Rhae makes a truth serum and Aerion drinks it at a family dinner, crude remarks, crack fic
“Rhae what are you doing?” You ask entering the dining hall seeing the girl pour something into Eggs glass. Rhae being the first in the hall was suspicious anyway, but seeing the witchy girl tampering with drinks made it all the more suspicious. “What did you just put in your brother’s glass?”
“Nothing!” She says quickly hiding something behind her back. At your look she quickly caves. “It’s a truth potion, I want to know if egg loves me.”
“Of course he loves you sweetheart you’re his sister.” You tell her softly, wishing the girl would stop trying to give her brothers potions she’s made.
“That’s not what I meant.” She grumbles when you pick up eggs drink going to throw it out when Aerion saunters in seeing you holding a glass. Taking it before you can stop him from downing the thing. “Shit.”
“What?” Aerion asks giving you and his youngest sister a look as the rest of the family makes their way in taking their seats. Nether of you paying attention to Rhae whispering something into Daeron ear as your husband sits down. “You weren’t drinking it.”
“My love-.” You try, not sure want to say. Other than don’t drink things if you don’t know what’s in it. Aerion gesturing to your chair so you can sit down next to him.
“Aerion? Do you still sleep with your toy dragon?” Daeron asks, a smirk in his face as he drinks out of his flask. Not trusting the drinks on the table.
“What? Of course I do, I love brightflame.” Aerion says before processing what he’s just said. Immediately trying to backtrack. “What? Yes? What’s going on?”
“Rhae put a truth potion in the drink you took from me.” You tell your husband as you sit down, not sure how he’ll react. You being the only one who knew he still cuddled his toy dragon at night.
“Rhae, we’ve spoken about this stop giving people potions.” Maekar says annoyed but not surprised as the girl had been writing to her aunt Shira again. “Aerion did you actually do the report like I told you too?”
“No, my wife did it for me.” He says before looking over at you with wide eyes. Nether of you wanting Maekar to know you actually did it.
“Aerion what are you scared of?” Egg asks a smile on his face at his older brother’s embarrassment.
“My wife leaving me.” He answers quickly before he covers his mouth with his hands an angry look on his face. “Fuck, no. Stop asking me questions!”
“Do you want to eat in our chambers?” You ask Aerion, picking up your plates so you could leave.
“Yes but I’d also like to eat you.” He says looking you up and down. Thinking you look delicious in that red and black gown.
“You want to eat her?” Daella asks confused, thinking her brother wants to preform cannibalism.
“I want to eat her pussy, yes.” Aerion says grateful when you cover his mouth with your hand. “I love when you do this.” He muffles out. “You’re so hot when you take control.”
“Aerion!” You hiss, deciding to just leave the plates and drag your husband out of the room. “Stop talking.”
“What ever you want, I love you so much.” He says from behind your hand. “This is so embarrassing.”
summary: Dean DiLaurentis gives you the "I don't do relationships" speech, and you say okay and come back the next day to fix Tucker's cooking. Turns out the most dangerous thing you can do to a man like that is simply not need him.
word count: 11.5k
warnings: 18+ explicit sexual content, minors do not interact. situationship dynamics, brief angst, dean being cruel in a moment he regrets, dirty talk, slow burn, eventual fluff.
Daily calls with your mother had become more sparse over the course of your college years. They started daily and had slowly tapered to every other Saturday, which, in all honesty, was a bit of a shock given that she wasn't the type to loosen her grip easily. She had always been overprotective, and when you announced you weren't going to Texas University but to a college in Massachusetts, she had genuinely flipped her shit. Two years later she seemed kind of cool about it. Just texting. Sending random updates about your dog, like the Halloween costume from last year that you'd screenshot and saved.
You were sitting in your room in the sorority house, legs extended and resting on the desk, phone propped against your water bottle while you FaceTimed her and tried to paint your nails without smudging anything. The room was quiet except for your mom stirring something on the stove.
"So I ran into Olivia Tucker — you remember her, right? From church? She had a son named John," she said, not looking at the camera.
You had learned years ago that it was easier to say yes, of course than to endure five minutes of your mom describing a person like she was giving a statement to the police.
"Yeah, of course. I remember Mrs. Tucker."
"She mentioned her son John is attending the same college as you." She said it like she was reading off a notecard. Matter of fact. "She said he's playing hockey now."
Oh. That John Tucker.
"Yeah, I know who he is," you said, cleaning up the mess on your middle finger.
"Isn't that a big coincidence?"
"I mean, not really — he's like a year younger than me, right?"
"Yes, but you two used to play together when you were kids. At church, remember?" You did not remember. Your family went to church maybe twice a year. "Anyway, I gave her your number so she could pass it along to him. So you two could talk."
"Mom — what, that's not really —"
"She's probably not even going to use it."
She used it. Mrs. Tucker called three days later, and with the grace of a good Southern woman, she asked you to keep an eye on John — not in so many words, of course. She said he'd moved into a house with some of the other players and she just wanted to know he was taking care of himself. She didn't want you to do much. Just stop by, take a look around, report back. She'd handle the rest by phone.
What she did not tell you was that Tucker already knew about her plan.
He opened the door looking completely unsurprised to see you, leaned against the frame with his arms crossed and a grin that said nice try. He was, it turned out, perfectly capable of taking care of himself and, annoyingly, other people too.
Which is how you ended up here, almost a year later, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island in the off campus house, crying into an onion.
"I'm just saying, get a dicer," you said, keeping your eyes on the knife because you had to. "This is inhumane."
"A real chef doesn't use those kinds of things," Tucker said from across the kitchen, doing significantly less chopping than you were.
"Well, good thing you're not a real chef then."
He turned around, visibly offended. "What did you just say?"
You opened your mouth to repeat it — and then Garrett wandered in from the living room, grabbed an apple from the counter, looked at Tucker's side of the kitchen and then at yours, and pointed at you. "She's doing all the work," he said, to no one in particular, and wandered back out.
"He's right," you said.
"He's a traitor," Tucker said.
You opened your mouth to agree and then the sound of footsteps came down the hallway, and Dean came around the corner fresh out of the shower, towel low on his hips and water still tracking down his chest.
You sniffed, eyes watering, nose red.
Dean stopped. Looked at you. And then let out a slow, deeply entertained laugh.
"Well," he said, "I've heard a lot of reactions from girls seeing me like this. But crying might be a first." He tilted his head. "You alright there, sweet pea?"
"It's the onion," you said flatly. "Tucker's making me cut it."
"Sure." He was already turning toward the stairs, completely unbothered. "Whatever floats your boat."
He winked at you over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner.
You looked back down at the onion.
Tucker was very pointedly not looking at you.
"Not a word," you said.
"I didn't say anything," he said, in the tone of someone who was saying everything.
The party invitation from Tucker arrived as a single text on a Thursday night.
party saturday, be here, i made a playlist
You were in the middle of your readings and you looked at the message for a moment before typing back: do I need to bring anything?
yourself and good energy
You put your phone face down and went back to your reading. Then picked it up again.
what time
nine but come at eight so we can hang before it gets loud
That was Tucker's way of saying he wanted to cook with you beforehand, which you appreciated more than you would ever tell him out loud because he would absolutely use it against you. You sent back a thumbs up and returned to your notes, and you did not think about the fact that Dean would be there, because that was not a relevant consideration.
You thought about it the entire rest of the week.
Not in a dramatic way. Just in the quiet, persistent way of something you kept putting down and finding in your hand again. You were honest with yourself about Dean, had been from the beginning. You knew what he was. Charming in a way that looked effortless because it mostly was, easy with people, the kind of person who filled a room without trying. You'd watched him for almost a year. You knew the way he talked to people, the way he leaned in when something was funny, the way he'd come into the kitchen sometimes when you were there and open the fridge and just stand there for a full thirty seconds like the answer to whatever he was looking for might eventually appear.
You knew that he'd noticed you too. That wasn't ego, just observation. The way his eyes would find you first when he walked into a room where you already were. The way he'd aim a comment at you specifically when he had a whole group to choose from. The way he'd said I've heard a lot of reactions like your reaction was the one that mattered.
You'd been sensible about it for a year. You'd made the choice, every single time, to not do anything about it. And you were fine. You were genuinely fine with that. You knew what Dean was, knew what it would be, and you'd decided the math didn't work out in your favor so you'd left it alone.
It was just that sometimes, quietly, in the back of your head, a voice said but what if you didn't.
You got dressed Saturday night and told that voice to shut up, and went to the party anyway.
Tucker met you at the door at eight on the dot, already in a good mood, which meant either the playlist was really good or he'd already had a drink.
"You look great," he said, holding the door open.
"You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time." He handed you a beer from the counter as you came into the kitchen, already comfortable, already home in the easy way the house had started to feel over the past year. "I was thinking we do something with the leftover rice from yesterday, I got peppers —"
"Tucker."
"What."
"We're not cooking. There are already people here."
He looked genuinely confused. "So?"
You took the beer from him and looked around the kitchen. Logan was leaning against the far counter talking to someone from the team, and Garrett was already in the living room, and the house had that particular pre-party hum to it, not yet loud, still settling into itself.
Dean wasn't in the kitchen.
You noted this the way you noted a lot of things quietly, without making anything of it.
Logan glanced over when Tucker handed you the beer. "You're here early."
"She's basically a resident," Tucker said, like this was a fact.
"I'm a guest," you said.
"Guests don't know where we keep the good knives," Logan said and winked, and went back to his conversation.
You spent the next hour in that easy pre-party mode, moving between the kitchen and the living room, talking to people you knew by name now, accepting a second drink from someone who was mixing them near the back. Tucker orbited you loosely the way he always did at these things, appearing at your elbow every twenty minutes or so to say something that made you laugh and then disappearing again. This was one of your favorite things about him, he was never clingy, never needed to keep you close, just checked in like punctuation.
Dean appeared sometime around ten.
He came down the stairs and into the living room and you saw him before he saw you, which felt important. He was wearing a dark green shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, and he had that easy unhurried way of moving through a room like it had already arranged itself around him. He said something to Garrett near the bottom of the stairs and laughed, and you looked away before he could look up.
So. He was here. That was fine. That was completely normal and fine.
You went to find Tucker.
The next hour you spent being very deliberate about not being obvious. You talked to people on the back porch when Dean was in the living room. You came inside when he drifted toward the kitchen. You were not proud of it exactly, but you were not going to stand around waiting for him to decide whether tonight was a night he felt like paying attention to you. You'd done a lot of things in your life. That was not going to be one of them.
Your friend Anna, a sorority sister, texted at eleven: how's the party
You typed back: fine. dean's here.
Three seconds.
oh. OH. okay. call me tomorrow.
maybe
that means yes. don't do anything I wouldn't do
You locked your phone and put it in your pocket and thought about the specific, limited list of things Anna wouldn't do and found it unhelpfully short.
The thing was, and you'd been over this, you'd been reasonable about this, you knew what it would be. A night, maybe a few nights, comfortable and uncomplicated and then done. Dean DiLaurentis didn't do anything that looked like what came after. You'd watched him long enough to know that too. And you'd decided that wasn't what you wanted, so you'd kept your distance, and that had been the right call, and it remained the right call.
You were in college at a party on a Friday night and you had been sensible about this for almost an entire calendar year.
The voice in the back of your head said but you knew that going in and it doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to mean.
You told it to shut up.
It had a point though.
You refilled your drink. Stood near the back door where the air was a little cooler and the noise slightly less consuming. Watched the party happen around you. Thought, very clearly and deliberately: you know what it is. you've always known. that doesn't have to be the reason not to.
You were still working through the logic of that when you felt someone come to stand beside you.
"(Y/N). You've been avoiding me."
Dean. Not accusing, just observing, the same way he did most things, like he was simply noting a fact about the universe. He had a drink in one hand and he wasn't looking at you yet, eyes scanning the room like he'd just happened to end up here beside you, which you both understood wasn't true.
"I've been talking to people," you said.
"You've been talking to people on the opposite side of every room I was in."
"Maybe I just like that side of the room."
He looked at you then. Really looked, in that direct way of his that felt like being assessed and appreciated at the same time. The music was loud enough that the conversation existed in its own small space, just between you.
"You've been doing that for a year," he said.
"Has it been a year?" You kept your voice light.
"Almost." He took a drink. "I've been patient."
The word landed simply, without performance. Patient. Like he'd been waiting. Like the last year had been something he'd noticed too, kept track of, decided to let run its course.
You looked at him for a long moment. The party moved around you, loud and warm, and you stood in it and made the decision clearly, with both eyes open, which felt like the important part.
"Bathroom's upstairs," you said.
Something shifted in his expression, not surprise, just confirmation. Like he'd known, and now he knew for certain.
"Yeah," he said.
He followed you up the stairs without touching you, which felt somehow more loaded than if he had. You could feel him behind you the whole way, that particular awareness of someone close, and by the time you reached the top of the stairs your heart was doing something inconvenient.
The upstairs bathroom was at the end of the hall. You went in, he came in behind you, and you turned to click the lock and found him already there, close enough that turning around put you nearly chest to chest with him, close enough that you could feel the warmth coming off him before he'd laid a hand on you.
He didn't kiss you right away.
That was the first thing. You'd expected him to, he'd been patient for a year, you'd just told him where the bathroom was, you'd expected him to close the distance immediately. Instead he just looked at you, and the looking was its own thing, slow and deliberate, like he was taking his time now that he finally had you here and he wanted you to know it.
"You made me wait a long time," he said.
"You could have said something sooner," you said.
"I said something tonight."
"Barely."
Something shifted in his expression, not quite a smile, more like he'd just decided something. He reached up slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, fingers grazing your jaw, and the touch was so light it was almost nothing, which somehow made it worse.
"You're going to be like that," he said. Quiet. Certain.
"I don't know what you mean," you said, which was a lie and you both knew it.
He tilted your chin up with two fingers, not roughly, just — directing. Making you look at him. "Yeah you do," he said, and then he kissed you.
It wasn't tentative. It was a kiss from someone who had thought about this specifically, who knew what he wanted and had decided tonight was when he was going to have it, and you kissed him back and felt a year's worth of deliberate distance dissolve somewhere at the back of your mind.
He walked you backward until your hips met the bathroom counter and left you there, stepped back just enough to look at you again with that same unhurried attention, and you understood then that he wasn't in a hurry. That he'd waited this long and now he was going to enjoy it, and you were going to have to let him.
"Take your jacket off," he said.
You did.
He watched you do it. That was all — just watched, arms loosely crossed, completely at ease, like this was exactly where he'd planned to be tonight. You set the jacket on the counter and looked at him and he looked back.
"Good," he said, like that meant something.
Your heart was doing the inconvenient thing again.
He came back to you slowly, hands finding your waist, and kissed you again, deeper this time, one hand sliding into your hair and gripping, not painfully, just holding you exactly where he wanted you. You made a small sound against his mouth and felt him smile.
"There it is," he murmured.
"Shut up," you said.
"Make me," he said against your jaw, and then his mouth was on your throat and the option to respond coherently became briefly unavailable.
He took his time with your throat, your collarbone, the soft place below your ear that made your fingers curl into his shirt without your permission, and every time you moved to pull him closer he'd ease back just enough to remind you that he was running this. Not mean about it. Just clear.
"Dean —"
"I've got you," he said, against your skin. "I'm not going anywhere."
His hands moved to the hem of your top, pulling it up slowly, and he stepped back to pull it over your head and dropped it somewhere on the floor and looked at you again with that particular focus, and you had to actively resist the urge to cover yourself, because that was not what you did, but the way he was looking at you made you feel like you were already coming apart.
"You have no idea," he said quietly, more to himself than you, and then his mouth was on your collarbone and his hands were at your waist and you gave up on dignity entirely.
His hands moved to the button of your jeans, unhurried, and he looked up at you first — not asking exactly, just checking — and you nodded and he undid it and crouched down to pull the fabric down your legs with a thoroughness that felt like a point being made. He looked up at you from there, and whatever was on your face made him look deeply, quietly satisfied.
"You've been thinking about this," he said. Not a question.
"Don't," you said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't be smug about it."
"I'm not being smug." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, which short-circuited something. "I'm just paying attention."
He stood back up slowly, hands trailing up the outside of your thighs, and lifted you onto the counter like it was nothing, stepping between your knees. You pulled him back in by the collar of his shirt and kissed him harder than you'd meant to and he made a low sound and kissed you back the same way, one hand flat against the small of your back pulling you closer.
"Tell me what you want," he said, against your mouth.
"You know what I want."
"I want to hear you say it."
You pulled back and looked at him. He looked back, completely unbothered, and you understood that he meant it, that he was going to stand here all night if he had to, patient as anything, until you said it out loud.
"Dean."
"I'm right here," he said pleasantly.
"You're so —"
"Tell me."
You told him.
"Please"
The expression that crossed his face was worth it. He kissed you once, hard, like a reward, and said good against your mouth, and then his hand moved and all the words you'd been planning to say next went somewhere inaccessible.
He knew what he was doing in a way that felt almost unfair, thorough, attentive, like he'd already decided exactly how this was going to go and was now simply executing. When you tried to rush it he slowed down. When you made a sound he filed it away and came back to it. The tile was cold at your back and his hands were warm on your thighs and his mouth was at your cunt and the things he said there were quiet and precise and designed specifically to ruin you.
"You've been driving me crazy," he said. Low, unhurried. "All year. You know that."
"Dean —"
"Every time you walked into a room." His hand didn't stop. "Every time you looked at Tucker instead of me. Every single time."
"That's your fault," you managed.
"I know," he said. "I know it is." Something almost rueful in it. "Doesn't change the fact."
When you finally came it was with your head hitting the mirror behind you and holding his shoulder and his name somewhere in the middle of it, and he stayed with you through the whole thing, unhurried, like he had nothing else in the world to do.
He gave you a moment. Then he pulled back and looked at you with an expression that you could only describe as thoroughly pleased with himself, which should have been annoying and wasn't.
"Don't," you said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was going to ask if you were okay," he said, which was such an obvious lie that you laughed, and the laugh broke something open in the room, and he grinned, a real one, unguarded in a way you hadn't seen before, and kissed you again before it could turn into a whole thing.
You worked his belt with hands that weren't entirely steady and he helped without comment, and then his hands were at your hips and he pressed his forehead to yours for just a second.
You watched him look for a condom on his backpocket.
"Yeah?" he said quietly. All the performance gone.
"Yeah," you said.
He pushed into you slow and you exhaled against his jaw, fingers gripping his shoulders, adjusting to the feeling of him. He gave you a moment, forehead still to yours, patient, present, and then he moved and everything else became temporarily beside the point.
It was charged the way it only gets when two people have been waiting too long. Not frantic but urgent, with a focused intensity that felt like something being resolved. His grip was firm and deliberate and you pulled him closer when he slowed down and he got the message and didn't slow down again. The mirror was fogging and somewhere below you the party was still happening and it was completely irrelevant.
"Look at me," he said.
You did. He held your gaze and something passed between you that neither of you named, and you felt it in your chest more than anywhere else.
"Months," he said again. Quieter now.
"I know," you said. "I know."
When he came he buried his face in your neck and went quiet and still, one hand flat against the small of your back holding you against him, and you held onto him too because it seemed like the thing to do, and because you wanted to, and those were the same thing tonight.
You stayed like that for a moment longer than necessary.
Then you both exhaled at roughly the same time, which broke the tension, and Dean huffed a quiet laugh into your shoulder.
You untangled carefully, straightened yourselves out. You hopped off the counter and turned to the mirror, fixing your hair, smoothing your top back into place. He leaned against the wall watching you do it, arms crossed loosely, shirt back on. His hair was a mess and he didn't appear concerned about it.
You met his eyes in the mirror.
"This doesn't have to be a thing," you said. Even, matter of fact. Not cold, just clear. You were giving him an out because you'd rather give it than have him feel like he needed to take it badly.
Something moved across his face. He pushed off the wall slightly. "What if I want it to be a thing?"
You turned around. "What kind of thing?"
He held your gaze. Didn't answer right away, which was an answer, and you'd known it would be, you'd known before you came upstairs, and still it took a small quiet moment to settle.
"Right," you said simply.
Not angry. Not hurt, or at least not visibly. You'd gone in with both eyes open and you'd meant it, and the math was what you'd always known it was. That was fine. You were fine.
You unlocked the door.
"Hey," Dean said.
You looked back.
He opened his mouth, closed it. Something in his expression that you couldn't entirely read. "Nothing," he said finally. "Never mind."
You nodded once and stepped out into the hallway.
Downstairs, the party had peaked without you. The music was louder and the living room was full and Tucker was in the kitchen, which is where Tucker always ended up at some point. He took one look at your face when you appeared in the doorway and turned to open the fridge and produced a beer, which he held out without a word.
You took it.
"Having fun?" he asked, very casually, eyes on the fridge.
"Yeah," you said. "Party's good."
"Cool." He closed the fridge. "I made queso."
"Tucker."
"It's in the pot on the back burner."
You looked at him for a second. He looked back, perfectly neutral, perfectly unbothered, and completely full of information he was choosing not to say.
"Thank you," you said.
"Don't mention it," he said. "Seriously, don't. I have a reputation."
You laughed despite yourself, and some of the tightness in your chest loosened, just a little.
Tucker handed you a chip.
You both stood at the stove and ate queso and said nothing about any of it, and that was, genuinely, one of the nicest things anyone had done for you in a while.
Dean came downstairs eleven minutes later, you weren't counting, you just noticed, and grabbed a beer from the fridge and leaned against the counter across from you, and the three of you stood in that kitchen like nothing had happened at all.
Dean looked at the pot on the stove. "Is that queso?"
"Made it myself," Tucker said.
"You absolutely did not."
Tucker looked at you. You said nothing, scooping queso onto another chip. Dean's eyes moved between you both and landed on you with something unreadable in them.
"Can I have some?" he asked.
"It's your house," you said.
He got a chip. Ate it. Looked at the pot. "That's really good."
"I know," you said.
Tucker stared directly at the wall and smiled at absolutely nothing.
It didn't have a name. That was the thing , it never got one, and neither of you tried to give it one, and somehow that made it easier to just let it exist.
It started simply enough. A week after the party, Dean texted you at eleven on a Tuesday night. Just: you up?
The second text was a trailer link. No context, no explanation, just: this.
You watched it once. Typed back: that looks pretentious.
i know. yes or no.
fine.
The house was quiet when you got there , Garrett's door closed, Tucker apparently out, and Dean was on the couch with a beer and the energy of someone who had been waiting without admitting to waiting.
You sat in the middle of the couch.
He pulled up the movie without comment.
It was pretentious and it was also actually good, and you told him so twenty minutes in when he glanced over to see what you thought. He said told you without looking back at the screen. You said you said it looked pretentious, which is not the same as saying it wasn't good. He said that's a very specific distinction. You said I'm a specific person. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then said: yeah.
Somewhere around the third act the distance between you closed. You weren't sure who moved, maybe both of you, gradually. His arm along the back of the couch and your shoulder under it and neither of you addressed it.
The movie ended and neither of you moved.
He found something else. A documentary, shorter, that turned out to be genuinely interesting. You watched most of it. Somewhere in the second half you were closer still his arm properly around you now, your feet tucked up beside you — and the lamp in the corner was the only light, and in here it was warm, and you were paying attention to about thirty percent of the documentary.
You woke up at two in the morning with a blanket over you that hadn't been there before. Dean was asleep at the other end of the couch, head back, completely unconscious. The TV was still on. You looked at him in the blue light of the screensaver, the line of his jaw, the stillness of someone actually asleep and felt the quiet weight of something you were not going to examine.
Then you got up, folded the blanket, left it on the cushion, and walked home.
You didn't text him about it. He didn't text you about it. Two days later he sent: you around tonight? and you said depends and he said on what and you said what's the plan and he said no plan and you said okay.
That was how it started.
By November it had a shape, even if it didn't have a name.
You came over two or three times a week. Sometimes it was a movie, sometimes it was just you in the kitchen making something with whatever was in the fridge while Dean sat at the counter with his phone and ate everything you put in front of him without comment except occasionally this is really good in a tone that suggested he was a little annoyed about it. Sometimes the whole house was there, Tucker loud and cheerful, Garrett and Logan drifting in and out, the TV on in the background and sometimes it was just the two of you and the house was quiet and those evenings had a quality to them that you tried not to examine too closely.
He texted you things that weren't questions. A link to an article about something you'd both argued about in passing. A photo of a sunset he'd apparently seen from the library roof, no caption. A voice memo once, at midnight, that was just him reading something in the flat unimpressed tone he used when something was genuinely getting on his nerves — listen to this, the message said, and you did, and you laughed, and he sent back a single: right?
You sent him things back. A recipe you thought he'd actually like. A clip of something that reminded you of a conversation you'd had. He always answered. Not immediately, not performatively, just he answered.
Garrett had noticed, in his way. He'd stopped doing double-takes when you were in the kitchen on a Tuesday night, had started just saying hey and opening the fridge like your presence was a given. Logan was less subtle, he'd caught your eye once across the living room when Dean laughed at something you'd said, and raised an eyebrow, and you'd looked away and he'd had the decency not to push it.
You talked to Anna about it on a Sunday afternoon in November, feet up on her bed, staring at the ceiling while she did her readings across from you.
"So it's a situationship," she said, not looking up.
"I didn't say that."
"You described a situationship."
"I described two people who spend time together."
"With benefits."
"Occasionally."
She finally looked up. "How often is occasionally?"
You said nothing.
"That's what I thought." She went back to her reading. "Are you okay with it?"
You thought about it honestly, the way you tried to think about most things. "Yeah," you said. "I went in knowing what it was."
"That's not what I asked."
You looked at the ceiling. "I'm fine," you said. "It's fine. I know what it is."
Anna made a small noncommittal sound that you chose not to interpret.
The physical part of it was easy in a way you hadn't entirely expected. Comfortable in a way that felt like it should have taken longer to get to. He knew what you liked with an attentiveness that might have been alarming if you'd let yourself think about it, and you knew what worked for him, and there was none of the awkwardness of newness anymore.
The only thing you were consistent about was the condom. Every time, without exception. Until one night in late November when Dean caught your wrist gently before you could reach for the nightstand.
"Why do you always —" He stopped. Nodded toward it. "Every time."
"Because I'm not stupid," you said. "You were getting around a lot before this and I don't know what this is and I'm not asking but I'm also not —"
"I haven't," he said. "Since the party. I haven't slept with anyone else."
The room went quiet.
"Oh," you said. A beat. "Me neither."
Something moved across his face that he didn't entirely manage to control. His thumb traced a slow absent line against the inside of your wrist.
"Okay," he said quietly.
"Okay," you said.
The air in the room changed into something neither of you was going to name. Then he kissed you, and it was different, slower, more careful, like something had been confirmed that he hadn't known he was waiting to confirm, and you let yourself feel it without examining it too closely, because that felt fair.
The first sign was the texts.
Not that they stopped completely, that would have been obvious, and Dean was too smart for obvious. They just slowed. A reply that came four hours later instead of forty minutes. A shorter answer where there used to be a real one. The voice memos stopped. The links stopped. You'd send something and get back a single word where there used to be a sentence, and you'd look at it and feel the shape of what was happening without being able to name it yet.
You told yourself it was school. Exams were coming, everyone was disappearing into the library, that was normal. You told yourself he was busy, stressed, in his head about the end of semester and the hockey team. You were busy too. You had your own readings, your own papers, your own life that existed completely separately from the off campus house and always had.
You kept coming over. Tucker needed someone to watch the game with and you'd promised him a recipe you'd been meaning to show him and you were not going to rearrange your life over a shift in text frequency.
But you noticed.
You noticed the way Dean would come into the kitchen when you were there and open the fridge and not look at you the way he used to. Not hostile, just absent. Like you were furniture. Like the awareness he'd always had of you in a room had been switched off at a source you couldn't locate. He ate the food you made without commenting on it. He answered direct questions. He didn't start anything.
You didn't push. That wasn't who you were.
But by the second week of December you were lying in your room at night doing the math and the math was not coming out well, and you were tired of pretending it wasn't.
You went over on a Thursday.
