what we do in life echoes in eternity

fe || 28 || writer 18+ only || minors dni

[blue-aconite]

ABOUT ME

fe || 20s || she/her || fic writer

this is a strictly 18+ blog. blank blogs and underage/ageless blogs will be blocked immediately.

MASTERLIST

FIC RECS

UPCOMING PROJECTS

Latest series update: let me drown Latest fic: crimson crown

[erwinsvow]

hopelessly devoted to you — masterlist.

summary: baelor wakes up, and yet, somehow, your heart breaks even more.

pairing: baelor targaryen x wife reader

based off of this post! | tagged posts | ao3 link

moodboard, reader moodboard

part one

part two

part three

part four

part five

part six

part seven

part eight

part nine

part ten

part eleven

part twelve

part thirteen

[daenerys-stormborn]

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms + in memoriam:  Baelor 'Breakspear' Targaryen

[onyxstorms]

Targaryen's in their house colors and armor.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Season 1

[ohmylul]

Baelor and Maekar Targaryen ~DISAPPOINTED BROS EDITION~ A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS | S01E04 - Seven

[wweskywalker]

breakspear in dorne 🌞

[ghostlybfgf]

THE DORNISH WAY

summary: a trip back to your home brings back warm memories and a break for your family, and the constant chaos of the fact your husband and children just can’t handle the heat.

pairing: maekar targaryen x dornish wife!reader, maekarlings / mother!reader

warning(s): just fluff, family dynamics, cursing

word count: 1.8k

a/n: i did say my series would be out first but we’re going to wait on that because it’s coming!! so here’s this.. also to mention, we need more dornish!reader rep !!

Streams of dappled sunlight lit up the chambers in shades of gold and amber, the soft bristling of sheets being the only thing to wake you.

Snores rumbled brazenly into your back, the weight of your husbands chest pressed over your body, sticking along with his skins clammy and pressed into yours. Your arms stretched, attempting free from the heaviness above you but his arm had curled tighter.

“It is too hot.” A mumble whispered into your neck in annoyance.

You chuckled, “It is when you are on top of me.” Your arm clutched around his, somehow still impossibly close despite his complaint.

“No it is this southern sun at an ungodly fucking hour.”

“You should have gotten used to it by now husband,” You turned to face him, twisting in his hold where the fabric of your nightgown bunched around your legs. “I do believe it runs in your blood too.” He only hummed back, pursing his lips in a way where your hand planted across his cheek. He knew better than to protest you, even if he had wanted to, and he didn’t.

After all, you were right.

Dorne.. your homeland. Starfall to be exact. The secluded and mountainous region to the west of your husband’s own motherland of Sunspear, and its ruling house Martell. The castle had stood proud and poignant just as you’d remembered it, the pearlescent rock striking in the sunlight as you’d arrived in carriage over the river Torrentine.

And such many days worth of travelling had proven worthwhile for more than just memory.

Nights burned brighter with the moon clear over the horizon upon the Summer Sea. Spices and incense filled the breeze, and dancers and roamed freely amid court spreading their wears from overseas. You were welcomed by your cousins eagerly, surrounded by none other than your uncle, who ruled the castle after your own grandsire.

It was a custom that both you and Maekar had grown used to, and more than most, comfortable. There was something different there, something softer, warmer. And you had decided you had wanted to share it with your children since their birth. Though court duties and responsibility had proven you unable to depart as often as you’d liked from Summerhall. The last visit being only when you were withchild with your fourth and first girl, Daella.

And so you had taken the chance, ordered respite for a week or two at least, and for Summerhall to be housed by Prince Aerys and his wife Lady Aelinor in your absence.

For the time being, your own family could spent time together, differently.

No court or duty, just peace.

And it had gifted you just that.. for the most part. The youngest children had played from the solar to the riverbank, basking in the sunshine and splashing in the trickling stream alcoved by orange blossoms. The very place you had spent playing as a girl.

It was supposed to be peaceful, gentle and welcoming. It was one of those things. You embraced it in your stride, welcoming as such, the sun gleaming across your skin as you felt the warmth seep in as it once did, basking in the joy around you. Your dress was much different from usual, the soft thin silk of violet gracing your body and hugging at your waist, slinking at your shoulders. The girls wore something similar, dresses of rose and lilac flowing to their ankles as they twirled in awe. Something the courts of home would look unkindly on, but now you found it in you not to care.

Your sons wore their usual tunics, though lighter, in shades of blue and purple and orange replacing the usual crimson and black. And by some grace they had done it without fuss, exploring the grounds from their own respective interests. Aerion had found himself taken with the training yard, watching closely as the master at arms sharpened his sword. A much different one than he had ever seen, the hilt was twisted in gold, the blade rounded with its far point curved inwards.

Aemon had mapped out every corner of the castle, shading himself inside with tapestries and paintings. Daeron had sat himself at the edge of the gardens near a group of gossiping ladies, sipping on a light summer wine with a smirk placed on his lips.

And your Egg, ever the adventurer that he was, had watched over you and the girls as you waded in the waters, scouting the perimeter of the mouth of the river as it fled out into the sea. Your own sworn sword.

There was a shared contentment surrounding you, and you breathed easily for the first time in a long time. Though it seemed such peace could not last for long, as most of your children insisted they take after their father.

“Mother must it be so hot.”

Rhae whined aloud, tugging onto the small of your skirts as you walked with them.

“You sound much like your father.”

The glass ceiling of the conservatory opened up into the courtyard up the stairs from you, where your eyes wandered. Maekar stood in the archway, seemingly enthralled at whatever your uncle had said, loosening the fabric of his collar. His face was already a beat red, nodding along carefully with a gritted tight lipped smile.

The gardens were lush and in bloom, and the girls had already plucked small flowers from their beds and tucked them into their delicately braided hair. But even that did little to cure the one problem they all seemed to have.

Your eyes fell downward when you heard the whine again, this time more tired. Small violet eyes blinked up at you with a reddened flush that matched her father’s. Your hand graced smoothed over her cheek, moving the pair of you into the shade under the tree.

“We haven’t been out for long my love, have you been in the shade yet..?”

She only stared, huffing, “No.”

You had warned them of this, that it was not like it was at home. That the sun could burn just as easily as rainfall in the South. But still they did not listen. And to make matters worse, you found she was not the only one affected.

Egg had slowed down from running, swinging his legs over a rock where he had placed himself just beside Daella, who instead of plucking flowers she only fumbled with the grass, sweat beading her brow.

From where you were crouched you could see the rest of them. Daeron doing what he could to fan himself and wipe away the sweat from his forehead. Aerion pretended not to care as such, but even he had perched himself panting against the balustrade.

Aemon strolled out that very moment, and a smile came across your face as you shook your head. Certainly he was your smartest child, and had already minded himself from the sun since your arrival. But still the glare hit the pale of his skin as soon as he had walked into it.

“Gods be good.”

You swept the silver strands from Rhae’s face, sitting her down where the bank dipped into a little poo, “You must take breaks from the sun sweetling.. here.” Blue water sloshed against the sand and the tree root, and somehow for a moment it felt cooler.

“Better?” You raised an eyebrow at her.

“Better, mother.” She smiled then, urging the other two to join her, and they did so without fuss, soon all lazing happily by the stream with their feet dangling in the water.

“Perhaps a drink will be best hm?”

They all mumbled out a string of pleases as you took off, ordering them to stay put and where you could see them. You stepped up to the higher courtyard, smiling softly at the ladies who were just as unaffected as you, placing yourself at your husband’s side.

“Niece? lovely of you to join us.. I was telling your husband about the tourneys soon to be held here.” Your uncle spoke proudly, resting an arm out where you stood between them.

“Well, no doubt Aerion should be entering upon the lists, uncle.”

“In this heat? If you insist to kill the boy.” Maekar spoke as he leaned toward you, wrapping an arm at your waist instinctively.

“That was what I was here to mention. Might we pass water to the children they seem rather.. exhausted from this heat.”

“I forget you Targaryen’s are not as used sun as us.. of course..” He signalled then, calling a young squire over to hand the children, rather everyone, cups of wine and water. His dark ringlets mussed his head as he nodded, circling back into the castle.

“Perhaps you could use it too, my Prince.” Your uncle gestured to your husband with a teasing smile, still pulling on the seam of his collar to let air in, or the lack thereof.

“I’am fine.” He gritted as the pair of you laughed, placing a hand into his chest gently.

He soon departed as he was called away by yet another lord, leaving you both with a smile and a gentle command to find shade. You took his arm as you both made for the terraced table and chairs looking out over the gardens.

Aemon stood with a glass, and as soon as you looked, so did each one of them, taking gulp after gulp from the cups the squire had handed them.

“Well it seems one of our children listens at least.” You eyed Aemon and then to Maekar, tapping the metal of the table with a smirk.

“I’m surprised there is one at all.” He rolled his eyes, but they did not move from you, instead he took you in. For such chaos you all seemed to bring, you looked so peaceful, so at home. And he’d have shirked all duty then and there if he could just to see you in such a state.

As beautiful, as always.

A part of him seemed to relax at the sight, sighing as his back pressed deep into the chair with a creak, watching over the sights and account for every one of your children.

And much like your uncle’s request and your own, Maekar had done the very same. He drank the glass down in front of him instantly when you were not looking, pouring another not long after.

Stubborn.

—

The day continued on, and before long, after helpings of jugs of water, and a steady order to mind themselves in the sun, the children were rejuvenated once more. Egg splashed about in the water, catching his sisters where they fought back and hid with a mischievous expertise.

And beside you and your husband, your three eldest boys decided to sit with you. Aemon with his book, Daeron sipping from light summer wine, and Aerion with a down turned scowl that was the very image of his father’s, but from the pull in his brow you knew. He too, was content.

Though it didn’t help where you all had ended up, with supper concluded and bellies full, the evening brought different problems. Ones you had managed to account for just in time.

“I think it is burnt..” Daella whined.

“Me too.” Rhae flopped herself across the bed, trying not to pick at the skin.

“It itches.” Egg cried at last, studying the burnt skin on his legs.

“Do not itch it.” You called at last, thanking the maester from the doorway and stepping in a tour skirts fluttered behind you.

The ointment slid cool between your hands, smelling of aloe and mint, dipped from the jar one of the maesters had given you. The old man had offered to do it himself, but with the state of your children, you rathered your hand be torn off than someone else’s.

“I trust you can do it on your own..” Daeron sagged his shoulders and nodded, dipping his hand into the pit to take it into his hands with an eagerness. Surprisingly he hadn’t been so awful, not the fairest of your children, only his shoulders and nose had been burnt red by the sun, and he spread it onto the skin generously.

The girls had a rash from their legs, as well as Egg, who has it on his neck and arms and his chest from the low crease of his tunic. Your hands were gentle, as soothing as they could have been across broken skin, but yet all three of them eased at once.

“It feels nice and cool.”

“It should do, it is meant to help heal the skin. Just do not cover it.”

They nodded tiredly, resting back onto cushions and think blankets just to ease the pain. Aemon had fanned himself in the corner, scrunching his nose when you made a swipe to dot some of the ointment onto the redness there.

Aerion once more insisted he did not need it, laying back into the armchair with his chin tilted high.

“Suit yourself. Come later and you will wish you had..”

He passed you by with a hmph, a small sound, and not a dismissing one, but one that a young man’s pride would not let him lower himself to defeat. Though, he would make up for that later.

The final opponent was one you had saved specially for last. Your husband. He lay out on the bed, fanned by the faint, cool breeze, and opening of his linen shirt.

“If you are to put that on me, I will throw it form the window.”

“Now husband.. I believe you want this to heal do you not?” You smirked, clambering up onto the bed beside him, kneeing just where his legs spread out.

You fought the want to laugh. He had been bunt nearly everywhere, his face a beat red, his neck and chest sore to the touch, even his legs and lower waist through the thin of his doublet. The children watched on in silence, but amused all the while, at the sight of their own father attempting to fend you, their mother off of him.

“I will be gentle..” You dipped your fingers back into the pot, feeling the many eyes burning into the back of your head, no matter how tired.

“Mhm.” Maekar managed out, his eyes screwed shut with his head placed delicately onto the pillow. You’d opened his shirt a little way, just to spread some on, across his collarbones and down to his chest, then to his arms and back up to his cheeks. He winced at nearly every application, though he’d deny it.

“There.. all done. Almost a new man, my Prince.” Your lips placed to his nose carefully, pulling away just before he could tug you back down, groaning as you rolled into his side with a sharp sting. And once more, even through the pain, and the hushed giggled across the room, he did not move either of you, enclosing an arm around you tenderly.

---

Rhae stayed sleeping in your arms as you scooped her to your chest, standing at the open balcony, looking out into the dusk sky. Shades of orange and gold had spurned themselves into violets and blues over the distant horizon. Every tree and flower from the garden had been silhouetted, lit only by the few lamps that passed the place.

And for a time, it was still.

In such a large chamber, and the inability to move near enough at all, every one had fallen asleep in yours and Maekar’s. Daeron strewn out across the armchair, Aemon and Aerion in the others, with sly dottings of ointment on his chest, Daella on one end of the daybed and Aegon on the other. You too had fallen asleep on one of the benches after laying with Maekar, soothing your youngest to sleep where it was too uncomfortable. Where she only found the comfort in your arms.

“Are you going to stay up all night, or are you coming to bed?”

You smiled at the gruff voice calling out through the dark. Fingers balled in a fist at the curve of your neck, soft snores rumbling into your chest as you turned, the moonlight casting shadows across your face.

Maekar took in the sight for a moment, propped up into his elbows with sleep still thick in his eyes, but he still felt it, the familiar skip of his heart. He had seen you hold every one of them like that, and now even in the moment, all of you exhausted, boiling hot and nearly cooked from the Dornish sun, the lines of his face eased, pulling into a small smile.

“If I can get this one to lay down, then yes..”

“Come, bring her here…” His arm raised through the dark, beckoning you forwards. You had barely made it the few paces across the stone floor to the bed before he took her in his arms, her small body fussing with a little wince before settling. The familiar comfort between yours and Maekar’s arms where she had laid many a restless night.

And somehow that way, all of you had fallen to sleep quicker than you’d imagined, combing your hand through Rhae’s hair as an arm spread around you both. Though one thing was for certain, perhaps you would opt for a day of shade on the morrow.

[padmespetal]

i love “BANE OF DUTY”! 🥰🥰

your writing is as great as ever, baelor always reminded me of duke leto. both were honourable men that would’ve been great rulers and both are hot too 😶

in this au, would bene gesserit!reader defy the bene gesserit by giving baelor a son like lady jessica did?

oneshot here

ahh i'm so very glad this has reached the target audience!! i was genuinely worried people would straight-up have no idea what i'm talking about with the duke!baelor au lol

to answer your question however, i think yes, bene gesserit!reader would betray her oath and give baelor a son (which in this scenario then, paul would be valarr) but let's elaborate on that thought for a moment:

(discussion/hc’s under the cut)

imagine young bene gesserit!reader feeling completely estranged on dragonstone. she is trying her absolute best to adapt to the climate and her new life on this planet, but no matter how hard she tries, she keeps feeling like a total foreigner, a trespasser on their volcanic rock.

the people in the duke’s household (the swordmasters, the servants, the mentats) keep giving her these incredibly strange looks. they are constantly skeptical about her purpose and presence, carrying serious doubts about her truthsaying and her advising baelor. to them, she is just a bene gesserit witch sent there to seduce him and be a means to an end.

because of all this, reader is obviously feeling very squeamish and lowkey depressed since she is all alone. but then... Duncan the Tall!! (which in this case would be the equivelant of duncan idaho—lol, I never noticed how fitting it is). he’s Baelor's best swordmaster and the trainer of the entire targaryen military, and he ends up befriending her.

she actually starts trusting duncan. and because reader is still a bene gesserit, her skills of deception and hiding her true thoughts/emotions are superb— meaning Baelor has no idea how much she's struggling. duncan is the one who finally ends up telling baelor how incredibly hard it has been for her.

from then on, the duke starts making more time to be with her. they take meals together, eating breakfast and dining whenever he can find a free moment in his schedule. he takes her for long walks on the shores of dragonstone, telling her about the previous dukes of his house and the history of the massive dragon creatures living in the seas of dragonstone. she's skeptical about his motive at first, but after she sifts through his words and finds no lie behind them she relaxes.

he even starts teaching her about high Valyrian, and the man is absolutely half-shook (half-swooning) when he finds out she actually speaks high valyrian fluently already (courtesy of her bene gesserit training and being explicitly chosen to carry the duke's bloodline)

after that, everything starts going so much better. she begins aiding him in diplomatic missions, helping him devise strategy and deal with political opponents (Blackfyres khm khm), though maekar is still fiercely skeptical about her and her motives.

then, one evening... let's say on the exact one-year anniversary of her arrival on dragonstone, the reverend mother sends her a message which is essentially like: "okay, why are you not pregnant yet."

so reader utterly freaks out. she realizes she has entirely been neglecting the missionaria protectiva and instead has just been playing house with baelor, deeply indulging in this newfound freedom.

out of sheer guilt, she decides, "ok, it's time to utilize those skills and serve my purpose." she goes to baelor's bedchambers (because up until this point, they had still been sleeping in separate quarters) and tries to seduce him.

but baelor stops her. he's like, "i know why you're here. i know what the purpose of our union is." reader is left completely flustered and embarrassed, instantly thinking he doesn't want to bed her because he views her as a calculating bene gesserit witch.

instead of letting her leave, baelor pulls her close and confides in her. he tells her he sees her beyond a vessel to be bred, and she genuinely almost combusts on scene.

however he does confesses that the thing he wishes for most in the entire world is a son. the blackfyres are actively threatening to overtake the line of the targaryens, and a male heir is literally the one sole thing he needs most to secure the realm.

this plunges reader into a massive ethical dilemma. the reverend mother and the missionaria strictly need a daughter from this union to stay on track to produce the kwisatz haderach. but the man she has grown to love, the man who treats and looks at her as something more than a mere political tool, desperately needs (and wants) a son.

when finally the moment of consummation arrives and her and baelor are finally going at it passionately, she begins crying. baelor thinks she's just overwhelmed by the pure emotion of the moment. in reality, she is entirely overwhelmed by the choice she has to make the exact second he spills his seed inside of her.

in that sole moment of euphoria, she decides, "yeah, I love him too much to not give him a son." she uses her organic control to choose the gender. and from then on, the rest is history.

phew, duke!baelor need you to save me

[blue-aconite]

yes i have also become the target audience for this fic

[ildico-the-golden]

would you hate me if i sexted your dad?

just can't get enough of these men ugh. also sorry for the format, i didn't know how to make it seem a proper chat conversation (any tips will be most welcome)

Includes: modern!Baelor x f!reader // modern!Maekar x f!reader

Warning(s): modernAU, +18 MDNI, sexting,

It started, as things with Baelor often did, with something entirely innocent.

He had texted you a photo of a page from a book — a passage he had found and thought you would find interesting, which he did occasionally now, with the easy frequency of someone who had stopped managing the impulse to share things with you — and you had responded and a conversation had started and it had been a perfectly normal Tuesday evening exchange about the historiography of late Byzantine administrative structures until—

Until you had not been able to help yourself.

I keep thinking about last week, you sent. Specifically the kitchen counter.

A pause.

Longer than his usual response time.

I think about it also, he sent back. Frequently.

You smiled at your phone.

How frequently, you sent.

Another pause.

More than is probably productive, he sent. I was in a meeting this afternoon and spent approximately ten minutes thinking about the sound you made when I— and then it stopped and you could see the three dots and then they disappeared and then appeared again and then: that was not a sentence I intended to finish in a text message.

Finish it, you sent.

That seems inadvisable, he sent.

Baelor, you sent.

A pause.

The sound you made, he sent, when I put my mouth on your throat. I have been thinking about that specifically.

You stared at your phone.

Just that? you sent.

No, he sent back, and the single word had a quality to it even in text. Not just that.

Tell me, you sent.

The three dots appeared and stayed for longer than usual this time, which meant he was writing something and reconsidering and rewriting, which was so Baelor that you smiled at the ceiling of your flat while you waited.

I think about the way you felt, he sent finally. Specifically the way you felt when I was inside you. The sounds you made. The way you said my name. A pause and then another message immediately after: I think about what you look like when you come. I have replayed that in considerable detail.

Your mouth had gone slightly dry.

Considerable detail, you sent.

I have a good memory, he sent. It is currently working against me.

How so, you sent.

