You remembered his face in the vague way you remembered classmates you saw twice a week: brown hair that looked like he had dragged a hand through it one too many times, gentle eyes, shoulders folded slightly inward like he was trying not to take up space.
Cute, maybe.
But cute in the background way. The kind of cute you acknowledged and then forgot because a customer had spilled oat milk on the pickup counter and your manager was muttering about inventory under her breath.
By eight-thirty, your feet hurt. The bookstore smelled of damp coats, burnt espresso, dust, and cinnamon syrup. Someone had abandoned a paperback facedown on the windowsill. Outside, people hurried past with collars lifted against the wind, their reflections smeared across the dark glass.
You were restocking the staff picks table when the bell above the door chimed.
You glanced up because it was habit and Peter stood just inside, shaking cold from his hair.
For a second, he looked as surprised to see you as you were to see him. Then his face softened into recognition, bashful and easy enough that you almost smiled before you realized you were already doing it.
âHey,â he greeted and his voice hit your ears with a peaceful calm. âYouâre in Menkenâs class, right?â
You straightened, a book still in your hand. âYeah. Peter, right?â
His smile widened a little, and it did something irritatingly pleasant to his whole face. âYeah. And youâreâŠ?â
You gave him your name and he repeated it, not too quickly, not too slowly. Like he cared about getting it right.
That was your first mistake, though you wouldn't know that for weeks. You noticed the care and mistook it for kindness. Maybe it was kindness, in part. That was the inconvenient thing about Peter. He wasn't lying every time he was gentle.
He bought a coffee he barely drank and a used copy of a short story collection you had placed on the staff picks table that morning. When you rang him up, he looked at the handwritten card tucked beneath the stack.
âYour pick?â he asked with his eyes moving over the loop of the script.Â
A small puff of air left you as your mouth twitched. âYeah. Itâs weird.â
âI like weird.â
âYou say that now.â
He glanced up through his lashes, and there was an awkwardness to it that made him seem younger, more human than he had been in your mind. âIs that a warning or a recommendation?â
You huffed a laugh more visibly this time. âBoth.â
Peter nodded as if that settled something important. âThen Iâll take it seriously.â
You liked that he didn't try too hard to stretch the conversation. He thanked you, dropped his change into the tip jar, and moved to a table near the window with the book and untouched coffee. He read for almost an hour.
He had promised himself he would only look. In person, that sounded even worse. He knew how it sounded. He could hear a familiar voice in his head, dry and unimpressed, though any real familiarity was gone from his life in all the ways that mattered now. He could hear May too, not in words, just in the old shape of disappointment.
But it had been a bad week.
That wasnât an excuse, he hated that his mind reached for one so quickly.
It had been a bad year, or rather, years.
Worse.
The world had forgotten him in pieces so cleanly it felt surgical. He still had photographs where people stood beside him with no memory of the moment. Peter still knew birthdays no one invited him to, inside jokes that died the second he tried to speak them aloud. He still woke up some mornings with his hand reaching across the bed toward nothing because loneliness had become muscle memory.
And then there was you, chewing on a pen in class and writing questions that made the room seem less airless.
Peter watched you laugh with your coworker behind the counter, your head tilting back for half a second before you caught yourself. Not loud or careless, but real.
Something in him ached with it.
Peter should have left.
Instead, when you came by with a rag and asked, âEverything okay over here?â he looked up too fast.
âYeah. Sorry. Iâm probably overstaying.â
You waved him off without much thought. âNo, youâre fine. We donât close for another hour.â
He laughed, a little embarrassed, but not nearly as much as he should've felt. âRight. Good point.â
You smiled at him fully now. This time it lingered. His pulse kicked hard enough that he felt ashamed of it.
The second time he came in, you were not surprised.
The third time, you teased him about the coffee.
âYou know you donât have to keep ordering it if you hate it.â
Peter looked down at the cup like it had betrayed him. âI donât hate it.â
You looked up at him through the table unsure. âYouâve taken two sips in forty minutes.â
âIâm pacing myself.â
âYou ordered an iced coffee in November.â
âI can contain multitudes.â
You snorted before you could stop yourself, and he looked so pleased by it that you looked away first.
It was not instant. That mattered, later. You didn't fall into it without thought. You were busy, and careful in the way people became careful when they had learned affection could come with hidden invoices. You had classes, work, rent, a roommate who left wet towels on the bathroom floor, and a mother who texted at odd hours asking if you were eating enough.
Peter became familiar gradually.
A chair near the window. A brown jacket with a frayed cuff. Fingers stained faintly with ink because he wrote equations on his hand when he ran out of paper. A voice that went soft when he asked questions and quicker when he forgot to be nervous. He seemed to know when not to interrupt you. He remembered that you disliked caramel syrup but liked cinnamon. He started bringing you the extra banana from the convenience store near campus because you once said your blood sugar crashed during evening shifts and you always forgot to pack food.
âThatâs weirdly thoughtful,â you made a face and said the first time.
Peter shrugged with his eyes lowering when he spoke. âIt was two for one.â
You knew that was not the whole truth, but it was close enough to something charming that you let it pass.
From Peterâs side, every small success made him feel worse.
He especially did not need to know that you always took the longer route home when the weather was mild because you liked passing the laundromat with the orange cat in the window.
The first time Peter followed you all the way back to your building, he almost turned around six times.
Almost was becoming a dangerous word.
He stayed across the street, hood up, hands in his pockets, moving with the practiced absence Spider-Man had perfected. He told himself it was only because the neighborhood had been rough lately. Two muggings near the park. A stolen car three blocks away. He had reasons. Responsible reasons. Hero reasons.
Then you stopped beneath the awning of your building and turned suddenly, looking back down the sidewalk.
Peter froze behind the corner of a closed bodega.
For one wild second, he thought you had felt him there. Not heard, not seen. Felt. The way people sometimes sensed weather changing in their bones.
But you only searched your bag, found your keys, and went inside.
Peter waited until the lobby light swallowed you.
His hands were shaking when he got home.
He stripped off the mask he had not needed and sat on the floor beside his bed, suit half-unzipped, chest rising too fast. The room smelled of dust, old laundry, cold takeout. Somewhere upstairs, a couple argued about dishes and somewhere outside, a siren split the night and faded.
Peter pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, the pressure doing little to relieve him.Â
âYouâre scaring yourself,â he whispered and that should have helped.
It did not.
Because the next morning you came into class with tired eyes and a bandage wrapped around one finger, and Peter noticed before you even sat down.
Paper cut, he guessed.
No. Too clean. Knife slip. Cooking? No, the angle was wrong. Box cutter at work.
He started hating the part of him that solved you like a problem.
During lecture, Professor Menken asked a question no one wanted to answer. You lifted your hand after three seconds of silence.
Peter watched you speak with intent.
You were not perfectly confident. Your voice caught often and you glanced at your notes too often. But you had a way of thinking aloud that made uncertainty seem active instead of weak, like you were willing to stand inside the unfinished part of an idea and invite everyone else to look at it with you.
Peter stared at his notebook and wrote nothing. After class, he found you outside the building, wrestling with the zipper of your bag.
âHey,â he said when you came into view casually enough for him to do the same.Â
You looked up with no real hurry. âHey, coffee multitudes.â
Peter laughed, surprised by the nickname. âThatâs going to stick, huh?â
âIt might.â
âThen I should probably earn it.â
You raised an eyebrow and looked him over. âBy drinking coffee?â
âBy asking if you want to get some. Somewhere I actually finish it.â
Peter smiled anyway, small and nervous because he was also still himself.
You hesitated, it wasn't long enough to be cruel, but it was long enough to be honest.
âNow?â you asked and your hand twitched to a still around your bag
âOnly if youâre free.â
âI am.â You shifted your bag higher on your shoulder. A small twitch of your brows came and went when the familiar phantom of a smile touched your face. âActually, yeah. That sounds nice.â
Nice.
The word landed in him with such undeserved warmth he nearly forgot to breathe.
You talked about class first because that was safe. Menkenâs refusal to upload slides. The guy in the front row who treated lectures like a personal podcast interview. Your mutual dread of the upcoming exam.
âSometimes,â he settled for after fumbling for his words.Â
âOnly sometimes?â
He turned the paper sleeve around his cup. âItâs hard to like something that mostly pays you to be hated.â
You frowned and it was so genuine it made Peter feel disgusting all over again. âThat sounds miserable.â
âIt builds character. Probably. Or joint pain.â
You laughed, but softer this time and he looked up for it.
You were watching him with a kind of attention he hadn't expected. Not the polite attention people gave when waiting for their turn to speak. You were actually looking, as if you had noticed some seam in him and were deciding whether to touch it.
Peter felt the old panic start. The instinct to deflect. To become funny, harmless, and too quick to pin down.
Instead, he took a breath and decided for, âItâs fine. Iâm used to it.â
You didnât ask what else he was used to.
He liked you more for that.
Your first date was not officially a date until halfway through, when your knees bumped beneath the table and neither of you moved immediately.
After that, things gathered speed without feeling rushed.
A walk through campus after class. His jacket over your shoulders when the wind turned sharp, even though you protested you were fine. A late-night diner where he stole fries from your plate only after asking and still looked guilty each time. A movie at your apartment with your roommate passing through twice and giving you looks so obvious you threatened to throw a pillow at her.
Peter was almost unbearable in his thoughtfulness.
Not grand, that would have made you suspicious sooner. He didn't flood you with flowers or declarations. He learned the small things and acted on them with quiet precision. He sent you a picture of the familiar street cat when you were stuck at work. He remembered which movie sequel you thought ruined the original. He ordered your food without onions after you mentioned once that you hated the texture, then looked genuinely confused when you stared at him.
âWhat?â Peter asked when you stared at him so openly in surprise.Â
âYou remembered.â
His fork paused halfway to his mouth. âWas I not supposed to?â
âNo. Itâs justâŠâ You looked down, smiling despite yourself. The words came out quieter than, like they weren't for him. âMost people donât.â
Peter smiled too, but something flickered beneath it. Not guilt, exactly. Not anything you knew how to name.
You reached for your drink and let the moment pass.
From his side, the flicker had been a wound reopening.
Most people donât.
He should have been most people.
He should have learned you at the pace you gave yourself. Through conversations, through mistakes, through the natural awkwardness of two lives coming carefully closer. He should not have known about the onion thing because you had complained in a forgotten comment thread under a photo of takeout from last winter. He should not have known your favorite seat in the library because he had followed your location once after convincing himself it was only to make sure you got home. Peter should not have known your exâs name, your rent split, the brand of melatonin in your bathroom cabinet because your roommate posted a mirror selfie with the bottle blurred but readable.
He was not always hacking.
That was another excuse, and he hated it because it was technically true. Most of the time, people gave themselves away without needing to be broken into. Public accounts, careless apps, tagged photos, reused usernames, browser autofill flashing in reflections, notifications blooming on lock screens. The city was full of open windows, and Peter had become very good at looking through them.
But sometimes, he did more.
The first time he accessed one of your accounts, he threw up afterward.
It was not dramatic. There was no thunder outside, no cinematic collapse. Just Peter hunched over the tiny sink in his bathroom, one hand braced against cracked porcelain, breathing through nausea while the laptop sat open in the other room.
He told himself he had only wanted to know why you had gone quiet.
That was how Peter framed it at first. You had canceled plans with a too-bright apology and then stopped answering texts for five hours. Five hours was nothing. People had lives. You had work. You had friends. You had the right to be unreachable.
His body did not understand that.
His senses had made emergencies out of smaller things. A skipped heartbeat, a distant scream, glass breaking four blocks away. Absence became data. Silence became threat. He tried cleaning. He tried going on patrol. He stopped a bike theft, webbed up a drunk man trying to punch a parking meter, helped a kid find her mother outside a pharmacy, and still your unread text sat in his head like a lit match.
So, he checked.
Not with tools he would ever have explained to you. Not in steps he let himself think about for long. A shortcut here, an old breach there, one soft digital door after another until the screen opened on enough of your life to make him feel both relieved and monstrous.
You were not ignoring him because of him.
You were in a group chat with your friend, talking about a fight with your mother. Nothing catastrophic. Nothing he needed to know. Your last message had been: I just donât want to be a person today.
Peter read it three times.
Then he closed the laptop and hated himself with a clarity that should have changed him.
The next morning, he brought you soup from a place you liked but rarely ordered from because it was overpriced. He stood outside your building in a gray hoodie, hair damp from the rain, holding the paper bag awkwardly when you came downstairs.
âYou said you didnât feel great,â he greeted with that comfortable thread of familiar concern and composure.Â
You hadn't said that to him.
Not exactly.
But you were tired, and the soup was warm against your hands, and Peter looked so quietly worried that the difference dissolved before your could examine any holes in his story accurately.
âYouâre kind of insane,â you scoffed, but gently when your eyes softened at him.Â
Peter cleared at his throat. âBad insane?â
You looked at him for a moment. Rain gathered in the ends of his hair. A drop slipped down his temple, and he did not seem to notice.
âNo,â you said after a moment, and his mind latched into that with great energy. âGood insane.â
His smile hurt to look at.
Peter stayed in your life.
That was how it felt from your side. Not that he entered suddenly, but that he remained. Peter was there in the margins of your days until the margins felt less empty. You started expecting his texts. You started saving little stories for him because you liked the way his face changed when he listened. He had a habit of going very still when you spoke, like he was afraid to miss a word.
You had dated people who made you feel edited. Too loud here, too sensitive there, too difficult when you asked for basic decency. Peter made you feel observed, and at first you mistook that for being understood.
Maybe part of it was understanding.
He didnât push when you were quiet. He made jokes when you needed room to laugh and went serious when the joke would have landed wrong. He was late sometimes, often with flimsy excuses and a bruise hidden badly beneath his collar, but he apologized like he meant it. He washed dishes at your apartment without making a performance of helping. He made friends with your roommate by fixing the kitchen cabinet hinge and pretending it had been easy.
Still, there were moments.
A book you never remembered mentioning appearing in his backpack.
A song you had listened to alone showing up in a playlist he sent you ârandomly.â
His face changing before you told him bad news, as if he had sensed it through the phone.
Once, while walking back from dinner, you stopped outside a bodega because the smell of oranges by the door reminded you of your grandmotherâs house. You hadnât said that to him yet. You had barely said it to anyone.
Peter bought two oranges without asking and handed one to you.
âYou looked like you wanted one,â he had told you.Â
You held it in your palm, thumb brushing the textured peel. âYou notice too much.â
He went quiet.
Only for a breath, but you felt it.
Then he smiled, crooked and a little sad. âOccupational hazard.â
You laughed because you thought he meant photography.
Peter loved that about you and hated himself for loving it. The way you filled in the blanks with something better than the truth.
Peter spent more nights at your place, never officially staying over at first. He would fall asleep on the couch after a movie, wake at two, apologize, and kiss your forehead before leaving. You began telling him he could stay. He began pretending to refuse before giving in.
The first time he slept in your bed, you woke to him sitting upright in the dark.
You blinked at the shape of him, bare shoulders tense, head turned toward the window.
âPeter?â
He didn't answer immediately.
Outside, a truck rolled over a pothole and hit Peter's ear drum loudly. Somewhere down the block, glass clinked in a recycling bag. Your room was cold beyond the blanket, the air smelling faintly of your body wash and the laundry detergent your roommate bought in bulk.
âSorry,â he rasped out finally. His voice was rough. âI heard something.â
You pushed yourself up on one elbow, still half asleep. You gave a few hard blinks to try and even out your blurry vision, your fingers moved without instruction to thee side of his bare arm. âIn here?â
Peter's voice was still rough with sleep, and something else you couldn't grasp. âNo. Outside.â
You listened in a pause, your fingers stilling on his forearm.Â
Nothing.
Peter looked embarrassed, almost boyish in the dim light. âIâm a light sleeper.â
You believed him because there was no reason not to.
You tugged gently at his wrist, your skin meeting his. An exhale escaped you as the disruption did little to drain you off your drowsiness. âCome back.â
For a second, he didn't move. Then, he let you pull him down beside you. His skin was cool where the air had touched it. You pressed your face against his shoulder and felt him go very still before he carefully settled his arm around you.
âYouâre safe,â you murmured after a moments still, barely awake, because you decided it was needed.Â
His hand tightened once at your back and you pressed into his side deeper at the action.Â
The words should have comforted him.
Instead, they ruined him.
Because he knew exactly what kind of safety he had made. A curated one. A watched one. A version of closeness built from stolen context and real affection tangled so tightly he no longer knew where one ended and the other began. Peter knew the quickest route from your apartment to the hospital. He knew which neighbor left his door unlocked. He knew your roommateâs schedule, the buildingâs fire escape pattern, the loose latch on the roof door, and even the dead zone in the security camera by the mailboxes.
He knew too much.
You fell asleep against him after a few more breaths and smooths of his hand at your back and Peter stared into the dark until dawn diluted the room.
Later that week, you fought.
It was small at first, which immediately made it worse. He canceled on you again, this time fifteen minutes before you were supposed to meet. Something about work. Something about a last-minute assignment. The lie was poorly built because Peter was tired and bleeding under his shirt from a fight with a guy in a mechanized suit who had tried to rob an armored truck in Midtown.
You heard the strain in his voice and assumed the wrong thing.
âDo you actually want to see me tonight?â you asked into your phone and frowned so visibly you saw it in the mirror that reflected you all ready for your now cancelled evening.Â
Silence.
Then, âOf course I do.â
Your voice felt smaller than it was. âBecause itâs fine if you donât.â
âItâs not thatââ
âYou keep saying that.â
Peter closed his eyes on the rooftop where he crouched behind a water tower, one hand pressed against his ribs. His spider-sense still fizzed faintly from leftover adrenaline. Snow blew sideways across the tar paper and some of it landed cooly on his shoulders
âIâm sorry,â he only apologized after a tired noise escaped him.Â
You hated how sincere he sounded. It made anger harder to hold cleanly. âIâm not asking you to be available all the time. I just need you to stop disappearing and then acting like Iâm supposed to understand without you telling me anything.â
Peter breathed in sharply, and for a moment you thought he might finally say something real. Instead, he said, âYouâre right.â
The answer was too neat. Too controlled.
You laughed once, humorless. âThatâs not a conversation, Peter.â
âI know.â
Your voice came more pointed now. âThen have one.â
He looked out over the city. A siren wailed far below. Three blocks away, someone screamed, but it was laughter. Six blocks away, not laughter. His body turned toward it before his mind caught up.
âI canât right now,â he immediately winced at how it sounded coming outÂ
Your voice went immediately quiet. âOkay.â
That one word did more damage than shouting would have.
Peter heard you hang up.
He should have let you be angry. He should have shown up the next day with honesty or at least enough humility to deserve your attention.
Instead, fear did what fear had been doing to him for months. It found a door and opened it.
He checked your messages again.
You were texting your friend. Not cruelly or even dramatically, but so visibly tired.Â
I like him, you had written. I really do. But sometimes it feels like heâs already decided what I need before I say it. I don't know how to feel about that.Â
Peter sat on the edge of a rooftop while snow collected in his hair and read the sentence until the screen dimmed.
It was the closest you had come to seeing him.
Not the suit. Not the powers. Him. The shape of the thing he was doing.
He wanted, suddenly and violently, to confess. To climb through your window, kneel on your worn rug, and hand you every ugly piece. To say he had been lonely in a way that made him dangerous. To say he had turned care into surveillance and called it love when he was too ashamed to name it properly. To say you could hate him if you needed to, but please, please do it with your own voice.
Then, another message appeared.
Heâs also really good to me though. Like scary good. He knows me better than anyone has in a long time.
Peterâs breath caught.
The city kept moving beneath him. Traffic lights changed. Steam rose from a manhole cover. A woman tugged a child across the street by one mittened hand. Somewhere, somebody needed him.
Peter put the phone away amd he went to help.
He came to your apartment the next night with a split lip and flowers from a deli bucket, the cheap kind wrapped in crinkly plastic with one stem already bent.
You opened the door and stared at him with the expectation of clear cut annoyance but it stuttered when you saw him.Â
He looked awful. Pale beneath the bruising, hair flattened by weather, and eyes rimmed red from no sleep. The flowers trembled slightly in his hand.
âIâm sorry,â Peter only said what you needed to hear.Â
You crossed your arms, the indentation of where you bit at the inside of your cheek had his eyes fluttering across your face. âFor which part?â
He flinched, and you hated that it softened you.