Tucker was at a class. You'd known that, you'd checked, because you wanted the house quiet, because you wanted five minutes of honesty without an audience. Garrett's truck wasn't in the driveway either. You knocked on Dean's door and he opened it in sweats and a Briar hoodie, textbook open on his desk, and the look on his face when he saw you was almost nothing, which was its own answer.
"Hey," you said.
"Hey." He stepped back to let you in, which you took as an invitation, and you came in and stood in the middle of his room and he closed the door and leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. Not aggressive. Just closed.
You looked at him for a moment.
"What's going on with you?" you asked. Quiet, direct. No accusation in it, just the question.
He shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing. Finals."
"Okay," you said. "That's not what I mean and you know it."
A beat. Something moved behind his eyes and then went still.
"I don't know what you want me to say," he said.
"I want you to say what's actually happening."
He looked at you. Then he looked away, jaw tightening slightly, and you recognized the particular quality of someone deciding something, not discovering it, deciding it, and some quiet part of you braced.
"I think this has run its course," he said. Flat. Careful.
You kept your face even. "Okay. What does that mean."
"It means —" He stopped. Started again. "I don't want this anymore. Whatever this is. I don't want it."
"Okay," you said.
He looked at you, and something in your steadiness seemed to irritate him, which you hadn't expected, and that was maybe the thing that cracked something open in him that should have stayed closed.
"I don't know what you thought this was," he said, and his voice had an edge now, "but it wasn't — I wasn't —" He made a short, almost contemptuous gesture. "You've been coming over here for months like you live here. Cooking, watching movies, acting like this is some kind of —"
"I never called it anything," you said.
"No, but you acted like it was something. You act like everything is fine and nothing bothers you and you're so —" He stopped, and the word he landed on was quiet and precise and clearly chosen to land: "You're so comfortable here. Like you belong here. And you don't."
The room was very quiet.
You looked at him. He looked back, and you could see the moment he heard what he'd just said, saw something flicker across his face that might have been regret but came too late to matter.
"You're right," you said. Your voice was completely level. "I don't."
He opened his mouth.
"I'm not going to make this into something," you said. "You don't want it, that's fine. I went in knowing what it was." You picked up your jacket from where you'd set it on the edge of his bed. "I hope finals go okay."
"Hey —"
"Good night, Dean."
You left. You closed the door behind you, not hard, just closed, and you walked down the stairs and through the front door and out into the December cold and you kept your shoulders straight the whole way home.
You didn't cry until you were in your own room with the door locked, and even then it wasn't for very long, because you'd known, you'd always known, and knowing didn't make it nothing but it made it survivable.
You texted Anna: you were right.
She called immediately. You let it ring twice, then picked up.
"I'm okay," you said, before she could ask.
"I know you are," she said. "Tell me anyway."
The hard part came later, at midnight.
You were lying in bed and you saw a link, a restaurant that had just opened, a tasting menu you'd been meaning to mention and you had his name pulled up in your contacts before you caught yourself. Thumb over send. The restaurant unremarkable and the gesture everything.
You put your phone face down on the mattress and looked at the ceiling for a while.
You'd known. You'd always known. That didn't make it nothing. It made it survivable, which was what you'd agreed to, and you were keeping that agreement.
The next afternoon you went to the off campus house.
Not because of Dean. Tucker had texted you at noon — i made something and i think i made it wrong, come look at it — and you'd said what did you make and he'd sent a photo that made you genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, and you'd said I'm coming over because that was what you did.
You showed up at three in the afternoon in your good boots and your coat, hair done, bag over your shoulder, because you had a study session after and you were not rearranging your life. You walked into the kitchen and Tucker was standing over something on the stove that smelled questionable and turned around with the expression of a man who needed saving.
"What is that," you said.
"I was trying to do the thing you showed me with the —"
"Tucker."
"I know."
You put your bag down and took your coat off and hung it over the stool and rolled up your sleeves and looked at whatever was happening in the pot, and Tucker stood next to you like a man watching a surgeon assess a patient.
"It's salvageable," you said.
He exhaled. "I knew it."
"Get me the garlic."
You cooked. Tucker hovered and passed things when you asked and made commentary that you ignored selectively and the kitchen filled up with something that smelled the way the kitchen was supposed to smell, and it was normal. It was completely normal. You were fine.
Logan came through at some point, stopped in the doorway, looked at the pot. "That smells good." Then he looked at Tucker. "Did you make that?"
"We're collaborating," Tucker said.
Logan looked at you. You said nothing. He grabbed a water from the fridge and left, which was exactly the right thing to do.
Dean came downstairs at some point, and you heard him stop at the bottom of the stairs, and you stirred the pot and didn't turn around.
"Hey," Tucker said, in the careful voice of someone being very casual.
"Hey." Dean's voice from the doorway. A pause. "What are you making?"
"She's fixing what I made," Tucker said.
You felt Dean's eyes on your back. You reached past the stove for the spice rack.
"Smells good," Dean said.
You said nothing. Not pointedly — just nothing. Tucker handed you the paprika.
Dean didn't leave. You could feel him still standing there, which told you something you set aside for later. You plated what you'd made, put Tucker's portion in front of him, put the extra in a container that you labeled with a piece of tape and a marker the way you always did, and started washing the pan.
"There's extra," Tucker said, to the room.
"I can see that," Dean said.
Tucker ate a bite. Made a sound of profound relief. "You're genuinely talented, you know that?"
"I know," you said, drying the pan.
You stayed another forty minutes, finishing your tea, going over the recipe with Tucker so he could try again, answering a text from Anna. Normal. Easy. The house the same as it had always been, Tucker the same as he'd always been, you the same as you'd always been.
When you left you said, "Bye Tuck, don't touch the leftovers until tomorrow, they're better the next day."
"Noted," Tucker said.
You pulled on your coat. Picked up your bag. "Later," you said, generally, to the room, and you walked out.
Dean stood in the kitchen after the front door closed.
Tucker was eating. Not looking at him. The kitchen smelled incredible and there was a labeled container in the fridge and the pan you'd used was clean and back on the rack like you'd never been there.
"She labeled it," Dean said.
"She always labels it," Tucker said.
Dean looked at the fridge. "For who."
"I don't know, Dean." Tucker turned a page in whatever he was reading. "Whoever wants it, I guess."
He couldn't focus in class the next morning.
The professor was talking and Dean had his laptop open and his notes half-started and none of it was going in because he kept coming back to the same thing, the same image, which was you standing at his stove with your back to him like nothing had happened.
Not performing like nothing had happened. Actually fine. The difference between those two things was something he understood logically and couldn't reconcile emotionally and it was making him insane.
He'd expected — he didn't know what he'd expected. Something. Some sign that what he'd said had mattered, that he had mattered, that the months of you being in his space and in his kitchen and in his bed and knowing how he took his coffee and showing up when Tucker texted you and falling asleep on his couch and leaving your chapstick on his nightstand —
You'd taken the chapstick. He'd noticed.
You'd taken it and labeled the leftovers and said later to the room and walked out and that was it, apparently. That was the whole thing. He'd said you don't belong here and you'd said you're right and you'd meant it, and that was the part he couldn't get past. You'd meant it not because you believed it but because you weren't going to fight him on it. Because you didn't need to.
You act like you belong here. And you don't.
He'd said that. He'd actually said that.
He stared at his laptop screen.
You'd been coming to that house since before he'd ever spoken a full sentence to you. Tucker's mom had called you, you'd shown up, you'd been folded into the house slowly and completely the way only people who actually fit somewhere ever are, Tucker texting you unprompted, Garrett knowing your coffee order, Logan moving over on the couch without being asked, and Dean had stood in his own room and told you that you didn't belong there and you'd looked at him like you were giving him the chance to hear what he was saying and he hadn't taken it and you'd left.
And then you'd come back the next day and cooked Tucker's disaster and labeled the leftovers and said later.
Later. Like you'd see them around. Like the house was still just a place you came to, unconnected to Dean, existing independently of whatever he'd decided.
Because it was. Because Tucker was your friend. Because you'd built something there that had nothing to do with Dean DiLaurentis and apparently had no intention of dismantling it on his account.
He wrote something down without reading it.
The thing was and this was the part that was sitting in his chest like something he couldn't shift, he'd ended it because it was getting too real. That was the honest answer, the one he hadn't said out loud to anyone including himself until approximately right now, which was not ideal timing. He'd felt it getting heavier and closer and more like something that had a name and he'd panicked, and when Dean DiLaurentis panicked he went cold, and when he went cold long enough he said things he couldn't take back.
You don't belong here.
He closed his laptop. Opened it again.
You hadn't fought for it. He'd said something genuinely cruel and you'd said you're right and you'd left, and the version of events he'd been running in his head where you'd be upset, where you'd pull back from the house, where he'd see the evidence of having mattered somewhere in your behavior, none of that had happened. You'd come back with your boots and your coat and your labeled container and your later and you were fine.
He was not fine.
That felt deeply, profoundly unfair, and he was self-aware enough to recognize that he had no one to blame for it but himself, which made it worse.
Wait, said something in the back of his head, quiet and inconvenient.
He picked up his pen. Put it down.
Wait.
He didn't finish the thought. He stared at his notes until they stopped meaning anything, and outside the window the Briar campus went on being cold and grey and completely indifferent to the fact that Dean DiLaurentis was sitting in class slowly understanding something he wasn't ready to understand yet.
The problem with ending things, Dean was discovering, was that it only worked if the other person let it end.
You hadn't made a scene. Hadn't texted him anything he had to respond to, hadn't shown up at his door, hadn't done a single thing that gave him something to push against. You'd just continued. Existing in the house, in the kitchen, in Tucker's orbit, completely unchanged, like Dean's opinion of the situation was one data point you'd received and filed appropriately and moved on from.
He ate everything you made. That was the humiliating part. Every single time you left something in the fridge he ate it, sometimes within the hour, standing at the counter in the kitchen alone like some kind of punishment he was administering to himself. Tucker never commented on this. Tucker never commented on anything, which was its own form of commentary.
You'd left soup once. Labeled, like always — back burner, twenty minutes, don't let Tucker have more than one bowl he'll eat the whole thing. Dean had read the label four times. Eaten two bowls. Stood at the sink washing the pot afterward feeling like a man losing an argument he wasn't allowed to be having.
Garrett had found him standing there once, staring at nothing, and said "you good?" and Dean had said "yeah" and Garrett had looked at the labeled container still on the counter and said nothing further, which somehow made it worse.
He started noticing everything.
The way you'd laugh at something on your phone and not share it with the room, just smile to yourself and put it face down. The way you always took your shoes off at the door and lined them up neatly to the left, always the left, and he'd started checking for them when he came downstairs, the presence or absence of your boots telling him things about the afternoon before he'd even gotten to the kitchen. The way you said Tucker's name — comfortable, fond, like a shorthand — and the way you had, at some point, stopped saying Dean's name at all. Not pointedly. Just it didn't come up. He wasn't who you were talking to.
He'd done that. He understood that he'd done that.
He just hadn't understood what it would feel like to have done it.
He tried, for a while, to be reasonable about it.
He made a list, mentally, of all the reasons this was fine. He didn't do relationships. He'd never done relationships. He had a plan for his life that had been in place since he was sixteen, and that plan had no room in it for whatever you were. Whatever you'd been. The comfortable weight of your presence, the evenings when you were in the house versus evenings when you weren't, the way he'd started coming across things during the week and thinking you'd have something to say about this —
That was the problem right there. That was the thing he kept running into.
He'd been having conversations with you in his head for weeks. Full conversations, with your actual responses, because he knew how you thought well enough to fill both sides, and that was, that was not the behavior of someone who was fine.
He talked to Garrett on a Tuesday night, which he never did, and talked around the subject for twenty minutes before Garrett said, flatly: "Just tell me what she did."
"She didn't do anything," Dean said.
A pause. "Then tell me what you did."
Dean stared at his ceiling. "I ended it."
"And?"
"And she's fine."
"That's it? She's fine and you are like this?"
"She's too fine," Dean said, and hated how that sounded.
Garrett was quiet for a moment. Then: "Dean."
"What."
"You absolute idiot."
January settled over Briar cold and grey and Dean settled into a particular kind of misery that he was too proud to name properly. He went to class. He did his readings. He played well enough at practice that Coach didn't get on him, which required more effort than it should have because his head was not where it was supposed to be.
You came over on Saturdays, usually. Sometimes Thursdays. Tucker had apparently taken to texting you about things that had nothing to do with cooking, Dean had seen the thread once, accidentally, and it was just the two of you sending each other increasingly unhinged videos with no context, a friendship that existed completely on its own terms, owed nothing to Dean, and was apparently thriving.
Logan had said, once, carefully, over breakfast: "She was here yesterday."
"I know," Dean said.
Logan looked at him. "Just saying."
"I know," Dean said again.
Logan went back to his cereal and didn't push it, which was the right call, and Dean appreciated it and resented it in equal measure.
He watched you from across rooms and told himself he wasn't doing that.
You never looked uncomfortable. That was the thing that was going to actually kill him. You'd come in, take your boots off, left side of the door, say hey to whoever was around, drift toward the kitchen with the ease of someone in a place they belonged, and it would be normal. Warm. Real. And Dean would be somewhere in the same house eating himself alive and you would be completely, genuinely fine.
He thought about the things he'd said. You act like you belong here. And you don't.
He thought about those words with a frequency that was becoming a problem.
It was a random Wednesday in late January.
Dean came home from a late class tired and cold and in the specific bad mood that came from hours with a professor who seemed to find his suffering amusing. The house was lit up when he got there, which meant people were home, and he could hear voices from the kitchen before he'd gotten his coat off.
Tucker's laugh. And then yours.
He stood in the hallway for a second with his coat half off.
"—absolutely not, that's not how that works—" Tucker, indignant.
"I'm telling you, Tucker, I watched you do it, that's exactly how you did it—"
"I was recovering, there's a difference—"
"There is no difference, the result was the same—"
Tucker said something Dean didn't catch and you laughed, full and real, the kind of laugh that meant you'd actually been caught off guard by it, and the sound of it hit Dean somewhere undefended and just stayed there.
He finished taking his coat off. Hung it up. Walked to the kitchen doorway.
You were at the island, Tucker leaning on his elbows across from you, some kind of card game between you that Dean didn't recognize. You had a mug of something and your hair was down and you were still smiling from whatever Tucker had just said, and Tucker was looking at you with the expression of someone who had won a point. Garrett was on the couch in the next room, feet up, barely paying attention, the way Garrett existed in the house like ambient weather.
"Dean," Tucker said. "Tell her that recovering from a bad move is a valid strategy."
"Depends on the move," Dean said, automatically.
"See," Tucker said to you.
"That's not what he said," you said, and glanced at Dean briefly,not long, not loaded, just a glance, the kind you'd give anyone and looked back at Tucker. "Your move."
Dean got a glass of water. Stood at the counter. The card game continued. Tucker accused you of cheating, you denied it with the specific serenity of someone who was absolutely cheating, Dean watched and said nothing and felt the sensation of standing outside something warm.
An hour later you started putting your coat on.
"Okay," you said, gathering your things. "Tucker. Rematch Thursday."
"Thursday," Tucker confirmed. "I'll win."
"You won't." You pulled your bag onto your shoulder. Looked at Tucker with something genuine and warm. "Bye, Tuck."
"Bye." Tucker was already looking back at his phone.
"Later, Garrett," you called toward the living room.
"Later," Garrett called back, not looking up.
You walked toward the door. Past Dean, close enough that he could have said something, close enough that the window was right there, and he stood at the counter with his glass of water and said nothing, and you pulled the door open and walked out, and the door closed, and that was it.
Tucker looked up from his phone.
The two of them sat in the quiet kitchen, the card game still spread out on the island, your mug still on the counter.
"She forgot her mug," Dean said.
"She'll get it Thursday," Tucker said.
Dean put his glass down. Picked it back up.
"She said bye to you first," he said.
Tucker looked at him for a long moment. Set his phone down. "Yeah," he said. "She did."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Tucker —"
"I'm not doing this, Dean."
"I'm not asking you to do anything."
"Good." Tucker picked his phone back up. "Because I really, genuinely, am not getting involved."
From the living room, Garrett said nothing, which meant he was listening to every word.
Dean looked at the door.
"She left her mug," he said again, quieter, to no one in particular.
Tucker said nothing. Which was, as always, its own kind of answer.
He lasted four days.
Four days of your mug on the counter — Tucker had washed it and left it there — four days of picking up his phone and putting it down, four days of being a reasonable adult who had made a decision and was living with it, and then on Sunday night at eleven p.m. he put on his shoes and his coat and walked across campus to the Kappa house like a man who had exhausted every other option.
He stood outside in the cold and looked up at the second floor windows and felt genuinely insane.
He found a handful of small rocks from the landscaping border. Looked at them. Looked up at the windows.
He threw one.
It hit the wrong window. A light came on and someone looked out — not you, someone he didn't recognize — and he stepped back into the shadow of the tree until the light went off again.
He tried the next window. Nothing. The one after that.
The window opened.
You leaned out, hair messy, clearly pulled from sleep or close to it, and looked down at him in the dark with an expression that moved through several phases: confusion, recognition, disbelief. Before settling on something that was almost exasperated and almost amused and fully of course.
"Dean," you said, not loud. "What are you doing."
"I need to talk to you."
"It's eleven o'clock."
"I know. You weren't answering my texts."
You stared at him. "You texted me twenty minutes ago."
"You didn't answer."
"I was asleep."
"Can I come up?"
The expression on your face did something complicated. "You want to climb the sorority house."
"There's a trellis."
You looked to the left, apparently confirming the existence of the trellis, then looked back down at him. "Dean."
"Five minutes," he said. "I just — five minutes. Then I'll go."
You looked at him for a long moment, and he stood in the cold and let you look, because he'd run out of ways to manage how this went. You could close the window. That was a real option and he'd accept it.
You didn't close the window.
"The trellis is on the left," you said. "Don't break anything."
He made it up without incident, which he felt was frankly more than he deserved. You'd stepped back from the window to let him climb through, and he came in trying not to knock anything over and stood in the middle of your room feeling the full absurdity of the situation settle over him.
Your room was small and warm. Books on every surface, a desk lamp on low, a quilt on the bed that looked like it had been in your family for a while. It smelled like you, something warm, something that had been living in the back of his brain for months without his permission.
You sat on the edge of your bed and looked at him with your arms loosely crossed, not hostile, just waiting. Giving him the floor.
"I need to say something," he said.
"Okay."
"And I need you to let me say it without — I need to actually get through it."
"I'm not stopping you," you said.
He looked at you. You looked back, and there was something in your expression: patient, steady, not giving him anything, and he understood suddenly that you were going to make him do this himself. All the way. No half measures.
He took a breath.
"I said things to you that I can't take back," he started. "That night in my room. And I knew when I said them that they weren't — I knew they weren't true. I said them because I was scared and I was trying to make you leave and I wanted it to work so I made it as —" He stopped. Tried again. "I wanted you gone and I made sure you'd go and then you went and I've been —" He stopped again.
You waited.
"I've been losing my mind," he said. "For weeks. You keep coming over and cooking Tucker's food and laughing at his jokes and you left your mug on the counter and you said bye, Tuck and walked out like I wasn't standing right there and I —" He stopped. The words that needed to come next were the ones he'd been circling for weeks and he was done circling. "I'm in love with you."
The room was quiet.
"I'm in love with you," he said again, because it had come out steadier the second time and it was true and he was done with it living only in his head. "I have been for a while. I didn't know what to do with it so I — I did what I did. And I know that's not an excuse. I know what I said. But I needed you to know that it wasn't because you didn't matter. It was because you mattered too much and I didn't know how to —"
"Dean," you said.
He stopped.
You looked at him for a long moment. Something in your expression that was careful and real and not entirely closed.
"I know," you said quietly.
He blinked. "You —"
"I knew." You said it simply, without cruelty. "I've known for a while. I needed you to know it too." A pause. "And I needed you to say it. Out loud. To me. Without me making it easy for you."
He held your gaze. "Because you're not going to make it easy for me."
"No," you said. Not meanly. Just honestly. "I'm not."
He nodded slowly. That was fair. That was completely fair.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I said. You don't belong here — I knew that wasn't true when I said it. That's the worst part. I knew and I said it anyway."
You looked at him. And he watched something in your expression shift, not all the way, but enough, a small careful opening.
"I know," you said again. Softer this time.
"Can we —" He stopped. Tried to find the right shape for the question. "Is there a way back from this. Is that something that exists."
You were quiet for a moment that felt very long.
"Come here," you said.
He crossed the room and you stood from the bed to meet him and he kissed you carefully, like he was asking, and you kissed him back like you were answering, and it was nothing like the first time and nothing like any of the times in between, because those had all been about desire and this was about something that didn't have the same kind of ceiling.
His hands came to your face, gentle, and you let him, and he kissed you like he was trying to say the things that words hadn't been sufficient for the weeks of watching you from across rooms, the soup, the mug, the way your boots on the left side of the door had started to feel like something he needed, all of it, moving through the kiss like it had somewhere to go now.
You pulled back after a moment and looked at him.
"Say it again," you said quietly. Not a test. Just you wanted to hear it again.
"I'm in love with you," he said, without hesitating.
You looked at him for one more second. Then you kissed him again and this time you meant it differently, your hands in his collar pulling him in, and the tenor of the whole thing shifted from careful to something warmer and more certain.
He walked you back to the bed gently, and you sat and pulled him down with you, and he went willingly, propping himself above you, and looked at you for a moment. Your hair on the pillow, your expression open in a way he hadn't been allowed to see in weeks.
"Hi," he said, quietly.
The corner of your mouth moved. "Hi."
He kissed you again, slower this time, and his hands moved over you with a deliberateness that was different from anything before not performing, not proving anything, just present. Your shirt came off and his followed, and he pressed his mouth to your collarbone, your shoulder, the soft curve of your throat, taking his time in the way of someone who wasn't going anywhere.
"Dean," you said softly, fingers in his hair.
"I know," he said, against your skin. "I've got you."
You exhaled like something releasing.
It was slow and close and almost unbearably tender, the kind of thing that didn't have anything to hide anymore. He was attentive in a way that felt different now not just knowing what worked but wanting you to feel it, wanting you to know he was there, all the way there, not halfway out the door. You made soft sounds against his jaw and pulled him closer and he went, and you moved together in the small warm room with the desk lamp still on low and neither of you suggested turning it off.
When you came it was quiet and deep and you said his name and he held you through it with his face pressed to your temple, and afterward he stayed close, closer than strictly necessary, and you didn't move away.
When he followed he was holding your hand, fingers laced, which hadn't been planned and was completely true, and you held on.
Afterward you lay in the small bed in the quiet and the lamp was still on.
Your head was on his chest. He had his arm around you. Neither of you had suggested otherwise.
"You really threw rocks at my window," you said, to the ceiling.
"Small rocks."
"You hit Anna's window first."
"She didn't see me."
"She definitely saw you." A pause. "She texted me twenty minutes ago asking if I had a 'nighttime visitor.'"
Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Great."
You laughed, quiet, against his chest, and he felt it more than heard it and thought: there it is. there's the thing I've been missing.
He pressed his mouth to your hair.
"For the record," he said, "you do belong there. In the house. That was — I need you to know that was the opposite of true."
You were quiet for a moment. "I know," you said. "I always knew."
"You're annoyingly self-possessed, you know that?"
"You've mentioned it."
"Not a complaint."
You tilted your head to look up at him. Something in your expression that was warm and a little careful still, not closed, just real. This was going to take time, he knew that. He'd put something between you that didn't disappear overnight and you weren't going to pretend it had, because you didn't do that.
"Tucker's going to be insufferable about this," you said.
Dean thought about Tucker, who had said absolutely nothing for weeks and washed your mug and left it on the counter. "He already knows," Dean said.
"He's known for months."
"I know."
"He texted me two weeks ago," you said, "and said 'just for the record I think he's an idiot.' I asked who and he said 'you know who.'"
Dean stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to kill him."
"You're not."
"No," he agreed. "I'm not."
A beat.
"Garrett's going to say I told you so," you said.
Dean closed his eyes. "Did he tell you so?"
"He texted me a single thumbs up the morning after the speech. No context."
"I'm going to kill Garrett too."
"You're really not."
"No," he said. "I'm really not."
You settled back against him and the room was quiet and warm and your hand was resting on his chest and outside the world was doing whatever the world was doing and in here it was just this, finally, with a name on it.
Tags: Mostly PWP, PnV, drool, oral F receiving, riding, groping, teasing, Dunk gets overstimulated and can’t help himself but pound🤭, creampie, pregnancy, fluff at the start and a lil hint of angst by the end, pre established relationship, fucking in flea bottom
Word Count: 3.5k
Summary: F reader lives in Flea bottom and has been having Dunk in her bed whenever he finds himself in kings landing. They both get their sexual needs met and like to pretends that’s where things end but neither can resist the growing emotional connection! Also apologies for typos, I just needed to get this out of my brain🫶🏻
You swore you could hear the stone steps crunch and grind into each other, they did it for everybody but this time it had sounded like they were truly suffering under the weight. When the door rattled from overzealous knocking you knew then, for sure, that it was him.
Dunk.
In truth you had been waiting of him to arrive here all day. You heard somebody in the markets this morning gossiping about spotting the oaf of a knight and the bald prince riding through the city towards the red keep.
They came more often lately and You had to make an effort to not let their increased presence in kings landing go to your head. Ser Duncan did not come here just for you. You knew that.
“I came as soon as I could.” Dunk told you as he ducked inside once you opened the door up to him. Comments like that made it hard for you to feel like you didn't have some small part in their journeys to Kings Landing. He was always beyond eager to see you.
“Bloody giant!” You huffed when he stood back up straight and bumped his head into the string of clothes you had hanging from the ceiling to dry. It was a wonder he ever fit in flea bottom. You imagined the low ceilings were not something he missed much at all.
“We can lay.” He made quick work of flinging the cloth back over the string to not ruin your washings.
“Oh?” You laughed and raised one of your brows “you’ve been with princes far to much it you think you can just suggest we go lay a moment after coming through my door.”
His big lopsided smile made it difficult for you to scold him-even if it was a playful taunting.
Your feet stumbled forward when he easily wrapped a single hand around your back and dragged you closer.
“You are back sooner than I imagined.” You admitted to him as he pushed his hair back so he could actually see you as he looked down. He was close to being three heads taller than you so both of your necks strained, just in opposing directions.
“That is a good thing m’lady,” he pulled you closer still and your stomach pressed to his pelvis region and you swallowed glancing away from him. “Isn’t it?” He backed up a bit. Suddenly worried he had misjudged the situation.
You saw the concern that splashed over the knights face suddenly when you met his gaze again.
It was good, you wanted him here. Missed him. You always did, but you had also gotten quite used to it being close to a year between your visits with him. It had only been three moons this time.
When his hand started to rub up your side you quickly grabbed it and brought his palm up to your chest letting him squeeze when you gave him a reassuring nod.
“I just like it better when you are more cunt hungry and needy, three moons will hardly have you there.” You recovered.
A half truth…you did like when he would return to Flea bottom looking for you with need and narrow vision similar to that of a conqueror! And as much as you did enjoy that he was back so soon you felt the guilt burning all over you. His seed that you had allowed to thicken within you. He gave you the coin to ensure the situation did not ever occur and this time you had just wanted to feel him for longer. You had a piece of him all to yourself now. A piece that would not leave through the door with him when the little prince called for his knight once again.
Duncan grabed at you with his other hand and easily hoisted you up against him. You wrapped your legs around the with of him and he smirked when he felt your ankles lock against his back.
“Three moons is plenty.” He informed you with wide eyes and then he kissed you on the lips now that reaching wasn’t an issue. Almost instantly you had your wraps wrapping around his head and when he kissed you eagerly you pulled back some just to feel his mouth lunge back to you.
“Aye, it is.” You giggled looking from his warm eyes down to his parted lips and slowly you pressed your plush lips to his sucking a bit at his tongue when he got over eager and slipped it against your open lips.
“I’d come more if I could,” he started to assure you.
