[REALLY NORMAL AND WELL-ADJUSTED VOICE] well you never know maybe it COULD have saved me. if i ever actually achieved perfection. it could have happened then. if i was actually ever enough. Which i was not
wedding-hater groomsman!bucky x planning-the-wedding bridesmaid!reader
⤷ summary: It was supposed to be simple: plan the wedding, survive the vendors, don’t strangle Bucky Barnes. But perfection cracks when an unexpected disaster hits, and in the quiet aftermath you discover the last thing you'd expect - that falling in love isn't exactly what friends do.
⤷ warnings/tags: modern AU (reader is a journalist, bucky is an architect, but that doesn't matter too much); friends to lovers; side natasha x steve (they're the ones getting married!); generally fluffy/ romcom; a bit of arguing; mild feng shui slander.
barely proofread and certainly not beta read, but that does not in any way diminish my love for vale! (i'm just tired haha)
bonus smut at the end 18+ MDNI: unprotected p in v, finishing inside, use of petnames: baby, darling (you know i had to)
⤷ word count: 19.1k (take chapter breaks whenever there's a divider!)
⤷ A/N: written for the delightful @bedriddenbarnes as part of my very first event, the dear my darling valentines day fic exchange! there's so many other wonderful fics being posted, so please check out the masterpost!!
dear my darling reader masterpost || more bucky from me
The light should’ve felt peaceful. Instead, your head is pounding like you’ve spent the night sleeping beneath a church bell, each slow pulse arriving a fraction too loud, a fraction too bright. Your mouth is dry.
Urgh.
You breathe in slowly – linen and lavender detergent, sun-warmed cotton, and something unfamiliar beneath it. Cedarwood, maybe. Or the faint metallic coolness that clung to skin after too many hours outside under string lights and damp evening air. You wrinkle your brow without opening your eyes, trying to sort memory from sensation.
The wedding.
God, the wedding.
Your head throbs again, sharper this time – a warning.
You crack open one eye. The ceiling greets you first: white, slightly textured, edged with crown molding that doesn’t quite match the wallpaper. The second thing you register is the wallpaper itself – pink and white florals, sprigs of something that might be hydrangeas (Steve’s mom’s taste, unmistakably).
And the third –
Eyes. Arctic blue, and alarmingly close.
Bucky Barnes is lying on the pillow beside you, facing you, already awake. His expression is quiet, unreadable in the soft morning light. Peaceful, except for the severe crease between his brows that suggests that he too, is questioning the reality of this moment.
For one suspended moment, neither of you move. His breath tickles the loose strands of hair at your forehead. Yours has stopped entirely. His gaze stays on your face, steady but unreadable, like he’s waiting for you to say something first – or bracing for you to. His breathing is slow, controlled. Yours is not.
You become acutely aware of the absurdity of it all at once: the childhood bedroom, the floral wallpaper, the faint ache behind your eyes, the man you’ve spent the past month circling now lying inches from your mouth like this is the most natural place in the world for him to be.
Both eyes snap open fully, blinking sleep away and panic into focus. The entire night before comes crashing back with nauseating clarity
The rain.
The ruined lake house.
The frantic salvaging.
Steve and Natasha’s incandescent smiles when it all somehow worked out.
The champagne you should not have accepted.
The second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Nth glass you absolutely should not have accepted.
You – exhausted, delirious, running purely on adrenaline and relief – collapsing onto the nearest bed in Steve Rogers’ childhood home.
And somehow, inexplicably, Bucky ending up beside you.
He blinks, just once. The crease between his brows deepens, then smooths, like he’s made a decision you haven’t been briefed on.
You swallow. This is… a lot.
There’s too much context hastily skipped over, too many unanswered questions, entire conversations that need to happen. You really should say something – anything.
Instead, the both of you just lie there, staring at each other in the pale, barely-there light of early morning, and you have no idea – absolutely none whatsoever – how it started.
A month and a day earlier…
Saturday morning brunch is meant to be harmless.
At least, that’s what you assume when Natasha texts brunch? with no further explanation – which in your shared language means citrusy drinks with more alcohol than juice, Steve cheerfully announcing he’ll swing by to pick the two of you up, and maybe a passive-aggressive comment about how you never answer texts on time anymore since you made senior reporter.
The restaurant is bright in that deliberate, curated way – white tile, trailing plants, menus that list three kinds of toast and six kinds of alternative milks (for an upcharge, of course). Steve is already there when you arrive, standing to hug you like it’s been weeks instead of days. Natasha follows more smoothly, sunglasses still on despite being indoors, kiss to your cheek efficient and familiar.
You slide into your seat, shrugging off your jacket.
“So,” you say. “What’s the occasion?”
Steve grins. Natasha doesn’t answer.
You notice the table then – four place settings, evenly spaced. You pause, eyes flicking from the extra glass to the empty chair beside it.
“He said he’s coming from a morning meeting with new clients,” she continues, reaching for a menu. “So he might be a little late.”
You open your mouth to respond – but then Steve peers over your shoulder. “Oh, there he is.”
You turn just in time to see Bucky Barnes crossing the café floor, riding jacket slung over one shoulder, expression composed in the way of someone who isn’t that late anyways but will be apologizing anyway. He looks exactly as you remember him – tall, self-contained, like he sort of exists on a slightly different plane from everyone else.
He lifts a hand in greeting and slips into the empty seat beside you with quiet ease.
“Sorry,” he says by way of greeting. “Clients wanted to redo the entire second floor because their new feng shui master said the energies weren’t flowing properly. Whatever that means.”
“You’re fine,” Natasha replies. “We just got here.”
Then before you can interrogate Natasha on the true reason for why you both are here, the server arrives, menus appear, and the moment gets swept away in small talk. Drinks arrive and the table settles into that brief, expectant quiet that always precedes a big announcement.
Natasha and Steve exchange a look. It’s the look of two people who have already leapt and are now waiting for the ground to rise up and meet them.
Your stomach drops before your brain catches on.
“We wanted you guys to be the first to know,” Steve says. “We’re getting married.”
The sentence lands like a champagne cork popping somewhere inside your chest.
You blink once, because you’re reasonably sure you misheard – but Natasha is smiling in that precise, controlled way she does when she’s already braced for fallout, and Steve is beaming so openly it borders on reckless sincerity.
You make a noise. It is not a dignified one.
“What,” you say faintly, already halfway out of your chair.
“We’re getting married!” Natasha echoes, a million-watt grin on her face.
You scream.
There’s no other word for it. You scream, hands flying up, chair scraping back as you lunge across the table, nearly knocking over the water glasses in the process. She smells like citrus and coffee and something expensive and understated, and she laughs softly against your shoulder as you clutch her like she might vanish. “No. NO YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO ME RIGHT NOW!”
Natasha laughs as you throw yourself at her again, this time nearly climbing into her lap. “Show me,” you demand, pulling back just long enough to grab her hand, lifting it to the light, examining the ring from every conceivable angle. “Nat, this is – this is perfect. Steve, are you – are you seeing this? This is her. This ring is literally her.”
Steve looks unbearably pleased with himself. “I had a bit of help,” he admits bashfully.
“I’m screaming,” you announce, already doing so. You absolutely do not care that the table beside you has gone quiet. “I’m so happy I might pass out! How long have you been hiding this from me?”
“About twelve hours,” Natasha says dryly. “We decided you’d explode if we waited longer.”
She isn’t wrong.
You drop back into your chair, breathless, eyes shining, hands still trembling faintly with the aftershock of joy.
Across the table, Steve beams like he’s watching fireworks set off just for him. His ears are pink, his smile helplessly wide. He reaches for his coffee, then forgets to drink it.
Bucky, meanwhile, reacts the way he does to most emotionally significant announcements – by doing nothing at all.
He leans back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, gaze flicking once between Steve and Natasha as if he’s checking that this is, in fact, real. His expression is unreadable at first – then cracks just enough to reveal a fond resignation.
“Well,” he says eventually, nodding once. “Took you long enough.”
Steve laughs, delighted. “I knew you’d say that.”
Bucky reaches across the table and claps him on the shoulder, solid and affectionate. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Natasha watches the exchange with a small, knowing smile. “You’re happy for us,” she says.
“I am,” Bucky replies immediately, without hesitation. “You’re good together. Always have been.”
You notice – how easily the words come out, how certain he sounds – and your heart squeezes a little.
Then he adds, dry as dust, “Still don’t know why you’d want a wedding.”
You blink. “How – how can you hate weddings? Weddings are –”
“Expensive,” Bucky supplies. “A waste of time. Full of speeches no one remembers and promises that half the room doesn’t believe in.”
You stare at him like he’s just announced he doesn’t believe in birthdays. Or seasons. Or the concept of marking time at all.
Natasha hums. “You’re projecting.”
“I’m being realistic.”
But then, he glances at Steve again, and his tone softens, “I’m happy for you,” he says. “Both of you. Really.”
Natasha nods once, satisfied. “Good. Because you’re the best man.”
Bucky freezes like she’s told him he’s being drafted. There’s that split-second tension, the recalibration. You, mid-sip of your mimosa, choke. Hah! Karma!
He looks from Natasha to Steve, then back again, as if hoping one of them will crack and admit this is a joke.
“I am what.”
Steve’s grin turns positively feral. “Yeah. Best man. Obviously.”
Bucky looks at all three of you in turn, trying to locate the hidden camera. “No,” he says slowly. “That’s not obvious. That’s a terrible idea. What part of I think weddings are useless did you not get?”
Natasha hands you a napkin. “And,” she continues, entirely unbothered, “she’s the maid of honour.”
Your head snaps up. “Me?”
“Of course you,” Natasha says. “Who else would I trust?”
Your whole body does a small, involuntary jolt, like someone pressed your internal panic-and-joy switch at the same time.
“Me?” you breathe. Then again, quieter, “Me.”
Natasha’s looking at you with that rare, unguarded sincerity she reserves for maybe three people on earth.
Your throat tightens. “I – yes. Of course. I’d be honoured.”
Bucky blinks once, slow, like he hadn’t expected quite that level of enthusiasm.
You’re just about to turn on Bucky for that face he’s making – something between disbelief and mild judgment – when the plates arrive, and for a brief, blissful moment, the promise of carbohydrates knocks every uncharitable thought clean out of your head.
This turns out to be a mistake, because the second you’re buttering sourdough with the single-minded joy of someone about to be fed, you’ve already forgotten to stay annoyed at him. Another thought slips in – soft at first, then niggling – that there’s a wedding to plan.
“So,” you say, glancing up, smile bright. “I know it’s early, but when were you thinking of actually having the wedding?”
“Oh,” Natasha says, not even looking up from her eggs. “Maybe August?”
You beam. “August,” you repeat dreamily. “That’s beautiful. Late summer weddings are so romantic – warm nights, golden hour photos, none of those terrible July storms –”
She nods. “Mm.”
“And that gives you loads of time to plan,” you continue, already halfway to bliss. “Plenty of runway.”
Natasha smiles. Then, lightly – certainly too lightly for the bombshell she’s dropping – adds, “August this year.”
The knife slips in your hand. The world stops. You laugh and it feels like it’s coming out all wrong. “Sorry – what?”
You turn instinctively toward the person nearest you, seeking grounding, confirmation, sanity. Your hand finds Bucky’s forearm without thinking.
He doesn’t pull away; he doesn’t reassure you either. He’s wearing a strange expression – half amused, half wary – like someone watching a beautifully engineered bridge begin to smoke.
“August,” Steve repeats serenely. “It’s kind of perfect, actually.”
You stare at him. “That’s,” you say slowly, “next month.”
“Yes,” Steve says, pleased. “Exactly.”
Then you laugh again, louder this time, shaking your head. “Okay, okay! But –” you inhale. “What’s the plan?”
“Well,” he says, folding his hands like this is the most reasonable thing in the world, “we were thinking simple.”
Your smile freezes.
Natasha nods. “Very simple.”
Your smile begins to strain. “Define simple.”
“Lunch,” Steve says. “At my parent’s place.”
“In the backyard,” Natasha adds. “Just family and close friends.”
The word lunch echoes in your skull like it’s been shouted down a hallway.
“A… lunch,” you echo faintly. Lunch is not a wedding word. Lunch is what happens when people have errands afterwards.
“Yes,” Natasha says calmly. “Low-key.”
You lean back into your chair.
Steve chimes in, “We don’t really need much, we just want to get married.”
There it is, that gentle, sincere, devastating honesty.
You stare at the two of them, these people you love more than most things in the world, and feel something inside you crack open like a dropped champagne flute.
“No,” you say.
Steve blinks. “No?”
“No,” you repeat, firmer now. “Absolutely not.”
Beside you, Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly amused – a reaction you’ll pointedly refuse to dignify in favour of the emergency at hand.
“Oh, come on,” Bucky says, “what’s wrong with lunch?”
You swivel toward him, eyes wide. “Everything. Everything is wrong with lunch.”
“People show up,” he says, shrugging. “They eat. They say congratulations. Nothing different from a big party.”
You gesture helplessly between him and the couple. “This is a wedding. You don’t just – eat and disperse.”
Natasha finally looks at you properly. “We’re not trying to make a production of it.” Steve nods in agreement. “Between school starting again and Nat going back into full ballet rehearsal season, this is kind of our window.”
“There isn’t another one,” she adds. “Fall is gone. Winter is Nutcracker. And then the company tours in Spring.”
Steve shrugs apologetically. “And once summer’s over, I’m back with the kids full-time. We don’t want to wait another year just to line up calendars.”
“It’s sensible,” Natasha adds. “Not romantic. Just… real life.”
“But –” you start, then stop, searching for something that doesn’t make you sound unhinged. “But you deserve more than real life.”
“We have each other,” Steve says gently.
“That’s not –” You turn again, desperate now, fingers digging into Bucky’s arm without a shred of dignity. “Tell them. This is insane, right?”
He stiffens slightly, clearly unprepared to be conscripted into this fight. “I really don’t see the problem,” he says honestly.
Your jaw drops. “It’s a milestone,” you insist. “It’s about marking the moment. About saying this matters enough that it stops time for a day.”
Bucky tilts his head. “Or,” he says, “they get married because they want to be married. The rest is optional.”
Natasha watches you both with interest. Steve’s head swivels between the two of you like he’s watching a tennis match.
“Behold,” you say dryly, gesturing at Bucky. “The patron saint of emotional rationing.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Better than being the apostle of overreaction.”
You release his arm with a huff. “You’re really telling me you’re fine with them getting married over sandwiches.”
“If they’re good sandwiches,” he says, unfazed. “Sure.”
You make a distressed, inhuman noise. Bucky studies you – really studies you – and for the first time since you met him, he seems to consider the possibility that something might be deeply wrong with you.
The table falls into a brief, careful quiet. It’s not uncomfortable, but it certainly is weighted. You slide your plate aside and, with the grim resolve of someone about to break an emergency story, pull out the battered journalist’s notebook you’re never actually without.
“Okay,” you say.
Three heads turn toward you.
“What if,” you say slowly, “I plan it.”
Natasha blinks. “You –”
“Everything,” you continue, gaining momentum. “The logistics, the vendors, the timeline. All of it. You don’t have to think about anything.”
When Steve starts to protest, you hold up a hand.
“No. Listen. You’re busy. I get that. You’ve both spent your lives showing up for other people.” You gesture between them. “Let us show up for you.”
Bucky watches you now, full attention, as if something in the room has shifted and he’s trying to locate the fault line.
“You two just –” you say, voice softer but no less certain, “you two just appear. Have a good time. Celebrate with us.”
Natasha studies you, eyes sharp, calculating. “You’d take this on?”
“Yes,” you say immediately. “Happily.”
Steve looks torn. “We don’t want to burden you.”
You laugh, quick and earnest. “You won’t. This is –” you falter, then recover. “This is important to me.”
A small, horrible beat passes in which you second-guess whether you’ve crossed a line.
Then Natasha exhales, long and thoughtful. “And you wouldn’t turn it into something enormous.”
You hesitate, just a tiny bit. “I wouldn’t turn it into something untrue,” you say. “I promise.”
That does it. Natasha reaches for your hand, squeezing once. “Okay.”
Steve smiles, relief washing over him. “Yeah. Okay.”
Your heart lifts – buoyant, determined, already sprinting ahead as you turn instinctively toward Bucky, eyes bright, dragging him into the moment without even thinking.
“And you,” you insist, “You’ll help.”
He stiffens. “I will not.”
“You’re the best man,” you say, steady, reasonable. “I’m the maid of honour. This is literally a two-person job, like it or not.”
His jaw flexes. “I don’t do weddings.”
“And I don’t do half-measures,” you shoot back. “So here we are.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again – clearly deciding that arguing with you is both futile and dangerous to his peace of mind.
Natasha laughs. Steve shakes his head, amused. The conversation drifts on – dates, timelines, logistics – while you’re already sketching invisible plans in the air like a general surveying an impending campaign.
Bucky leans back in his chair, arms crossed, expression edged with a kind of begrudging vigilance, as if he now has to monitor whatever chaos you intend to unleash on his life. He doesn’t believe in weddings. And whatever this is – you, dragging him into a four-week matrimonial war zone – isn’t changing that.
It is, however, very clearly about to become his problem.
Three weeks and a day earlier…
“Remind me,” Bucky mutters, voice as flat as concrete, “why I’m here?”
You don’t answer immediately. You’re too busy absorbing the lake house foyer – the clean timber lines, the citrus-and-sunlight smell, the exact kind of curated serenity that makes your pulse rise with possibility.
Bucky stands beside you like he’s been forced at gunpoint to be here – jaw tight, arms crossed, weight shifted back on his heels.
“It’s indoor-outdoor, one of the top venues in the state, and seats exactly who we need it to,” you recite automatically, even though no one has accused you of anything yet. “And because I asked you to come.”
“I noticed,” he deadpans. “What I didn’t notice was any advance warning before being hauled into – whatever this is.”
You wave him off. “24 hours is plenty.”
“For you, maybe,” he replies flatly. “Some of us don’t move meetings unless something’s on fire.” He looks pointedly around the perfectly intact room.