I am sitting in my study, he sent, trying to read, and instead I am thinking about putting you on this desk.

You put your phone down and screeched.

Picked it up again.

Tell me what you'd do, you sent.

The three dots.

I would start, he sent, with your throat. Specifically the place where your neck meets your shoulder. I have been thinking about that place with a frequency that I find somewhat consuming. Another message: Then lower. I would take my time. I was not thorough enough last week and I intend to correct that.

Not thorough enough, you sent. Baelor you made me come twice.

I'm aware, he sent. I have specific intentions regarding three.

You made a sound in the privacy of your flat that you were glad no one could hear.

You can't just say that, you sent.

I just did, he sent, with a composure that translated remarkably well into text. You feel extraordinary, he sent, and the shift in tense — present, immediate — made something clench low in your stomach. I think about how you feel around me and I lose significant portions of whatever I was doing. This afternoon it was a budget meeting. I cannot tell you what was decided.

What were you thinking specifically, you sent.

Specifically, he sent, how tight you are. How wet you were. The sounds you make when I go deep. A pause. I think about your hands in my hair. I think about the marks you left on my throat. I think about the way you said my name when you came the second time. Another pause, shorter. I think about it and I am hard and I am sitting in my study trying to read Procopius and it is not going well.

Touch yourself, you sent.

A longer pause than any of the others.

That is, he sent, not something I have done while texting someone before.

First time for everything, you sent.

You are a terrible influence, he sent. And then, after a brief pause: I am touching myself. I want you to know that I find this situation faintly absurd and also that I cannot currently bring myself to stop.

You laughed and then immediately stopped laughing because the image of Baelor in his study with Procopius open on his desk and his hand in his lap because of your text messages was doing things to you that you needed to address.

Tell me what you're thinking, you sent.

You, he sent. Specifically you on this desk. Specifically the sounds you would make. A longer pause — you figured how difficult it'd be for him to reply while he was pumping his cock in his hand. Specifically what your face looks like when you come. Another long pause: I think about that most. Your face. The way you look at me. A longer pause and then: I think about the way you said my name. I think about it constantly. You have no idea what your voice does to me.

Baelor, you sent.

There, he sent immediately. Exactly that. God.

Are you close, you sent.

Yes, he sent. Tell me something.

I think about your hands, you sent. I think about how large they are. I think about the tattoo on your ribs. I think about the sounds you make and the fact that nobody else has ever heard them.

A pause.

Nobody else, he sent back, rough even in text, something stripped in it.

Nobody, you sent. They're mine.

The pause that followed was brief.

Yes, he sent. And then nothing for two minutes and then: that was somewhat more intense than I anticipated for a Tuesday evening.

You laughed properly this time while looking at your phone like an idiot.

Good? you sent.

Come over, he sent. Please.

Baelor it's eleven pm, you sent.

I'm aware, he sent. Come over anyway. A pause. I have specific intentions and a desk and considerably more patience than I demonstrated last week.

You were already looking for your keys.

I'll be there in twenty, you sent.

I'll make tea, he sent, and you could feel the composure returning in real time and found you did not mind because the composure was never really the point, the point was what was underneath it, and you had standing access to that now.

Baelor, you sent, at the door.

Yes, he sent.

The desk, you sent. Don't change your mind about the desk.

A pause.

I have a very good memory, he sent. I don't change my mind about things I've thought about in considerable detail.

You jumped in the place you stood a few times and locked your door behind you.

It started with a photo.

Not an explicit one. Just — you, at a friend's birthday, in a dress that you had purchased with complete innocence and had worn with complete innocence and had sent to Maekar because he had asked what you were doing that evening and you had said out, here's proof and attached the photo without thinking about it.

His response took four minutes.

When are you home

You stared at the message with the incipient smile of someone who had got exactly what they were looking for.

Why???, you decided to play oblivious.

When are you home, he sent again.

That's not an answer to my question, you sent.

Couple of hours tops, he sent. And keep that dress.

You looked at your phone with a full smile now.

What about the dress???, you sent.

Don't, he sent.

Don't what, you sent.

You know what, he sent.

You did know what. You smiled at your phone in the middle of your friend's birthday party and sent back: I genuinely don't know what you mean.

A pause that felt pointed even through a screen.

The dress, he sent, is a problem.

How so, you sent.

I've been looking at that photo, he sent, for four minutes.

And? you sent.

And I'm going to be thinking about taking it off you, he sent, for the next couple of hours.

You excused yourself from the conversation you had been having and went to find somewhere slightly more private. Daeron looked at you somewhat confused, but when he noticed the way you were biting your lip, he just rolled his eyes and laughed.

Just thinking about it? you sent.

For now, he sent.

Tell me more, you sent.

A pause.

You first, he sent.

You looked at that for a moment.

I think about your hands, you sent. Specifically how they feel on my hips.

The response came fast: yeah

I think about your mouth, you sent.

Where, he sent.

Everywhere, you sent. Specifically my throat.

I left a mark last time, he sent.

I know, you sent. I liked it.

A pause that felt like him recalibrating.

How much, he sent.

Enough that I wore my hair up the next day so people could see it, you sent.

The pause was longer this time.

Christ, he sent.

Your turn, you sent.

The dress, he sent. Specifically what's under it.

What do you think is under it, you sent.

Not my mouth, he sent, and the three words landed with the flat certainty of everything he said and did things to you that three words had no business doing.

Maekar, you sent.

Come home, he sent.

I'm at a party, you sent.

I know, he sent. Come home anyway.

That's very demanding, you sent.

Yes, he sent.

You laughed.

Tell me what you're going to do when I get there, you sent.

A pause.

The dress comes off first, he sent. Slowly. I'm going to take my time. And then immediately: Last time I didn't take enough time. Another message: I've been thinking about that.

What specifically, you sent.

Tasting you, he sent, four words, blunt and direct and landing like a physical thing. Properly. Without the wall and the edging. A pause. Just you on my bed and my mouth on your pussy and nowhere to be.

You were gripping your phone considerably harder than the situation strictly required.

That's very specific, you sent.

I think specifically, he sent.

What else, you sent.

You on top, he sent. Like last time. I keep thinking about that. A pause that felt like him deciding something. The way you looked. The sounds you made. I think about that when I'm trying to sleep.

Does it work? you sent. For sleeping?

No, he sent. The opposite.

Are you hard, you sent.

Yes, he sent, as if it were an obvious question. Have been since the photo.

Touch yourself, you sent.

A pause.

I'm not doing that over text, he sent.

Why not, you sent.

Because, he sent, when I come I want to feel your pussy around me. I'm not settling for my own hand when I can have you.

You stopped, put your phone down for a second, looked at the sky above you, took a deep breath and tried not to scream in public.

Maekar, you sent.

Come home, he sent. I'll be here.

I have to say goodbye to a few people, you sent.

Fine, he sent. And then: wear the dress.

You being you, decided to rile Maekar a bit more just because he hadn't comply with your request of touching himself. Also because it was terribly fun to imagine him fuming at home, hard and not able to reprimand you for now.

You attached another photograph, one that a friend had taken that same day of Daeron and you laughing together earlier that afternoon, his arm around your waist in a friendly manner.

Maekar didn't answer for a whole minute. Then:

Tell Daeron to move his hand, he sent.

You laughed. Why??? He's your son.

I know who the fuck he is, he sent. Tell him to move his hand.

We were just— you did not get time to finish the message.

You're mine. He knows that. Get your coat and come here.

You would have screamed if you remembered how to breathe, which you did not.

Already getting my coat, you sent.

Good, he sent. I am having some words with Daeron tomorrow.

A pause.

And then one more message, sent with the flat directness of a man who said what he meant and meant what he said:

I'm going to make you forget your own name.

You said goodbye to approximately four people simultaneously, Daeron included, and left.

Yeah, so maybe there's a bit of personal projection here. Can you blame me tho?

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna @mongrelcryptid @sacha1slytherin @faithfullyvigilantsliver @alternarabuda @jjubilee-fluff

Want to join the general taglist? Leave a comment here!

[ghostlybfgf]

✬ A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS MASTERLIST ✬

aerion targaryen

ser duncan the tall

baelor targaryen

maekar targaryen

lyonel baratheon

valarr targaryen

daeron targaryen

other characters (including egg)

‘mad cousins and meetings’ — raymun fossoway

‘beautiful boy’ — egg / mother!reader

‘life goes on’ — egg / mother!reader

[ildico-the-golden]

best friend's dad syndrome

part 3 (2 here) of the modernAU drabble in which we jump these sexy men. if this isn't a disorder classified in psychology manuals, then there's nothing wrong with it. period.

Includes: modern!Baelor x f!reader // modern!Maekar x f!reader

Warning(s): modernAU, +18 MDNI, explicit sexual content, implied age gap, I gave them tattoos whoops. Baelor: kinda friends-to-lovers (?), mutual pining, praise kink, fingering, nipple play, PinV sex. Maekar: brat tamer Maekar, dom/sub undertones, edging, PinV sex.

The text exchange with Valarr took approximately four minutes and was, you felt, one of your better performances.

going over to yours to drop something off for your dad

His response came fast.

oh I'm out with kiera actually, won't be back til late. can it wait?

You looked at the book on your kitchen table. A first edition — not ancient, not priceless, but specific. The kind of specific that required knowing what someone was looking for, and you had known what Baelor was looking for since the bookshop three weeks ago when he had mentioned it in passing, the particular rueful tone of someone who had been searching for something for a while and had mostly made peace with the search.

You had found it in a secondhand shop two streets from your flat on a Tuesday and had stood in the aisle for approximately thirty seconds before buying it.

that's even better 🥴

The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

wait are you OH MY GOD please tell me you're not about to he's my DAD

You were already putting your coat on.

I don't know what you're talking about I'm just dropping off a book

YOU BOUGHT HIM A BOOK

it's just a book Valarr

people don't just buy specific books for people they're JUST dropping books off for

I genuinely have no idea what you mean

I am begging you

have a good one with Kiera

You sent your final text, and turned your phone face down in your bag and left before he could respond.

Your phone buzzed four times on the tube.

You did not look at it.

Baelor answered the door in reading glasses.

Just one pair, which was almost worse — there was something about one pair of glasses that was considerably more devastating than two, something about the specificity of it, the domesticity of a man who had been sitting reading in his own house on a weekday evening and had answered the door without thinking to take them off. He was also in a dark grey jumper that was doing things it had no business doing and had clearly not been expecting anyone because the composed public quality was not fully assembled — just him, in his jumper and his glasses, looking at you on his doorstep with an expression that moved from surprised to warm in about two seconds.

"I found something," you said, and held out the book.

He looked at it.

You watched the recognition arrive — the specific title, the edition, the fact of it existing in your hand on his doorstep — move through his expression in stages. He took it with the careful automatic reverence he gave books he considered important and turned it over and looked at the back and then looked at you.

"Where did you find this," he said.

"Shop near mine. Tuesday." You shrugged. "You mentioned it at the bookshop."

"I mentioned it once."

"You mentioned it specifically," you said. "The 1987 Ashgate edition. You said it was difficult to find secondhand."

He looked at the book. Looked at you. Opened his mouth and appeared to reconsider what he had been going to say and said instead: "Come in. I'll make tea."

His kitchen was warm and slightly cluttered in the specific way of a house that was lived in thoroughly rather than managed for appearance — papers on the table, a second book open and face-down on the counter which made you want to say something about spines but you restrained yourself, a mug that had clearly been there long enough to be architectural.

He filled the kettle with the focused attention he brought to small tasks and you sat at the kitchen table and watched him and thought about what you were going to do and felt, underneath the planning of it, the warm uncomplicated fact of how much you liked being in this kitchen.

"The 1987 edition has the corrected footnotes," he said, to the kettle. "The original 1983 printing had an error in the bibliography that propagated through most of the secondary literature for about a decade before anyone caught it."

"That's genuinely horrifying," you said.

"It is." He turned around and leaned against the counter while the kettle worked and looked at you with the glasses and the jumper and the warm composure of a man in his own kitchen on a weekday evening. "How did you know which edition to look for?"

"You were very specific about it," you said.

"I wasn't trying to —" He stopped. "I didn't expect you to actually look."

"I wasn't not looking," you said.

A brief pause in which he appeared to process the grammar of that and arrive at the implication and choose, carefully, not to follow it all the way to its conclusion.

The kettle boiled.

He made tea.

You were on your second cup when you said it.

"Can I say something without it being weird," you said.

He looked at you over his mug. "Probably depends on the thing."

"I find it really attractive," you said, "when someone is genuinely obsessed with something. Like intellectually obsessed. The way you talked about Byzantine iconoclasm in the café — I find that really attractive."

The mug lowered slightly.

"Right," he said, in the tone of a man who was not sure where to file this information.

"History nerds specifically," you continued. "There's something about someone who cares that much about something that's just—" you let the sentence do its work without finishing it.

Baelor looked at you with the expression of a man who had received information he was attempting to process through several different frameworks simultaneously and was finding the process slower than usual.

"That's—" he started.

"And the glasses," you said.

He stopped.

"Men in glasses," you said. "I have a thing. I'm aware it's not a particularly original thing but it's a consistent thing."

His hand moved very slightly toward the glasses and then stopped, which was the best thing you had ever seen another person do, the specific gesture of a man who had momentarily considered taking them off and had caught himself and now needed somewhere to look that was not your face.

He looked at his tea.

"You should probably—" he started.

"You're very attractive," you said. "I've thought so for a while. Since before the café, actually."

The kitchen was very quiet.

Baelor set his mug down with the careful precision of a man performing an action slowly enough to buy time for his thoughts to catch up with the situation. He looked at the table. Then at you. Then at the table again.

"You're Valarr's friend," he said.

"I know."

"You're—" He stopped. Started again. "This is complicated."

"I know," you said. "I've thought about the complicated."

"And?"

"And I'm still sitting in your kitchen on a Tuesday evening having told you I find you attractive." You looked at him steadily. "So."

He looked at you.

The composure was there but it was doing less than usual — the edges of it uneven in the specific way you had first noticed in the bookshop aisle. His jaw moved once. He opened his mouth to say something.

You leaned across the table and kissed him.

Not tentatively. You had been thinking about this for three weeks and tentative had not featured in any version of the thinking. You kissed him with the clear intention of someone who had made a decision and was implementing it, and felt in the first half second the specific quality of his absolute stillness — the shock of it, the composure going offline all at once — and then in the second half second the moment he stopped being still.

He made a sound against your mouth.

Low and involuntary and nothing like the curator or the composed man in the doorway with his book. Just a sound, pulled out of him by the simple fact of your lips against his, and then his hand came up and caught the back of your neck and he kissed you back and every careful principled argument that had been assembling itself somewhere in his head simply didn't.

He pulled back after a moment. Breathing slightly uneven. Looking at you from very close with the glasses slightly displaced and an expression that was trying to locate the counterargument and finding nothing available.

"I was going to say—" he started.

"Was it a good reason?" you said.

A pause.

"I can't currently remember what it was," he said.

"That's probably fine then," you said, and kissed him again.

This time he did not pull back.

This time his hand slid from the back of your neck into your hair and he kissed you like a man who had found the counterargument and assessed it and decided it was insufficient, thorough and unhurried in the way he did everything, and you made a sound against his mouth that he swallowed and responded to immediately.

At some point the table stopped being between you.

There was a period of rearrangement that involved chairs and the brief navigation of the table's corner and his hands at your waist — and then you were against the kitchen counter and he was in front of you with his hands braced on either side and was looking at you with the glasses still on and the jumper and the expression of a man whose counterargument had not returned and did not appear to be coming back.

"On the counter," you said.

His brow furrowed slightly. "What about—"

You put your hands on his shoulders and pushed yourself up onto it. Something happened in his expression.

"Oh," he said quietly.

"Yes," you smiled and bit your lip.

He kissed you again and this time it was different — the composure fully gone, replaced by something more direct and more urgent and considerably less managed, his hands sliding from the counter to your thighs with a purposefulness that made your breath catch. You pulled at the jumper and he shifted to help you get it off and you pushed it up over his head and threw it somewhere and then—

You stopped.

His ribs. The left side. Dark ink against warm skin, the letters precise and deliberate and clearly old enough to have settled into him like they had always been there.

Γνῶθι σεαυτόν.

You stared at it for a moment. Then you looked up at him.

Something in his expression had shifted — a different quality of vulnerability, not the composure being stripped away but something more specific, the particular exposure of something private being seen for the first time by someone he had not planned to show it to and found he did not mind showing it to.

"How long have you had that," you said.

"Twenty years," he said. "Approximately."

"Know thyself," you said softly.

Something moved in his face. "You read Greek?"

"My grandmother," you said. "She had opinions about a lot of things."

He looked at you for a moment with that expression — the unguarded one, the one that kept arriving and staying longer each time — and then you reached out and traced the letters with your fingertips, following the curve of them against his ribs, and felt him exhale sharply at the contact.

You then pressed your lips to it.

The sound that left him was low and immediate and completely unmanaged, his hand flying into your hair, and you felt him shudder under your mouth and filed the knowledge away with the specific satisfaction of someone who had found something important and intended to return to it.

"You are going to be the end of me," he said roughly. To the ceiling.

"Not yet," you said, and pulled him back.

This time when he kissed you it was with the full unmanaged weight of someone who had stopped looking for the counterargument and had no intention of finding it. His hands worked at your shirt with a focus that was no longer patient in the unhurried sense but patient in the specific sense of a man doing something he intended to do thoroughly, and your shirt ended up somewhere and his hands were on your skin and he exhaled against your mouth like the contact had knocked something out of him.

"God," he said quietly. Not to you. To the situation. To the fact of his hands on your waist and yours on his chest and the kitchen warm around you.

"Still thinking about that counterargument?" you said.

"There is no such thing in my brain anymore," he said, and kissed your jaw and then your throat and you tipped your head back and felt his mouth open against your neck — warm and deliberate — and then he did something and you gasped and felt his teeth and his mouth and then the specific bloom of pressure that meant—

He pulled back. Looked at your neck, then looked at your face.

"I'm—" he started, the composure making one last valiant attempt to reassemble itself. "I didn't mean to — I should—"

You grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him down and bit his throat.

Not hard. But deliberate. Specific. In the exact register of what he had just done to you, your mouth open against the warm skin of his neck, your teeth grazing the muscle there, and you felt the full body shudder that went through him and heard the sound — low and rough and dragged from somewhere he had not given it permission to come from — and when you pulled back his expression had nothing of the apology left in it.

Just — gone. All of it. The composure, the apology, the counterargument, the curator.

"Right," he said. His voice was wrecked. "Alright."

The bra went somewhere. His hands cupped your breasts with a directness that made you arch into him immediately and he made a sound at that — low and immediate and specifically responsive, like your body's reactions were doing something to him that he had no management available for.

"You're—" he started.

"Tell me," you said.

Something shifted in his expression. The specific thing he had with praise that you suspected was right there, sitting just under the surface, and you had put your finger directly on it and he knew it and was not even slightly trying to deflect anymore.

"Beautiful," he said, rough and specific, his hands moving. "I've — since the café. Since the bookshop. I kept thinking about—" his mouth dropped to your collarbone and the sentence dissolved into the warm press of his lips against your skin— "this. Exactly this. Whether you'd—" he kissed across your chest— "whether you'd make sounds. What sounds you'd make."

"And?" you managed.

"Better," he said against your skin. "So much better than whatever I—"

He kissed your breast and his tongue found your nipple and the sound you made was immediate and unguarded and he groaned against you — a genuine moan, low and resonant, vibrating through his chest into yours — in direct and unmistakable response to the sound you had made, like your pleasure had a direct line to something in him that bypassed every system he had.

"There," he breathed. "God — there—"

"Baelor—"

"I know," he said. "I know, I—" another moan, lower, as you shifted against him— "you have no idea what you sound like. What you feel like. I've been — Fuck, I've been trying not to think about this for weeks and it's—"

His hands found your jeans.

He dealt with your jeans and your underwear with hands that were steady and purposeful and not entirely in his control — the steadiness of focus rather than composure, the focus of a man doing something he had thought about and intended to do properly. His fingers found your clit and you grabbed his shoulder and made a sound that echoed off the kitchen tiles and he moaned in response — low and broken and entirely involuntary, his forehead dropping to your shoulder.

"You're so wet," he said, rough. Wondering. Like the fact of it was doing something specific to him. "God. Already — I've barely—"

"The hickey helped," you said.