You kissed his neck “you cum plenty ser.” He flushed at the purposely misused word and looked around the small home while you sucker the sun tanned skin of his neck and shoulders. He reflectively squeezed your bottom when you sucked hard on one section. He always left looking like he’d been in a meely where he had only been stuck around his neck, back and chest.
He did not even need to actually hold you to keep you three feet off the floor, you just squeezed your muscles to keep on him as he moved through your space and shift the curtains back to get you into your room, it was quite a low ceiling and even as he bent almost in half his body did not waiver in keeping you secure.
He let you let go of him to plop back onto the mattress and you breathed out deeply as he knelt above you and began to untie the front of your gown. He liked that you dressed simply. There wasn’t layer after layer. Just a cloth gown tied around you and some small cloths. He hadn’t ever needed to remove stockings from your legs and that was probably one of the things he hated removing on a lady the most. They would rip in his hands and then the women would get so fussy, like he had done it on purpose. You dressed normal-like he remembered women dressing as a boy. It just all felt more natural to him.
You reached down to palm against his pants as he undressed you fully. Perhaps if you got him pliant enough he wouldn’t be suspicious of how far you’ve gotten. This wasn’t your first babe and so you were showing much quicker. Secretly you’d wondered if it was because the child was his…that the babe was just growing to match their father and that you’d be in for a horribly uncomfortable next few moons and labor bed.
“It is too long I fear-The three moons.” He told you when you were stripped fully beneath him and his rough palms warmed you all over as he felt all that he had missed.
You giggled shaking your head some and keeping your eyes in his as you slipped your hand down his pants to feel at his length. Rubbing tauntingly at the base of his cock first and the nest of slightly gingerish hair he had there.
“I can tell-lay down.” You told him as you felt him pulse.
“I can’t-to cunt hungry.” He remarked, you almost chuckled because clearly saying such a remark outloud was a challenge for him. You imagined by this point the knight had enjoyed his fair serving of women across the realms. He still blushed and jabbered like a green boy with you though.
You did not have time to make some remark about not being able to tell considering your pussy was going untasted. Duncan waited not a moment more to slip down the bed, shins hanging off, and make himself a hole between your knees.
You whimpered at the stretch alone. He was a large man and you had to be close to torn in two just for him to have room to lay between your thighs.
“Gods be good.” He hummed when he bent and hid his face against your mound, breathing you in and then letting his tongue come out to explore. Well really to ensure his memory of you, how you were shaped, how you tasted, how you jumped and clenched, were all accurate!
“Fucking hells dunk!” You swore having to sit up to grab his hair to have something worth holding on to.
You were pushed, kindly, back down flat on the bed when he groaned because your shifting had ruined the seal his lips have over your pearl. A clit. That is what he’d learned it was called. It was the most important part of any cunny. He wouldn’t neglect that spot any more with his mouth. In the past he had been more focused on getting his tongue to reach as deep inside of you as possible to make you as slick as he could before he would enter. That was nice…this. “Gods” you groaned and you eyes blinked up at the ceiling as your back arched off the mattress. This new action…it made you feel like you were in the loveliest of the seven heavens! It felt like a warm wind by the docks was spreading all over you.
If somebody overheard you they’d think you’d drunk the way you were sluring our indecipherable words while he devoured you. “Dunk!” You gasped when suddenly a pressure grew in your stomach. He was used to your squirming about like this. He diddnt understand why you always attempted to flea from the pleasure? But apparently women were differnt from men. When he got close he had to make an effort to not rut more and redouble his efforts. But you…you would push at him and buck like you wanted him to stop touching you entirely. It only took one time for him to actually pull away for him to realize based on your very disappointed expression that the feeling was simply too much for you to endure without some help from him.
“None of that…” he warned you hand letting go of the back of your knee to slide up to your stomach and press a bit at your side to keep you there. “Need you slicker-this is good. I want you to feel nice m’lady.”
His gently prompting and the feeling of his large thumb soothingly rubbing up and down on the lower bit of your stomach had you slipping over the barrier of pressure that had formed inside of you.
“Ahh! Dunannn mmh!” You gasped and sunk fully against the bed. Limp for a long moment while he got to feast on everything you’d just given him. Mindless your hand rubbed at your belly. Feeling the taught skin and blinking slowly as your vision became less blurry.
“It seems like three moons was plenty for you…based on that response.” He taunted, more than a bit proud of himself for brining you to such a state so quickly.
“I do fine when you are away. I’ve a hand of my own.” You said as you recovered, though the exhaustion was still laced into your voice. He came up besides you a mintue later, you were much warmer now and so you knew he had taken the time to rid himself of his clothes before coming up next to you on the bed. You turned over onto your side facing him. Taking him in visually and your finger grazed over a new wound on his chest, close to being healed. Sometime he would tell you stories about where he was and what he did there but other times he kept them to himself. You weren’t sure if it was because things went poorly or if he just thought you grew bored of listening to him drone on and on. You didn’t!
“You’ve been getting on well?” He asked you Just before your fingers could brush a bit below his abdomen.
“Yes, I always get in fine Dunk.” You assured him.
“And the boys?” He asked. You leaned over to kiss at his chest to avoid his innocent gaze. He was kind, kinder than another man of his status would be to a woman like you and much kinder than any man would be to children who were not his own.
“My oldest is down at the docks now…and the little one come to the tavern with me.” You shared quickly. “He’d actually quite good at making bread.” You glanced up at Duncan. He was nodding encouragingly down at you. They had both when little when he first met you at the tavern. It was his first visit back to flea bottom since becoming a knight and the two of them had been quite little wandering the streets, looking for some coin to get themselves something that you had deemed beyond a possible need.
He’d found them mid pickpocketing attempt and insisted on seeing them back to their mother. He had attempted to lecture you on watching them; on ensuring they stay out of trouble.
He did not get very far because the first time, your boys had robbed the sweet moral oaf of some trinket he had with him while he slept face down in your bed after exhausting himself fully within you.
A year later he’d returned for the item and it had just continued on for years now.
“I’ll show em how to get those stones outside more even before I go.”
“You need not, we can survive a cracked step.” You sighed and felt his hands start to slowly get more and exploratory in their stroking and grabbing as you came back to yourself after the climax. “Your company is enough. I don’t need you to fix something each time you entered this home.” You said seriously. You stopped arguing though when he looked down at your stomach. Mostly you stopped arguing because your throat felt like it had rocks in it that blocked you from doing anything other than holding your breath.
“Don’t want ya to fall,” he pressed and then bent to peck your lips. “Not in this condition.” His hand pressed over your small bump and your lip twitched.
He knew-at least you assumed he did!
He didn’t seem mad, concerned at most?
“They will be back after dark.” You told him and sat up kissing him again and gently pushing at his shoulder to have him lay flat on his back. “You’ll need to wait for daylight to show them anything.” She settled. He’d stay the night. Like he always did. It had happened every time but one of you always made up some specific reason to excuse it. Perhaps both of you were scared the other might deny the visit lasting beyond a simple release.
“Morning it is.” He nodded watching you swing your leg over his lap and sit back against his thighs. “That w-won’t be a problem.” His voice caught when you leaned your head down and stuck your tongue out to let some spit drip down onto his length. If he hadn’t been fully hard before gods know he was after that!
You kept your eyes up so he could looked at your deep brown orbs as you drooled all over his lap. You aimed for him massive prick but generally spit was hard to tame so he had some spread over most of his lap by the time you notice some pre was seeping from his cockhead. You grinded down against his lap a bit at the sight and bent fully this time to connect your tongue to him. Licking like a kitten at his tip tasting the salty sticky liquid on your tongue. He swore and you smirked as you sat back up straight and while holding his shaft to keep him in place began to rub your slit against his tip.
“Mmm” you breathed out through your nose and when the taunting went on for a bit too long you felt Duncan grab your sides and lift you up enough that he caught against your familiar entrance.
Both of your foreheads wrinkled as slowly his hands let go of you and your weight sunk you down round him length.
He was groaning with his head and heels pushing against the mattress and you were panting and trembling with your hands pressing most of your weigh against his chest and shoulders.
“You’ve grown bigger” you swore.
“No-you are tighter m’sure of it”
It made both of you chuckle for a moment between the desperate moans and drawn out whimpering.
When you sunk down completely and felt his tip press into your womb your eyes rolled back.
You were making a song together, the words solely being your breathy panting and the beat was his deep chest rumbling grunts.
He liked when you rode him. He got to see you bouncing above him. See how your body opened to his large intrusion and he liked being able to grab what he wanted and not have to worry about crushing you in the process. Sometime you called him lazy and taunted him when he would suggest you get atop him, but even that taunting was enjoyable for him because it was coming from you!
“Hands.” You demanded looking down at him. One of his was pressed to your bottom rubbing the soft skin and the other was bent behind his head so he was comfortable viewing you. But you wanted him to hold you-to touch you.
He was quick to present them to you and you smiled down at him as your hips rhythmically moved back and for, shifting your weight up ever so slightly when you moved forward and then down when your bottom came back. You sealed one hand up at your chest. The bouncing when your tits flopped snd it felt quite uncomfortable having the weight pull with each movement. Your breasts were more than enough to fill a normal man’s single hand. They were swollen as of late of course, but Duncan could cup both in the wingspan of a single hand and the sight had you squeezing around him.
You were bitting down on your bottom lip as you moved his other hand to your side…position his palm to cup the side of your stomach. He was holding the spot his seed had started to grow while you milked his cock for more.
Reaching back to our hands braced against his slightly bent knees and your road him much faster now that you felt the comfort that came with his touch and that you had the traction you need to make his length appear and disappear within you over and over.
Dunk got quite chatty when he got closer, and you grew quiet, having to focus on not hurting yourself around his massive cock. You had to keep some of your sense when moving like this above him, gods knew he lost all of his own! Which was proven a moment later just as his stones drew up and you could feel his length throb repeatedly inside of you. You attempted to keep your pace to bring him to completing in a moment but his good sense was gone and suddenly he was dropping your tits and pushing himself up and over you.
“Dunk!” You gasped and whimpered weakly. The same thing happen every time when he got closer. His hand would push at the underside of your thigh until to it knee was pushed back to your chest and he would rut wildly into your cunt sending waves through you from the force until he shuttered out and his stomach knotted as he released his warm seed in a few waves.
You cried out his name weakly as he pulled out of you before he even let his cock pump all of his spend out. He would mutter something about you feeling to good. “Too tight, too n-nice.”
You smiled faintly as he fell to the side of you and just panted on his back as he slowly grew soft and cooled off. You groaned as you sat up this time. Touching your bump as you stood to look for the cloths he had taken off of you.
“Those will be the boys.” You said in a soft tone as you heard the stone steps crunching. You were still all sweet and even tempered from the pleasure. You would be all night. Come morning the taunting and tease would return to your tongue. “Come out when you’re dressed,” you told him as you made yourself decent and came back to the bedside with a wobble in your steps. “We’ve some bowl of brown for supper and you can try the little ones bread.” You explained. Pausing to return to the main room where you heard your sons puttering around only because Duncan had reached up with his hand and rubbed your stomach.
“He won’t be the little one forever, will he?”Duncan asked directly and you nodded slightly laying your hand overtop of his.
“No, he won’t.” You were grateful that Dunk did not press for more information, did not ask why you used his coin for something other than moon tea or question why you had not told him the moment he showed up at the door today!
You knew he would not laugh at your reasoning if he had asked. You said nothing about these matters because you had wanted him to stay tonight, you hadn’t wanted him to grow uneasy about what was happen and stop visiting you all together.
You did doubt that he’d want to or even be able to do anything about the admission that you likely would not be able to keep from spilling out after providing him with that initial reasoning.
That you wanted him to stay, stay beyond just one night. That three moons, gods forbid a year, was far too long for you to go without him.
A/N: I had to much fun with these to so did a fluffy follow up here
When the hedge knight catches a glimpse of you undressed, while stopped at a creak, it makes both of you look at each other with more curiosity than before!
•Hidden Gem (Dunk X F Flea Bottom Reader)
F reader lives in Flea bottom and has been having Dunk in her bed whenever he finds himself in kings landing. They both get their sexual needs met and like to pretend that’s where things end but neither of you can resist the growing emotional connection!
•Elixir (Dunk X F Targaryen Reader)
Ser Duncan returns to Summerhall with Egg for the first time in three years. He stayed away, primarily because he had been poisoned by his squires overzealous sister. Time has passed but her childish fancy has only grown.
•Domestication (Dunk X F Reader)
Ser Duncan is determined to ensure the women he loves is well cared for especially now that she has had his daughter. That doesn’t feel possible in Flea bottom so he find them a home in the countryside. This is technically a continuation of Hidden Gem, but could absolutely be read as a one off.
•3am notification (Modern Dunk X F reader)
Bashful Duncan comes over after getting chatted up on tinder at 3am.
•Taped up (Modern Dunk X F reader)
After obtaining a slight injury during a rugby match Duncan goes back to the office with the athletic trainer to get the muscle worked out and his knee all taped up.
•Crossroads (Modern Dunk x F Reader)
Starting college means leaving home, and while you are grateful for the opportunity to meet new people and learn new things. Very quickly you come to realize that you are desperately homesick….except it’s for a person not a place.
•Genesis (Modern Dunk X F Reader)
After admitting to Dunk that you had feelings for him a few weeks ago, he visits you at college and you are determined to hurl your relationship out of the friend zone entirely!
✨if you’d like to be tagged in any future Duncan fics let me know and I’ll add you to the taglist✨
always accepting requests but never making promises for when they’ll be fulfilled
MDNIwarnings: smut, public sex, little medical talk about a strained adductor, dirty talk, bestfriend!reader 34+35's dean… ~1,050+
"Dean, I told you not to go full out during practice. You need to rest that hip.” You huff, gently massaging the nearly naked Dean sprawled on the examination table. He had an adductor strain that the med staff, you most importantly, had to properly check on to make sure he didn’t worsen the strain with his practice drills. “Pace yourself, or say goodbye to the Briar U Hawks.” You add, making sure he understands the importance.
“Aye, I know, doc,” he says with a small groan at the pleasure-pain mix from your warm, skilled hands. The towel covering his cock shifts as he moves his hips, and you gently fix it with a small laugh at the lame nickname he had for you as you kept your professional composure.
“Stop squirming, you big baby,” you tease, your voice bright even as heat creeps up your neck. Your fingers glide along the tight muscles of his inner thigh, working the strained adductor with careful, firm strokes. “I swear, you hockey boys are all the same..think you’re invincible while your body says otherwise.”
Dean’s sweet, lust-filled eyes flick up to yours, a cocky smirk tugging at his lips despite the wincing. His golden-blond hair is damp from practice, and his chiseled torso was still glistening with a light sheen of sweat. “Mmm, but I’ve got the best hands on staff taking care of me. How’s a guy supposed to behave when those hands are sliding up his thigh?”
You arch a brow, fighting a grin as you press your thumbs into a particularly tight knot. He hisses, then lets out a low groan that goes straight between your legs. “Flirting with your medical staff? Bold move, Di Laurentis. Especially when I could ask the coach to bench you for two weeks.”
He chuckles, “Worth it...besides, we both know you like taking care of me.” His gaze drops pointedly to where your hands are working very close to the edge of the towel, taking his lip between his teeth. “And I like when you do, especially when you do it in that cute little nurse outfit...” He says still thinking of your costume from the most recent Maxwell–Di Laurentis Birthday Bash, where you were a sexy nurse and your best friend, Grace, went as a sexy patient.
You roll your eyes, but your smile gives you away. “You’re impossible..aand stop moving that towel around or I’m going to—”
The towel slips again as Dean deliberately shifts his hips. This time, it falls open completely, revealing his hardening cock. It was already curving up toward his abs, jumping at the cold of the room. You pause, fingers stilling on his thigh. A soft, amused laugh escapes you. “Really? Right now?”
Dean gives you that signature shameless grin, dimples popping. “Can you blame me? You’ve been rubbing me down for ten minutes in those tight little shorts. My dick has a mind of its own when it comes to you, sweetheart.”
You bite your lip, trying and failing to keep your professional mask in place. The dirty side of you wins out. “Well, as your medical professional, I guess I should probably check for swelling…ya know to make sure everything’s functioning properly.”
Dean’s eyes squinting and filling with lust, “Oh fu—yes examine me, doc.”
You don’t waste anytime. Your hand slides higher, wrapping around his thick length with a slow, (gently) nail raking stroke. Dean groans, head falling back against the padded table, hips twitching up into your grip.
“Shit, your hand feels good,” he rasps. “Been thinking about this since I left your dorm last week. That so-called ‘one time thing’ is turning into a problem.”
You lean over him, your free hand still massaging his inner thigh while the other pumps him with firm, deliberate strokes. “Maybe you’re just addicted to my bedside manner,” you quip, voice flirty, a big contrast to your professional side. “Or maybe you just like being told what to do by someone smarter than you.”
He laughs breathlessly, then reaches up and tugs you down into a passionate kiss. His tongue slides against yours, while one of his big hands palms your ass with a small squeeze. “Smart mouth,” he growls against your lips. “Get up here...I want to taste you while you’re playing doctor.”
You don’t need to be told twice. You climb onto the table, carefully straddling his sweaty eager face while facing his cock. Dean yanks your uniform shorts and panties down in one quick motion, and the second his mouth latches onto your pussy, you moan way too loud. “Fuck, De—”
His tongue rolls relentlessly, licking broad stripes through your folds before flicking rapidly over your clit. He groans into you, the vibration making your now sweaty thighs tremble. “So fucking sweet...missed this pretty pussy.”
You lean forward, taking him into your mouth in return. The angle was absolutely perfect, you bob your head, sucking and stroking while he eats you up. Smacking and wet noises filling the room. Dean’s hips buck gently, careful of his injured side, but his mouth never stops working you over.
When your legs start shaking and your moans grow higher, but he doubles down, sucking your clit hard until you come with a loud gasping cry, grinding against his face. Praying that all the others are still in the workout room across the facility.
Dean doesn’t let you recover. He flips you gently onto your back, mindful of his hip, and settles between your thighs. His eyes wild with lust as he rubs his cock through your slick folds, getting a slight feel.
“Need to be inside you,” he says roughly. “Tell me you want it too, baby.”
You cup his face, pulling him down for a messy kiss. “I want you, Dean. Now! Fuck me like you mean it, but don’t you dare hurt that hip, or I’ll kill you.” Even in a moment of passion you can't help but make sure he heals properly.
He laughs at your warning, but continues to push in slowly, stretching you open with a deep groan. “So tight, huh… always so fucking perfect for me.” He starts a steady, rolling with a nonverbal rhythm, mindful of his injury but still incredibly intense. His mouth finds your neck, sucking marks as he thrusts.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice thick of lust. “Taking my cock so well in the training room like a naughty little medic...what would everyone say if they knew? Hm? What would Tucker and John Logan say about their favorite medic getting fucked by their best friend, huh?”
You wrap your legs around him, locking him in as your nails dig into his muscular back. “They’d say I’m the luckiest girl on campus. Now shut up and make me come again, hotshot.”
Dean grins wickedly and picks up the pace, one hand slipping between you to circle your clit. Your moans mix with his filthy praise until you shatter around him, again, clenching so hard he follows right after, burying himself even deeper and groaning your name into your neck as he fills you up.
Afterward, Dean collapses carefully beside you on the wide table, pulling you against his chest. His big hand strokes soothingly up and down your back, the cocky energy some how melting into gentle affection.
“You okay, sweetheart?” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “Didn’t hurt my hip too bad… but I might need regular treatment from you for the next few weeks.”
You laugh softly, nuzzling up against his warm skin. “Regular treatment, huh? I think that can be arranged. But only if you actually rest when I tell you to, you stubborn hockey boy.”
Dean chuckles, dimples flashing as he tilts your chin up for a lazy, sweet kiss. “Deal. As long as my favorite doc keeps wearing these little shorts while she ‘treats’ me.”
You swat his chest playfully, but your smile is bright and full of promise. “Hm..that could be arranged."
MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE MANIFESTING A GOOD JUNE
I just discovered your Maekar and stepmum stories and I am in love❤️❤️❤️❤️
May I please make a request?It's sorr of a "I don’t hate you" follow up(or not) when stepmum(and Maekar) discover that sex quth one another is great(and lowkey are obsessed wirh one another) but the kids keep interrupting them.
Unwanted interruptions
Sorry this took so long and is so short I forgot about it… sorry
Suggestive, the kids are cockblocks
“Keep going.” You whine against your husband’s neck as he kisses down your throat, stopping right at your sweet spot as he starts pulling your dress up. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He says back resting his hand on the wall behind you, having pulled you into a spare room so you could have a moment together. The children constantly interrupting anything you’re alone. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Mother? Where are you?” Egg shouts wanting you to fix his favourite toy that he’s just noticed has a hole in.
“Fuck off!” Maekar shouts when he hears his son try and open the door.
“Maekar!” You hiss slapping his shoulder, while giving him a look. Before shouting through the door. “What do you want sweetie?”
“Can you fix dragon? He has a hole in his wing.” Egg says through the door trying to open it. “Whys the door locked?”
“I’ll fix him later.” You say as Maekar rests his head in your neck, leaning light kisses over it.
“Mama! Aerion stole dolly!” Rhae shouts running up to Aegon as she looks for you.
“Oh for fucks sake.” Maekar groans knowing he’s not getting you alone anytime soon.
-
“Fuck, you feel so good.” Maekar groans into your ear as he fucks you in the middle of the night. The children all finally asleep. “You’re so good.”
“Fuck.” You whimper as he rubs your clit bring you even closer to orgasm when you hear someone crying with footsteps running down the hall. “Stop.”
“Is everything ok?” Maekar asks stopping immediately, worried he did something wrong.
“Rhae’s awake.” You answer quickly getting out of bed to throw on his shirt. Maekar just watching you in confusion.
“What?”
“Mama!” Rhae shouts running through the doors straight into your arms. The crying girl having just woken up from a nightmare.
-
“You’re killing me woman.” He says hands on your ass to help you keep pace. “You’re so good for me,”
“Shut up.” You say to your husband as you ride him in his office, this being the time you have alone until late. The children wanting to play dragons again this afternoon. “Fuck.”
“Mother! Aerion threw my book into the well!”
-
“Fuck me.” You say dragging Maekar into a private corridor that none uses, as it leads to the spare rooms. “Quickly.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice.” He says pulling you into a kiss, hands going to lift up your skirts. When you hear feet stomping down the corridor. “Not again.”
“Mother! Aegon went through my room!”
-
“If we get interrupted again I’m going to scream.” Maekar says pulling you into his lap on the sofa while kissing down your neck.
“Then be quick.” You say opening your husband pants, not caring about forplay just needing him in you. Maekar having just come back from a 3 day trip to see a random lord. “I’ve missed you.”
Before he can reply you hear the chamber doors open and you jump up throwing Maekar a pillow as you do so. Looking disheveled when daella coming in crying.
“Mama! I’ve lost Benjamin!” She cry’s running into your arms for a cuddle, wanting comfort. “Can you help me find him?”
“Who the fuck is Benjamin?” Maekar asks pillow on his lap, running a hand over his hair in annoyance.
“Her toy bunny.” You say giving him a look, a small smile on your face. “I’ll be back.”
₊ ֹ ˖ THE TIME WHEN LOGAN FINDS DEAN IN BED WITH HIS SISTER ᱺㅤㅤ ୨౿
there were certain traumatic events john logan wanted to erase from his brain. scratch that from the existence, and all of that somehow always involved dean. his alleged best friend.
first was when he caught dean taking a bubble bath with a hot pink dildo.
second was when he found his nasty condoms clogging the shower drain.
third—third was when he barged into his room for something and found him naked and all cuddly with his own fucking sister.
he doesn’t have the time to do anything but let out a scream of disgust and slap a hand over his eyes, protecting his innocence.
meanwhile dean doesn’t have the time to react to anything else except let out a high‑pitched scream while you—you, the said sister—roll yourself in your boyfriend’s sheet and out of panic fall right onto the floor, wrapped in his sheets like a marshmallow.
boyfriend you haven’t told a soul about after dating for months, after so many nights of you sneaking into his room from the back door and him sneaking into your dorm every single time your roommate is out.
“are you guys fucking decent yet!?” just from the way your brother yells, unnecessarily loud, you know he’s mad mad.
why wouldn’t he be? his own sister has gone behind his back, dating his manwhore, womanizer best friend.
“yes!” you yell back, just like he did, while dean quickly shoves his junk into his boxers and stands up.
“are you fucking serious, man?” the moment logan opens his eyes, he’s glaring at dean, ready to use his fists on him. “out of all the girls in the world, you go for my sister?”
dean throws his hands up. “i didn’t go for your sister, man, i fell for her. there’s a difference! it just happened!”
“oh, congratulations,” logan snaps. “that makes it soooo much better.”
“i’m not a kid, stop treating me like one, i made my own choice!” you yell, joining their yelling match, and that just earns you a glare from your brother.
“not a word from you.”
“how long has this been going on?” he turns to dean sternly.
“couple months. . ?” dean answers boredly, now more distracted by your current state than the impending murder.
god, you look so hot wrapped up in his shit while you shoot daggers at your brother.
“months?” logan’s eyes go wide. “you’ve been lying to my face for months, you lying slut?!”
“i weren’t lying!” dean snaps. “i was . . selectively honest.”
“that’s literally the definition of lying!” logan practically roars. “you’ve been sneaking my sister into your shithole of a room like some—some raccoon with a sex addiction for months?!”
a mess. it’s all just a mess.
finally after a shit ton of screaming at each other when they’ve both calmed down and you and dean have both made it clear that you’re serious, logan sighs. “let’s get this over with.”
confusion swings across your face as you stare at both of them, worried. “what are you guys talking about?”
dean gets to his feet. so does logan.
“sorry. it needs to be done,” your brother mutters.
“needs to be done,” dean echoes guiltily.
when dean cracks the knuckles of his right hand, understanding dawns in your eyes. “you’re going to hit him?” you exclaim, jumping to your feet. “what the hell! no way!”
“di laurentis knows the code. he didn’t follow it. therefore. . ”
logan’s right. there is a code. other teams might have rules about not dating a teammate’s sister or ex or whoever else is off‑limits, but briars hockey team never strictly adhered to anything like that. their rule was much simpler—ask before you go there.
the code isn’t some random bullshit. it’s about respecting your teammate.
dean cracks the knuckles of his left hand.
“you’re insane. don’t you dare touch him, john!” you clutch the sheets and try to throw yourself toward dean, but he gently moves you to the side.
“just let it happen,” he says. “it’s really not a big de—”
logan doesn’t throw a punch.
he knees dean in the balls.
dean folds like a lawn chair, collapsing onto the bed, croaking as he grabs his junk.
“logan, you piece of shit, not the niece and nephew maker!”
logan just shrugs, his anger totally replaced by satisfaction of the hit, totally unapologetic. “relax, if they’re di laurentis stock, they’ll respawn.”
dean wheezes from the bed. “pretty sure they just rage‑quit, man.”
summary - you surprise Garrett after studying abroad for a year
pairing - garrett graham x girlfriend!reader
word count - +2.3k
a/n - lowkey love this duo enough to continue with either a summer series for them or a mom&dad type series!! lmk what you think!
For an off campus party, Garrett Graham seemed pretty miserable.
The party was small and contained. Only close friends of the guys had been invited to celebrate the start of summer. No more exams or schoolwork. Just sun, sand and sex.
Everyone had gathered in the back garden, just outside the house on the decking. Tucker was manning the grill, with Logan supervising. Dean and Allie were attempting to play a game of badminton, but were mostly just arguing. A couple other hockey guys were sitting around chatting, with Grace and Sabrina nearby. And it was Hannah who noticed Garrett sat by himself not taking part in anything.
“You okay?” Hannah asked and sat down on a chair opposite Garrett.
“Yeah.” Garrett gave a fake smile.
“Convincing.” Hannah joked, “What’s up?”
Garrett had become close enough with Hannah to know she wouldn’t take the piss out of him. He was glad that Allie kept bringing her around, because she was one of Garrett’s closest friends now.
Garrett held up his phone briefly, “My, uh, girlfriend hasn’t texted me since yesterday and I’m just a bit worried.” Garrett frowned, looking from Hannah down to his notificationless phone.