You open your mouth – ready to fight him, justify yourself, maybe both – but another couple steps in behind you. They’re glossy, coordinated, wearing the sort of high-fashion monochrome palette that suggests they have a shared stylist and a joint credit card. The bride glances at you, then at Bucky, eyes flicking quickly over the height difference, the arm loop, the proximity.
Something in her expression sharpens. Territory has been staked, competition engaged.
Oh. So it’s going to be like that.
You are not losing this venue to someone wearing three different shades of black.
It is at this moment – this precise, irrational, adrenaline-laced moment – the venue coordinator appears. She is a woman in earth-toned linen who steps forward with her arms held out wide. “Welcome! You must be –”
“Engaged!” you blurt out.
Bucky chokes so hard it could be a medical issue.
You thump him on the back and keep smiling like nothing is wrong. “Yes,” you continue, “we’re so excited to be here.”
The woman’s smile widens, though she looks a little confused. Nevertheless, she clasps your hands in hers. “Thank you for coming in person and not sending a planner. I do prefer to walk the space with the couple themselves.” She tilts her head, studying the two of you like a composition. “I designed it that way,” she continues lightly, “otherwise the space gets confused. It needs to feel the energy of two people together.”
Bucky’s jaw flexes once – a man making peace with his own unbelievable life choices.
You do not give him time to regret it.
You keep smiling, turning just enough to close the distance between you as you decisively slide your fingers around the widest part of his biceps. It’s an action possessive to sell the lie, and strategic enough that he can’t object.
“Of course, we must accommodate the space,” you lie cleanly through your teeth.
Bucky’s gaze flicks to your hand.
Then to the woman.
Then back to your hand.
Something in his expression tightens – disbelief first, then resignation, then a faint, startled awareness of how close you suddenly are. His jaw works once, like he’s swallowing a protest.
The woman beams, satisfied. “Wonderful,” she says. “I can always tell when a couple’s right for the room.”
Bucky blinks.
“The room,” he mutters for your ears only, “is not the only thing being lied to.”
You squeeze his arm a little tighter – a warning, a threat, a plea for cooperation – and steer him forward.
“Just play along,” you hiss.
You move without thinking, guiding Bucky along with you. He leans down slightly, voice low and dangerous. “You did not tell me,” he says, “that I was going to be fake-engaged today.”
You smile up at him. “I didn’t think you’d come if I did.”
“I can still walk out.”
“You won’t,” you say sweetly. “You’d never leave me to lose to them.”
His mouth presses into a flat line. “That’s not a compliment.”
The coordinator sweeps ahead, her linen skirts whispering across the polished floor, gesturing for all four of you to follow her deeper into the venue. Her energy is serene, ceremonial, almost priestly – the kind of woman who would absolutely believe a building has preferences.
You move first, still linked to Bucky because you can’t risk breaking formation now. His arm stays rigid under your hand, but he doesn’t shake you off. Not when the monochrome couple is still behind you. Not when the coordinator keeps glancing back, clearly assessing which pair the space prefers.
As you’re led deeper into the space – past long communal tables, a dramatic staircase, an absurdly beautiful internal garden that was built to reflect the chaotic natural energies of the lake – you let yourself breathe for the first time all week.
It has been chaos – that particular, grinding breed of chaos born from too many deadlines stacked on too little sleep. A week of logistics and emails, of vendor spreadsheets multiplying like rabbits. You’ve been sleeping with your phone pressed to your chest, waking up to half-drafted ideas and missed calls. Coffee is drunk consistently, at ungodly hours.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, your harmless little notebook of ideas has evolved into something far more serious: a swollen D-ring binder thick enough to cause wrist strain, complete with a colour-coded contents page, subsection tabs, and – because you hate yourself – a newly minted annex.
Bucky has watched this escalation with increasing distaste. He flips a page, pauses, then squints at it. “Why is this laminated?”
“It’s the Emergency Contingencies Index.”
He looks up at you like he’s just witnessed a war crime. “…You laminated contingencies.”
“Obviously.”
He exhales through his nose – long, beleaguered, resigned to his fate. “Of course you did.”
You ignore the jibe and slide a printout across the table toward him. “Venue viewing. Tomorrow evening.” You tap the date and time with your pen, already mentally drafting an email you’ll have to send from the back of the cab to work. “Just promise me you’ll show up.”
He exhales slowly, like a man considering his options. He said nothing, and yet –
Here he is.
You catch him out of the corner of your eye now, consciously shortening his stride so he doesn’t power ahead of you, free hand shoved into his pockets, jaw set in concentration as he maintains the fragile illusion of engaged unity. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.
The foyer opens into a long, sunlit corridor. Windows stretch floor-to-ceiling, throwing bright bars of late-afternoon light across the hardwood.
Beyond her, a sweeping wall of French doors opens onto the lake, the view so startlingly still it looks curated. The afternoon light pours in, warm and liquid, pooling over the polished floors as though the entire venue has been waiting – patiently, expectantly – for someone to notice how perfect it could be.
The other couple gasps appreciatively.
You smile, unsurprised. You know this view; you’d studied it from three angles online, read two overly reverent blog posts about it, and cross-checked Google Earth. Still, seeing it in person, it’s better – warmer, more alive.
Bucky notices, of course he notices, but he doesn’t comment – he’s too busy maintaining his posture of a reluctant hostage – but the corner of his mouth tightens like he’s bracing for you to sprint ahead and start taking photos.
You nudge him anyway. “Try not to look like someone dragged you out of a bunker.”
His glance is slow, unimpressed. “Try not to lie about our relationship status in front of strangers.”
“Tit for tat,” you murmur.
The coordinator begins talking about the original timber, about the intentional asymmetry of the beams, about the way light “wakes the room gently.”
You are listening with rapt attention.
Bucky is… enduring.
Every now and then she asks a question – Do you prefer natural wood tones? Would you want drapery? Do you lean toward a circular ceremony layout or linear? – and you open your mouth each time, prepared to answer.
But Bucky answers first – not with enthusiasm, or vision, or any interest in weddings whatsoever – but with that dry, unfiltered architectural practicality of a man who absolutely cannot help applying professional standards even when he hates the situation he finds himself in.
“A circular layout will bottleneck the aisle, especially if it’s indoors,” he says, hands in his pockets. “You’ll lose at least a third of the sightlines.”
The coordinator brightens. “Exactly.”
The monochrome bride stiffens.
You blink at Bucky, startled. He catches the look, scowls faintly, and mutters, “It’s obvious.”
It isn’t, but you let him have his dignity.
You walk on through another set of doors, which opens wide into the main reception hall – soaring beams, vast windows framing the lake, the whole space glowing.
“This,” she says reverently, “is where most couples choose to place their focal installation.”
You know instantly what she means. The chandelier. You’d flagged it in your notes – a suspended floral-glass hybrid piece, deceptively delicate, impossibly heavy.
You open your mouth to ask about load-bearing specs, but –
He’s frowning at the ceiling, hands still in his pockets, the posture of someone who cannot stop being an architect even when he’s pretending to be an engaged man-captive.
“You’ve got a reinforced steel bracket hidden behind the main truss,” he continues, nodding toward a nearly invisible seam. “But if you’re planning anything heavier than a statement pendant, you’ll need secondary reinforcement. Otherwise the whole thing will torque.”
The coordinator’s eyes go very round.
The monochrome groom swallows, while his bride tightens her grip on her designer purse.
You stare at Bucky, stunned.
He glances sideways at you – and the look he gives you is defensive, almost irritated, the look of a man who realizes too late that he has just demonstrated interest.
“What?” he mutters. “You were gonna ask.”
He’s right, and that annoys you more than it should.
The coordinator beams. “Most people never notice that bracket. You have an extraordinary eye.”
Bucky grimaces, as if being praised for competence in a wedding venue is worse than being shot.
You step in smoothly. “He’s very detail-oriented.”
“He’s very particular,” the monochrome bride echoes, except in her tone, it’s an accusation.
Bucky lifts one brow at her – slow, unimpressed – and the bride looks away first.
The coordinator, oblivious or delighted, continues. “Of course, if you were envisioning a suspended installation – glass, florals, even a sculptural arc – we can accommodate it. The space responds beautifully to verticality.”
“We are considering something suspended,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Bucky shoots you a look that reads: You’re making up lies faster than I can track them.
You shoot him one back: Keep up.
He exhales through his nose. “If we do that, we’ll need that secondary bracket. And a counterweight system.”
The coordinator nods rapidly, already mentally rearranging her entire lighting rig. “Of course. That can be arranged.” Something shifts subtly. Her posture softens, and the way she nods is as if a check box has just been ticked.
The other groom glances back at you and Bucky, his earlier confidence visibly dented. You squeeze Bucky’s arm, unable to help the spark of satisfaction that flickers through you.
The moment the coordinator drifts out of both eyesight and earshot – no doubt to commune with the floorboards or interrogate the other couple’s aura – Bucky exhales like he’s been underwater.
“Okay,” he mutters, stepping back a fraction, putting space between your bodies the way a man pulls his hand away from a hot stove. “We’re done here. We saw the thing. You touched me. The room approved. Can we go?”
You stare at him. “We haven’t even reached the terrace. Or seen the lake.”
“We don’t need to see anything,” he says, already half-turned toward the exit. “You’ve clearly got this handled. The room is spiritually climaxing for you. I’m just taking up space.”
You blink at him. “Are you – mad?”
“No,” he says immediately, too quickly. “I’m not mad.”
He is mad. He is radiating annoyance in a very silent, very repressed, very Barnesian key.
You step in front of him before he can make a full escape.
“Bucky. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he says again, jaw tightening. “You lie through your teeth, drag me into a fake engagement, hold onto me like I’m part of the act, and suddenly we’re competing with –” he gestures vaguely toward the monochrome couple, “– those people. Nothing at all.”
You cross your arms. “I asked you to come. You came. That’s on you.”
His laugh is humourless. “You didn’t tell me I was signing up to be your emotional seeing-eye dog for a venue tour.”
You bristle. “I didn’t ask you to hold my hand.”
“You didn’t ask,” he shoots back, “but you sure as hell did it anyway.”
You open your mouth. Close it again in favour of studying him, as if the truth of this situation might be written across the rigidity of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth, and the glint in his eyes that isn’t anger so much as it is something that he doesn’t want to name.
This is not about the hand, this is not about the lie. This is something deeper and he’s trying very hard – too hard – not to be affected by it.
“Okay,” you say slowly. “So what are you actually angry about?”
He looks away first, toward the lake shimmering through the hallway windows. The light catches on the water, fractured and restless – and for a moment, so is he.
“You keep acting like this wedding is an exam you’re going to be graded on,” he says quietly. “Like if you don’t get the perfect score, you’d have failed something.”
Your heart climbs straight into your throat. His accuracy is unfair.
“And you,” you say, more sharply than intended, “act like caring about something automatically makes it ridiculous.”
Unexpectedly, he flinches – a tiny, involuntary contraction, like you’ve brushed into a decades old bruise.
“It’s just a venue,” he says, and there’s no mockery in it now. Only something raw, frustrated, almost… unguarded. “A pretty one. But you’re acting like it’s going to make or break their marriage.”
His mouth twists. “Like the right backdrop magically carries the weight of everything else. And I don’t get it,” he exhales through his nose, gaze fixed somewhere past you. “Why this – all this – matters so damn much to you people.”
You people. It stings, but not in the way he thinks. Because underneath the snark, you finally see the real wound: he doesn’t understand ceremonies, symbols, anything beautiful for the sake of being beautiful – because he’s never let himself want any of it.
“Because it’s Nat and Steve,” you say, letting your voice soften to match his. “And I love them.”
He goes still at that.
You press on, because if you stop now you might not ever get it out. “I can’t fix their schedules,” you say. “I can’t tell them to stop adjusting their lives for everyone else. For rehearsals, for classes, for performances, for deadlines, for everyone who wants a piece of them.” You gesture around the sun-dappled riverbank. “This I can make good. This is their one wedding, and I refuse to let it be mediocre.”
A whole taxonomy of expressions moves across Bucky’s face – irritation, disbelief, something like reluctant comprehension, and then something else entirely, quick and unguarded, before he shutters it.
“And if all it takes is twenty minutes of us pretending…” you continue, voice steadying as you meet his eyes, “then yeah, I’m going to ask you to pretend like your life depends on it.”
He swallows – a small, tight movement, the only tell he gives away. You hold his gaze, refusing to look anywhere else.
“I’m not asking you to suddenly believe in weddings, Bucky,” you say quietly. “Just help me make one thing in their life perfect.”
His jaw works once, the fight leaving him in a slow, resigned exhale.
“…Fine,” he mutters, looking away as he rubs the back of his neck, “Just – don’t grab my arm like that again unless you warn me first.”
You smile, stepping past him toward the terrace where the coordinator has drifted off with the other couple. “No promises.”
*
The tour funnels you down a gentle slope, the house falling away behind you as the riverbank unfurls in front of it – a stretch of soft grass tapering toward the water, framed on one side by a broad, ancient oak. Its branches arc outward like the ribs of a cathedral, heavy with leaves that whisper in the breeze. You hadn’t noticed it from the house; from this angle, though, it dominates the horizon, dignified and steadfast, the kind of tree that seems older than the property deeds themselves.
The coordinator steps onto the very center of the lawn with the assured gait of someone taking her mark on a stage. This, you know instinctively, is where she believes vows ought to be spoken – the exact patch of earth where a couple should stand, framed by river light and the watchful canopy of the oak. She closes her eyes, lifts her chin slightly, and inhales through her nose like she’s tasting the air for nuance, for resonance, for meaning.
Sunlight spills around her like she arranged it.
“Well?” she asks. “What has the space said to you?”
You open your mouth, but Bucky beats you to it.
He straightens with the weary precision of a man reaching for a tool he resents knowing how to use. And, with all the cool detachment of someone reading a zoning violation aloud, he replies, “We’ll need to check with our feng shui master first. Just to confirm the alignment. Of the house. Of the day. Of us.”
You nearly swallow your own tongue as the coordinator woman’s eyes go wide. The monochrome couple freeze like meerkats spotting a predator.
“Your… master,” she breathes, reverent.
Bucky nods once, faux-solemn. “Yes. We never make major choices without him aligning the energies of the space.”
Something dangerously close to hysteria bubbles up – laughter, disbelief, the urge to grab him by the collar – and you shove it all down in favour of hissing under your breath, “Where the hell did you get that from?”
Without breaking eye contact with the woman, Bucky whispers back, “Someone said it to me last week.”
“Well.” Her spine straightens, chin lifting in pride. “You may assure your feng shui master that this house was built to honour all schools of thought. East, West, traditional, contemporary, celestial, terrestrial – every axis, every current, every flow – perfectly aligned.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Bucky murmurs, and the audacity of him nearly floors you.
The woman stands a little straighter, the way someone does when intellectually challenged and spiritually provoked. Her eyes sweep once more over the riverbank, the grass, the house behind you – a slow, assessing glide, like she’s listening to vibrations only she can hear.
She inhales deeply, with great purpose. When she opens her eyes again, something in her expression has shifted. “The space,” she says, solemn as a vow, “has begun to speak.”
A hush seems to fall – not real, but perceptual, the kind that comes from someone making a proclamation with enough confidence that your brain scrambles to keep up.
She lifts her hands, palms open to the sky. “It is… forming an opinion.”
Behind you, Bucky stiffens in the exact way a man does when he desperately wants to object but also desperately does not want to extend this interaction by another minute.
The woman turns, serene and certain.
The monochrome couple immediately arrange themselves into a picturesque tableau – her hand on his chest, his chin lowered like he’s posing for a photoshoot. They look like they rehearsed this in the car.
She lifts her palms. “Energy reveals itself through contrast. This space,” she announces, “always reveals the truth of a couple.”
Bucky mutters, “Spaces are unreactive,” under his breath.
You nudge his ribs with your elbow, a warning.
The coordinator opens her eyes and turns toward the monochrome couple first. She tilts her head, studying them with a tight, delicate frown – the kind people give wilted herbs at a farmer’s market.
“Mmm,” she says. “There is… tension in your current alignment.”
The monochrome bride stiffens. “Tension?”
“Yes,” the coordinator says gently, almost apologetically. “A little blocked. A little… forced.”
Beside you, Bucky murmurs, “Told you posing wouldn’t help,” and you jab him again, harder.
Then the coordinator turns to you and Bucky and her eyes widen. She steps closer, blinking once, twice, as if a spotlight has turned on specifically above the two of you.
“Oh,” she breathes. “This… this is interesting.”
Bucky straightens, like he’s bracing to be insulted. Instead, the coordinator smiles – slow and reverent – as if she’s seeing the first bloom of spring emerge from frozen ground.
“Your energy is very strong together,” she says.
You blink. Bucky blinks harder.
“Our what?” he splutters.
“Your connection,” she clarifies, waving her hands vaguely between your bodies. “There’s an undeniable resonance. A grounding. A clarity. The space likes you.”
You nearly choke. “We – we just walked in.”
“Yes,” she says simply. “And the space settled. Didn’t you feel it?”
You feel Bucky staring at you, silently begging you not to say yes, which is why you smile sweetly and answer, “Of course.”
The monochrome bride sputters. “We’ve been engaged for fourteen months!”
The coordinator turns sympathetically toward her. “Sometimes longevity dulls resonance.”
Bucky quietly coughs to hide a laugh – or dies, it’s hard to tell.
The monochrome groom steps forward, indignant. “We’re very aligned. We meditate together.”
“Even more worrying,” the coordinator murmurs.
You bite your lip to keep from laughing. Bucky fails entirely; a tiny, traitorous sound escapes him.
The bride narrows her eyes at you like you might drop dead from the strength of her displeasure.
You loop your arm a little tighter around Bucky’s, partly to sell the ruse… partly because the absurdity has short-circuited your ability to stand upright on your own.
The coordinator makes a gentle sweeping motion with her hand. “Let us test the resonance.”
Bucky whispers, panicked, “What the hell does that mean?”
“How would I know?!”
But the monochrome bride is already stepping forward like she’s ready to ascend the throne, so you tug Bucky along to keep up.
The coordinator stands between both couples, waving her arms like she’s invoking some ancient rite. “Take one step toward each other.”
You and Bucky share a look – half dread, half the feral refusal to lose when the competition is right there. You both step forward in perfect sync.