A sound that was almost a laugh and almost not. His fingers moved and your hips rolled forward and the almost-laugh dissolved into something lower and more wrecked. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, against your throat, and did it again — the deliberate press of his mouth to the mark he had already left, tongue tracing it — and the sound you made was embarrassingly immediate.

"Baelor," you said.

"Mm," he said, not stopping.

"If you keep doing that I'm going to—"

"I know," he said. Warm. Certain. His fingers working with the focused attentiveness of a man who had decided this was worth studying thoroughly. "That's the idea."

He learned you quickly and used what he learned without mercy — the specific pressure that made your hips roll, the rhythm that made your breathing go ragged, the precise application of his thumb that made you clench around his fingers and made him moan against your throat like your body's responses were the best thing he had ever encountered and he intended to catalogue every one.

"You feel—" he started.

"Tell me," you said again, because you had found the thing and you were not letting go of it.

His breath caught. "Perfect," he said, low and rough and deliberate. "You feel perfect. Every time you clench like that — every time you make that sound — I can't—" a low moan as you did it again— "I've been thinking about having you like this since — fuck, since before I should have been and I can't—"

"Don't stop," you said.

"I'm not stopping," he said.

He didn't stop.

You came with his fingers inside you and his mouth on the hickey he had left on your neck and his voice in your ear saying your name and then saying perfect, exactly that, god, you're— in a low broken stream that your brain was going to be replaying for a very long time, and he held you through every shudder of it with his free hand spanning your lower back, steady and certain, and the sounds he made while you came apart around his fingers suggested that your orgasm was doing as much to him as it was to you.

He was hard against your thigh and had been for a while and the specific evidence of it when you reached for him made him say your name in a way that had clearly been waiting to sound like that.

You got his boxers out of the way.

He made a sound that came from somewhere deep and his hips pressed forward into your hand involuntarily and he made another sound at that, lower, his forehead dropping to your shoulder while you wrapped your hand around his cock and felt him twitch and felt him breathe and felt the specific shudder that went through him when you moved your hand.

"Christ," he said.

"Good?" you teased.

"Don't be smug," he answered, voice completely destroyed.

"I'm not being smug," you said. "I'm asking."

"Yes," he said. "Obviously yes. You feel — your hand feels—" he made a sound that interrupted whatever he had been going to say and you filed the sound somewhere permanent. "I need to—" He stopped. Gathered himself with visible effort. "If you keep doing that this is going to be embarrassingly short and I have — I have specific intentions."

"Specific intentions," you repeated.

"I'm a thorough person," he said roughly.

You released him. He exhaled shakily.

Then he was between your thighs and positioned and looking at you with the glasses still on — crooked, both lenses catching the kitchen light — and the hickey you had left on his throat and the tattoo on his ribs and the completely dismantled expression of a man who had retired the counterargument and every system downstream of it.

He pushed inside.

The sound he made was—

Long. Low. Broken entirely open, dragged from somewhere below every layer of management he had ever built, arriving with the helpless totality of something that had been contained for too long and had finally, completely, stopped being contained. His head dropped forward to your chest. His jaw was working and his eyes were closed and he stayed there for a moment just — breathing, or attempting to, his chest rising and falling unevenly.

"Baelor," you said softly.

"Give me a moment," he said. His voice was unrecognisable as the café voice or the bookshop voice or any voice you had previously catalogued. "You feel — Christ, you feel — I need a moment or I'm going to—"

"Take your time," you said.

"I intend to," he said, and then he moved and you both made sounds simultaneously and the intentions became very clear.

He fucked you slowly at first, with the specific deliberateness of a man who had said he was thorough and intended to prove it, and made sounds that you were going to think about for the rest of your life — low and continuous and arriving one after another with complete disregard for composure or management or anything else he had previously used to keep himself contained. Every movement produced something from him. Every time you clenched around his cock he moaned — properly, openly, the sound resonating through his chest into yours.

"You feel—" he said, against your throat. A low moan interrupted him. "God. Every time you — when you do that — I can't — you're so—"

"Tell me," you said.

His breath caught.

"Perfect," rough and specific and chosen with the care of a man who selected words deliberately. "You feel perfect. Your pussy feels — god — every time you clench I can feel exactly—" another moan, longer this time, as you did it intentionally— "there. Exactly there. You have no idea — I've been trying not to think about this and it's so much — you're so much better than—"

"Than what," you managed.

"Anything I—" he started, and his hips found a rhythm that interrupted the sentence and made you grab his shoulder and hold on.

He fucked you on his kitchen counter with his hands on your hips and his glasses crooked and the Greek tattoo on his ribs catching the light and made sounds that belonged to nobody you had met before this evening — unguarded and unrestrained and arriving in response to everything, your sounds, your movements, your hands in his hair, every time you said his name which you did frequently and with purpose because of what it did to him.

"Say my name, please," he said at one point, breathlessly, against your jaw.

"Baelor," you said, deliberate.

The moan that left him at that was long and low and you felt it everywhere.

"God," he said. "Again."

You obliged.

"Fuck," he said, and his rhythm deepened and you stopped being able to say anything coherent for a while.

You came a second time somewhere in the middle of it, which you had not planned for but which arrived with the inevitability of something that had been building since the kitchen wall and the edging and the hickey and the tattoo and all of it, clenching around him with his name on your lips and your nails in his shoulder, and the sound he made at the feel of it—

Was the most undone thing you had ever heard from another person.

A long low broken moan that he pressed into your throat and that shook through his entire chest and that had absolutely nothing of the museum curator or the composed man on the doorstep in it — just Baelor, stripped entirely down, making sounds he had never made in front of another person because nobody had ever gotten past the composure far enough to find them.

"You feel so good," he said, rough and wrecked and honest. "When you come around my cock — fuck — I can feel everything — you feel so—"

"Baelor," you said, and pulled him closer.

He came shortly after with your name and then perfect and then something that was not quite a word pressed into your throat, shuddering through him completely, his hands holding you like you were the thing he was anchored to and he intended to stay anchored.

The kitchen was quiet after.

Both of you breathing.

His forehead against yours.

The glasses — still on, still crooked — catching the kitchen light in a way that made you feel something specific in your chest that you were choosing not to examine until you were in a better position to handle it.

You reached up and straightened them.

He looked at you.

The expression on his face was entirely, completely undone and entirely, completely unbothered about being undone, which was new from a man who had been managing his expression for as long as you had known him.

He reached up and touched the hickey on your neck. Lightly. Just his fingertips.

"I should probably—" he started.

"Don't apologise," you said.

He looked at you. You tilted your head and traced the one you had left on his throat. Something in his expression did something entirely unmanageable.

"Fair point," he laughed.

Your phone was in your bag. Valarr had sent approximately seventeen messages. You did not check your phone.

You traced the tattoo on his ribs instead and felt him exhale slowly against your hair.

Know thyself.

You thought, with the warm certainty of someone who had just watched a man find out something true about himself on his own kitchen counter, that he was getting there.

(i'm truly sorry i did not find a gif that vibed with the vibes)

Daeron was, by any reasonable metric, completely gone.

You had established this approximately forty five minutes ago when he had attempted to explain to you why the Fibonacci sequence was secretly a conspiracy and had made, briefly and alarmingly, a compelling case. Since then he had progressed through several distinct phases — philosophical, then mournful, then inexplicably delighted by a lamppost — and had arrived at the current phase which was primarily characterised by his inability to walk in a straight line and his arm around your shoulders being the only thing keeping him approximately vertical.

"You are," you told him, dragging him up the front path, "an absolute disaster."

"I am having," he said, with great dignity, "a very good evening."

"You can barely walk."

"I'm walking fine."

"Daeron. I am carrying you."

"That's very kind of you," he said, and attempted to pat your head and got your ear instead.

You rang the doorbell with your elbow.

The door opened after about thirty seconds and Maekar stood there in a dark t-shirt and jeans with the expression of a man who had been doing something else and had come to the door expecting approximately anything other than this specific situation.

He took in Daeron.

Daeron, to his credit, attempted to stand up straight. He managed about forty percent of upright before gravity reasserted itself and he leaned back onto your shoulder.

"Hi dad," he said.

The silence that followed had considerable weight.

"For the love of—" Maekar started, and then said several other things in rapid succession that were not appropriate for general audiences and that you were filing away for later because the specific combination and delivery was genuinely impressive.

"He's fine," you said. "Just drunk."

"He's absolutely hammered," Maekar said flatly.

"Okay he's absolutely hammered," you conceded. "But fine. He didn't do anything stupid, he just had about four drinks too many and started explaining mathematics to strangers."

Something moved through Maekar's expression that was exasperation and reluctant parental resignation in equal measure. He held the door open. "Get him in."

Getting Daeron up the stairs was a collaborative project.

You had his left side and Maekar had his right and Daeron contributed by providing commentary on the staircase, which he found architecturally interesting, and by stopping twice to make points about things that had not been raised.

"Dad," he said, at the second landing, with the abrupt subject change of the extremely drunk.

"What," said Maekar, in the tone of a man concentrating on a task.

"She thinks you're really sexy," Daeron said, conversationally, then turning his face to you. "That's the thing you said, right?"

You stopped walking.

"Keep moving," Maekar said, apparently to both of you.

"Like, really sexy," Daeron continued to you, with the relentless honesty of someone for whom the filter between brain and mouth had completely dissolved. "You told me. After the pipe thing. You were like Daeron— wait no that's me. You were like your dad is—"

"Daeron," you said, through your teeth.

"What? It's a compliment. I'm sure dad will take the compliment."

"I'm going to fucking kill you," you told him pleasantly.

"You're literally carrying me, you're not going to—"

"I will drop you on this landing."

"But you said—" Daeron started.

"He's fine," you said loudly, to Maekar, who was — you checked — focused entirely on navigating Daeron through the bedroom door with the focused efficiency of a man who was too irritated at his son to be processing anything else. His jaw was set in the specific way of someone managing several feelings at once and prioritising the most immediate one, which appeared to be get this man horizontal before he falls over.

Good.

Fine.

He had not heard. Or had heard and dismissed it because Daeron was drunk and Daeron said things and the more pressing concern was the logistics.

You were going with that.

You got Daeron onto his bed with the cooperative efficiency of two people who had identified a shared goal and were pursuing it without further conversation. He landed with the boneless satisfaction of someone whose relationship with gravity had become philosophical rather than practical, made a sound of profound contentment, and was asleep within approximately ninety seconds.

You both stood at the foot of his bed looking at him.

"He'll be fine," you said. "Water and paracetamol in the morning."

"I know," Maekar said, in the flat tone of a man who had done this before with various combinations of his six children. He reached down to pull the duvet up and his t-shirt rode up at the back—

You saw it.

Just the bottom edge of it — the tail, curling at the base of his spine, scales rendered in deep red and black with the fine detail of something that had taken serious time and serious money and serious commitment. The colour was extraordinary even in the low light of Daeron's bedroom, vivid and deliberate, and it disappeared back under the t-shirt when he straightened but it was too late.

You had seen it.

You were thinking about what was above it.

"Right," Maekar said, turning around and finding you with an expression that was still mostly parental irritation and some baseline tiredness and not whatever your face was currently doing. "Tea? Or I've got whisky if you need it after that."

"Whisky," you said immediately.

His kitchen was warm and quiet and he poured two glasses with the economical ease of someone who knew his own kitchen and did not need to perform anything in it, and you sat at the table and took the glass he set in front of you and felt the whisky do its immediate work and thought about the tail of a dragon at the base of his spine.

"He's an idiot," Maekar said, sitting across from you.

"He's your idiot," you said.

Something that was almost the almost-smile. "Unfortunately."

You drank your whisky. He drank his.

The kitchen was quiet in the specific way of two people who had just performed a task together and had not yet decided what happened next.

You were happy tipsy — the warm uncomplicated kind, the kind that made you feel slightly more yourself than usual rather than less — and the whisky was good and Maekar was sitting across from you in his t-shirt with the dragon underneath it and you had been thinking about this for weeks and Daeron had, drunk and disastrously, already said half of it anyway.

"He wasn't wrong, by the way," you said.

Maekar looked at you over his glass. "About what."

"What he said on the stairs."

A pause. The quality of Maekar's stillness shifted slightly — not the irritated-at-Daeron stillness, something more attentive than that.

"He said a lot of things on the stairs," Maekar said. "He said the banister was load-bearing in an interesting way."

"The other thing," you said. "I think you heard."

He looked at you, eyes doing that funny thing they do when they grow darker. You looked back.

"You're Daeron's age," he said.

You rolled your eyes. "You're not that old."

"I have six children."

"I know. I've met them. They're fine." You swirled the whisky. "That's not actually a reason not to."

"It's a context."

"Still not a reason, is it?."

His jaw tightened slightly. He set his glass down. "You should probably—"

"Probably what?" you said, and tilted your head, and watched him clock the tone and reassess.

There was a beat.

"Don't," he said. Flatly. The specific flat of a man who has identified a dynamic and is issuing an early warning.

"Don't what?" you said, with the complete innocence of someone who knew exactly what.

His eyes narrowed fractionally.

"You're being a brat," he said.

"I'm asking a question."

"You're being a brat," he said again, and this time it was not a warning exactly, it was something else — something that had arrived from a different place, lower and more specific — "and you know it."

You smiled at him over your glass.

Something shifted in Maekar's expression with the finality of a decision being made.

He stood up.

He crossed to your side of the table with the direct purposeful movement that characterised everything he did physically and you stood because sitting while he was standing felt suddenly like a tactical disadvantage and then you were both standing in his kitchen at a distance that was not a distance anymore and he was looking at you with those violet eyes that had stopped being the grumpy-at-everything eyes and had become something considerably more focused.

"Last chance," he said. Not a threat. Just — information, delivered with the flat certainty of a man who meant what he said.

"I don't buy it" you said staring directly at him.

He kissed you.

Not the way you had imagined it — you had imagined it various ways over various weeks — but harder than any of the imaginings, more immediate, with the specific quality of a man who had been holding something at arm's length for too long and had decided, definitively, to stop. His hand came up and caught your jaw and he kissed you like punctuation, like a full stop at the end of something, and you kissed him back with equal fervour and felt his other hand find your waist and pull you in and the size of him was—

There. Immediate. Real. His hands spanning you, his chest against yours, the specific overwhelming quality of being pulled against someone that much larger and feeling it in every nerve.

He broke the kiss and looked at you.

"Still being a brat?" he said, low.

"Oh, abso-fucking-lutely," you laughed.

His jaw moved. "Right."

His hands moved to your hips and walked you backward with a calm deliberateness that left you no input into the direction of travel, and your back met the kitchen wall with a solidity that was not rough but was very definite, and Maekar braced one hand beside your head and looked at you with the expression of a man who had made several decisions and was implementing them in order.

"Maekar—"

"You wanted to be a brat," he said. "Fine."

His other hand slid down your stomach and your breath caught.

"You can be a brat," he said, his mouth dropping to your throat, "and I'll teach you what happens."

His fingers found the waistband of your jeans and dealt with the button with one hand and the efficiency of someone who was not performing patience because he had the real thing, and then his hand was inside your underwear and finding your clit with a directness that made you grab his shoulder and make a sound that was embarrassingly immediate.

"There," he said, against your throat. Not pleased exactly — satisfied, in the specific way of someone whose assessment has been confirmed. "That's it."

His fingers moved and you stopped being able to think about much else.

He was — thorough. That was the word. In the way the garden spreadsheet had been thorough, in the way the pipeline had been thorough — focused and attentive and completely committed to the task with a patience that was somehow more intense than urgency would have been. He learned what made you gasp and returned to it. He learned what made your hips roll forward and used it deliberately. He paid attention with the same quality of attention he had given the raised bed and the isolation valve except directed entirely at your clit and it was — a lot. It was a frankly unreasonable amount.

"You're close," he said, low. Not a question.

"Yes," you managed. "Yes, keep—"

He stopped.

You made a sound.

"What—" you whined.

"Told you," he said, against your jaw. Calm. Completely, infuriatingly calm. "Brats don't get to come that easily."

"Maekar—"

"Mm."

"That's not—"

"Not what?" he said, and his fingers moved again, barely, just enough, and you grabbed his shirt with both hands.

"Not fair," you said.

"No," he agreed, and did it again — built you up with that focused relentless patience, got you to the edge with the specific efficiency of someone who knew exactly where the edge was and had decided to park you there indefinitely, and then stopped again.

The sound you made was not dignified.

He made a low noise against your throat that was the closest thing to satisfied you had heard from him and you were furious about how much you liked it.

"Maekar," you said, with feeling.

"When you're ready to stop being difficult," he said pleasantly.

"I am not being—"

"You walked into my kitchen at midnight and told me you knew exactly what you were doing," he said, pulling back enough to look at your face. His eyes were dark and completely focused and there was nothing grumpy-at-inanimate-objects about his expression now, just — direct, and certain, and very specifically aimed at you. "You were being difficult on purpose."

"Maybe," you managed.

"So." He tilted his head. The movement was so deliberate it made something in your stomach clench. "Consequences."

He edged you a third time against the kitchen wall.

By the end of it you were gripping his shirt with both fists and making sounds that had nothing to do with dignity and he was pressing his mouth to your temple and saying there, that's it, stay there in a low voice that was simultaneously the hottest thing you had ever heard and the most aggravating and when he stopped for the third time you actually whined.

"Please," you said when he removed his hand from your jeans entirely.

"Please what?" he said.

"Please, you absolute—"

He picked you up.

Not with ceremony, not with warning — simply put his hands under your thighs and lifted you off the floor with the casual ease of someone for whom this was not a significant physical undertaking and carried you out of the kitchen while you were still processing the fact that you were no longer on the ground.

"I hate you," you informed him.

"No you don't," he scoffed, and sat down on the sofa with you in his lap.

The living room was dark except for the light coming through from the hall and Maekar was solid and warm underneath you and you were straddling him and looking at each other and the aggravation had transmuted into something else entirely in the twenty seconds it had taken to get from the kitchen wall to here.

He kissed you again.

Slower this time. His hands on your hips, thumbs tracing small movements against the fabric, and you kissed him back and felt the kiss change as it went — finding its own depth, its own pace — and then you were pulling at his t-shirt and he lifted his arms and you got it over his head and threw it somewhere in the dark and—

You stopped.

The dragon covered his entire back. You could only see the front of him from where you sat but the tail curled around his ribs on the left side and there were scales at his collarbone and it was — in the living room dark with the hall light catching the colour — extraordinary. Deep red and black and the fine detail of something built over years, the kind of tattoo that had been added to incrementally, that had grown with him.

"How," you said.

"How what," he said.

"This." You traced the scales at his ribs. Felt him breathe in. "How does nobody know about this."

"People know," he said. "They just don't see it unless I—" he stopped, because you had leaned forward and pressed your mouth to the scales at his collarbone and his sentence dissolved.

"Unless you what?" you said against his skin.

"You're still being a brat," he said, low.

"Yes," you smiled, and kissed across his collarbone to the scales on his ribs and felt him exhale sharply, his hands tightening on your hips, and heard the low sound he made that was different from the gruff default and considerably better.

You pulled back and looked at him.

"Your turn," he said.

He dealt with your shirt with the same one-handed efficiency as before and unclipped your bra and looked at you with the direct thoroughness he brought to things he was assessing seriously, which should not have been as effective as it was.

You laughed at the way he was staring at you. "That look is getting dangerously close to a compliment."

"And you're getting dangerously close to being pleased about it," he said back, this time the smile almost coming fully to his face.

"Says the man who hasn't looked away from my tits."

"If I had looked away, we both know you'd be disappointed," he said, which was so flat and so Maekar that you laughed, and he watched you laugh with that fractional almost-smile and then pulled you in and kissed you and his hands were everywhere and you stopped laughing about anything.

Clothes ended up in various parts of the living room over the next several minutes — yours, his, everything — with the mutual efficiency of two people who had both been thinking about this and were done with the intermediary steps. His jeans went somewhere near the coffee table. Your underwear ended up on the arm of the sofa.

You were straddling him again, properly now, and he was looking up at you with those dark focused eyes and his hands were on your hips and the size of him was — there. Present. Impossible to be casual about.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?" you mimicked.

"You wanted to be a brat," he said, low. The almost-smile at the corner of his mouth, barely there, completely deliberate. "Show me."

You held his gaze.

"You're a brat too, you know," you smirked.

"I know," he answered. "So show me."

You sank down onto him slowly and the sound he made was — long and low and entirely without the management of any of his usual composure, his head going back briefly, his jaw clenching, his hands gripping your hips with a pressure that was going to leave something and that you were entirely fine with.

"Fuck," he said. Rough. Genuine.