“You have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah.” Garrett’s smile went wide.
He noted the shocked expression on Hannah’s face.
Garrett rarely told people about you - not because he wanted to keep you a secret, but because he was just terrible at opening up to people about things like that. You were always encouraging him to be braver with his feelings.
“Since when?” Hannah leaned forwards with interest.
“Coming up to three years now.”
“I’m sorry… You’ve had a girlfriend for three years and I’m only just finding out now?”
“Well I didn’t know you three years ago, Wellsy.” Garrett countered.
Hannah let it slide. “Okay, whatever. Tell me everything about her.”
When someone did finally know of your existence, that was one of Garrett’s favourite things to be asked. He could talk about you for hours, days, forever. He was a healthy amount obsessed with you.
Before Garrett could delve into the 101 reasons why you were his favourite person, Dean had to ruin the moment.
“Jheez, Wellsy, are you a witch? How’d you make G smile?” Dean patted Hannah on the back as he came over with Allie in tow. No doubt their game of badminton had gotten too argumentative to continue safely.
“I was just asking Garrett about…” Hannah cut herself short, realising that she didn’t even know your name.
“Y/N.” Garrett added for her.
Dean clicked his tongue and sighed like a man in love. “Ah, mom and dad.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Hannah laughed, looking between Garrett, Dean and Allie for some explanation.
Allie sat on the arm of the chair that Hannah was sitting on, wrapping her arm around her best friend's shoulder. Dean sat on the same bench that Garrett was sitting on.
“Mom and dad.” Allie repeated, “Y/N and Garrett got the label because they are genuinely like the mom and dad of this group.”
“They’re always keeping us in check. They do the shopping for the house. Y/N actually cleans this place, God knows why. They’re just so mom and dad.”
“She sounds great.” Hannah smiled.
“She is.” Allie nodded.
“Agreed.” Dean added.
Garrett just sat there, quietly smiling to himself as he listened to some of the most important people in his life gush over the most important person.
“So how come I’ve never met her?” Hannah asked.
“She’s spent the last year studying abroad.” Garrett said, frowning again when he realised that this whole conversation had started because he couldn’t get in contact with you.
“That’s so cool. Where abouts?”
“Uh, London– Sorry, I’m just going to–.”
Garrett got up and headed back inside, continuing to stare at his phone like it was personally wronging him.
Allie got up off the end of Hannah’s chair and moved to sit down next to Dean - who immediately pulled her close to his side. Hannah was so happy for her best friend finally being with someone who actually cared for her.
They smiled without looking at each other.
“What?” Hannah asked, wondering what was going on.
“Can you keep a secret, Wellsy, ‘cause we sure can’t.”
“Yeah.”
Dean leaned forwards, double checking the back entrance to the house to make sure that Garrett wasn’t loitering close by. Hannah leaned forwards too.
“Y/N’s surprising Garrett. That’s why he hasn’t heard from her, because fuck knows she’d ruin the surprise if she opened her mouth.”
Hannah’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.
“When? Today?”
Allie checked her phone.
“Like, literally any minute.”
Hannah tried to control her excited smile as she leant back in her chair. Dean moved back too, raising his eyebrows to Hannah as if to silently say ‘don’t say a word’.
Logan and Tucker came over minutes later, saying the grill was all prepped and the food was ready to be cooked whenever everyone was ready. They were also in on the secret surprise, so were holding off on cooking until you arrived.
Sabrina and Grace, along with a couple of other hockey guys, had also joined the group so everyone was sitting together, when Allie’s phone pinged.
She opened the notification to see you’d texted to say you were outside.
Allie widened her eyes at the group, all of them visibly lighting up with excitement.
“Where’s G?” Logan asked.
“He went inside before.” Dean said.
“I think he was going to try and contact Y/N again.” Hannah added with a sad pout. She felt for the guy - especially when he had no clue that he was about to see you in a couple of minutes.
Allie stood up, telling everyone that she was going to go and get you. Everyone was in agreement that you should go and see Garrett first, so Tucker and Logan returned to the grill to start cooking in the meantime.
Allie wandered through the house, with no sign of Garrett anywhere.
She opened the front door quietly and silently screamed when she saw you.
You looked tired - no doubt from the long plane ride, lack of sleep and jet lag - but you also looked so happy to be back. You had a big Briar U hoodie on that was no doubt Garrett’s and a pair of navy jogging bottoms on.
You had a shit tonne of luggage bags surrounding you, which Allie would make Dean take in later. It was a mystery how you managed all these bags through the airport yourself.
Allie squeezed you in a tight hug, both of you trying to be as silent as possible.
She let you go, knowing you’d be eager to see Garrett.
You both had a silent conversation with hand gestures, which basically translated to you asking where Garrett was and letting Allie know that’s where you’d be going first. Allie rushed you off, not delaying your reunion any longer.
You tried your best to be quiet up the stairs, the familiarity of the house hitting you all at once. Even the feel of your hand on the wooden bannister felt like coming home.
At the top of the stairs you felt a flurry of butterflies start up in the pit of your stomach. You couldn’t tell whether you were nervous or excited to see Garrett. It was the anticipation that was causing the feeling, you decided.
After texts and face-time calls, every day for the last year, it was hard to believe you were about to see him in real life again. It sounded weird to say, but it was true. The last year had been so great, but it had also been so hard living away from Garrett.
If that made you clingy, then you’d wear that label with pride. So what?
Garrett’s door was closed over, but not shut entirely.
You pushed the door open to find Garrett sat on the edge of his bed, crouched over with his phone in his hands.
You knocked gently so as not to make him jump.
Garrett wiped his eyes, not so subtly, before sitting up to look at you.
His whole body sagged as he saw you standing in his bedroom doorway. He closed his eyes and let his body pull him back to lay back on his bed, legs grounding him to the floor.
Tears started to fill your eyes as Garrett’s chest visibly moved up and down from crying. His hand went to cover his eyes, probably trying to comprehend whether this was a cruel trick or genuinely real.
You didn’t wait any longer to move closer to him.
“Hey.” You laughed through your own tears.
“Fuck.” Garrett sat up, taking you in. You watched the disbelief leave his teary eyes, as he fully understood you were right here with him.
He wasted no more time pulling you the rest of the way towards him - absolutely no distance between you allowed again - until you landed on his lap in an awkward straddle. Your arms wrapped around his neck tightly and his wrapped around your waist.
Both of you sat there, lightly crying.
Your face buried into Garrett’s neck as you breathed in his familiar scent. That smell alone caused a few tears, because it was so nostalgic and homely to you. Garrett’s head rested just beside yours.
Neither of you said anything for what felt like the longest time, both more than happy to just sit silently in each other’s arms.
“I thought something bad had happened.” Garrett mumbled.
You reluctantly pulled your head away from his neck, blinking away the remnants of tears as you pulled Garrett’s head up to see him. His eyes were red-rimmed and his dark circles were as dark as yours.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t text me for so long. I thought something bad had happened.” His eyes traced over every inch of your face, scanning every freckle to make sure they were all still there.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did. If 24 hours of no contact is what it takes to be surprised, then, baby, I don’t want it.” He shook his head.
“Okay. Noted.” You brushed your thumb over his cheek back and forth. He melted into your touch, trying to get as physically close to you as possible.
“Can’t believe you’re here.”
“Can’t believe you haven’t kissed me yet.”
Garrett’s hands left your waist instantly to cup your cheeks and bring your lips directly to his, kissing you exactly how one would kiss their significant other after a year apart. The kiss was bruising, barely enough space to breathe between you.
Garrett tilted your head with his hands so he could kiss you deeper, your hips involuntarily rocking over his. The small movement was enough for Garrett to break the kiss, though the distance between you barely existed.
Both of your chests were heaving and your breathing heavy. You leaned in closer with dazed eyes focused on his lips, kissing him again. This time was shorter and with more feeling, before you pulled away with a soft laugh.
“What?” Garrett asked, still holding you close.
“I missed you.”
Garrett smiled, “Yeah, baby. Me too.” He kissed you four times in a row, before breaking off from your lips to kiss your cheeks, nose, eyes and anywhere else he could. The sound of your laughter filled his room for the first time in a year as Garrett kept kissing you.
You forced yourself forwards to make Garrett fall backwards on the bed, because you knew it was the only way to stop him from kissing you for now.
Garrett’s hair flopped around him on the bed, with a little curl falling over his forehead. His hands moved to place over your hips, whilst yours pressed into his bed either side of his head to keep you upright.
“Can’t believe you’re here.” Garrett said.
“You’ve already said that. Have you developed temporary amnesia, baby?” You teased him.
“My brain hasn’t worked since you walked through the door.”
Garrett’s hand tucked underneath the hoodie you were wearing, and traced up and down your bare skin. The featherlight touch made you smile and you rewarded him with another quick kiss.
You moved to sit back up less than gracefully. Luckily Garrett’s arms were there to support you as he mirrored you to sit up as well.
“How was your flight?” He asked, his eyes focused on you. No doubt he wouldn’t be letting you from his sight for the foreseeable future. He was going to attach himself to you like a limpet whether you liked it or not.
“Shall we go downstairs and see everyone so I don’t have to answer that question fifteen more times?”
Garrett grumbled and his eyebrows furrowed, “No.”
“No?”
“I want you to myself.” He said as his hands tightened their grip on your back.
“Baby, don’t be mean.”
“I’m not being mean, I'm being selfish. There’s a difference.”
“Not a good difference.” You argued.
“Did the Brits teach you to be polite or something?”
You tried not to laugh at your boyfriend’s childish behaviour, because, honestly, some part of you understood what he was feeling. You got possessive when he left for a hockey game for just a weekend, let alone you having been gone a full year.
Of course you wanted to just be with him too, but your friends were important to you too. They’d all kept close contact with you, always letting you know how Garrett was really doing and being there for him when he needed people around. You owed a lot to them all.
“C’mon. You’ll get me all evening.” You compromised.
“You’ve finished over there?”
“Yes,” You smiled, brushing a curl back off his forehead, “Finished last week.”
“So you’re here to stay?”
“Baby, I’m back. I’m here for summer, then autumn, winter and spring. Then summer again and autumn…”
“Okay, okay,” Garrett cut you off, “Can we spend summer together?”
“I literally brought all my shit here with me, because I intend on moving in. You’re stuck with me.”
Summary: After finding out you are pregnant you struggle on how to tell your husband.
Warnings: Pregnancy, Bad language, crude humor, bad humor, bad writing
Let me know if I missed any!
___________________________________________
Finding out you were pregnant should have not been as surprising as it was. You are married woman and got up to certain "activities" with your husband. However you still cant help it as you leave the grandmaster chambers in a daze of shock after he confirmed that you are in fact with child.
You internally groan as you realise how foolish you were. You had not bleed in a few months, yet instead of being worried about it like anyone with a brain cell would be, you were just happy you didn't have to deal with it. How could you be so stupid?
You had gone to the maester when you realised that you had been having aversions too foods you usually loved. Fearing that you might have food poisoning, or worse your taste spuds were changing.
So, you had not gone too the maester when you noticed your lack of monthly blood, you had gone running to the maester when you noticed an aversion too food. God, you were a fat fuck.
An idiot and a fat fuck.
As you walk though the red keep, pondering how you made it this far, your thoughts drift too Baelor. Your sweet perfect Baelor. Who's child you now carry. How were you supposed to tell him? Its not like you could go up and say: "Hey Baelor, I am four months pregnant and I never noticed until I stopped liking food I usually like."
God.
You found yourself praying for your unborn child's sake that they got their father's intelligence.
You go to your shared chambers with Baelor. He of course isn't here yet as he is busy with his many duties to the realm as heir to the iron throne and hand of the king.
As you strip off your fancy gowns, in favour of something more comfortable you catch a glimpse of your figure in the mirror. Your belly is starting to swell with child. You run a hand over your belly. How had you not noticed? The same answer comes to you that you had given yourself earlier. You are a fat fuck.
You slip on a comfortable nightgown. Before flopping down onto the luxurious canopy bed in the room.
You might be pregnant with a future king, you realise as you roll over. You never considered yourself a religious woman, yet you found yourself praying to the old gods and the new that the child inherited Baelors intelligence, for the sake of the realm. As the realm most certainly will not survive a ruler with your wits.
You are snapped out of your prayers as Baelor enters the chambers.
"My love." He greets before walking over to press a kiss to your forehead. "How was your day?" The prince inquires. This is your chance, you realise, tell him you are with child, your brain screams at you. "Good." You reply while internally screaming at yourself for being such an idiot.
Baelor sheds himself of his formal wear while telling you about his day. His calming deep voice becomes a mummer in the background, as it usually did when he began too talk about politics and matters of the realm. Usually you would admire your husbands body as he got ready for bed, for once however you didn't.
You should have told him the moment you found out, you curse yourself in your own head. Now if you tell him he will think you were keeping it a secret. You are so lost berating yourself in your head, you don't notice Baelor lie next you on the bed.
"Is everything well, my love?" He asks with a hint of concern in his calming voice. "You seem as if you are somewhere else entirely."
You feel your heart beating faster in your chest, you hear it in your ears.
Tell him you fool. You are being given a second chance.
"Everything is fine." You say in a tone you hope is reassuring.
Baelor stares deeply into your soul with his memorising mismatched violet and brown eyes. A perfect representation of his Valyrain and Dornish heritage. Fuck. It wasn't fair for someone to be so beautiful.
"Are you certain? You can tell me anything, my sweet heart."
"I know." You say, I just don't know how to tell you, you say in your head.
Baelor lets out a hum and presses a kiss to your temple, before blowing out the candle on your bedside table.
As the lavish room is engulfed in darkness, the only semblance of light comes from the moonlight through the balcony.
You lie on your side as you feel Baelors bare chest against your back. Despite the warmth from Baelors body, you go cold when you feel his arm wrap around your stomach. Where his unborn child currently lies. The one he didn't know existed.
"Is something wrong?" Baelor speaks up softly. "You feel tense."
Fuck.
"Hmm? Oh, it's nothing." You say with an attempt of keeping your voice calm. You wince however as your voice reaches your own ears. That is not what someone who is calm sounds like.
Baelor gently manoeuvres you too face him.
You can barley make out his beautiful majestic face in the dark. A pity. You love his face. It is your favourite thing to admire.
"What has happened?" The prince inquires gently.
"Nothing." You reply too quickly for it to be true.
"You need not lie, my love." Baelor gently cups your face with his spare hand. "Talk too me." He half begs.
Could this man be anymore perfect? You were lying to him, and he comforted you and begged you to confide in him.
You must have saved a burning orphanage in a past life to deserve him.
"I cannot help you if I do not know what is wrong."
Tell him! Every ounce of your being screams at you. Tell him now. It is the perfect opportunity.
You take a deep breath in an attempt to calm yourself. It doesn't work. Your heart is racing against your chest. Your throat is dry, and you fear that you may have made a new layer of skin with sweat. So in a moment of courage you screw your eyes shut and will yourself to blurt it out.
I am with child, you want too say, however what comes out is not that.
"I am a fat fuck!" You blurt out.
Your eyes quickly snap open. You can vaguely make out Baelors slightly confused expression in the dark.
How did you manage to fuck up saying a simple sentence?
You let out a load groan and bury your face into a silk pillow. If the gods you didn't believe in had any mercy, they would surely strike you down. End your misery.
"My love." Baelor says hesitantly, which is unusual for a man who was usually so confident and calm.
You answer him with a groan that is muffled by the pillow. Baelor gently grabs your shoulder to roll you onto your back.
"You are not fat, my heart." Baelor says in such a sincere way you could never doubt him.
You let out another groan.
"That isn't what I meant too say."
"What did you mean too say?"
You answer him with a groan.
"My love." He presses.
"I went to the grand maester today." Baelor says nothing as he waits for you to continue. "You see I was having aversions too food I usually like." You begin to ramble. "Which was quiet odd, as you know I treat myself once a week to some-"
"My sweet heart." Baelor says as he cuts you off. "I promise, you can tell me anything. There is no need to be nervous. Not with me." He presses a kiss to your forehead.
At the angle he is at, you can see Baelor in the moonlight and by the old gods and the new does he look gorgeous. Such a handsome man looking at you with beautiful eyes filled with concern. Concern for you.
You stare into Baelors eyes as you speak again.
"I am with child."
The relief of pleasure you feel finally getting what you needed to say is indescribable. Even though you haven't even known for more then two hours.
Surprise flickers across his beautiful face before surprise quickly turns into pure and utter joy.
"Oh, my sweet perfect girl." Baelor says as he smothers your face with kisses. His beard rubbing against your skin. He quickly moves down your body to press a kiss against your slightly swollen stomach. "Our child." He murmurs in pure and utter euphoria.
He quickly moves back up your body and presses a kiss to your lips.
"The maester confirmed it?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how far along you are?" Baelor places a hand on your stomach, unwilling to part with his unborn child.
"Four moons."
Baelor looks at you as if you had grown two heads. "Four moons?" He asks wondering if he had heard you properly.
"Yes, Four moons."
A realisation quickly dawns on the prince. "Have you been keeping this from me?" He asks. A look of disappointment on his handsome face, that makes your heart drop.
"No!" You quickly say. "I only found out today!"
The look of disappointment quickly leaves his face. You let out a sigh of relief.
"Then how are you Four moons with child?" He cups your cheek. "Did you not realise you missed your moon blood?" He asks clearly not expecting that to be what happened. Your sheepish look gives you away.
"Please my heart, don't tell me you didn't realise you missed Four moon bloods?"
"I did obviously notice I wasn't getting my moon blood."
"And you didn't feel the need to go straight to the maester?"
You shrug your shoulders. "I was just happy I wasn't getting it."
john logan gets a bit too flirty with you during your tutoring session . ♡
“so here, webster actually argues against the modernisation of the welfare state…” your eyes flit to logan, his thick forearms planted on the table next to you. he looks at you intently, his pencil looking comically small between his long fingers as he traces the point over his lips.
you slam your pen down on the glossy page of your textbook. “what are you looking at, john?”
the brunet shrugs, his casual tee etched perfectly on his torso, tanned arms peeking out. “nothing,” he says with a smug smile, “can’t i look at you, baby?”
you snap your fingers in front of his face. “focus, logan. you have an exam next week, and if i don’t get you prepared, i’m—”
logan places his larger, thicker hand on yours, rendering you completely speechless. “don’t worry. i got it. i learned from the best.” his fingers lightly stroke over your knuckles, soothing you, cheeky smile on his beautiful face.
you release a sigh, the pressure in your lungs alleviating. a breathy chuckle follows: “yeah, well, you still have to study.”
and logan just looks at you like you hung the moon, not processing one word you just said, completely enthralled with everything you do: your smile, your eyes, the way you explain all the concepts of the required literature without making him feel dumb.
he hooks his hand around the leg of your chair. “why you sittin’ so far away, honey?”
you freeze in your movements as logan pulls you closer to him by the leg of your chair. you listen to the scraping sound of the wooden chair against the floor in the empty dining room.
closer and closer, until your chair bumps into his. your knees are touching, and his strong arms are just inches from yours. his smell, his warmth, it makes you feel all jittery. john logan makes you feel all jittery.
“i like you way better here.”
a/n: he’s loyal, he’s gentle, he fixes people’s shit, he cares, he yearns. that’s daddy fr
summary: you talk with the guys while waiting around at the house and dean accidentally let's it slip that garrett is in love with you.
warnings: nothing specific.
frat houses were an unclean place full of boisterous men and they were a place no one with any self respect would be seen dead, and yet here you were.
in your defence, you were only here to see garrett. everyone else was a package deal apparently.
garrett graham was the star athlete at briar u, known for his supposed ice hockey skills. you say supposed because he's never actually invited you to a game, and you weren't about to show up all "go team" if he didn't want you there.
the two of you had been hooking up for a while now, but it was . . . casual. he was too busy for a girlfriend and you were too busy to try and change his mind.
sighing, you drummed your fingers against your thighs impatiently, waiting for garrett to come downstairs.
"is he even here?" you asked tucker, settling on talking to the most "normal" one out of all of them.
you had plans to meet garrett at his house today, but he wasn't exactly known for his top notch timekeeping skills.
he nodded, slapping deans hand away when he tried to reach for the spread of food that was being arranged on the table.
"dude, why do you keep making food if we're not even allowed to eat the damn stuff" dean huffed, throwing himself down on the couch next to you in defeat.
the blonde haired trouble causer turned to you with a big grin on his face, "so, what's the deal with you and graham? that boy doesn't tell us anything"
"i find that hard to believe. you're all his bro's or whatever aren't you?" you say, using your fingers to put air quotes around the word "bro's".
instead of answering, dean went on to pepper you with more invasive questions.
you huffed out a laugh despite yourself, "you're awfully nosey, you know that?"
dean's hand slapped against his chest in mock disbelief, "you're lucky that graham loves you because otherwise i would be-"
"he what?" you cut him off, not sure if you just heard him correctly.
"ohhh, shit" dean says.
the whole room went silent. tucker stopped chopping vegetables, logan paused his video game, and dean stared at you with wide eyes like a child that had just been caught sneaking candy.
a creak on the stairs broke the painful silence and you glanced up to see garrett stood there, his arms folded across his chest.
"what the actual fuck is going on down here?" garrett says, not moving from his spot on the stairs.
dean pursed his lips in thought, "i just told y/n that you love her"
okay, maybe it wasn't in thought at all. jesus christ this guy had no filter.
not knowing what to say, you chuckled awkwardly and pointed towards towards the door, "sooo, i'm just going to go"
you scooped up your bag and dashed out of the door before anyone could try to stop you, shutting it tightly behind.
even through the heavy wooden door you could hear the sudden arguments.
"jesus christ, dean. you're with a new girl every day and suddenly you can't have a normal conversation with one just because she doesn't want to fuck you?" garrett yelled.
the rest of the conversation became incoherent but you were sure you heard dean say, "how do you know she doesn't want to fuck me?"
your head was a mess as deans accidental confession actually started to sink in.
you didn't have a chance to make it off the porch before the door swung open again, revealing garrett stood on the other side.
dean popped his blonde head around the frame, "he has plans to kill me later so if you-"
someone decided to have mercy on you and dragged him back inside the house, the door slamming shut behind them.
here he was in all his glory. he had messy hair from the nap he clearly took not long ago and basketball shorts low his hips, toned abs on full display.
"see something you like?" he smirked, leaning back against the wall, the tension melting with every word he spoke.
you shrugged indifferently, "do you mean like or do you mean love? because who knows the difference these days"
he let out a long sigh of frustration, dragging a hand down his face, "listen, take no notice of that idiot. i never do"
"how come you don't invite me to your games? i mean, we've been seeing each other for months now and i haven't been to a single one" you say, frustration bubbling in your gut as words spill out of your mouth before you can stop them.
"i'm going to kill that little bastard- fine. i don't invite you to my games because you distract me. i can't focus on anything else when you're in the room and i can't risk being distracted out on the rink"
was that a compliment? it sort of sounded like one.
you nodded slowly, "so why couldn't you have just said that? why does everything have to be a mystery with you garrett"
"this was meant to be a casual one time thing, and suddenly you're in my house and you're talking to my friends" he says.
scoffing, you jabbed a finger against his bare chest, "you're the one who asked me to come over garrett and despite what you're clearly used to, i didn't beg to see you"
the audacity of men would never fail to amaze you. they ask you to come over and then wonder why you're suddenly in their house.
"can i finish my sentence?" he says, raising his eyebrows in amusement at your persistent rebuttals.
you shrug and gesture for him to continue, "if you must"
"jesus, what i'm trying to say is that it doesn't feel casual anymore. i see you more than i see those fuckers in there and i live with em'" he says.
"i'm not saying i'm in love with you ─ because shit, we've never even been on a date. unless fucking in a frat house full of other guys counts as a date to women"
"it does not" you add.
"i don't do girlfriends. you know this as much as every other girl knows this" he says.
the words taste bitter in his mouth. it wasn't a lie, he doesn't do girlfriends, but everything was telling him to break his own rules.
"wow, garrett, does this type of flattery usually work on these lucky girls?"
he grinned smugly, hands in the pockets of his shorts, "damn straight it does, baby"
your phone buzzed in your pocket and you internally groaned when you glanced at the time. you were only meant to be staying for an hour because you promised allie you would help her study for midterms.
"look, i've gotta go. i promised allie i would help her with the upcoming exams. we're all good, graham. casual it is!" you say brightly, jogging down the steps before he can respond.
garrett watches on until you disappear around the corner before going back inside to be met by the disappointed stares of his three friends.
"dude, really? i don't do girlfriends?" logan says, repeating garrett's earlier words.
dean sighed dramatically and shook his head, "yeah, you really fucked that one up"
garrett points a finger at dean accusatorially, "it's your fucking fault, dipshit. this is the last time i ever tell you anything" he says, breezing past everyone as he grabbed a beer from the fridge.
"practice is tomorrow" tucker says in concern, nodding towards the beer in garrett's hand.
"lay off, tuck" he says, jaw tense as he sat in his usual spot on the couch.
logan being the more empathetic one of the group, decided to take over the conversation before it got out of hand.
"so, you do love her then?" he says carefully, not wanting to end up on garrett's shit list along with dean.
garrett cursed and leaned back against the couch, "yeah? no? how am i meant to know if i love someone or not"
"the fact that you're instrested in more than just sleeping with her is answer enough" logan says, knowing garrett hasn't given this much time or thought to one person before.
"fuck this ─ someone pass me another beer" garrett muttered, needing a way to turn his mind off for a couple of hours.
contents (sfw): Ser Duncan The Tall x fem!mer!reader, inspired by HCA's The Little Mermaid, switching POVs (indicated with dividers), medieval rom-com, love at first sight, witchcraft, body horror, transformation, romantic and sexual tension, mutual pining, yearning, caretaking, non-sexual nudity, there was only one bed(roll), sword of chastity, protective!Dunk, virgin!Dunk, soft!Dunk.
part two ->
synopsis: A mermaid falls in love with a knight praying on her riverbank. A witch gives her legs and three days to make him love her back.
word count: 13K
a/n: Banner is by me, dividers by @strangergraphics and @honeyluvsw! Thank you lovely humans for giving it a read before publishing (@lateknightbites and @siliceousooze). My last-minute mermay offering :') There will be two parts of this story!
The feeling of driving his sword through someone’s chest is entirely wretched. Duncan remembers the cause and what it carries, but every time he takes a life his jaw locks tight and his breath stops in a naïve surge of compassion.
The man pierced with Dunk’s iron says his mother’s name. It comes out thin and astonished, as though he had expected to die louder. Duncan hears it over the din. He watches the man’s eyes go queer in his face—film creeping over them, the pupils dulling, the whole wet look turning flat, the way dead fish do when they rise in poisoned water and the sun gets at their bellies.
An apology pushes up hard against Duncan’s teeth. He keeps it there. There is something mean in begging pardon of a man you have already run through. It makes him answer for your sorrow besides his own death. When the body sags and quits at last, Duncan braces a hand to the fellow’s shoulder, eases him off the blade, and lowers him onto his back with what care he can manage in a field full of screaming men. Then he pulls his sword free and breathes.
The stream is only a little way off. Sun has had all morning to work on his armour. The plates burn through his surcoat. The mail at his throat rubs raw and holds the heat there. Under it, the blood trapped in the quilted cloth has already begun to turn.
He knows he ought to go back. He knows the work is not done. His knees strike the bank before the thought is finished. He drags off one glove and then the other, drops them in the grass, and thrusts both hands into the current so fast the cold hurts. Water ropes round his fingers and under his nails and takes the blood by threads at first, then by clouds, until the stream runs pink, then weak as watered wine, then clear again as though the thing had never happened anywhere but inside his own skull.
He bows his head over it. His breath goes in rough through the nose and leaves slower. For a moment he can do nothing but look at his hands—broad things, nicked over the knuckles. Then he cups water to his face. The shock of it lifts the worst of the heat. He does it again. Lets it run from his brow and nose and mouth. Somewhere behind him men are still shouting. Steel still rings out, thin with distance now.