You mouth, I’m sorry. A muscle twitches in his cheek – not annoyance – something closer to careful exasperation. His answer is a barely perceptible tilt of his head that reads, I know. Don’t worry about it.
You stop toe to toe, breaths brushing.
Nothing mystical happens, nothing supernatural – just Bucky Barnes standing close enough that the world seems to tilt around the space you share. You refuse to look him in the eyes – God knows what you’d see there – so you stare determinedly at the bridge of his nose, willing your expression into neutrality as the warmth of him crowds out every thought you were trying to have.
He inhales, sharp and quiet, like he wasn’t expecting you to be this close either. He too, appears to be doing his level best to not look at you, but it’s an exercise in futility. His gaze skims your mouth first – a flicker, unintentional and devastating – before darting up to your eyes like he’s been caught thinking something he absolutely shouldn’t.
Your pulse slams; he swallows once, hard – small, involuntary shifts, now kept between the two of you like a secret.
The coordinator beams. “There. You see? Harmony.”
Bucky stares straight ahead, face rigid, ears just barely pink.
The monochrome couple step forward too – but the groom hesitates; the bride overcorrects; their hands collide awkwardly.
“Oh,” the coordinator says softly, pained. “Oh no.”
Bucky mutters, “Yikes,” under his breath, and you actually pinch his arm.
The coordinator claps once, decisive. “I believe I’ve seen enough.”
Everyone tenses.
She turns to you and Bucky. “The space responds to you,” she says with priestess-level certainty. “It welcomes you. It expands for you.”
You’re about to thank her when Bucky murmurs, “If the space is reacting to anything, it’s your dramatics,” but fortunately only you hear it.
Then the coordinator swivels toward the other couple. “You,” she announces solemnly, “must reduce your guest list.”
The bride gasps. “But we – my mother – ”
“The room,” the coordinator says gravely, “has decided.”
The groom looks genuinely shaken.
Bucky leans in, voice barely audible. “I can’t believe this is working.”
You whisper back, “It’s not working because of me. It’s working because of that chandelier lecture you gave.”
“That was structural integrity,” he hisses. “Not flirting.”
But he doesn’t let go of your arm.
And you don’t step away.
The woman turns back to you both, her expression warm and resolute. “Take your time,” she says, though she looks like she’d happily build a shrine in your honour to expedite the decision. “But tell your master he will find no faults here. None.”
“We will,” you promise.
She glides away, leaving you and Bucky standing in a halo of lake-light and competitive triumph.
Bucky exhales, long and tired. “This is exactly how people lose their minds.”
You guide him toward the exit anyway, fingers still hooked through his sleeve – not intimate, not quite polite, just necessary.
“Welcome,” you murmur unapologetically, “to wedding planning.”
Two weeks and a day earlier…
The week takes off at a dead sprint. Your phone vibrates itself into delirium, screen lighting up with vendors, reschedules, quotes, “circling back” emails, and three separate florists who apparently all forgot they’d already spoken to you twice.
Bucky, for all his sins, is enduring it. At every appointment he trails half a step behind you – a man hoping proximity alone won’t make him legally responsible for whatever decisions you’re about to make. Hands in pockets. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowed as though each vendor is a fresh test of his moral fortitude.
And yet…
He comes. Without complaint, without needing to be chased.
And – this is new – somewhere between the cake tasting and the linen warehouse, the edge of him softens. Barely. A thaw measured in millimeters. A grunt instead of a sigh. A single, grudging nod when you ask what he thinks.
A man not enjoying himself, exactly, but acclimating to the weather.
It’s not much, but for Bucky Barnes? It’s practically enthusiasm.
*
On Monday, you take him to the bakery.
That is to say: you enter the bakery; Bucky is tugged in behind you by the elbow like a particularly resentful ox being led to market. He drags his feet with the weary fatalism of a man heading into a tax audit rather than a pastel shop filled with butter and joy.
The shop itself is – there’s no other word for it – whimsical. Pastel walls, delicate bunting, sunlight slanting through the front windows as though the cakes have been personally blessed by the heavens. The air smells of warm vanilla and soft nostalgia, the kind that makes even cynics briefly believe in birthdays.
Bucky looks around as though the décor has personally wronged him.
The owner, whom you had coaxed into giving you the earliest slot of the morning through sheer force of will, gestures proudly to the tasting platter.
“We’ll begin with the Earl Grey sponge and lavender honey buttercream,” she announces, serene and certain.
Your eyes brighten.
Bucky’s narrow. “What happened to good ol’ chocolate?” he mutters, as though chocolate has been unjustly exiled from its ancestral lands.
You kick him beneath the table. Lightly. But not so lightly that it could be mistaken for affection.
“Eat,” you instruct.
He gives you the kind of look usually reserved for dire medical diagnoses, then reluctantly scoops the smallest, most suspicious sliver of cake onto his fork. He puts it into his mouth like a man testing whether the food is poisoned.
And then – you see it, the betrayal of expression he cannot stop. First surprise, then reluctant delight, followed almost immediately by the horrified awareness that he has enjoyed something he fully intended to hate.
“It’s fine,” he blurts, far too quickly.
You lean in, delighted. “You liked it.”
He scowls at the table, then at you, then at the baker – who is now beaming at him with the radiant satisfaction of a woman who has converted a lifelong skeptic.
It is not just fine.
It is objectively delicious.
And he hates – truly hates – that you saw the truth flicker across his traitorous face before he could stop it.
*
On Tuesday, Bucky takes one look at the flowers and immediately starts sneezing.
The florist winces in sympathy. “Allergies?”
“He’ll survive,” you say before Bucky can flee, even though he’s already retreating toward the far end of the worktable like a man hoping distance alone might save him.
The shop smells like cut stems and cold water – green and sharp and very alive – petals spilling across every surface in soft, painterly chaos.
The florist laughs kindly and gestures to a bucket of eucalyptus. “Don’t worry – these are hardy and allergen-friendly. They hold up in anything. Weddings, heatwaves, surprise drizzle…” He shrugs. “Outdoor ceremonies love a bit of weather drama, but flowers don’t – unless you pick the right ones.”
You perk up. “Is rain even a concern this time of year?”
“Not usually,” the florist says, selecting a spray of greenery and trimming it with quick, deft movements. “But you plan as if it might. Storms are shy until they aren’t.”
Bucky snorts. “Weather’s weather. Either it behaves or it doesn’t.”
You shoot him a look. “Some of us prefer contingency plans.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Some of us have noticed.”
You ignore him – mostly – as the florist flips to an empty page of his notepad.
“All right,” he says. “What’s the vision?”
You inhale to answer –
“Classic,” Bucky says before you can speak. “And nothing that sheds on cloth.”
Your head whips toward him. “Since when do you get a vote?”
“I don’t want to walk around looking like I’ve been rolled through pollen.”
“Oh my god,” you breathe. “This isn’t about you.”
But Bucky isn’t listening anymore. Somehow he’s gotten hold of a ranunculus – pale, full, elegant – turning it between his fingers with a strange, unexpected tenderness, like he’s examining the architecture of it rather than the bloom.
“Steve likes texture,” he says quietly. “And Nat wouldn’t want anything that droops. These won’t.”
Your heart skips a beat.
He pretends he hasn’t said anything meaningful, already shifting his attention to the eucalyptus as if the leaves are deeply compelling. The florist pretends not to notice, though his smile is unmistakably knowing.
Bucky clears his throat. “What?”
“Nothing,” you say.
(Not nothing. Not even close.)
*
On Wednesday, the décor warehouse tries to kill you.
It is cavernous and overwhelming, chandeliers dangling from the ceiling every two meters like glittering threats, and an entire aisle of linens that could double as medieval weaponry. Sequins glint, metallics glare, tulle menaces.
You are confronted with sequined tablecloths; Bucky is confronted with the very edge of his sanity.
“This,” he tells the décor consultant as he lifts one anyway, rubbing the cloth between his fingers with a frown so deeply judgmental it could be submitted for peer review, “is both a fire hazard and a crime.”
“It’s festive!” she chirps, a woman who has clearly never met Bucky Barnes before today.
“The weave is cheap,” you announce, already flipping to the corresponding tab in The Binder, which has now manifested in your hands like a grimoire. “It’ll pill and crease endlessly. And the reflective finish will give half the guest list a migraine before the night’s through. We need organic fibres. High drape. Low shine.”
Bucky’s head snaps toward you, narrowing his eyes at The Binder as if it is a sentient being he should probably file a restraining order against.
The consultant nods, chastened, and flips open a book of fabric samples. “Right. Understood. Organic fibres only.”
As she rifles through swatches, her gaze drifts upward – to you, then Bucky, then the two of you standing shoulder-to-shoulder, already leaning unconsciously toward the same bolt of ivory linen. Bucky has angled himself half a step in front of you in the quiet, instinctive way he does when something large or unwieldy is suspended overhead (in this case – chandeliers).
“You two work well together,” she says mildly. “That’s rare.”
Bucky stiffens, as if she’s accused him of tax fraud. You give her a serene smile. “We’re… efficient.”
The consultant brightens. “Wonderful! Now, what about centrepieces? I have a full catalogue –”
But you’re already unzipping The Binder. Its spine hits the table with a weighty thud, tabs fanning open like a legal case file.
The consultant startles. Bucky actually flinches.
“What is that,” he mutters, like you’ve revealed a cursed heirloom.
“My system,” you say, flipping to Décor – Appropriate Fabrics – Do Not Attempt. “I have a plan.”
“A plan,” Bucky repeats, staring at the colour-coded pages with something between awe and genuine concern for your psychological welfare. “That thing looks like it could beat me in a fight.”
You pat The Binder affectionately. “It could.”
The consultant beams, totally unaware that Bucky is staring at you like he’s just realised he may be assisting someone who is, clinically speaking, unhinged.
“Right,” she says brightly. “I’ll pull samples.”
Bucky looks at the chandeliers overhead. Then at you. Then at The Binder.
And for the first time all week, he whispers – almost reverently, “…I should’ve stayed in the car.”
*
It happens late on a Sunday, at a café that should have closed twenty minutes ago.
The whole week has been a blur of vendors and spreadsheets and Bucky’s increasingly elaborate attempts to pretend he’s not helping while very much helping. By Sunday evening, the two of you have collapsed into the only open seats you can find – a wobbly bistro table by the window, your laptop occupying most of the surface and Bucky occupying most of the silence.
You’re hunched over the screen, brow creased, staring down a ceremony timeline that stubbornly refuses to make structural sense. Bucky is across from you, sleeves pushed up, sketching something on a napkin with the grim focus of a man troubleshooting a structural fault in a bridge rather than a wedding.
You rub your eyes. “What are you doing?”
Without looking up, he mutters, “Fixing a bottleneck. Your aisle’s too narrow.”
“Why do you care?” you mutter just as carelessly, distracted by your task.
His pen stills, his shoulders shift, and slowly, reluctantly, he looks up.
For a moment, everything seems to hush – the espresso machine becomes distant, the street noise flattens, and the tired overhead lights soften around the edges.
Bucky taps the pen once against the napkin, like anchoring himself before he says something foolish. “Because you care,” he says. Then, quieter, as if the words escaped without permission, “and you shouldn’t have to do all of this alone.”
It lands inside you with alarming precision – a warmth, a weight, something perilously close to a beginning.
You can’t breathe for a second.
And he must feel it, because he looks away fast, jaw tightening, shoulders drawing in as if he’s trying to fold the moment back up and hide it inside himself again. Like he’s said something intimate by accident, and he regrets this sliver of honesty.
Around you, the world resumes: chairs scrape, someone calls out a drink order, the barista stacks cups with end-of-night urgency.
Bucky clears his throat. “Anyway,” he mutters, sliding the napkin toward you without meeting your eyes, “don’t make it weird.”
But it is.
It’s extremely, catastrophically weird.
The napkin is a clean little sketch of flow paths and corrected spacing, annotations in a tidy slant you didn’t know he had. A map of attention. Of care.
You fold it carefully before slipping it into your bag, feeling absurdly like you’re tucking away evidence of something neither of you is ready to name.
When you leave the café, the air smells faintly of rain – the kind that promises trouble but hasn’t yet arrived.
One week and one day earlier…
You do not sleep.
You perform the ceremonial gestures of sleep – lying down, closing your eyes, arranging your limbs in the socially approved configuration – but rest never actually arrives. Your mind conducts its own private military coup at 3:00 am, storming your bloodstream with insurgent thoughts: ‘Did the florist confirm final stem counts?’, ‘Did I remember to order table numbers?’, and ‘Would it work better if family speeches come before the entrées? Or after?’
You drift, jolt awake, repeat. Several times.
By morning, you’re running on nineteen minutes of sleep and pure vengeance. So, when the caterer calls you mid-zoom-interview at the press junket for Disaster Day to inform you they cannot, in fact, prepare the vegan entrée in a mini size, something in you goes very still.
You stare at your phone with the placid serenity of a war general who has already accepted casualties. “Can’t,” you say, voice crisp as a drawn blade, “is not a word in my vocabulary.”
Across the room, Bucky lifts an eyebrow over the rim of his laptop. He is technically working from home today – except “home” has quietly become your living room around 8:12 a.m. every morning. You’ve stopped asking why. He brings coffee. And pastries. And printouts for The Binder. And frankly, you no longer have the mental bandwidth to interrogate miracles.
“You shouldn’t threaten people before nine,” he says mildly.
“I haven’t threatened anyone.”
That is – generously – untrue. You have absolutely threatened everyone. Politely. With deadlines. And consequences. And lightly weaponised spreadsheets.
Bucky watches you pace while fielding the caterer’s excuses, your free hand slicing the air like you’re conducting an orchestra on fire. Something like amusement flickers across his face, but it softens quickly into concern – the subtle, steady kind he pretends isn’t happening.
And then, instead of retreating as any sensible person would before the detonation of a stressed maid-of-honour, he rises from the couch, crosses the room, and steps into your orbit.
He doesn’t grab your phone. He asks for it with one quiet, inexorable gesture of his hand.
“Give me that,” he murmurs. “Before the caterers fire us.”
“They are not going to fire us.”
“You’re vibrating.”
“I’m passionate.”
“You’re one ‘no’ from burning this whole city down.”
Before you can form a rebuttal, he slides your phone neatly out of your grip, taps the speaker off, and steps out onto the tiny balcony attached to your apartment. The door clicks shut behind him.
You watch him through the glass – leaning one forearm against the railing, phone at his ear, morning light catching on the metal lines of his arm. His hair curls slightly at the temples from the humidity, and he’s wearing that expression he saves for handling difficult subcontractors – patience wrapped in exhaustion, tied with a bow of menace.
He’s handsome in a way that feels entirely illegal before 9:00 am.
Three minutes later – just as you’ve abandoned your Zoom call in shame and are contemplating whether your cold muffin is a metaphor for your rapidly deteriorating sanity – the door opens again.
“All sorted,” he says, handing back your phone. “They’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“They just needed to be… encouraged.”
You narrow your eyes. “Encouraged how?”
He ignores you. Instead, he leans over your shoulder without warning, takes an enormous bite out of the muffin you were very clearly saving, grimaces, and declares, “These tasted better when they were fresh.”
“I hate you,” you lie.
He pats you on the head – like you’re a stressed-out Pomeranian instead of a full-grown adult on the brink of collapse – and sets the half-eaten muffin back on your plate.
“Be good,” he says absently, already grabbing his bag. “I’ve gotta be on the West Coast in…” He checks his watch. “Nine hours. Which is – too soon. Far too soon.”
“For the site walkthrough?” you ask.
“Yes,” he grumbles. “A walkthrough that could’ve easily been a Zoom meeting. But no. ‘In-person presence’ apparently matters when you’re paid obscene amounts of money to stare at blueprints and tell rich people their walls won’t collapse.”
He slings his jacket over his shoulder, pauses at your doorway, and glances back at you – at the chaos of your open laptop, the muffin carnage, the binder bristling with tabs like a hydra waiting to strike.
“You gonna be okay till I’m back?” he asks, voice low, deceptively casual.
You open your mouth to say yes. But your brain whispers table numbers and speech order and stem counts and seating charts and vegan mini entrées –
Bucky exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll bring more muffins tomorrow,” he says.
And then he’s gone.
Five days earlier…
By this time, you have achieved a certain notoriety amongst vendors. The florist replies to your emails instantly, the lighting techs refuse to take your calls unless you’ve sent a written agenda in advance, the décor rental company has assigned their most battle-hardened employee to answer your number specifically – the kind of woman who has seen things.
And that afternoon, you’re on the phone with her – Tiffany, destroyer of inventory lists – vibrating with equal parts impatience and righteous fear. “No, Tiffany, I don’t want these silver chairs,” you say, pacing your living room like a commander on the brink of mutiny. “I want the silver chairs in the original quote. No. No, don’t you dare. These are narrower. I can see it. Don’t gaslight me with measurements, Tiffany.”
Meanwhile, Bucky – freshly returned from LA and looking unfairly good for someone who spent six hours on a cramped plane – is crouched on the floor beside the coffee table, reorganising the seating chart with the laser focus of a man who has chosen physical labour over listening to you eviscerate a stranger.
He has rolled up his sleeves, exposing the long line of his forearms. He is using a ruler. A ruler.
The concentration is so intense it borders on devotional.
Your leg, jittering with fury at Tiffany’s incompetence, keeps brushing against his knee.
And Bucky… doesn’t move.
Not an inch.
He goes absolutely still, like someone attempting not to startle a wild animal – except it’s not fear pinning him there. It’s something tighter, quieter, more dangerous.
You don’t notice any of this. You’re too busy convincing Tiffany about the discomfort of narrower chairs.
However, Bucky notices you. He notices the way your hair is falling out of its clip. He notices the focus in your eyes, the heat in your voice, the absolute refusal to compromise. He notices that every time your knee brushes his, it sends a pulse of something electric straight through him. And that his ears are burning.
He shifts the seating cards again – unnecessarily, compulsively – because it’s either that or he betrays himself.
You end the call with a victorious, “Thank you, Tiffany,” in a tone that means anything but, and drop onto the couch with a sigh.
Only then do you look down and see Bucky still on the floor, still close enough that your knee bumps his elbow, still very much there.