"That good?" you breathed, because turnabout was fair play and because you wanted to hear what he did with it.

His jaw tightened. His eyes, which had closed briefly, opened and found yours. "Don't push it."

"I'm just asking," you chirped sweetly, and moved, and the sound that left him then was—

Not managed at all.

You rode him with his hands on your hips and his eyes on your face and the low continuous sounds he was making against every instinct to contain them, and it was — the power of it, the specific pleasure of being the one setting the pace while he sat there and took it and made those sounds — was something you had not anticipated and intended to revisit extensively.

"You feel—" he started, low.

"Tell me," you said.

His jaw worked. His fingers dug into your hips. "You feel—" the words seemed to cost him, dragged out by the combination of the movement and something else, something more fundamental— "good. Christ, you feel—" he stopped. Made a sound. Started again. "Perfect. Exactly—" his hips rose to meet yours and you both made sounds simultaneously— "exactly what I—"

"What you what?" you said.

"Thought about," he managed roughly. "For weeks. Christ."

That was the most words you had ever heard Maekar say in a single emotional direction and you filed it somewhere permanent and moved again and felt his entire body respond.

One of his hands left your hip and found your clit.

"Oh—" you started.

"You're going to come," he stated, low and flat and completely certain. "And then you're going to come again. And we're going to see—" his thumb moved and you grabbed his shoulder— "how difficult you feel like being after that."

"Maekar—"

"Yeah," he said. The almost-smile. Devastating. "Yeah."

His thumb worked your clit with the same focused patience he had employed against the kitchen wall except now there was no stopping, no edging, just — direct and relentless and entirely committed, and you rode him and felt everything build simultaneously and heard his sounds and felt his hands and looked at the dragon scales on his ribs and came with his name in your mouth and your nails in his shoulder and everything clenching around him and the sound he made when you did—

Was the best thing you had ever heard from another person.

Low and rough and entirely wrecked, his head dropping back, his hands gripping you like you were the only fixed point available.

"Again," he said roughly. "You can—"

"I literally just—"

"Again," he insisted, and his thumb was still moving and you found out he was right.

You came a second time somewhere shortly after with less warning and more intensity and said something that you would have been embarrassed about if you had had any available capacity for embarrassment, which you did not, and Maekar said your name and then said there, exactly— and followed you over the edge with a roughness and a totality that shook through him completely and left you both in the specific stillness of people who have just dismantled something and are taking stock of the wreckage.

The living room was quiet. Your forehead was against his. His hands had moved from your hips to your back, large and warm and spanning you completely, holding rather than gripping.

"Still being a brat?" he teased.

His voice was completely wrecked.

"Ask me in a minute and we'll see," you said.

The almost-smile. Full this time. Real. Directed entirely at you in the dark living room with the dragon on his ribs and his hands on your back and the evidence of your underwear on the arm of the sofa somewhere to your left.

"Tea," he asked eventually.

"Yeah," you said.

"Then you're staying." Not a question. The flat certainty of a man making a reasonable determination.

"Feel like you'll need me again that much?" you teased.

He looked at you.

"Brat," he scoffed.

"You love it," you said.

He said nothing, but the almost-smile stayed.

The text came at half eleven the following morning.

You were in Maekar's kitchen drinking coffee while he read the paper with the focused attention of someone who had entirely recovered their composure and was pretending the living room situation had not occurred, which was belied only by the coffee he had made you without being asked and the way his hand had rested briefly on the small of your back when he passed.

Your phone lit up.

so daeron targaryen here your best friend??? who you dragged home last night??? and who apparently passed out in his room while something was happening on his sofa???? i have no memory of the stairs but apparently i said some things anyway i need you to know that i heard you last night specifically i heard you say [and then a direct quote of the thing you had said while riding his father that you were not going to repeat even internally] i just want you to know that i will never recover ever are you okay? are you alive? do you need extraction?

You looked at the message for a moment.

You looked at Maekar, who was reading his paper with his coffee and his recovered composure and that fucking hot dragon underneath his t-shirt.

You typed back.

get used to it i'll pay for your therapist x

And then you added an emoji that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

Daeron's response was a string of increasingly unhinged capitalisation followed by what appeared to be genuine laughter rendered in text.

i literally cannot believe you okay fair enough is he making you coffee tho

You looked at the coffee.

yes why

He waited a few seconds to reply.

good he only makes coffee for people he likes. he made mum coffee every morning for fifteen years

daeron

I'm just saying

daeron

okay okay I'm going back to sleep my head is KILLING me

drink your water

Three dots. None. Three dots again.

yes mum also oh my god I cannot believe you rode my

You turned your phone face down on the table. Maekar looked up from his paper.

"Daeron?"

"Daeron," you confirmed.

He looked at you for a moment with those violet eyes and the recovered composure and the almost-smile sitting at the very corner of his mouth.

"How bad?" he asked.

"He'll be fine," you said. "Mostly horrified."

"Good," Maekar said, and returned to his paper. "He should have kept his mouth shut on the stairs."

You laughed and picked up your coffee.

Outside the morning continued with its business entirely indifferent to the fact that you were sitting in Maekar Targaryen's kitchen the morning after, drinking coffee he had made without being asked, while he read his paper and pretended to be completely normal about it.

You were both completely normal about it.

You were both, underneath the completely normal, not even slightly normal about it.

A.N.: listen i had a very productive day and couldn't stop writing. also, there's a little ✨extra✨ coming tomorrow (if i can proofread it). how do y'all feel about sexting Baelor and Maekar???

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna @mongrelcryptid @sacha1slytherin @faithfullyvigilantsliver @alternarabuda @jjubilee-fluff @hrh007

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[svkahug]

dreamless nights

Summary: “I did. Hiding in the middle of shrubbery. A small child. I thought it was—Well, I thought it was you at first. For he ran to me and I saw he had your eyes.” How Baelor would handle having a dreamer wife, even as she tries to hide it from him. Tags: dreamer!reader, arranged marriages, falling in love, brief mentions of dysfunctional families, brief nsfw A/N: this is how i cope with my insomnia

The marriage had been arranged, but your feelings for him were not. 

You dream of him your first few nights in the Redkeep. A welcome change from your usual dreams. Not violent, not loud or bloody. You are walking behind him, the sun haloing the cropped dark hair atop his head. He turns his head towards you, just an inch, revealing mismatched eyes and a twice broken nose, and that is when you wake. 

It is the few times you have had peace to yourself. You do not question it, you cherish it.

When you do meet the prince, it feels as though the air rushes out of the room. You realize then that the crown prince, Hand of the King, has been the same man in your dreams. You do not really know what it means. 

You had expected him to be as arrogant and boorish as anyone in the proximity of power. Yet what met you was gentleness and kindness, a presence that levelled the room with that same mismatched gaze that has fixed you in your dreams. 

You stare at him a little too much during feasts, or when you chanced upon him in the training yard, and when you had accompanied your father in the small council chamber, those eyes fixing men in their seats or persuading them with that voice of his that you finally chanced to hear. All this staring caught his eye, and Baelor, naturally curious, found a way to start a conversation. 

You are quiet, yet observant, he notes. He’s heard the other lord’s remarks about you: your beauty accompanied by your eerily serene expression. So he pays closer attention, every reaction, no matter how miniscule and files it away. He sees when you decide to listen, when you decide to appear as if you aren’t listening but actually has a keen ear in the conversation. He sees it in your eyes that sweeps over a new room, as if turning every crevice, every important person in your palm. But even more so the way you stare at him, as if a little struck, as if you have seen him before. 

You have been having vivid dreams since you were a child. Your mother has taught you to hide it, keeping the benefit of your future husband in mind, so much so that she fails to consider your wellbeing in the matter. You had hidden it well enough, had managed to rearrange your entire life around it, especially since the offer of betrothal to a Targaryen prince was presented to you during your time at the Keep. 

The court sings praises of a wise match, of dowries and fleets, strategies and alliances, unaware of something that has been burning there steadily, unaware of your dreams.

He had chanced upon you by the balconies looking over the garden of the Keep. There were no other witnesses other than the crickets in the night and the wisps of the trees. 

“I thought I was the only one awake at this hour.” His voice makes you jump and you know it is him before you’ve fully turned around. 

“Your Grace.” You curtsy.

“My Lady.” He returns. His cloak is the color of the night, the familiar black and red of House Targaryen making him seem more formidable even in a chance encounter.

“Forgive me, your Grace, sleep does not come easy to me.” The stone wall is cold underneath your hands.

“There is nothing to forgive, I am the intruder here.” He bows his head, stepping forward to fall into step beside you. “Though it is a nice surprise, I usually work into the late hours and rarely see other living creatures at this hour. How are you faring, my Lady?”

“Quite well though… It is certainly an adjustment, though I have always been told I sleep at odd hours.” He casts you a sidelong glance. “I prefer the night, it seems more to yourself does it not? It is lonely but it is yours.”

When the betrothal is confirmed a few moons later, your mother makes note of talking to you after the ceremony, reminding you to maintain your secret. You return to the high table tense and you think you are hiding it well until your husband’s hands find yours under the table, giving a reassuring squeeze. It is then you realize after feeling displaced in your own home that you have finally found something you can call your own.

Later, in performing your duties, he is gentle as one can be. More than that, he learns what you like, and when you ask for more, he is not shy in giving it, as if it is the permission he has been waiting in bated breath all along. He memorizes the sound of your panting breaths, the twitch of your hips. He plucks the pleasure out of you like a skilled artist attuned to his instrument. 

You’re basking in the afterglow of it all, laying side by side in attuned breaths. Your husband was handsome, and you were more than aware of the gossip that plagued the court. More Dornish than Targaryen. You never understood why that was such a terrible thing as you lay next to him, the firelight dancing along his features.

“I have seen you in my dreams.” You do not realize saying it out loud, a mere mindless mumble, until he laughs. Not mocking, not demeaning. He laughs as if flattered, and his cheeks go a little flushed, as if you had not just spent the past hour doing ungodly things to each other.

“There’s no need for you to woo me, sweet girl. We are already married.”

You return his smile then, moving to perch yourself upon his chest, the contact sending warmth through your whole body and causing him to make space for you in his. “And if it is not flattery, but truth?”

His hands find your hair then, winding his fingers mindlessly through them. “Then what sweet dreams you have.” If only he knew, you think. He is as you have dreamt of and that night is one of the few nights you have slept dreamlessly. 

The moons turn and you settle into a peaceful routine, though your secrecy slowly mounts your chest with guilt. The visions are often in your dreams, so vivid and almost real that any threats in your unconsciousness are registered as real to your senses. So much so that you cannot help your reactions to them.

You are awoken one night to a form at the foot of your bed, like a terrible assassin, illuminated by the dozen candlelights in the room. You do not question why the candles are all lit when you have retreated to bed nearly an hour ago. You register the threat as real, yet when you shoot up from bed, he is not there, and the room is nothing but shadows.

Your heart is hammering in your chest, and you move to curl up against his side then, counting your breaths, eyes wide and searching the room for the assailant. But nothing comes. Baelor does not wake, merely wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you slither closer to him. He must think that you are simply seeking warmth, unaware of the war drums banging in your chest. You sit up then, simply to watch him, the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps half on his side. He looks good like this, unbothered and untethered. You wonder what he dreams of or if he dreams of anything at all.

He must be so tired, you think, more tired than I. You walk over to the dying hearth to tend to the embers, looking for something else to occupy your mind. Over the years, you’ve become familiar with the night.

You jump later when a hand brushes against your arm, and you look up to be met with your husband’s face, ladened with sleep yet amused at your reaction.

“What are you doing here?” He rasps, occupying the seat next to you.

“Night terrors.” The lie keeps him placated, though you did not fathom for how long.  

Although now you cannot think of that, or anything else. His hair was ruffled from sleep, in a simple sleeping tunic, yet you found yourself unable to look up. 

He is looking at you from where he sat, eyes bearing that same intensity.

“I apologize if I woke you.” You say just to say something, to stop him from looking at you as though he means to devour you whole. “I could suggest separate quarters to the maids. There are so many rooms, I’m sure no one would mind—”

“Is that what you would like?” He asks with an air of finality, a gentle end to your ceaseless string of words. He does not challenge, but when your eyes meet, his mismatched ones illuminated by the fire, it seems determined to draw an honest answer out of you.

“No, but if— I am quite a light sleeper and I don’t want to be a bother.” Another lie. You’d prefer to be alone in the chambers so if you woke, which you will, you will only have yourself to frighten.

“You’ve never bothered me.” He stands with a quiet grunt, offering a hand to you. “Save for when you decide to wander when I am searching for you in my sleep. Come, please.” You follow his movements, then save one last look to the hearth before you take his hand and follow him back into bed.

“I’m frightened.” You admit in a whisper, settling back against the pillows and tucking yourself underneath the covers.  “I know it is so childish, to be frightened of one's dreams, but…” It is the closest truth you can give him. His hand finds a pattern on your hip.

He watches you. “Do you have them often?” 

You nod. “Since I was a child.”

“Then you have nothing to apologize for. You’re safe here. This is your home.” He sees the worry on your face. He wishes he had the power to take it away, though he knows it is not that simple. “Why did you not wake me earlier, if it bothered you so?”

“I know how tired you are.” You cover his hand with yours, absent of any rings that adorned his fingers in the day. “You need your sleep.”

Wake me, he whispers, a kiss against your shoulder, if it gets worse. His tone does not leave room for arguments. His words remain with you as you get dragged into a fitful slumber, dreamless as you hope.

–

Fire blooms in the walls of your chamber, glowing coals etching itself into the cracks there. The crackling of it is vivid and real, orange glow consuming the stone walls. It sets the room alight on its own accord, casting its own shadows to dance along the wall as if they are their own living and breathing bodies. The smell is putrid, unlike woodsmoke or the rising of smoke from the hearth. 

In your state, you had picked up a porcelain washing bowl and hurled it at the door. Exactly when Baelor had decided to come in. That is the moment you wake up. You do not know why you did it. Perhaps it was frustration coming to the surface, of no longer knowing what was real and what was not.

He ducks deftly, just in time so the pieces fall on his back and do no real harm. For a moment, the both of you stand there, frozen in shock.

“Stand down,” he responds to the Kingsguard’s inquiries almost immediately. “I’m fine.” When they try to come in, he shuts the door behind him, taking in the room, your state. Your hand comes up to cover your mouth, cupping the apologies spilling from there.

“I’m sorry—I thought I—” You stutter, eyes welling with tears unconsciously. You had almost harmed him, someone that you cared about, that welcomed you into his home and made it yours after years of feeling displaced on your own. “I thought I saw—” There is no fire there, the room is intact and not engulfed in flames.

“What did you see?” He asks, taking a cautious step forward. His tone remains calm, as if he already had his own suspicions, but his heart is hammering in his chest. You feel it later when he takes you in his arms, attempting to soothe you, running a hand along your back. 

He begins to reach for you, unsure if you’d like to be touched, and preparing for you to create some sort of distance between the two of you. But when you don’t, when you simply take his hand and let yourself be maneuvered to him, a relief wells in his chest.

You admit it to him that night, your secret that has been weighing on you, how horrible they get, how keeping it hidden was almost as worse as the dreams themselves. It is a relinquishing of sorts, of the burden of a secret, of your exhaustion. You expect the worst: anger, fear, disgust, caricatures of a man you’ve grown to know well enough to understand that he would never act like that towards you. Yet you expect it, and it doesn’t come. He understands, and a part of him has known, you think. All those nights you could not sleep through, twitching awake at the sensation of falling in your dreams, jerking awake.

Later in bed, he asks against your hair, “Have you ever had good dreams?” He sounds genuinely curious.

“I do,” you answer, fighting to keep your eyes open. For how much you dreaded sleep, you were only human, and you were exhausted. “I dreamt of you before I met you.”

From then on, he takes note of what calms you, and cultivates it without a word. If it is the gardens, a seat by the sea or a quiet nook in the Keep, it is yours without even having to ask for it. He makes a passing, yet calculated, request to a handmaid, a knight, a servant, and suddenly no one dares to pass by that part of the Keep. The space wordlessly becomes yours and you do not have to fight to keep it. Baelor had grown used to it rather quickly. You’ve suggested separate chambers on numerous occasions and he has turned it down all the same. 

You’ve taken to writing your dreams down, sometimes in detail, sometimes in vague scrawls. But you learn to live with the dreaming, and you find that ceasing to fight it proves to be a better comfort than suppressing it these past few years.

In talks of politics, he will heed your warnings, but he does not like his wife to be used as a pawn. So, he keeps it hidden. The Red Keep had taken note of your habits. Night owls, they call the pair of you, though you’ve given them no other reason to gossip badly. There is little whisper of how the heir apparent’s wife is a dreamer. The little whisper dies down with no evidence, a flame with no kindling.

The lack of sleep is concerning for the both of you. He has been known to work until the late hours of the night. You’ve taken to accompanying him more often in the late nights in his solar and not complaining when you rose in the early mornings. Your body has learned to function on as much sleep as it can take. It is a refreshing change for Baelor, to find his lady wife already up before him. 

Once, you had attended a feast with little to nothing but a nap and your head lolled to the side once, in the middle of a lord’s gratitude to King Daeron. At everyone’s applause, you jolted awake and he silently took your hand underneath the table, an amused smile on his lips you’ve come to know too well. You mumble your own gratitude against his cheek, stumbling down the hall towards your shared chambers, when he announces his choice to retire early with his lady wife.

Other than that, the Keep have whispered of heirs, of little princes and princesses running around the Keep once more. On more than one occasion this was announced in your presence, you have caught your husband’s eye across the room, an uptick of his lips then. 

The confirmation comes to you first—in a dream. Baelor was more than happy to hear that you had a good night’s rest, but even more so if you had good dreams more than night terrors. In a way, he had seen it as his duty, that if the Realm, his responsibility was well-taken care of, so would your dreams.

“Baelor,” you whisper to him one night. The candles had burned low into their iron pots and the hearth had slowly died down into the night. You’re curled up against him for the sake of warmth. “I had a dream.”

“What was it about, dearest?” He hums awake, reaching for you even as his eyes remain closed. 

“We were in the gardens of the Keep. ‘Twas a good, bright day out, like the ones you favor. And I was searching for someone.”

“Did you find them?”

“I did. Hiding in the middle of shrubbery. A small child. I thought it was—Well, I thought it was you at first. For he ran to me and I saw he had your eyes.”

He turns his face to you then, expression open. You had never seen that look on his face before. You realize then you had never seen the prince so well caught off-guard. “I think, perhaps, we should send for the maesters.” You whisper to him then, unsure, yet a smile has found your lips.

He sits up then, a rustle of sheets. “Are you certain?”

You nod and he cradles your head, pressing a kiss there. The maester had been sent for in the middle of the night, discreetly. The next day, the bells had been rung every hour of the day to welcome the news.

[morri-draws]

More Than Duty

Baelor 'Breakspear' Targaryen x Fem! Reader

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Chapter word count: 6.9k

Chapter Summary:

After finally confessing your feelings, both you and Baelor must navigate the unfamiliar reality of being together. But while affection comes easily, the realities of rank, duty, and expectation do not.

Content: slow burn, canon divergence, Baelor lives, mutual pining, crossdressing, master & servant, fear of discovery, identity reveal, injury recovery, devotion, violence, protectiveness, eventual smut, no use of y/n, no physical description of reader apart from hair length

Read on Ao3

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You did not expect to sleep at all. But perhaps finally confessing your feelings – and having them returned – released all the tension you had been carrying for weeks, allowing you to drift into the deepest rest you have had in some time.

You carry the breakfast tray up the tower stairs, your stomach fluttering with equal parts excitement and nerves.

Ser Duncan looks up as you enter the corridor.

“Good morning,” you say with a smile.

“Morning,” he replies, returning it with a knowing grin.

Of course he knows. He delivered your letter. He would have seen Baelor rush off to find you. And now here you are.

You step into Baelor’s chambers. Arnol greets you as he leaves, and Baelor looks up from his desk the moment you enter. The warmth in his expression makes something inside you melt.

“Good morning, your grace,” you say as you carry the tray to the table and begin setting out his meal.

“Good morning,” he replies, rising and taking his seat.

He is dressed in his gambeson, ready for training after breakfast. You step forward and reach for the pitcher to fill his cup.

“When we are alone,” he says, “you may call me Baelor.”

You pause, your eyes lifting to his. “It might take some getting used to.”

You find it difficult to look away. Your attention lingers on him a moment too long, and when you tip the pitcher, water splashes over the rim and onto the table, droplets scattering across the front of his gambeson.