Duncan shuts his eyes. He has never been much for prayer, nor for finding the right words for it, but there are not many disbelievers in a foxhole. He opens his mouth.
“Mother, take him. He called your name. Forgive me for it. Mind his mother, too.” Breath shudders out of him. “Warrior, make me brave enough. Keep my hand true.”
Beyond the bank where the water deepens and the weeds grow long as hair, something has gone perfectly still to watch him.
When you see him kill your heart flutters strangely. Clean slice, straight for the heart. Merciful and cold in the same breath.
You know violence as the sharp white turn of a fish’s belly before your teeth close round it. The panic-kick of things that fit in your hands and things that do not, the times your own blood has gone stringing loose in the water because something bigger thought to make a meal of you first. Death below the surface is ugly, but it serves. Something eats. Something lives another day. Here, men spill one another open for reasons that do not end in hunger. The body falls in the grass and feeds no one. The waste of it catches at your mind.
Yet the great one uses his strength well. Joyless, he puts the blade where it must go and gets it done. Warrior, your thoughts supply at once, though he is younger than the word makes him sound.
Then, he stays. Only for a breath long enough to ease the dead man down from his sword and keep him from crumpling into the dirt like a sack split at the seams, but it is enough to draw you closer under the current. Almost as if he cannot bear for the man to go wholly alone. Almost as if being the hand that kills makes him answerable for that last small stretch between breath and none.
You slip nearer the bank, slow as weed-drift, and brace your fingers between the stones. The stream is clear here. It lets you see him drop to his knees. Lets you see him strip off his gloves with hands gone clumsy from heat. Blood clouds into the water when he thrusts his fingers in. He bends and sluices his face.
Your tail gives a hard, involuntary twitch. Until now he has been iron and leather and bright mail and the broad set of shoulders that belong to grown creatures who know their force. Then the water takes the blood and the grime from him and what rises from beneath it stills your breath clean out of you.
A boy. A beautiful boy. Young in the face despite the size of him. Wet lashes spiked dark. Mouth parted. Water running from brow to cheek to jaw, then slipping under the collar at his throat and down his neck. Your nails bite into the stones. Your gills flare wide and fast. You drag in more water through them without meaning to, as if the stream has suddenly thinned and left you short.
He opens his mouth and your eyes shut. The shouting from the field dulls. Stream keeps on at your shoulders. Wind moves somewhere high in the crowns of the trees. All of it goes faint around the shape of his voice. It reaches you blurred by distance, scant and earnest, with none of the grand sound men use when they want the world to think them holy. He asks for the dead man first. For the mother of the dead man. Forgiveness for what his own hand has done. Then he asks for bravery enough to return and do more of other men’s bidding before the sun goes down.
Nothing for himself. No glory. No protection. No rich spoil. Not even life.
Your grip slips and tightens again. Something deep in you, old as tide-pull, gives way. You have seen handsome things before. Fast things. Dangerous things. You have wanted and hunted and fed.
This is worse. This is a hurt that blooms sweet through the middle of you. By the time he lowers his head and the last of his prayer leaves his mouth and goes nowhere you can see, you love him so completely it feels less like being struck and more like sinking.
He rises and leaves, and the place he was at is empty as if it were bitten. The bank looks wrong without him on it. The water goes on over the stones as though nothing has happened. Your heart has no such manners. It follows him at once, crude and greedy, as though wanting were a hand with fingers on it. You part your lips with half a mind to call after him. Men can be called. Men can be coaxed to the water with the right note laid soft over the surface. You know how to turn the voice sweet enough to draw a neck forward, a foot wrong, a whole body into your keeping. The sound gathers under your tongue and dies there. To put a spell on him feels foul. It seems to you that a creature like that ought to come of his own will, or not at all.
You do not know by what rules men choose their maidens. You know only the old shapes from song and tale, the women with hair to their waists and wreaths at their throats, the ones led from halls by the hand, kissed before witnesses, warmed by fires built on dry land. Even the plainest of them has what you have not.
Legs.
By the time the sun tilts lower you are stern in the mind and weak in the heart, which is a poor way to go to a witch and the only way you have.
You gather what seems dear. Round pebbles from the streambed, the ones worn smooth as eggs. A white one with a milk-pale seam through the middle. A twist of yarrow and sage stolen from the bank where the roots drink deep. A handful of hazelnuts, though you have never eaten one and do not know if witches do. Three rowan berries bright as pinpricks of blood. One swan feather gone loose among the rushes.
Childish things, perhaps. Bride-things from the mind of a fool. You keep them all the same, tucked close in the fold of weed and river-grass you knot for carrying. Then you force yourself into one of the narrow runs that leaves the stream and threads the dark places inland. Mud slicks your sides. Roots comb your hair. The water grows warm and still and brown. It narrows to veins and then opens without warning into the bog pool, black at the middle, with a hut crouched on the shore as if it had grown there meanly from the peat.
You wait a long while with only your eyes above the weed. Nothing stirs but a gnat-cloud and the slow shake of sedge in the wind. At last you take one of the little stones from your hoard and throw it. It clicks against the wooden door. The sound is small; it still seems to carry everywhere. You sink lower, heart drumming hard, and hide among the pondweed with the offerings clutched to your breast, as if the right gifts and a brave face might yet make you into something a beautiful boy could love.
The door opens. The woman who steps out is bent nowhere and old everywhere. Her hair hangs in ropes the colour of drowned straw. Her shift is the grey of mushroom flesh. She peers toward the water as if she has smelt you already.
“Well,” she says. “What pretty thing noses at my threshold?”
You rise through the skin of water and push the bundle of gifts towards her. “I brought—”
“Did you.” She stoops and takes it between two fingers, as if it is something small and dead. “Then speak. A wish is no good to me till it has a mouth.”
You blink at her. Try to find the words for something prettier than a blunt girly whim, but they come out as they are. “I want legs.”
The witch looks at you for a moment. Then, she laughs. “That is not what you want.”
Mud stirs under your tail with the force of your annoyance. You dig the tip of it down into the black silt.
“Ah,” she coos, seeing it. “There is no shame in wanting, child. Only folly in pretending. You want a lad to love you.” You remain silent long enough for her eyes narrow with delight. “No. Not a lad.” She leans closer over the bank, and her smile turns terrible with it. “A knight.”
The scales along the back of your tail prickle. “Can you help me?”
“Likely.” She reaches down without warning, crooks one finger beneath your chin, and turns your face first one way, then the other. “You are fair enough for mortal work. Fairer than many that walk on two feet and think well of themselves besides. Why not sing to him? Why not call him into the water? Earth has given you gifts enough. Why do you not use them?”
You pull away from her hand. “I do not wish to lure him.”
Her mouth rounds. “Oh.” The sound is soft, but curdles your stomach all the same. “It is true love, then,” she says. “Pure as springwater. You would not stain your dear knight with a spell.” Her voice thins to a hiss. “What do you think you are doing here, if not spell-work?”
“The spell is not for him,” you say, and hear the weakness in it. “It is for me. I only need legs.”
“A spell is a spell all the same.”
She turns your bundle and lets the things fall. The pebbles, the berries, the herbs, the feather—all of it drops into the bog with a series of small, insulting plops. One hazelnut floats a moment before the water takes it.
“You may keep your trinkets,” she says. “I am not a hedge-wife to be bought with rowan and sage.”
Heat rises through you against the coldness of the bog. “Then why hear me?”
“Because I am curious.” She smiles again. “And because I can give you what you want. Under a condition,” she says.
Of course. Again, you keep still and say nothing. She seems to like that better than if you had begged.
“I will give you legs, and all that comes with them. You will wake with feet to stand on and knees to bend. You will go where he goes if you can keep pace. You will have three nights to win what you came for.”
The reeds whisper in the wind. Somewhere behind her hut a bird cries once and stops.
“If by the third night the knight loves you, the bargain is spent. If not, a soul is owed me.”
Your fingers tighten on the mud-bank. “Mine?”
“If you are dull enough.” The witch reaches into the fold of her garment and brings out a dagger. It is old and grisly, with a hilt of dark wood worn smooth by long handling. The blade is dark as well, but moonlight catches on it in a thin wet line. It looks hungry. “Or his.”
You stare at it.
“He may be given in your stead,” she says mildly. “A thrust under the rib. Upward, if you are weak in the arm. Bring him to me warm and I shall count us square.”
“Why would I do that?”
She lifts one shoulder. “Because hearts turn vicious when they do not get their fill. Because death is easier than longing for some creatures. Because on the third night you may find you love yourself a little more than him. I make room for all outcomes.”
The dagger gleams in her hand. You cannot stop looking at it. At last you whisper, “How shall I know if he loves me?”
The witch’s brows rise. “Were you not certain of it a moment ago?”
A pout blooms on your face unbidden.
She crouches at the bank then, bringing her face close to yours. Her breath smells of peat and old roots.
“When mortal men love their maidens,” she says, almost kindly, “they do not keep their hands to themselves. They part those fine legs you hunger after. They open the flesh between and put themselves there.”
A cold shiver runs the length of you.
Her smile returns, pleased and wicked. “There. That is plain enough even for a love-addled little fish.” She straightens. “Well? Do you accept?”
The word catches in your mouth. You sweep the dagger, the dark bog, the hut with your eyes. Then, her face, which has no mercy in it and no patience either. Because you have already loved him enough to come here, you say, “Yes.”
“Of course you do.” She puts the dagger down on the bank within your reach, then slips her hand somewhere inside her sleeve, deeper than the cloth ought to allow. When she draws it out again there is an egg in her palm, black-speckled and oddly warm.
You frown at it.
“Eat.”
“What is it?”
“An egg,” she says. “Do not go witless on me now.”
You take it from her. The shell is warm indeed, almost hot. “And then?”
“Then you sleep. Then you wake altered. It need not trouble you beyond that.”
It turns in your hand. “Raw?”
The witch gives you a look of withering contempt. “No, child. Put it in a silver cup and take it with honey.” She bares her teeth. “Yes, raw.”
Your eyes lower, ashamed of the question. The shell cracks easily. The inside slides thick and strange over your tongue. You swallow twice to get it down. The witch watches every motion.
When it is done, you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and say, “How shall I find him?”
At that, something shifts in her face. Too rotten to be kindness, but it is the brief look of someone hearing a tune they know well.
“His blood is in the water,” she says.
Then she steps back, pulls the door open, and goes inside. It shuts between one blink and the next, leaving you in the bog with the dagger on the bank and the taste of the egg still clinging at the back of your throat.
You swim the way you came slowly. Moonlight makes the water mean and every root below look like a hand with the shape of something waiting. Above, the moon itself has thinned to a sickle near fine enough to seem a cut laid across the sky. It tells you that on the night of your judgement it will be gone altogether. You will hear it in the dark. His blood is in the water, the witch had said, and the current takes you at her word, carrying you through the narrow runs and back toward the broader stream where you first saw him kneel.
By the time you reach it, the bank is empty. You keep to the deeper part and let yourself drift there, belly turned uneasy by the egg, heart sore with a want that has already learned absence.
Sleep comes badly. Even so, it comes. The river rocks you. In the first fold of dreaming he leans over the bank again, all shadow and wet lashes, and this time when he opens his mouth it is not prayer that leaves it but your name. He reaches for you with a careful hand and thumb wedging under your chin. He bends and kisses you as though he has been thinking on nothing else.
Then the dream turns. Above you, something vast opens. The eye of god, grey and pale and lidless, hanging in the dark where the moon had been. Its patience is so complete the age of it exceeds the feeling of pity. Below, a pair of shears glints, iron-black and long as oars. The water thickens around you into a fat-like jelly, holds you fiercely, as the blades close with a sound no louder than a crab-shell snapping, and fire races you clean through.
Scale after scale dulls and loosens. Webbing parts. Bone groans as if gripped and wrung by unseen hands. Your tail splits where no living thing ought to split and your flesh draws apart. New joints wrench themselves into being with a wet internal crack that never seems to finish. You open your mouth to scream and swallow black water instead. Heat tears through you from spine to hip to the new-made lengths of you, all the way to ten small, useless ends where your body has never ended before. Hair roots burn. Teeth ache. Even your fingertips feel changed, as though the whole of you has been dragged through too narrow an opening and forced to come out other.
You wake choking while dawn creeps into the sky. Half on the bank, half in the wash of the stream, naked to the chill, with the dagger clutched to your breast. Air rasps into you thinly through mouth and nose, making panic strike at once. You paw at your ribs and find only smooth skin where your gills ought to flare. Sealed. Gone. You drag another breath and another, each one scant enough to frighten. The water at your side offers no help. It laps your hip stupidly, as if it does not know you.
When you look down, you see them. Legs.
Two of them, long and bare and wrong as peeled roots. Knees knuckled sharp. Feet splayed in the mud with their blunt little toes. They belong to you no more than the moon belongs to the bog. The sight turns your stomach. You put a hand to one thigh. The skin there is soft and strange, without scale or sheen or the strength of a tail built to drive through current. When you try to draw the limb in, the knee folds with a hideous ease and the whole thing jerks sideways. It feels loose. Breakable. Made badly.
Still, you have asked for them. You plant both palms in the earth and try to rise and pain bites through your middle. Your legs buckle, each seeming to choose a different direction. One foot slides out from under you. The other catches on nothing and twists. You go down hard on your hands, palms full of mud. For a while you can do nothing but crouch there trembling, hair hanging round your face, breath coming sharp and ugly through a body that no longer knows its own shape.
Morning hones itself as you kneel in it. The scent of his blood has thinned almost to nothing. In its place comes the rest: men everywhere, dead and living both. Sweat gone sour in gambesons. Split guts, horse piss, iron and smoke. The field beyond the trees breathes out ruin by the lungful.
You have three days. Three days to find the knight, make him love you, and keep your soul out of a witch’s hand. You cannot even stand. Water clouds your vision and you laugh bitterly at how it won’t let you go entirely.
On the morrow, Dunk sweeps through the edges of the battlefield after the worst of it, checking for men still breathing whose bodies might be saved or those who need a merciful hand to help them pass. His side aches badly where someone slashed him, one ear hears less than it did before the fight, and one of his sockets throbs with excess blood, but at least he’s not the one gasping his last. He keeps his eyes peeled for movement, yet when he notices a particular creature trembling at the very shore where his inept prayers were heard, he stills.
A girl. Mud-caked, naked, and—Gods—crying.
He hauls the reins on Sweetfoot at once, dulling an instinct to charge forward and holding her in a rushed trot instead. “M’lady!” he calls from horseback. “M’lady, be not afraid!”
Your eyes lift, but the rest of you dwindles immediately. Arms come to cover your head and Duncan notices you’re stricken with grime wrists to elbows as if you were trying to make your way uphill on all fours. He dismounts with a small grunt and hunches on instinct. His arms spread wide and gentle, and before he knows it he’s murmuring as he would to a skittish thing. “Easy now,” he whispers. “Easy. I vow this to you—I am no threat. My name is… Ser D-Duncan The Tall. I won't hurt you.”
The title sits oddly in his mouth when he’s half-shrunken and on bent legs. As he comes closer, his cheeks begin hoarding warmth despite him, for the shape of you is visible and evident even at this angle. Breasts plastered to your thighs billow with each frightened breath. Your belly creases in the middle and clay tears and crumbles off your knees when you shudder. He sees nothing else, but in his chest an unbearable instinct to cradle you almost overcomes him.
His head turns to the side, so he watches you only with his eye’s corner. When he’s close enough, he undoes his cape, spreads it gently over your back and lets it fall over you. He has a fleeting thought on what kind of smell it must carry and whether that matters.
Only then does he see the dagger. It is clutched in your fist, half-hidden by mud and the hunch of your body, but iron is iron. His hand stills on the edge of the wool. For a breath he says nothing. A crying maid with a blade is still a maid with a blade, and fear can make a body quicker than training.
“Easy,” he says again, lower. “You needn’t use that on me.”
You stop trembling enough to lift your face. The blade drops. Then all at once you are on him, hands closing round his waist with such force Dunk rocks back on his heels. Something reaches him through wool and shaking breath. Unintelligible mutter. Then—found me. And again, softer, urgent with respite. Knew you would. Knew you’d find me.
For a moment he does nothing but stand there with his own arms half-raised, startled clean through. Then they come round you, shy and boyish. One hand settles between your shoulders. He rubs once, then again, broad and slow, as though you are a frightened colt and his hand might smooth you into sense. “There now,” he says, because it is what comes. “There now.”
Beneath the mud and the cold reek of the stream there is a smell to you he cannot place. Something green. Something sweet. It cuts strangely through blood and horse and churned earth.
He lets you cling till your breathing eases enough to stop catching. When it eases, he gives your shoulders one careful squeeze and tries to look at your face without looking full at your face.
“M’lady,” he says. “Have you been hurt?” You shake your head against him. He swallows. “And your clothes—were you robbed?” There is a pause to that. Then you nod.
“Ah.” Dunk shuts his mouth on all the things that might follow that and does not ask them. “Well. I’ll take you to the village,” he says. “We’ll find something to put on your back, and someone to look you over.”
You do not let go, and he finds he does not much mind that. By now he is holding most of your weight besides. He means to set you back a little then, only enough to walk you to Sweetfoot, but the moment he loosens his hold your legs betray you. They fold queerly with the loose, witless give of limbs that do not know their own business. Dunk catches you fast under the arms before your knees can strike earth.
Some hurt in the low back, he thinks. Or the spine knocked wrong. He has seen men go slack in the limbs from less.
“Easy,” he says again, lower now. “I’ve you.”
Your head comes up. There is mud on your cheek, tears dried in bright tracks through it. Up close the sight of you lands worse on him than it did before. Such beauty in such a place. Such beauty at all. If someone asked him later, he would have no better answer than that.
“May I carry you?” he asks.
You nod.
He gathers the cape tight first, fingers making poor work of it. Then he crouches so you may put your arms round his neck. When you do, your face comes so near he feels the warmth of your breath on his mouth. His own has gone dry. “I will lift you now,” he says, for want of anything wiser.
One arm behind your back, the other under your knees. He brings you up. The pull in his side is vicious enough to whiten his sight for a blink, but he only grunts and holds you the tighter for it. You are light to him. Light should not be so difficult.
Sweetfoot turns her head and blows at the sight of you in Dunk’s arms. “Mind yourself,” Dunk mutters, and means the horse, and himself, and perhaps the day entire.
Getting you into the saddle proves ugly work. There is no good way to manage a naked maid wrapped in a cloak when one hand is wanted for decency, the other for balance, and his side seems set on parting company with him. He stands a moment with his jaw shut hard, then does it the only way such things ever get done—awkwardly.
“M’lady,” he says, hot-faced, “I must set you before me.” You only look at him with those wide, strange eyes and make no complaint.
He gets one boot to stirrup, hauls himself up enough to raise you after, and nearly fumbles you when the cloak slips and his forearm feels the bare warmth of your back through the wool. Heat runs through him so fast it feels wrong. He gets you right the second time by sheer stubbornness, settles you before the saddle-bow, then adjusts behind with a grunt he prays sounds like effort.
It does not improve matters.
There is no room worth speaking of. You sit before him with your hair damp and knees thrown to one side, and Dunk must put an arm round your middle the moment Sweetfoot moves or see you slide clean off. He has no notion what one does with a girl in such a fix. Horses, boys, wounds, armour, hard roads, those he understands. A maiden fair as vision and shaky in the limbs, is another matter. He finds himself hoping there is some widow in the village with a stern face and capable hands who might take one look at you and know everything he does not. Then he may ride on to Riverrun with peace in his mind.
The thought sits well enough till you lean back. A little more weight at each step, whether from weariness or trust he cannot tell. Soon your back is to his chest and your hair keeps straying under his chin. He has to look somewhere, so he looks at your hands on Sweetfoot’s neck.
Mud is dried in the lines of your palms and packed black beneath your nails. The nails themselves are pale in a way he mislikes. A drowned sort of blandness, as though the blood had only lately remembered to leave them. His hand closes harder on the reins.
What befell you? Robbed, you had said—no, nodded. Robbed of clothes and the strength in your legs. Robbed near of your wits, to be found bare and weeping on the skirts of slaughter. His mind offers up answers and every one of them is ugly.
“You are safe enough for now,” he says, because the words come and because he wants them said. “We’ll have you among decent folk directly.”
You say nothing. Perhaps doze. Perhaps you only listen. When Sweetfoot steps through a rut, your head tips back against him for an instant, and Dunk’s arm goes firmer round your waist.
Riverrun can wait an hour. Even a day, if it must. First the village. Clothes. Food. A woman to tend you. Then he will know what ought be done.
He keeps his eyes ahead and rides. When the road begins to thicken with huts and kitchen smoke he turns Sweetfoot toward the first cottage with a swept patch of yard and washing strung on a line. A hen darts from underhoof squawking. Dunk reins in, slides down, and reaches up for you.
The door opens before he can knock. A broad woman with red wrists and a face like a hatchet stands in the threshold, takes in Dunk, the horse, the cloak-wrapped girl in his arms, and narrows her eyes. “I can explain,” Dunk says, which is a poor beginning and sounds like one besides.
“Can you?” she says.
Heat climbs his neck. “I found her by the stream yonder. She’s been robbed, I think. She’s got no clothes, and her legs are none too steady. I thought—” He falters, then tries again. “I thought a woman might better see to her.”
The woman looks past him to your face. Something in hers shifts, not softer exactly, but less sharp. “Well, I am a woman,” she says. “Bring her in, then, you great oaf, and stand there bleeding on my threshold no longer.”
Dunk ducks his head and does as he’s bid. The cottage is low-ceilinged and close with the smell of onions and wool. He sets you down where the woman tells him, though not without trouble, for your legs go queer under you again and your hand catches in his sleeve with sudden force. “You are safe,” he says under his breath.
Your fingers tighten. “Please,” you whisper. “Do not leave.”
That near aches him more than the clinging had. “I’ll be just outside,” he says, for the woman is already flapping a hand at him to get out and because there is no fitting place for him in a room where a maid must be dressed. “Only outside. I vow it.”
A beat. Then, you let go. The door shuts on him. Dunk stands in the yard with a hand pressed to his side. Through the wall come the dim sounds of women’s voices, yours low and strange, the older one brisk and practical. Once there is a clatter. Once a silence long enough to make him straighten from the fence-post he had leaned on. He is thinking whether it would be madness to knock when the woman steps out at last, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Well?” Dunk asks.
“Well, nothing’s broke,” she says. “No fever that I can feel, no wound worth speaking of. She’s frightened half witless and weak in the legs, that’s all. Hungry, too, I’d say. May be she took some knock to the head. May be she was born a little moon-touched. Hard to say.”
Dunk blinks at her. “She knows her own name?” he asks.
The woman gives him a look. “She knows enough.”
That does not answer much, but before he can find a better question the door opens and you come out.
The clothes hang on you as they would on a child dressed from a dead woman’s chest: a coarse shift, a faded gown, sleeves a touch too short, hem uncertain, boots big enough to host toes twice as long as yours. Your hair has been pushed back from your face with damp hands. Your legs still look unsure of themselves. Dunk moves before thinking and takes you by the elbows when you waver on the step. “There now,” he murmurs. “Steady.”
You look up at him with such plain relief that his grip gentles.
The woman snorts softly behind you. “Take her home, then.”
Dunk clears his throat. “Aye. That is—” He looks down at you. “Where is your home, m’lady?”
Your hand comes up and closes over his forearm. “There is nothing for me there,” you say. Your fingers tighten. “Please.”
He opens his mouth, then shuts it. “I am bound for Riverrun,” he says at last. “I’ve business there. I cannot—”
“That is where I am going,” you say quickly. “The last place where I have anything. Please. Take me with you.”
Dunk stares. It may be nonsense. It may be the plain truth. It may be only the talk of a girl too frightened to be left among strangers. He cannot tell. What he can tell is the feel of your hand on his arm, the look of you trying not to sway where you stand, and the knowledge that if he leaves you here, he will think on it all the road to Riverrun and probably every road after.
The woman folds her arms and watches him make a misery of the choice. “Well?” she says.
Dunk lets out a breath. “I can take you as far as Riverrun,” he says, still looking at you. “No farther promised than that.”
Your smile is answer enough. Later, when doubt gets into him, it will be one of the things he reaches back for.
Soon after the village, Duncan finds himself about a number of tasks he had not meant to take on. He accepts the pity bundle of more garments from the woman, all of them light. He lifts you to the saddle, then goes back for Chestnut and Thunder. He loses the mark of his back, gathers his scant belongings, counts them, and thinks of the trouble of one bedroll. Riverrun lies four nights off, and his purse is too light for inns along the way. He shifts the saddle on Chestnut till it will hold you steady enough, then goes through the poor store of cloth he owns to see whether there is anything fit to spare you. At last he finds a blanket little better than rough army issue and ties it round your shoulders with a length of string.
When he is done, he steps back to look at you and nearly laughs for the misery of it. A strange girl with no place to go, less worldly goods than he has, a queer way of speaking, and legs that seem only half-convinced by land—and here he is, setting his road to her pace as though this were a sensible thing. Duncan knows well enough what sort of fool he is. Dunk the Lunk, thick as a castle wall, slow as an aurochs. Still, his mouth pulls into a shy half-smile.
“Ready?” he asks.
The world of men continues to bewilder. They kill each other relentlessly and let the bodies rot out in the fields until crows find them. They speak oddly. They wear clothes. Rough things that scratch the skin round armpits and knees, and make their beasts wear clothes too. They walk on two imbalanced legs that have less sense to them than you would ever think they have, which end with feeble little things that need the most woeful instrument imaginable to stay protected—shoes.
The pain comes on you late. At first everything is so strange that the cuts in your feet barely matter. Then, just as you get the first grasp on how to walk on those fleshy stilts, an old woman gives you a shift, a skirt that wedges itself between your thighs, stockings that roll beneath your knees, and a pair of disgusting animal-skin things that make the wound across your sole press and bleed, press and bleed. You could fit another set of those ugly little toes into them and still they’d knock your ankles raw. Duncan seems to think your wits were rumbled sideways by whatever befell you, and sighs through his nose each time you try a few wobbling steps before giving up and tossing you from one place to another. From doorstep to horseback. From horseback to ground. From ground back to horseback again. Then, the horse takes over the carrying.
None of this matters greatly. None of it rubs you wrong in any way, because your knight has found you and agreed to take you to Riverrun, of which you know only that it is overrun with rivers and mean spirits, and you want nothing to do with either. You want everything to do with him, though, so you let the beast called Chestnut carry you toward it and knock your newly acquired arse against the hard leather of her saddle.
You glance at him often, only to make certain you were right to choose him, but Duncan proves worth every bruise on your buttocks. He is prettier close by. Washed of blood, his face goes almost holy at moments—too open and clean in the look of it—then a shift of shade will catch under the brow and jaw and make a man of him again so suddenly it gives you pause. His arms are strong enough to carry a girl like you. His heart, plainly, is soft enough to help one and trust one within the space of a single hesitant breath.
That softness lives in him in sly places. Not only in the face, though the face does its share. In the stammer that catches him when he is too aware of himself. In the way he asks leave before he touches you, as though a thing may be both necessary and solemn. In how he handles even his own size like it might alarm somebody if set down too hard. You begin to see that the boyishness in him is not only a matter of smooth cheeks and dark lashes and that honest mouth. It lives deeper. Some tender piece of him has made it to his great age uncrushed.
You have no notion what he knows of love. His lips look unkissed, which strikes you at once as improbable and agreeable. Kissable all the same. So are his cheeks, if it comes to that, and the hollows under his eyes look made for the brushing of thumbs in acts of pity or fondness or whatever human girls do when they mean to soothe a man. You think, in the stupid way of girls, that it may be just as well if he knows nothing. You know very little yourself. The males of your kind are greedy, quarrelsome creatures who would bite the shine off a scale if they thought it theirs by right. The tenderest kiss you have ever given in all your life was to a trout, and that was mostly because it was dying.
Still, you know enough to know this: there is something dear in a creature so large keeping such a breakable heart inside him. Duncan feels safe to you in the way deep water once did. Not because he could not drown you if he wished, but because every part of him seems arranged against wishing it.