“Did you fix it?” you ask, nodding toward the seating chart.
He doesn’t look up immediately. When he does, his voice is steady in a way his pulse absolutely isn’t.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
Four days earlier…
You are Time Itself. No one moves unless you decree it.
“Load-in is at seven,” you announce to the empty air – or perhaps to the universe, which should know better by now than to test you.
“It says eight on the schedule,” Bucky replies without looking up from his laptop.
“It’s seven,” you say. “Now.”
He exhales the kind of sigh reserved for malfunctioning printers and divine punishment, but he adjusts the timeline anyway. He’s the only person who could argue with you – and the only one who genuinely doesn’t want to.
Then the DJ calls.
He tells you, very cheerfully and very incorrectly, that your preferred recessional song is “technically unavailable.”
You stop breathing.
“What do you MEAN unavailable?” you shout into the phone. “Music does not disappear! It doesn’t migrate! It’s not an endangered species!”
Somewhere beside you, Bucky goes very still, like a man anticipating shrapnel. He gently pries the phone from your hand, tells the DJ, “Sorry, she’s been like this all week,” and steps away to do damage control.
“You need to eat something,” he says when he returns.
“You need to stop babying me,” you shoot back.
“Funny,” he says mildly, handing you a granola bar. “Because you’re acting exactly like a child.”
You glare at him. Then, still glaring, you bite half the granola bar in a single, furious chomp.
He says nothing – just watches as you flip through The Binder, muttering about back-up music options, crumbs dusting your fingers.
And then he smirks, just this quiet, unbearably fond little curve of his mouth – like he has, against all odds, successfully tamed a dragon.
Or worse, like he likes being the one who can.
Three days earlier…
You return to the venue for a walkthrough, overseeing the preparations, with the air of a small, determined weather system. A storm cloud in sneakers, striding across the lawn.
The grass is crisp underfoot; the late afternoon light glances off every rented surface. Staff scatter at your approach like startled deer as you fire off instructions rapid-fire.
“Those chairs need to be straight!”
“That table is too close to the aisle – Natasha will murder someone!”
“No, no, the lanterns go in a gentle arc, not – is that a semicircle? I said gentle! Arc!”
You are relentless. A force of nature. A benevolent tyrant.
And behind you, Bucky moves like the calm shadow of that storm – not blocking it, not dampening it, simply… shaping its path. As you pass through the space, he drifts after you with that quiet, commanding competence vendors obey without hesitation.
You bark, “The draping is too low!” Bucky adds, evenly, “Raise it four inches,” and the fabric lifts to exactly the right height.
You snap, “Why is that easel crooked?” He doesn’t even check – just straightens it in passing.
You whirl and demand, “Did we lose the programs?” Without looking up from the seating chart he’s reviewing, he murmurs, “Left table,” and somehow also manages to hand them to you as you spin past.
Somewhere in the chaos, the vendors begin turning to him instead of you – but he never answers without meeting your eyes first, the quiet your call? passing between you with the ease of something well-practised.
It shifts the atmosphere around you.
Not dramatically, not all at once – but enough that you feel it: the way people start to move around the two of you rather than through you, the way instructions seem to settle more cleanly when he repeats them in that low, steady voice. It isn’t deference so much as an unspoken acknowledgement that whatever this operation is, you and Bucky are its centre of gravity. Like the two of you have become a team. A pair.
The hours blur. At some point the sun shifts, turning the river gold; at some point you realise he has been tracking your movements by sound alone; at some point everyone else started stepping back when the two of you approached together, as if clearing a path for a unit that operates on instinct, not instruction.
And then - he’s gone.
One moment Bucky is beside you, adjusting a lantern hook before you can work up the breath to scold it; the next, he’s simply… vanished. No warning, no explanation.
You freeze mid-step, wondering if perhaps the lanterns were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe the arc was perfectly gentle after all. Maybe he’s halfway home by now, liberated from your tyranny, which is frankly more alarming.
Unfortunately, you don’t have time to worry about it. The rental company have just delivered the wrong chairs – again – and you’re rifling through The Binder for the order confirmation and delivery manifesto when you hear the tell-tale click of doors opening.
You don’t bother looking up. “Bucky, if that’s the caterer, tell them no, we do not want a cheese fountain. We already have a charcuterie table and this is enoughcheese as it is –“
“Not the caterer,” a voice cuts in, bright and very, very amused.
You freeze, snap your head to the door, and immediately want to scream. “Nat?”
She saunters in, sunglasses perched in her hair, dressed like she’s just come from robbing an art gallery. And behind her –
“Steve?”
He offers a sheepish little wave. “Hey.”
“What –” You spin around, scanning the unfinished chaos of the venue. The wrong chairs are still stacked in their delivery plastics, the table linens are half-unwrapped, and someone is vacuuming outside.
“What are you doing here?” you gasp. “We’re – this place is – not done.”
“Bucky called us,” Nat says casually, inspecting the archway of lanterns. “Said you were about to combust.”
You whirl around to glare at him. He’s loitering by the floral delivery, suddenly very interested in counting the number of petals on the hydrangeas.
Traitor.
Steve steps forward before you can explode. “Hey. We’re not here to stress you out. Just thought we’d – have a look. Say hi. Make sure you’re alright.”
“And point out any death traps,” Natasha adds helpfully.
“I –” you glance around the room as a bead of sweat slides down your spine. “I haven’t – okay, but the entryway’s a mess, and I haven’t confirmed if the florist finished –”
Steve claps Bucky on the back, murmurs something you don’t catch, and then turns to you with absolute sincerity.
“Just point out what’s left,” he says. “We’ll tell you if anything needs adjusting.”
You stare at him, hesitating.
There are a dozen things still bothering you – chair alignment, votive placement, aisle symmetry, the floral arch that’s slightly off-centre if you squint.
Natasha squeezes your hand. “Lead the way.”
So you do.
You walk them through the space, stomach clenched, waiting for them to flinch. Waiting for Natasha to raise an eyebrow. For Steve to say something painfully diplomatic like “Oh… interesting choice.” You start at the entryway, apologising for the seating chart station still being assembled. You usher them through the reception room hall, cringing at the wrong chairs. You pause by the catering tent, where someone’s left a crate of half-melted ice under the table.
But –
Steve is nodding. Nat is smiling. They’re chatting with the vendors like old friends. The florist’s assistant offers them tea. A tiny crack forms in the armour of your panic.
And then, you step outside, out onto the terrace.
The world opens.
The lawn rolls out before you, soft and immaculate, before dipping toward the lake – where the water is catching the last gold of the setting sun, shimmering in a way no Pinterest board ever adequately prepared you for. The breeze lifts warm against your face, and beneath it, a cooler ribbon of air slips past your ankle.
And there, at the centre of it all, stands the arch.
It rises from the grass as though it grew there overnight: a sweep of branches and late-summer blooms woven together so seamlessly it feels alive. Moss softens the base, wildflowers spill through the latticework, and the whole structure glows in the amber light like it has been waiting – patiently, inevitably – for Nat and Steve to stand beneath it.
The trees along the waterline rustle, not loudly, but with that faint, anticipatory shiver of leaves that hints at a change in the air. The whole place feels momentarily enchanted.
Natasha inhales softly. “This is breathtaking.”
Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders, his expression lighting up in a way that makes your throat sting. “It’s perfect,” he says.
Perfect.
Perfect.
You have not heard that word in two weeks – not directed at you, not directed at anything you’ve touched. The sound of it seems to land somewhere deep in your chest, loosening a knot you didn’t realise had become part of your anatomy.
You turn slightly, catching Bucky watching you.
Not Steve, not Natasha.
You.
For a moment his expression is unreadable – steady, assessing, something flickering just behind his eyes as if he’s cataloguing the exact second your shoulders begin to unlock. And when they do, when that infinitesimal shift in your posture betrays just how close to breaking you’ve been, something gentler settles across his features. Something warm. Something proud in a quiet, devastating way.
He doesn’t say a word.
But the silence feels like one: See? I told you. You did this. You can breathe now.
Natasha spins to face you, eyes bright. “Everything looks incredible. Truly.”
You swallow, the question slipping out before you can stop it. “Really?”
“Really,” Steve echoes. “We wouldn’t change a thing.”
The breath leaves you all at once – a long, trembling exhale you didn’t realise you’d been holding, as if your body had been bracing for criticism even now, even here. Your chest opens like someone finally snipped the last too-tight thread holding it together.
Maybe – just maybe – you haven’t been failing.
Maybe it’s all going to be okay.
Two days ago…
Bucky finds you by accident.
It’s late – late enough that the venue has finally exhaled. The last of the staff have gone, the caterer’s van taillights swallowed by the dark, the florist waving wearily before disappearing down the drive. Outside, a light drizzle patters on and off, the kind that can’t decide whether to commit to rain at all. The venue, which had buzzed like a disturbed hive all day, now settles into a deep, exhausted quiet.
He walks the grounds anyway.
The last staff car crunches over gravel as it pulls away; he stands under the overhang and watches its taillights disappear into the dark. He tells people go home, nods toward their umbrellas, makes sure no one is lingering in the drizzle out of politeness or fear you’ll summon them back.
Only when the final goodnight is called does he breathe out.
Inside, the place feels different. Dimmer. Reverent. The hallway sconces glow low, the air smelling faintly of wet cedar and the sweet scatter of greenery left behind. A final walkthrough, he tells himself. One last sweep before tomorrow.
He moves through the quiet halls checking what he knows: the service doors latched, terrace gate secured so the breeze won’t rattle it open, emergency exits clear. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and wet earth drifting in from outside. Overhead, the timbers creak softly with the shifting weather.
He pauses beneath the hanging chandeliers – delicate strands of crystal beading suspended amongst shimmering lights. Dozens, maybe hundreds, trembling slightly whenever the drizzle swells and the wind nudges the eaves. He counts them again, and again, pretending it’s for safety, ignoring the truth humming beneath the surface:
Everything is done. Everything is perfect. Everything is so unmistakably yours.
He assumes you went home hours ago. He hopes you did. He hopes you’re asleep, or at least horizontal, phone finally out of your hands. He should be doing the same. He should stop orbiting the edges of this day and let tomorrow arrive on its own.
He’s halfway to convincing himself to go when he hears it – a soft, papery sound.
A rustle, quiet enough that he almost thinks he imagined it. He slows, frowns, and follows the sound into the reception hall, stopping short at the sight before him.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the polished wooden floor of the reception hall, right beneath the hanging lanterns. The lights are dimmed to a buttery glow; outside, the drizzle streaks silver against the windows. The room is nearly silent, save for the faint breath of the lake through the open vents and the soft, intermittent rain.
Around you lie small squares of colored paper – pinks, creams, golds – scattered like fallen petals. Your shoes are set neatly to the side, and your hair has slipped from whatever pinned it up earlier, trailing loose around your shoulders, a few strands catching light each time you bow your head to fold.
You’re folding each piece with slow, tender precision, hands steady despite the exhaustion etched into every line of you.
A small flock already waits beside you – dozens of cranes ready to be strung up.
Bucky stands there, frozen, something in his chest tightening.
You don’t see him at first. Then he clears his throat. “You planning on sleeping at any point today?”
You look up, startled, then soften when you realize it’s him. “Nope,” you say, far too chipper for someone clearly on the brink.
He huffs out a laugh as he approaches you. “Of course not.”
You lift a paper crane between two fingers, holding it up to the warm light. “There’s an old belief about these,” you say lightly, as if it’s an afterthought and not something that’s been sitting on your tongue all night. “In some traditions, a thousand cranes mean a wish. Or a promise. Health, longevity, good fortune… luck in new beginnings.”
Your eyes flick to the pile beside you – uneven wings, crooked beaks, all of them imperfect in a way only sincerity can be.
“The kids at Steve’s school made a bunch,” you explain softly. “But it wasn’t quite enough for the installation. So I’m… just adding a few more.” Your smile tilts. “Stacking the odds.”
“Not just a few more,” he says automatically.
“I know,” you say lightly, “but it’s for good reason.”
Bucky looks at the cranes again, not as decorations, not as something hung from wires and beams and carefully calculated weight limits. But as wishes. Hundreds of small, deliberate hopes, folded by all the people that love Steve and Natasha, one careful crease at a time, suspended above a room meant to hold a beginning.
Something tightens in his chest. He should leave. He should go home. He should not be drawn to the floor beside you like it’s gravity and he’s helpless against it.
He sits down anyway.
The wood is cool under him. our shoulder is close – closer than it has any right to be – and heat pools along the inside of his arm just from being near you.
You hand him a square of paper. Your fingers brush his. He pretends the touch doesn’t short-circuit something fundamental.
“So,” he says, staring at the paper like it might explode. “Instructions?”
You grin – tired, luminous, devastating. “I knew you’d ask.”
He pretends that doesn’t do something awful and permanent to him.
You lean in, showing him the first fold as your fingers settle over his without hesitation. A warm, electric pressure crawls up his wrist and into his ribs. He swallows. Focus. Fold. Don’t look at her.
“You’re overthinking it,” you say softly.
“I’m not you,” he mutters.
“If you say so.”
You show him how to crease the wing. Your thumb grazes the inside of his palm. His pulse kicks so violently he’s certain you must feel it.
You finish your crane before he finishes his. He pretends not to notice – or admire – the deft precision of your hands. The shape of them. The small, quiet strength of your wrists.
He’s doing a lot of pretending in this lake house.
“You know,” you say, setting another finished crane on the pile, “I think this is the first moment I’ve sat still in two weeks.”
He studies you. Really studies you.
The smudged eyeliner. The exhaustion tucked into the corners of your eyes. The way your shoulders sag only now that no one but him is here to see it.
“You did it,” he says quietly.
You blink. “Did what?”
“Everything.” His gaze sweeps over the decorated hall, the crane installation, the arch waiting outside for tomorrow. “You really built this whole damn wedding from the ground up.”
You laugh, soft and self-conscious. “With help.”
“With me,” he corrects. “And I didn’t even want to be involved at first.”
You smile. “You warmed up.”
“No,” he says before he can stop himself. “I just realized something.”
You turn your head. “Which is?”
This is the moment he feels something tip inside him, heavy and irreversible.
He should lie. He should joke. He should deflect until the truth loosens its grip.
Instead, he hears himself say, “I realized I like seeing you care.”
Your breath catches; it punches through him like a single, unguarded truth.
He looks down quickly, pretending to fix a crooked wing.
“You’re intense,” he says, voice softer than before, “and stubborn, and about half a step from terrifying when you want something done right.”
“Gee, thanks,” you murmur, already starting on another crane.
“But you care,” he continues, ignoring the way his pulse stumbles. “And watching you fight for this – fight for Nat and Steve – finally made me understand it. All of it.”
You stare at him. He stares at the crane in his hands.
“Bucky,” you say gently. “Look at me.”
He does. God help him, he does.
Your expression is open and warm, lit from within despite exhaustion. Something he wants to hold – gently, carefully, protectively – even though he shouldn’t want anything at all.
“I know you don’t care for weddings,” you say.
“I don’t,” he replies immediately.
You raise an eyebrow.
He sighs and tries again. “I just care about this one.”
He doesn’t mean the wedding, but he doesn’t clarify. He can’t.
The silence stretches – soft, thick, dangerous.
You place another crane gently on the pile. His chest aches.
He folds his next one wrong on purpose. Your hand comes up, brushing his to fix it and he nearly stops breathing.
“You’re getting better at this,” you tease.
“I have a good teacher.”
Your eyes flick up at that.
There’s a spark there, bright and undeniable. He has to look away, because if he holds your gaze any longer he’s going to say something he can’t take back.
You nudge his knee with yours – light, casual, intimate in a way that guts him. “Thanks for staying,” you say.
He swallows hard. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “It’s getting late.”
And that’s the truth. The whole, terrifying truth.
You smile again – soft, grateful, too much – as you place another piece of paper in his hands. And Bucky realizes with a clarity that terrifies him more than anything has – he’d fold a thousand of these damn things if it meant sitting beside you like this.
He folds the next one, and tries not to fall in love with the way you breathe beside him.
He fails spectacularly.
One day earlier…
Your blissful slumber’s interrupted by the knocking on your front door. Pounding down your front door, by the sound of things. You’re dragged violently out of sleep, heart slamming against your ribs before your brain can catch up.
You groan, roll over, and bury your face in the pillow.
It keeps going.
A fist. Hard, urgent, unreasonable.
“Open the door!”
You peel one eye open and squint at your phone – 7:25 am on the one morning you promised yourself you’d sleep in. The one morning everything was supposed to be done.
You stumble out of bed, wrap yourself in the nearest blanket, and shuffle to the door with murder in your bones.
You yank it open.
Bucky Barnes stands there, breathless. His hair’s damp and his jacket half-zipped. But his eyes are sharp and wild in a way that snaps you fully awake in half a second.
“What,” you croak, “is your damage?”
“You weren’t answering your phone,” he says immediately.
You blink. “I was asleep.”
“You can’t be.”
“I will,” you insist petulantly. “The ceremony’s not until –”
“The storm last night –” he swallows once, “– a tree came down.”
The words don’t make sense. They hover between you like a foreign language.
“What?”
“At the venue,” he says, softer now, already holding his phone out. “During the storm last night.”
Your stomach drops before you even look.
You take the phone. The oak is ancient. Massive. The kind of tree people build towns around. Its trunk is split down the middle like bone. One half still rooted, the other flung sideways across the terrace roof as though the sky itself hurled it there.
The terrace pergola is gone – not damaged, gone – crushed into splintered ribs beneath the weight of bark and branch. The glass along the upper windows has blown outward. One beam hangs at an angle that makes your stomach lurch. Leaves are everywhere – plastered wet and dark against shattered timber, caught in gutters, smeared across the pale stone like something dragged itself there.
“No,” you whisper. “No – no, no –”
“I’ll drive,” Bucky says gently.
The drive passes in a blur of grey sky and tightening panic. Your hands are clenched so tightly in your lap that your fingers ache.
When you pull into the venue, the damage is worse up close.