You gasp. “I'm sorry!”

You hastily reach for your cloth and begin dabbing at the damp fabric.

“It is quite alright,” he says with a chuckle.

“A good thing it wasn't wine,” you reply. “Otherwise you might have had to dock my wages to pay for a new gambeson.”

A frown briefly touches his brow before understanding dawns. You are referring to the council meeting, when the handle came loose from the pitcher and splashed Lord Foler with wine.

Baelor shakes his head. “I wanted to throw Lord Foler out that day.”

“Really?” you ask, blotting away the last droplets before stepping back.

“The way he spoke to you was unacceptable.” His voice softens. “I saw how upset it made you.”

The look he gives you is gentle enough to make your chest ache.

“Yes... it was humiliating at the time,” you admit. “But I can laugh about it now.” You smile. “Speaking of Lord Foler... will Lady Foler be joining you at training this afternoon?”

Baelor sighs. “I hope not.”

“You don't enjoy her company? Her fluttering eyelashes and lingering touches?”

He gives you a sidelong glance. “You're very observant.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks, which only seems to amuse him.

“Even Egg thought it was excessive,” you say defensively.

That earns a laugh.

“Speaking of Egg, Maekar intends to watch him train today. So if you plan on bringing drinks afterward, you may wish to include one for him as well.”

“Of course.”

~-~

Baelor’s squire helps him into his breastplate and arms him with a blunted practice sword before the prince steps into the training yard, where Ser Duncan and Egg are already waiting, similarly equipped and armed, while Maekar stands at the edge of the courtyard, watching.

Baelor gives Duncan and Egg instructions for an exercise before joining his brother.

“I think you will be pleased with Egg’s progress,” he says.

Maekar merely hums in response. Then he sidesteps a little closer and lowers his voice.

“I saw you last night.”

Baelor stills so slightly that most would miss it. Maekar does not.

“With your cupbearer,” he continues. “Outside the gates.”

“You followed me,” Baelor says, matching his brother's quiet tone.

“Can you blame me? You were acting half-mad when you ran into me.”

Baelor presses his lips together. “And? What is it you wish to say?”

Maekar turns so that he is facing him fully. “Tell me the truth of it. How deep are your feelings for her?”

“Deep enough that losing her would have undone me.”

Maekar studies him for a moment. “And hers for you?”

The tension eases from Baelor's face. That small, disbelieving smile returns.

“She feels the same,” he says softly.

Even now, saying it aloud feels unreal.

“And what do you intend to do with this... affection?”

“I don't know,” Baelor admits. “I only know that I cannot bear to be apart from her.”

“That's not an answer.” Maekar folds his arms. “If you want her as your mistress, say it plainly. If you want her as your wife–”

Baelor's head snaps up.

“I... do not know what choice there is. I would not have her known as my mistress. The way that word is used... it is–”

“Hardly better than whore,” Maekar finishes.

Baelor's jaw tightens.

“You understand, of course,” Maekar continues, “that if you want her as your wife, she will need to be raised up. Given a name, a title, lands. And even then, many would object. The heir to the throne marrying a lowborn woman is no small thing.” He pauses. “And if she becomes your wife, then one day she becomes queen. A lowborn queen is unheard of.”

“Then what would you have me do?” Baelor turns to him, his expression almost desperate, because he knows every word Maekar speaks is true.

“Is her father alive?” Maekar asks.

“No.” Baelor replies. “Her only male relative is her brother. He served me faithfully before recently sustaining an injury.”

“Then you will need to speak to our father, ask him to grant her brother a lordship, and pray that he will allow the match. If this was to be your first marriage, I wouldn’t dare to hope, but since you have already made a political match – and have two heirs to show for it – well… you might just have a chance.”

“You think so?”

Maekar sighs. “I would not build all your hopes on it, but if you really care for her as much as you say, then it’s worth trying.”

-

You step into the training yard carrying a tray of cider, as you usually do, though today there is an extra cup as Baelor suggested.

He and Prince Maekar stand together at one side of the yard. Baelor has his hands clasped before him, while his brother stands with his arms crossed. It is Prince Maekar who notices your approach first. He gives a brief nod in your direction, and Baelor turns. The moment he sees you, his expression softens, the faintest smile touching his lips.

“Your graces,” you say in greeting as you offer them the drinks.

Baelor thanks you softly. Maekar gives a gruff nod as he accepts his cup.

You leave them to their conversation and cross the yard toward Ser Duncan and Egg. Duncan is cleaning one of the practice swords, while Egg sits on a bench nearby. The boy's usual brightness is absent. His gaze is fixed on the ground, his mouth set in a frown.

You offer him a drink first.

“Thank you,” he mutters.

Ser Duncan sets the sword aside and accepts the last cup, offering his thanks as well. He glances at Egg with concern.

“Are you alright?” you ask as you sit beside the boy, placing the tray on the bench between you.

“I’m fine,” he replies quickly, without looking at you.

“You don’t seem yourself,” you say gently. “If something is bothering you, I'd be happy to listen.”

Egg sighs through his nose. “Father was supposed to watch me train.” He glances across the yard. “I've been trying really hard. I wanted him to see. But he's spent the whole time talking to Uncle Baelor.”

Your heart tugs at the disappointment in his voice.

“I’m sorry, Egg.” You place a hand on his shoulder. “I can see why that would upset you.”

“I don't think he means anything by it, lad,” Duncan says. “He's probably just catching up with his brother.”

“But he could do that any other time.” Egg crosses his arms. “He's leaving soon. He won't be here the next time we train.”

You squeeze his shoulder gently. “Perhaps you could ask to train again before he leaves. Tell him you'd like him to watch. Make sure he knows how much it would mean to you.”

“Maybe... I'll try.”

“Good.” You smile. “I know your uncle is pleased with you. And I'm certain Ser Duncan is as well.”

You glance toward the knight.

“Aye,” Duncan agrees. “You've come a long way, Egg. You should be proud of yourself.”

The boy gives a small smile. Then, quite suddenly, his expression brightens.

“Lady Foler didn't come to training today.”

The abrupt change of subject catches you off guard, though you say nothing. Perhaps speaking about his feelings has made him uncomfortable.

“She’s probably upset Uncle Baelor didn't ask her to dance at the feast,” he continues matter-of-factly. “I think Uncle Baelor wanted to dance with someone else.”

He gives you a pointed, mischievous look. Heat rises to your cheeks.

“Oh,” is all you manage.

Egg grins, clearly pleased with himself.

~

You come to Baelor’s chambers at midday, pushing the door open with your hip as you balance the meal and pitcher on the tray in your hands.

You carry it to the table, where he is already seated, waiting for you.

“Was Prince Maekar pleased with Egg’s progress?” you ask as you fill his cup with wine.

“I assume so,” he replies, though his tone is distracted.

“He didn't say?”

He glances up at you.

“He and I spoke of other matters.”

You hesitate briefly before continuing. “It’s just that... Egg was upset that his father wasn't watching him train. He wanted Prince Maekar to see how much progress he's made.”

Baelor frowns. “The fault is mine. I should not have taken Maekar’s attention away from Egg.”

“Might he train again before Prince Maekar returns to Summerhall?” you ask. “He seemed very eager for his father to watch him.”

Baelor meets your eye, and you step back, abashed.

“I’m sorry, it’s not my place…”

“Never apologise for speaking your mind.” His voice is gentle, but firm. “I will arrange another training session before Maekar leaves.”

You smile thankfully.

“Please.” He gestures toward the chair beside him. “Sit.”

You set the pitcher down and pull the chair out, perching on the edge of the seat. It feels odd to sit at the prince’s table.

Baelor exhales softly. “It feels strange now.”

You look up.

“To carry on as before,” he says. “After everything that passed between us last night.”

Heat immediately rises to your cheeks.

“To have you bring my meals, pour my wine...” His gaze lingers on you. “When you are far more to me than merely my cupbearer.”

Your heart gives a painful little squeeze.

“I don't mind doing it,” you say quietly.

His eyes hold yours for several long moments. Then he says, almost shyly: “Would you join me for supper tonight?”

You blink. “For supper?”

“It feels rather foolish to ask, considering you would be the one bringing it upstairs.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “But if you brought two plates, two cups, and enough wine for both of us...”

“I get to drink the good wine?” A smile spreads across your face. “I gladly accept your invitation.”

He chuckles. “Ah. I see now. This was your plan all along.”

“I never planned any of this,” you say softly, the words slipping out before you can stop them. “I never thought...”

“Neither did I,” Baelor says. “But here we are.” There is wonder in his voice still, as though he can scarcely believe it himself. “And I would like to share my supper with you beside me, rather than having you stand by waiting to refill my cup.”

The tenderness of the sentiment makes your chest ache.

“I would like that very much, your gra–” You catch yourself, a smile tugging at your lips. “Baelor.”

His expression softens immediately at the sound of his name on your lips. And for a moment, neither of you seems inclined to look away.

~

You enter his chambers that evening carrying two meals and two goblets.

Baelor looks up the moment you step inside. He rises from his desk and approaches the table as you begin setting out the plates – his in its usual place, and yours at the seat to his right.

It feels strange laying two places. Stranger still that one of them is for you.

You fill both goblets with wine and move to take your seat, but Baelor steps forward first, pulling out the chair for you. You look up at him with a smile as you sit, and only then notice what he is wearing.

“You’re wearing the shirt again.” You cannot quite hide the delight in your voice.

His hand moves instinctively to the cuff, his thumb brushing over the embroidery.

“It has become my favourite,” he admits as he takes his seat.

Warmth blossoms through your chest.

“I cannot explain how thrilled I was when I saw you wearing it at your name day feast.”

“I received several compliments on it that night,” he says. “You could earn a good deal of coin if you offered your skills to other members of the nobility.”

You feel your cheeks warm.

“Perhaps.” You smile. “But then the one I made for you would not be quite so... special.”

Something softens in his expression. “I see.”

The smile he gives you is enough to make your heart flutter.

He takes a sip of wine before glancing toward the plates. “Shall we eat before our supper goes cold?”

You nod and pick up your knife and fork. You try not to appear too eager, but the meal before you looks better than anything you have ever had the privilege of eating. You cut a small piece of roast beef, rich with sauce, and bring it to your mouth. The moment you taste it, your eyes close. The meat is so tender it scarcely needs chewing, and the flavours are unlike anything served in the servants' hall.

When you open your eyes again, you find Baelor watching you.

“Is it to your liking?” he asks.

A laugh escapes you. “How can you even ask that? It is very much to my liking.” You shake your head. “I fear every meal in the servants' hall will be incredibly disappointing after this.”

“Then I shall simply have to invite you to dine with me more often.”

Your breath catches. His gaze remains fixed on you, one hand loosely wrapped around the stem of his goblet.

“If that is what you wish,” you reply, suddenly finding your plate very interesting.

“It is what I wish.” He says without hesitation. “But is it something you would like?”

“Yes. I would like that very much.” You glance up at him. “And not merely because the food is good.” You add awkwardly.

His mouth twitches. “Oh?”

“I mean...” You look away. “I would happily eat bread and butter if it meant–” You stop abruptly.

His eyebrows lift. “If it meant...?”

Your face feels impossibly warm. You rest your cheek against your palm in a futile attempt to hide it.

“I only meant,” you continue from behind your hand, “that I would enjoy dining with you regardless of what was served.”

His smile deepens. “There is no need to hide your face. I find your flushed cheeks quite endearing.”

You grimace. “It’s not something I enjoy being observed.”

“Well, I fear it’s too late, as I have already observed it.” He says with quiet amusement.

You lower your hand just enough to give him your attempt at a glare, but the expression only makes him look more amused. When your eyes meet, however, the humour softens into something gentler. Something that makes your chest tighten.

His gaze lingers on you for a moment longer before he finally returns his attention to his meal. You do the same, though neither of you can quite stop smiling.

~-~

“Baelor.” King Daeron says with a smile as his eldest son enters the solar. “Come, sit.” He gestures to the chair before the desk, taking his own seat behind it. “You said you wished to speak with me privately. Is something amiss?”

“No, Father, nothing is amiss.” Baelor takes the offered chair. “I wished to speak with you about a family that has served me faithfully. My former attendant, Tom, has shown unwavering loyalty throughout his time in my service. He was especially devoted during my recovery after the injury I sustained at Ashford.”

He folds his hands neatly in his lap.

“Since then, his sister has also entered my service. She has performed her duties with exceptional diligence, and when I fell ill some weeks ago, she cared for me tirelessly. Her dedication went far beyond what was expected of her. I believe their family deserves recognition. I ask that you raise them to noble standing.”

“Loyal service should certainly be rewarded,” the king agrees. “But if I were to grant a lordship to every faithful servant, almost half the castle would be nobility by the year's end.” A small smile touches his lips. “This Tom could be given a more prestigious position. And I am sure something suitable could be found for his sister as well.”

“I believe they deserve more than that.” Baelor says, fingers tightening. “This is not something I ask lightly.”

“I do not doubt their worth, Baelor, but if I was to grant a lordship to your man, others would ask why this family received such favour when so many others have served just as loyally. Were your man a knight who had distinguished himself in battle, perhaps there would be grounds for it. But for a household servant...” He shakes his head gently. “It simply is not done.”

Baelor's stomach sinks. His fingers tighten together, and he twists the ring on his right hand, gathering the courage to say what he truly came here for. The words feel impossibly heavy.

“I wish to marry the sister.”

Silence fills the solar. The king simply stares at him for several moments, as though ensuring he heard correctly.

“Baelor,” he says at last, his voice quiet. “You cannot take a lowborn woman as your wife.”

Baelor lowers his gaze, jaw tightening.

“Father,” he says carefully, fighting the constriction in his throat, “I know she was not born into a noble house. But she possesses every virtue one could hope to find in a wife. She is loyal, steadfast, brave, and kind. Her goodness is genuine – she helps others because it is in her nature to do so, not because she seeks reward or favour.” His voice softens despite himself. “She is better than many noblewomen I have known. She would serve the realm with honour.”

“Good qualities do not make one noble, my son. Birth does. Lineage does. Alliances do.”

Baelor's hands clench together in his lap.

“You granted a lordship to Ser Steffon Fossaway. At the Ashford tourney, he behaved dishonourably at every turn, yet simply because he fought for your grandson during the Trial of Seven – breaking his word to another knight in the process – he was rewarded.”

“Aerion made a promise – publicly – to Ser Steffon. I could not allow a prince of the blood to be seen breaking his word, not when tempers were already inflamed by the events at Ashford.”

“A promise made by an unruly boy who has shamed our house more times than I can count.”

The king inhales sharply, but Baelor presses on.

“You granted his request.” Baelor says, the hurt bleeding through his voice. “Made in impulsiveness and immaturity – to serve to resolve a mess entirely of his own making – yet you will not grant mine?”

“Baelor.” The king says sharply, a flicker of warning in his eyes. “Fossaway was already an established house. I granted a lordship to one man. You are asking me to form an entirely new house so you may marry a commoner. As heir to the throne, a political match –”

“I had my political match.” Baelor cuts in, his voice rising despite himself. “I married Jena. We had two healthy heirs together. I fulfilled my duty. I have fulfilled every duty ever asked of me. I obeyed. I served. I went to war. Time and again I placed the needs of the realm before my own. Now I ask for this one thing.”

“If I granted this, the nobility would be deeply offended. They would see it as a slight against their daughters, women far better suited–”

“When are the nobility not offended?” Baelor scoffs. “They find insult in any decision. It is practically a pastime.”

“Enough.” The single word cuts through the room. “I will hear no more of this, Baelor. It is clear we will not see eye-to-eye on this matter, and my answer will not change. You cannot marry a lowborn woman. That is my final word.”

Silence falls between them. Baelor lowers his head because it is the only way to hide his expression. His throat burns. He forces each breath to remain measured, his jaw clenched so tightly it aches.

“Thank you for hearing me, Father,” he says at last, his voice flat. “Please excuse me.”

He rises from the chair and offers a brief nod. His eyes meet the king's for only an instant before he turns and walks to the door, his hand trembling as he reaches for the handle.

The moment the door closes behind him and he is far enough down the corridor to be out of sight of the Kingsguard stationed outside the king's solar, his composure begins to fracture. The walls feel closer somehow, pressing in from every side.

He reaches out blindly, one hand finding the stone wall. A moment later his shoulder follows, the cool surface bracing him as he struggles to draw a proper breath.

He had prepared himself for refusal. Or at least he had believed he had. He had told himself not to place all his hopes on his request being granted. He had told himself he would endure whatever answer came. But hearing it spoken aloud – hearing his father dismiss the possibility so completely, as though what he felt could simply be set aside – cuts deeper than he expected.

He wanted to do this properly. He wanted you to stand beside him as his wife, not hidden away in the shadows. He wanted your place beside him to be acknowledged, unquestioned. He wanted you to be respected.

Baelor closes his eyes for a moment. Then he draws a long, unsteady breath, pushes himself away from the wall, and straightens.

By the time he begins the walk back to his chambers, the mask has settled into place once more – the calm, dependable prince.

~-~

When you enter Baelor’s chambers with his midday meal, he is nowhere in sight. You set the tray down on the table and glance around the solar.

“Is anyone here?” you call, raising your voice slightly.

A moment later, you hear footsteps, and Baelor emerges from his bedchamber. He looks tired. His movements lack their usual grace, his mouth set in a faint frown. But what stops you cold is the look in his eyes: something dimmed, something wounded. A sharp jolt goes through your chest. Your first thought is that he has fallen ill.

“What’s the matter?” You cross the room in quick strides, and before you can think better of it, your hand is on his arm. “Are you feeling unwell?”

His eyes meet yours. “I spoke with my father today.”

“Oh?”

You search his face, as though the answer might be written there.

“I asked him if he would allow you to be my wife.”

Your lips part, breath catching in your throat.

“But he refused,” he says quietly. “I am sorry.”

You blink. For a moment, your mind goes completely blank. Shock. Confusion. A sudden bloom of warmth so fierce it almost hurts. You had never dared imagine that he would want something so serious, so permanent.

You realise too late that you are simply staring at him.

“I cannot be with you honourably,” he continues.

Your hand, still resting on his arm, tightens slightly.

“Baelor...” you whisper. “I didn't know you intended...”

“I didn't want to speak of it before I knew whether it was possible. I didn't want to give you false hope.” His gaze drops briefly. “I thought I had prepared myself for any answer. But without realising it, I had allowed myself to hope. His refusal felt like a blow.”

“You really wanted to marry me?” The question comes out softer than you intended.

“Of course.” His hand closes over yours where it rests on his arm. “If you had been born to a noble house, I could have courted you properly. We would not have had to spend weeks questioning every glance and every word, wondering whether our feelings were returned.”

A small ache stirs inside you. He notices it at once.

“I do not mean to make you ashamed of where you come from,” he says quickly. “I only mean that if things were different, I would have known what to do. I would have known what was possible.”

You nod. “I understand.”

For a moment, neither of you speaks. Then he exhales slowly.

“I do not know what to do now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I cannot offer you what you deserve.” His gaze holds yours. “People will talk if you stay.”

“People already talk.” You say. “I don't want to leave, Baelor. Not now. All this time, I scarcely dared hope you felt the same way I did. And now I know you do… I can't walk away from that. If you'll have me, I want to stay.”

His expression softens. Slowly, he lifts a hand and cups your cheek.

“Of course I would have you.”

The tenderness in his voice makes your chest ache. His thumb brushes lightly across your skin.

“And I swear this to you: I will never cast you aside. Whatever happens, I will be true to you.”

You raise your own hand to his face, the soft brush of his beard grazing your palm.

“I know,” you say, smiling.

He closes his eyes briefly at your touch. Then he gently guides your hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the inside of your wrist. The warmth of his breath and the soft touch of his lips send a shiver through you.

When he lifts his head, neither of you moves away. Your hand remains against his face, your thumb resting near the edge of his cheekbone, his fingers still loosely encircling your wrist.

His gaze drops briefly to your mouth, and your breath catches. When his eyes return to yours, there is a question there. You don't pull away. Instead, you find yourself stepping a fraction closer. Something flickers across his face, so fleeting you almost miss it. Relief. Wonder. Perhaps even disbelief that this is finally happening.

Slowly, carefully, he lifts his free hand to your cheek. His thumb brushes your skin, and he leans in. Your heart pounds so hard you're certain he must hear it. You have imagined this countless times in quiet moments, in foolish daydreams, while lying awake at night. Yet none of those imaginings compare to the reality.