âFor making you feel like you were asking for too much.â He swallowed then went on. âYou werenâtâyou arenât. Iâm bad at explaining where I go. Thatâs on me. Not you.â
It was not enough, everything in you knew it was not enough.
But he didn't make excuses. He did not tell you that you were overreacting. He didn't punish you for being upset. He stood there in the hallway looking like someone who expected the door to close and thought he deserved it.
You sighed, and it sounded tired all the way through. âCome in before my neighbor starts listening.â
âShe already is,â Peter said before he could stop himself.
Your eyes narrowed and he blinked at his abruptness. âI meanâthe door across the hall. It opened earlier.â
You glanced past him. Mrs. Alvarezâs door was indeed cracked half an inch. Despite yourself, you laughed.
Peter smiled faintly, relieved and ashamed.
The flowers went into a chipped vase on your desk. You ordered takeout and ate sitting on the floor because your small table was buried under textbooks. The apology became a conversation, halting but real enough around the edges. He told you he had trouble letting people worry about him. You told him that was not noble, just annoying. He laughed into his noodles, then winced because of his lip.
You touched his chin lightly, your face softened by several degrees and you made sure to be careful with your pressure. âWho did that?â
The reply came instantaneous. âWork thing.â
âPeter.â
He looked at you and your frown made is way back to your face, doing that horrible thing to his heart.Â
For one second, the room thinned around the truth. Then he exhaled, âI promise Iâll tell you someday.â
You should have pushed.
Instead, you let your thumb skim once beneath the bruise, gentler than either of you deserved.
âSomeday better not be a scam,â you said and the frustration in your words were poorly hidden.Â
âIt isnât.â Peter meant it, which was almost worse.
By Christmas break, you were not officially in love with him.
You avoided the word because it felt too large and too easy to misuse. But you missed him when he left. You saved the corner of your blanket for him without thinking. You caught yourself looking at his hands when he talked, the long nervous fingers, the faint scars, the way he touched things carefully despite being strong enough to break them.
Peter was strange. Sweet. Frighteningly perceptive. Too private. Too self-sacrificing in ways that made you want to shake him. He apologized too much and withheld too much and kissed you like he was grateful and guilty in the same breath.
On New Yearâs Eve, you took him to a party he clearly did not want to attend.
It was in someoneâs too-small apartment near campus, crowded with students wearing glitter and cheap cologne, the kitchen floor sticky with spilled drinks. Music pulsed through the walls. Someone had taped tinsel around a bookshelf. Someone else had brought a dog wearing a bow tie, and the dog looked more composed than anyone else there.
Peter stood close to you without crowding, his hand resting at your lower back only when you leaned into it first. He watched the room the way he watched everything: lightly, and constantly. You saw his eyes track exits, open windows, and even drunk strangers moving too quickly.
âYou okay?â you asked with a small tilt of your head.Â
He looked down at you, refocusing. âYeah.â
You weren't easily convinced. âYou look like youâre planning seventeen escape routes.â
âOnly twelve.â
You smiled. âProgress.â
Peter leaned closer so you could hear him over the music. His voice didn't reach you louder, it came as soft as it always tried to land. âIâm not great at parties.â
âI noticed.â
âBut you wanted to come.â
âI wanted you to come with me.â
That landed somewhere visible in his face. A small astonishment, gone quickly but not before you caught it.
âWell,â he paused, cleared his throat, and his voice softened, âthen Iâm good.â
You believed him.
At midnight, everyone shouted too early, then corrected themselves, then shouted again. The countdown dissolved into laughter. A stranger bumped your shoulder. Confetti popped weakly from a tube and scattered over the floor.
Peter kissed you at twelve.
Not like a movie. Someoneâs elbow knocked his arm and you laughed into his mouth because the dog started barking. His nose was cold from where you had stood near the window. The kiss started awkward and turned warm, one of his hands lifting to your cheek, and his thumb careful near your jaw.
When he pulled back, you exhaled, âYou know me so well itâs kind of unfair.â
You meant it lightly.
A little intoxicated by the room, by the year turning over, by his mouth and his attention and the fact that he had come even though crowds made him tense.
Peter went still.
Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for you to feel the pause beneath your palm where your hand rested against his chest.
Then he smiled, but it took work. âIs that a complaint?â
You shook your head. âNo.â
âGood.â He kissed you again before you could see his face too clearly.
Later, walking you home through streets rinsed blue-black with cold, Peter listened to your steps beside his and tried not to come apart.
You know me so well.
The words looped, soft and damning.
Snow had begun to fall again, thin flakes catching in your eyelashes. You tucked your hands into your sleeves and complained about your toes going numb. Peter offered you his gloves. You refused. He only offered again. You took one glove and made him wear the other, which was impractical and ridiculous and somehow made his chest hurt more than anything else.
At your building, you lingered beneath the awning.
You looked tired, happy, and a little wind-burned. Real in a way his stolen images of you had never been. The glow from the lobby light turned one side of your face gold.
âDo you want to come up?â you asked and you smiled up at him with an expression that did little to help his constantly spiking pulse.Â
He did.
God, he wanted to badly.
But Peter also knew what waited inside him if he did. The lie beneath every comfortable silence. The stolen knowledge under every thoughtful gesture. The way wanting had taught itself to wear the face of care.
âI should head home,â he forced the words out and they felt beyind wrong exiting him. Your expression shifted, just a little.
Peter felt it like a physical blow.
âOkay,â you whispered in the night air, and even you seemed surprised at how small it seemed.Â
He needed the clarification to stick desperately. âI had a good time.â
âMe too.â
Peter touched your hand, his own reddening fingertips grabbing your own cold ones. âText me when youâre inside?â
You gave him a look that made him feel stupid and wanted all at once. âIâm literally going upstairs.â
âHumor me?â
âYouâre ridiculous.â
The chuckle that escaped him camd freely at just how accurate you were. âHistorically, yes.â
You smiled, leaned up, and kissed him once. You lingered there for a moment, suddenly turning to nervous to face him, then repeated the action once more and pulled away. âGoodnight, Peter.â
âGoodnight.â
He waited on the sidewalk until your apartment light came on.
Then he waited another minute.
Then, another.
His phone buzzed.
inside. still alive. tragically glove-deficient.
Peter laughed under his breath, alone in the snow. He typed: Iâll survive with one cold hand.
Your reply came quickly.
brave little toaster.
He stared at it until his fingers hurt from the cold. Then, the little typing bubble disappeared.
He should have gone home.
He didn't, that had become an unsavory pattern for him.
Peter climbed.
Not to your window, not this time. He told himself that mattered somehow. He went up the side of the building with practiced silence, fingers finding brick, and his shoes sticking lightly where they touched. The city dropped away beneath him in a wash of headlights and wet pavement. He reached the roof and crouched near the ledge, close enough for his senses to map your apartment in fragments.
Water running..Your shower. A cabinet opening. Your roommate not home. A towel drawer sticking. You humming the chorus of a song from the party, off-key and sleepy.
Peter closed his eyes and exhaled a cloud of air into the cold night.Â
The right thing was to leave.
He stayed until the shower shut off.
He stayed while you moved through your room, while fabric whispered over skin, while your phone clicked against your nightstand. He didn't look through the window, he kept his eyes on the roof gravel beneath his hands. That restraint felt obscene because he wanted credit for not doing the worst thing while doing something terrible.
His breath fogged faintly in the cold.
âIâm done,â Peter whispered out loud and the city did not answer.
âI mean it.â
He didn't really know who he was promising. You. Himself. The ghost of every person who had loved him before the world forgot how.
Below, you laughed softly at something on your phone and Peterâs head lifted before he could stop it.
He crossed the roof, dropped into the alley, and landed soundlessly beside a stack of abandoned boxes dusted with snow. His ribs ached. His hand throbbed from where he had split the knuckles earlier that week. He pulled his hood up and walked away without looking back.
For almost three blocks, Peter believed he could really stop.
Upstairs, you finished drying your hair with an old towel that had gone rough from too many washes.
Your apartment was quiet except for the radiator knocking beneath the window and the muffled bass of someoneâs music two floors down. The party had left glitter along your collarbone, one stubborn fleck near your wrist, and a faint headache tucked behind your eyes. Your skin still held the clean heat of the shower. You wore an oversized shirt and sleep shorts, your damp hair brushed the back of your neck as you climbed onto your bed and tucked one leg beneath you.
You checked Peterâs text again.
Iâll survive with one cold hand.
You smiled to yourself, biting lazily at the edge of your thumbnail.
Sweet, impossible Peter.
He was always saying things like that. Small things. Harmless things. Little jokes that sounded clumsy enough to be real. You liked that about him, the way he made awkwardness feel almost deliberate, the way he carried tenderness like something he had stolen and still wasnât sure he was allowed to keep.
You set your phone down, and then after a few paused moments, you picked it back up.
For a moment, you sat still, listening.
Not to anything specific. The building settling. Pipes clicking in the walls. A car passing below, tires hissing through dirty snow. The soft ordinary life of the city stacking itself around you. You could still feel the ghost of his glove on your hand, the warmth he had given up without making it a whole noble thing.
You opened your phone again.
The screen lit your face in the dark. Peterâs last message sat at the top of your conversation, sweet and plain, but you swiped away from it and opened the app folder buried between weather, notes, and a language app you hadn't used since September.
His location refreshed after half a second.
A small blue dot moved underground, following the subway line away from your neighborhood.
You watched it for longer than you needed to.
There you go, you thought, something soft and fond turning over in your chest. Going home like he'd promised.
Your thumb hovered near the map. The little dot stuttered once, then continued. Queens-bound. Alone. Probably standing instead of sitting because he always did that, always gave up seats without looking around to see if anyone noticed.
You smiled again.
Then you opened the second page.
Recent searches loaded beneath a synced browser tab.
Your social media username with two letters transposed from the first time he had guessed wrong.
A search about whether ESU library study rooms had exterior cameras.
Another about the laundromat near your apartment.
Another about the orange cat in the window, which made you press your lips together to keep from laughing because that one was so painfully, pathetically cute you almost wanted to forgive him on the spot.
Almost.
You scrolled slowly, thumbnail caught between your teeth.
Peter had tried to be careful. That was the adorable part. He deleted things late, never immediately. He cleared histories in batches. He used different browsers for different kinds of guilt. But he was tired too often, distracted too easily by whatever terrible, secret life kept putting bruises beneath his clothes, and sometimes he left little openings behind him.
You'd only needed one.
After a minute, you reached for your laptop in your bedside table.Â
The screen woke too bright in the dim room. You lowered the brightness, entered your password, and opened a folder hidden two layers beneath a boring label from last semesterâs statistics course.
No full name sat at the top.
That had been one of the first strange things you had found out.Â
There should have been more. A student record with a clean history. Tagged photos. Old classmates. Family posts. Some trail of a boy becoming himself in public, even if it was messy, even if it was private, even if most of it had been half-abandoned and badly archived.
Instead, there were gaps.
Not empty, exactly. Emptiness had a shape. This was far stranger, a life with the identifying edges rubbed raw. Campus systems recognized him enough to place him in classrooms, but old references thinned out when you pulled too hard. Public databases returned fragments. Security logs showed a face without a stable story attached. Search results curved away from certainty.
So you had named the folder yourself.
coffee boy.
You clicked it with familiarity and the profile unfolded across the screen with neat, patient organization: screenshots, timestamps, saved browser activity, transit pings, campus camera stills, bookstore security clips, location trails, and blurry street footage collected from public-facing feeds he probably assumed no one would bother checking. There were no tidy records calling him anything with a true name. No clean archive of a life before you. No easy explanation for why the boy in your biology class seemed to appear out of nowhere with old grief in his eyes and no one behind him looking for him.
But, there were patterns.
A brown jacket crossing ESUâs north quad at 8:12 a.m.
A hooded figure lingering across the street from your apartment on the night you had closed alone.
A campus camera catching him turning his head before anyone else reacted to a car backfiring near the curb.
A security feed from three weeks ago, grainy with snow and bad lighting, showing someone dropping from a brick wall into an alley with impossible ease before pulling on that same brown jacket and walking into the street with his head down.
You dragged the timeline forward a few seconds.
There.
His face turned toward the camera.
Half-shadowed. Bruised. Undeniably him.
Your room reflected faintly in the laptop screen. You didn't look frightened in the reflection.
You looked tired. Curious, almost fond.
Because really, what were you supposed to do with him?Â
But sweet, in that sad, crooked way he was sweet when he brought soup and pretended it had been a normal thing to do.
Your phone buzzed.
Peter: Sleep well.
You glanced at it, and your smile came slowly, private enough that no one else would have known what to call it.
For a few seconds, you only sat there in the blue-white wash of the screen, hair damp against your shirt, thumbnail resting between your teeth.
Then, you looked back at the laptop.
His location dot kept moving. His searches waited beneath your cursor. And the paused footage held his face in the alley, caught between who he pretended to be and whatever he became when no one was meant to see remained awaiting you.
Hear my vision. Cannibal au Venom where he kidnaps hitchhiker reader and they develop Stockholm syndrome from him.
Kidnapping and cannibalism?? Two of my favs together? I hear your vision.
Plus, how could you not develop Stockholm on Venom?
Part Two Here
TW: Cannibalism, Death, Gore, Kidnapping, Obsessive Behavior.
Pairings: Venom Snake X GN!Reader
Word Count: 2.3k
Ended up being sweet in a creepy way. Enjoy.
Another abysmally dark night in this rural town. You had to admit, just outside of it, there was a forest that had been a beautiful place to camp. There had to be more stars in the night sky than there were back home, the air smelled cleaner, and the woods were teeming with wildlife. The locals were surprisingly welcoming, too. There were a few stares, as would be usual in a place that didn't even have a single stoplight, but overall the reception was kind. You had been running low on supplies, and came back in just to pick up some stuff before returning to your camping site. Just a couple more days. You promised your friends you would be back on the road and text them when you got signal back, just to at least let them know of your safe return.
"Oh, you're back," the clerk at the desk had recognized you. "Couldn't stay away, huh?"
"Guess not. Just here to grab a few things before heading back out."
He punched down the cost of everything into the register. "Are you here all by yourself?"
"Nah, I'm meeting up with a few close friends tonight." A safe lie.
"Oh, good, good."
You handed him the cash before he slid his hand on yours. "Well, if you do get lonely.."
You snatched your hand back before he could finish. "Oh, nope, I, uh, should get going, have a good night." You grabbed your things before even getting the change back and rushed out the door.
No sooner had the doors closed behind you did they open again, revealing a different man following behind you. His footfalls fell close behind and stopped when you whipped around to stare at him. He was a frightening man to behold. Long scars dressed his face, a bit of black metal protruded from one side of his forehead, and he sported a leather black eye patch. It felt surreal that you both occupied the same world, he didn't seem real.
He must have immediately registered your fear, backing up a bit like you were a deer he didn't want to scare off. "Hey. Don't mind him, he doesn't talk to people much."
A held breath slowly escaped from you. "Right. Thanks, it's fine." You had already began walking towards your car as he mirrored your pace, getting up next to you.
A heavy hand rested on your shoulder, and you both exchanged another glance at each other. "Be safe out here. Not everyone has the best intentions." Before you could respond, he already started walking back to his own beat up car, leaving you with a tight knot in your abdomen. When you got back to your car and locked the doors, all your muscles relaxed and you let out a shaky exhale. What the hell just happened?
The engine groaned to life, headlights were turned on, and a kitschy pop song started playing on the radio. It actually greatly helped offset the weird mood, so it was kept on when pulling into the main road back to your campsite. You tapped on beat with the song, turning it up a bit to alleviate the lingering restless anxiety in the air. The promise of sleep felt like light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe you would start to head back in the morning instead of a couple days. Get a good rest, pack everything up, and start the journey back home and to your own bed.
Ugh, sleeping in an actual bed...
The lights on the dash began to flash as your power steering locked the wheel. You pulled over as much as you could on the small road and turned the car off. You waited a beat before trying the ignition again, and the engine sputtered a few times before pitifully dying. You smacked your head a few times on the steering wheel. It was about 20 minutes out to the campsite, and the majority of the walking would be in pitch black darkness in dense woods. Even with a flashlight, the walk there would be incredibly dangerous, and who would ever find you if something happened?
You grabbed the emergency flashlight in the passenger glove box and hopped out of the car. You hadn't made it but 5 minutes away from the rest stop you were just at, if you retraced your steps back, there may be some motel back in town. You suppose that was the plan. Sleeping in the car when someone could spot you and break in was a terrifying thought. At least you were conscious and could potentially protect yourself with the knife and flashlight on you.
You grabbed the backpack resting in the back seat, locked the door, and set off on the the way you came from.
Your trek lasted a few minutes before you saw another pair of headlights driving out to the direction of your broken down car. Maybe they could give you a ride back to the store? Or know of some place you could sleep for the night? You waved out to them desperately, moving the flashlight back and forth to grab their attention. Thankfully, they pulled up beside you and cranked the window down.
"Didn't expect to see you on the road." It was the man from before.
"Oh, uh.. Yeah, my car broke down. I don't suppose you could give me a ride to a motel or something...?"
"I'll see what I can do." His head nodded towards his side, signalling for you to get into the passenger seat.
You walked to the other side of his car, pushed yourself up and shut the door behind you. There was an immediate click of the door locking as soon as it latched. The same knot from when you first met settled back in you.
He continued to drive forward as an uneasy silence fell between the both of you. Side-eyeing him had you realize just how imposing of a man he was. His bad eye was at your side, so at least you could stare at him without his notice. As you continued to look, you noticed something. Was he.. smiling? Had he been smiling this whole time?
"Sorry to ask, but.. Isn't the town behind us? I thought we were going to a motel."
"There isn't a motel. I never said there was one."
Your throat became dry and your fingers fell onto the door handle next to you. An experimental tug on the door next to you told you that the child safety lock was on. "Where are we going?" Your heart fell into your stomach, accompanying that knot.
"I'm looking out for you. There's dangerous people out here." The squeeze of his hand on the leather of the steering wheel punctuated his words. He pulled off onto a dirt path, off the main road. "How many of your friends were you meeting up with?" Had he been eavesdropping on your conversation in the store?
"F-four. Four of them. They'll know I'm gone."
"Know you're gone, huh?" Shortly after, a small cabin appeared in front of you both, smoke softly pouring up from the chimney. He turned the car off, letting you both sit in the silence for a few beats, then canted his head towards you. "Lots of people go missing out here. I wonder if they would ever find you?"
With that, he opened the door and made his way in front of the car towards you. You felt for the knife in your pocket and held onto it, and as soon as he unlocked the side of the door and opened it, you unsheathed it and brandished it at him. No sooner had the knife hit the night air did he grab your wrist, twisting it in such a way that made it well-known he was used to brawling and subduing others. The knife clattered onto the ground next to you both as he yanked you by your arm out of the car, twisting it behind your back in a painful grasp that could break it if he pressed further. His torso was flush against your back, keeping your arm in place by his hand.
He bent down, breath ghosting your shoulder and ear. "I know, I get it. I'm not mad at you, you're just scared, anyone would be." He spoke so softly against you, "I'm here now, you're safe. Be good for me."
He pressed you onward towards the entrance of the home, still bending your arm on your back. You were forced up against the door while he unlocked it with his other hand. "Keep your eyes closed until I say you can open them. Can you do that for me?" You nodded and closed your eyes immediately.
"Good."
The creaking of the door cut through the night. As you both entered the home, two things accosted you: A warmth that greatly contrasted the cold wilderness behind you, and a pungent, cloying smell that you could almost taste.
He continued to push you forward, and the smell became stronger. The metallic, rusty smell landed on your tongue. You tried your best to hold your breath as the smell made your eyes start to water. He was still behind you, there would be no way he would notice if you opened an eye, right?
You peeked one eye open to see a kitchen around you. There were bits of meat cut up on an old countertop. The smell must just be from some skinned hunt he was preparing. Your eyes scanned the other side of the kitchen, head staying straight forward so as not to put him off to your peeking, then it landed onto something hooked up from the ceiling with a stained, metal bucket underneath it. Your brain short-circuited trying to figure out what it could be before recognizing the shape as a partially skinned headless torso. You couldn't help it. You jolted away from him, letting out a primal gasp, fighting against the restraint he still had on you.
He sighed, as if he were dealing with an unruly child. You moved forward a few paces before your held arm brought you back, and he spun you around, picked you up and hastily walked up a pair of stairs towards a different room. His room.