The road, of course, is another matter. It goes on and on, pale and hard beneath the horses, made by men for reasons men must have found clever. When there is no canopy the sun comes down bare and mean, scorching your face, your scalp, the tender tops of your hands. Dust lifts and settles in your throat. The saddle knocks under you with a steady, sour persistence, and after a while even wonder thins into boredom. You cannot understand why anyone would choose such a path. Roads have no give. They hold the day’s heat. They are full of stones and wheel-ruts and the old droppings of beasts. Water, at least, takes your shape when it carries you.
But then, toward evening, the land alters. Light begins to bleed richer colours over everything. It gathers in the grasses and tips the hedges. It slicks itself along the backs of flies until the air is full of brief, burning specks. The trunks of trees grow black on one side and warm on the other, and the far fields seem to have been brushed by something molten and low. From the height of Chestnut’s back, you see land from its own heart for the first time: furrow, ditch, thorn, moss, little stones shining in the road, the long back of the world lifting itself toward dark.
The dying sun finds Duncan too. It catches in his hair until the auburn of it wakes with red-gold hidden under it, banked fire stirred by a stick. All of him brightens: cheek, ear, the blunt line of his nose, the great slope of shoulder under travel-stained cloth. When the sun begins to go, his colours come alive. It seems unfair that a thing may grow more beautiful just when the light is going, as if it was never meant to be kept.
“M’lady?” His voice pulls you from the sky. You turn your head and find him watching you from Sweetfoot’s back. “Are you tired?”
You consider this. “Tired of what?”
He blinks.
“Sitting on a beast?” you ask.
A sound leaves him then, low and huffed through his nose. “Aye. Riding can weary a body. We should make camp soon. It will be dark before long.”
You look him over for signs of weariness, but he shows none that you can read. He sits tall enough, broad enough, with the reins easy in one hand and the dust on him as if it has been there all his life. “The road is hard,” you allow. “The beast is delightful.”
At that you lean forward and wrap both arms around Chestnut’s neck. Chestnut blows out a pleased breath and dips her head as if she agrees with you entirely.
Duncan stares for a moment. Then his mouth presses itself into a line and he looks back to the road.
“Do people always choose paths this hard?” you ask.
“This?” he says. “This is no hard road. It’s straight, and flat enough, and there’s no great wind to cut at us. There are harder paths than this.”
You frown. “Why would anyone take a harder path?”
“Sometimes they must.”
You consider that gravely. Men do seem fond of arranging misery into rules and then obeying them.
After another little while, Duncan says, “Keep your eyes peeled for a place to camp, if there is one you like.”
Your hand lifts before he has finished speaking. “There.”
He follows the line of your finger. There is only a thick tangle of trees and bramble ahead, with sun lying through the branches. “There?” he says.
“By the water.”
He looks again, slower this time, as if water may show itself out of courtesy. “There ain’t water there, m’lady.”
“There is.”
His gaze comes back to you. It is a look you dislike before you understand it. Careful. Mild. The look given to a creature who has said something foolish and might be frightened if the foolishness is named aloud. Pity sits in it, thinly covered.
Heat pinches under your ribs. “Beyond those trees,” you say. “Where the sun takes aim. There is water.”
Duncan shifts in the saddle. For a moment it seems he means to answer. Instead he only draws a breath and turns Sweetfoot’s head. “All right, then.”
The gentleness of it makes the pinch in you flare hotter. The males of your own kind speak so when they wish to make you small. Little thing, pretty thing, witless thing. They forget how quickly a little thing can open a throat when she has teeth and a mind to use them. How a male may reach for you in the weeds, grinning, and only know himself dead when his fingers will no longer close because all the blood has run out of them.
You say nothing. Chestnut follows Sweetfoot off the road and into the green press, Thunder trots close behind with all of the belongings clinking at his sides.
Branches drag over your shoulders. Leaves brush your face and catch in your hair. The ground grows softer almost immediately, darkening underhoof. You hear it before he does, of course: the low, glassy talk of water over stone, hidden under bird-call and the rasp of insects. A moment later Duncan hears it too. His head lifts. Sweetfoot’s ears prick forward. He urges her on a little faster without looking back.
The trees thin, and beyond them lies a small bed of grass pressed close to a clear stream running lazy under evening light. A willow grows at the bank with its long hair fallen into the water, making a green chamber beneath it. The surface holds the last of the sun in broken pieces and lets them go again.
Duncan reins in. At first, he only looks. “Well,” he says at last, quiet and baffled. “Gods be good.” You sit straighter on Chestnut’s back when he turns to you. “How did you know?”
Your chin lifts, because even though he has no right to know, you are a proud creature. “I am not so witless as you think me, knight.”
At that his face changes. The bafflement stays, but something troubled comes into it too. “I never thought you witless,” he says.
Instead of dignifying that with a response, you begin getting off Chestnut. It seems simple enough. One leg must go somewhere, then the other after it, and the ground waits below with its usual bad intentions. You slide halfway down the saddle and there the business collapses. Your skirt catches, one foot finds nothing. Your hands clutch at leather and mane, and you are left hanging from the side of the beast in a deeply humiliating fashion, breathing hard through your nose.
Duncan is there before you make a fool of yourself entire. His hands span your waist through the shift, large and warm and terribly sure. He lifts you down as if the effort costs him nothing, though you have seen the way his side catches sometimes when he thinks you are looking elsewhere.
“I only meant,” he says, setting you on the grass with more care than the world deserves, “you keep surprising me.”
You say nothing to that. Only look at him from close by, and shamelessly so. He is shy for a lad this big. It pleases and worries you in equal measure. It makes you wonder, briefly and without comfort, whether he will know what to do with you at all. Whether he knows how men put themselves between the legs of women who want them so dearly. Whether, third night from this one, the witch will have the soul she grinned for.
Before you can ask, Duncan looks away. “You may bathe, if you like,” he says. “Under the willow there. I’ll start a fire. See to some food. Water the horses after.” Then he turns from you with the haste of a sailor escaping a sinking ship.
The first thing you lose is the shoes. You wrench them off and drop them in the grass with hatred. The cut across your sole still presses when your foot meets earth, but at least it is no longer trapped against leather, forced to bleed and bleed in its own little prison. The stockings go next, or try to. They roll and cling beneath your knees like pale eels. Then, the blanket. You tug at the ties and laces and strings, cross with their stubbornness, then only angrier. Human clothes are full of tricks and no kindness. At last, with a tired grunt, you pull the shift up over your head.
Behind you, wood clatters. You look round.
Duncan stands a few feet away with firewood scattered at his boots. His mouth has parted. For one suspended moment he simply gapes. Then flush climbs fiercely round his ears, up his neck, into his face, and he drops into a crouch to gather the sticks as if they have become suddenly precious.
“M-m’lady,” he says, strangled. “You oughtn’t—Seven save me—you oughtn’t undress before a man you scarce know.”
You stare at him.
“I thought you meant to go beneath the willow,” he goes on, still looking hard at the twigs. “Out of sight. I thought—what are you doing? Have you never been on the road? Or near men? Or near folk at all?”
An instinct pinches you, strange and unwelcome, to cover your chest. You do, though slowly, and with no clear idea why. He looks as if you have done him some harm. “It is only flesh,” you say. “You have flesh too. What is so wicked about mine that you cannot look?”
He makes a small, suffering sound and bends lower over the firewood. “My flesh is—” He stops. Swallows. Tries again. “It is different.”
You glance down at yourself, then at him. “How?”
His hand closes on a stick so tightly the bark cracks. “M’lady, I beg you.”
“For what?”
“For pity,” he says, so miserably that your brows lift. “It is improper, is all. A maid shouldn’t—And I don’t mean to have you think I’m that sort of man. I am trying to do good by you.”
He sounds so nervous your annoyance falters. Only for a moment.
You pick up the shift and hold it to your chest, then begin toward the bank. Walking still feels like being made to argue with the earth. Each step must be planned, lowered, endured. Too much pressure and the pain flares white-hot. Too little and your knee goes soft. Your feet seem stupidly far away from the rest of you, little traitors sent ahead to ruin your dignity.
You stop beside him. Duncan bows his head even lower, as though your bare ankle might strike him blind.
“Do you dislike women’s bodies?” you ask.
The sound he makes then is very nearly a whine. “Please, m’lady. Spare me. I am only a hedge knight. I am trying—please.”
You huff at him. “Forgive me for tormenting you with some skin.” Then you limp on beneath the willow’s hanging hair.
There, hidden by the long green fall of it, you strip with more temper than grace and lower yourself toward the stream. This is going poorly. Your knight does not seem at all like the men you have watched from the shallows, those shore-men who seize their lovers round the waist and press them down laughing in the dark, bodies gleaming, mouths so sinful your tail once twitched hard enough to stir silt. Duncan behaves as though the sight of you is a trial set by cruel gods.
At least there is water.
The stream receives you kindly, though changed skin and sealed ribs make even kindness strange. You lie back over its cool sheet and drift where it is deep enough to hold you, looking up through the willow leaves as they sieve the last gold from the sky. The current slips beneath your new body, uncertain around the parts it no longer knows, and you let it carry what little of you it still can.
Duncan remains crouched over the scattered firewood long after you limp beneath the tree, ears burning as though someone has boxed them both. The stream talks quietly behind him. The horses crop at the grass.
He has no answer for what has just happened. None he likes, anyway.
You are strange. Stranger than any girl he has known, though known is too large a word for the few girls that ever had cause to look twice at him. Your face is strange too, in how open it is. He has not seen one so plain and easy to read since he was a boy looking down into still puddles and finding his own there. He can tell when you are baffled. When you are tired. When you are pleased. When you are angry.
Now you are angry. Likely under the willow still wearing that fierce little frown, cross with him because he turned his eyes away. That is the oddest part. Most maids, he thinks, would be angry with a man for gaping. You seem wounded that he did not gape longer.
He did gape. Only a heartbeat, maybe, before sense struck him like a thrown stone, but a heartbeat can be a mean long while when a girl stands bare in afternoon light. He saw the lift of your breasts before your arms came up, full where the borrowed shift had hidden them, and prickling with river-cool air. He saw the narrow give of your belly, the line where ribs fell into waist, the dark crease of shadow beneath. Enough. More than enough. Too much for a man meant to be gathering sticks and doing honourable things with his hands.
You asked how your flesh was different from his. The terrible thing is he would only need to stand up to show you.
That thought near makes him groan aloud. He jams another stick into the small pit he has scraped clear with his boot and starts arranging kindling with far more care than kindling deserves. Fire. Food. Horses. Bedroll. Those are proper troubles. Those can be solved with hands and a bit of sense.
The bedroll is the worst of them. Four nights to Riverrun. A purse too light for inns unless he means to arrive there hungry and horseless. He pokes at the kindling and gives himself over to a hard, practical anguish.
When the fire catches, he goes to see to the horses. Sweetfoot accepts his hand with her usual calm. Chestnut, traitor that she is, blows warm air straight into his face and tosses her head toward the willow.
“Oh, have you a new favourite?” Duncan mutters. Chestnut chews at nothing, looking pleased with herself. “Aye. Good. All of you against me, then.”
He returns to the fire with what food he has: one mangy rabbit still fit for roasting, a clutch of withered potatoes that have begun trying to become more potatoes, and bread gone hard enough to argue with a knife. He has had worse meals. Many worse. Still, he finds himself worrying whether it will be enough for a tender-mouthed creature like you, whether you are used to finer things, softer things, things served by hands that have never been black with battlefield mud.
The whole day sits oddly in his skull. Morning had found him still full of war. Blood from the day before. The sour stink of men opened for no good reason. Boys felled in the grass with their eyes gone milky and their mothers’ names drying on their tongues. He had been angry then, in a slow thick way, at killing and lords and banners and all the great heavy wheels that roll over little bodies until no one can tell what shape they had.
Then he found you by the stream, naked, half-wild with fear, concussed or close enough, begging him without quite begging to take you with him. Now you are angry because he would not stand there and leer at your tits.
Duncan understands horses better than people. Dogs too. Even mules, ugly-hearted beasts though they can be. A horse gives warning before it kicks. A dog shows teeth before it bites. People smile, weep, lie, ask strange questions, go hurt in places a man cannot see. You escape even the small customs he has managed to learn.
He lifts his eyes from the rabbit just as the wind moves the willow’s hanging hair aside. Through the green gaps, he sees you.
You are floating on your back where the stream broadens under the tree, arms spread loose on either side, legs moving slowly beneath the skin of the water. The last light scatters over you in pieces. A knee and a hip. The small rise of your belly. Water darkens and brightens as it crosses you, breaking your shape and making it whole again. Your hair fans out around your head. Your eyes are closed, mouth parted, and the stream slips between your lips as though you have invited it.
Duncan ought to look away, but the boy he is, he doesn't.
There is enough of you on display to shame a septa dead in her robes. Breasts, thighs, the place between them blurred and shown by water in turns. Yet your face holds him worst. The peace of it, the ease of it. Stripped of cloth and terror and all the hard rules that seem to trouble you, you look newly made and older than the earth together. Not human, he thinks. Then he feels wicked for it, because you are a girl, and hurt, and under his protection.
Still, you look like one of those goddesses men carved in old stones before the Seven came, the kind Duncan knows nothing about except that a wiser man would kneel or run. You look pleased to have the world off your skin. No wonder you shed clothing like a snare.
The willow falls back into place. Green covers you again. Duncan looks down at the rabbit, jaw tight, and turns it over the flame before it can make it to coal. He scolds himself too, keeps muttering Ser Arlan's little knightly preachings to tear his mind away from what boys think about, and back to what sworn swords should think about.
The stream sloshes and plops with the sound of a body being dragged out of it. There, Dunk wonders what exactly to do, because he knows well enough you are no good at walking yet, but finds himself in the grip of a strange preference. He would rather let the stumble happen and rush to help than prevent it outright, if prevention means enduring another comparison of flesh.
Soon enough, he catches you limping from the corner of his eye to the heart of his vision. You come to sit beside him much too close for his peace. The cold of the river comes off you plainly, running against the heat of his shoulder where yours nearly touches. Damp has darkened your hair and set loose drops along your neck. Before he can shift away without making it an insult, you arrange yourself with great importance and announce, “There. Modest.”
Dunk looks. Stupidly, but he does. He has never known cloth to be a thing worthy of praise. Cloth is only cloth. A courtesy. A barrier. A way for decent folk to go about the world without setting fire to one another’s ears. Yet in his want to tell you that you have done well, he stabs his own foot clean through.
The linen has clung to you everywhere it ought to have had the manners to hang loose. Breast, belly, the small inward draw of your waist—all made plainer by water and the thinness of the shift. The blanket lies in a heap too near the fire, abandoned as though wool has somehow offended you.
He holds the lump in his throat from becoming a sound. Then he reaches for the blanket, shakes the worst of the grass from it, and puts it over your shoulders with as much solemn care as if he were robing a queen. He draws it close beneath your throat and tucks one edge over the other.
“You’ve not dried yourself off,” he says. “Cold, aren’t ye?”
You look at him for a moment. Then, there's a nod, and, thank the Seven, your hands take over the keeping of the blanket at your breastbone. The lump in Dunk's throat loosens.
He busies himself with the food. The rabbit has given what it can to the pot, which is less than a rabbit ought to give and more than nothing. The potatoes have softened. The bread will have to be chewed with conviction. He ladles the thin pottage into one of his wooden bowls and passes it to you.
You take it in both hands and eye it with open suspicion. “What is this?”
“Supper,” he says.
You smell it.
“It ain’t much,” Dunk goes on, because the look on your face begins to trouble him. “Only rabbit and some potatoes, and the bread’s gone hard. Still, you ought to eat. There’s a day on the road ahead, and you’ve had naught in you since—” He stops, because he does not know since when. “A while, I’d wager.”
He expects disappointment, perhaps. Revulsion, if you are some lord’s daughter after all, though what lord’s daughter finds herself naked and half-drowned by a stream is beyond him.
Instead, you look bewildered. “You made this?”
Dunk blinks. “A-aye, m’lady.”
You dip your fingers in before he can offer a spoon. The first bite goes into your mouth carefully, as though supper may have sharp bits within it. Then your face changes.
It is a small thing, merely a lifting of brows and mouth pausing round the taste. Then you take another bit, and another, hotter than is wise, huffing through it and laughing once under your breath as though the whole notion of cooked rabbit has played some clever trick on you. Grease shines at the corner of your mouth. You lick it away with no shame at all.
“This is good,” you say, and sound surprised by your own gladness. “This is very good.”
Dunk is bewildered. It is one kind of cruelty to tease him and huff at him for trying his best at decency and failing, another to make a jest out of him and his hedge-ridden status. He looks down into his own bowl.
“Must you mock me?”
You stop chewing at once. The mouthful is too large to swallow cleanly, but you do it anyway and wince as it goes down. “Mock you?” you ask. “Why would I?”
“It’s only rabbit,” he mutters. “And mangled potatoes. You needn’t make a show of it.”
The hurt that comes into your face lands in him badly.
“I did not mean to hurt you,” you say. “Forgive me. I only meant—I would not be able to make this.” A pause. “Or start a fire, for that matter.”
Dunk lifts his head. “You do not know how to start a fire?”
You look at him a moment too long, then back into the bowl. “I’ve never needed it.”
That answer is another strange stone set on the growing pile of you. He gives a low hum and scrapes at his own supper with the spoon. “Well,” he says after a moment, rough with regret. “I beg your pardon, then. If you truly enjoy it, I am glad.”
Your eyes lift. “I do. Truly.”
Knowing it is true does something worse than the praise did. It catches him off guard and warms him under the breastbone, soft and dangerous. He leans back on one hand, taking you in. Half-smile, bare feet peeking from beneath the blanket, bowl clutched as though it contains some small wonder.
“So,” he says, because his mouth is safer when it is trying to crack an unresolvable riddle, “you’re a lady who cannot cook, cannot start a fire, and despises garments and shoes, but has some queer prescience when it comes to finding a body of water. Hm?”
Silence only, then a wide-eyed glance.
“Peculiar,” Dunk says.
“I do not understand why men wear so much cloth anyway,” you say, picking at the blanket where it sits under your chin. “What is peculiar is to have skin so feeble—”
There, your voice dies. Dunk has gone very still with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Men?” he says.
You blink.
“You are people too,” he says, after a beat.
The words are gentle enough, but they come with a puzzled furrow between his brows, as though he is trying to set you in the proper place and cannot find the shelf. He takes another mouthful and chews it slowly. “Have you worn lighter cloth before, then? Before… all this?”
Before the stream, he means. Before the mud. Before the village woman and the borrowed gown. Before whatever thing he has decided happened to you.
Your fingers tighten round the bowl. “Lighter, yes.”
“How light?”
You give him a careful look.
Dunk seems to understand his mistake before you answer. Red returns to his ears with comic speed. “Never mind. You needn’t— That was no question to ask a maid.”
You consider him. “Do you not often see women naked?”
He chokes. It is only a little choke, but enough to make him turn his face and thump one fist against his chest. “Gods,” he says when he has breath again. “M’lady.”
“I am only asking.”
“Aye, well. Some questions ought to be asked with more care.”
“Why?”
“Because they—” He looks at you, then away, then helplessly down to his lap. “Because they put thoughts in a man’s head.”
“What thoughts?”
His mouth opens. Shuts. You lean closer, interested so plainly Dunk near suffocates on air that suddenly feels chewable in his mouth. “Do women’s bodies trouble all men so badly, or only hedge knights?” you ask.
He makes the suffering sound again. Quieter this time, but telling all the same. “I've seen women,” he says, with the grave misery of a fool walking barefoot over hot coals. “Some. A few. In bathhouses, once or twice by mistake. On the road, folk are not always private as they ought be. And, uh—” He clears his throat so hard it sounds painful. “And in places where women are paid to be looked at.”
You stare. “Paid?”
“Aye.”
“To be looked at?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
Dunk puts his bowl down. You wait. He looks into the fire as if the flames might take pity on him and leap high enough to swallow his face. “Things between men and women.”
“What things?”
“Married things,” he says, too quickly.
“Only married people do them?”
His eyes close briefly. “No.”
“Then why call them married things?”
“Because I am trying to keep this talk decent,” Dunk huffs.
You frown into your supper. “Have you done them?” you ask.
It is such a rude and forthright question it strikes bone in him, though somehow it does not quite offend. His face pulls tight. The flush burns hotter, but something under it draws inward, shy and sore and young.
“N-no,” Duncan says, small.
You lean closer, as if trying to match him in secrecy lest his horses suddenly recognise human tongue. “Never?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He gives a small, helpless shrug. “I’ve had no wife.”
“But you said folk do these things without wives.”
“Aye, some do.” He groans then, low and exasperated, dragging one hand over his mouth. “Gods.”
“But you do not.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His thumb moves over the rim of his bowl. There is dirt under the nail, a split at the knuckle, the hand of a man who knows fire and reins and sword-hilts and very little of where to put himself when a girl asks him plain questions in the dusk.
“Seemed wrong, most times,” he says. “Or costly. Or I was too young. Or too big and stupid and slow to know what was wanted till the chance had gone.”
He goes quiet after that, hoping it is enough of a confession to satisfy you. Another part of him wonders what business he has entertaining the whim at all. A puzzle of a girl you are, that is for certain. Strange in your questions, in your frowns, in the careless tilt of your head when you hear a thing you cannot place.
Then a thought comes on him, tender and stupid enough to shame him: is this another chance he cannot recognise while it is being given? He lifts his face to check yours for some sign of what he imagines a lustful glance might be, though he has no real notion what he expects to find there. Heat? Mischief? Some womanly knowledge he would know when he saw it? Before he can make any proper fool’s study of you, you ask another question.
“Do you like kissing?”
You might as well have picked up a knife by the blade. “I—” His throat works. “I suppose I might.”
“You suppose?”
He breathes heavy. His skin surely can’t get any hotter, so he answers, “I have kissed.”
Your eyes brighten at that, keen enough to make him regret the disclosure at once. “How many times?”
Duncan laughs then, though there is little mirth in it. Nerves, mayhaps. Or the pure severity of you sitting there with rabbit grease on your mouth, asking after his kisses as if counting apples in a basket. He has admitted to being green and now sounds greener still. “Seven save me,” he whines.
“How many?”
“Enough to know a man should not count in front of a lady.”
“Was it good?”
The fire pops. Somewhere behind the pair of you one of the horses tears grass with its teeth. Dunk sits in deepening blushing silence.
You eat another bite. Hum, as if the flavours have managed to marry into something more delicious during the interrogation. “At the shore,” you say then, “men kiss women as if they are hungry.”
Dunk’s gaze snaps to you.
“I have seen it,” you add. “They hold them by the waist and put them down in the grass. Sometimes the women laugh. Sometimes they make sounds as if they are being bitten, but they keep their hands in the men’s hair, so I think they must like it.”
Duncan feels himself go past blushing into something worse. Stricken, feverish, and too aware of the place where his belly has kicked tight under your words. He cannot have you thinking him that sort of knight. Cannot sit here in the dark with you speaking of women pressed into grass and let his mind go where it has already begun to go.
“M’lady,” he says, and hears the plea in it himself. “I think we ought to try and get some sleep.”
“It is barely dark,” you say.
“It will be darker soon.”
“That happens whether we sleep or not.”
“Aye,” he says faintly. “So it does.”
You lick a bit of grease from your thumb. His eyes move there and away so fast he prays you miss it. “Do you want more supper?” he asks.
You smile into your bowl. “You are changing the subject.”
He smiles back, weakly. Hopes there is enough begging in it, though judging by your curiosity about every cursed thing under the moon, falling to his knees would only give you more to ask about. “I am… trying to save my soul.”
Your laugh comes out small and surprised, and it spills warm through his chest in a way that has no business being so pleasant.
“Eat,” he says. “Then sleep. There will be more road on the morrow, and you already hate the road.”
“I hate the shoes more,” you tell him.
“Aye. I had gathered.”
“And the stockings.”
“A terrible foe,” Dunk says, standing up.
“And the laces.”
“Cruel little beasts.”
You glance at him, something sharp and pleased on you. It is very difficult to keep thoughts from his head, foul thoughts, when you look like this. His heart softens a notch while the other parts of him harden, and before he is forced back to sitting, Dunk turns and tells you, “I’ll water the horses and prepare the bedroll for us.”
He does so. You follow him soon after, quiet-footed for once, and stop to eye the splay of oilcloth and old wool on the ground as if it is another human custom laid out for judgment.
Dunk clears his throat. “You should lie down. You’ve had a long day.”
That much, at least, you obey. You lower yourself carefully, one knee bending wrong at first, then righting with a frown that makes him look away before fondness can show too plainly on his face. He waits until you are settled, then pulls the blanket up over you and tucks it in at your shoulder. Only a little. Only enough to keep the night air off. His hand stills there for half a heartbeat before he draws it back.
Then he turns, draws his sword, and lays it down between the two sides of the bedroll.
It makes a good enough line. Honest steel. Cold steel. A better man than he is, perhaps, lying straight-backed where honour ought to be.
You watch him do it, and Dunk pretends not to notice.
Getting himself down beside you is less graceful than he would like. He lowers carefully, trying to favour the slash in his side, but the wound pulls anyway and a wince catches him regardless. He settles on his back at last with a breath through his teeth, one arm tucked behind his head, his body held a proper distance from the blade.
For a while there is only the fire. The horses. The soft working of water under the willow. But, of course, you must ask. “What is the sword for?”
Dunk shuts his eyes and opens them again. “For sleeping.”
You turn your face toward him. He can feel it without looking. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No,” he says quickly. “No, m’lady. It is only—” He searches for the words and finds only poor ones. “It is a boundary, like. For your honour.”
“My honour?”
“Aye.”
“Does it need steel?”
Dunk rubs a hand over his brow. “Mayhaps mine does.”
That comes out wrong enough to make him go still. He tries again before you can catch hold of it.
“I mean, it is proper. A man and a maid should not lie close without vows between them. Or kinship. Or—” He thinks of hedge knights, camp followers, drunk squires, road wives, all the world as it is rather than as septons pretend it to be. “Or some understanding.”
You hum. It is only a small sound, but it slips soft through the dark and goes straight into his groin. Pretty. Gods help him, even that is pretty. Your voice has no need of song to work on a man.
Dunk fixes his eyes on the sky. “I do not wish you to think ill of me,” he says, lower. “That is all.”
Another stretch of quiet. The fire clicks and collapses inward on itself.
“Do husbands and wives sleep like this too?”
Dunk's lids squeeze shut so hard they hurt.
He ought to answer. He knows he ought. It is a simple question, mayhaps, though no question of yours has proved simple yet. But he has no answer fit to give without inviting ten more behind it, each worse than the last. His side aches. His head aches. His body is a foe beside a sword that suddenly seems no wider than a blade of grass.
So Dunk lies very still and does his worst pretending to be asleep. After a moment, you hum again, as if you know perfectly well he is awake and have decided to let him keep the lie.
everyone writes for jealous maekar but what about jealous wife 😔 he would secretly love it even if his wife tries to play it off but deep down it's on sight.
Jealousy jealousy
Part of the stepmum series but you don’t need to read it to know what’s going on, set in the first year of marriage.
“Daeron, who’s that?” You ask your eldest stepson, who’s just turned nine, at Prince Valarr’s nameday celebrations. Maekar stood off to the side with a brunette woman next to him who keeps touching his arm, while laughing obnoxiously.
“Who? Oh, her.” He says a disgusted look on his face when he sees who’s talking to his father. “That’s lady Quickly, she was going to marry father before he met you.”
“He was?” You ask now glaring at them, Maekar never telling you about this woman.
“Yeah, grandmother was trying to get them together.” Daeron says not thinking anything off it as he’s eating cake. “Areion bit her once.”
“Good boy.” You mumble to yourself, still glaring at the woman and your husband. Daeron letting out a laugh when he hears you.
“But don’t worry father is obsessed with you.” He says, drinking your cider. You having confiscated wine of the boy already. “It’s actually quite gross.”
“I know.” You say trying to sound unbothered but failing miserably gives the look Daeron gives you. “It’s just he belongs to two women and nether one are this ‘lady Quickly’” you tell the boy, making a voice as you say her name.