The tree dominates. It has erased the terrace – erased the clean, architectural line you loved. The roof sags under the weight of it, one support beam visibly bowed. Sawdust coats the stone in damp, sticky drifts. Someone’s already tried to tarp part of it – the plastic snaps angrily in the wind like it’s offended that such a measly attempt could even begin to fix the damage.
The smell of wet wood and earth fills the air.
You stop walking.
Just… stop.
“It’s gone,” you hear yourself say. Your voice sounds very far away. “It’s all gone.”
Bucky steps closer, careful. “Hey –”
You don’t hear him.
You see the terrace where guests were meant to gather for pre-dinner drinks. The roofline that gorgeously frames the lake. The space you checked and rechecked and trusted.
Your chest caves inward.
“No.” You shake your head once, then again, harder. “I checked the forecasts. I talked to the landscapers. I –”
Your voice fractures. “This tree is not supposed to fall!”
The venue owner stands nearby, wrapped in a shawl, staring at the fallen tree like she’s in mourning.
“The space cries,” she murmurs to no one in particular.
A worker approaches her, clipboard in hand. “Ma’am, I know it’s just the terrace, but we can’t allow anyone inside until the inspectors clear the entire premise. Forty-eight hours,” he says carefully. “Minimum. Possibly longer if structural damage extends into the main hall.”
Forty-eight hours.
You feel it then – the crack, the break, the thing you’ve been holding together finally giving way.
“It’s today,” you say, voice breaking. “The wedding is today.”
The owner looks at you, eyes wet. “I’m so sorry.”
You turn away blindly, stagger to a bench, and sit hard. Your breath comes in short, jagged pulls. Hot tears spill before you can stop them.
“I failed,” you choke. “I promised them – this was supposed to be perfect –”
Hands cup your face.
Firm. Warm. Steady.
“Hey,” Bucky says quietly. “Look at me.”
You shake your head.
“Please.”
You do, and you are met with an expression so fierce if startles you – protective, focused, utterly certain.
“I need you to breathe,” he says. “Because this isn’t over.”
You laugh, broken. “Bucky –”
Instead, he reaches into your tote – the one that has practically fused to your side over the past two weeks – and slides out The Binder. Your breath stutters. He holds it with the ease of someone who has done this before, who knows the weight, the tabs, the logic of your mind laid out in color-tabbed sections.
“I know you’ve got contingencies,” he says, flipping through pages with quick, efficient motions. “If it rains. If vendors can’t make it. If the power goes out.”
“Not – ” your voice cracks. “Not this.”
“No.” He closes The Binder gently. “Not trees falling.”
A beat.
A terrible, hollow beat where the question hangs between you: So what now?
You swipe at your cheeks. “We can’t fix the roof. We can’t move all the décor. We can’t – ” Your breath catches. “Bucky, we don’t have a – ”
“Venue?” he finishes, arching a brow.
You nod helplessly.
He looks at you for a long moment. Really looks. Then something in his expression shifts – subtle, almost imperceptible – like the first warm edge of dawn cresting over cold ground.
“Lucky for you,” he says quietly, “I’ve been spending a lot of time around someone who never accepts the first no.”
You blink. “Bucky – ”
“And,” he continues, the corner of his mouth lifting in a small, reluctant smile, “maybe some of that has rubbed off.”
You stare at him. “What are you saying?”
He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for you to yell at him for the very thing that might save you.
“I’m saying,” he murmurs, “Steve’s parent’s backyard is flat. It’s big enough. The tent can be moved. The caterers can reroute. And the weather forecast gives us at least until tomorrow morning before the rain starts again.” A pause. “If we start now, we can make it work.”
The world tilts. Not disastrously – but like a compass snapping north after spinning for too long.
“Why?” you whisper.
He doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t joke. His voice is soft, steady, unbearably sincere. “Because you care,” he says simply. “And I’m not going to let this break you.”
Your chest caves open. Relief crashes in, messy and overwhelming.
You breathe in once, twice.
“Okay,” you whisper back. Then louder, steadier, “Okay.”
He squeezes your hands once, grounding you.“Come on,” he says, rising to his feet. “We’ve got seven hours to save a wedding.”
*
The moment Bucky says “Let’s save a wedding,” things get moving – not metaphorically; literally.
He’s already striding away, already dialling, already speaking in that clipped, purposeful tone you’ve only ever heard when he’s absolutely out of patience or absolutely determined. “Steve,” he says, pacing toward the parking lot. “Change of venue. Backyard. Yes, your backyard. No, I’m not joking. Trust me.”
You stumble after him, still half undone, still blinking tears off your face. “Bucky –”
“Nat’s going to love this,” he says to you, unfazed. “Call her. Tell her not to panic, and tell her she doesn’t have to lift a finger.”
He looks over his shoulder. “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” you say automatically, phone already in your hand.
She picks up on the first ring. “Backyard wedding?” she laughs, delighted. “Perfect. I’ll see you at Steve’s.”
Steve is already texting his parents. Someone’s uncle has folding tables and someone else has a generator “just in case.”
It snowballs fast. The miracle of a small wedding becomes apparent very quickly – every guest is a real person, reachable by phone, reachable within minutes.
You start calling, texting, forwarding maps.
Change of plans! Still today! Bring a chair if you can!
And they’re all very amused by this development.
People reply with laughing emojis, with on our way, with honestly this is very them, with do you need cutlery?
By the time you reach Steve’s family home, the backyard is already transforming.
Someone’s SUV is backed into the lawn with its boot open like a mobile command station. Extension cords snake across the grass. A white rental tent is being muscled upright by three determined guests and one very determined aunt.
The caterers pivot without complaint, food arriving in trays that suddenly feel perfectly suited to long tables and paper plates. The DJ shrugs. “I’ve done a Punjabi wedding on a moving bus. This is nothing.” Music starts, soft and warm and easy.
And Bucky –
He moves through the chaos like a man who has made peace long ago with the fact that the universe likes to test him. He directs traffic, helps carry tables, adjusts tent poles, and somehow gets everyone to listen to him without raising his voice once.
When you open your mouth to worry, he’s already answering.
When you start to spiral, he meets your eyes and says, “Handled.”
At some point he has The Binder. You don’t remember handing it to him. You’re not even sure you did. He simply has it now, tucked under his arm like holy scripture.
And then, when you’re midway through redirecting seating placements, walking away from the tent to take in the big picture view, you notice something shifting in the light, a shimmer of cream and gold.
You stop.
A line of delicate shapes sway gently from the tent’s ridge pole. You take two steps forward, then three.
They’re paper cranes – your paper cranes.
Every single last one that you folded and strung together last night, every last one that you had to leave in the reception hall when the world collapsed.
You stare up at them, breath suspended.
“Bucky,” you whisper. “How did – ? They were – They were in the reception hall.”
He doesn’t even stop tightening the rope he’s working on. “The reception hall wasn’t damaged,” he says. “Just the terrace. So I… grabbed them.”
You turn to him, struck speechless for a moment.
“You… went in?”
“The hall wasn’t damaged.”
“That isn’t the point!”
He shrugs once. “Doors are only locked if you don’t have the key.”
“You – this is – you could’ve gotten hurt!”
Bucky finally looks up at you, and he smiles. It’s a small one – crooked and almost shy. “I wasn’t leaving them behind.”
The cranes shift again in the breeze, glowing in the late-morning sun like tiny lanterns, catching glimmers of gold from the fairy lights someone is stringing between the trees. They shimmer faintly as the breeze lifts them, little beacons of luck and persistence swaying above the lawn. They look impossibly delicate – and yet here they are, surviving storms, travel, relocation.
You realise, as you take it all in, that the rest of the wedding is taking shape in much the same improbable fashion. Piece by piece, person by person.
Because when you turn, the lawn is filling with chairs – mismatched, ridiculous, perfect – carried in by guests who did not hesitate for a single breath. “Everyone bring a chair,” he’d said, and somehow… everyone did.
Kitchen chairs. Lawn chairs. Folding metal ones that look suspiciously like the ones from the high school Steve teaches at. A wicker bench someone absolutely took from their own porch.
It’s ridiculous, it’s perfect.
You finally dare to look at the time and, “It’s –” you begin, startled.
“Ten minutes to start,” Bucky says, checking his watch. “We’re on schedule.”
You gape at him. “How are we on schedule?”
He nods toward The Binder, lying open on a cooler like a general’s map. “The Binder,” he says with a shrug, “has all.”
And for the first time all day –
You laugh. Really, truly laugh. Because somehow, impossibly, disastrously – you’re going to pull this off.
Together.
*
The ceremony goes off without a hitch.
The tent stands steady despite the soft ground beneath it, canvas glowing warmly in the late afternoon light. Strings of bulbs flicker on as the sun dips lower, their reflections catching in the little puddles of water that have yet to evaporate. The grass is a little muddy in places, trampled by hurried footsteps and borrowed chairs. Nothing matches. Everything belongs.
And as the first notes play and everyone rises, you realize something with a clarity that makes your knees go weak:
The wedding didn’t survive despite the chaos.
It survived because of it.
You take your place near the front, hands folded, heart already too full.
Natasha walks in first, not down an aisle so much as across a stretch of grass cleared by people who love her. Her dress is simple and devastating, hair pinned back just enough to frame her face. She looks radiant, not because of the dress or the light or the day, but because she looks certain that this is where she’s meant to be.
Steve is already waiting.
He doesn’t try to hide it, the way his face changes when he sees her – like the world has finally resolved into something understandable. He forgets where to put his hands. Forgets that there are people watching. Forgets everything but her.
You feel tears sting immediately.
The officiant says a few words – nothing grand, nothing rehearsed beyond necessity. Something about finding home in another person. Something about choosing, every day, to stay.
And then, it’s time for vows.
Steve clears his throat, nervous in a way that feels almost boyish. “I don’t have a lot of fancy words,” he says, smiling at her like it’s a private joke, like the entire universe has narrowed down to just him and her. “But I promise to keep choosing you.”
Natasha’s bottom lip trembles. Steve swallows and continues.
“I’ve spent a long time thinking that doing the right thing meant standing alone,” he continues, voice steadying. “You taught me it doesn’t have to. Whatever comes next, I want to face it with you.”
You feel tears prick immediately, hot and unbidden.
Natasha takes his hands when it’s her turn, thumbs brushing over his knuckles, grounding him, grounding them both.
“I don’t make promises lightly,” she says. “But I promise you honesty – even when it’s hard. I promise to stand beside you, not behind you.”
Steve exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for years.
“I’ve spent a long time surviving,” she continues, voice softer now. “With you, I want to live. And I promise I’m not going anywhere.”
And that’s when something in your chest gives way entirely.
You swipe at your eyes and, in the motion, glance to your left – toward Steve’s side.
Bucky is watching you.
Not the ceremony. Not his best friend standing at the center of it all. You.
There’s no surprise in his expression when your eyes meet. Just something steady and unguarded, something that makes your breath catch. You smile at him – small, private, meant only for this moment.
He doesn’t smile back, not fully, but his shoulders ease, like he’s finally letting himself breathe. His gaze lingers before he looks forward again, jaw tight, eyes bright.
The officiant speaks again, voice barely registering over the rush in your ears.
“By the power vested in me –” The officiant barely has time to finish the words before Steve kisses Natasha like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.
The backyard erupts – not in polite applause, but in cheers and laughter and the unmistakable sound of people witnessing something go right after so much nearly went wrong.
You look around – at the grass, worn and imperfect beneath polished shoes; at the mismatched chairs – kitchen chairs, folding chairs, one unmistakeable beach chair in the second row; at the tent, glowing softly against the darkening sky; at the faces – teary, smiling, wholly present.
Not a single dry eye.
And suddenly, with a clarity that feels almost sacred, you understand it.
This – this patched-together, last-minute, mud-on-the-hems miracle – this wedding is perfect.
You glance at Bucky again.
He’s watching the couple now, but there’s something thoughtful in his expression. Something changed. As if he’s seeing the whole thing differently – not as an event, not as a spectacle, but as a moment that matters simply because the people in it do.
He catches your eye once more.
This time, he does smile.
And in that small, quiet exchange – barely noticed by anyone else – you feel it settle into place.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
Presently…
This bed isn’t yours. This room isn’t yours. And beside you – facing you, chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm, is Bucky.
His eyes are closed, dark lashes resting against his cheek. There’s a smudge of sleep at the corner of his mouth, a softness to him you’re not used to seeing in daylight.
Your gaze drops – bare shoulder, collarbone, the fabric of his shirt rumpled from sleep. And then you feel it: his knee tucked lightly against yours beneath the covers, like neither of you moved much in the night. Like the space between you was never up for negotiation.
Your breath catches.
And in that moment, as the sun reaches across the bed and touches the curve of his jaw, you realize with slow, startling clarity –
You don’t want to move. You certainly don’t want to disturb this.
But then –
His blue eyes – soft with sleep, unfocused at the edges – blink open at the same moment. He inhales sharply, like waking into the shock of something impossible, like waking into you.
The two of you stare at each other.
The world holds its breath.
His hair is mussed, falling over his forehead. His mouth is soft, not yet disciplined into its usual guarded lines. One arm – his – rests over your waist like he reached for you in the night and never let go.
His voice, when it comes, is low. Rough.
“Hey.”
A beat.
A second.
A lifetime.
You swallow, suddenly acutely aware of how close your noses are. Of how his chest rises and falls against yours. Of how you ended up – both of you – pulled together into the same borrowed bed after the reception because there were no spare rooms left at Steve’s family house and “it’s fine, we’re adults, we can share.”
Except now you are awake and sharing feels like the smallest word in the universe.
Bucky’s eyes flick to your mouth. It is microscopic, the shift, but you feel it like a jolt of electricity down your spine. Your heart kicks painfully, traitorously, into your throat.
It feels like balanced-breath territory, the narrow space between what is safe and what is true.
Your throat works. “Hey.”
You can smell him – soap and clean cotton and something unmistakably him. Your heart starts to race.
“This…” you start, because the silence is suddenly too loud, too much, and you have the irrational urge to fill it. “This isn’t what friends do. Right?”
The words hang between you, trembling, dangerous and far too honest.
Bucky doesn’t move for a moment.
Then his gaze settles fully – wholly – on you, and everything inside him sharpens, awakens, and resolves.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”
Something in his voice makes your chest ache.
You shift, just a little. The mattress dips. His breath catches – not dramatically, but enough that you notice. Enough that it feels like a type of confession all on its own. His hand – warm, careful – slides from your waist to your hip. Not pulling. Just touching. Just holding you like the truth has finally found him.
“We should –” you start.
He doesn’t move away. Instead, he says your name once; just once, like it’s something precious.
“You think I do this –” he murmurs, eyes fierce, intimate, unbearably soft, “– with anyone else?”
You can’t speak.
He moves a fraction closer, the tiniest shift of the pillow, but it feels like the world tilting toward something inevitable and vast.
“I woke up,” he whispers, “and for a second I thought I was dreaming. Because you –” his voice hitches, “– you were looking at me like I was someone you wanted.”
You inhale sharply. “Bucky…”
“And if I’m reading this wrong,” he continues, tone still gentle, still unbearably composed for someone confessing like this, “then tell me. Tell me and I’ll –”
You don’t let him finish.
You lift your hand – shaking, barely steady – and cup his cheek.
His breath stops.
“I don’t exactly know when it started,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “But I think I’ve been wanting you for a while.”
He closes his eyes once. Slowly. Like the world has finally righted itself.
And when he opens them again, he is not uncertain.
He is not hesitant.
He is not a man fighting himself anymore.
“You know I don’t believe in weddings – I still don’t,” he says softly. “I don’t believe in big gestures or perfect days. But, this, I believe in things like this.”
His hand lifts – stops, trembling on the edge of daring – before he leans in instead, touching his forehead to yours. The world narrows to warmth and breath and the barest graze of his nose against yours, close enough that all you can see, all you can feel, is him. Your skin sparks, electric, even without his hand on you.
“I believe in you,” he continues. “In the way you care. In the way you fight for people. In the way you stayed up all night folding a thousand paper cranes because you wanted something beautiful to exist in the world. In the way you planned this entire wedding like the universe would collapse if Nat and Steve had anything less than perfect – because for you, caring this much isn’t some kind of twisted vanity, it’s how you move through the world.”
Your eyes burn.
“And I love you and I want to be by your side,” he says simply. “Whether it’s in the chaos or the quiet. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore.”
The room feels very still, very small, and very, very full.
You don’t trust your voice, so you do the only thing you can.
With your heart in your hands, you lean in and gently press your lips to his.
His breath shudders as your lips meet, like he’s been holding something back for a long time and finally lets go. His hand slides into your hair, cradling your head with reverence, not urgency.
The world narrows.
When he deepens the kiss – just slightly – it feels like a promise. When you kiss him back, it feels like an answer.
When you pull away, forehead resting against his, everything has changed.
He smiles then.
Not the guarded half-smile. Not the amused deflection.
A real one. Open. Unmistakable.
“Hi,” he murmurs.
You laugh softly, breathless, overwhelmed. “Hi.”
Outside, the house begins to stir to life with footsteps padding across the hallway, the low clatter of someone in the kitchen trying (and failing) to move quietly, a kettle starting its slow, rising hiss. Chairs scrape gently over the deck. Someone laughs, hushed and tender, the sound drifting through the floorboards like morning light.
Inside, wrapped in tangled sheets and the quiet aftermath of a perfectly imperfect wedding, you realize – with a certainty that feels almost sacred – that this is how it begins – not with spectacle – but with choice, with closeness.
And with love, finally spoken aloud.
When you wake up again, it is to heat.
More specifically – heat and weight and a slow, lazy grind at the small of your back that your sleep-fogged brain misidentifies as a dream right up until you breathe in and, oh, it’s Bucky.
The first time you woke up, it was barely dawn. Just light creeping around the edges of the curtains, your faces inches apart on the pillow, his voice rough as he admitted he didn’t want to be just your friend. A kiss that felt like a beginning. The dizzy, terrifying relief of hearing your own feelings echoed back at you.
Then he’d cupped your cheek, pressed his forehead to yours, and said, “We can talk more when it’s not stupid o’clock.”
You’d agreed. You were exhausted. Your eyes had burned. He’d pulled you in against his chest, arm heavy around your waist, and the two of you had drifted off again, warm and close and newly, precariously honest.