Your screams echoed through the entire cabin, fighting against his body to no avail. His muscles felt like rock, and his grip on you was iron-clad. "Let go of me! Please, please just let go of me! I won't tell anyone, I promise." How used to screaming was this man that he wasn't at all phased by your distress?
"Told you not to open your eyes." He threw your body on his bed like a rag doll. As you pushed yourself in a sitting position, you heard a distinctive metal click. Your leg was cuffed to his bed, connecting you to it with a chain maybe a few feet long.
He smiled again as another wistful sigh left his mouth, admiring the cuff around your ankle. "I came into town because I'm low on meat. Food in the woods is too gamey, people have a very distinct pork taste that's hard to find." His eye pierced yours as he looked up, still kneeling down from when he trapped you. "Saw you a few days ago. I was hoping you would come back to town before leaving. It feels like a waste to butcher you, been lonely all my years out here."
Finally, he stood up, towering over you completely. "I found something else. Got 'em in the basement. We can finish what's left in the kitchen and then I can make you something really fresh after. How's that sound?" He bent down and held your chin while fat tears rolled down your cheeks.
"Please, I'll do anything, just-" His thumb then caressed your lips almost reverently while he shushed you.
"I know. I'll take care of you now. You have nothing to worry about. I'll make us supper."
---
Hours turned into days. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months.
He never once forced himself on you after all this time. The most asked were chaste kisses. He washed you, groomed you, got you new clothes from town, kept you fed and warm. He would bring new books, or play cards with you whenever you asked. Oftentimes you both would listen to the radio.
Once in a while, you would hear screams from his victims. The ripping, tearing, and then silence. There were times he would be covered in blood and viscera of others, and yet still look at you with such warmth it burned your heart. You could hear the cracking of the bones in the kitchen, and when you were brought down to eat, he would always ask if you were okay.
It had been 9 months. You think. it was hard to keep track and you only had the moving seasons to go off by. You were both laying in bed, and you could tell he was starting to drift off. Tears began to fall on your pillow, as they did often, and he instantly stirred when he heard the distinct noise of sniffling. He turned over to you immediately, thumbing away any of the tears that still were on your skin.
"Still not used to being here? I promise, you will get used to me. I will never harm you."
You felt a strange stabbing in your heart when you came to the realization why you were crying. How could you feel guilty about this of all things?
"I'm sorry I pulled a knife on you that night. I don't know what I was thinking." Then the tears began falling and sobs broke through you. None of this made any sense. What was happening?
The softest sigh emanated from the man next to you as he brought you in his embrace. He held onto you just tight enough and rubbed your back slowly. "It's not your fault, none of this is your fault."
How could this be the safest you've ever felt in your life?
an archive of fics that iâve loved â€ïžâ i have no words to describe on how immensely grateful i am to these amazing writers here on tumblr. i hope you all the best in life <33
ââ .⊠HUNTERXHUNTER
guessing game - a/b/o setting and its about illumi?! ughh i love this sm esp how mc correctly guessed that illumi used her shirt as a pillowcase lol AND the line âthis is all the space that we need between usâ?! im obsessed! (@hypnoswrites)
soulmate au - chrollo soulmate au?!? im sat. another lovely fic by hypno! thereâs a lot more amazing fics on their blog so please go to it and show your support ^^ (@hypnoswrites)
30 seconds - another chrollo soulmate au!! imagine finding out that your soulmate is a murderer and on top of that, heâs the phantom troupe leader! (@uvobreakmylegs)
sixth floor game - ok soo i never knew i needed demon shalnark until this came⊠a must read! (@uvobreakmylegs)
biting people you like - iâm such a sucker for vampire fics,, like just come over and bite me shalnark(@hypnoswrites)
mu heart is in my hand - a feitan soulmate au!! give me a soulmate au and my heart is yours (@after-witch)
chained veils - forced marriage with pariston?! đ€€(@envy-of-the-apple)
ââ .⊠CORIOLANUS SNOW
the driven snow - my first yandere snow fic that iâve read! the horror that mc felt when she found out that sheâs staying at the capitol (@after-witch)
NDA - hands down the best! poor livia :( her own son doesnât even recognize her. âno one leaves the president.â trust me, i wonât. snow using mcs brother as a leverage for her to behave. dirty dirty snow (@perlelune)
no body, no crime - all time fav. please read thiss! đ (@perlelune)
ââ .⊠A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS
caged - the BEST dark valarr!! i love love long chapters <3 control freak valarr. i eat up all ur writing (@valarrtheyoungprince)
the favorite - omg aerion and valarr together!? gimme boaf! no words on how amazing this piece is! aerion being the asshole he is and lying to valarr about mc. from âvalarrâ to its âyour graceâ after he found out about the betrayal đł (@perlelune)
suprise - mmm daddy maekar⊠and heâs delusional too⊠this kind of troupe is like my guilty pleasure lol like hihihi, we all love egg! (@mrsdarkandyandere7)
picture-perfect - i wholeheartedly believe that thereâs something dark hiding underneath valarrâs picture perfect facade! i mean, look at that man! heâs just better at hiding it than the others (@mrsdarkandyandere7)
distrust - so so good! like yes, valarr, just keep interrogating me like that ughsh. i love your dark valarr fics sssm, you keep me alive đ„ș (@mrsdarkandyandere7)
aerion targaryen - that dick corrupt me đ€€đ (@beentainted)
valarr baby trapping - ughh ughhh yes! "i don't want any highborn lady, i love you," ok then, im easy, i give you permission to impregnate me! đ (@beentainted)
marked up - so what if we all a little into spanking!! let me take care of that for you, valarr đ who said thattt?? (@musingsofheaven)
thou shalt not covet - oh yes, daddy baelor and his son!!! baelors so fucking hot that i turn into a river every time i see him. valarrs hatred towards his step-mommy is not because she replaced jena, but something more scary ooooo shiver me timbers (@perlelune)
darling big sister - HELLO?? aerion being creepy as always, selecting whores that looks just like his sister :(( that man fr have a mommy kink anyone who disagrees is wrong (@imeow33)
a starved man is no laughing matter - who doesnât love a reverse harem đł (@valarrswhitestreak)
dragons caught in the storm - honestly, this brings me back to my fifth grade wherein i tried to make a love potion for my crush ugh!! putting that aside, aerion taking the drink from mc that contains the love potion that was meant for valarr cuz yk typical aerion behavior and the horror that mc, daella, and rhae felt!! (@catbayunthestoryteller)
chosen - he hit me and it felt like a kiss đ me love love this, very very much!!! im like a wife that waits for her husband to arrive after work, but instead of that, its me on my toes waiting for the next banger of an update (°ă°) (@loveobx)
ââ .⊠ROMAN GODFREY
bite marks and bruises - legit cried tears of joy when i saw this! who likes being chased and period sex anyways⊠its not like, i like it or something! may zeus himself strike me (@cherienymphe)
âââ NOTE
legit if i added more like jjk, batfam, hsr, marvel, tua, outer banks, twst, dune, etc.. this would have surpassed hamiltonâs essay.
to all authors out there, i love you all đ„ș your writings are all deeply appreciated by us readers and never ever doubt yourself and let the haters get to your mind. â€ïžâ â€ïžâ â€ïžâ
The way that you write angst just absolutely scratches my brain just right. I would love to read your version of Baelor being caught being unfaithful and having to yearn for reader back. Any other detail is up to you. We just see him as this moral compass and I think seeing him caught not being perfect would be sooooo satisfying to read. Especially if reader ran to Lyonnel, Maekar or bloodraven for comfort. đ
In the four years of your marriage to Prince Baelor Targaryen, you have never once questioned his devotion to youâa fool's hope, you'd come to realise when you stumble upon him in a passionate moment with another woman, you do not yell, you do not scream. You have known that this marriage was not one born from love, but rather duty, and in the act itself, this unfaithful act sends you into the arms of another.
đđđđđđđđ; infidelity, cheating, age gap (reader is in her late twenties, baelor in his early forties), sexual content, possessive behaviour, jealous behaviour, so much yearning, guilt, use of blood magic, brief maekar x reader, but no cheating on the reader's part, oral (male receiving and female), breeding kink, plot with porn.
In the four years of your marriage to Prince Baelor Targaryen, the Red Keep had become a cage of silk and duty. You were still young enough that the court whispered about the years between you and your husband, who had passed forty with the quiet dignity of a man who had already buried more than most.
His hair, once dark, now held strands of white at the temples that caught the light like frost on steel. The lines at the corners of his mismatched eyes deepened when he smiled, which he did rarely in public and never quite fully when alone with you.
Those lines told stories of battles fought before you had even flowered into womanhood, of losses you could only imagine in the abstract.
You had never once questioned his devotion. That was the foolâs hope you carried like a hidden coin, polished smooth by every courteous touch of his hand at the small of your back during feasts, every night he came to your bed and took you with careful, almost reverent thoroughness.
His hands, large and calloused from years of sword work, would map your body as if committing each curve to memory.
Duty had bound you both, an alliance sealed with vows spoken before the Seven and the court.
Love, you told yourself in the quiet hours before dawn while listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing beside you, might still grow if you tended it carefully enough.
You studied the way candlelight played across the planes of his face, and you allowed yourself to believe that the careful way he held you afterward meant something more than obligation.
It shattered on a humid evening in the seventh moon, when the air itself felt heavy with the promise of storms.
You had gone looking for him after the small council ran late, your slippers whispering over stone that still held the dayâs heat.
The corridor outside his solar smelled of burning incense, rose and honey, your favourite, the faint metallic tang of old blood from the training yards below, and something sweeter, jasmine, perhaps, or a perfume that should have been familiar and yet was not quite right.
The door stood ajar by the width of a hand. Soft sounds drifted out, wet, rhythmic, the low creak of the heavy desk, punctuated by a womanâs broken moan that rose and fell like a tide.
Your fingers froze on the carved wood. For a moment you considered turning away. Instead you pushed the door wider.
Baelor had the woman bent over the edge of his desk. His dark tunic was open, the pale column of his throat arched, his hips driving forward in a relentless rhythm.
Her black hair spilled across the polished wood; her olive-skinned hands braced against the surface, one of his large hands gripped her hip hard enough to leave marks; the other was tangled in her hair, holding her in place as he fucked her with a force you had never seen from him in four years of careful, almost reverent nights.
His head swivelled toward the sound of the door.
For a single suspended heartbeat his eyes met yours across the space of the solar. Recognition flared, then something far darker. His head snapped toward the woman still bent beneath him. Horror flooded his features so completely that it transformed him into a stranger.
The colour drained from his face until the pupila of his eyes stood out like fresh bruises. His hips stuttered to a halt. His hands jerked free of her as if her skin had burned him.
âNoââ The word tore out of him, raw and pained, nothing like the measured voice you had known for four years. âGods, no. This is notâ look at me. Look at me.â
He was speaking to the woman now, but his eyes kept flicking back to you, wide and desperate. âWhat have you done? What have youââ
You did not yell, you did not scream. The air left your lungs in a single silent rush that left your ears ringing. Something cold and precise settled behind your ribs, a blade of ice that did not yet hurt because the shock had not fully arrived.
You watched long enough to see the way his body recoiled from the figure on the desk, the way his mouth shaped your name without sound, the pure desolation that replaced whatever pleasure had been there a moment before.
Then you stepped back, closed the door without a sound that might have betrayed the fracture opening inside you, and walked away.
Your slippers made no noise on the stone. The tapestries of Aegonâs Conquest blurred past in a wash of red and black and gold. You passed a pair of guards who bowed; you inclined your head as if nothing inside you had cracked open.
Only when you reached the quiet gallery overlooking the Blackwater did the first tremor start in your hands. The river below moved black and endless. Distant ships bobbed like black pearls. You gripped the stone balustrade until the edges bit into your palms and the pain gave you something solid to hold.
Duty, not love. You had known it and yet the knowing had never felt like this, like swallowing glass.
He found you before the hour was out.
Baelor came into the gallery with the look of a man who had run the length of the Keep. His tunic was still open, his hair disordered, his eyes wild. The moment he saw you he stopped as if struck.
âPlease,â he said, the word cracking. âPlease listen to me. I do not know howâ I thoughtâ gods, I thought it was you.â
You turned your face away. The river kept moving. Your silence was the only weapon you had left.
âI know how this looks,â he continued, stepping closer, voice low and urgent and already fraying. âI know what you saw. But something is wrong. The moment I looked at her after I saw your face in that doorway, it was as if a veil lifted. The hunger that had been driving me, it felt like mine until the second it broke. Please. You must believe me. I would never choose another. Not after four years of waiting for you to look at me as if you might one day mean the soft things you sometimes say when you think I am already asleep.â
You still said nothing. The glass in your throat made speech impossible.
He reached for your hand. You pulled it away. The rejection landed on his face like a physical blow.
âDo not do this,â he whispered. âDo not shut me out. Let me explain. Let me try. I will get on my knees in this gallery if that is what it takes. I will beg until the words lose all meaning. Only do not walk away from me while believing I chose that woman over you.â
You left him standing there among the stone and the dark water.
The days that followed were a study in quiet, relentless ruin.
Baelor did not force his way into your chambers. He waited outside them in the early mornings, voice low and careful through the wood. He waited in the corridors after council, always a few paces behind so that you could choose whether to acknowledge him.
He came himself, again and again, and every time the same raw plea lived in his mouth.
âPlease listen. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but something was done to me. I felt it the instant I saw your face in that doorway. The hunger that had been in me was not mine. Please. I am begging you.â
You walked past him. The court watched, but there was nothing for the whispers to seize upon beyond a marriage grown suddenly cold.
In your grief you turned toward the one person who had always stood at a careful distance and yet never seemed entirely closed.
Maekar.
You began to seek him out in the quiet hours. Not in hidden chambers or behind locked doors, simply in the places where the Keepâs noise thinned.
The library in the late afternoon, where he sat among treatises on siegecraft and the histories of forgotten wars. The covered walk that overlooked the training yard at dusk. The small garden near the sept where the scent of night-blooming jasmine hung heavy in the air.
He never asked what had happened. He never pressed for details you were not ready to give. He simply made space for your silence and, when the silence became too heavy, offered the steady weight of his presence instead. You walked the length of the covered walk beside him without speaking.
You sat across from him in the library while he read and you pretended to, the turn of pages the only sound between you and sometimes he would set the book aside and look at you with those darker violet eyes and say, quietly, âYou do not have to carry it alone if you do not wish to.â
You never told him the full truth of the solar, you never needed to. The knowledge lived in the careful way he watched you, in the way he never allowed the conversation to drift toward Baelor unless you brought the name yourself.
The time you spent with him became a small, steady harbour and nothing more passed between you than the brush of hands when he passed you a book, the shared quiet of two people who understood that some wounds did not require words to be witnessed. No rumours stirred.
The court saw a good-brother offering quiet company to a good-sister whose marriage had grown strained, and found nothing scandalous enough to feed upon.
Baelor saw it anyway.
He saw the hours you spent in the library. He saw the way your shoulders loosened a fraction when Maekar was near. He saw the small, unguarded moments of ease that had once belonged only to the careful nights in your shared chambers. And the yearning in him deepened into something almost unbearable.
On the third evening he found you in the small sept. Candlelight flickered across the faces of the Seven. He stood in the aisle and did not come closer than the first row of benches.
âI keep waiting for the day youâll look at me and finally mean it when you say you hate me,â he said, voice quiet enough that it almost disappeared into the stone. âIâm not sure which of us will break first when it happens. But I would rather break than let you believe I chose that woman over you. I did not choose her. I cannot make the memory of her leave me, and I hate that more than I have hated anything in years. Please. Let me speak. Let me try to make this right before the silence between us becomes something that cannot be crossed.â
You left without answering. The silence you gave him was deliberate. Part of you wanted him to keep begging. Part of you wanted the sound of his voice to stop so the wound could begin to scar. Neither part was kind. Both felt necessary.
He kept coming.
On the fourth morning, outside your door: âI know you are spending time with Maekar. I am not asking you to stop. I am only asking you to hear me. I am asking you to let me tell you what I have learned. I am asking for the chance to show you that the man you saw in that solar is not the man who has spent four years learning the map of your body and still finding new places that make you sigh.â
On the fifth evening, in the corridor after the evening meal: âI yearn for you. Not for the duty. Not for the alliance. For the way you look at me when the court is gone and the candles are low. For the soft sound you make when I am inside you. For the chance to earn back even a fraction of the foolâs hope you once carried. Please. I am begging you.â
The words sat in the air between you long after you had walked away. You felt the weight of them in the quiet hours, in the spaces where Maekarâs steady presence could not quite reach.
The yearning in Baelorâs voice had been so raw, so stripped of every courtly shield, that it had left a mark of its own.It was on the sixth day that the truth finally rose to the surface.
A serving girl who had been tending the solar the night of the discovery came to you in private, eyes wide with fear. She had seen the woman, Lady Saera, a minor court beauty of Lyseni blood, leave something behind when she fled in haste after the glamour broke: a small vial of dark liquid and a scrap of parchment marked with symbols that made the girlâs stomach turn.
Blood magic, the old women of the kitchens whispered when the girl repeated the tale. The particular kind that did not merely cloud the mind.
You took the information to Baelor yourself.
He listened in silence, the colour draining from his face until the grief in his eyes stood out like bruises and when you finished he rose, crossed to the window, and stood with his back to you for a long time.
The city sprawled below under a late afternoon sun.
âI thought I chose her,â he said at last, the words quiet and raw. âI thought the hunger was mine. I looked at her and I saw you, every feature, the exact shade of your hair in the firelight, the shape of your mouth, the way you hold your shoulders when you are trying not to show what you feel. I felt the hunger I have only ever felt for you, and I did not question it because it felt like truth. Until the door opened and the real you was standing there, and the glamour shattered, and I saw what I had done while believing I was with the only person I have ever wanted that way.â
He turned.
The sheer anguish in his expression stole the breath from your lungs.
âShe made herself look like you,â he said. âBlood magic. Old. Designed to let the caster wear the face of the one the target already yearns for. The moment the magic broke, the thought of her became abhorrent. I have not been able to close my eyes without seeing the look on your face when you found us. I have not been able to sleep without hearing the silence you have given me every day since. And every hour you have spent with Maekar, every quiet walk, every shared silence in the library, I have watched and known that I drove you there. That my failure put that particular distance between us.â
You stared at him.
The memory of his face in that doorway, the way his head had swivelled toward you, the horror that had flooded his features, the way his head had snapped toward the woman on the desk, the pained and broken sound of his voice, rearranged itself around the new information until every piece fit with a terrible, clarifying precision.
âWhy?â you asked, the single word thin.
âShe wanted a child of Targaryen blood. Or leverage. Or simply the satisfaction of taking something that belonged to the dragon. The maesters are still examining the exact nature of the binding. What matters is that the desire was never mine. The moment the magic broke, all that remained was the knowledge of what I had allowed to happen while under a glamour I did not see until it was too late.â
Silence stretched between you, thick with everything that had been said and everything that still needed saying, with the six days of begging and the quiet hours spent with Maekar and the particular grief of nearly losing each other to a stolen face.
Baelor took one careful step closer, then stopped, the choice of the remaining distance still entirely yours.
âI have spent six days certain that day had already arrived. If it has, I will carry it. But if there is any part of you that can still hear me, any part that remembers the nights before this, the way I held you as if you were the only solid thing in a world of shifting alliances, then I am asking you to let me try to earn the right to stay. I yearn for your love the way a drowning man yearns for air. I always have. I only never knew how to say it until I thought I had lost the chance forever.â
You looked at him for a long time and the foolâs hope you had once polished so carefully stirred somewhere beneath the wreckage, fragile and almost unrecognisable, but still alive.
âCome here,â you said.
He crossed the remaining space as if the floor might open beneath him at any moment and when he reached you he did not touch you at once. He waited until you lifted your hands to the open collar of his tunic and drew him down.
The kiss that followed was nothing like the claiming violence of other nights. It was slow, almost trembling, full of apology and the particular terror of a man who had nearly lost the one thing he had not known how to fully value until the moment he thought it was gone forever.
When he lifted you and laid you back against the pillows it was with a care that made your throat tight.
He undressed you piece by piece, pausing to press his mouth to every newly bared inch of skin, the hollow of your throat, the underside of each breast, the soft curve of your belly, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs.