“Two?” Daeron asks confused, wondering who this other woman is.
“Dyanna of course, she’s the only person I’ll share with.” You say, not able to continue talking to the boy. As you see Aerion sneak up behind his cousin with a toy sword, hitting the nameday boy over the head with it. “Oh for fucks sake. Aerion!”
“What?” The boy shouts over, giggling when Valarr pushes him.
-
“So how’s your wife?” You ask your husband, having just put Aemon and Aerion to bed. Daeron being allowed to have a sleepover with some of the other children. (Aerion was uninvited)
“I don’t know, how are you?” He asks confused, moving to help you out of your dress. Not bothering to call for a servant to help when he was right there.
“Oh I thought lady Quickly was your wife.” You say, holding your dress up as he unties the laces.
“Who? Do you mean the crazy lady who wouldn’t stop touching me?” He asks taking your necklace off for you as he was already behind you, kissing your neck as he removes it.
“Last I heard you were going to marry her.” You say trying to sound casual as you let your dress fall to the floor, shift still on.
“Her?” He asks a disgusted look in his face. “Gods no, she’s fucking insane. Her last husband killed himself and I don’t blame him.” He says pulling you back to him when you try to walk away. “Wait? Are you jealous?”
“Of course not, I don’t get jealous.” You say at an embarrassing speed, taking out your hairpins. So you don’t have to look at him. “What a crazy thing to say.”
“You’re jealous.” You hear his say a smirk clearly on his face, when he makes you look at him. “Who’d of thought you’d be the jealous one.”
“Oh you can’t talk, you dismissed a knight because he said I looked pretty.” You counter before realising that’s admitting that you’re jealous. “And I’m not jealous.”
“Right and I’m not a prince.” He says sarcastically before gently holding your jaw in his hand. “Do you need me to show you who I belong to?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.” You say against him nipping his bottom lip as you do so, giggling when he gives your arse a quick slap in retaliation.
-
“Is it true Aerion bit her?” You ask a few hours later when you’re cuddling in bed together, your head resting on his bare chest. Him drawing shapes on your back, kissing your head every so often. Specifying when he just hums in confusion. “Lady Quickly.”
“Ohh her, mother made me have tea with her once when she was trying to find me a new wife. Aerion didn’t like her.” He says absentmindedly, forgetting about the meeting until now. “She was incredibly annoying, I told mother after that if I’m to remarry it will be with someone I choose.”
“Good.” You say kissing his chest.
“Good that I chose my own wife or good Aerion bit her?” He asks a smirk on his face, loving when you’re the jealous one. It normally being him glaring at the idiot who tries to flirt with you.
Tags: readers first makeout🫶 fingering F reviving, Handjob, cuddling, fucking on the floor👏, arranged marriage, Maekar doesn’t want a 2nd wife (what else is new), near drowning incident, PnV sex, unprotected sex, losing virginity, brief mention of blood, Maekar experiencing guilt (and reflecting on it *shocker*)
Summary: you’ve married Maekar but the only people who have really welcomed you to Summerhall are his youngest three children. When you risk your own life to protect them Maekar finally has to admit that you do have a place here!
word count: 6.1 k
A/N: I loveeee grumpy Maekar but am shit at writing those snappy quips so that’s why he’s always troubling enamored so quickly by the reader in my fics 🙈
“Don’t-“ you were so winded when you grabbed Aegon’s arm that you needed to breath for a solid moment before continuing on. “Don’t run off like that.” You scold him bending a bit so you two were eye to eye.
You’d been lucky to not need to do much scolding of your husbands children. Which had benefitted you greatly while navigating the complexities of running a hall that had been devoid of a lady, a mother for some time. The little ones probably liked you because of the attention you gave them, because of how you enjoyed playing their silly games when their father had no time…or patience for it.
Though with the cold weather their temperaments changed. They never seemed to have enough avenues to exert their energy since their playing was all stuck inside.
The cold did not feel as suffocating to you. It was just apart of life in the north and the storm land hardly got as frozen and bitter as things got back home. Which was why you had decided to bundle the younger ones all up and take them for a walk. You thought they might like to see the frozen leaves, perhaps look for one of the robins that’s feather became easy to spot again the white forest floor.
Maekar had not looked up from his papers when you suggested it at break of fast. The only way you knew he had even heard your proposal was the warning he grumbled out to Egg, Daella and Rhae to behave for you.
Perhaps you should have then them each out individually because the three of them together just led to far to much energy.
“There pond is around here somewhere and the last thing you need is to wind up under broken ice!” You warned him. It was serious, you did not want to see them injured….and it was your responsibility to see to them.
Maekar had made that clear. You knew before the wedding that he had not sought you out. You’d just been conveniently there when the topic of him taking a second wife came up. It was all rather flattering, the Queen herself suggested you to Maekar. She’d seen you knelt down in the gardens helping his children catch little red lady bugs and worms. His mother had convinced him of the value a maternal figure might bring to his household…that additional stability from another an adult could temper issues before they began.
You’d been so excited, foolishly so, but he was a prince it made sense that you were flattered and thrilled by it all. You’d even found yourself remarking on his serious but striking apperence, on the deep tome of his voice…you’d told your lady maids, with flushed cheeks, that you were looking forward to your wedding night.
You hadn’t been looking forward to the bedding ceremony…being grabbed at by random men and touched. Though when he deny the event at the end of the feast you had known something was off right away. He had not asked you of your feelings in the matter so it did not come across like he was doing you some great kindness by avoiding it.
He denied it for himself. You found that out the moment you entered his chambers and he handed you a cup of wine. He did not sit with you on the edge of the bed…did not even look up when you got down to your chemise and chewed your lip eagerly waiting for him to make some sort of advance. You knew what happened in a marriage bed but not enough of the specifics to initiate anything yourself. He stay in the chair by the fireplace that entire night. Not moving as he told you he had taken your hand for his children, so they could have another person looking after them, he told you he wanted no more children, did not need companionship and had no desire to bed you.
Maekar was many things but he was not a liar. All those things he had made painfully clear to you on the wedding night had remained true. You were not here for him, just them.
“Look mother! There’s a red feather!” Rhae exclaimed. She and Aegon had each slipped and called you that. It always made you feel quite important but you were truthfully worried about Maekar hearing it. What would he think? Had you been to involved with them? Should you correct them?
Slowly you let go of Aegon’s arm after giving him one more warning look and then you followed Rhae towards the tree that had a vibrant feather laid on one of the branches. You were mid lifting her up so she could try and grab it when you heard a piercing shriek.
It was so loud, in an otherwise quiet woods, that every bird suddenly flew up out of the trees just as started as you were.
Rhae looked around, gripping onto your shoulders. “What was that?” She whispered her legs winding around your midsection as you began to move in the direction of the sound.
“Daella?!” You called. It sounded like her shout.
When there was no answer to your call you began to run in the direction of the sound. Dropping Rhae down the moment you saw the pond.
Gods, oh gods. You were here to look after them.
Before your eyes Maekars oldest daughter was grasping at the edge of broken ice, her upper body was above the water but everything below her hips was submerged. The air infront of you was clouded white from how quickly you were breathing, your lungs burning a bit from brining in so much of the cold air.
“help!” She cried and you instantly started out onto the pond. It wasn’t nearly cold enough here for the ice to get so thick that it could safely support a person. You should have been watching them better.
“Rhae, go back to the hall, tell the first person you come across about this.” She urged the child and heard her little feet pad against the frozen ground back up to the keep.
You bent down, basically crawling out to her, knowing you needed to distribute your weight so the ice would give out under you as well.
“I’ve got you, just-“ you grabbed her wrists trying to pull her towards you. “Can you kick your legs?” Her skirts were waterlogged and that made them very heavy.
“Come on Daella!” You grunted as you got closer and grabbed her under the arms hoisting her up over the jagged edge of of the hole and she landed right over you. Both of you panting, Rhaella shaking and her teeth chattering loudly.
“Breathe, I’ve got you.” You were holding the back of her head, squeezing her against you as your adrenaline came down. “I’ve got you.” You kissed her head and started to try and sit you both up.
“Egg…” she whimpered. Her teeth were rattling so much it was hard for her to speak. “Egg fell in.” She eventually got out and you scurried out from under her quickly looking at the hole and freezing water.
“Go to the bank!” You directed her sternly and knelt over the edge gasping as you reached your arms down into the water feeling for him. The fact that there was no thrashing around made you uneasy. Had he sunk down to the bottom? Did he breathe in the water?
You took in the largest breath you possibly could and willed yourself right down into the water. The air was pushed out of your lungs almost Instantly from the shock but you attempted to keep moving as much as you could.
It would destroy this family…another loss. Especially rambunctious but loving egg!
Your long dark hair swirled around your face in the water making it hard to see but your foot bumped Into something and you grabbed at it. The only warmth, as mild as it was, in the blinding cold. The pond was not that deep, and so on your tip toes your hands could breach the surface. You shoved Aegon on and somehow dragged your own self up onto the ice.
“no…no wake up.” You started to shake at the little boy a bit and when you saw his hands and lips were purple you found the strength to lift him up into your arms. His feet dragged as you carried him through the woods but it was the most you could manage. Daella shaking, terrified and dazed from it all held to your stiff heavy skirts as you went. He had to get inside, needed to be warmed and see the maester. He was coughing into your chest now, water heaving from his lungs.
You were one of sorts yourself from being submerged and althought you heard shouting you did not actually see anybody coming your way. Not until suddenly Aegon was being lifted off of you and Daella was snatched up as well.
“get her inside!” Maekar, who had been informed after the first guard had been alerted to the issue at the pond, managed to barrel ahead of any other person heading down toward the forests edge. At the time all that was known was that Daella had been on the pond and the ice cream as broken. That was more than enough to put him in this state. The knight would get there, but not as quickly as he would.
The prince was sprinting up the pathway to the keep and you started right after him before any guard reached you to assist. Aegon looked limp in his father’s arms and you were so terrified that you just continued through the hall after the three of them despite maids urging you to stop.
“get off of me!” You warned pushing their hands away and successfully getting into the maesters work room. Aegon was already stripped and being covered in blankets and warmed stone and you saw Rhaella shaking in one of her septa’s arms as she was brought away to be changed and looked over. She seemed, scared and if that was all than she was quite lucky because her brother had still not opened his eyes.
“I told them to stay away from the pond-“ you began trying to squeeze your way closer to the bed the little prince was laid out it. “H-he was coughing when I pulled him out, there was water in-in his lungs.” You managed to shared with the maester, dark eyes wild and frantic as you spoke.
“Get her out of this bloody gown” Maekar directed the comment towards a young women stood near the door, clearly unsure what she should be doing in the mist of this chaos. “now!” He barked snapping his hand against the side table to jostle the maid from her stagnant position. He had pulled his hand off of its spot on his sons head, he’d been stroking the light silver hair back since getting him into this bed.
“I’m quite a-a-alright.” You told the maid quickly, teeth were clattering so much that it took you so long to get that sentence out that the use of ‘alright’ was quite unbelievable.
Maekar could feel the chill that was emanating off your body behind him and suddenly he turned at once, wide shoulders clearing his way as he grabbed the soaked fabric around your waist and backed you up towards the bathing chambers.
“m’lord-Aegon needs you.” You start but are quickly turned around. You supposed it made sense that he could move you and your heavy waterlogged dress so easily, his strength during the rebellion had resulted in songs after all!
“Fucks sake”
You gasp when his fingers sink between the little spaces in the lacing down your back and he pulls the fabric and strings apart. All the grommets would be torn, it was completly wrecked. it was also handing down at your feet now, some relief did come from no longer being squeezed in by such cold fabric.
“He needs you to still be breathing when he wakes…” Maekar muttered out grabbing your chemise and tearing that fabric as if it was nothing more than a single piece of parchment.
He wasn’t wrong, staying dressed like this would have you catching your death. Had you been less panicked you would have likely attempted to get some of the layers off of you down by the pond but the adrenaline had not allowed for proper thinking.
“Your grace,” the maester called from the other room. There was alot of coughing and voices of people telling Aegon to lay back down. You shivered in front of him, back still turned away and your arms had wrapped around yourself half for warmth and half for shielding. You’d never been undressed with him present.
Your eyes facing forward was a gift to the prince because it gave him a moment to take in the sounds of life that were obvious in the other room. His son was alive. He wasn’t losing somebody else, he had not failed again. His chest deflated a bit as his eyes closed and he took in the coughing. They opened again when the maester called once more and he pressed his hands down against your shoulders.
The touch warmed you so much you whimpered a bit, his palms did not retract at the noise right away but when he heard your teeth begin to clatter together again he gave you a squeeze before letting go.
“Get in the bath.” He demanded, there was not alternative option that could even be thought of in your mind when you heard his tone. Instantly the maid came towards with warmed buckets of water and began filling the soaking tub that you had obediently stepped into.
He closed the door on his way out and as the warmth engulfed you your eyes began to close, the feeling of being okay mixed with the combination of your adrenaline crashing left you utterly exhausted.
The next thing you felt was a rumbling against your cheek. Which made you groan and shift about some.
“Give me that,” Maekar sighed pulling the blanket from the maids hands, his forhead had not relaxed for one second since the knight had entered his study two hours prior and told him what his youngest had been shouting as she came up towards the stables.
You leaned towards the sound and your arms, which finally felt less stiff, wrapped around your husbands neck as he lifted you from the now room tempature bath. The towel was draped over you but he was holding you to his chest so you were getting him quite wet.
“Have broth be brought to my chambers.” He directed and carried you from the maesters quarters through the keep. You hadn’t fully smarted to the concept that your husband, you husband who had not even kissed you on the lips when you married was holding you…letting you nuzzled your face against his warm neck. He knew you were seeking more heat.
Gradually, when he set you down in his bed, tucking the towel around the front of you now, you realized Maekar had been the one taking you from the bath. He did not like how red your cheeks still were of that your fingers were still slightly blue.
He’d had a conversation with Daella, an interrogation was more correct of a name for it thought because Maekar demanded to know exactly what had happened. How this, possibly deadly, mess came to be. He’d waited until she was in her thickest dress, wrapped in a fur and being given her favorite tea before he started but he had not given her any time to rest, he needed to know it all as soon as possible. He did not like having to use his imagination to fill in the blanks.
You grabbed the ends of the towel and pulled the fabric around you tighter brining your feet up as well so your knees were tucked into your chest. You’d never been in his chambers. It felt odd…almost intimate.
“you jumped into the water?” He was laying a dark fur across a chair near the fireplace.
“is he alright?” You finally spoke, voice a bit horse from all the shouting earlier.
“Do Starks believe they cannot freeze?” He glanced over his shoulder at you.
“no more than Targaryen think they cannot burn.” You exhale and straighten your shoulders. “Is Aegon well?” You insist to know. Surely he would not be speaking to you if the boy was dead, right?
Maekar shoulders raised a bit, like he had chuckled at your attempt to demand something from him but the sound did not quite reach your ears.
“he is already telling stories of fish frozen in place in the water.” He informed you, finally looking back at you and seeing the relief flood through you.
You smiled, a bright real thing and you chuckled a bit. He was as such a clown of a little boy, it was charming to you even if it came with some wreckless behavior.
“I think he was the only frozen thing in that pond.” You remark shaking your head a bit.
“I think my son is alive because you went down in that water to save him.”
The comment stopped your giggling instantly. It was serious and honest and…this was more sensitive than you had ever known him be. The intensity of his eyes on you, the shock witnessing his forehead ease, it made your skin tingle and every hair on your rise.
“you could have died attempting to rescue them from something that I know they have been warned about.”
You swallowed looking down gripping a bit tighter to the damp towel and you took a moment to figure out what it was that you should say…what you wanted to say.
“I love them Maekar, I could not just watch it happen.” You looked back up to him finding that he had made his way from in front of the fire back to the bedside, that he had taken his cloak off and had as currently undoing the laces that kept his tunic on.
“Thank you.”
You blinked, he’d not thanked you for anything in the 7 moons that had come to pass since you wed. It was obvious that he was not the type to lean to flattery in conversation. That did not bother you, not as much it might some other lady, it wasn’t as if people in the north were exceptionally warm.
Actually when you thought about it they were quite kind, deeply loyal and unmistakably dedicated to people…if they deserved it. If they had good reason to value the person infront of them.
Maekar was not much different. He did. Or bother with unwarranted flattery. You could appreciate that.
“You can go see them later, once you’re warm enough.” He assured you when it seemed like your attention drifted to the door.
“I will dress, I’m warm enough.” You made to stand but his hand was back on your shoulder again, stopping you in your tracks.
“I will deem when you are warm enough wife.”
His jaw tightening gave away that your surpised reaction to the title made him feel bad. Had he truly never used the term once? Was denying you any affection for his first wife’s sake or was it just him being cruel. He’d always told himself he was distance out of respect for Dyanna’s memory. What would she thinking about the women caring for her children never being thanked? Never being welcomed as she should have been into their family?
You watched his light eyes water and stayed still and silent. She must have been very kind…very beautiful. You had heard from the staff of the hall how deeply he had loved her, how he laughed with her.
When he cleared his throat and looked back down at you there was some new found understand of himself in his eyes. He’d hated you, simply because he resented that the longer you were around the more he noticed how attractive you were and worse…that he felt genuinely drawn to your personality. But What favor was he doing Dyanna, or his family by becoming more cold and bitter simply because he wanted to deny anything that brought him joy while she was not beside him?
When your shoulders shook twice, the shiver impossible to suppress Maekar came back to the moment. Back to you.
He motioned for you to stand up and finally undid the last tie that kept his chest covered.
“Clothes and a blanket would do.” You assured him, but your eyes were looking at the expanse of his chest..the pink skin there that you knew would be so warm.
“Body heat is best, I thought you’d know that. What did they teach you in Winterfell woman?” He raised a brow while you got up on your feet. Once you were up he touched your side, grunting at the damp towel that was wrapped there and he pulled it away, quickly pulling you in front of the fire. He sat down first in the chair and then looked to his lap. When you hesitated he sighed. The exasperation that you were used to seeing from him flaring up.
“you are my wife, it is not indecent to sit down.” He rolled his eyes a bit and his hand touched your bare back urging you down to his lap. Pulling the fur that had been warming in front of the flame over you at once. He felt your freezing fingers nervously grabbing at the fur, brushing against his stomach in the process. Quickly Maekar gathered them in one hand and brought them up to his neck cupping them there in that hot region.
You kept your eyes on him, waiting for his feeling for change, for him to suddenly decide again being so close to you. Especially in this state of undress. When he lifted your fingers up to his mouth and cupped them against his lips so he could blow warm air onto the icy digits you realized belatedly that he was not likely to push you away. You relaxed some as that understanding sunk into your mind, and you allowed yourself to sink back against him. Back naturally bent instead of all rigid to keep your figure away from his.
“your warm.” You breath out eyes closing as your cheek rested against one side of hai chest.
“Aye” he grunted in agreement. He would not of been sat beneath you if he wasn’t, he of found something warmer.
He could feel your legs curl up a bit so that your knees pressed to his side. He quickly brought a hand under the fur and wrapped it across your back and around your waist. Hand rubbing over your side pushing the chill off of you.
You savored the heat he offered and eventually you pulled your hands from his palm and held his shoulders rubbing slightly as you gained feeling back. It let him have use of his other hand to rub down the length of your leg and give your feet a few squeezes to ensure blood was flowing there as well.
His hand settled at your hip rubbing the join firmly as he looked down at you. His breathing had gotten a bit deeper, his nostrils flared some when he exhaled and you found that despite your mind telling you to look away from him your eyes were trapped on his. Your hands slowly sliding down from his muscular shoulders to his chest under the blanket and you trailed your fingertips over his pectoral muscles. Straightening some of the hair there as you went.
“I thought of this, before today.” He gripped you hip a bit harder and you pushed yourself instinctually against him more, chest to chest. He could feel how hard and cold your nipples were as they dragged across his chest. He knew how to warm those. It made his mouth salivate a bit.
“of what m’lord?” You blinked once before he slumped his head and down sought out your lips with his. Somehow that part of you was pink and warm and now he craved more contact there. Quickly raising his hand to hold your jaw up towards him so he could devour you in a kiss.
Your lips were clumsy and deeply unsure of what they should be doing but when he felt your soft tongue suddenly slip against his he groaned. You wanted him. He’d been to blind on the wedding night by his own mourning and guilt to notice that that nerves you were showing were those of uncertainty…and excitement. Not anxiety and disinterest. He felt even more guilty for his coldness now knowing that you would of been open to advances over that past many moons.
He groaned when you sat up some more to try and reach his mouth better, you’d been putting quite a bit of weight right over his lap…right over the growing bulge he had and now that that contact was lifted he could suddenly feel that aching need!
You moaned at his calloused hands drifting to your back, warm and thick fingers trailing against either side of your spine and you straighten up a bit which let the fur slip off of your shoulders, letting him see you better. The way her looked you up and down made you feel warmer than the bloody bath did.
When Maekar’s eyes raised back, finally, to meet your own after cataloging every inch of you he smiled, small, but it was unmistakably affection.
You lurched forward and kissed at the corner of his mouth where his lips at tilted up and you grinned the moment his hands found your bottom, callouses from his hilt feeling rough against that delicate pale skin.
You let your head fall back between your shoulders when his beard tickled your neck and his lips pressed pecks until he reached your collar bone and began to lay wet hungry kisses there. Your hand dropped from his chest and shoulder and one hand kept you stead in this position by holding his firm stomach, the other found its way to his breeches. Looking briefly up at him for assurance.
He groaned, deep and throat rattling and it was so assuring to you that you sunk your hand right down into the cloth and felt for him. He was hard and pulsing and extraordinarily erect so your fingers simply needed to fan out to feel him.
“it’s so hard…” you breath out, the earnestness of your surprise had his head spinning and pratically all of his blood rushing down to his cock.
“I am old, but not so old that my prick remains soft.” He lectured and you giggled a bit at the feeling of his hand squeezing your bum as a warning. Acknowledging your innocence, that he had denied you the understanding of how husband and wives function was to much for him to address internally at the moment so he’d decided to pretend you had been taunting him. That was easier for him!
“harder-“ he grunted hand sliding up your side looking for the handhold he wanted while your small fist wrapped around his shaft. “You can grip me tighter than that.” He breathed out nodding as you instantly corrected. “Good, that’s a good girl.” His four fingers settled wrapping against your ribs and his thumb splayed out under your breast lifting it up slightly and he puffed his chest out some to feel your hard nipple slide over his scarred skin.
“like this?” You looked at him bitting your lip as you squeezed much harder at his pulsing length and brought your hand up and down. Your fingers glided easily, he was producing plenty of lubricant himself. when his eyes closed while trying to reign in a moan and you leaned forward kissing the tension away. He held it in lines at the top of his noses bridge.
“I don’t deserve you.” He lowered his head when you kissed his forhead and his mouth dragged against the tops of your chest. It seemed like he was finding the perfect spot before settling in but when he did you gasped at the feeling of his tongue streching out to graze over one of your nipples.
“no…” you breathed out nodding a bit as you stroked him faster. “You don’t.” Your voice was breathy from how nice his mouth felt on your skin. How his nose nuzzled into the soft meat of your tits and he consumed as much of you as he could fit between his lips.
“Easy.” He warned you while his hand let go of your arse and he slipped his hand under your thigh finding your spot instantly because that part of you was radiating heat. You were wet as well, enough that he could feel that the raven black hair on your cunny was slicked into a mess.
When your hand faltered in its motion and your breath hitched at the suddenly presence of his fingertip dipping between you, breaching into your body, Maekar felt the shiver. Unsure if it was genuine chill or nerves he kissed your jaw and lifted you up with him as he got off the chair and then was over you on the fur rug infront of the fire.
“it’ll hurt-won’t it?” He could feel you tensing, feel your core squeezing at just the first bit of his finger entering. It was the princes turn to kiss you worry away, to stroke your cheek and hush you.
“it will hardly be worse than a frozen pond.” It was the truth, he wouldn’t offer you lies, and for that you were glad.
You breathed slowly, to calm yourself and soaked in the feeling of his hand on your hip, his weight leaned strategically against you, how he panted into your neck while slowly working two fingers into your core.
“Ahh!” You gasped at how filling they felt, at how odd…and electrifying it was to be able to feel him moving within you.
“Seven save me-“ he grunted kissing your lips and rubbing soothing with his thumb against your pearl. You realized quickly when an inner warmth began to bloom in your belly, that you would benefit greatly from his experience. He knew how to please a women. You suppose a man did not end up with as many children as he had without his wife wanting him in her bed!
He recognized the expression right away, the parting of your lips…the scrunching of your brows and how the column of your neck hallowed out a bit from how you tensed.
Your climax rolled through you before he could even comment on it. One moment you were getting stiff and tense under him, your knees rising up to push against into his sides and then next you were panting and as soft as dough under him.
Maekar pulled his soaked fingers from you and nodded at your whinny breathing. For a moment when you had clearly reached your release he considered ending it there. Letting you simply enjoy what had just happened. Though that whimpered strained noise you man when his hand was removed from you had the last good sense in him dissolving. You wanted more of him, wanted to feel him there between your legs.
“while you’re still calmed,” he pushed your hair back and then planted his bent elbow beside your head “I’ll- fuck me” he groaned his hand pulling his straining cock free from his breeches and instantly it slapped down against your swollen lips.
“please…” you mewd hands splayed out over your stomach where you had felt the intensity just moments ago.
Between your soft begs and the fact that he her not felt a women, in this way, for years Maekar could not resist a moment more. His eyes closed as he fed himself into your fluttering core. Pratically growling at how the warm squishy sensation of you hugged his prick so deliciously. His hand was fisted at your side, helping to keep him hovered above you some so he would not be fully engulfed by your sweet pussy.
“Oh gods” your teeth were clenched and your fingers dug in a bit to your stomach as it felt like his length began to displace things within you. He seemed large, it felt quite giant to you. Maekar’s hand suddenly went back to your hair the moment he saw your eyes fly shut and felt a warmth flood within you.
“That’s?” He picked up on the unease in your tone and saw how a little tear squeezed its way out of your shut eye. His hips stopped pushing ahead instantly. Actually he pulled out of you an inch or so. Glancing down to see the ring of blood around his shaft.
“it’s just blood…same as a cut.” He assured you, fingers flowing through your raven hair trying to bring you comfort. He wasn’t an overly affectionate or gentle man, and from what he saw you northern women did not want coddling. It made it easier for him to give you some small comforting remarks, ease that worry because this had been the first time he ever sense anxiety within you.
You breathed a bit slowly as the hand he had at your side rubbed under your clenched fingers to ease the tension in your lower belly. You opened you eyes now looking up at him, he was sweating some…the end sod his hair glued to his temple and the stern line between his brows was back. That worry was there for you, his concern and attention was on you in this moment, not the papers in his study, or a mess bis children created.
“it doesn’t really hurt.” You finally told him, it hadn’t ever really hurt, it was just pressure and a feeling you hadn’t anticipated.
“such a strong women.” He murmured. The affectionate tilt to his voice was not covered up at all by some put on huffing and puffing that you imagine he had not actually meant to say it outloud.
You looked down to see half of his cock was out of you and his body was being held up away from you. You wanted all of him-not just half!
“you are meant to be keeping me warm m’prince” Shivering for good measure before wrapping your feet up over him trying to weigh his back down so he would sink down against you.
He grinned some, hand shifting from your stomach to the small of your back and lifting you up towards him a bit more.
“Very well, wife.”
Finally Maekar pushed into you completely, in the manner that had started to haunt his mind over the past few moons when you were near him. He’d begun to have distasteful daydreams of pinning you to the break of fast table in his solar, stoping you on your walk to to rookery and pressing himself to you u til your back was flush against the stone wall. All of these imaginary scenarios ended the same.
His cock pressed fully into you. Tip twitching against your cervix and his stones slapping against you as he rocked in and out of you.
His mind has let him conjure up details about these various situation and still not one had come close to capturing how wonderful you felt beneath him, how dizzying the feeling of his cock engulfed fully within you left him!