Now it’s later, and Bucky is still spooned around you in the narrow guest bed of Steve’s childhood home, one arm banded heavy around your waist, his chest pressed to your back. His breath ghosts over the nape of your neck in warm, even little puffs.
And his cock is hard, pressed right against your ass.
You go very still.
The arm around your waist tightens, drawing you closer like he’s chasing you in his sleep. His hips roll, just a fraction, like his body’s following a rhythm his brain hasn’t caught up to yet. The thick line of him drags against you through two layers of cotton, and a completely traitorous pulse of heat shoots through you.
“Bucky,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to go any louder.
He makes a low sound, half groan, half wordless complaint, nose nudging into your hair. “Mm. It’s too early.”
That seems to cut through the haze faster than any alarm. His body tenses behind you; his hips freeze. There’s a beat where you can feel him realize exactly where he is and what he’s doing.
“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough as gravel, dragging his face up from your neck. “Shit, darling, I –”
He starts to pull away and you instinctively reach back to grab his forearm.
“Wait,” you say.
He goes still again.
You could pretend you’re not already wet. You could pretend you’re not thinking about this every time he brushed past you in the venue kitchen this week, every time he stood too close at the lakehouse walkthrough, every time those stupid blue eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long.
You don’t.
“You’re not the only one,” you say quietly, rolling your hips back just enough that he can feel the way your body’s answering his. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Bucky lets out a shaky little breath right against your ear. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says, and there’s a muffled curse as his hand slides from your waist down over your hip, fingers digging in. He doesn’t move his hips. Yet. “You sure?”
You turn your head enough to see him, to catch his eyes, pupils already blown. “We already said this isn’t what friends do, right?”
“Pretty sure my friends don’t usually wake up tryin’ to fuck me,” he says hoarsely. His gaze drops to your mouth. “But I’m not complaining’.”
He kisses you before you can answer. It’s messy, morning-breath and sleep-warm, but his mouth is hot and eager and familiar in a way that makes your toes curl. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing under your chin, tilting your head where he wants you.
Behind you, his hips finally move. Slow, deliberate grind, the thick length of him dragging against you through the silky fabric of your dress. You gasp into his mouth; he swallows the sound with a low noise of his own.
“Been thinking about this for weeks,” he mutters against your lips. “You in that damn dress all day yesterday. Runnin’ around bossin’ everybody, climbing over me on those shitty folding chairs like it was nothing. You have any idea what you do to me?”
You push your ass back into him, just to feel how hard he is. “I think I’m getting an idea.”
“Tease,” he murmurs, and his hand presses low on your stomach through the dress, the heat of him burning through the thin fabric, fingers splaying like he’s steadying you for what comes next. “Can I?”
You nod, too quickly. “Yes. God, yes.”
He hums like that pleases him. His hand drifts lower, fingers skimming down, pushing the skirt of your dress up. He slides under it, into your panties, and finds you already slick and hot. His breath stutters. “Fuck, baby.”
He circles your clit once, light enough to make you whine, then slips his fingers lower, stroking through your wetness. “You this wet from just waking up next to me?” he asks, voice gone smug and filthy. “Or have you been dreaming about me?”
“Shut up,” you gasp, hips jerking. “You’re the one grinding on me in your sleep, Bucky.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, pushing two fingers into you, slow and deliberate, “if you start sleeping in my bed, there’s gonna be a lot worse than grinding.”
Your reply dissolves into a broken moan as he curls his fingers just right. He works you open with careful, steady thrusts, his palm rubbing your clit on every stroke. It’s obscene how fast he finds exactly how to touch you, like he’s been mapping out how this would go for weeks.
You reach back blindly and find him, wrap your hand around the thick length straining against his waistband. Even through the cotton, he’s solid, heavy, twitching under your fingers.
He swears, low and vicious. “You’re killing me,” he repeats, hips rocking forward into your hand. “Get these off.”
Between the two of you, your dress and panties end up somewhere at the foot of the bed. He groans when he sees you, bare and open in the afternoon light. His fingers slide back through your slick, spreading it, thumb drawing lazy circles over your clit.
“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says, almost to himself.
You push back, needy. “Bucky.”
“Yeah, I got you.” He shifts, fumbling one-handed with his own waistband until his cock is free, hot and leaking where it brushes the curve of your ass. He hisses through his teeth at the contact. “Fuck. You sure?”
You look over your shoulder, meet his eyes, and there’s no way he can mistake the answer. “Please.”
His expression crumples into something helpless and obscene. “Okay,” he says hoarsely. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.”
He lines up and pushes in, the blunt head nudging against your opening, then stretching you, slow, slow, until he’s buried thick and deep. You gasp, fingers clawing at the sheets, the stretch just shy of too much.
“Jesus,” he groans, forehead dropping between your shoulder blades. “You’re so fucking tight. Grippin’ me like you don’t ever wanna let me go.”
“You could move,” you manage, voice high and shaky. “That might help.”
He laughs, broken and breathless, and pulls back only to slam in again, setting a rhythm that has the old headboard tapping the wall in soft, insistent knocks. His hand finds yours on the mattress, lacing your fingers together, grounding you even as he fucks into you harder, his other hand still working your clit.
The slick sounds of him moving in you fill the little room, mixed with your gasps and his low curses. Every thrust hits that perfect spot; every drag of his thumb winds you tighter.
“Listen to you,” he pants, voice right against your ear now. “Making those little noises for me. You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart?”
Your answer is more of a strangled sob than a word. Heat coils tight in your belly, sharp and bright.
“Yeah,” he says, like he can feel you clenching. “There you go. Let go for me. Come on, baby. I’ve got you.”
It’s the way he says it – like a reverent promise – that tips you over. You shatter around him, muscles fluttering, vision going white at the edges. You hear yourself cry out, feel him groan into your shoulder as your body milks him.
“Fuck – just like that, just like that,” he grits, thrusts turning messy. A few more and he’s gone too, burying himself deep as he spills inside you, whole body trembling against your back.
For a long moment, the only sounds are your breathing and the soft tick of the old clock on the nightstand.
Eventually, Bucky shifts, carefully easing out of you, both of you hissing at the oversensitive drag. He collapses onto his back beside you, one arm flung over his eyes.
“This,” you say, staring at the ceiling, still trying to remember how lungs work, “is definitely not what friends do.”
He laughs, low and wrecked, turning his head to look at you. His hair’s a mess, cheeks flushed, eyes soft in a way that makes your chest hurt.
“Good,” he says, reaching over to tug you against his side, tucking you into the crook of his arm like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “’Cause I’ve never wanted to be just your friend.”
yap! i have a lot of feelings about weddings (i love weddings as a literary device as much as kevin kwan does LMAO) as you can tell... and i just got so juiced up with ideas i couldn't bring myself to cut anything so here we are! if you've read to the end, here is a kiss for you and i hope you enjoyed it and didn't find it too long! also im a wedding lover, my own wedding is going to be my superbowl. remember to check out the other event fics! there's so much care and love there!!
dear my darling reader masterpost || more bucky from me
Set in the Pretty Privilege universe but not essential to that story's plot. Can be read standalone.
+++
Before you entered Dex’s life he had never understood pet names.
A nick-name he could understand, everyone called him a nick-name besides you but even then Ben was technically a nick-name of Benjamin and he hated being called Benjamin. Dex was an objectively sharper name and it coincided with his edgy nature. He didn’t need another name, he liked his just fine, especially since he picked it out.
Pet names alluded him even more. They were stupid and mostly emasculating, calling someone by their name seemed much more intimate from his perspective, ‘honey’ was weird. He wasn’t honey and was certainly far from sweet.
But then you came along and suddenly ‘baby’ and ‘sweetheart’ started falling out of his mouth like it was second nature to him. When he was feeling especially sentimental he would say ‘my star’, usually mumbling into your wet heat while your thighs pressed against the sides of his head. That name always made you whimper in a soft, special way that Dex had seared into his memory and replayed in his mind when the buzzing in the back of his head would get too loud.
He preened when you called him ‘baby’, which was your preferred pet name for him. It didn’t sound silly when you said it in your soft voice, it felt like he was being wrapped in a warm blanket of your affection. He loved being your baby and sometimes he was ‘handsome’ which always sparked something in his chest that was caught between cockiness and adoration. In all truth, Dex would be anything you wanted him to be. Sweety, honey, baby, handsome, even pookie if you were feeling silly. But mostly, he was baby.
I miss you baby.
Fuck, he missed you too.
Sometimes it felt like the world was out to get him. His life had been running so smoothly. The routine had been running perfectly without fail like a well oiled machine for over six months and the whole time you were right by his side. No hitches, no problems, nothing to worry about for weeks on end and it sort-of felt like heaven. Even as winter overtook New York in her cold, vice-like grip and iced over the streets and made the sky turn black by four PM, it was significantly more bearable now that he could brave it with you. Despite the cold you still went outside to feed the birds every evening, speaking to Dex with a hushed voice as to not disturb the animals as clouds of your breath condensed in the freezing air. The whole time you were outside you were pressed into Dex’s side for warmth and he savored the extra affection. Everything was perfect, then it was not.
At first it was supposed to be a hand-off. Three months prior the bureau finally bagged the head honcho of a major human trafficking ring but due to previous crimes, the criminal was supposed to be put on trial in California. Dex didn’t give a shit about the semantics, only the issue that he would have to spend four days apart from you where he and a small team would be escorting the convict across the country, release him to the police, sign some paperwork, then fly home. Easy in theory but hellish in practice, especially since it was such short notice.
“I’m sorry baby. I’m really, really sorry.” Dex said as he nuzzled into your lap the night before he had to leave. He had found out about the trip eight hours prior and called you immediately with the news. You seemed sullen over the phone but assured him that it would be alright, it was only four days after all and he would be back by Friday movie night. Still, Dex couldn’t stop the waterworks the second he saw you when he arrived home. “It’s all my fault.” He said wetly, rubbing shed tears into the fabric of the sweatpants you borrowed from him.
“It’s not your fault Ben.” You assured, petting the hair at his temples that you were so fond of. His ‘shimmer strands’ you once called them, a private thought spoken aloud that embarrassed you the second you realized you said it. It took five minutes pressing wet, sloppy kisses to your face to turn your cringe into laughter as Dex’s heart overflowed with endearment for you.
“If I wasn’t me then I wouldn’t have to go.” Dex sniffled pathetically, hugging your legs and pressing his face further into your thighs in an effort to keep himself grounded.
“But I love you, and if you weren’t you then I would be all by myself.” You countered softly making Dex tense up at the idea of losing you. Curling your fingers in the short strands of hair at the base of his neck, you tug on his scalp pulling a groan out of him as he looks up at you. Another tear falls the second he makes eye contact with you and instantly you wipe it away with the pad of your ring finger. “I’d be lying if I said I’m not upset about it but I also know it’ll just be for four days.”
“Four days too long.”
“Way too long.” Your chin wobbles and Dex watches you blink back tears that catch in your long lashes. His stomach twists because he hates when you get sad, instantly looking for a way to fix the problem, but this time the problem is him and out of his control making him feel helpless as you cry. It also doesn’t help that he finds you so pretty when you cry, cheeks flushed and nose pink as you take heavy breaths to try and calm yourself. Your tears are itching to fall so he tilts his head up so he can kiss under your eyes.
The next morning he leaves for the airport at four AM. He stops by your apartment before he gets in the escort vehicle to JFK, letting himself into your apartment so he can rouse you from your sleep to hold you for ten minutes. Dex tries to memorize the way that you smell, thankful that he packed the perfume bottle of yours that he bought months ago so he could spray it on his hotel sheets. He left you curled in your bed, kissed and breathless, and sat mournfully in the backseat of the van.
Dex did not like San Diego. It was February and yet somehow there were no clouds in the sky and it was seventy degrees outside. California was too open, too bright, and the buildings weren’t tall and crowded like he was used to and every car ride was thirty minutes long. Most of his time was spent in the FBI office doing practically nothing as he was only brought for security purposes, Ray handled most of the talking and administrative work. The time passed slowly and Dex texted you more often than he usually would.
The three hour time difference was criminal but you still made it work. You’d text him first thing in the morning after you woke up, a mirror selfie of your outfit for the day which made him smile. He reminded you to wear your scarf, you reminded him to drink plenty of water and take his medication, and throughout the day you’d send various, fleeting thoughts to one another that mostly consisted of, ‘I miss you’, ‘I love you’, and ‘I can’t wait to see you’. At night when you are just about to go to sleep and Dex was in his hotel you’d speak over the phone for an hour until you fell asleep and Dex could hear the even sounds of your breathing through the speaker.
Then the day before the shitshow was supposed to be over the convict decided to make a plea deal and rat out a bunch of his colleagues, blowing the case wide open and suddenly the FBI needed to be more involved. A four day trip turned into an extra week filled with a drug bust, late night phone calls that usually end in Dex crying because he misses the feeling of your skin, and a dead criminal that would’ve shot Ray if Dex hadn’t seen him first.
The raid is successful, Dex thinks he finally gets to go home but instead of a flight back to New York he’s given a day off and notice that the team will remain in San Diego for two more weeks to assist with another strike. He calls you panicked and frustrated and talks to you over speakerphone as he paces his hotel room and tries to rub away the itch in his hands that makes him want to punch or throw something. It doesn’t help that this time you finally break down and cry too, lamenting about how lonely you’ve been feeling since Dex has been gone. He wants to rush to your side and kiss your tears away but he can’t and when Dex gets off the phone he rushes out of the hotel and down an abandoned alley so he can let out a dreadful scream.
The day off doesn’t give him any peace because there’s nothing he can do to silence the humming in his brain. No routine, no structure, no you. Only palm trees and unbearable sunshine that doesn’t feel real because why would it be sunny in February? He texts you, you send him pictures, you call and you call but it’s not enough. When he throws a knife into the leg of a man trying to escape their raid all he can think about is how lonely you must be as you sit on your bench in the courtyard, alone.
Dex starts to shut down by the third week. Everyone in the New York squad is getting chippy, even Ray starts getting pissy with the San Diego team. Late one night at the hotel bar Ray laments about how much he misses his wife and son.
“Facetime isn’t enough. I want to smell my wife’s cooking and wake up in my own sheets.” He says morosely as he sips from his bottle. Dex is sitting next to him at the bar with his head in his hands, picturing what you might be up to. It was ten in San Diego so you were definitely asleep with Penny curled by your side, but Dex should be next to you too. Instead he falls asleep holding his spare pillow that’s dowsed in your perfume that clings to his night shirt in the morning.
Finally, after tense conversations with their boss resulting in Ray getting bitchy and Dex slamming his hands on the desk at one point, they’re cleared to go home. His first flight to Dallas goes smoothly but during his layover he gets a notification that his next plane had a mechanical issue resulting in a four hour delay. It was Friday, if things had been right then he would’ve been home in time to pick you up after work and take you to the book store, instead he believes he’s being punished by God as he waits at his gate with a group of very grumpy FBI agents.
“In four hours, I’m all yours baby.” Dex says with his low, gravelly voice. Finally in his seat as the rest of the plane boards. It will be one in the morning by the time he gets back to NYC and getting from JFK to Hell’s Kitchen will probably take another hour, but the soft caress of your fingertips is less than twelve hours away. “Don’t wait up for me sweetheart it’ll be late by the time I’m home.”
“It’s Friday so I can stay up late.” You say, already sounding tired and he pictures you curled up on your couch, flicking through your DVDs even though you’ll settle on a nature documentary. You’re perfectly predictable, just like how Dex likes you, and it makes his heart ache that you would want to wait up for him. “I’ve missed you so much Ben, I don’t want to miss another second of you.”
It still shocks him when he realizes just how much you love him. His love for you makes sense. You’re good, you’re sweet, you’re kind and you make him good. You lead him home because you are home, his North Star. You are the reason why Dex was put on this earth, everything that ever happened to him was always meant to lead him to you, it’s a miracle that you love him just as much. He’s never been missed before and to be missed is to be wanted and to be wanted means his purpose in life is real and true. For the entire flight he listens to one of your Spotify playlists and thinks about kissing you.
Touchdown at JFK is rough and deplaning is annoying because everyone ahead of him takes too long to get their overhead bags down and Dex knows he’s being bitchy as he huffs in annoyance every time the line halts but he doesn’t care. It’s almost been a month of not being in the same timezone as you and he can’t bear being away from his girlfriend for another second.
The cab ride is expensive but worth it despite the fact that Dex can hardly stay awake for the duration of the ride. New York City hasn’t changed without him and the claustrophobic nature of the city is comforting to him, happy to be back in the freezing cold which is how it should be. No more palm trees, no more jets flying overhead, and no more sun. Thank god.
Walking through the apartment lobby almost feels foreign to him because it’s been so long. His shoes click against the tile floors and the elevator still smells a little musty on the ride up. As much as he wants to immediately rush into your apartment and kiss you senseless, Dex can’t, traveling makes him feel dirty so instead he rushes back to his apartment and takes a shower. The warm water soothes his aching shoulders that were tense the entire journey and as he unpacks his belongings he notices how none of the surfaces in his apartment are dusty. You took the time to clean it while he was away. He abandons his dirty laundry and hightails it to your unit.
With practiced stealth, Dex unlocks the door to your apartment where he is greeted by soft lamp light and the sight of you in his hoodie from high school that has too many holes in the sleeves and another pair of borrowed sweatpants. You’re awake, curled up on the couch with your new book in your hand. This week you’re reading Gone Girl because he said he liked the movie. You’re looking at him with sleepy eyes and for a second all you can do is stare at one another, taking in the fact that your reunion is real.
Then you’re scrambling out of your blankets and Dex is striding across your living room meeting you halfway where he scoops you up into his arms, picking you up with ease as he finally gets to nestle his face into the crook of your neck where he belongs. He takes in a harsh, deep breath and moans as he releases it, swallowing your scent and petting your hair.
Neither of you speak and he shutters as you slip your cold hands under his t-shirt and rake your fingertips along his ribs and the muscles of your back. He presses a firm, heated kiss onto your lips and you respond by letting out a bottled up whimper that makes his knees weak. The longer you kiss the more needy each of you get with your touches. You tug on his hair eliciting a whine from Dex and he palms your ass which makes you gasp into his mouth. He takes advantage of this by slipping his tongue into your mouth and licking the backs of your teeth and using his other hand to pinch your hardened nipple in between his rough fingers.