When he finally settled between your legs his tongue was gentle at first, tracing the folds of you with languid thoroughness, tasting the evidence of your earlier tension and the heat that had begun to gather the moment he touched you.
You arched, fingers tightening in his hair and he hummed against you, the vibration travelling straight to your core, and then he focused, lips sealing around the swollen pearl, tongue flicking in tight, relentless circles until your thighs shook and a soft, rolling climax washed through you.
Only then did he rise and allow you to push him onto his back.
You took him into your mouth with a different hunger, slow, savoring, learning the weight and the taste of him without the earlier desperation of anger. âTell me, husband,â your tongue traced the thick vein along the underside, as you glanced at him, âwas she better than me?â
âGods, no, fuck, never. If the Stranger himself possessed a mortal body of flesh and bone, he'd sooner beg the Gods themselves to return him to his immortal state at the touch and feel of you,â something warm fluttered through your heart and then you returned to making him come undone, tongue swirling around the head until his hips twitched and a low groan tore from his throat.
You hollowed your cheeks and took him deeper, the head brushing the soft palate, your hand stroking what your mouth could not reach.
Baelorâs fingers threaded through your hair, not guiding, only holding, as if the contact alone grounded him.
When you finally climbed over him and sank down onto his length, the stretch was familiar and deeply welcome. You set a rolling rhythm while his hands mapped your hips, your waist, the soft undersides of your breasts.
He watched your face with an intensity that made heat climb your throat, every time you clenched around him his breath hitched.
âStay with me,â he murmured. âNot duty. Not the alliance. Just stay. Choose it. Choose me. I have spent six days yearning for the chance to hear you say you might still want me, even after everything.â
You leaned down and kissed him, tasting yourself on his tongue, and whispered against his mouth, âI am already here.â
The pace deepened as Baelor sat up, wrapping your legs around his waist so you were chest to chest, the new angle letting him grind against that sensitive place inside you with every upward thrust.
One of his hands slipped between your bodies to stroke the swollen bud of your sex in time with the movement. The dual pressure built again, slower this time, richer.
When you came it was with a long, shuddering sigh, your forehead pressed to his, eyes open so you could watch the way pleasure transformed his features.
He followed moments later, burying himself to the hilt and holding there as he spilled, pulsing deep, the words he spoke half-lost against your collarbone: âMine. My wife. The only one I want to fill. The only one I will ever choose. The only one I have ever yearned for like this.â
You held him through it, arms locked around his shoulders, feeling the frantic beat of his heart against your own.
Afterward you lay tangled in the sheets, the late light painting gold across the planes of his chest and the soft curve of your hip where his hand rested as Baelorâs fingers traced idle patterns on your skin.
âThe woman is in a black cell,â he said quietly. âThe maesters have confirmed the nature of the magic. The court will know the truth, that she used blood magic to wear your face, that I was not the man who chose betrayal. I will not make a spectacle of it, but neither will I allow the story to remain as it currently stands.â
You turned your face into the hollow of his throat. âAnd Maekar?â
âHe is my brother. He offered you the quiet you needed when I could not. I will speak with him. Honestly. I will thank him for the care he showed you when I had given you every reason to turn away from me.â A pause. âI have spent too many years speaking in half-truths. It is time I learned a different language.â
You nodded against his skin. The guilt was still there, a low ember, but it no longer burned quite so hot.
Baelorâs arm tightened around you and his voice, when it came again, was soft enough that the words nearly vanished into the fading light.
âI look at you,â he said, âand I mean every quiet thing I have never known how to say. I mean the wanting. I mean the fear of the years between us. I mean the way I have spent four years learning the map of your body and still finding new places that make you sigh. I mean that I will keep choosing you, even when duty no longer requires it. Even after I nearly lost you to a glamour and six days of silence. I yearn for your love the way I have never yearned for anything else. I always have. I only needed to nearly lose you to learn how to say it.â
You closed your eyes and let the words settle into the spaces the earlier silence had left and outside the window a raven called once, twice, and then the evening swallowed the sound. Inside the chamber the only remaining noise was the slow, shared rhythm of two people who had finally stopped waiting for the day hate might arrive, and had begun, instead, to build something that might outlast it.
I am so fucking sorry, I couldn't for the life of me write that he was sane in the mind during his act of unfaithfulness, so I hope you are happy with this ending, I have another version written where the reader cheats back on Baelor with Maekar, so if you want that version, I'll post it in the coming days.
Summary: Posing for a portrait as a favour to a friend years ago is the kind of thing that slips one's mind. But it doesn't slip Baelor Targaryen's mind when he is the one who purchases the painting at a posthumous auction celebrating your late friend. He becomes obsessed with finding you, the Woman in Red and when he does...he won't let you go.
Pairing: Modern!Yandere!Baelor x fem!reader
TW: 18+ MDNI, NSFW; Dead Dove: do not eatâmanipulation, threatening, power imbalances, dub-con. Sex scene includes: fingering, masturbation, p-in-v, praise kink and dom-sub elements. Baelor's obsessed. Reader is manipulated back. Ending is sad.
Credit & A/N: GIF by @ohmylul; golden heart divider by @diviniyae; requested by anon: here | I have no idea if this is good or not, I'm surviving on limited sleep and low social battery so I hope it's good and deliciously dark.
The Painting of the Portrait:
            The dressâs bodice is tight, too tight, the corset pinching at your ribs, squeezing them and altering your shape in a way that some may find desirable, but you hate because it isnât you. Looking at yourself in the mirror, at the way the bodice is beaded along your sides, at the way your waist dips artificially, at the full skirt and the deep, deep red of the dress itself, you do not even recognize yourself.
            You look so different.Â
            Except for your face, that is your own. Pretty and perfect, makeup done not to change but enhance your features, like a glow filter, but real. Here.Â
            âYou ready, babes?â your friend calls out, her voice echoing into the room where you stand, the full-length mirror ornate and gilded and fading, old and in need of re-silvering yet still clear as day to show a reflection that is not you. Not at all.Â
            âI guess,â you call back, turning this way and that in front of the mirror, watching the skirt and it twirls around you, spinning out like a ballgown, a blooming flower. Something pretty and strange and foreign. Something not worth it due to the fact that the corset continues to bite into your skin, your ribs, your lungs.Â
            âWhatâs the guess about?â your friend calls out, stepping into the room, her arms crossed, hair drawn back and dark eyes lined in a way to make them larger than life, magic in her artistâs hand.Â
            âItâs strange,â you tell her, nose crinkling as you look at yourself in the mirror, so different than the way you normally are, so much more elegant in a way that seems fake. Which it is even when itâs realâparadoxical really.Â
            âYou look hot,â she says, her tone flat, no-nonsense as she always is. Sheâs never one to lie or flatter, rather speak the truth no matter who it pisses off. âAnd come on. Itâs for a painting that youâll never even think about once itâs done. You wear this once, pose once. I take a picture and sketch while youâre here and then I go off the picture. Capiche?â
            âCapiche,â you sigh, rolling your eyes at her, affection laden in the gesture as she takes your hands, the dark skin of her hand covered in paints both bright and dull like always. She guides you from her bedroom out to the living room turned studio where her table is set up along with a dark backdrop and a chair.Â
            âOkay,â she says, letting go of your hand, pointing you towards the chair, her gestures elegant without even trying. âI want you to sit on that chair, kind of drape yourself over it,â she gestures as she speaks, gestures that you watch as you sink into the high-backed, vintage chair, legs over the armrest on the left, back against the one on the right, hands how sheâs displaying hers. âYES!â she cries. âHold it right there.â And you do, holding so still that youâre barely breathing, your chest barely rising and falling as the camera clicks, the flash flashes and the polaroid spits out from the end.Â
            You stay like that for an hour as she sketches, barely moving, holding still until she claps her hands, releasing you from the prison of the pose and allowing you to get back up and stand, shaking out your rigid limbs as she undoes the bodice, the corset, helps you out of the dress and tosses you your clothes.Â
            Itâs something that as you leave her paint-fume filled apartment you donât think anything of it. A favour for a friend, something nice that youâve done for them and their portfolio, something that maybe, years from now youâll see on the internet and be reminded of this moment, this after moment standing on the sidewalk as rain drizzles down around you, drops streaking the artwork of your makeup, setting you free.Â
            You donât think itâs anything important.
The Auction:
            Baelor hates these things, these charity auctions for artists living and dead because thereâs really no point to them. Itâs some paint of canvas, beautifully applied paint of course, but still paint. The only value is the name on the bottom of the piece. Names which mean nothing to Baelor, who much prefers the hand turkeys made by his sons in grade school, their names scrawled on the bottom of the pages in childish chicken scratch.Â
            Those mean more than these pieces any day.Â
            But here he is, in the crowded auditorium, the auctioneer on the stage, at the podium, drinking water and waiting, his watch ticking in time with the clock. Here is, listening to the rustle of papers from men with ambition chasing status symbols.Â
            Baelor actually doesnât know what artist this event is for, only that Valarr was busy with finals and could not accompany him, rather he is alone as he so often is. He settles into his seat, adjusting his suit jacket, hands reaching for the papers on his lap, the one with the auction information.Â
            In Memory of Larissa Addamson, artist extraordinaire. Baelor looks at the glossy photo of the young woman, no more than thirty, her hair in braids, drawn back into an updo, dark skin glimmering as if sheâs glowing from within. Itâs sad, a life so young, so precious, gone. He swallows hard, flipping past the front to see what pieces are for sale, noticing the portraits of people in real places.Â
            Itâs like she took the real world and put it on canvas in paint. War zones and poverty and the dead and the dying. Itâs all there, but Baelorâs eye is drawn to one that is different, posed and practiced. One with the most beautiful woman heâs ever seen within it.Â
            The woman wears a red dress, her skin glimmering, lips twisted up with a precious smile. Her body is posed and sparkling and her form hidden by the dress, but delicious all the same and he wonders if she's real or something invented by the artistâs mind. The upper half of her face isnât visible, rather just the bottom, the nose and the lips.Â
            The Woman in Red, the caption reads. One of the very first portraits Larissa had ever done, back when she was eighteen in her undergraduate years, created for her portfolio. Over the years, Larissa has never revealed the identity of the Woman in Red, simply saying, âshe is the closest friend I have ever or will ever have.â The identity to this day is still unknown, though many speculate that itâs Larissaâs best friend, lawyer, Y/N L/N. But for now, the Woman in Red remains a mystery.
            Baelor swallows hard at the name, your name, one that is perfect and beautiful and fits so perfectly to the image of the woman in the bright red dress. This, this is the piece he will have. The one that he will buy to look at until he can have you, the Woman in Red, in real life.Â
            Beside him.Â
            âLet us start the auction todayâŠâ the auctioneer begins, his voice droning out over the audience, but Baelor isnât paying attention, he knows the number of the painting which he wants, his trophy, the one that will do until he has you gilded and on a high shelf out of reach of anyone but him.Â
            He doesnât quite understand these new feelings, has never felt them before, this deep need to possess like heâs never had before, but he knows one thing well enough: heâll listen to it. Heâs not losing you because the idea of losing you is the worst in all the world.
            While the auction goes on, he removes his phone from the pocket of his suit jacket, sending a message to the one person who will give him the information he needs without ever questioning why: Brynden Rivers.Â
Baelor: I need to know where a person is. I need all their information in fact.
Brynden:Â How soon?
Baelor:Â As soon as possible.
Brynden:Â Name?
            And Baelor sends yours, no response given just as the number of the painting of you is called.Â
            He buys it for one hundred thousand dollars, a steal if you ask him because itâs you. And he doesnât even know you, but he doesnât need to.Â
            Youâre his and there is no price too great for you.Â
Bryndenâs Dossier:
Y/N L/N, lawyer at Highgarden Corporation. Late twenties, rising star in the company. Comes from North, no known attachments to any of the large families, rather just someone from a normal family with ties to the Free Cities.Â
She lives in Kingâs Landing, an apartment complex not far from Red Keep University, apartment 3B on Aegon Wayâs, apartment block called Conquerorâs Garden.Â
Sheâs known for her love of movies, books and music. Her favourite book in so far as I was able to gather remains Little Women by Louisa May Alcott although her opinion seems to be fiercely that Laurie and Jo belonged together.Â
Sheâs never been in any trouble and was quite close with Larissa Addamson, the two having been friends from childhood. In fact, sheâs executor of Larissaâs will and planned the auction. She took no pieces for herself, claiming that the ones she had were enough to reduce her to tears, she didnât need anymore.Â
Sheâs single.Â
The Meeting:
            You take a deep breath, smoothing down your suit jacket with palms that are miraculously dry, the air scented with coffee and cigar smoke, the law of the Seven Kingdoms still primarily an old boys club. Which is why it was such a surprise when you were called to a meeting with the Targaryen Group, the firmâs largest clients.Â
            It was even more of a surprise when you were informed that you were requested by Baelor Targaryen himself.Â
            You close your eyes, drawing in one more deep breath and releasing it before stepping forwards, your kitten heels clicking on the polished marble floor as you cross the lobby to the conference room doors, doors made of carved Weirwood, the faces still there in a grotesque display of disrespect to the ones who used the Weirwood as a church.Â
            You pull the door open, the hinges gliding open, quiet, nary a whisper and you step into the room, your skin heating up as you take in the sight before you.Â
            The conference room table is covered in papers, orderly stacks but covered nonetheless, your boss Mr. Tyrell seated on one side of the table, the Targaryen representatives on the other. But it is not the table, nor your boss, that causes that fire in your skin, but rather one of the Targaryen representatives with one blue eye and one brown, his hair dark with only a few strands of grey cutting through. His stare is heated, trailing over your body and you know itâs inappropriate but you donât really care.Â
            âAh, there you are!â Mr. Tyrell calls out, waving you over and you blink, moving your gaze to your boss, your skin cooling like someoneâs dumped a bucket of ice water over your head and you hold back a shiver as you cross the room towards him, towards your seat, just a section of skin still heated by the trail of the manâs eyes on you.Â
            âGood morning, Mr. Tyrell,â you say, inclining your head as you sit down, setting your briefcase upon the table, flipping its golden latches and withdrawing the contracts you had been drawing up for the Targaryen Corporationâs acquiring of the Redwyne Vineyards, a major player in all production of alcohol within the Seven Kingdoms.Â
            âWell, these are the Targaryen representatives,â your boss says, his voice loud and booming. âBrynden Rivers,â he says, gesturing at the man with pale hair and a mark on his face that gives him a strange and haunting sort of beauty, âand Baelor Targaryen,â he gestures at the man whose gaze still follows you like predator stalking prey.Â
            In the good kind of way.Â
            âGood morning, gentlemen,â you tell them, your lips curving up in a soft smile as you pass the contracts across the table towards them, Brynden reaching for them first, but Baelor stopping him with a single finger lifted, taking them himself, the gesture of dragging them across the table slow, his eyes locked on yours the entire time he does so. âThose,â you continue, ignoring the strange gestures of Baelor, âare the contracts for the acquisition of Redwyne Vineyards.âÂ
            âTheyâre veryâŠthorough,â Baelor says, his voice deepening on the last word, cracking in a way that has you shifting in your seat, skin heating up in a way that is both comfortable and uncomfortable as you cough, just slightly, the kind of cough that hints at redirecting conversation.Â
            âThank you,â you tell him with a nod, your eyes flitting back to the polished wood top of the table, the bit you can see around the papers covering it. But you can feel his eyes on you, tracing every bit of you, lingering on your lips, the swell of your chest.Â
            Thatâs how the entire meeting goes, you and Mr. Rivers and Mr. Tyrell talking logistics and legalities and acquisitions and Mr. Targaryen watching you like youâre prey. Or, more dangerously, like youâre his.Â
            âMiss,â Mr. Targaryen calls at the end of the meeting, your boss leaving, deep in conversation with Mr. Rivers, âa moment of your time please.â
            âOf course, Mr. Targaryen,â you answer, your voice even, chill and polite as you turn around, your heart skipping a beat at his proximity, the way his face is just inches from your own.Â
            âI was wondering,â he whispers, his hand reaching forwards, thumb brushing along your cheekbone as if heâs checking that youâre real, electricity crackling at his touch in your skin, âif you would do me the honour of having dinner with me.â
            âIâm sorry, sir,â you whisper, the words scraping around the lump in your throat, the lump not formed of tears, but rather want. Lust. Need. Things you shouldnât feel. âBut that would be unprofessional seeing as Iâm serving on your holdings board now.â He steps closer as you step back, stalking after you until your back is against the conference room wall and his hands are on your waist and this is wrong, yet you canât find it in you to push him away.Â
            âYou misunderstand me,â he whispers, leaning in closer, his lips not far from yours, just a breadth away from pressing against yours. You wonder if theyâre soft, your body shifting, the desire to kiss him growing stronger. âIt wasnât really a request. Itâs just fact. You will have dinner with me or I will destroy your career before itâs even begun.â
            Thereâs that douse of cold water again, that instant freezing of fear inside your veins, adrenaline so hot itâs burning cold inside of you as you press back and away from him, back into the wall.Â
            âWhy would you do that to me?â you whisper, your chin turned away from him, cheek pressed against the marble wall. He places two fingers under your chin, turning you back towards him, making you look at him.Â
            âBecause I want you,â he whispers and you swallow hard, tears stinging your eyes, chest tightening and constricting, growing painful.Â
            âWhy? You want to just use me up and leave me for what?â you whisper, voice cracking with the emotions simmering in your tight, tight chest.Â
            âNo,â he whispers, âI want you as mine. My trophy, my prize, my wife. And it starts with our dinner. And donât even think of doing anything to get out of it. No one will believe anything you say. You are nothing compared to me.â
            âYet you want me,â you whisper, your chin lifting in defiance away from his touch, teeth gritting, jaw tightening and his eyes widen, pupils flaring with delight.Â
            âBecause to me,â he whispers, dipping in towards you again, closer than before, his next words whispered against your lips, âyou are everything.â And then he kisses you, a searing kiss, a kiss that is not wanted and yet wanted and you hate this. You hate that you want this man who wants to control you.Â
            But you do.
The Dinner:
            The restaurant is fancy, dimly lit and full of waiters in the costumes that you expect to see, really, only on TV, more of a caricature of serving staff, than reality.Â
            You donât really know what you were expecting based on how he asked, the demand, the threat, the inevitability in his request, but it wasnât this. It wasnât him showing up outside your apartment building with a limousine and stepping out to allow you to slide in first, a gentleman move. It wasnât him offering you his arm as he guided you into the restaurant. It wasnât him pulling out your chair for you and certainly not for the way heâs waited while youâve ordered, never ordering for you, but rather simply going at your speed.Â
            It wasnât the small talk that heâs making. It wasnât this: him being a guy and not a monster that he kind of made himself out to be while threatening you.Â
            He almost seems like someone you could be happy with, could date and fall in love with if his threat wasnât hanging over your head, preventing it from being genuine.Â
            âAre you having a good time, darling?â he asks you, leaning forwards, his elbows on the table, stare intent as he looks at you like heâs looking into your soul, but in a way that seems to set your skin afire and reminds you that your cunt still works.Â
            âFine,â you whisper, looking down and away from him, swallowing hard, looking intently at the table top, your fork spinning uselessly, mindlessly in your fingers.Â
            âThen why wonât you look at me?â
            âOh, I donât know,â you hiss, looking up at him, venom in your voice, the kind that is so acidic it even hurts you, your eyes narrowed at him as you grit your teeth, âmaybe because you fucking threatened me to be here.â
            âWould you have otherwise?â he asks you, one thick eyebrow arching and you roll your eyes, setting your fork down with a clatter.Â
            âItâs not the fucking point,â you whisper and his face twists, shifts and changes into an expression of incredulity.
            âItâs exactly the point,â he says, leaning back in his chair, arms folding, hands behind his head, plush lips curving up in a grin, a smirk. âI wanted to date you and needed some way to free you from your own fears.â
            âBecause threatening me so makes me want to date you,â you tell him, voice dark and sardonic as he leans forwards again, pupils flaring over mismatched eyes, dark swallowing light in a way that has your pulse thundering and mouth growing dry, a need for friction causing you to press your thighs together.Â
            Is it wrong to fuck the man whoâs threatened you? Does that cross some great line?Â
            You donât really know.Â
            You donât really care because honestlyâŠfuck it, youâre horny and heâs hot and heâs here and he probably wants it like you do. Â
            âI donât know,â he says, his voice sultry and sexy and annoying all at the same time. âDoes it?â
            âNo,â you tell him. âIt only makes me want to fuck you.â His face pales at that before flushing anew and he reaches up, one finger loosening his tie as he nods, waving for the check. You like that he doesnât make you wait.Â
            You like the way heâs swallowing hard even more.Â
            This might be fun.