“mmmm fucking hells” you swore when he continually bottomed out within you. The cursing made him kiss your jaw. He liked that you had a mouth on you, that you weren’t some sensitive flustered lady. Perhaps this pairing had been made with more thought, on his parents part, than just political strengthening?
“I can finish in my hand-“ your eyes searched for his instantly when he said that. “If you wish me too” he added after seeing the wave of worry in your eyes.
“n-no, I need-please keep going Maekar.” If not for a babe than at least for the orgasm that was building up in you so heavily that the tops of your ears felt heated.
Maekar kissed you, for a moment on the lips and then he pressed one to your temple, hand brushing down your hair and keeping your body pressed down towards his pelvis so your body took each thrust he gave, instead of getting bumped back and forth against the rug.
He felt how your hands squeezed at his sides, they were trembling a bit so he knew you were quite close to another peak. Finally you felt him start to lose his restraint, his weight was heavier over you, his hips rutting more than fully thrusting in and out. But you enjoyed that motion because it provide lovely contact for your clit against his pelvis. It had you moaning quite loudly-your eyes closing because you needed to focus on the intense wave building within you.
“ugh-“ he came with a low grunt, so deep that it came out muddled by vibrations and you gasped. Feeling him come appart, feeling his warm seed squish within you, it made you see stars.
Both of you were breathing heavily though your youth allowed you to revived before him.
Summary: You're hired by one of the senior servants to be the nanny for Prince Maekars youngest children, but when said children grow bored one day you suggest a new game and unknowingly find yourself in a compromising position below the desk of Prince Maekar.
Your transition to nannying Maekar Targaryens children was rather smooth. You had been introduced to the children first thing one morning and they all took to the immediately. "She is not old like the other nannies." "She is much kinder too." "I think father will like her more than the last one we saw." They had said when asked why they had made a decision so quick. So after only an hour had passed since your brief meeting you had been called back and given the position of nanny.
"Must we keep going through these chapters?" Aegon complained again throwing himself against the back of his seat. "They are awfully boring."
"I know, but your father has expressed an interest in you studying this book and I do not want to fall victim to his temper."
Their father, Maekar. Gods even his name drove you mad. From what little you had seen of him you had instantly formed an attraction, tall, miserable and not one to hold his tongue were just some of the qualities that drew you to him.
"I have read the same page three times miss." Aegon sighed. "I have read it four." Rhae added and you couldn't help but smile at the children. You walked over to each of their desks and took note of what page they were on before nodding to yourself.
"Rhae, Daella you may close your books. Aegon finish one more page please to catch up with your sisters and then we will end the studying."
Aegon picked his book up again and began reading. You knew he was not taking in the words on the page as his eyes scanned rapidly across each sentence, it did not matter though, you would get him to re-read the page on the next day.
"May we play a game miss?" Rhae asked as you placed Aegons book atop the others and put them on a shelf next to your desk. "I thought you were tired of me for the day?"
"Not tired of you, only tired of reading. We have been at it since we woke this morning." Aegon spoke.
"You have not, it has only been an hour little Prince, do not be dramatic." The girls laughed as you corrected their brother making him frown slightly before his eyes lit up. "May we play the hiding game again miss? I had a lot of fun when you showed it us last week."
You were surprised that the children had never played hide and seek before, though you suppose with the little interactions they had with other children it wasn't really too shocking. You had introduced them to many new games, a lot of them you had played with your siblings as you grew up and others you had learnt through nannying for other families.
"Fine, you three may go and hide and I shall count. Do not leave the castle, I don't want people to think I have lost a Prince's children because you have strayed too far. I could not stand the embarrassment of trying to explain that to your father."
"He likes you, he would not be mad."
"He does not like me Aegon, he only tolerates me because I keep you three out of the way." You explained though when you turned around each child had a wide grin on their faces. "What are you smiling for? You should be hiding or you will ruin the game." You turned back again and began counting. The girls grabbed each other's hands and quickly took off after Aegon down the corridor.
As you stood by the window and counted your eyes drifted down to Prince Maekar who was standing in the training yard watching Aerion fighting with a Knight. You had barely spoken to Maekar, the senior servant who hired you had said you should not speak to him unless spoken to and he'd rarely interrupted the time you spent with his children. Normally he avoided the rooms you were in completely and asked his children for updates on their learnings and activities of the day instead of coming to you.
You didn't mind though. His presence was intimidating and the hushed whispers between servants of his foul temper and strength in a battle was enough of a deterrent for you. Instead you admired him from afar, he was tall, broad and despite looking constantly miserable he was very handsome. His voice was deep and commanding and even though he'd never raised it to you you'd heard it carry down the halls as he shouted at a Knight who'd pissed him off and it instantly sent a wave of heat across your face and down between your thighs.
No matter how much you wanted to speak to the man you knew it was best to keep your words to yourself for you feared that if you spoke to him you would instantly melt under the gaze of his violet eyes and stern expression.
"Do you often stare out of the window for this long?" A voice dragged you from your thoughts and you quickly shot around to see Prince Baelor standing in the doorway. He stepped towards you as you offered a quick curtsy and tried to block the view before he could see out of the window but it was futile. Baelor stood taller than you and from his height he could see his brother commanding Aerion in the yard and smirked once he realised what you had been looking at so attentively.
"Forgive me my Prince, but I am playing a game with the children, I must go find them."
"Ah yes, hide and seek, I am familiar with it. Would you like some advice?"
"I do not want to know where they have hidden, that would defeat the purpose of the game." You replied and he chuckled softly. "No it is not that, when it is your turn to hide go to the furthest room at the end of the hall. They won't find you in there and you will surely win the game."
"Thank you for the advice my Prince, I must be off before they get restless." You replied and quickly bowed your head before sprinting out of the room. Baelor turned back to the window and looked down at his brother, a wide smirk gracing his face.
You'd found Aegon first, he was not hiding far from the room you had been teaching them in. "You only found me because you were taking far too long with counting that I had to talk to myself to prevent boredom."
"No you are just not very good at hiding, I said you should not leave the castle, not hide down the corridor from me. Come let us find your sisters and then I will show you all how to properly hide."
It did not take long to find both Rhae and Daella, they were curled into the wardrobe of their room together and failing to stifle their laughter as you and Aegon entered the room and quickly swung open the doors to their hiding place.
"Now that I have found you all it is my turn to hide. Make sure to count to fifty so that I have enough time to hide from the three of you. I will stick to our rules and will not leave the castle but please take your time going down the corridors, I don't want you falling over a loose stone again." You said but made a point to look at Aegon as you had spent an hour washing his knee after your last game of hide-and-seek after he'd fallen over.
They all turned their backs to you and began counting. You were enjoying playing this game with the children and despite wanting to let them win as it would be the right thing to do you decided to take prince Baelors advice and head down the darkened hallway to the room at the far end.
You had never stepped down this hall before, the senior servant said to stay away, but surely if Prince Baelor said for you to hide down here that it must have been ok for you to do so. The corridor carried on to a curve but when you peered down you could not see anymore doors aside from the one that you stood in front of so you quickly opened the door and stepped inside making sure to close it quietly behind you so that the sound would not echo back to the chambers of the children.
It only took you a few steps into the room before you realised it was the chambers of Prince Maekar. His heavy armour was settled over a rack beside a desk that was littered with papers. You should not be in here, surely you had made a mistake because Prince Baelor would not have sent you to the chambers of his brother.
Moving back to the door you quickly grabbed the handle but stopped turning it when you heard the sound of three pairs of footfalls running past the door. "No Aegon." Rhae whined. "She would not be in father's chambers I'm almost sure of it."
"We should still check to be sure." The boy protested and reached for the handle, you felt it move slightly under your palm. "Father will be mad if you knock his armour over again. Let us check down the hall and then we can come back around again." Rhae argued and a moment passed before you felt Aegon release the handle.
Once the sound of the children running away had gone you believed that it was safe to leave the room. Unfortunately for you, there came the heavy footsteps of someone else approaching the room. You panicked and believed that these had to be the steps of the Prince himself, if you left his room he would catch you but if you stood behind his door when he opened it that may just lead to a worse outcome. You quickly scurried around the room and looked for somewhere that would hide you sufficiently.
Unfortunately, the only place that was both nearby and would be quiet was his desk so you quickly threw yourself underneath it and hoped that maybe the Prince would be in and out of his chambers. "Fucking hide and seek." Maekar muttered when he entered the room slamming the door behind him. "All the things to do and she wants to play fucking hide and seek."
He sat down in his chair and pulled himself closer to the desk forcing you to back up even more so his long legs wouldn't hit you. You could hear him writing, occasionally letting out a few curse words here and there as the quill dragged along the paper above you with such a ferocity that you were sure the tip would break off.
You hoped he would finish his letter and leave but when it seemed like he was nearly done you heard a knock on the door. "What?" Maekar shouted and the door to his chambers opened.
"The children want to know if you have seen the nanny." A familiar voice called out, that of Prince Baelor. You wanted to step out, to ask the Prince if this was in-fact the right room he had suggested for you to hide in but that would obviously be an incredibly stupid thing for you to do.
"What makes you think I have seen the nanny?" Maekar groaned rubbing his hands through his hair and Baelor laughed. "You always have eyes on the nanny."
"I do not."
"You do."
Great. You thought. Now they are bickering like little children. You had to stop yourself from letting out an audible groan and drawing their attention to your position. "I suppose I should leave you now brother, do let the children know if you happen upon their nanny." Baelor spoke and Maekar only scoffed in response.
Unbeknownst to you, when Baelor turned to leave he had seen a small piece of your dress poking out from underneath his brother's desk and that was when he had put two and two together. You had listened to his advice and gone to the room he spoke of. Of course you did not know it was that of his brother's but he did and now there you were, tucked underneath the desk of his youngest brother who appeared to be completely oblivious to your presence.
"Oh." He added as he walked back to the door, a smirk still plastered on his face when he rested his hand on the smooth metal handle. "Try not to get too carried away when you think of the nanny, I do not want to explain to another servant that you are not whining out in pain."
"Shut up." Maekar scoffed and shook his head at his older brother when he left his chambers. The silence that fell upon the room when Baelor left was horrendous. You had to cover your mouth with your hands in fear of Maekar hearing your breaths as he remained seated at the desk. He hadn't picked up his quill, or shuffled through papers, he just sat there in silence and sighed to himself.
You'd thought that perhaps he had fallen asleep, his breaths had deepened and he was no longer letting out little curse words here and there. That was until he sank down in his chair and hurriedly undid the belt of his trousers. Your eyes widened when you realised what he was doing, a deep heat settled on your face when Maekar freed his cock in front of you.
You stifled a gasp when you saw it. His cock was long and thick, his large hand fit perfectly around it and you couldn't help but look down at your own as you watched him. It was already hard-hard when he pulled it out but now as he sat there, slowly stroking, it began to harden.
Closing your eyes you listened to the sound of skin on skin as he began to stroke himself faster. Your eyes shot open when you heard him spitting followed by the wet sound of his other hand, now wet with spit, taking over the movements. "Ah fuck." He moaned, his voice deliciously deep as his chest heaved with every rough jerk of his cock.
You'd kept quiet this whole time, so quiet. But then he moaned your name. Not the title given to you of nanny, but your actual name that you thought he never learned. A moan escaped your lips and you quickly threw your hands over your mouth and squeezed your eyes shut hoping he didn't hear you.
But he did. Of course he did.
You heard the soft thwacks of skin on skin stop followed by yet another painful silence. Maekar pushed his chair back, the sound of the wood scraping on the floor causing your ears to ring and soon a hand wrapped around your arm and you were dragged from under the desk, your knees scraping across the floor as he pulled you to his knee.
"What the fuck are you doing in here?" He spoke through gritted teeth, his grip on your arm would no doubt leave a bruise. "Speak woman."
"I was playing with the children my Prince. I did not realise these were your chambers until I heard you coming down the hall. I had to hide. I did not see anything I swear." You lied. His thick cock was all you could think about. It didn't help that it was still standing to attention, bulbous head leaking pre-cum that had smeared across his doublet leaving a thin white streak.
The hand that had not been stroking his cock gripped your chin and he tilted your head up forcing you to look at him. "You." He spoke, voice lower now and brows furrowed when he realised it was you he had caught. Your chest heaved against his knee as you swallowed hard.
You tried to pull away from him but he grabbed your face harder, his fingers digging into your cheeks as he kept you pressed against him. You did not know where to look. If you looked up you'd meet his eyes peering down at you, if you looked ahead you would be staring at his cock and with his grip on your face you could not look down. You tried to close your eyes but he squeezed his digits against your face making you open them again, your gaze instantly meeting his cock once more and lingering for a moment too long.
"Stop gawking woman. Have you never seen a cock before?"
"I do not mean to stare, you are just so close. I do not, I cannot look anywhere else." You stammered out an excuse to him, tripping over your words as you tried to form the right sentence to explain the looks you had given him. You were nearly drooling at the mouth as you flicked your gaze from his face down to his cock and back up again.
It felt like hours had passed from when he first looked down at you.
"You may leave if you wish."
You pondered his words for a moment and finally decided to speak your mind. "What if I do not want to leave?" Your breath caught in your throat as you spoke to him softly. You carefully moved onto your knees and rested your hands on his spread thighs. "What if I wish to taste you my Prince? Will you allow me?" You looked up to him with a pleading expression on your face keenly awaiting his answer.
Maeker stared down at you and you watched as he began to stroke his cock again, this time keeping his eyes fixed on yours as he tightened his grip around his shaft. You took that as your cue to lower your mouth to the head of his cock and suckle it causing a deep moan to fall from his lips.
He continued stroking his cock as you lapped at the swollen tip, his fist occasionally tapping you on your chin. You batted his hand away when it struck you for a fourth time and quickly replaced it with your own stroking at the same rhythm Maekar had used on himself.
"Gods woman, your mouth is divine." He spoke and you released a seductive laugh around his cock. You took more of him into your mouth now and fought the need to gag when his tip grazed the back of your throat.
"Need more spit." You spoke after letting his cock fall from your mouth earning an irritated groan to fall from his lips before Maekar looked at you with a puzzled expression. You did not give him a verbal explanation, instead you opened your mouth wide and stuck out your tongue. "Dirty bitch." He said before allowing himself to indulge, he leant forwards, gathered up his saliva from his mouth and spat it directly onto your tongue.
You returned your mouth to the head of his cock and let the mixture of spit run down the length lubricating it so you could continue to take it with ease. Lifting one large hand, he laced it through your fair as you sucked him and surprisingly he didn't force your head down. You felt his fingers flex with anticipation against your scalp when his breaths became faster and soon he was releasing his thick seed into your mouth and down your throat.
Swallowing first you allowed his cock to fall out of your mouth once more and flicked your tongue over your lips to collect the remaining cum that had gathered. You looked up to the Prince, his eyes were closed and his chest heaved with each breath he took as he tried to come down from his high.
He was so distracted in fact that he did not feel you moving away from him and standing on shaking legs, cunt dripping with want. "If you'll forgive me my Prince, I have a game that I need to finish. Do let me know if you require any further assistance." You spoke and before he'd even opened his eyes and mouth to reply you were gone, and there he sat trying to catch his breath, his cock soft against his belly as he stared at the door which you had closed.
cw: filth!!, licking, sniffing, dry humping, nipple play(m!receiving), degradation, praise, body worship(m!receiving), breath play(f!receiving), scent kink!!, coming in pants, face humping, (2.7kw).
n/a: idk what came over me. based on this post!! u can read this as a piece from the my hot husband au/universe or a stand alone!! i just wrote this with their dynamic in mind lol! enjoy! < 3
"mhm, you didn't bathe after the hunt," you mumbled, fingers lifting maekar's tunic upwards impatiently, revealing his stomach, with that soft pudge of fat at the bottom that you loved. the one pinched by his breeches, making the soft flesh hang just a little over the band of his pants. "good. that's how i wanted you."
your husband only grumbled, rough hands trying to stop you from revealing more skin. still, you were determined, swatting every attempt away with a disgruntled sound, making maekar even more annoyed.
"have you no shame at all, woman?" he grouched, face pinched in irritation as you lifted the tunic until it pooled under his armpits, revealing his chest and belly in all its glory. "disrobing me and pawing at my flesh like i'm nothing but a toy to be played with when i'm exhausted from the bloody fucking—"
but you were barely listening to what your husband was saying, and frankly, in that moment, you had no qualms about paying mind to what came out of his mouth. all you cared about was how good he looked in that moment, leaning back against the pillows of your bed, still sweaty and dirty from the royal hunt he attended, looking every inch a man. all muscle and sinew and gods, the smatterings of fine silver hairs all over his chest and belly, and all the way lower on his navel, where a white trail of hair led right beneath the waistband of his breeches, to his cock.
you almost sighed thinking of it. you loved your husband's cock. it was one of the best things about him.
"you're exhausted," you parroted, humming as your soft hands continued to caress his stomach, pressing your fingers in, kneading at the skin like a cat, leisurely and appreciative, eliciting a displeased groan from your husband. "so sit back and indulge me for a few moments, dear husband."
maekar only scowled at you, the furrow between his brows deepening, lip curling in a snarl as he leaned forward, trying to loom, to intimidate in hopes you would cease pestering him. "don't dear husband me, you aggravating woman," he gritted, teeth barred, akin to a dragon before it unlatched its jaws to breathe fire and ash in anger. it made you warm under your chemise. you loved when your husband was all snappy and indignant.
you leaned forward, undeterred by his little intimidation tactic, noses almost brushing as you spoke, your tone soft and persuasive, as if beckoning a wild animal that might bite. "you were gone for so long, and i have been here, all alone, missing you like a limb," you lamented, distracting him from the way your fingers trailed along the waistband of his breeches now, prodding at the pudgy roll of fat there, loving the soft feel of it. "the least you could do is yield to my whims for a while."
aware that it wouldn't be enough to placate your husband, you leaned in, pressing your lips to his scarred cheek, leaving chaste, sweet kisses on the skin as you murmured. "you always look so good after a hunt, husband," you appeased, relentless in your pursuit of what you wanted, especially when it was something as delicious as touching maekar freely without him grumbling in your ear incessantly. "makes me want to devour you whole," your tone was on the precipe of resembling a purr, lips descending towards the strong line of his jaw and down his neck, nuzzling at the sweaty skin in delight.
as always, he tried to persist, even as you felt his skin warm and flush under your lips, making your mouth curl into a satisfied smile. you had him exactly where you wanted him, even if he was still resisting.
"you're being ridiculous," and oh, he was already panting softly, broad chest heaving along with the warm breaths that brushed your temple as you littered his ruddy-skinned throat in wet kisses. "pouncing on me like a cat in heat the second, ah—fuck," he cursed right when your tongue laved at his skin, tasting the remnants of the hunt. the sweat, the grime, the dirt—him, musky and manly and oh so palatable. “stop. i reek of filth and—”
“and i love it,” you moaned against his throat, mouth parting to press open—mouthed kisses to the skin of his throat, tongue licking at every remnant of perspiration, catching it against your palate and savoring it like the finest arbor gold. “you smell s’ good, husband, gods. i want to lick you all over.”
it always got like this. the more disheveled he returned, the more aroused you got. shame had deserted you moons ago, being absurdly vocal about how much you enjoyed when your husband was anything but presentable and pristine.
maekar made an aborted sound at your words, already flushed all the way to the tip of his ears, one rough hand moving to clasp the back of your nape and squeeze in hopes of deterring your assault on his senses, but it seemed in vain. the touch only spurred you, a soft sound resembling a purr rumbling against his throat as you continued to press your tongue to his skin, dipping it to taste the touch of grime gathered in the hollow of his throat.
“filthy,” maekar snarled, fingers squeezing just so at your nape and pulling upwards, eliciting a disgruntled sound from you; a whine. your lips were slick with spit, cheeks flushed and eyes blown wide, hazy with heat and adoration, which only made the pressure of his hand increase, reprimanding you for how far gone you already looked. “you’re a filthy, dirty woman, you know that?” he spat, tone brooking on a growl. “always have been,” maekar continued, tightening his hold onto your nape, the pads of his fingers restricting your breath for just a moment, just enough to make you gasp, before he eased it. “getting hot and bothered by your soiled husband like a degenerate,” his thumb brushed against your throat, where he gripped prior, the closest thing to quiet tenderness you could get in that moment, but it made warmth spread through you regardless.
“what of it?” you challenged, dipping your head back to his throat, nosing along the flushed skin, your soft fingers resuming their pawing along his belly, pressing and prodding at the pudgy flesh there, nails scraping along the trail of fine hairs leading below his waistband, making your husband hiss. “it’s your smell i crave, your taste,—” another filthy lick, along the jut of his collarbones, before moving downwards towards his chest, where the smattering of hair was thicker, the smell of sweat and musk more pungent.
maekar tensed as soon as he felt your lips brush against one of his pecs, and you could feel the shiver that ran through him when the tip of your nose nudged a nipple, willing it to harden.
“don’t you fucking dare—”
you did it again, nosing at the pebbling bud once, twice. then, you licked it, slow and wet, circling the nipple with the tip of your tongue, flicking teasingly.
a garbled moan punched out of maekar’s chest, his hold on your nape tightening anew, his other hand fisting the sheets under him, white—knuckled and trembling with restraint. you could tell he wanted to shove you away, to haul you as far as possible from his body so he wouldn’t be able to feel all this, to have to succumb to your whims and depravity. but you also knew he liked it. craved your attention like poison in his veins. hated that he needed it. snarled and snapped his jaws while being half—hard already beneath his breeches, blushing from the tips of his ears to where your mouth was currently busied, lips parting to suckle noisily at his nipple, drawing out another restrained, delicious grunt from your husband.
“look at you,” he managed to bite out through gritted teeth, broad chest heaving under your mouth, voice thinner, breathier. “licking and sucking like a common whore,—”
but you didn’t let him finish, letting your teeth scrape against the bud, nipping at it enough to sting, halting his crude words, making him curse, back arching, pushing his chest more into your awaiting mouth. it was a reprimand, but also a sick, twisted pleasure. seeing your husband bucking and snarling under your lips and tongue was a sight you could never get tired of, much like right now, as you laved one last lick to his wet, swollen nipple, before nosing between his pecs through the fine hairs there, inhaling the scent of him like a woman possessed.
“how would you know what common whores do, mhm, husband?” you murmured, nuzzling along the underside of his pecs, letting your lips press against the skin in damp kisses as you descended towards his stomach, fingers still trailing along the hairs leading towards his navel. “have you been indulging without my knowledge?”
each question was a taunt, like dangling a hunk of meat under a dragon’s nose, waiting for it to bite. and you loved nothing more than to taunt your dragon until he bit, until you could feel his teeth sink in, metaphorically or not.
and he always bit.
“you think i would debase myself with some pleasure house wench?” he snarled, violet eyes glinting with something close to offense, which made you preen quietly, warmth spreading through your chest like drizzled honey.
as you nosed along his stomach, you couldn’t help but breathe him in again, mouth parting in soft pants as your eyes fluttered, the musk of him stronger the closer you got to the V—shape of his hips. “i would hope you wouldn’t, dear husband,” you mouthed along his belly, tongue poking out to lick at the skin, tasting him again. “i would be thoroughly scorned if you so dared,” another lap of your tongue, slow and filthy, this time along the trail of hair near the waistband of his breeches, feeling a slight tickle onto your palate.
but, gods, the scent. the taste of him.
musky and sweaty and man.
it drove you wild, lips pressing to that tempting silver line, open-mouthed and slow, savoring him on your tongue again and again, as if you couldn’t get enough.
a groan slipped unbidden from maekar’s mouth, fingers tightening at your nape, as if remembering he still had a hold on you, blunt nails biting at the skin light enough to make you shiver as he pressed with firmness, as if scruffing a cat. “don’t need some perfumed, wanton wench when i have my hands full with you,” he panted, eyes trained on you, almost unblinking, having watched you the entire time, despite his protests. lavender hues half—lidded, glinting, part anger, part heat, eyeing you like a predator stalking prey.
his words made you purr against his skin, a satisfied sound, your fingers moving to tug slightly at his waistband, revealing more of his navel to you to lick and kiss. “good,” you murmured into his skin, dipping to nose at the cincture of his pants, and lower, nuzzling against his crotch, where you could feel him hard and throbbing already.
“woman, you—” but his protest dissolved into a shuddering moan as you rubbed your cheek against his clothed cock insistently, eyes fluttering, gaze holding his, molten and smoldering with heated affection. the friction was delicious, and it only made more bitten off pleasured sounds fall from his lips, broad chest heaving, splotched red from how hard he was blushing, skin ruddy and flushed. he looked good enough to eat. and maybe later, you intended to do just that.
the scent of him was strongest there, musk so strong it made you dizzy with want, lips parting to mouth at his crotch, feeling his cock throb beneath the cloth, only spurring you on. “smell s’ good,” you mumbled as you continued to map the hard ridge of his arousal with your mouth, tongue laving at the material, wetting it with your spit, making the outline of his cock even more visible. “taste s’ good, husband.”
“gods, fuck—” came from above you, the grip at your nape firming, pressing down, almost smushing your face into his crotch, but you couldn’t be happier to succumb to maekar’s guidance, feeling his hips twitch upwards, rutting weakly against your face.
it made you moan, the action so debauched, so depraved, making you nose along his clothed cock in time with the clumsy grinding of his hips against your face, the scent of him thickening, clogging your senses and coating the back of your throat from how greedily you inhaled.
“c—can’t believe you’re, shit—” he could barely get his words out, too impaired by the way you looked, the blissful look on your face as he humped against it. “can’t believe you’re getting off on this, you wanton woman,” maekar continued, his hips picking up the pace, forcing you slightly more against his clothed cock, grinding against your cheek, the corner of your mouth, your nose; anything he could, the pleasure tingling down his spine way too rapid for his taste. “mouthing at me like a filthy animal, letting me hump—fuck.”
you could tell he was getting close, the thought satisfying you more than you could tell. seeing your husband so unraveled by this alone, hips grinding against your face, hand holding you down for more delicious friction, chasing more but not being able to get it. a delicious torture that was way too exquisite not to witness.
“mhm,” you hummed against his crotch, rubbing your cheek harder against his clothed cock, feeling it throb incessantly, the smell of him more pungent, the precum leaking steadily through his breeches and staining your cheek. “not my fault my husband left me unattended for so long,” you lamented, fluttering your lashes, continuing to rub against him. “i’ve been so lonely,” the words were mouthed against him, breath warm against his crotch, pushing him closer and closer to the edge.
“always so fuckin’ demanding,” he groaned, long and suffering, humping against your face with more fervor, so close to his peak, face and throat flushed and splotchy, hand firm against your nape as he pushed your face deeper into his crotch. “n—never satisfied, ah, fuck, fuck, wife—,”
wife. the word strained and close to a whine as he lost control, rutting against your plush cheek once, twice, before he came with a pained groan, as if someone clawed the sound from deep in his chest, his spent dirtying his breeches, wetting the fabric against your cheek.
his chest was heaving, mouth parted wide as he tried to catch his breath, his grip still firm, but trembling against your nape, his thumb now brushing along the side of your throat, just like before, as if rewarding you silently, thanking you for letting him use you like this.
it made you smile and you nuzzled into his now damp crotch, the smell of him more powerful than ever, making you moan against the cloth. the sound seemed to bring maekar back from his post coital bliss, his violet eyes blinking down at you, hazy but attentive.
“lick it,” he breathed out, voice strained and heaving still, the fingers at your nape guiding you towards where his cum stained his breeches most, a wet patch visible where the head of his now softening cock was under the cloth. “can’t let good spend go to waste, wife.”
you only hesitated for a heartbeat, mind not wrapping around his words for a moment, before you moaned, mouth parting eagerly, tongue pressing to the damp material and licking, feeling the taste of him invade your palette. “yes, yes,” you sighed, overly pleased, too preoccupied and greedy, lips wrapping around the wet spot and suckling it into your mouth, the essence exploding onto your tongue.
“fucking filthy woman—,” maekar cursed, the sight of his wife, so desperate and eager, making him equal parts flustered and astounded.
you knew the night was going to be a long one when you felt a twitch under your tongue, your husband’s cock throbbing back to life, making your lips curl.