His lips meet yours softly, the kiss gentle and tentative. You feel the faint brush of his beard against your skin, the warmth of his breath, the careful way he holds you, as though you are something precious.

He tilts his head slightly, deepening the kiss just enough to make your knees feel weak. You have wanted this for so long. Wanted him for so long.

When he finally draws back, it is only by a few inches. Neither of you lets go. His forehead nearly touches yours, and for a moment he simply looks at you, his mismatched eyes bright with an emotion so earnest that it makes your chest ache.

 “Will you take supper with me again tonight?” He asks.

“Of course.” You say breathily, eyes not leaving his.

“I only wish you didn’t have to fetch it yourself. After everything that has happened, it feels wrong to have you waiting on me.”

“I don’t mind.” Your hand trails lightly down his arm. “It’s no burden to me, especially if it means I can spend time with you.”

~

You step into Baelor’s chambers that evening, supper tray laden with meals for two.

Baelor rises from behind his desk and comes to meet you, taking the tray from your hands. He carries it to the table and begins setting out the plates and goblets.

“I can do that.” You protest.

“Please, allow me.” He looks up with a smile, then gestures to the seat nearest his. “Sit.”

You hesitate only briefly before taking the offered seat. Baelor pours wine into your goblet, then fills his own before settling beside you.

For a while, there is only the quiet clink of cutlery and warm glances exchanged across the table. Yet you notice a distance in his eyes, and the faint crease lingering between his brows.

“Are you alright?” you ask, setting your fork down.

His gaze lifts to yours, and he hesitates.

“My conversation with my father keeps returning to me.” He exhales softly. “We have never disagreed so bitterly before.”

Your heart aches for him. Reaching across the table, you place your hand over his.

“I don't want to be the cause of conflict between you.”

“You aren't the cause.” His fingers close gently around yours. “Tradition and expectations are the cause. Rules that were written long before either of us were born.” His expression softens. “I am sorry.”

“There is nothing to apologise for.” You give his hand a small squeeze. “Things may not have gone the way you'd hoped, but I'm still here.”

The corner of his mouth lifts into a faint smile. After a moment, you both return to your meals.

When supper is finished, you gather the dishes onto the tray.

“Will you come back after Arnol has attended to me?” Baelor asks. “Perhaps with more wine?”

The hopeful note in his voice makes you smile.

 “I can do that.”

You pass Arnol in one of the lower corridors as he heads toward the Tower of the Hand to attend to Baelor.

After leaving the dishes in the kitchens, you return briefly to your room, filling the basin on your washstand so you can wash your face and freshen yourself. Then you make your way to the wine cellar, fill a pitcher, collect two goblets from a nearby cabinet, and begin the climb back upstairs.

When you enter Baelor's chambers once more, he is just stepping out of his bedchamber.

His outer garments have been removed, leaving him in only a shirt and breeches. Your heart gives an embarrassing little flutter.

He crosses the room and takes the pitcher and goblets from your hands, pouring wine for each of you before taking his seat.

“I spoke with Maekar this morning,” he says, passing you a goblet. “I've arranged to return to the training yard tomorrow with Egg, and I've informed my brother that he isn't to speak to me until training is finished.”

A laugh escapes you. “And how did he take that?”

“I think he regretted disappointing Egg. He wants to make amends.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

He takes a sip of wine. “You seem fond of my nephew.”

You smile into your goblet. “I believe I am. He's a pleasant boy. Clever, too. And he has a mischievous streak.”

“That he does.” Baelor's chuckles. “Would you like to come to training tomorrow? From the beginning, I mean.”

You blink in surprise. “I wouldn't be in the way?”

“Of course not. Though now that I think about it, it may not be the most entertaining way to spend your afternoon.”

“I would like to come.”

His smile widens. “Then I shall be glad to have you there.”

Conversation drifts easily after that. You speak of small things, exchange stories and observations, and share several quiet laughs.

With every smile he gives you, something warm unfurls inside your chest. More than once, you catch yourself watching his hands curled around his goblet. And more than once, your gaze drifts to the open collar of his shirt, where the fabric parts just enough to reveal the faintest glimpse of bare skin beneath.

You quickly look away. Lifting your goblet to your lips, you fix your gaze on the wine pitcher sitting between you. Or at least, you pretend to. In truth, your thoughts have wandered elsewhere entirely.

To the night of Baelor’s name day. To your bedchamber. To all the feelings you had finally surrendered to when you believed they would never be returned.

Heat rises immediately to your cheeks, and you are suddenly very grateful that your goblet hides part of your face.

-

He listens when you speak – of course he does – but he finds his attention wandering all the same.

His gaze lingers on your face, on the way your lips move around each word. When you absentmindedly moisten them with a quick flick of your tongue, something tightens low in his chest.

A few loose strands of hair have escaped whatever effort you made to tame them, framing your face in a way he finds distractingly beautiful.

Then your hand drifts upward. Your fingers slip beneath the opening of your shirt as you scratch lightly at your neck. The movement draws the linen aside, revealing a glimpse of skin, and the soft curve of your bosom above the neckline of your kirtle. Heat creeps up the back of his neck. He knows he ought to look away. He doesn't.

When your hand withdraws and smooths the fabric back into place, you seem entirely unaware of the effect you've had on him.

You lift your goblet to your lips. Your eyes are distant. Thoughtful. And there is a faint flush colouring your cheeks. His heart stirs. Is it the wine? Or are your thoughts wandering somewhere similar to his own? He wishes he knew.

Then your gaze flicks toward him and you offer a shy smile. The pink in your cheeks seems to deepen.

Unable to stop himself, he speaks. “Are you feeling alright? You look a little flushed.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you let out a soft laugh.

“I’m not used to such strong wine,” you say. “The one they serve to the servants must be watered down by at least half.”

Perhaps it is the truth. Perhaps it is an excuse. Perhaps it is both. Baelor doesn't press further.

“I hope you will not suffer for it tomorrow.”

You smile. “I suppose we'll find out in the morning. If your breakfast is late, you'll know why.”

A laugh escapes him. Though in truth, he does hope you wake without a headache.

Far too soon, he notices how late it has become.

“The hour grows late,” he says softly. “I should let you rest.”

The words leave a bitter taste in his mouth. He does not want you to go.

You nod and finish the last of your wine before rising from your chair.

“Thank you for a pleasant evening.”

Baelor stands as well, moving around the table toward you.

“And thank you for your company.”

The lingering flush remains on your cheeks. A loose lock of hair has fallen across your jaw. Without thinking, he reaches for it. His fingers brush your cheek as he tucks it gently behind your ear. The touch lingers, his hand sliding along your jaw before settling beneath your chin. His thumb grazes your lower lip, and your eyes lift to his, before dropping to his mouth.

It is all the encouragement he needs. He leans forward, head tilting slightly as he closes the distance between you. One hand slips to the back of your neck, steadying you as his lips meet yours.

The kiss is gentle at first. Tender. Yet beneath that tenderness lies weeks of longing that neither of you has been able to voice. When you relax into the kiss and return it, your hand rising to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, something inside him gives way.

The kiss deepens naturally, no longer burdened by uncertainty. His hand trails from the back of your neck to the front, his fingertips gliding down the hollow of your throat, before slipping under the opening of your shirt, his hand flattening as it glides along the bare skin of your upper chest. His other arm slips around your waist, pulling your body flush against his.

You sigh against his mouth, your hand coming to rest at the nape of his neck, your fingers threading into his hair. He shudders at the sensation, heat flooding between his legs as he hardens at your touch, at your warm, wet mouth on his.

-

He guides you gently backward until the backs of your thighs meet the edge of the table, your breath catching at the impact. He follows you, one hand braced beside you against the tabletop while the other remains firm at your waist.

You lower yourself onto the edge of the table, your feet lifting from the floor. Your hand drifts from the dark curls at the nape of his neck to his throat, slipping beneath the collar of his shirt. His pulse pounds beneath your fingertips. He presses closer, and you feel him against your thigh, through the fabric of your skirts, hard and unmistakably aroused.

You throb between your legs, aching and desperate, and with your free hand, you glide your fingers down his torso until you feel the waistband of his breeches. He groans into your mouth, and you continue, moving your hand further down.

Then he suddenly stills. He pulls back and the kiss breaks, his darkened eyes meeting yours for a brief moment before flicking away. He steps away, your body suddenly cold from his withdrawal. You slip from the table, your feet finding the floor once more.

“Is everything alright?” you ask, chest tightening with worry.

“Yes, everything’s fine, I –” He exhales shakily and runs a hand across his jaw. “We’ve both had rather too much wine, I think.”

You lower your gaze. “I’m sorry.”

His head lifts immediately. “No, no, please.” He closes the distance between you, cupping your cheek. His thumb brushes softly across your skin before he presses a tender kiss to your forehead. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I take the blame entirely. I let myself get carried away.” He studies your face. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” You assure him, though you can’t ignore the sinking feeling in your chest.

“Forgive me,” he murmurs, resting his forehead lightly against yours.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” You say, and you mean it.

You do not blame him for changing his mind, but you hope that’s all it is, and not something you may have done to put him off.

After a moment, you draw a slow breath. “It’s late… I should go.”

You lean forward and press a soft kiss to his cheek. “Goodnight, Baelor.”

His eyes close briefly at the touch. Then he takes your hand and raises it to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss to your knuckles.

“Goodnight.”

 -

The door clicks softly behind you, leaving him alone where you left him. His lips still tingle from your kiss, his breath still uneven as everything that just occurred runs through his mind: the feel of you still lingering on his skin, your effect on him still evident between his legs.

He moves to his chamber, shutting the door quietly. He knows he cannot go to sleep like this, with you still clinging to him in every sense except physically.

He drops onto the edge of the bed, and before he knows it, he is already reaching for the laces of his breeches, freeing his hard length from its restraints. He bites down a groan as he takes himself in hand, unable to hold back the wave of longing and need that crashes through him.

It doesn’t take long before he’s hastily fishing a handkerchief from his pocket, barely in time, his release spilling hot and thick into the linen as a shudder racks through him. His breath breaks on a soft, helpless moan as pleasure crests and fades, leaving his muscles trembling.

But any satisfaction he feels is quickly replaced with shame.

What unsettles him most is not his desire for you. It is how completely his restraint had begun to crumble. How easily he had forgotten himself. How close he had come to abandoning caution altogether.

The moment he felt the evening slipping beyond his control, another face had risen unbidden in his mind. His grandsire. The man history now calls Aegon the Unworthy. A king remembered for his appetites, his mistresses, his bastards, and the chaos left in his wake. A man who took what he wanted and expected the realm to bear the consequences.

Tonight, for a few dangerous moments, Baelor had wanted nothing more than to lose himself – utterly, completely – in you.

He bows his head. I cannot be like him.

The thought settles heavily in his chest. No matter how deeply he cares for you, no matter how desperately he wants you, he cannot allow desire to govern his actions. He cannot be reckless. Not with you. Not ever.

[ildico-the-golden]

an almost date with dada?

i had not expected the modernAU drabble to be so popular (i love you guys so much it makes me tear up fr) so here's like a kinda second part to that (?).

Includes: modern!Baelor x f!reader // modern!Maekar x f!reader

Warning(s): modernAU, these men are down bad

The text from Valarr arrived twelve minutes before you were supposed to meet.

so terrible news. kiera situation. cannot make it. SO sorry. dad said he'd go instead if you still want to?? he's literally already in the area for work. no pressure obvs

You stared at your phone for a moment.

is your dad going to be weird about it

Valarr's response was immediate.

dad is constitutionally incapable of being weird about anything. also he literally works at the museum three streets away so he's probably already mentally in the bookshop. please go he'll be sad if you cancel he's been in meetings all morning

You looked at that for a second. The image of Baelor Targaryen being sad about missing a bookshop trip was doing something to your composure that you chose not to examine.

fine tell him I'm at the corner table

THANK YOU you're literally saving his day and probably mine too bc kiera is

He did not finish the sentence. You sent a sympathetic emoji and put your phone down and ordered a coffee and tried very hard not to think about the fact that you were now waiting for your best friend's father in a cafe on a Saturday afternoon, which was a sentence you were choosing not to examine too closely.

He arrived seven minutes later.

You knew it was him before you looked up properly — there was a quality to the way he moved through the cafe that you had catalogued during the various times you had been at Valarr's house and found yourself in the same room as his father. Unhurried. Certain of his own pace. The kind of person who did not navigate around other people so much as other people instinctively made space.

He was wearing a jacket that suggested he had in fact come directly from the museum — slightly more formal than a Saturday probably required, dark, the kind of jacket that had probably lived on the back of an office chair all morning — and he was carrying, you noticed immediately, a book. Not in a bag. Just — in his hand. Like he had picked it up to read on his walk over and had not put it down yet because he was still thinking about whatever was on the last page.

He found you, and something in his expression arranged itself into warmth.

"I'm sorry about Valarr," he said, settling into the chair across from you with the ease of someone who had decided this was simply the situation and there was no point in making it awkward. "Kiera rang him about twenty minutes ago — I'm not entirely sure what happened but it sounded significant."

"He sent approximately four apology texts," you said.

"That sounds right." He set the book on the table and flagged down the server with the unhurried confidence of a man who had been in many cafes and knew how they worked. "He felt terrible about it. He was very insistent that I — I believe the phrase was do not be boring."

"Are you boring?" you asked.

He looked at you over the menu with those eyes — attentive, with the quality of someone who was already slightly amused by the question. "I work in a museum," he said. "Specialising in medieval and Byzantine history. The jury, I think, is still out."

"Byzantine is genuinely fascinating," you said. "The iconoclasm period specifically."

The menu lowered approximately two inches.

"The iconoclasm period," he repeated.

"The politics of it," you said. "Everyone talks about it as a theological dispute but it was fundamentally a power struggle between the emperor and the church dressed in theological language, which is—"

"Which is significantly more interesting than the religious framing suggests," he finished, and there was something in his voice that had not been there thirty seconds ago — a quality of attention that had sharpened from polite and warm to entirely focused in the space of one sentence about Byzantine iconoclasm.

You had said something right.

You were not going to examine how much you wanted to keep saying right things.

The coffee arrived.

Baelor ordered his with the automatic ease of someone who did not need to think about it — flat white, no sugar — and settled back in his chair and looked at you with the expression of a man who had come here expecting a pleasant if slightly obligatory Saturday afternoon and was recalibrating.

"How do you know about the iconoclasm period?" he asked. Not testing. Genuinely curious, in the way of someone who has encountered something unexpected and wants to understand it.

"My grandmother," you said. "She was obsessed with Byzantine history. Had about forty books on it. I grew up reading them because they were the most interesting things in her house."

"What else did she have?"

"The complete collection on the fall of the Western Roman Empire by Gibbon. Three books specifically on Theodora — she had strong opinions about Theodora."

"Everyone should have strong opinions about Theodora," he said, with a conviction that suggested this was not a casual statement.

"She also had this absolutely unhinged book about the administrative structure of the Carolingian empire that I read when I was fourteen and found genuinely compelling."

Baelor set his coffee cup down.

He looked at you for a moment with an expression you had not seen from him before — not the warm composed attention of Valarr's father being polite to Valarr's friend, but something more unguarded than that. Something that looked, if you were reading it correctly, almost like delight.

"The Carolingian administrative structure," he said.

"It was a very good book," you said.

"I think I own that book," he said. "I have recommended that book to colleagues who hold doctorates in medieval history and been looked at like I was suggesting light reading."

"The section on the missi dominici alone—"

"Is extraordinary," he said, and then caught himself, and the tips of his ears went very slightly pink in a way that you were fairly certain he was unaware of. "Sorry. I'm — Valarr did say not to be boring and I've just launched into—"

"I brought up the missi dominici," you pointed out.

"You did," he said.

"I knew what I was getting into."

He looked at you for a moment. Something shifted in his expression — a recalibration, subtle and complete, like a man who has been holding a map of a situation and has just realised the map and the territory do not entirely match.

He picked up his coffee. "Right," he said. "The missi dominici."

They closed the café.

Not intentionally. It simply became apparent at some point — you were not sure exactly when — that the afternoon had developed a quality of its own that neither of you had planned and both of you had stopped managing. You had gone from Byzantine iconoclasm to the Carolingians to a twenty minute debate about whether the popular historical narrative around the fall of Rome was more politically motivated than academically honest, during which Baelor had leaned forward with his elbows on the table and the expression of a man who had stopped remembering to be measured about things he found genuinely exciting, which was — a lot. It was a lot. His hands moved when he talked about history, which you had not known about him, and he had a specific smile that arrived when you said something that surprised him, which was different from his usual composed warmth and considerably more dangerous to your ability to function normally.

He was not being smug about knowing things.

That was the thing that had been doing something to your composure since approximately the iconoclasm conversation. He could have been smug — he worked in a museum, he had the credentials, he had probably forgotten more about medieval history than most people ever learned. But every time you said something he did not expect he looked at you like you had shown him something he genuinely wanted to see, with the uncomplicated delight of someone who loved a subject and was simply glad to find another person who loved it too.

It was, you had concluded somewhere around the second coffee, the most attractive quality you had ever encountered in another person and you needed it to stop immediately, but it was not stopping.

"We should probably—" he said, at the point when the server had refilled your water glasses for the third time with the pointed patience of someone whose shift was ending.

"The bookshop," you said.

"Right." He reached for his jacket. "Although at this point I feel I should warn you that I have — opinions. About the history section."

"What kind of opinions?"

"The kind that Valarr refers to as dad, please and that my colleagues find professionally embarrassing."

"Tell me the opinions," you said.

He looked at you. The smile that crossed his face was not the composed public one. It was something underneath that one — warmer and more unguarded and slightly helpless, the smile of a man who had been trying to be measured and had run out of reasons to bother.

"Right," he said. "The opinions."

The bookshop was three streets from the café and was exactly the kind of place that seemed to exist specifically for people like Baelor — floor to ceiling shelves, the particular quality of light that only occurred in rooms full of old paper, a complete absence of any organisational logic that was somehow navigated instinctively by everyone who belonged there.

Baelor belonged there immediately and completely. You watched him walk through the door and visibly relax in the specific way of someone arriving somewhere they understood.

"History is in the back," he said, already moving. "Past the travel section, which is organised by continent rather than alphabetically, which I have thoughts about, and through the archway. Don't let the archway fool you — it looks like it goes to philosophy but it doesn't."

"Sounds like you've been here before," you teased.

"I may have a tab," he said, without turning around.

You followed him through the travel section — organised by continent, as advertised — through the archway that did not lead to philosophy, and into a room that was essentially floor to ceiling history, organised by period, with handwritten shelf labels that had clearly been redone at some point in the last decade and not entirely consistently.

Baelor stopped in front of the medieval section and looked at it with the expression of a man surveying a landscape he had complicated feelings about.

"The Byzantine section," he said, "is filed under Eastern Europe, which is—"

"Reductive," you said. He turned to look at you. "Historically, geographically, and culturally reductive," you continued. "It's like filing Rome under Italy."

He stared at you for a moment.

"I have said those exact words," he said slowly, "to the owner of this shop. Twice. In those exact words."

"What did he say?"

"He said that's where people look for it." A pause. "Which is pragmatic and also completely misses the point."

"It completely misses the point," you agreed.

Baelor looked at you with that expression again — the unguarded one, the one that had been appearing with increasing frequency since the missi dominici and that he appeared to be losing the ability to fully manage. There was something in it that was different from the version you had been cataloguing during visits to Valarr's house. Warmer than that. More specific.

"Right," he said, and turned to the shelf, and you watched the back of his neck go very slightly pink.

You were extremely pleased with yourself.

An hour later you had accumulated a small pile of books each — his significantly larger than yours, though he had shown you each one with the genuine enthusiasm of someone sharing things they loved rather than performing expertise, which was the thing that kept doing the thing to your composure — and had ended up side by side in the narrow aisle between medieval and early modern, which was not a wide aisle, consulting the shelves with the proximity of people who had stopped noticing the proximity because the conversation had taken over.

You reached for a book on the top shelf at the same moment he did.

Your hands did not quite collide but they came close enough that you both stopped.

He was — close. The aisle was narrow and he was taller than you and the combined effect of both of these facts was that when you looked up you were looking at him from a distance that was significantly less than the distance that had existed between you at the café table, and the expression on his face in the half second before he registered that he needed to have an expression was—

Not composed. Not the curator. Not Valarr's father being politely warm to Valarr's friend. Just a man, in a bookshop, standing very close to someone, with an expression that had not been filtered through any of the usual management.