            âBaelor!â you cry out, your ass up in the air, skirt rucked up, his fingers curling inside of you, your face pressed into the mattress, his other hand toying with your breasts, his thumb circling your clit, applying pressure in a maddening way, one that has you keening as he drags his knuckles down your walls one after another for each of the four fingers inside of you.Â
            âShh,â he whispers, pressing a kiss against the dip of your spine. âJust be my good girl and take it. Itâs what you wanted, is it not?â His words have you crying out on their own, your pussy clenching as he pushes another finger inside of you, followed by the other three, the fingers pumping in and out, the sounds of flesh and slick echoing in the room along with your moans.Â
            âFuck!â you cry out as he shoves all four fingers back in at the same time, the tips curling in tandem, all hitting different places inside you. Your hands clench around the bedsheets, tightening and gripping, knuckles stiffening.Â
            âJust be good,â Baelor says, one hand pinching your nipple hard in a way that has you crying out, hips rucking back and up, body moving and shifting, his following. Itâs as he presses down on your clit, while dragging his fingertips along your walls that you feel your orgasm wash over you, walls clenching hard before fluttering with aftershocks.Â
            He withdraws his fingers when your hole has stopped fluttering around him, popping his fingers in his mouth and sucking on them in a way that is audible, cracking in the stillness of his bedroom, a chorus accompanied by your heavy breathing. He pulls his fingers out with a pop as you flop over onto your back, your dress still on. He watches as you shrug out of it, eyes darkening even more when youâre entirely naked, rather than just the rucked up, unbuttoned state you were in before.Â
            âGood girl,â he whispers and the praise hits you, your arousal even higher as he begins to unbutton his shirt, a sizable tent in his pants, eyes tracing every inch of you. âTouch yourself,â he rasps and you comply, one hand reaching down to rub your swollen clit, two fingers slipping through your wet folds to your entrance, dipping inside that has your back arching, everywhere hyper-sensitive, your other hand playing with your breasts as he watches, stripping. He steps out of his pants, belt on the floor, shirt discarded too. He pulls his boxers down, his hard cock springing free, the tip red, a single bead resting on it, his hand reaching for it, pumping it a few times as he watches you touch yourself, crying out whenever you hit that spot inside of you.Â
            âGood girl,â he whispers again, this time pulling your hand from your legs, off your breast and replacing your fingers with his cock, sliding it between your wet folds, teasing your entrance before pulling back, turning you into a whining, keening mess underneath him. He laughs a bit at that, a short laugh, a cruel laugh before he pushes in in one thrust, the tip of his cock slamming into your cervix.Â
            âSo good,â he coos as you cry out, tears growing in your eyes as he begins to fuck you relentlessly, a brutal, cruel rhythm that has you moving like a doll, breasts bouncing every time, tears slipping from your eyes. He mutters praises as he does so, his pace brutal and relentless and harsh in all the right ways, your nails digging into his back, scraping down as he slams in and out, in and out over and over.Â
            âGod!â you cry as you come around his cock for the second time, his rhythm never ceasing, continuing to just go and go and go. Youâre too fucked out to realize that he never put a condom on and isnât planning on pulling out.Â
            Instead, he flips you over, pulling your ass up, shifting his body, cock slamming against you in all the right ways, enough that youâre coming again even when he hasnât once. Youâre moaning and crying and keening beneath him when he finally releases, spilling inside of you in thick hot ropes, his cock twitching before finally falling still and he pulls out.Â
            Itâs then, even when youâre too out of it to really notice or care, that he turns tender, cleaning you up and tucking you into bed, his arms around you, whispering âgoodnight, my darling.â
The Relationship:
            After that, a relationship built, exactly as Baelor wanted. He knew that threatening you was wrong, but he also understood that you never would have gone with him if he hadnât. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures and the most desperate of times is the idea of losing you.Â
            So, he threatened you and there you were, resplendent in a loose red sundress. His Woman in Red.Â
            He had planned his words and stares, hoping they would turn you on and he succeeded, getting you back in his place, fucked out on his cock exactly as he wanted. Exactly as heâs needed since he saw your portrait, hung it in his study, his consolation prize until he could have you.Â
            And now he does.Â
            Because after the sex, it was easy. He manipulated every situation, pulled back until you came to him, needing him and his comfort and his praise. He made sure to clear the relationship and made it up to you for his threats.Â
            The threats that you obviously could not remember in entirety.Â
            And now, youâve met his sons and they like you, like that you laugh and swear and make him happy. Now, youâre his.Â
            And the best part of all, is that you think it was all you.Â
            Even when it was all him.Â
The Painting:
            You forgave Baelor for his threats, mainly because, two years ago, after you slept with him he pulled back. He apologized in the morning and ceased contact, said he behaved unprofessionally, that if you reported him he would understand. And you were going to, you really were, but thenâŠyou know, you didnât like that he didnât reach out at allafter sleeping with you.Â
            It made you vulnerable in a way that you rarely are and so you went to him and asked him why he never said anything. And he told you it was because he wanted you and didnât really know what to do about it. And you forgave him.Â
            You donât really know why only that you didnât want to lose him for reasons that you cannot fathom.Â
            And now, two years later, youâre happy in a way youâve never been before. You wake feeling loved even if the start was anything but good.Â
            âBaelor?â you call out, pushing open the door to his study, stepping into the dimly lit room. Heâs rarely in here nowadays, preferring to do most of his work with you in the solarium of Dragonstone, Matarys joining when heâs home from school and his extracurriculars.
            Itâs mostly a disused room, but you couldnât find him anywhere else in the manor and thought to check here too. You flick the light switch on, the light flaring before you for a moment, blinding before it settles back into its natural settings, understandable and seeing, revealing the desk and armouries and a painting with a familiar frame.Â
            You step deeper into the room, your brow furrowing as you step towards the painting, the frame seemingly made of clay, molded by skilled hands to be flowers and skulls and other shapes. A hand so familiar that an ache begins behind your ribcage, an ache in your heart.Â
            âLarissa,â you whisper, the name of your friend like a pain cold and cruel and cutting as it leaves your lips and you look from the frame to the painting, your stomach twisting, bile rising, gut wrenching.Â
            Itâs the portrait from back when you were eighteen, back when you were young and stupid and thought to only help your friend rather than any lasting effects, but itâs clearly you if you put the painting beside you, that mouth yours, perfectly yours. The chin too. The hair and the body and the necklace.Â
            Itâs you. No question.Â
            âDarling?â you hear Baelor call out, followed by his footsteps, his hand coming to rest between your shoulder blades, the touch making your skin crawl because you realize looking at the painting, the one that was sold all those years ago, that none of this was your choice.Â
            You never had a choice at all.Â
            He chose you long ago.Â
            And there was never a way out of it.
pairing gwayne hightower x female reader (team black)
summary you were sent by rhaenyra to negotiate the release of a former master of coin who is living in tumbleton. you had expected ormund hightower to come, not his cousin.
content 18+. smut. enemies to lovers hehe. one bed. hate sex. dirty talk. fingering. slight degradation. slight yearning in the end idk. reader is from flea bottom.
a/n english is not my first language
masterlist | read on ao3
king's landing had always been a city of hunger.
you had known that long before you ever sat at rhaenyra targaryen's council table. you had grown up among its narrow streets, where people learned to count every copper before they learned to dream. you knew what starving looked like. you knew the hollow cheeks of children begging near the gates, the mothers pretending they had already eaten, the old men too proud to admit they could no longer afford bread.
but this was different.
this was a city ruled by a queen who had taken the throne only to find that a crown did not come with endless gold, the treasury a gaping wound that refused to heal.
rhaenyra had looked at her council with a desperation that mirrored the people in the streets, her eyes pleading for a solution that didn't involve more taxes on people who had nothing left to give.
the war had swallowed everything.
shipments were delayed. the riches hid their wealth. the treasury that had once seemed impossible to empty now felt frighteningly small. every day brought another report, another number, another desperate request from the people who had nowhere else to turn to.
rhaenyra had listened to every one of them. she was desperate too, her eyes shadowed by the weight of a city that was eating itself alive. but then a thought crossed her mind.
there was a man called ser dyron horden. he had once served rhaenyra's father, viserys the peaceful and knew where the hidden caches of the crown were tucked away in the provinces. and you had been the only one who knew how to track a man who didn't want to be found.
the problem was that the man had fled to tumbleton, and tumbleton was currently under the suffocating grip of the hightower army.
"send a raven to lord ormund." rhaenyra ordered, her voice thin from lack of sleep. "tell him we do not seek the town, but the man. tell him that ser horden is of no use to him as a prisoner, but of immense use to the crown. offer him a trade of terms for the man's release."
"what sort of trade, your grace?" you asked. "we have nothing. not even a handful of grain to offer as a gesture. and what is stopping him from using ser horden as a leverage point to demand our surrender?"
"let him try," rhaenyra replied, a flicker of the old fire returning to her eyes. "we still have the advantage of the dragons. his refusal will be met with fire, but his cooperation will be met with mercy when the war is over."
"your grace... why not simply send someone to smuggle him out of tumbleton?" you had suggested, but the queen's resolve was as hard as the iron throne itself. rhaenyra wanted a formal negotiation, a paper trail of legitimacy. she wanted the world to see that she could command the cooperation of the hightowers without burning their fields to ash.
so, you were the one chosen.
a raven was set out with a letter sealed with a red wax stamp. the journey was a blur of muddy roads and the lingering scent of smoke. by the time you arrived at a salt-stained inn tucked between the marshes and the city walls which was the agreed designated neutral ground, your whole body was vibrating with nerves.
your queen was counting on you. the starving people of king's landing were counting on you to succeed. you took a lungful of deep breath before pushing the door open.
you had expected lord ormund, a cunning man of predictable pomposity. you had expected a battle of wits against a man who viewed you as a mere servant of the crown.
you did not expect gwayne hightower.
he was downing his second cup of ale when you walked through the door. gwayne didnât stand nor looked at you. he simply leaned back in the creaking wooden chair. he looked exhausted, the kind of weariness that came from spending too many weeks listening to ser criston cole's endless, circling rhetoric. his armor was dusty, his cloak was frayed at the edges, his auburn hair was slightly mussed and his eyes rimmed with a deep fatigue. and yet he still carried himself with the arrogance that came with the hightower name.
"you aren't ormund," you stated, your voice cutting through the silence of the common room.
"disappointed?" he repeated, the word barely a whisper as he downed the rest of his ale.
"where is he?" you demanded. "the letter was addressed to lord ormund. i was promised a meeting with lord hightower, not his cousin."
"busy." he answered simply, his voice raspy as if he hadn't spoken in hours. he didn't move to greet you. gwayne looked like a man who had reached the absolute limit of his patience with the living, and you were merely the latest inconvenience in a long line of them.
"busy? what could he possibly be too busy for?" you snapped, crossing your arms.
gwayne sighed, a heavy, rattling sound that seemed to vibrate in his chest. he was still not looking at you but instead focusing on the way a single drop of condensation slid down the side of his flagon.
"busy counting the ways he can irritate me into an early grave," he murmured. "ormund decided that since this is a matter of diplomacy and nuance, a man of his particular temperament was too precious to risk on a muddy road."
"and he sent you in his stead?" you scoffed, stepping closer to the table. "he sent a man who looks like heâs about to fall over from a nap to negotiate the release of a royal asset? the audacity of your house is truly boundless."
gwayne's eyes snapped up, flickering with irritation. he stood slowly, the chair screeching against the floorboards like a dying animal. he wasn't tall, but he occupied the space with a heavy, oppressive presence.
"my audacity is matched only by my patience, which is currently thinner than the soup they serve at this gods-forsaken hovel," he countered, stepping into your space. "you come here with the smell of flea bottom still clinging to your skin and think you can lecture me on the propriety of my house?"
you didn't flinch. you had been born in the dirt, a noblemanâs sneer was nothing compared to the roar of an empty stomach. you stepped closer, your chest nearly brushing his, your voice dropping to a lethal, quiet hiss. "the smell of flea bottom is the smell of the people who actually keep this kingdom running while you lot play at war in your gilded gardens. if you have any shred of honor, you'll stop insulting my origin and start discussing the terms for ser horden."
gwayneâs lip curled, but there was a spark of something in his eyes. an irritation mixed with curiousity. the fire in your stance intrigued him, somehow.
you slammed the scroll of rhaenyraâs terms onto the scarred wooden table, the parchment snapping like a whip. "lord horden's release in exchange for a guaranteed ceasefire of the trade routes leading into tumbleton for one moon's turn. it is a generous offer, considering your cousin's current lack of supplies."
gwayne didn't even blink. he didn't even reach for the scroll; he simply stared at it as if it were a particularly boring species of insect. "generous. how quaint... but no."
"no?" you spat, the word vibrating with disbelief. "why in the gods' name is it 'no'? your supplies are dwindling, your men, despite occupying the homes of the people of tumbleton, are eating horsemeat and sawdust. a ceasefire on the trade routes would allow you to actually move goods without risking a dragon's breath every ten leagues."
gwayne finally reached for the scroll, not to read it, but to flick it with a dismissive finger, sending it sliding across the table. he stepped around the table to close the distance between you. he smelled of old leather, stale ale, and a sharp, masculine musk that felt intrusive in the small room.
"you assume ormund cares for the stomachs of his men as much as he cares for his own vanity," he explained, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. "he doesn't want trade routes, my good lady. he wants a concession. he wants rhaenyra on her knees kissing his feet. and as for me, i find the idea of a 'generous offer' from a flea-bottom rat to be an insult to my intelligence."
"that is to assume you had any in the first place, hightower." you smirked, the words tasting like venom.
but gwayne appeared to be a man who was not easily deterred by venom. he let out a sharp, jagged laugh that didn't reach his eyes, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back to your eyes.
"a rat with a tongue like a razor," he mused. "perhaps that's why the queen sent you. she knew a highborn lady would be too terrified of the mud to actually make a demand."
then he leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibration. "my people are enduring, my lady. your people are starving. do not mistake my exhaustion for weakness, or your desperation for leverage. and your 'generous' offer is a thinly veiled attempt to slip a spy into our lines under the guise of the master of coin. ormund isn't blind, and neither am i. the man stays."
"absolutely not," you spat, the word hitting him like a slap. "the man is a civilian. heâ"
"you said he was a master of coin, so he is a tool of the state," gwayne interrupted, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in the narrow space between you. "civilian is a word for people who don't know where the gold is hidden. he is a map, and ormund doesn't give away his maps."
"the people in king's landing are starving, hightower. there will be no crown to bear, no throne to sit upon, no kingdom to rule if the city burns from the inside out," you snarled, your voice shaking with a fury that felt like it could crack the floorboards. you didn't care about the political chess anymore, you cared about the hollow-eyed children you'd left behind. "you sit here in your dusty armor playing games while people eat rats to survive. give me the man, or so help me, i will walk back to the queen and tell her that the hightowers are too cowardly to negotiate with a woman."
gwayneâs eyes darkened, a flash of irritation finally piercing through the veil of his exhaustion.
"cowardly?" he murmured, the word tasting like a threat. "you come here with a handful of promises and the stench of desperation and have the nerve to call us cowards because we know the value of the asset you're begging for."
"the value of the asset?" you hissed, the words vibrating between your lips. "you speak of a man as if he were a piece of livestock! you hightowers are pathetic."
gwayneâs jaw tightened, a small muscle leaping in his cheek. for the first time, the boredom had vanished, replaced by a sharp, jagged energy. "the master of coin stays in tumbleton," he declared. "and you will return to your "queen" and tell her that her 'generosity' is as empty as her treasury."
before you could reply, a thunderous crack split the sky, shaking the innâs rotting foundations. the rain followed instantly, not as a drizzle, but as a violent deluge that turned the road into a river of sludge within seconds. the elderly couple who ran the establishment hurried forward, their faces pinched with worry as they shuttered the windows against the wind.
"it'll be a night of it," the old woman murmured, her voice a dry rasp. she looked between you and gwayne, her eyes lingering on the way your body was still practically vibrating with rage.
"so be it. this negotiation is over." gwayne said, though he didn't move an inch away from you. you stepped back, finally breaking the physical contact, but the heat where your chests had touched lingered like a brand.
"your horses won't survive the storm, ser, or the treacherous roads back wherever you two came from." the old man grunted, wiping a glass with a rag that had seen better decades.
"that won't be a problem for me," you snapped, though the sight of the rain hammering against the shutters, turning the world outside into a grey, drowning blur, suggested otherwise.
"a lady is not fit to travel these roads in a deluge," the old woman said. "and the horses are already spooked. you'll stay."
you glanced at gwayne, who looked as though heâd rather be burned by dragonfire than spend another minute in your presence. the thunder rolled again. the road back to the was already a river of sludge. to attempt it now would be a suicide.
"the good woman is right," he muttered, though his tone remained clipped. "the road is a river. you'll be swept into a ditch before you reach the first milestone."
you glared at him, your fingers curling into fists. "i would rather drown in a ditch than spend another moment breathing the same air as you."
"as if i'm particularly keen on the prospect of your company." gwayne retorted, his voice flat, though his eyes drifted downward to the curve of your hip.
"the room is ready," the old woman announced, her voice cutting through the tension like a knife. "only one left. the roof leaked in the west wing, and the east is full of merchants who beat the storm."
"only one? absolutely not." you shot down. you looked at the old woman, then at gwayne who looked as if he had just been told he had to spend the night in a cellar with a swarm of bees.
"it is one bed, or it is the mud," the old woman replied simply, her voice devoid of any inclination to negotiate.
"she'll take the bed. i'll sleep in your barn." gwayne muttered, though his eyes betrayed a flicker of doubt as another crack of thunder shook the inn's foundation.Â
you were quite surprised that he even had the heart to let you take the room all for yourself.
"the barn is flooded," the old man called out. "the roof gave way an hour ago. everything in there is swimming in muck."
you looked at gwayne, who looked back at you with a level of misery that almost made you feel pity. he looked like a dog that had been kicked too many times, yet he still possessed that stubborn, ingrained pride that refused to let him admit defeat.
"is there any other inn within here?" you asked, your voice hopeful and desperate.
"the next one is a three-hour ride through a swamp," the old woman replied. "unless you've found a way to walk on water, you're staying here."
"i am notâ" you began, but the word died in your throat as a sudden, violent gust of wind slammed against the shutters, rattling the heavy oak frames with a sound like a siege engine.
gwayne let out a sound that was halfway between a groan and a snarl. "fine," he snapped, his voice tight. "we share."
"no! i will not share a bed with a manâa hightower at thatâwho mocks a woman's origin while her people starve!" you snapped, though the thunderous reply from the heavens makes the floorboards beneath your boots shudder.
"believe me, my lady... the prospect of spending the night tangled in the linens with a woman who possesses the temperament of a cornered cat is hardly something i desire. but i prefer my sleep to be dry." he muttered before turning his heels to the narrow stairs.
the room was small, smelling of old lavender and damp stone, with a single candle flickering on a bedside table. the bed itself was a narrow, sagging thing of straw and linen, just wide enough for for two adults.
the silence between you as you stepped inside was deafening, heavy with the remnants of your shouting match. you didn't look at him, and he didn't look at you, both of you preoccupied with the sheer, absurd indignity of the situation.
"take the floor." you told him, your voice clipped. it wasn't a request; it was a command.
gwayne didnât even look at you as he let out a sharp, mocking huff of laughter. "and what makes you think i would ever consent to sleep on a floor of rotting pine while you lounge in the linens?" he asked, his voice dripping in sarcasm.
you knew the "i'll sleep in the barn" was merely an act in front of the elderly couple. typical hightower.
he didn't move toward the floor. instead, he began to unbuckle the straps of his armor, the metal clinking slow. "you are a guest in this space by the grace of my tolerance, and i have spent the last three days listening to ormund's voice. i will not spend the night with a tick in my spine."
you watched him strip, all the way to his under tunic, and the sight of his shoulders and the lean muscle of his chest under the thin garment made the air in the small room feel suddenly thin. the anger was still there, a hot coal in your gut, but it had morphed into something else that made your skin itch beneath your travel-worn clothes.
before he could catch you staring, you turned first, stripping off your outer layers with what was left of your energy and the journey here and the debate match with gwayne. you didn't care for modesty, not when you were shaking with a mixture of adrenaline and something else that you redused to acknowledge. you climbed into the bed, claiming the far edge, leaving a sliver of space between you that felt like a canyon. the linens were coarse and smelled of old dust, but they were warm at the very least.