The two of you stumble into your bedroom, stripping off your clothes and kicking them into the corner as you tumble into your sheets. Dex presses you into the mattress by resting his full body weight on top of you and moves the crotch of your panties to the side so his fingers can slip in between your folds. You’re already soaked, needy and neglected from your three weeks of celibacy and Dex is unsure how much longer he will last as his dick strains against his briefs.
“Never, ever do that again baby.” You gasp as Dex slips two fingers into your heat, moaning as you clench around him. He sucks a bruise onto your collarbone and nods as you chastise him. “I mean it,” You say, rocking into the heel of his hand that’s grinding against your clit, “I can’t live without you. Never again.”
Your admission makes him let out the most pathetic whine he’s ever made and he doesn’t feel ashamed because the noise makes your pussy clench so hard he wonders if the blood in his fingers will get cut off.
“Yes ma’am.” He whimpers, curling his fingers as you bare your neck for him. Dex kisses the column of your throat and feels your skin vibrate under his lips as you let out needy whines. “I’ll be good. Never again my star.”
+++
TBH pretty proud of myself for cranking out three oneshots in three days. Pretty Privilege took me about 2-2.5 weeks to write and I'm gonna try and cook up a longer form fic for yall. If I don't post another oneshot super soon just keep that in mind, I'm not dipping yet lmao.
If you have any suggestions for oneshots LMK! I would love to read them and possibly write for them. Once again thank you for all the support really means a lot.
🀢 Storms and Dragons - You sneak away for one reckless night of freedom, only to wake in the bed of Lyonel Baratheon— who is now very much besotted with you.
🀣 Lyonel's drunk wife who is fascinated by Dunk's height
🀤 Settle This Like Stags!
🀥 Name the Riches - Lyonel plays a game of provocation to stir some audacity in his newlywed wife, but she is quick to catch up after realizing the position she holds. Lord Baratheon’s assurances that he is not a jealous man turn out to be dramatically untrue.
🀢 Faint Memory, Promising Pathways - Lord Baratheon is too occupied with the presence of his darling wife to follow his companions. He claims to remember the way… Well, nature isn't so bad, after all, then why not spend the whole day away from the castle?
🀣 Fair Trading - The fierceness of a storm and dornish habits don’t seem to match each other very well, but perhaps Lyonel Baratheon is not that much of a true abrupt stormlander. Or maybe it’s just that you, a princess of Dorne, can find it in your heart to accept such a stormlander as your man.
🀤 Baby Built Like a Fortress - Lyonel Baratheon had announced the birth of your child like a victory won in battle.
🀥 His Drunk Lady - Lyonel witnessing his wife getting drunk for the first time.
🀢 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument / being apart
🀣 Another knight crowning you
🀤 Spice tolerance
🀥 How they’d react to you hold their face within your hands, claiming you could hold all that you hold dear within them
🀢 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀢 Wine, Women and Wonderful Vices - You decided tonight was the night to loosen up and ride a stag...
🀣 The Hunt - “Set yourself free in the forest and I will do nothing but hunt and eat you all day”
🀤 Checkmate - Baratheons are famously stubborn and prideful, and to make matters worse, a particular Baratheon called Lyonel married a woman after his own heart, much to the misfortune of all around them.
🀥 Bedding Ceremony - It's your honeymoon with your husband, lyonel. both inexperienced in this to a certain extent, but desire was often enough when lack of practice was the problem...
🀢 Fire in My Heart - Lord Lyonel Baratheon and his beloved wife become taken with the same night he'd met nights ago, offering him company in their friendship and their bed.
🀣 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀤 The Helm Stays On! - lyonel baratheon's pretty little wife can't get enough of her storm lord. when her need for him grows teeth in the middle of a highgarden celebration, she's wroth to leave it. but lyonel would give you anything you wanted, including stuffing you full beneath your skirts right there at the head table for all to see.
🀥 Holding the antlers while you ride him
🀢 Spinster - (II) - His pov - What if reader returned home before the scandal? - His pov - What if reader saved him instead? - Reader makes the first move - Jealous husband - Mornings in bed - Reader not realising she is being flirted with + defending husband - Reader is super competent and that really turns her husband on
pairing: modern!aerion targaryen x f!stark!reader
summary: Aerion Targaryen is a vain, vain man. Unfortunately for him, his thirst traps work better on himself than they do on you.
contents/warnings: smut (18+), switch!aerion, switch!reader, mean!bratty!aerion (gotta compensate for the fact he's down bad horrendously ykyk), banter as foreplay, mentions of smoking/drug use, russian lit as foreplay (😭), oral (m receiving), deepthroating, spit play, choking, hair pulling, marking/biting, fingering, multiple orgasms, possessive!aerion, edging/orgasm denial (brief), dirty talk, praise kink, degradation (mild), rough sex but they're both so into i'm not sure it counts, ultimate freak4freak... they're genuinely demons in this 😭 #freakmatched
notes: I missed writing these two so much. This is the verse where you never walked away, so Baelor never happened and you two are just gross and in love. So enjoy! By a crazy coincidence, we also hit 15k followers today, so HAPPY 15K AND THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE MY LOVESSSS 💕
✶ valarr's version.
✶ modern au/trailer trash masterlist.
The text comes through at three in the afternoon.
You're curled into the corner of his couch in nothing but his t-shirt. Black and expensive, the cotton so thin it's almost translucent. The hem hits mid-thigh with absolutely nothing on under it because that's a small private cruelty you've been cultivating for weeks now.
You've got your knees drawn up, Aerion’s copy of Demons open across your thighs. The spine is cracked from repeated reading, the margins so densely annotated in his cramped hand that the printed text is sometimes hard to find beneath the ink. Three different pens. Half-Russian, half-English, the occasional Valyrian word slashed in furious black when no other language would do.
self-pitying, he's written next to one of Stavrogin's monologues, and then beneath it, smaller, almost reluctant: and yet—
"And yet," you read out loud with a quiet, huffing laugh. "Relatable, huh?"
Your phone buzzes against the cushion. You set the book aside, careful with the worn pages, and pick it up.
ari 🐉
[image]
You click on the image preview, waiting for the full thing to load.
He's in the gym bathroom. That obscene private one in the basement of the building, all black tile and recessed lighting that he probably picked specifically for this exact purpose. Shirtless. Pale hair damp and pushed back from the sharp angles of his face. One arm braced against the counter, the other angled up to hold the phone. His head is tipped slightly, that flat, bored expression he wears when he's hunting your attention and pretending he isn't.
The lighting catches every single line of him. The lean, wiry musculature he works obsessively to maintain, the cut of his hipbones disappearing into low-slung shorts, the platinum at his nipple, and, lastly, the faint sheen of sweat still clinging to his sternum. Four silver hoops in his left ear glint, his full mouth parted. A glimpse of the dragon's tail is just visible, curling over his hipbone where the back tattoo crests.
"You vain, conceited bastard."
He's beautiful. He's outrageously beautiful, and he knows it, and that’s exactly why he’s never going to hear it from you. Still, you can’t help but drink the lines of him in, heat curling low in your belly, a laugh still caught in your throat.
The caption, when it comes, is one word.
well?
You roll your eyes, humming under your breath. Unbelievable. Annoying. You let the phone fall face down on the cushion, getting comfortable again.
You go back to Demons.
Aerion gets home an hour and twenty minutes later.
You hear the elevator chime, the soft hiss of the door, and then the particular cadence of his bare feet on marble. Aerion never wears shoes in his own home, finds it gauche, a peasant's habit, sweetheart, only idiots wear shoes indoors.
You don't look up as he enters, turning another page instead. A hum builds in your throat at one of his marginalia (Tikhon is the only honest man in this novel, and Dostoevsky knew it), and you feel, more than see, the moment Aerion registers what you're wearing.
The pause is small. A fraction of a beat. He covers it almost instantly, but you catch it.
"Oh, fuck off," he says pleasantly, dropping his gym bag beside the door. "Really. The shirt? And the book? You're being deliberate."
You make a vague, distracted sound, finger tracing another note he’s made.
"You've left no note unstruck. The little tableau of it, look at her, positively domestic—" He's coming closer, voice dripping with that mean, lilting drawl. "Tell me, did you set this up before or after I sent the photo?"
"Before."
"Liar."
You turn another page. "I was already wearing it. I'm always wearing it."
"Yes," he says, and his voice has gone darker, lower, the performance briefly slipping. "I know."
You finally look up.
He's leaned against the back of the couch behind you, both hands braced on the leather, peering down at you upside-down. You have to be careful, immediately, not to let him see what your face does at the sight of him.
Aerion hasn't showered.
The shirt he pulled on after the gym is loose and unbuttoned, hanging open down his chest, and you can see the gleam still catching at his collarbones, the faint sheen down his sternum. Clean sweat, cooled now, the smell of him filtered by the elevator ride into something concentrated and warm. Beneath the warmth of his skin lingers the faint cigarette he definitely smoked in the parking garage on the way up.
There's still a vein up the side of his bicep where the pump from his last set hasn't fully dropped. The dragon's wing is half-visible where the shirt has fallen open, the ink across his skin stark and detailed, scales catching the light. The piercing glints. He's wearing his rings—the heavy platinum Targaryen signet, the cluster of thinner bands on his middle finger—and the hoops in his ear gleam.
His hair has dried slightly damp at the temples, and he’s so unbelievably hot you could choke on it.
You arrange your face into perfect blankness instead.
"What are you reading?" he asks, though he already knows.
"Your annotations sound like the ramblings of a madman,” you inform him graciously. “I hope you know that."
"My annotations are analytical."
You snort. "You wrote self-pitying next to Stavrogin and then immediately walked it back."
"He is self-pitying."
You tip your head back, pitching your voice to match his. "And yet—"
"Shut up." His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't quote me at myself. It's beneath you."
"Is it?" you pose.
You tilt your head back further against the couch cushion to look at him properly. Upside-down, Aerion’s features look even sharper. The devastating cut of his jaw, the strong line of his nose, the pale lashes lowered. His eyes look almost lavender in this light, washed pale, gazing down at you with an expression that’s half-irritation, half something he would rather die than name.
"You didn't text me back," he remarks casually.
You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing at the disgruntlement you hear simmering beneath the faux casual statement.
"You sent me a thirst trap," you say flatly.
"I sent you a photograph."
"Of yourself. Shirtless. Flexing."
"I was checking my form," he says, with the magnificent affront of someone who absolutely was not, in fact, doing that.
"You wrote the caption well?" you remind him.
Aerion’s eyes flash, mouth twisting sourly. "That was… a separate enquiry," he insists, irked.
"Into what, exactly?"
"Your aesthetic opinions, sweetheart,” he drawls dryly. “I have a body, and you, allegedly, have taste, and the two intersect at—"
You hum. "Aesthetic opinions. Right, right."
"Yes."
"On your form."
"Yes."
You smile slowly, all teeth. You watch Aerion’s pupils widen at it—the involuntary little dilation, gone before he can mask it—and feel, low and warm in your stomach, the answering pull of yes, there you are, hello, pretty dragon.
He registers the smile, registers what it means, and his mouth tightens.
Aerion drops his head and bites your jaw.
Just sinks his teeth in, no playfulness in it. His teeth find you just below the curve of bone, where the skin is thin, with enough pressure that you feel the warning in it. A small, vicious nip designed to make you make a sound.
He's been annoyed for an hour and twenty minutes. He went to the gym, worked out, rode up in his own elevator, let himself in, and found you wearing his shirt, reading his book, still not giving him what he wants. The bite is the smallest, pettiest way to communicate as much. You can smell him properly from this angle. The salt of his sweat, the warm damp of his hair, the faint cologne underneath that's gone hours-old and tacky.
You don't react.
You let him bite, let Aerion hold there, jaw locked, his breath hot and moist against your skin. You let the silence stretch between you.
Then you turn your head lazily and press a single, light peck to his cheek.
You feel him seethe.
It's a tiny, beautiful thing, really. The way Aerion’s whole body goes rigid against the back of the couch, his teeth releasing with an audible click. He makes a soft, furious sound in his throat that’s nearly a hiss.
"Are you fucking serious?" he demands.
You shrug against the cushion, stretching your toes out with a wiggle. Readjusting your weight, you turn another page of the book.
Aerion’s hand catches your jaw.
He comes around the couch in one motion, fast, his fingers closing around your face. Thumb under your chin, fingers spread along your cheek, gripping with the kind of pressure that says look at me right now as he tips your face up and kisses you.
Properly, this time.
Aerion’s mouth is hot and slick against yours. It always is. Kissing him is like kissing an open flame. His tongue slips into your mouth before you've finished registering the intrusion.
He tastes like whatever gum he chewed earlier, and underneath, Aerion tastes like him, that particular warm-skin-and-cigarettes thing that lives on his tongue. He kisses you like he's making a point. He kisses you with his hand still gripping your jaw, holding you exactly where he wants you. You let him for two full seconds, let him have the satisfaction of taking it, and then you bite his bottom lip.
He hisses, but he doesn't pull back.
"There," he mutters against your mouth, lips dragging on yours when he speaks. "That's better. Stop patronising me."
You lick at his bottom lip, and he chases the sensation, leaning closer. "You bit me."
"You deserved it."
You snort despite yourself. "Are you five?"
"Don't peck me on the cheek like I'm your fucking grandmother, you absolute —"
You drag your mouth, slow, off his.
Down. Along the line of his jaw. Past his ear—you feel him tense, the curse caught on his tongue, his hand still locked on your face—to the side of his throat where the vein is. Where the sweat is. You set your tongue against his pulse point and lick, leisurely, a flat wet stripe up the side of his neck. You taste the salt of him. The clean musk under it. The metallic edge of the chain at his throat, where the links lie cold against hot skin.
Aerion sucks in a deep breath.
"Christ, you—"
You pull back, meeting his eyes. They’re glazed, lavender almost gone now, and you lean closer at an angle and spit in his mouth.
You've still got the salt of his sweat on your tongue, and you push it past his parted lips with your own, the wet of it landing and making him go completely still.
A whole beat passes as you stare at each other. You see Aerion’s pupils blow even as a sneer twists his mouth.
"Oh," he breathes. "Oh, you—"
You smile innocently. "Yes?"
"Did you just—"
"Did I what?" you question lightly. “Use your words, baby.”
"Did you just lick the sweat off my skin—"
"And spat in your mouth, yes." You smile at him, blinking innocently. “Do keep up, dear.”
"—and spat it back into me—"
"Yes, naturally."
His grip on your face has gone slack. He looks, for a beat, like he's been clubbed across the head—eyes wide, mouth slightly open, throat working—and you can feel the heat rolling off him in waves now, can see the colour rising up Aerion’s neck above the open collar of his shirt.
"You absolute minx," he says, his voice dropping two registers, and his hips press forward into the couch behind you, fully hard now, the line of him visible through the thin shorts. "You filthy—you think you can just—"
You smirk at his indignation. "You liked it."
"I hated it."
"That’s not very convincing," you note gently, poking his cheek.
"Disgusting. Actually. Disgusting, I'm going to have to—"
He swallows.
You watch it happen. You watch Aerion’s throat move, deliberately, swallow the spit down, eyes still locked on yours, and his hand hasn’t left your jaw, his other hand coming up to brace on the couch beside your head. He swallows everything you gave him, and his lashes flutter. Flutter. Just briefly. The smallest tell.
"Hated it, huh?" you echo mildly.
"Shut up."
Your grin widens. "You swallowed."
"Shut. Up."
"You're going to let me come here—"
"Come where?"
You hook your finger into the open collar of his shirt and pull.
He comes.
Not easily because Aerion never comes easily, never gives you the satisfaction of obedience without a fight. But he lets himself be drawn forward over the back of the couch, his hands sliding down to brace on the cushion on either side of you, his face dipping toward yours. He stops, his mouth a breath from yours.
"You're being," he murmurs darkly, "insufferable."
You roll your eyes. "You're the one who sent—"
"I sent a picture—"
"Of your abs—"
"—of my form, you obscene little—"
You kiss him.
Aerion makes a sound against your mouth that’s half-laugh, half-snarl, and his hand fists in the back of your hair, tilting your head where he wants it. You bite his bottom lip again. Harder this time, and he bites you back, harder still, making you taste copper faintly. He's nicked the inside of your lip with his canine, and you feel him smile against your mouth when he tastes it too.
"Wolf," he murmurs, low and pleased. "I feared you’d gone all docile on me."
A snarl builds in your throat. "Shut your mouth."
"Make me."
You pull him over you.
He goes. Laughing now, properly, that rare, ugly, delighted laugh that only comes out when you've genuinely surprised him. Aerion lands half on top of you, one knee braced on the cushion, one hand catching himself against the leather beside your head. The book falls. Neither of you cares. He's radiating heat through the thin shirt. Gym-warm, sweat-warm, the smell of him concentrated now where his open collar has fallen against your face. Underneath everything, he smells like himself, that particular skin-scent that you'd know with your eyes closed in a dark room.
He braces over you. His pale hair shines in the light, a single bead of sweat caught at his temple.
"On your back already," he observes smugly. "Predictable."
You kick him. "You're on me."
"You pulled me," he sniffs.
"You came."
"I fell."
Snorting, you shove your hand up under his shirt. Your palm goes flat against his stomach, the muscle there tightening immediately at the coolness of your skin against his hot one. You drag it slowly upward. Over his ribs, the platinum bar at his nipple, up to splay flat across his chest. Aerion’s skin is faintly damp under your hand, heart hammering. He hates that you can feel it. You watch him decide whether to bite at you about it and see him, for once, choose not to.
You push the shirt off one shoulder. Slowly. The hem snags on his elbow where it's braced beside your head.
"Show me, then," you say. "Your form."
His eyes go dark.
"Greedy thing," he murmurs, and his voice has dropped into that register you only get in this room, in this apartment, in the moments when his performance starts to crack. "Insatiable. You'd think I never gave you anything."
"You give me almost nothing," you remark dryly.
"I gave you my shirt."