He registered it approximately one second after you did.

You watched the composure return — not completely, not at its usual speed, the edges of it slightly uneven in a way they were not normally — and he took the book from the shelf and held it out and said, very evenly: "This one is worth reading. The author's thesis about manuscript transmission is contested but the primary research is solid."

"Thank you," you said, taking it.

"The footnotes specifically," he said, to the shelf.

"I'll read the footnotes specifically," you said.

A pause during which the narrow aisle continued to be narrow.

"We should probably find the till," he said.

"Probably," you agreed.

Neither of you moved immediately.

Then he did — stepped back, with the slight over-correction of a man giving a situation more physical space than it strictly required — and you followed him toward the front of the shop with your small pile of books and the specific warmth of an afternoon that had not been what either of you planned and had been, despite or because of that, one of the better ones you could remember.

At the till he paid for his books with the focused attention of a man concentrating on a transaction and not on anything else, which was so transparently what it was that you looked at the display of bookmarks near the counter rather than at his face because you were kind like that.

Outside on the pavement the afternoon had gone golden, the particular late Saturday light that made the city look briefly like somewhere worth staying.

"Thank you for not cancelling," he said. He was looking at the street rather than at you, with the quality of someone choosing their words carefully. "I'm aware it wasn't — you came to spend the afternoon with Valarr, not with his—" he stopped.

"I had a very good afternoon," you said simply.

He looked at you then.

"So did I," he said. The composure was there but the edges were still slightly uneven and you could see, if you knew where to look, which you did, the thing underneath it that he was managing with less success than usual.

You smiled at him.

He looked at you for a moment longer than was strictly accounted for by polite conclusion of a Saturday afternoon, and then he said goodbye and that he would tell Valarr you had survived his abandonment, and walked back in the direction of wherever his car was.

You watched him go for approximately four seconds before you got your phone out and opened Valarr's chat.

your dad knows about the missi dominici

Valarr's response took thirty seconds and consisted entirely of a series of increasingly alarmed emojis followed by

oh no oh no are you okay

You looked down the street in the direction Baelor had gone. You thought about the narrow aisle and the unguarded expression and the pink at the back of his neck and the smile that had been arriving with increasing frequency and decreasing composure since the iconoclasm conversation.

I am so normal about your dad

that's a lie

It was, in fact, a lie. You decided to brush it off instead.

how's Kiera

He sent back a very long string of text that you read while walking to the tube and that successfully occupied your attention for approximately three minutes before your brain returned, with the reliability of something that had found a preferred direction, to the bookshop and the narrow aisle and Baelor Targaryen saying the footnotes specifically to a shelf because he needed somewhere to look that was not your face.

You were, you concluded, in considerable trouble.

You heard him before you saw him.

You and Daeron had been on the sofa for the better part of two hours, working through a series of increasingly bad decisions in the film he had put on, when the sound came from upstairs. Not loud exactly. More — sustained. A specific quality of noise that suggested a man encountering a situation and responding to it with his full vocabulary.

Daeron paused the film. You both listened.

Another burst of it, muffled by the ceiling but comprehensively audible, featuring several words in combination that you were fairly certain constituted a new grammatical construction.

"That's the bathroom," Daeron said, with the calm of someone who had been hearing his father swear at inanimate objects for his entire life and had developed a classification system. He stood up. "That's the bad bathroom."

"How many bathrooms are there."

"Four." He was already heading for the stairs. "Only one of them is currently antagonising my dad, which statistically is pretty good for this house."

You followed him up.

The bathroom was at the end of the upstairs hall and the door was open and the sound of water was immediately, obviously wrong — not running water, not shower water, but the specific urgent sound of water going somewhere it was not supposed to go with considerable commitment to the project.

Daeron stopped in the doorway. You stopped behind him and looked over his shoulder and took in the situation.

The cabinet under the sink had been fully removed — it was propped against the wall behind the door — and the pipes beneath were exposed and one of them was, there was no other word for it, enthusiastically wrong.

Water was going in several directions with the democratic generosity of something that had decided if it could not go one place it would go all places. A wrench and several other tools were arranged on the sodden bathmat with the organisation of someone who had started this project with a plan and had encountered escalating complications.

Maekar was on the floor.

Specifically he was wedged half under the sink with his legs out, in jeans and a dark t-shirt that had not survived the situation in any meaningful way — soaked through, hair wet, jaw set with the expression of a man conducting an intense personal negotiation with a section of copper piping. His forearms were braced against the cabinet frame and there was water dripping from his elbow onto the already comprehensively wet bathmat and he had not yet registered that he had an audience.

He said something to the pipe. It was not a nice thing.

"Dad," said Daeron.

Maekar turned his head. Took in Daeron. Took in you behind Daeron, with the brief additional quality of a man who had forgotten a guest was in his house and was now processing this in the context of being soaking wet on a bathroom floor.

"The compression joint went," he said, which you recognised as an explanation directed at Daeron and as a form of dignity preservation directed at you. "Hand me the adjustable wrench. The large one."

Daeron looked at the arrangement of tools on the bathmat with the expression of a man confronting a foreign language.

"Which one is—"

You reached past him, picked up the adjustable wrench, and held it out. Maekar's hand came out from under the sink and closed around it and then stopped. He turned his head and looked at you. Not at Daeron. At you.

You held his gaze with the equanimity of someone who had grown up watching their father fix things and knew what an adjustable wrench looked like.

He took it.

You watched him go back to work, the specific focused efficiency of someone who knew what they were doing, and you watched him encounter the problem — the angle was wrong, the joint was seated badly, there was a secondary issue with the isolation valve that he had not got to yet — and you watched him get to the point where what he was doing was not going to work.

"The valve," you said. "The isolation valve on the left — it's not fully closed. That's why the pressure's still—"

Maekar stopped.

He came out from under the sink enough to look at you properly. Water dripped from his hair. His expression had the quality of a man who had received unexpected information and had not yet decided what to do with it. "How do you know about isolation valves," he said. Not rudely. Just — directly. The way he said everything.

"My dad," you said. "He does all of this for a living. I grew up handing him tools."

Maekar looked at you for a moment. Then he looked at Daeron.

Daeron, who was still holding nothing and had the slightly glazed expression of a man who had identified this situation as one he was not going to be useful in, gave a small shrug that communicated don't look at me with minimal effort.

"The valve's behind the— you'd have to get down here," Maekar said, which was not quite an invitation but was the closest thing to one that his current position and dignity allowed.

You pushed past Daeron.

You dropped to your knees on the wet bathmat without hesitating, which you felt Maekar register even though he said nothing, and looked at the pipes with the assessment of someone who had spent enough Saturday mornings under kitchen sinks and in airing cupboards to know what she was looking at.

The isolation valve was most of the way closed but not fully — a quarter turn away from where it needed to be, which was enough to maintain the pressure that was making the repair impossible.

"Got a flathead?" you said.

A brief pause. Then the flathead screwdriver appeared in your peripheral vision. You took it, reached in, gave the valve the quarter turn it needed, and felt the pressure in the pipes ease almost immediately — the aggressive water going several directions becoming a manageable drip and then, mostly, stopping.

"There," you said. "Now the joint should seat properly."

Silence.

You turned your head.

Maekar was looking at you from approximately eighteen inches away with an expression you had not seen from him before. Not the gruff default. Not the frown at something failing to cooperate. Something that had not fully decided what it was yet, moving through several registers in the space of a second — surprise, reassessment, and something underneath both of those that arrived and was immediately and firmly pushed somewhere else.

"Right," he said.

He went back to the joint.

You stayed where you were and passed him things when he needed them — not waiting to be asked, just reading the work and anticipating it the way you had learned to do at your father's elbow, handing things over with the quiet efficiency of someone who knew the rhythm of this kind of job — and you felt him register each time, the slight adjustment in his attention, the way he started to reach for something and found it already there.

At some point Daeron, in the doorway, ceased to exist as a presence in the room. You were not sure when this happened. You were not sure when you stopped tracking anything except the pipes and the work and the specific focused quality of being next to someone who knew what they were doing.

"Jointing compound," Maekar said.

You found it. Handed it over.

He worked in silence for a few minutes — good silence, the silence of someone who was inside a problem and making progress. You watched his hands. He had good hands for this kind of work, large and certain and knowing where to be, and there was water still dripping from his forearm onto the bathmat and you were, you noted with some resignation, very wet from the knees down and did not care even slightly.

He tightened the joint.

Reached past you to the isolation valve and opened it by degrees, carefully, watching the joint.

No drip.

He opened it further.

Still nothing.

He opened it fully and you both watched the pipes for a long moment with the specific quality of attention that plumbing demanded — not quite trusting, not yet — and the joint held and the water went where it was supposed to go and Maekar sat back on his heels and exhaled.

You sat back on yours.

The bathmat was thoroughly destroyed. Your jeans were wet from the knee down and there was something that appeared to be jointing compound on your left hand and probably on your face as well given that you had pushed your hair back at some point without thinking about it. Maekar was still comprehensively soaked, water drying in his hair, jaw slightly less set than it had been when you came in.

He looked at you.

"Your dad's a plumber," he said.

"Plumber, electrician, general person of all trades," you said. "He used to take me with him on weekend jobs when I was small. I was useful for getting into small spaces."

Something moved through Maekar's expression. Not the almost-smile exactly — something that happened before the almost-smile, the thing that decided whether the almost-smile was going to be permitted. "You handed me the adjustable wrench before I asked for it," he said.

"You were about to ask for it."

"I hadn't said anything."

"You didn't need to." You looked at the now-functional pipes with the mild satisfaction of a finished job. "The body language was pretty clear."

He looked at you for a moment.

Then he looked at the pipes.

Then he looked at you again, and this time the thing moving through his expression stayed a beat longer before he put it somewhere — the reassessment fully completed now, the previous category clearly revised, something in the revised version that he was choosing not to examine in a wet bathroom on a Saturday afternoon with jointing compound on the bathmat.

He chose correctly for approximately four seconds.

Then his gaze went, briefly and entirely without his permission, to your hands — to the water still tracking down from your wrists along your forearms in the specific way that wet things did — and something happened in his expression that was there and gone so fast you might have missed it if you had not been paying the exact quality of attention that you were paying.

You had been paying exactly that quality of attention.

He looked at the pipes again with the focus of a man who had found something to look at that was not your forearms and intended to look at it until the situation resolved itself.

"The valve needs a new washer eventually," you said, kindly, because you were a kind person. "It's seating a bit soft. Not urgent but worth doing before winter."

"Right," he said.

"I can tell you what to get if you want. My dad has a supplier — trade prices."

Maekar looked at you with the expression of a man receiving information that was practical and useful and entirely beside the point of what was currently happening in his head and who was grateful for the practical and useful information for exactly that reason.

"That would be useful," he said.

"Great." You stood, brushed the wet from your knees with the philosophical acceptance of someone who had made peace with the bathmat situation, and became aware for the first time in some minutes of the doorway.

Which was empty.

You and Maekar both looked at the empty doorway simultaneously.

Daeron had, at some point during the isolation valve situation, simply — ceased to be there. No announcement. No explanation. Just the specific absence of a young man who had assessed a situation and made a strategic withdrawal with his coffee and his survival instincts intact.

You looked at the empty doorway. Maekar looked at the empty doorway.

"He does that," Maekar said.

"Does he."

"When he decides he's not needed." A pause. "Or when he decides something is none of his business."

You looked at Maekar.

He was looking at the doorway still, with the expression of a man who had just heard himself say something and was assessing whether it had meant what it might have sounded like it meant and what, if anything, to do about that.

He appeared to conclude: nothing. For now.

"I'll get you a towel," he said, standing with the efficiency of a man who had identified a practical action and was grateful for its existence. "You're soaked."

"So are you," you pointed out.

"I live here," he said. "It's different."

He went to the airing cupboard in the hall and came back with a towel and handed it to you with the directness he brought to everything — no ceremony, no hovering, just the towel, held out, yours if you wanted it. You took it and he went to get one for himself and came back and you both stood in the bathroom doorway drying off with the comfortable ease of two people who had just fixed something together and had not yet decided what to do with the afternoon that remained.

"Thank you," he said. Not elaborately. Just the two words, said with the weight of someone who meant them and did not see the point of dressing them up.

"It was a straightforward fix," you said.

"It wasn't," he said. "The angle was bad and I'd missed the valve." A beat, during which he appeared to consider whether to say the next thing and decided to. "You didn't make a production of it."

You looked at him.

"Neither did you," you said. "About me knowing."

Something in his expression acknowledged this — a small precise movement, almost but not quite the almost-smile. "Daella would have filmed it," he said. "For — what do they call it."

"Content," you said.

"Content," he repeated, with the tone of a man for whom this word had never fully made sense and had stopped trying to make it. "She would have made it content."

You laughed.

It was a real one — the unguarded kind, arrived without warning — and you watched it land on Maekar with the specific quality of something he had not anticipated and was not immediately sure what to do with. The almost-smile made a full appearance this time. Brief. Real. Directed entirely at you.

He looked away first.

Downstairs, at a volume suggesting he was in the kitchen and had decided the kitchen was where he lived now, Daeron turned the television on.

Maekar looked at the ceiling briefly with the expression of a man who knew his son and had drawn accurate conclusions.

"There's tea," he said. "If you want. Before you go."

It was not please stay. It was not I would like you to stay. It was Maekar, offering tea, in the specific way of someone for whom there is tea if you want was as close as he was currently able to get to either of those things.

You had grown up watching your father fix things. You knew how to read what was underneath what was said.

"Yeah," you said. "I want."

He nodded once and headed for the stairs and you followed him and downstairs Daeron turned the television up slightly, for absolutely no reason, in the way of someone who was providing cover for a situation he had chosen not to witness and had absolutely engineered anyway.

You sat at the kitchen table with wet jeans and jointing compound on your hand and watched Maekar make tea with the same focused efficiency he brought to pipework and thought that you were, objectively, in considerable trouble, and that it was entirely worth it.

A.N.: i promise there will be a third because we have to jump on these sexy old men, we cannot leave it like in the middle of it. For those who have read Dalgliesh's how you call to me, yeah, Baelor's part here was heavily inspired in it (i just love him so much as a nerd)

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna @mongrelcryptid @sacha1slytherin

Want to join the general taglist? Leave a comment here!

[ildico-the-golden]

look at your dad (such a dork)

↪︎ wanna go on an unexpected date with that dada? part 2 here

Includes: modern!Baelor x f!reader / modern!Maekar x f!reader

Warning(s): ModernAU, kind of a crack!fic really (i wish my dad kept bees)

GIF by @sakuraspoke

The thing about Valarr, sweet, naïve Valarr, was that he had absolutely no survival instincts.

"He's just reading," he said, from beside you on the kitchen counter, stealing grapes from the bowl between you with the casual ease of someone who had decided you were close enough friends that your food was his food. "It's not that interesting."

"He's got two pairs of glasses on," you said.

"He does that." Valarr ate another grape. "He loses one pair, so he puts on another and then he finds the first pair and instead of swapping them he just—" he gestured vaguely, "stacks them."

You looked back through the kitchen window into the living room where his father was arranged in the armchair by the lamp with the particular quality of a man who had achieved a level of comfort he intended to defend unto death. Dark hair, threads of white catching the warm lamplight. Two pairs of glasses. A book that appeared to be roughly the size of a brick, held with the careful reverence of someone deeply personally invested in its continued structural integrity.

He had a cup of tea on the side table that he had not touched in forty minutes because he kept forgetting it existed.

"What is he reading," you said.

"Something about Byzantine military strategy."

You stared.

"For fun," Valarr added. "He does it for fun."

Baelor turned a page. The lamplight shifted across the lines of his face — the strong bearded jaw, the particular set of his brow when he was concentrating, the slight movement of his lips because he occasionally read difficult passages quietly to himself without realising he was doing it, a habit Valarr had told you about once with the fond exasperation of someone who had grown up watching it and could no longer imagine its absence.

He reached for his tea without looking. Missed it by four inches. Patted the table twice, frowning faintly at his book, and then looked down with an expression of mild surprise at the existence of the cup, like he had genuinely forgotten he had made it.

"Oh no," you said quietly.

"Yeah," said Valarr.

Baelor took a sip of the tea, realised it was cold, made a face of profound personal betrayal directed at no one, set it back down, and returned to his book.

You were experiencing something you didn't have a clean word for. It sat somewhere in the vicinity of I would like to bring this man a fresh cup of tea every day for the rest of my natural life and considerably south of that as well, if you were being honest with yourself, which you were trying not to be.

He turned another page. Murmured something to himself. The lamplight caught the line of his jaw and the silver in his hair and the careful way his hands held the book, and you were, genuinely, a little embarrassed about yourself at realizing that you were, in fact, biting your lower lip.

"Valarr," you said.

"Mm."

"Your dad is—" You stopped. Tried to start again. Stopped again.

"Is…" Valarr prompted, with the patience of someone who had been watching this unfold for the better part of an hour and had popcorn, metaphorically speaking.

You watched Baelor reach for his tea again. Miss it again. The same four inches. The same faint frown. The same expression of mild existential surprise upon locating the cup.

Something in you gave way entirely.

"Valarr," you said. "I want to fuck your dad."

The grape Valarr had been eating went somewhere it was not supposed to go. He coughed. You waited. He held up a finger, collected himself, and turned to look at you with an expression that cycled through several distinct phases — shock, offence, processing, reluctant resignation — in the space of approximately four seconds.

"That's my father," he said.

"I know."

"You just said that about my father."

"I'm aware of what I said."

"He's reading about Byzantine military strategy."

"I know! But him being a nerd isn’t helping," you yelled-whispered to your friend.

You looked back through the window. Baelor had found his tea again, remembered it was cold, and was now looking at it with an expression of genuine philosophical sadness, as if looking at it would eventually warm its content again.

Valarr stared at you for a long moment. Then he looked at his father through the window. Then back at you. The reluctant resignation had settled into something that looked almost like the beginning of a plan.

"He needs a fresh cup of tea," he said slowly.

"He really does."

"Someone should bring it to him." A pause. "He likes it with a splash of milk. No sugar. He'll look up when you come in and forget what he was reading for a moment because he's polite like that, and when he takes his glasses off to look at you properly he'll probably—" Valarr stopped himself. Pinched the bridge of his nose. "I cannot believe I'm doing this."

"Valarr—"

"The kettle's right there," he said, getting off the counter and leaving the kitchen with the dignity of a man washing his hands of a situation while absolutely enabling it. "I'm going to be upstairs. Not hearing anything. For a very long time."

You were already filling the kettle.

GIF by @prettysharwood

You had come over to study.

That had been the plan. That was still, technically, the plan, in the same way that standing in Daeron's kitchen doorway staring into the back garden while your notes sat untouched on the kitchen table was still, technically, adjacent to studying.

"What are you looking at," said Daeron, from somewhere behind you, in the tone of someone who already knew and was choosing to witness it anyway.

"Nothing," you said.

"You've been looking at nothing for six minutes straight."

Through the kitchen window and the glass of the back door, Maekar was in the garden.

He was doing something to a raised bed that appeared to involve a great deal of focused activity — kneeling in the dirt in old jeans and a worn grey t-shirt that had not survived contact with the garden soil in any meaningful way, hands dark to the wrist, white hair shoved back from his face with what appeared to have been a forearm and was now sticking up at an angle that should have looked ridiculous and did not. He was frowning at the soil the way, Daeron had once told you, he frowned at everything that failed to immediately cooperate with his intentions.

He said what seemed like a profanity by the look on his face under his breath. Adjusted whatever he was doing. The frown deepened fractionally.

The t-shirt was doing a lot.

"He's been out there since eight," Daeron said, now beside you with a mug of coffee and the expression of a young man who had made his peace with his life. "Something about the drainage not being right."

"Does he garden a lot?"

"He acts like it's a tactical problem he's been assigned to solve." Daeron drank his coffee. "Last month he made an Excel spreadsheet."

"A spreadsheet."

"For the tomatoes." A pause. "It had conditional formatting."

Outside, Maekar sat back on his heels and looked at the raised bed with his arms resting on his knees and dirt on his beard and the particular expression of a man reassessing a situation and preparing a revised approach. The late afternoon light was doing something entirely unreasonable to the line of his shoulders. His forearms were right there. Existentially. Just present in the world, doing that to your composure.

You needed to get a grip.

"He looks like that when he's cooking too," Daeron said conversationally. You wondered if he wore an apron. "And when he's parallel parking. And when he's doing the crossword. Basically, whenever he's concentrating on anything he gets that—" a vague gesture toward the window— "face."