"stay on your side and do not attempt to touch me," you warned, your voice a low vibration in the dark. "if you so much as breathe on me, i will find a way to ensure you never sleep comfortably again."
gwayne let out a tired scoff, sharp enough to cut through the room as he climbed in beside you. the bed groaned under his weight, the mattress dipping violently and pulling you toward the center. you instinctively braced yourself against the edge, but the narrowness of the bed made a boundary impossible. every time he shifted, you felt the heat of him radiating through the linen and seemed to fill the entire room.
the silence was not peaceful. every breath you took felt too loud, every shift of the straw mattress sounded like a landslide. you lay rigid, staring at the dark ceiling, while the rain continued to lash the shutters in a relentless rhythm. beside you, gwayne was a mountain of radiating heat, his presence an intrusive weight that made the small bed feel like a coffin.
something happened and it started with a stray movement. a shift of his leg that brushed against yours. you jerked away.
"stop twitching," he muttered with his eyes closed, his voice a low gravelly vibration that seemed to hum against your skin.
"stop moving then. what are you, a fish out of water?" you snapped back, your voice a sharp whisper in the dark. you turned to face him, and in the dim, amber glow of the dying candle, you saw the way he huffed in irritation.
a couple minutes passed where the only sound was the rain and the harsh, synchronized rhythm of your breathing. you couldn't sleep. you couldn't even move. the air felt thick, like honey, pinning you to the mattress. the thunder rolled again, a low, guttural groan that seemed to echo the tension in the room.
when you glanced, gwayne was seemingly already asleep. you sighed, mind running wild over the failed negotiation the look of disappointment on rhaenyra's face. but as you shifted to find a more comfortable position, your leg brushed against his thigh. it was a momentary contact, only a sliver of heat, but it acted like a spark in a dry forest. you felt him stiffen, his breath hitching in a way that wasn't accidental.
"still twitching, are we?" his voice was a low, dangerous rumble right beside your ear.
he hadn't been asleep. he had been lying there, acutely aware of every inch of you pressing against him, this whole time.
feeling brave, you didn't pull away this time. instead, you turned your head, your nose brushing against the rough stubble of his jaw.
"perhaps i'm just trying to find a sliver of space that isn't occupied by your ego." you retorted.
something in him snapped the moment those words left your lips. gwayne moved swiftly, rolling over so he hovered above you, his hands trapping either sides of your head. the movement was so abrupt it knocked the breath from your lungs, pinning you beneath the weight of his body. his eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, searching your face for a sign of retreat that you were too stubborn to give.
"you are far too bold for a woman in such a precarious position," he said, though it sounded restraint.
"and your patience is far too thin for a man of your standing," you shot back. you didn't flinch as his chest pressed against yours, the thin fabric of his tunic doing nothing to hide the hard plane of his muscles.
"you talk... so much," he murmured, his voice a rough, jagged edge. "always talking, always demanding. i wonder if that tongue of yours is just as sharp when it's not being used for insults."
your throat went dry at his last words. you weren't stupid, nor lack the knowledge of what he was insinuating, being a low born girl who had seen the underbelly of the city where desire was bought and sold in every alley. and yet, having it directed at you by a man who looked at you with such irritation mixed with lust made your heart hammer against your ribs like a trapped bird.
you didn't give him the satisfaction of a stutter any further. instead, you reached up, your fingers curling into the collar of his tunic and pulling him down until your lips were a mere breath apart. "why don't you find out, hightower? or are you too exhausted to handle a girl from the gutters?"
gwayne didnât kiss you so much as he collided with you, his mouth crashing against yours with a hunger that felt less like romance and more like a punishment. you groaned into his mouth, your hands sliding from his collar to the back of his neck, pulling him closer until there wasn't a single molecule of air left between your bodies. he tasted of bitter ale and salt, and most importantly he tasted like the enemy he was, which only made the sudden surge of heat in your belly more violent.
gwayne groaned into your mouth as you fisted into his linen. he pinned your wrist beside your head and swallowed a small gasp of yours, his tongue sweeping against yours with an aggression that mirrored the storm outside and as you arched your back, pushing your hips into his, you felt the heavy, hard length of his cock pressing against your thigh through the layers of cloth.
he broke the kiss to trail a line of searing heat down your throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your collarbone. his hand left your wrist, sliding down to rip open the front of your bodice. buttons flew, clicking against the floorboards like rain on stone. gwayne didn't wait. he dipped his head, his mouth finding the swell of your breast with a hunger. you let out a sharp, ragged moan, your head hitting the pillow as he sucked the peak of your nipple, his teeth grazing the flesh in a way that made your toes curl and your vision blur.
"fuck, you are as loud as you are arrogant," gwayne rasped against your skin, his voice a low, distorted growl. he didn't stop, his mouth returning to your breast, his tongue swirling around your nipple with an intensity that left you breathless.
he pushed your dress to your hips impatiently, his eyes scanning your body with in hunger. there was no softness in the way he looked at you. it was the gaze of a man claiming territory, and you met it with a defiant glare that only seemed to spur him on. his hand travelled to your cunt, his fingers grazing the damp heat of your folds.
"fuck, you're already dripping," gwayne muttered, his voice thick with a dark, triumphant satisfaction. he rubbed your clit with somehow a precise pressure that made you cry out. "all that fire, all that screaming in the common room, and you're just a fucking mess for me, aren't you?"
"shut up and touch me," you gasped, your fingers digging into the lean muscle of his shoulders.
"have you been with a man before?"
you let out a sharp, jagged laugh, the sound half-smothered by a moan as his thumb continued to circle your clit. "i grew up in the gutters, hightower, as you so often mentioned. we don't have the luxury of sheltered innocence that you lot cultivate in oldtown."
he smirked, a dark, predatory expression that made your heart gallop. "good. because i have no intention of being gentle with a woman who thinks she can outwit me."
he didn't waste another second. gwayne slid two fingers deep inside you, the sudden invasion making you gasp and arch your back off the mattress. he was thick and calloused, his movements rhythmic and demanding, driving into you with a relentless pace.
"look at you," he groaned, his thumb pinning your clit down and grinding against it with an intensity that pushed you toward the edge. "begging for it. a little rat from the slums, having her cunt stretched open by a hightower. do you like it? do you like how it feels to have me inside you?"
you couldn't even form a sentence, not only because you were biting down your lip from giving him the satisfaction of hearing you beg, but because the sheer friction of his fingers was turning your insides to liquid.
"nothing to say now, is it?" gwayne mocked, his voice a jagged rasp. he shifted his weight, his thumb pressing harder into your clit, sending a jolt of electricity straight to your core. "tell me you want it. tell me you want this highborn prick to ruin you."
his words should disgust you. they should feel like an insult to everything you had fought for, a reminder of the gap between a girl who scavenged for scraps and a man born to a spire of gold. not to mention the war. rhaenyra did not send you here to fuck the enemy, she sent you to secure a man who could save a city. but as gwayneâs fingers worked you, the only thing you felt was this aching need to be filled.
"i want it," you gasped, the admission feeling like a surrender. "fuck, gwayne, just... put it in."
the way his name fell from your lips, broken and pleading, already made him addicted. "say my name again."
"gwayne," you whimpered, your voice sounding foreign and fragile in the small, dimly lit room. "please, gwayne."
he let out a sharp exhale, his chest heaving against yours. he didn't waste another moment of hesitation, he yanked his trousers down in one fluid, freeing himself. his cock was thick and pulsing, a heavy weight that seemed to mirror the intensity of the room. he grabbed your thighs, hoisting your hips higher off the sagging mattress to create a steeper angle, and positioned himself against your entrance.
he entered you slowly, much to your surprised, his eyes locked on yours as he sank into your heat. you let out a sharp, strangled cry, your head snapping back against the linens as he filled you completely. it was a heavy, stretching sensation that drowned out the sound of the storm, replacing the chaos of the rain with a singular, thrumming focus on where your bodies joined. he paused for a heartbeat, his muscles trembling with the effort of restraint, his breath hot and ragged against your neck.
"you're so tight," he groaned, the sound vibrating deep in his chest. "fuck, you're trying to squeeze the life out of me."
he let you adjust to him for a second, his gaze searing into yours. then he began to move slowly, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in. it wasn't the frantic pace you had expected. he wanted you to feel every single ridge of him, every millimeter of the friction as he stretched you open. you let out a whimper, your hips instinctively trying to chase him, to close the gap, but he held you firm, his grip on your thighs like iron bands.
"gwayne..." you whimpered, the sound breaking as you tried to pull him deeper. your legs were locked around his waist, your heels digging into his lower back, trying to force a momentum that he was stubbornly denying. he continued that agonizingly slow pace, his hips grinding into yours with a heavy, deliberate pressure that made your nerves scream. every time he retreated, you felt the sudden, cold void of the air, only for him to plunge back in with a slow, rhythmic thud that resonated in the very marrow of your bones.
he was watching you, his eyes dark and focused, savoring the way your face crumpled with desperation. "not so loud now, are you? where is all that fire, little rat? where is the woman who called me a coward?"
he shifted his angle, hitting a spot deep inside you that made your vision spark white. you let out a strangled cry, your fingers clawing at the muscles of his back, begging for a speed that would end this torture.
"gwayne, please," you sobbed, the word barely a whisper against the roar of the rain. you were shaking, your body a taut string vibrating at a frequency that threatened to snap. his pace was a cruelty of its own. he was savoring the friction, the way your walls clamped around him in a desperate, pulsing rhythm. he stayed in that slow, agonizing orbit, his hips rotating with a heavy precision that kept you perched on the very edge of a climax you couldn't reach.
you arched your spine, your chest heaving, as he pulled back until he was barely grazing your entrance before sinking back in with a slow, thudding weight. the sensation was too much and yet not enough. you were starving for the release, your clit screaming under the pressure of his pelvis grinding against you. you didn't care about pride anymore. you didn't care about the political divide. you just needed the friction to turn into a fire.
"faster," you gasped, your voice cracking. "fuck, gwayne, go faster. please."
"beg again," gwayne commanded, his voice a low rumble that vibrated against your collarbone.
"please," you whimpered, your voice breaking into a sob of pure frustration. "please, please."
when he finally decided to grant your request, it wasn't with a sudden rush. he began to hammer into you with a rhythmic, punishing force that stole the very air from your lungs. gwayneâs composure broke with the pace, his breath coming in jagged, guttural snarls as he drove himself deep into your heat, his hips colliding with yours.
"that's it," he groaned, his voice raw and stripped of all nobility. "take it all. take every fucking inch of it."
you were drowning in the sensation, your eyes rolled back as you clung to him, your nails leaving red crescents in his shoulders. the friction had become a blinding white light, a heat that started in your core and radiated outward until every nerve in your body was screaming.
âis this what you came for?â he growled. ârhaenyraâs little rat spreading her legs for a hightower cock?â
"you arrogant prick." you managed to gasp the words out, but they were stripped of any real venom. you wrapped your legs tighter around his waist, pulling him so deep that there was no space left for air or pride.
gwayne let out a sound that was half laugh and half groan. "so loud in the common room, so fierce with your demands... and here you are, shaking under me, taking every inch of my cock like you're starving for it."
the words should have sting, should have felt like an insult to your dignity, but in the heat of the moment, they only served to fuel the fire.
"youâre so fucking wet. do you have any idea how much iâve wanted to shut you up since the moment you opened your mouth? to see you break like this?" he groaned, his voice a guttural rasp that vibrated against the shell of your ear.
he didn't wait for an answer, his pace becoming a frantic, bruising rhythm that left you breathless. "tell me, does it feel good to be ruined by the man you hate? does it feel better when i'm deep inside you, stretching you out?"
you couldn't find the words to argue, only a series of broken, high-pitched sounds that spurred him on. you gripped his biceps, feeling the lean muscle twitch under your palms as he hammered into you. "yes," you sobbed, the word lost in a gasp. "yes, fuck, gwayne."
you were nearing the edges of the world, your breath coming in shallow hitches as gwayneâs pace became frantic. he didnât let up, his hips slamming against yours with a bruising force that threatened to push you right off the sagging mattress. he shifted his weight, one hand sliding down to grip your thigh, pinning you firmly against the sheets while the other hand found the small of your back, arching you up to meet every deep thrust.
you felt the internal pressure build, a coil of tension tightening in your gut until it was almost unbearable. gwayne sensed it. he felt the way your walls began to spasm around him in. he let out a guttural sound, his pace becoming sloppy, his teeth grazing the skin of your shoulder as he drove himself into you.
"come for me," he commanded, his voice a raw, distorted growl. "come for me, you stubborn little thing."
the command was the final spark. you shattered, your entire body arching violently as a wave of pleasure crashed through you, pulling you under. you screamed his name into the crook of his neck, your internal muscles clamping around him in desperate, rhythmic contractions that felt like they were trying to pull him into your very soul. the world dissolved into a blur of amber candlelight and the suffocating heat of his skin, leaving you gasping and blind as the orgasm ripped through your frame in jagged, electric pulses.
gwayne didn't stop. he let out a low, animalistic sound, his movements becoming uncoordinated as he chased his own release. he hammered into you with a final, bruising intensity, his chest heaving against yours, his eyes locked on your flushed face with a hunger that seemed bottomless. with one last, deep plunge that felt like it hit the very base of your spine, he stiffened. a guttural groan ripped from his throat, his head falling into the hollow of your shoulder as he spilled himself inside you.
the silence that followed was heavier than the storm with the ragged gasps of the two of you being the only sounds that filled the room. gwayne remained slumped against you for a long minute, his weight an oppressive yet grounding presence. the heat of him was still radiating, his sweat acting like a glue that bound your skin together. slowly, the adrenaline began to dissipate, leaving behind a hollow, dizzying exhaustion and the sudden, sharp return of reality.
he withdrew from you with a slow, wet slide that made you shiver, the sudden absence of his heat leaving you feeling cold and exposed. gwayne didn't immediately move away. he rolled to the side, his chest still heaving, his eyes staring at the ceiling with a look of profound disorientation. the arrogance was gone, replaced by a stillness. he looked less like a lord of a great house and more like a man who had been blindsided by a blow he hadn't seen coming.
you laid there for a long time, the damp sheets clinging to your skin like a second, colder layer of clothing. the rain continued to lash against the shutters, a rhythmic drumming that felt far too loud in the sudden vacuum of the room. your muscles were trembling, a lingering aftershock of the climax that had nearly stripped the breath from your lungs. you could feel the sticky heat of his seed beginning to cool inside you, a visceral reminder of the transgression you had just committed.
"gwayneâ"
"do not," he interrupted, his voice still a jagged rasp, though the cruelty had vanished. he didn't look at you. he remained staring at the ceiling, his jaw tight, as if he were trying to reconstruct the walls of his pride around him.
"just... sleep. we shall discuss this in the morning." he added, his tone returning to a resemblance of nobility, though the cracks were still visible. he didn't move to leave the bed, and neither did you. instead, you shifted, your skin sticking to the linens, and felt the sudden, sharp prickle of shame and triumph.
you had not secured the master of coin, but you had dismantled the composure of gwayne hightower.
you knew that the discussion won't happen because when morning came, both of you were eager to be the first to leave. the dawn didn't break with a golden glow, but with a stale grey light that filtered through the grime of the inn's windows.Â
gwayne was fastening his belt, his movements sharp and jerky. he didn't look at you, and you didn't look at him, though you could feel the weight of his gaze whenever he thought you weren't watching. the shared bed, which had felt like a battlefield of lust only hours ago, now felt like a crime scene. the sheets were twisted and damp. you dressed quickly, your fingers trembling as you fought with the buttons of your bodice, feeling the lingering ache in your thighs and the sticky evidence of his conquest still clinging to your skin.
he approached the door and paused, his hand hovering over the heavy iron latch. for a heartbeat, you thought he might turn back, might say something that acknowledged the way his voice had sounded when he begged you to call his name. but gwayne hightower was a man built of stone and tradition, and the stone was already sliding back into place.
"i accept rhaenyra's terms."
your hands that were busy fixing your bodice froze. you looked up at him, the grey dawn light casting a sharp silhouette of his frame against the door.Â
"what?" you breathed, your voice still raspy from the screaming of the night.
"under one condition." he breathed. "lord horden is to be escorted by a hightower soldier while in king's landing and is to be returned back to tumbleton the moment the funds are secured," gwayne said, his voice regaining its polished edge, though he still wouldn't meet your eyes. "i would not have him simply handed over to a woman who thinks a few trade routes are a fair exchange for a man's loyalty. but... i find myself suddenly inclined to be merciful."
you stared at him, your mind racing. this was a victory. a massive one. rhaenyra would be pleased, and the people of the capital would finally see bread and gold.
but still, the victory felt jagged. you looked at gwayne and saw the slight tremor in his hand as he gripped the door handle. the distance between you was only a few feet, yet it felt like a chasm.
"mercy," you repeated, your voice regaining its sharp edge, though it lacked the venom of the previous evening. "or perhaps you simply couldn't bear the thought of me leaving this inn without knowing you'd finally given in."
"just accept it, will you?" he said in an exhaustion that sounded almost like a plea. he finally turned his head, his gaze flickering across your face, lingering for a fraction of a second on your swollen lips before he looked away. "i cannot stand the thought of another hour in your company. the air in this room has become... intolerable."
you wanted to snap back and remind him that he spent the night with you just fine but decided against it.
"is this a plan to have the hightower escort spying on rhaenyra and report back to ormund?" you asked, stepping forward, your voice regaining its professional weight.
"no, it is not. i can assure you." he answered confidently.
"how can i trust you?"
"because the escort will be myself."
oh.
you blinked, your brain momentarily failing to process the implications. gwayne hightower, a man who had spent the last forty-eight hours treating you with a mixture of disdain and hunger, was offering to personally escort the master of coin into the heart of the enemyâs capital.
he will be in king's landing. where lord horden goes, he will follow. which includes the red keep, and most likely, the very rooms where you spent your days strategizing for rhaenyra.
you and gwayne hightower will be in same room again.
is he implying what you think he is implying? the thought flickered through your mind, a spark of curiosity. the escort of a high-value prisoner was certainly not a task for a man of his rank. yet, gwayne stood there, his posture rigid, his eyes finally meeting yours with a look that was no longer mocking, but something far more complicated. it was a gaze that held the memory of the mattress, the sound of your voice breaking, and the way your nails had carved paths into his skin.
"you are remarkably quiet," gwayne noted, his voice regaining that irritating timbre from last night. "has the gutter-girl finally run out of things to say, or are you simply calculating how much of my dignity you can strip away once we are within the walls of the keep?"
"you planned this." you said instead, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "the noble lord of oldtown, suddenly burdened by a sense of duty to personally escort a master of coin. it's almost as if you've realized that the walls of this inn are too thin to contain whatever this is."
gwayne stiffened. but the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips, though he fought to keep it hidden behind a mask of indifference. "do not flatter yourself, my lady. it is a strategic move. i trust no one else to ensure lord horden isn't bribed or spirited away by your queenâs agents before the gold is accounted for."
"and yet you did not offer this yesterday," you countered, crossing your arms over your chest. the movement made you acutely aware of the soreness in your muscles. "you were quite content to let him rot in tumbleton."
gwayne finally let out a short, dry huff of laughter. it was not the mocking sound of the common room, but something almost fond, though he quickly masked it. he stepped toward you, his presence filling the small space of the room once more. "yesterday i thought i was negotiating with an enemy."
"and today?" you asked, not moving he closed the gap.
gwayne stopped just inches from you, the heat of his body radiating through his armour. he didn't touch you, but the air between you crackled, thick with the residue of the night's wreckage.
"today," he murmured, his gaze dropping to your throat where a faint, reddish mark lingered from his teeth, "i find myself wondering if the red keep has enough corridors for us to avoid each other. or if it has enough locked doors to ensure we do not."
the tension broke not with a kiss but with gwayne stepping back, his hand reaching for the knob once again.
"and for what it's worth..." he paused, his voice trailing off as he looked at you one last time, "i'm glad it was you."
Includes: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Wally West
Summary: he accidentally comes home in full superhero garb and now he has to think of a clever way to explain himself without revealing his identity
Word Count: abt 500/part
Content/CW -> gn! reader, mild injury (wally's), mention of voltron (tim's), mostly silly, technically they commit a Crime
froggi yaps -> was on a roll writing this, this idea was so silly and fun >.< thank you to the nonnie who sent it in
Dick:
Moving in with Dick Grayson has had its hiccups.Â
He has the oddest sleep schedule known to man, for one, and every time he tries to cook anything beyond what a 13 year old can, it seems to end in smoke and sheepish apologies.Â
Collectively, you now have more coffee mugs than you do forks, which speaks more to the amount of cutlery youâve curated than it does to decorative mugs.Â
Nothing however, in the two weeks youâve been living together, could have prepared you for this.Â
Nightwing stands in your bedroom, frozen in shock after having climbed through your window. You stand on the opposite side of your bedroom, the baseball bat Dick keeps by his bed clutched in your hands.Â
âWoah, woah, Iâm Nightwing, Iâm one of the goodââ
Nightwing is real?
âWhat the hell are you doing in my bedroom?â
And where the hell is Dick when you need him?
Nightwing raises his hands in surrender, a slightly-familiar sheepish grin on his face. âYouâre not gonna hit me with that, are you?â He pulls out one of his own escrima sticks and tosses it on the bed, âat least use that, itâll hurt more.â
You blink, unimpressed. âYouâre not serious, are you?â
âDead serious.â
Despite your trepidation, you lean forward and snatch the stick off the middle of the bed. You turn it over in your hands, examining it.Â
Dick breathes a sigh of relief, happy his distraction worked. Heâs dead tired, and heâd gotten sloppy on the way home when all he could think about was getting out of his suit and into bed with you.Â
He didnât even think about what he was doing until heâd slipped his second leg through the window only to be met with the sound of you shouting. Heâd by lying if he said he wasnât at least a little proud at how quick you were to get out of bed and start threatening the fully grown vigilante in your room.Â
âIf youâre done yelling,â he says cautiously, âIâll just be going, Iâm clearly in the wrong apartment.â
âThe wrongââ You laugh incredulously, âyou donât double check before breaking and entering?â
âHey, you try doing this in the dark in the middle of the night.â
Your eyes roll. Dickâs never wished more that he could reach out and kiss you.Â
âIâll be taking that,â he says, reaching over the bed and grabbing his escrima stick from your hand. âUh, maybe donât tell anyone about this.â
âEmbarrassed?â
âSomething like that.â
And before you can say anything else, heâs maneuvering back through your window and disappearing into the night. You latch it tightly behind him before crawling back into bed, your heart still racing. Â
Grabbing your phone, you start typing out a message to Dick. Youâll never believe what just happened to me.Â
Jason:
You thought he was a myth. Some silly tale passed around from criminal to criminal like parents warning their children of the bogeyman. But if heâs a myth, then why is he standing in your living room?
 It was hard enough to come to terms with Batman being real, but seeing Red Hood in person is almost as absurd as if Santa Claus himself had broken into your house.
You hold your breath, pressed against the wall, the glass of water youâd snuck out of bed to grab clutched tightly in your hand. Your hands are shaking, your knees are shakingâfear wracks your whole body. And then the glass slips, shattering across the floor and spreading glass and water everywhere.
Any hope Jason had that you didnât see him dies in his chest. Fuck.
âIâm not here to hurt you,â he says, and for once, he wishes his voice was just a little softer under the mask.Â
âT-then whyââ You take a breath, trying to quell your fear. âWhy are you in my boyfriendâs house?â
Jason wishes he had a better answer, something beyond âIâm a fucking idiot who didnât think before I broke into my own house in full costume while you were there.â He comes up empty.
âJason isâŠâ His own name sounds foreign on his tongue, âhe left something here for me. He didnât say anything about you being here.â
At the sound of your boyfriendâs name, you suddenly remember the glass of his you just broke and the water seeping into his nice floors. You drop to your knees, cupping your hands and trying to stop the spread of the water.
Red Hood is crossing the room in the instant, footsteps heavy so as not to startle you. âWhat the hell are you doing?âÂ
âCleaning, IâI canât believe I broke that.â
âYouâre going to cut yourself,â he sighs, going to the kitchen and grabbing the roll of paper towel he keeps on the counter. Heâs semi-grateful for your panicked state keeping you from questioning how he knew where that was. âHere, let me.â
And before you can argue against it, Red Hood starts soaking up the water with paper towel. When heâs satisfied the floors are dry, he gets to work on the glass, gloved hands carefully picking up every last shard and wrapping them in another piece of paper towel.
You can only stare in utter disbelief as Red Hoodâthe notorious anti-hero, this broad man whoâd broken into Jasonâs houseâcleans up your mess as if itâs the must mundane thing in the world.
âT-thanks,â you stutter out, rising to your feet as the masked man discards the used paper towel in the trash.Â
âWas my fault you dropped it anyways,â he mumbles out. âTell Jason Iâll come back a different time.â
With that, heâs disappearing back into the shadows of the room, leaving back through the window he came from. You stand there, still shaking slightly, utterly shocked by what just happened.
Youâre still standing there twenty minutes later when Jason runs through the door, having ditched his gear off with Bruce. Heâs frazzled, a hand running through his messy hair.Â
âFuck, sweetheart, what are you still doing up?â
âYourââ You swallow, looking at your boyfriend with equal amounts of excitement and fear. âYour friend stopped by.â
Tim:Â
Youâre watching Netflix when you hear the distinct scraping of your window opening. Illuminated by the light of your tv screen, you can just barely make out the face of Red Robin, sleepily sliding a leg through your window.
You blink, almost entirely unphased by the sudden appearance of the vigilante. âUm, are you here for me?â
His head snaps up, mouth falling open. Shit. Tim had been so tired, so out of it, he hadnât even realized his brain was on auto-pilot to your apartment until youâd said that. Shit.Â
Heâs not sure whether heâs relieved or not by how unphased you are by a vigilante breaking into your house in the middle of the night.Â
He scratches the back of his neck. âNo..?â
You hum, your own tired brain working to interpret this information. âOkay,â you say simply.
âOkay?â
You nod, like itâs the simplest thing in the world. Tim fully commits, letting himself drop into your room and lean against your windowframe.
âYouâre not gonna ask why Iâm here, or..?â
âAre you here for something nefarious?â
âWell, noââ
You yawn, âthen I donât care. Do what you need to do.â
He mentally makes a note to talk to you tomorrow about stranger danger and what to do if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night. For now, though, heâs slightly grateful for your nonchalance. He glances around your room, taking in the plushies you keep on your bed and the tv playing at half-volume, displaying a show a little too familiar to him.
âShit, are you watching Voltron?â
âRewatching,â you admit tiredly, finally sitting up in bed. âAre you a fan?â
And Tim suddenly wonders how this has never come up in all of your conversations with him. How is he just finding this out as Red Robin of all things?
âYou could say that,â he laughs slightly.
Then youâre patting the bed, inviting him further into your room. Tim knows he shouldnât, knows he has a dozen other things to look into tonight and yet, he finds himself settling in on the side of your bed he usually sleeps on to watch Voltron.
âWhat are you doing up so late, anyway?âÂ
You shrug, âwas waiting for my boyfriend to text me butâŠâ
Guilt pangs in his chest. He hadnât realized he forgot to text you back until right now, his phone feeling heavy in the pocket heâd tucked it into. Tim kicks off his boots and fully leans against your bedframe.
He really shouldnât be doing this. He knows itâll only lead to more trouble for himself both as Robin and Tim Drake and yet, he canât bring himself to leave.
âThereâs snacks on my kitchen counter if youâre hungry. Soda in the fridge.â
âYouâre feeding me after I broke into your house?â
âFigured you work up an appetite running around the city,â you slide back down into bed, lazily splaying your limbs across the mattress. âCould probably use the extra fuel.â
Tim can only smile, âI guess I never thought of it like that.â
Wally:
Wally doesnât realize his error until heâs skidding to a stop in his own living room only to be met with you, mid handful of popcorn, looking utterly shocked. Well, fuck.
Heâs exhausted, lungs burning from all the running heâs done tonight, and the blood trickling down his side is definitely staining the carpet Iris and Barry had gifted in when he moved in. Double fuck.
âAre youââ You tentatively rise to your feet, looking around as if youâre the one thatâs in the wrong place. âAre you okay?â
âYeah.â No.
Your eyes scan him, from the big logo on the middle of his suit to the hand he has clutched over the tear on his side that is definitely dripping blood all over Wallyâs floors. You start towards him, equally concerned as you are flabbergasted.
âYouâre bleeding.â
âIâmââ He takes a breath, a weak puff of air leaving his lips, âclearly in the wrong house.â
âYouâre bleeding,â you repeat, and youâre so close now you can very visibly see the cut on his side. Nothing too deep or serious, but painful looking nonetheless. âDo youâI think my boyfriend has a first aid kit around here somewhere.â
Under the sink, Wally thinks. But he wouldnât dare let you get too close to him right now, not when heâs sure youâll be able to sniff out itâs him every moment. His heart pangs as he thinks of how awkward a conversation thatâll be.
Before he can say anything, youâre disappearing down the hall, coming back with the first aid kit lifted above your head like a trophy. Wally canât help but smile a bit. Youâre so damn cute.
You order him to sit on the couch, laying down a towel youâd stolen from his bathroom to keep him from making a mess. âIâll try and be quick,â you promise. âBut not all of us have super speed.â
âAs long as it means you wonât maim me.â
Youâre careful as you patch him up, gentle touches along his skin as you clean and disinfect the wound. Wally sits there, resisting the urge to pet your head and kiss your forehead.Â
Itâs a few minutes of oddly comfortable silence before youâre pulling away with a grin, gently patting the wound. âThere,â you proclaim. âItâs not perfect, but itâll feel a little better, at least until you can leave.â
âThank you,â he says, rising to his feet and twisting his core. âIt feels way better already.â
âUm, before you go,â you smile sheepishly. âDo you thinkâcould I grab a picture with you?â
He raises a brow under his cowl.
âItâs just, my boyfriend is the Flashâs biggest fan, and I think heâd just really love to see proof of you in his apartment.â Your eyes widen slightly at the look on his face, âbut if youâre too busy, I totally get that too. This is silly, actually, sorry for evenââ
The Flash grabs your phone out of your hand, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side. Heâs quick to snap the picture, throwing up a peace sign before handing your phone back to you.
âUm, be careful out there.â
He laughs, âalways am.â
He offers you a two fingered salute before heâs disappearing from your living room, leaving nothing but a trail of lightning in his wake. You smile at the picture on your phone, Wally is gonna freak.
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thanks for reading & have a wonderful week /á > Ë <ă âËâčâĄ
"Are you on top of a building?" You ask, leaning closer to the screen as if that will somehow help you see past Dick's face and the glowing stretch of BlĂŒdhaven behind him. He looks unfairly good for someone halfway through patrol - black hair windblown across his forehead and the domino mask hiding those blue eyes.
"Yeah, so, like - hold on." He flips the camera around and immediately starts walking, boots scraping lightly over concrete while the screen swings between buildings.
"You live there," he says, pointing down toward one apartment tower, and then turns toward another. "And there's my place. Wait - " The camera flips back to him, his masked eyes narrowing slightly as he thinks. "Have I seriously never taken you up here before?"
"Must've been one of your other girlfriends," you tease, sinking deeper into your chair as you tug the sleeves of his sweatshirt farther over your hands.
Dick's smile drops so fast you nearly laugh. "My other girlfriends?" He plants one gloved hand against his chest like you've wounded him. "Wow. Okay. That's crazy, actually." You can hear the grin coming back into his voice before you even see it, bright and dazzling. "I have one girlfriend. One. She's mean to me, actually. Borderline abusive. Steals my clothes, teases me, a real mean lady"
"I am NOT mean, Grayson. This has been my hoodie for like ever."
"It says Gotham University. Pretty sure," he drawls out loudly, ever teasingly, "you didn't go there, baby. I would've never missed someone as gorgeous as you."
You laugh before taking a sip of your water, and Dick laughs with you, the sound softening when he drops down onto the ledge of the building. He sits as if gravity has never particularly applied to him, one leg dangling over the side while the other bends beneath him, phone balanced casually against his knee. For a little while, neither of you says much. You answer an email and fix the cuff of his sweatshirt where it's starting to fray. Dick watches the city below, shoulders finally relaxing now that patrol has slowed down. Every so often he looks back at the screen just to make sure you're still there, and when you catch him doing it for the third time, he doesn't even pretend otherwise.
"What?"
"Nothin'." His mouth curves into that softer smile he saves for you, chin resting against his fist. "You look cute. I miss you." There's a pout at the end of that. He's almost hinting to come over afterwards to steal your entire morning.
You roll your eyes and take another sip.
"You can come over later."
"I was already planning on it." He grins before putting in his earbuds. "How about I bring breakfast?"
Jason Todd has never played Stardew Valley in his life, yet somehow he has become deeply invested in your little playthrough. You've got Discord open on your laptop while your phone sits propped on your desk, giving you an excellent view of him midway through a workout.
Shirtless, broad shoulders and old scars shifting every time he moves, the white streak at the front of his hair damp with sweat and falling into his eyes. "So you gotta greet every chicken every day?" he asks from the floor, forearms planted against his mat while he holds a plank.
"Yes." You continue to clack away, occasionally showing him the coop.
"Sounds needy, like you. You need me to check on you every day"
You glance over and catch him looking at the phone instead of the floor. Specifically watching to see whether you're looking at him. A bead of sweat runs down his chest, and Jason's grin only grows more when your eyes linger half a second too long.
You immediately turn back to your laptop.
Cocky asshole.
"Well, this one's named after you." You circle your character around a fat brown chicken wandering through the grass, and Jason's attention snaps over immediately, squinting at the screen.
"Which one?"
"This one."
He cranes his neck toward the screen without breaking his plank. "Yeah."
You stare at him. "Yeah?"
"Handsome little guy." His timer goes off and Jason drops flat onto the mat with a grunt, cheek pressed to his forearm for a second before rolling onto his back. His chest rises and falls while he reaches blindly for his water bottle, takes a long drink, then wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. "How long've you had me?"
"The chicken?"
Jason lifts his head and gives you a look. "Careful."
You grin a little, biting your lip before looking away. "Like two in-game years."
"So we're serious."
He pushes himself back up and slings a towel around his neck while you move onto the next creature in your coop. "And this one's Grayson-"
Jason's brow furrows "Why's he blue?"
"Because he's a blue chicken?"
His face suddenly fills half your FaceTime screen, green eyes flicking between you and the game while one hand braces against his hip. "Yeah, but those are the rare ones."
There's a pause, and you slowly turn toward your phone. Jason realizes his mistake approximately one second too late.
"How'd you know those are rare?"
He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek to break the smile forming on his face before looking down at you.
"Answer my question first."
You immediately start laughing.
"Nah, don't laugh." Jason points accusingly at the laptop. "Why's Dick special?"
"He's just blue!"
"And I'm brown."
"Jason. Wait - I can explain - "
"Regular-ass chicken." He announces loudly. You can hear a small giggle from Steph in the background.
"Damian is the dinosaur! I just pick what makes sense."
That shuts him up for all of two seconds. Then Jason's brows shoot up. "Okay, that's bullshit. I should be the fucking dinosaur, and you know it."
You're laughing hard enough that your character starts running useless circles around the coop. Jason finally cracks too, shaking his head as he grabs his phone and carries you through the manor toward the kitchen.
"Alright, what'd you make Tim?" he asks, pulling open the fridge. You go suspiciously quiet. Jason pauses with one hand still on the door. You cover your mouth.
His eyes narrow. "You made Replacement a rabbit?"
You immediately start laughing again.
"Of course you did." He snorts, digging through the fridge. "Lemme guess. Steph's a duck? Loud as hell too, always yappin'. Yap, yap, yap."
"You can't say things like that!"
"What?" He waves a hand around the kitchen, completely unbothered. "Tell me I'm wrong."
He props your phone against the fruit bowl and starts pulling leftovers from the fridge, still complaining while he works. He's stirring something on the stove while giving you increasingly unsolicited farm advice from YouTube videos he's been watching.
"Have you been Googling this?"
"No. And you tell nobody about this." He takes a bite straight from the pan and points the spoon at you. "Eat your dinner."
A week later, you get a notification from Steam that Jason Todd has purchased Stardew Valley. Two weeks after that, there's a dinosaur wandering around your shared coop named Jason.
The first time you mention it, he threatens to sell the void chicken he named after you.
Û¶à§ Tim Drake :êŁ
Tim almost always calls you through Discord because Discord is practical. He can share whatever nightmare of a spreadsheet he's working on, you can stream your screen, and neither of you has to hold a phone for four hours straight. FaceTime is different. FaceTime usually happens when you're in bed and Tim is still very much refusing to be.
"Should I mute myself?" he asks, glancing down toward where his phone is propped against a stack of case files beside his laptop. He's hunched over his desk in an old Gotham Knights shirt, dark hair hanging over his eyes until he pushes it back with one hand. The shadows beneath them look almost bruised in the bluish light from his monitors, and there are at least two empty coffee mugs within arm's reach.
You can barely keep your eyes open anymore, cheek mashed into your pillow. "Why?"
"My keyboard." Tim types another line, pauses, then looks back at you. "It's probably loud."
You listen to the rapid click-click-click coming through the speaker. "No."
"Okay."
And that's apparently all he needed.
For another twenty minutes, the two of you barely talk. You watch him through the phone, eyes already half-lidded with sleep while Tim works through case notes, shoulders curling tighter whenever he gets particularly focused. Papers shift. His chair rolls backward. Every few minutes he mutters something under his breath, deletes an entire paragraph, then starts typing again. You're somewhere between awake and asleep when your phone slips sideways against the pillow.
Tim notices immediately. "Hey."
You blink. "What?"
"Can't see you."
You stare at him with a deep sigh and fumble around until the phone is upright again. "There."
"Thanks."
And then he goes straight back to work as though that wasn't deeply pathetic. You watch him for another second. "You got something for watching people?"
"Mhm... mostly for watching you, though."
Your eyes start drifting shut again, and Tim continues typing until he catches you rubbing your face into the pillow. "You tired?"
"No." Your eyes betray you by closing.
"You sure look tired. Want me to come tuck you in?"
"Shut up."
He smiles without looking away from his screen and reaches for one of the coffee mugs. Your eyes open immediately at the scrape of ceramic against his desk.
"Absolutely not."
Tim freezes with the rim halfway to his mouth. "What?"
"Put it down."
"It's coffee."
"It's almost two in the morning. We have a nine a.m. lecture together."
Tim looks from you to the mug, weighs his options, and then very intentionally takes one loud sip.
"Timothy."
"Don't government-name me."
You groan and roll onto your side, propping yourself up with one hand while the other reaches toward the red button. "I'm hanging up."
His head snaps toward the phone. "Nooooo. I'll miss you... stayyyyy."
You start laughing into your pillow because the whine is so dramatic and so completely at odds with the expressionless little detective who's been staring at case files for three hours. "You cannot be serious."
"I like watching you sleep."
"That sounds horrifying."
"It helps me relax."
"I'm sure YouTube has sleeping ASMR, Timothy."
"Not the same."
You reach over and turn off your lamp, leaving your room dark except for the faint glow of your phone. Tim's face is still illuminated by three monitors, one hand resting against his cheek while the other keeps scrolling through reports. "Goodnight. Please actually sleep tonight."
"Mhm."
"Tim."
"I heard you."
"You'll hate yourself tomorrow."
"Not if I see you."
You settle farther under the blanket, looking at him through half-closed eyes. "Goodnight."
His expression softens a little, a pout pulling at his mouth before he turns back toward the screen. "Night."
You hang up. Your room stays quiet for approximately twelve seconds before your phone buzzes.
SUMMARY: Valarr swears that he is a good man. It is just⊠difficult to remain good when his lovely wife is constantly being whisked away by his cousins, and the lords and ladies of the court are endlessly testing the boundaries of his self control.