"The face," you repeated.

"You know the face."

You knew the face. The face was a problem. The face combined with the forearms combined with the dirt on his bearded jaw combined with the knowledge that he had made a colour-coded spreadsheet for his tomatoes was creating a situation inside your chest that you were not equipped to manage.

You did not get a grip.

"Daeron," you said.

"Mm."

The words were out before you made a decision about them. "I want to fuck your dad."

The silence that followed had genuine texture.

Daeron lowered his coffee mug with the slow care of a man buying himself time. He looked at you. You looked at the garden. Outside, Maekar was frowning at the soil again, entirely unaware that his drainage problem was the least of what was currently happening in his kitchen.

"That's—" Daeron started.

"I know."

"He's my dad."

"I know."

"You came over here to study."

"I am studying."

A long pause during which Daeron appeared to conduct an internal debate of some complexity. You watched Maekar stand, brush the dirt from his jeans, push his hair back from his face with one forearm, and survey his raised bed with his hands on his hips. The t-shirt. The forearms. The hair. The frown.

"He's going to be insufferable about the drainage for the rest of the evening," Daeron said finally. "He needs something to redirect his attention."

You said nothing. You let that sit.

"He doesn't know you're here," Daeron continued, in the tone of a man constructing a case for something he will deny constructing. "I could go tell him. He does this thing when he's surprised — not bad surprised, just caught off guard — where he kind of—" another vague gesture— "resets. Stops frowning. It's a good moment."

"Daeron."

"I'm just providing information."

"You're facilitating."

"I'm going to go tell my dad you're here," he said, setting his mug down and heading for the back door with the air of someone who has made peace with their choices. "And then I'm going to remember that I have somewhere else to be. Urgently." He paused with his hand on the door. "He likes it when people are direct, by the way. He has no patience for anything else."

"I know," you said.

Daeron looked at you with suspicious eyes, like how long has this woman been observing my father without me noticing kind of eyes. He preferred not to walk down that line of thought and went to open the back door instead.

"Dad," he called, "look who came to visit!"

Maekar looked up from his raised bed. Found you through the glass. The frown shifted into something else — not quite a smile, but the suggestion of one, that fractional movement at the corner of his mouth that you had learned was as much as you usually got and had discovered was entirely sufficient.

Daeron brushed past you back into the kitchen, collected his jacket from the chair, and pointed at you on his way to the hall.

"I want absolutely no details," he said. "Like ever. Under any circumstances."

"Obviously," you said.

"Not even a look. Not a grin. Nothing."

"Daeron."

"I mean it,” he directed one final look to you from the front door. He turned on his heels and, with that wicked smile he usually saved for when he wanted to get under your skin, said: "Go on, pup, go get your toy."

Your eyes widened at the audacity of the man. But, when the front door closed behind him and you looked back through the glass at Maekar, who was still watching you with that fractional almost-smile and the dirt on his jaw and the forearms, you smiled and decided, for maybe the first time in your friendship, to not argue with Daeron.

So, you opened the back door.

I am completely normal about these men. Yeah. Completely normal.

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna

Want to join the taglist? Leave a comment here!

[blue-aconite]

so so so so good

[calledannabella]

blood

[vigilante24ish]

Needle & Thread

Summary:

When your land is plagued by wars and death becomes an everyday thing, your hands learn to become more stable than a maester's.

You learn to look into a killer's eyes and understand forgiveness. You learn that justice is a heavy sword to be carried.

But when you meet a Targaryen Prince burdened by duty and grief, your souls vibrate to the same frequency. And perhaps, the world is not as dark as you both originally thought.

Pairing: Baelor Targaryen x Fem!Reader Warnings: None

Chapter XXVI: LINK Chapter XXVIII: SOON

Chapter XXVIII: Tensions All Around, part 2

Unexpectedly, your frustration softened.

Not completely, but enough.

Before fully thinking through the gesture, your hand moved quietly across the table and settled gently atop his.

Warm skin met warm skin.

Not because the touch itself was improper, but because it was you who initiated it.

You, who had guarded your space so carefully since arriving within the Red Keep. You, who rarely reached for others first, unless comforting the boys.

And now your hand rested over his as though the gesture had come naturally to you. As though touching him no longer felt entirely forbidden.

And Baelor froze instantly beneath your touch.

You felt it immediately: The slight inhale he took. The subtle tension shifting through his hand beneath your own.

Slowly, he looked back toward you, and you smiled.

Not politely. Not carefully.

Genuinely.

With the same softness you reserved only for the boys.

“Thank you for trusting me,” you said quietly, giving his hand the faintest squeeze as though emphasising the sincerity behind your words.

Because you did not lie merely to soothe people, that had never been who you were.

You spoke honestly, openly, reserving that kind of sincerity for only a very small number of people throughout your life.

And despite everything, the misunderstandings, the confrontation, the frustration, you truly were thankful for his trust.

The King had been right.

You were a stranger from a small, forgotten village with no noble blood, no family name powerful enough to shield you, no wealth or status to justify the place you now occupied within the Red Keep.

Yet Baelor had entrusted you with the people most precious to him.

His sons. His future kings.

Not because of your birth or appearance.

But because somewhere beneath all those layers of grief and stubbornness and fear, he had seen you clearly.

And because he had seen you clearly…

He trusted you enough to place his entire world within your hands.

The words seemed to strike him harder than any accusation ever had.

For a long moment, neither of you moved.

The candles crackled softly nearby while distant wind brushed faintly against the tower windows, yet somehow the rest of the world itself seemed to fade quietly away around the two of you.

Baelor’s eyes searched yours silently. Closer now... Far too close.

Sitting side by side at the table, the distance that usually remained between your chairs had somehow disappeared without either of you noticing when exactly it happened.

Warmth mingled where your hands remained pressed together atop the wood, skin against skin, neither one attempting to pull away first.

Your breathing slowed faintly without permission as awareness settled heavily between you in a way neither of you could ignore any longer.

Not merely comfort. Not merely affection.

Something warmer. Something dangerous.

You noticed his gaze fall then, Briefly, instinctively, toward your lips.

The movement was subtle enough that another person may never have caught it, yet you did. You always did.

Observation had long ago become instinct after the war, sharpened by months spent reading expressions, movements, and silences before danger could fully reveal itself.

And suddenly you became painfully aware of your own breathing.

Of the closeness between your faces. Of the warmth of his hand beneath yours. Of the way candlelight softened the harsher edges of his features until he looked less like the feared Hand of the King and more like simply… Baelor.

Your lips parted faintly as you inhaled, tongue brushing unconsciously across suddenly dry skin.

Baelor noticed.

You knew he did by the subtle shift within his expression afterwards, by the way something darker entered his gaze almost imperceptibly.

And had a mirror stood before you then, you suspected your own eyes would have betrayed the same dangerous softness.

Neither of you moved away, not immediately.

And for one suspended, dangerous moment, you genuinely wondered whether he would finally close the remaining distance between you.

Part of you waited for it. Another part questioned whether perhaps you should be the one to move first instead.

Not because of love, but because closeness itself had become intoxicating.

The shared quiet. The trust that was slowly built between you. The warmth lingering after weeks spent learning one another piece by piece beneath guarded conversation and careful restraint.

And Baelor... Gods, Baelor looked tempted.

You could see it openly now, within the tension tightening subtly across his face, within the way he leaned forward almost unconsciously until barely a breath remained between you.

Your eyes drifted upward toward his, silently questioning...Waiting.

For one terrible moment, Baelor almost forgot every reason he should stop.

The crown. His position. Your fragile trust. The risk of ruining whatever had slowly begun growing between you.

All of it faded beneath the simple, devastating reality that you were still there.

Still close. Still looking at him. Still waiting.

A wiser woman would have pulled away then.

Would have stepped back before the moment could become something irreversible. Yet you did not.

No.

You remained exactly where you were, equally tempted despite every warning your mind attempted to offer.

Your gaze dropped briefly toward his mouth as well, drawn helplessly toward the shape of lips now close enough that you could make out every faint crease and shadow softened beneath candlelight.

You were focused on his lips as well, drawn helplessly toward their closeness now that the distance between you has nearly vanished entirely.

They were softer-looking than you expected, parted faintly with a restrained breath, every subtle detail illuminated beneath warm candlelight.

His breath brushed warmly across your skin. Close enough that it sent a faint shiver through you despite the heat lingering within the room.

The distance between you narrowed further somehow, impossibly intimate now. 

The air between you had changed completely now, heavy with something neither of you had openly acknowledged before tonight.

A single movement was all it would take.

The faintest tilt forward. Nothing more.

And you would kiss him.

For one suspended heartbeat, you truly thought one of you might finally do it.

That perhaps Baelor’s restraint would finally fracture beneath the closeness, beneath your touch still resting over his hand, beneath the dangerous softness settling openly between you after weeks of carefully guarded distance.

Or perhaps your own restraint would fail first.

Because gods... You were tempted too.

Far more than you wished to admit.

Yet you did not pull away.

No.

You stayed exactly where you were, temptation curling slowly beneath your skin despite every sensible thought attempting to rise above it.

The thought unsettled you almost as much as it thrilled you.

You had not expected this when arriving within the Red Keep. Had not expected quiet suppers and soft laughter and lingering looks to slowly become something capable of making your pulse race whenever he stepped too close.

Yet here you were.

Sitting before a prince of the realm while openly wondering what his mouth would feel like against yours.

Your eyes lifted back toward his.

Baelor looked equally lost within the moment now, whatever careful composure he usually carried around himself thinning visibly with each passing second.

You could see it in the tension gathered across his shoulders. In the meantime, his breathing had slowed in the restraint tightening behind those mismatched eyes fixed entirely upon you.

He leaned forward another fraction without seeming to realise it himself, until only a breath separated you.

Your own breath caught softly within your throat.

A wise woman would have stopped this long ago.

Would have moved away. Would have laughed softly and broken the moment before it grew dangerous enough to consume either of you truly.

Yet neither of you moved.

You remained there, silent and waiting, your hand still resting over his while your thoughts tangled hopelessly between caution and desire.

Your gaze dropped once more toward his lips. And for one reckless moment, you nearly closed the distance yourself.

You nearly did it.

The realisation flashed through you so suddenly that it left heat rushing upward along your neck and cheeks alike.

Baelor noticed, You knew he did.

Not because he spoke, but because something shifted within his expression immediately afterwards. Something darker. Hungrier.

The restraint in him was thinning further with every heartbeat spent this close to you.

And gods... The way he looked at you then nearly undid you entirely.

Like a man trying desperately to remember himself while every instinct begged him to forget.

His thumb shifted faintly beneath your hand. The smallest movement imaginable, yet somehow it grounded him again.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Baelor inhaled through his nose. Not like this, he thought.

Not while emotions still lingered raw between you after conflict and confusion and vulnerability, neither of you fully understood yet.

Not when trust itself still felt fragile enough to bruise.

The realisation visibly hurt him.

You could see it. See the battle waged silently behind his eyes while temptation fought against restraint.

And in the end... Restraint won.

Baelor pulled back first, not abruptly or coldly... Reluctantly.

As though every inch of distance forced between you cost him effort.

The sudden absence of his warmth altered the room immediately, leaving behind something breathless and strangely hollow in its place.

Then gently, almost carefully, he withdrew his hand from beneath yours as though fearful roughness might shatter the fragile atmosphere entirely.

You looked downward briefly afterwards, attempting to steady your breathing before the silence swallowed you both whole.

And the first thing that escaped your mouth was: “Your mother frightens me far more than your father.”

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

An awkward attempt to break the unbearable tension lingering between you.

Because deep down, you feared that if the silence stretched even a moment longer… Neither of you would have stopped a second time.

For one heartbeat, Baelor merely stared at you.

Then suddenly, softly... He laughed. Real laughter. Warm and low and utterly genuine.

The sound eased the tension coiled tightly around your chest almost instantly, allowing air back into the room where moments before there had only been heat and dangerous silence.

“She frightens most men at court as well,” he admitted, amusement lingering beneath his voice. “You are hardly alone.”

You exhaled a faint laugh of your own, grateful for the return of something lighter between you. “She looked at me as though she already knew every secret I ever had.”

Baelor’s smile deepened subtly at that, softer now than before. “Then you should consider yourself fortunate,” he replied. “Usually she waits before doing that.”

A groan escaped you beneath your breath while he chuckled again quietly, and somehow the heaviness hanging over supper gradually softened afterwards into something gentler.

Easier.

Though never entirely harmless again.

After supper, you left the Tower of the Hand with a lighter heart yet a far more clouded mind.

While the change of topic and the occasional laughter had eased part of the lingering tension between you, it would have been foolish to pretend the moment near the table had truly disappeared.

It followed you, quietly, persistently.

Like warmth lingering upon skin long after a hand had already pulled away.

The halls of the Red Keep had grown quieter by the time you descended the tower.

Torches flickered softly against stone walls while passing servants lowered their voices beneath the lateness of the hour.

Somewhere far below, beyond the thick castle walls, King’s Landing still breathed with distant life and noise, yet up within the higher levels of the Keep, night had finally begun settling properly.

You barely noticed the walk back toward your chambers.

Your thoughts remained elsewhere entirely.

Back in the solar. Back beside the hearth. Back at the table, the distance between you and Baelor had nearly vanished altogether.

By the time you finally entered your room, the silence greeting you felt almost too loud after the intimacy of the evening.

For a brief moment after closing the door behind you, you simply stood there in silence, fingers still resting loosely against the wood while the evening replayed itself endlessly within your mind.

Then your gaze drifted instinctively toward the armchair near the hearth. Toward the dark cloak still folded carefully across its back.

You had almost forgotten about it entirely during supper.

Almost.

Slowly, you stepped closer before thought could stop you.

Your fingertips brushed lightly against the heavy fabric, tracing absentmindedly near the clasp where his hands had secured it around your shoulders upon the beach.

And instantly, the memory returned with dangerous clarity.

Warm fingers at the back of your neck. His closeness. His breath mingled with the sea breeze while he stood far too near.

Your stomach tightened faintly. Gods.

You pulled your hand back almost immediately afterwards as though the fabric itself had suddenly become too warm beneath your touch.

The hearth still burned softly near the wall, filling the chamber with gentle warmth and amber light.

Ellyn had clearly come and gone already while you were away; fresh water rested beside the bed, blankets properly turned down, candles lowered for the night.

Spur barely lifted his head from where he slept before the hearth before deciding you were not interesting enough to abandon sleep for.

You almost envied him.

Slowly, you changed for bed and slipped beneath the covers, yet the softness of the mattress and warmth trapped beneath heavy blankets did little to quiet the restless beating of your heart.

Instead, you found yourself staring upward at the ceiling long after extinguishing the final candle beside your bed.

And as you lay there within the dark, your thoughts returned helplessly toward the same moment again and again.

The closeness.

Gods...

You always sat in the same chairs during supper. Always maintained the same careful distance between you, enough space to preserve propriety and caution and all the invisible lines neither of you openly crossed.

Yet tonight that space had somehow disappeared without either of you noticing.

For one suspended moment, it truly had.

You swore you could still feel the lingering heat of him near your skin even now, despite him being nowhere close.

And his gaze…

The darkness that had entered his mismatched eyes while looking at your face, then your lips.

The restraint is visible there. The way he had stopped himself.

A muffled groan escaped you before you shamelessly dragged your pillow over your face in embarrassment.

You would be a liar if you claimed the same thoughts had not crossed your own mind.

Gods, you had been tempted. Far more than you wished to admit aloud even to yourself.

Part of you had genuinely wanted to close that final distance just to see what would happen.

To discover whether he would follow or retreat. Whether his lips would feel as warm as the rest of him did, standing close enough to breathe against your mouth.

“By the Seven…” you mumbled weakly against the pillow, suddenly feeling like an utter fool.

You were no sheltered maiden untouched by men or unfamiliar with attraction.

You had kissed boys growing up, had nearly lost both dignity and clothing within barns and hidden fields at least twice before one of your siblings ruined the moment through catastrophic timing.

You understood desire. Understood temptation.

And because you understood it, you recognised exactly what had nearly happened tonight.

It was just the moment, you told yourself firmly. Just closeness. Just emotion. Just the shared vulnerability after difficult days and softer conversations.

Nothing more.

You repeated the thought like a prayer despite how unconvincing it sounded even within your own mind.

Because deep down, another truth unsettled you far more.

You had wanted him to kiss you.

And perhaps what unsettled you most was not even the almost kiss itself... But the realisation that you had been the one to reach for him first.

You had touched his hand without thinking. Had offered comfort without hesitation. Had sat there and allowed the closeness between you to grow instead of stopping it while you still could.

The memory alone sent a fresh rush of heat across your face beneath the pillow.

Not the Hand of the King. Not Prince Baelor Targaryen.

Just… him.

The man who looked at you as though he truly saw you beneath every wall you carried.

The man whose ridiculous need to care for you both irritated and warmed you in equal measure.

The man whose mismatched eyes seemed to follow you long after leaving every room.

You groaned softly again and buried your face deeper into the pillow as though the fabric itself might smother the humiliating thoughts before they multiplied further.

Unfortunately for you... Baelor fared no better.

Far above within the Tower of the Hand, he still sat awake long after your departure, one arm draped heavily across the chair while dying embers flickered weakly within the hearth before him.

His goblet rested forgotten within his hand, Untouched.

He had not moved for quite some time now.

Instead, he simply stared at the fire while replaying the evening endlessly within his mind, no matter how hard he attempted to think of literally anything else.

The way you had thanked him.

Gods.

That alone had nearly undone him.

Your hand over his had felt impossibly warm and soft against his skin, smaller than his own yet strong all the same.

Not the delicate, untouched softness noble ladies prized so highly, but real softness marked faintly by traces of labour and life. Human. Yours.

And your face…

The candlelight had transformed you into something dangerous entirely without meaning to.

Your eyes had darkened while staring at him. Your lips parted softly beneath unsteady breath. The warmth in your expression as you thanked him carried such genuine sincerity that he felt almost ashamed sitting beneath it.

Baelor groaned quietly and passed one hand slowly down his face in frustration as though the gesture itself might somehow drag him back toward reason.

His trousers remained painfully tight against his groin, every thought of your face and your closeness only worsening the situation further.

He ignored it stubbornly, refusing himself even the smallest relief.

This was punishment enough for what he had almost done.

Idiot, he thought bitterly while leaning his head back against the chair. You could have frightened her away entirely.

He was no longer some green boy ruled blindly by lust and curiosity. He was a prince of the realm. A father. A widower.

And you...

You were the woman he trusted most with his sons.

The woman he had nearly lost once already through his own failures and misguided attempts to protect what never needed fixing in the first place.

And now here he sat, long after midnight, haunted not only by guilt over what almost happened…

But by the terrible realisation that part of him desperately wished it had.

He had been tempted. Gods, he had been tempted.

The closeness between you.  The trust. The softness in your eyes while thanking him.

You could have pulled away at any moment.

Could have stood. Broken the moment. Left him sitting there alone with his shame.

You had not.

And worse still... You had touched him first.

Not out of duty. Not politeness. Not an obligation. But gently. Openly. Willingly.

The memory of your hand settling over his had undone something within him far more thoroughly than the almost kiss ever could.

Because for the first time since meeting you, Baelor could no longer pretend the longing existed only within himself.

You had stayed.

And that truth tormented him almost as much as the memory of your lips only inches away from his own.

Slowly, Baelor set the untouched goblet aside and released a long, exhausted breath into the empty room.

For one reckless fleeting moment, Baelor nearly stood.

The impulse came suddenly and without reason; sharp enough that his body had already shifted forward before sense finally caught hold of him again.

He could still picture you leaving his solar only moments earlier. The sound of your footsteps fading down the tower. The softness lingering within your eyes before you disappeared beyond the door.

Part of him wanted to follow.

Gods, part of him wanted to stop you before distance and walls and propriety returned between you again.

To call you back. To finish what almost happened between the two of you at the table. To let you touch him more.

The thought alone sent fresh guilt crashing heavily through him.

With a quiet curse beneath his breath, Baelor leaned back into the chair once more and dragged one tired hand across his face.

Idiot.

He did not look toward his bed, did not even attempt sleep.

Because deep down, while replaying the evening again and again beneath dying firelight, he already understood something dangerous neither of you had spoken aloud.

Neither of you had truly wanted him to pull away.

And that realisation would haunt him far longer than he would ever dare admit.

Divider by @uzmacchiato