WARNINGS: fem!reader. Reader is Qartheen. Jealous!Valarr. Mentions of Westeros-typical xenophobia. Possessive!Valarr. Husband!Valarr. Valarr is hopelessly in love with reader. Fluff? I think. I never know how to label these LOL. Valarr tries very hard to be a good man but he is still a Targaryen, and a Targaryen in love spells disaster.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: LOLLLL this fried me to write because it's essentially just the inverse of the other fic I did where reader was jealous. Now it's Valarr's turn, and he kNOWS he should be happy that you're settling in but my god does his eye twitch sometimes when reader is everywhere but at his side. I'm probably going to do a mini-drabble series of Valarr dealing with jealousy just because I love the idea of perfect prince Valarr being viciously jealous but having to mask it LOL, comments and reblogs always appreciated!
Valarr is not an easily jealous man.Â
In fact, Valarr would say he is not jealous at all. Jealousy is for lesser menâinsecure men. Men who fear losing what is theirs because, somewhere deep down, they know it was never truly theirs to begin with. Valarr has never counted himself among them. He is a prince of the blood, second in line to the Iron Throne after his father. He has had the world in his hands since the moment he was born. There has never been much that could be taken from him.Â
Or, perhaps more accurately, there has never been much he cared enough about to fear losing.
So, when his wife spends an afternoon hawking with the twins and returns bright and smiling in a way that Valarr has hardly ever seen from her, he does not care.
When Aerion lingers around her, keeping her so engrossed in conversation that she does not even notice Valarr entering the room, he does not care.
When she laughs at Daeronâs jokes during a feast while Valarr is forced to entertain a balding marcher lord, Valarr does not care.
He notices, certainly, because Valarr notices everything, but noticing is not jealousy.Â
In fact, it makes Valarr happy. It does. He knows that you have been struggling to adjust to life in Westeros. He knows that you are lonely. He is happy that his family is welcoming you, that they are making efforts so that you might feel comfortable. He is happy that the court is starting to warm up to you.
He is.
He really is.
He is glad that you come back to your shared chambers smiling more often than not now, because his heart ached every time he returned to find you sitting by the window in silence, staring east toward a sea that would never carry you home. There had been nights when he woke to find your side of the bed empty, mornings where your eyes were red, days where you smiled, strained at the corners, forcing yourself because courtesy demanded it.Â
It had haunted himâtruly haunted him. When he joined his father at meetings, he would find his mind drifting to you, wondering what you were doing, if you were alone, if he would have time to stop at the kitchens to have them make a Qartheen dessert to bring up to you. When the two of you were in the same room but separated, his eyes always followed you, searching for the cause of every frown and distant look, because maybe if he could identify who was upsetting you, he might be able to fix everything.
Valarr could win jousts and navigate court politics, but he had spent months watching you wither beneath loneliness and homesickness, and there had been little he could do about it. So, yesâhe is happy that you are enjoying time with his family, and you return to your shared chambers with stories and smiles instead of tears.
He is.Â
Mostly.Â
The trouble is that sometimes he gets a littleâwell, peeved when he realizes you might enjoy spending time with his cousins considerably more than you enjoy spending time with him. Not that Valarr is keeping track of who you seem to enjoy spending time with the most and who you don't, because he isnât, that would be absurd. He notices things.Â
For example, he notices that you are quick to seek out Aelor and Aelora during events. He likes to believe that itâs because you know that heâs frequently occupied with princely duties and do not wish to burden him when the twins are more readily available company. It is a much more pleasant explanation than acknowledging that the twins care little for keeping up appearances, so you might feel more comfortable around them. They are quick to jump down someone's throat if they look at you the wrong way, whereas Valarr is bound by his duty and his future to keep the peace, so he is forced to take more civil approaches, even when every instinct is telling him to be considerably less diplomatic.
He notices how Aerion listens whenever you speak of home as though the subject genuinely interests him, asking questions and remembering details that Valarr himself sometimes struggles to keep straight, and he finds the realization oddly aggravating, especially because Aerion has never been known for his patience. His cousin is sharp-tongued and capricious, and he possesses a sort of cruelty that occasionally borders on artistry, yet somehow all of that seems to vanish whenever you are involved.Â
And he especially notices how Daeron somehow always manages to appear wherever you are. If you are in the garden, Daeron is in the garden. If you are in the library, Daeron is in the library. If you are attending some unbearably dull feast that neither of you particularly wished to attend, Daeron will inevitably materialize at your side before the first course is served.Â
Worse, you always seem pleased to see him. Valarr will look across a room, hoping to find your eyes on him, but will find Daeron leaning against your chair, saying something undoubtedly idiotic, and you will be smiling, and then comes the laughterâthe real laughter, bright and unrestrained, not the polite courtly ones Valarr has become used toâand Daeron, naturally behaves as though drawing the sound from you is his lifeâs greatest achievement, and itâ
It is irritating. It is deeply irritating.Â
Not because Valarr dislikes seeing you happyâquite the opposite, really. For months, he would have given anything to hear you laugh like that. The aggravating part is that Daeron accomplishes it so effortlessly. Valarr spends hours carefully choosing gifts from home, remembering passing comments, searching for ways to ease your loneliness, while Daeron simply appears, says something absurd, and suddenly you are laughing so hard you can barely breathe.
Valarr thinks about it far more often than heâll ever admit, but it is not jealousy.
If anything, Valarr is grateful, because Daeron is succeeding where he has failed. When you first arrived in Westeros, Valarr spent months trying to draw you out of your shell. He took you riding, and he brought musicians from Essos to court; he commissioned cooks to learn Qartheen dishes and listened patiently whenever you wished to speak of home.
Yet, it is Aelor and Aelora who convince you to leave your chambers when homesickness threatens to swallow you whole.
It is Aerion who can keep you talking about Qarth for hours without ever looking bored.
It is Daeron who manages to make you laugh until tears run down your face.
His eye twitches, knuckles whitening around the goblet in his hand as he stands at the window of the chambers he shares with you, staring out over the Blackwater. You have still not retired for the night; you left the feast early to join Aelor and Aelora in wandering the gardens, and Valarr had assumed you would be in your shared chambers waiting for him by the time he finished entertaining the Lord Tyrell and Lord Hightower with his father, so heâd brought up a Qartheen spiced liquor, hoping to share it and spend some time with you before bed.
Rationally, he knows you have done nothing wrong.Â
You had smiled at him when you entered the hall earlier. You had kissed his cheek before taking your seat. You had even sought him out briefly between courses to tell him where you were going and who you would be with. He had justâhe had hoped to spend time with you. That is all.Â
Unfortunately, jealousy is not a particularly rational emotion.
Not that Valarr is jealous.
He straightens when the door finally creaks open, turning to look just as you slip into the room. It is awful, truly, the combination of fondness and bitterness that washes over him at the sight of the breathless smile on your lips as you enter the room.
âI hope Aelor and Aelora walked you back,â Valarr murmurs as he places his goblet down and makes his way over to you. He relishes the way your expression softens when you turn your attention to him. Itâs almost enough to overwhelm the greenness eating away at his chest. Almost. âYou should not be wandering the halls alone at this time of night, wife.â
You tilt your face up as soon as he draws near, and he dips his head down to brush his lips against yours. You make a soft noise into his mouth, curious, and he fights a flush when he feels your tongue dart out to lap at his lower lip.
You pull back, eyes alight as you ask, âIs that Qartheen?â
Valarr hums in agreement, hands sliding down to your hips as he looks down at you, thumbs smoothing easy circles over the fabric of your dress.Â
âIt is,â he says simply, and then he raises his eyebrows, beckoning a response to his initial unspoken question.
âOh. Aelor and Aelora retired to their chambers early,â you tell him. Valarrâs brows immediately furrow, incensed by the idea of his cousins leaving you to make your way back alone. âDaeron walked me back.â
In Valarrâs defense, he truly does not mean to scoff. He doesnât even realize he has until he sees your face change. You blink once before your brows raise questioningly, beckoning an explanation for the reaction.
âIs that a problem?â you ask after a moment, bemused.Â
âNo,â he says immediately, and he also does not mean for his voice to come across so strained, but from the way you raise your brows further, he fails miserably. He clears his throat and repeats more carefully, âOf course not.â
You study him for a moment too long. Valarr can hardly hold your gaze, so he resigns to looking at the painting to your left as though itâs the most interesting thing in the room. From the corner of his eye, he sees the moment your face smooths out in realization, and a pit forms in his stomach.
But all you say is, âI missed you today.âÂ
Valarr exhales through his nose, sinking into you when he feels your arms wind around his waist. What little fight remains drains from him immediately; for all of the time he spends stewing in his own thoughts, for all of the ridiculous conclusions he manages to draw from a few hours apart, it is remarkably difficult to maintain any sense of grievance when you are standing in front of him looking at him like this.Â
âI missed you too,â he admits quietly, one hand lifting to cradle the back of your head as you prop your chin on his chest to look up at him. He dips down to brush his lips against the crown of your head, eyes sliding shut. âLord Tyrell and Lord Hightower kept me occupied for the better part of the evening. I am beginning to suspect it was deliberate.â
âThere was a conspiracy against you, was there?â
âThere usually is,â Valarr agrees mournfully.
âMy poor prince,â you coo, lifting your hand up to brush your fingers against his cheek.Â
Valarr leans his face into your touch. âYour poor prince indeed. I am suffering terribly. You should do something to fix it.â
You laugh prettily, and Valarr feels the last of his irritation dissolve into something much uglier: guilt. Because here you are, smiling up at him, arms wrapped around his waist, telling him that you missed him, and all evening he had been sitting at the high table feeling resentful because youâd spent time with his cousins.Â
You have spent months lonely in a foreign kingdom, struggling to find your place and navigate a court that had viewed you with disdain from the moment you arrived. Now, you finally have people who seek you out and make you laugh, people who make Westeros feel a little less cold, and Valarr, instead of being grateful for it, spent half of the evening sulking like a child over it.
The realization is profoundly embarrassing, and he cannot help the sigh that escapes his lips.Â
âWhat is it?â you ask him, thumb stroking over his cheekbone in a way that only serves to make him feel worse, but he takes advantage of the comfort you offer him anyway, because he is greedy for anything and everything you deign to give him. âValarr?â
âI was unfair to you,â he says after a moment, voice quiet.Â
Your brows furrow, and you tell him, âYouâve done nothing wrong.â
âI have,â he insists, fingers tangling gently into your hair, nails scratching your scalp lightly in the way that always makes your lashes flutter shut, because he knows that you know what was bothering him when you entered the room, and he would prefer for you not to think you might be doing something wrong just because he is petty. âI am happy that you have my brother and cousins. Aelor and Aelora⊠Aerion and Daeron. I am, truly. I desperately wanted you to have friends hereâwanted you to feel welcome. I spent months worrying about you; every time I saw you upset, I felt as though I was failing you somehow. I am glad.â
He hates that he sounds like heâs trying to convince himself.
There is a terribly knowing expression on your face as you search his face, and then you press closer to him, arms tightening around his waist, face burying into his chest. Valarr sinks into the warmth of your embrace, pressing his face into the top of your hair and inhaling the saffron hair oil heâs become intimately accustom to.Â
âYou know I would always prefer to spend time with you than them,â you murmur after a few moments pass. âYou need not be jealous.â
Valarr closes his eyes, mortification washing through him instantly.
Apparently, he is not nearly as subtle as he thought.Â
âI am not jealous,â he mutters petulantly into your hair. âI onlyââ
What exactly is his defense here?
I only spent the entire evening staring across the feast whenever Aelor and Aelora made you laugh?
I only felt irrationally irritated when Aerion remembered some insignificant detail about Quarth that you mentioned months ago?
I only had a distinct urge to throw my own cousin into the Blackwater when you said he walked you back to your chambers?
I only wish it could be me with you instead of them?Â
None of those sound particularly persuasive.Â
âI am a little jealous,â he admits at last, shoulders slumping in defeat. Valarr grimaces when your shoulders begin to shake, face heating up again. He says, affronted, âYou are laughing at me.â
âI am not,â you disagree, but he can hear the laugh in your voice.
âYou are,â he accuses, pulling back to look down at you with a scowl that lacks heat, considering he cannot help the way his lips curve up at the sight of the smile on your face.
âI would never.â
The blatant lie is so outrageous that Valarr actually huffs.Â
You lean up on your tiptoes to ghost your lips against his, and he sighs lightly into your mouth, one hand sliding to the small of your back as though drawn there by instinct. The annoyance that had been simmering beneath his skin all evening dissipates a little further when he feels you smile against his lips.Â
He follows when you begin to pull away, stealing one more kiss before finally relenting. Even then, he cannot quite bring himself to put any real distance between the two of you, pulling you so that youâre flush to him, walking backward slowly until the back of his knees hit the edge of the bed.Â
He sinks onto the mattress with a quiet exhale, drawing you with him until youâre comfortably settled on his lap.Â
Impossible woman, he thinks fondly.
He can never get enough of you. He has known since he was young that his grandfather or father would arrange a marriage for him. It was simply the reality of being born who he was. Princes did not marry for love; they married for alliances, and for peace, and for duty. As a boy, he prayed that if he could not find love in whatever match he was assigned, he would find the same type of friendship his parents had found in one another. He would have ocnsidered that enoughâmore than enough.
Valarr knew the moment he laid eyes on you descending from your ship that he was doomed. The memory remains painfully clearâthe harbor had been crowded that day, warm and sunny, and he was filled with dread and anxiety as he waited for the Qartheen ships to dock. Lords, ladies, gold cloaks, servants gathered nat the docksâall eager to catch a glimpse of the Qartheen daughter who had crossed half the world to marry into House Targaryen.Â
Valarr remembers very little of them, but he remembers you. The sea wind had caught at your silks as you descended the gangplank. Gold and sapphire glimmered at your wrists and throat; chin lifted high despite the hundreds of unfamiliar eyes fixed upon you. You had looked terrifiedâyou had hidden it beautifully, but he had seen the tension in your shoulders and the way your gaze swept over the crowd, searching for something familiar and finding nothing.
He rehearsed his introduction to you a thousand times before that day, and he still fumbled over his words the moment you were finally in front of him. He remembers the brief look of confusion that crossed your face, and the way he wanted the ground to open to swallow him hole.
Then you smiled, wide and bright, a laugh bubbling from your lips, and he lost whatever hope he had of approaching this marriage sensibly, because he has spent every day since chasing the memory of it, hoping to draw that sound from you a second, a third, a fourth time, hundreds of times, thousands.Â
It became more difficult as court life weighed on you. He would seek out trinkets from Qarth in the market and commissioned a musician who knew songs from your homeland, but nothing ever seemed to be enough to wash away the morose expression on your face at the day's end. Every difficult day that ended with you smiling at him instead of staring silently out at Blackwater Bay felt like a battle hardwon.
Perhaps thatâs why the jealousy cuts so deeply. It is not because he begrudges his cousins for making you happy; it is because they are enjoying something he spent months fighting for. But looking at you now, in his lap, eyes bright and lips curved up into a smile that exists solely because of him, Valarr finds that he cannot bring himself to resent any of them for long.Â
âPerhaps I will join you next time then,â you muse, looping your arms around his neck. Valarr lets his eyes slide shut again when he feels you peck his jaw, trailing kisses along his flushed skin. âI can spend the entire day listening to Lord Tyrell discuss harvest, and Lord Hightower complain about tariffs from Braavos. Then we can be miserable together.â
âA compelling proposition,â Valarr replies, lips curving up into an easy, lidded smile as he looks up at you. âThough I fear you might start dozing off mid-conversation, wife.â
âI would never!â you gasp, faux-offended, and Valarr laughs, arms tightening around your waist, and he smiles when he hears the yelp that spills from your lips when he lays you back gently against the mattress, following you down until he is hovering above you, forearms braced on either side of your head.Â
For a moment, he can only look at you. His wife, in his arms, in your shared bed, smiling and happy, looking at him as though heâs the only thing in the room worth seeing, and Valarr loves you. He loves you more than he knows how to articulate, so much that it scares him sometimes, because you awaken instincts in him that he scarcely recgonizes in himself.
Protectiveness, of course. Possessiveness, maybe.Â
But also something much darker.Â
Valarr has always considered himself a rational man, but that composure seems to evaporate whenever youâre involved. Every time he sees you upset, every time your smile falters because of some careless remark, something ugly stirs inside him. He wants to know who caused it; he wants names and answers. The urge is immediate and irrational, a vicious thing that heâs not particularly proud of, but it makes him understand why men have started wars for the woman they love.Â
But you are smiling now, warm and happy beneath him, and for the moment, that is enough.
Valarr dips down to press his lips against yours again. He kisses you slower this time, savoring in the faint taste of lemon on your lips; when he pulls back slightly to take a breath, you chase his lips, nipping at his bottom lip before you pout and lay back against the mattress, looking up at him with big eyes that make Valarrâs heart jump.Â
He lifts one hand to your face, cradling your cheek gently in one hand, thumb tracing absent circles against your skin.Â
âI mean it,â you say after a moment, nosing into his palm briefly before looking up at him again. âThe court probably expects it of me anywayâto be at your side while you handle all of your princely duties, I cannot keep running off with your cousins to socialize.â
Valarrâs expression softens. âNo,â he says immediately. âDo not martyr yourself for my sake. I spend enough time trapped in those conversations for the both of us. You should enjoy yourself. The Seven know youâve spent enough time miserable in this Keep already.â
You look unconvinced, and Valarr feels ashamed, because this is his fault, his pettiness, his jealousy that got you to this point. You are finally at a place where you are starting to feel comfortable; he has spent months wanting nothing more than to see you smile, and now that you finally are, he has somehow managed to make you question whether you should.
âI do not care what the court expects, and I certainly do not care what some lord thinks my wife should be doing during a feast,â he tells you. âI want you happy, and if that means spending an evening with my cousins while I suffer through discussions of grain yields, then so be it.âÂ
The court might slowly be warming up to you, but they still love to get their snide comments in just to see how you react. He would sooner carve out his own heart than watch that careful, guarded expression return to your face because he had been selfish enough to keep you at his side, forced around people who seek to remind you that you do not belong instead of the few people in this keep willing to bare their teeth on your behalf the moment someone forgets their manners.
He sighs lightly as he leans down to press his lips against yours again, hand sliding from the side of your face to rest at your throat. His thumb presses lightly into your skin, and he swallows thickly when you flutter your lashes up at him.Â
âWill you come with me to the gardens tomorrow then?â you ask after a moment, lips curved up as you look up at him, and how is Valarr ever supposed to deny you when you look at him like this? âI saw a flower tonight. It reminded me of your eyes. I wanted to bring it up here to show you, but I didnât want to kill it.â
A lump forms in his throat, because yes, you had spent the evening with his cousins, but you had still seen something beautiful and thought of him.
âOf course,â he says without hesitation, and your smile widens, bright and full of light in a way that Valarr will spend his life guarding.Â
For a moment, he simply watches youâthe way your eyes shine and the way your fingers toy absentmindedly with the hem of his tunic. You are his, and Valarr was never really a possessive man until he met you, but now there is no denying it, because the sight of your tears ruins his day, and a careless remark from a lord leaves him imagining increasingly creative ways to make someone regret opening their mouth. Because seeing you hurt awakens something so violent in him that he almost forgets that he is meant to be his fatherâs son.Â
There is concerningly little that Valarr would not do for you if it meant making you happy.
So he will join you in the gardens tomorrow, because he cannot deny you at all, much less when you are laying beneath him with wide eyes and a small smile. Because you are his wife, and he loves you.
Tomorrow, he will abandon the small council meeting heâs supposed to attend with his father, and he will endure whatever disapproval is directed his way, because his wife found a flower in the garden and wants to show him it, and that is infinitely more important than whatever trivial issues that are going to be discussed in the Tower of the Hand.
Valarr is a prince of the blood, a dragon, a knight, but before anything else, he is a husband who is deeply and desperately devoted to his wife.Â
âI am sorry if I kept you waiting tonight,â you say quietly after a moment, reaching up to tuck a dark lock behind his ear before absently running your fingers through the silver streak that runs through his hair. âI hope I didnât ruin any plans you had for the evening.â
Valarrâs expression softens. He ducks his head down to press his lips against your forehead, lingering there for a moment before he replies, âYou could never ruin anything, ñuha jorrÄelagon. My only plan for the night was to spend it with you.â
My love.
âWell, youâve got me all to yourself, husband,â you say with a teasing smile. âWhat do you plan to do with me?â
Valarr gives you a sharp, boyish grin. âOh, Iâm sure you have an idea, wife.â
âTell me anyway please?â
âWell, when my wife asks so sweetly, how could I ever refuse?â
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