The bastard even manages to sound magnanimous about it. You almost kick him again.
"I stole your shirt," you say flatly.
"I gave you the key to my apartment. Ungrateful—"
He pushes himself back. Just enough to drag the open shirt off entirely, tossing it somewhere over the back of the couch, and then he's bare-chested above you, and the dragon's tail curves around his ribs, and you can see every line of him. The lean lines of him, the indent of his hipbones, a trail of pale silver hair below his navel disappearing into his shorts, the pink of his nipples and the platinum bar through the left one.
He sees you looking. Aerion’s grin tips into a slow, lazy thing, feline at the edges.
"Now she looks."
You roll your eyes.
"Aesthetic opinions, sweetheart?" he questions, tipping his head slightly to one side.
You extend your hand. "Get back here."
"No." He huffs, bracing his arm on the couch. "Look properly. You wouldn't text me back. Suffer a little."
You drag your fingertip down the centre of his chest. Purposefully. Through the faint damp of his sweat, between his pectorals, down the ridge of his sternum, over each rib. Aerion goes still above you. His abs flutter when you drag your nail across them, just barely.
"You're disgusting," you conclude pleasantly.
Aerion bares his teeth, but you hear the shallow pitch of his breathing. "You licked me."
"Tasted like gym equipment," you say ruefully.
"You liked that.” He presses into your hand, his skin burning and damp beneath your palm. “You spat it into my—"
You arch into him. "Aerion."
He drops his head to your throat.
His mouth opens against the skin under your jaw, hot and wet, tongue dragging slowly across your pulse before his teeth close. Light at first, testing. Then harder, harder, until you suck in a breath and Aerion hums against your throat like a man who's eaten well.
He sucks a mark there. The pressure of it is obscene, the wet drag of his tongue working the skin between his teeth, and you feel the bruise rising under his mouth and know it'll be on display tomorrow and know, distantly, that this is the entire point. He moves down. The hollow of your throat, the dip at the base where he likes to bite. Your collarbone. His tongue traces the bone, then his teeth, and you feel him laugh quietly against your skin when you arch into it.
"Mine," he murmurs against your throat, but petulantly, possessively, the way a child claims a toy. "Pretty. Stupidly pretty. You think I sent you that picture for fun?"
“For attention.” You huff. “Because you’re so damn vain.”
"For yours." His mouth moves to your other collarbone, teeth scraping, lapping at the skin greedily. "Hate that you make me work for it. Hate it. I should be bored of you by now. Should've moved on. It's been—" He bites down. "—months."
"Are you?" you breathe, arching into the sensation.
He bites the bone. Hard. You hiss, and his hips press down, and you feel him through his shorts, hot and hard against your inner thigh. His breath stutters against your skin like he wasn't expecting his own response.
"No," he hisses, like it's been wrung out of him. "Obviously not. Look at you. Look at the—"
His hand finds the hem of the shirt. Pushes it up. Stops dead in his tracks when he sees nothing beneath.
"Oh," he says, so quietly you barely hear it. "Oh, you absolute creature."
"I told you. I was already wearing it."
"You were not wearing anything under it."
Your lips twitch, and you fail to hold back your grin. "No."
"All afternoon?” Aerion hisses. “On my couch? Reading my Dostoevsky?"
"Obviously."
He drops his forehead against your sternum and laughs. Low, wrecked, almost helpless. You feel the laugh move through his whole body. When Aerion lifts his head, his eyes are bright in a way you don't get to see often, that brief crack in the cruelty where the obsession leaks through.
"You'll be the fucking death of me," he declares.
You hum. "Probably."
"Don't sound so pleased about it."
He pushes the shirt up slowly. Inch by inch. Drags the hem up over your stomach, ribs, the underswell of your breasts, like he's unwrapping a present. He doesn't take it off. He just bunches it up under your collarbones and looks. His mouth parts slightly. His hand splays wide across your stomach, thumb dragging slowly across the soft skin, and you watch Aerion’s eyes track over you with the unbearable, greedy attention of a man who is, despite everything, still surprised every time.
"Greedy," he mumbles, and he isn't talking about you this time.
He doesn't go for your breasts first. He drags two fingers slowly down the centre of your stomach, then back up the side of your ribs, mapping. His knuckles brush the underside of your breast. Pull away. Come back. He's making you wait.
"Aerion—"
"Patience."
"Aerion."
"You made me wait an hour and twenty minutes," he murmurs spitefully, watching his own hand move across your skin. "I checked. You opened the photograph right away. You read it for—" his thumb drags across your nipple, lightly, just once, and you arch, making him smile "—the seventeen seconds it takes to commit it to memory. Then you put your phone down. You went back to my book. You didn't text. You didn't even—"
"Fuck—"
"—send a single emoji. Insulting."
His slick mouth closes around your nipple.
You suck in a breath so hard your throat hurts. Aerion’s tongue is hot and unhurried, the curve of his teeth an excruciating tease, while his other hand comes up to cup your other breast. His thumb drags across the peak, rough and testing, while he sucks slow and dirty at the first. Aerion takes his time. He sucks until you feel the heat building, until you're squirming under him, and then he switches, mouth on the other one, and the cold of his saliva on the first against the air makes you shudder. He works the second nipple harder. Tongue flat. Teeth scraping. He pulls off with an obscene wet sound and looks down at the slick peak of you, glistening, and exhales hot air across it just to watch you twitch.
"Aerion."
"Look at you," he rasps, low and pleased. "Sensitive little—"
"Will you stop?"
"Stop what, wolf, you're—" he licks, greedily, just the one stripe. "—gorgeous, stop complaining—"
His hair brushes your skin. The piercing scrapes against your ribs as he works lower, then back up. You drag your fingers up into his hair—damp at the roots, soft at the ends—and tug. Aerion makes a small, wounded sound against your breast and bites you in retaliation. Your hand slides down the back of his neck, across the top of his shoulder, and you feel the raised edge of ink there where the dragon's wing crests over his shoulder blade. You trace it. Lightly, gently, ever so carefully. You feel Aerion shiver.
"Remember," he murmurs, lifting his head just enough to speak, mouth still wet, eyes hooded, consuming, "the night of the gala. Last month. You came home in that black thing, the silk—"
You almost hit him because you know exactly what he’s doing.
Your mouth parts, and you gasp, "I remember."
"You let me put my hand under it in the elevator."
"I did—"
"Your thigh." His teeth find your other nipple. His whole body presses into you, slick and burning above you, all encompassing. "Slick already. By the time we got upstairs, you were dripping for me. Down your leg. Onto my hand. Begging for it before I'd even—"
"I wasn't begging."
"You were. Don't lie to me. You said Aerion, please against my mouth. I have that shit memorised. I think about it in traffic. I had to—" he sucks, hard and mean, then drags his teeth slowly over the peak "—pull off the freeway last Tuesday because of it."
"That’s disgusting," you choke out, nails sunk into his back.
"Wasn’t disgusting when I bent you over the kitchen counter. Remember that part? Pulled the silk up around your waist. You weren't wearing anything underneath that one either, you absolute—" Aerion bites the underside of your breath, and you jerk, gasping. "Came on my fingers before I even got my mouth on you. Twice. You soaked the marble, sweetheart. Wouldn't even let me touch myself, just sat me on the floor and rode my face until I—"
"Aerion—"
"—couldn't breathe—"
"Stop—"
"—made me come in my own hand without you even looking at me—" His voice cracks open completely now, strangled and frayed at the edges. "Made me wipe it on the kitchen floor like a fucking animal—"
"Aerion."
"—which makes me wonder," he goes on, lifting his head fully now, eyes wicked and dark, "if you'd be that wet for me right now or if I'm going to have to—"
You shove him.
He careens backwards, startled, laughing. Back into the couch cushions, and you climb him, hands flat to his chest, and slide down his body. His shirt, your shirt, has fallen back down around your hips and bunches obscenely at your waist. His shorts are loose. You can see, clearly, how hard he is through the thin fabric, a wet patch already darkening the front of them. Aerion’s face when you look up at him from between his thighs is gorgeous. Flushed high on the cheekbones, mouth bitten red, hair an absolute mess, sweat starting to gather at his temple again from the heat of you both.
"Don’t you dare," he snaps, but you know he doesn’t mean it.
“What’s wrong, dragon?” you wonder innocently, one finger tracing his thigh. “Afraid you can’t hold out the way I did?”
His head falls back against the cushion as you slide your hand up his thigh. "Fuck."
You don't pull his shorts down right away. Just like he didn’t put his mouth on you right away. You drag your palm over the front of them, noting the heat of him through the thin fabric, the wet patch where he's leaking through. He twitches. Aerion’s hand fists into the cushion at the slip. You drag your knuckles up the length of him leisurely, watching his abs flutter. Elegant line of Aerion’s throat work, and his hips press up into your hand without his permission.
You turn your head and bite the inside of his thigh.
He makes a sound.
You set your tongue against the spot. Suck. Just enough to bruise, to claim. You feel his thigh trembling under your mouth, the muscle still warm and tight from his workout, and you lift your head and look up at him. He's watching. He's gone half-undone with it. Head tipped back against the cushion, throat exposed, the chain at his neck catching the light, lashes lowered.
"Greedy," you echo softly. “Such a greedy dragon.”
He snarls under his breath.
"You're so wet, Aerion." You put your mouth to the bite, lick it, then kiss it gently, speaking into the skin. “So hard for me, baby.”
"Quiet."
"For what? Just a photo? Did you think about me touching myself to your little photo, baby, is that it? You're dripping through your—"
His hand tangles in your hair, "Shut up."
You laugh under your breath, hooking your fingers in the waistband to pull them down slowly. Aerion’s cock springs free, flushed pink and hard, the head wet and shining. You wrap your hand around the base of him and watch Aerion’s head fall back against the leather. His abs are tightening rhythmically with every breath as he fights for control. The dragon tattoo across his back bunches where his shoulders are pressed into the leather, his throat working.
His hand leaves your ahir to fist into the cushions like he doesn't trust himself to put them on you yet.
You lower your mouth.
Not to take him in. You’re not that nice. You drag your tongue up the length of him from base to tip first. Once. Aerion shudders. You do it again—slower this time, flat tongue, the whole length of him from root to head—and he hisses something through his teeth. You circle the head playfully with your tongue, then again. You taste the salt of him, the faint bitterness of him, lick it clean and watch fresh wetness bead at the slit almost immediately. You lean down and lick that, too, kissing it. He twitches, throbbing insistently in your palm. The whole length of him jumps.
"Christ, you absolute—"
You hum, swiling your tongue around the wet, pulsing length of him.
"Take me. Properly. Stop—"
"You said patience," you remind him evenly.
"You fucking—"
You take just the head into your mouth. Suck softly. Swirl your tongue around the slit again, gathering the precum beading there. Pull off with a wet pop, and a string of saliva connects your bottom lip to him for a beat before it breaks. Aerion makes a noise like he's been gut-punched, and his hand finally flies up to your hair, gripping, not pulling, just holding on for stability.
"Please," he rasps, and immediately catches himself: "—fuck. Don't tell anyone I said that."
You smirk.
You take him deeper this time. Slower. An inch at a time, and you watch Aerion’s face, you watch his eyes lose focus, you watch his mouth fall open. His hand tightens in your hair. You take him almost to the back of your throat and pull off, slow, dragging your tongue along the underside. A sound escapes him that he absolutely would kill someone for overhearing, high and keening.
You set the rhythm. Slow first, mean, the kind of pace designed to make him beg. You hollow your cheeks, one hand sunk into the flesh of his thigh.
You drag your tongue up the underside as you pull off, and watch his stomach flutter, his head falling back. Aerion’s throat works as he tries, visibly tries, not to make any of the sounds you can feel building in his chest. You know how loud he can be, how deliciously descriptive in a way that can make you squeeze your thighs together.
You let your spit run down him, let it pool at the base, slick and obscene. You take him deep again and pull off, letting spit and precum drip down the length of him, using your hand to spread it, sliding wet through your fist, working him slowly while your tongue circles the head. His thighs tremble on either side of your shoulders.
"Fuck, fuck, your mouth, your fucking mouth—"
You suck him down, going as far as you can, and stay there. Hold. Swallow around him, throat working tight around the head, and Aerion’s hips jerk up involuntarily, choking you for a breath. You let him. Your throat eases around the throbbing hardness, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. The wet of your spit runs down your chin, and Aerion makes a strangled sound.
"Sweetheart—"
You pull off unhurriedly. Drag your tongue up, take Aerion back into your mouth, sucking lightly, insistently.
You hum sympathetically, mockingly, as the taste of him burns on your tongue.
"Fuck—don't you dare—"
But you do dare.
You take him all the way down one last time. You set a rhythm now, fast, dirty, your hand working what you can't fit, and you can feel it in him. The way Aerion’s thighs are starting to lock, the way his stomach is trembling, his hand gone vice-tight in your hair.
"Fuck, fuck, I'm—fuck, I'm going to—"
He comes with a sound that’s almost a laugh but mostly a curse. Entirely undone. His body goes taut beneath you, fingers tight in your hair. You hold him through it. You wait. Feel him pulse against your tongue, hot and thick, salt-bitter, filling your mouth in pulses. You wait for him to finish, wait patiently for the last twitch. His fingers loosen from your hair, and Aerion’s head falls back, his eyes closed. He’s gone. There’s a split second of complete peace on his face, his mind having gone somewhere far away.
Then, eyes locked on his when he finally cracks them open to look down at you, you lift your head, mouth still full, and let his cum drip off your tongue.
Down his length.
A long, white string of it, sliding crudely over the head and down his shaft, and Aerion’s eyes go wide.
You smear it with your thumb. Spread it. Make a show of it. Work it slowly down the length of him, slick and pearly, watching Aerion’s expression crack through a hundred emotions.
"What," he begins hoarsely, "are you doing?"
"Helping."
There’s a pleasant rasp in your voice from him hitting the back of your throat, and you smile when Aerion’s breath hitches slightly.
You see him puzzling out the word. "Helping."
You stroke him gently, your fingers slick and dripping, eyeing his hips twitch involuntarily. He's still half-hard, fluttering with aftershocks, and going to be hard again very fast at this rate. "In case you can't get me wet enough on your own, baby."
There’s a beat of utter silence.
Then Aerion lunges.
He hauls you up—roughly, hand around your wrist, the other in your hair—and flips you face-down into the couch cushions in one motion. You're laughing, practically cackling, half-muffled into the leather, as he yanks the shirt up over your hips and shoves your knees apart with his own. The leather is warm where he was sprawled across it; you can feel the body heat soaked into the cushion against your stomach.
"Get me wet enough," he spits, low and venomous, mouth at your ear from behind. "You insolent—"
You’re still laughing, muffled. "You came in thirty seconds—"
"I came in two minutes—"
"It was thirty—"
His hand closes around your throat.
A warning, a brand, the cold press of his rings against your pulse where they're still warm from his own skin. He drags you back up against his chest, your spine to his sternum, the dragon's wing somewhere behind you against your shoulder blades, and he holds you there. You can feel the sweat on him now properly—fresher, the heat of exertion not the gym anymore, the slick of his stomach against the small of your back.
"Behave, wolf," he murmurs against your ear.
"Make me," you mock.
His other hand slides between your legs.
Aerion hisses softly against your neck. You're already wet. You've been wet since the photograph. He drags two fingers through your folds, gathering evidence, and then he pushes them inside you, and your knees give a little against the cushion. His grip on your throat tightens by a fraction. Not cutting off your air, just holding. Claiming.
"Pretty liar," he whispers viciously. "I didn't have to do anything. You’re ready. Look at this—listen to it—" He works his fingers mercilessly, and the sound is lewd, wet and slick, and you can feel yourself dripping down his wrist. "Soaking my hand. Down to my elbow in a minute. Pretending you needed me to—"
You moan, the sound caught in your windpipe, your hips pressing forward for more friction.
"Greedy thing,” Aerion hisses into your nape. “Pretty greedy thing. Couldn't even let me catch my fucking breath—"
He pulls his fingers out. He drags them up, glossy and wet, across your stomach, your ribs. He brings them to your mouth and pushes them past your lips, and you suck, and he makes a sound against your neck that’s genuine hunger.
"There," he breathes out softly, mockingly. "Taste it. Taste how wet you are for—"
"Aerion."
"—a man you claim is insufferable—"
"You are."
You feel his smirk against your skin when he mocks lowly, "And yet."
He pushes inside you in one slow, mean stroke, hand braced on your hip.
You both make sounds as he sinks in. You feel the ridiculous, absurd intimacy of him—the heat, the stretch of him slick with the cum you spread on him with your mouth—and his hand flexes around your throat. He holds very still inside you and breathes, breathes, like a man trying to talk himself out of something foolish.
"Look at you," Aerion drawls, and you hear the naked pleasure in his voice, can feel his burning stare along your body. "Bent over my couch in my shirt. Reading my book. Took my come out of your mouth and put it back on me like you were doing me a favour—"
He starts to move.
He never goes slow when he wants you like this, when the dragon-thing in him has slipped its leash. He fucks you hard. Hand at your throat, other hand braced on your hip, fingers digging in with every thrust. You brace yourself against the back of the couch and let your spine arch, listening to the obscene wet sound of it and the bitten-off curses he's mumbling into your hair. His chest is slick against your back. The chain at his neck is hot now, dragging across your shoulder blade with each thrust.
"Mine," he's saying, mostly to himself. "Mine. Pretty mine. Pretty greedy mine. Look at—look at how you take me. You'd let anyone watch you like this, wouldn't you, wolf? You'd let me film you—"
You moan at the visual, clenching around him so hard Aerion snarls against your ear. "Aerion, harder—"
His thrusts turn bruising, and you melt into him, into the feeling, your walls gripping him close, clenching tighter, tighter.
"You're close," Aerion breathes into your ear knowingly.
"Yes, yes—"
"Not yet," he breathes sharply.
He pulls out.
You let out a snarl of genuine fury, and Aerion laughs—wrecked, breathless, the laugh of a man who's enjoying himself far too much—and flips you onto your back, pulling you up into his lap in one motion. Your knees settle on either side of his hips, his hands at your waist, his cock notching back inside you before you've finished registering the absence.
"There," he murmurs, mouth at your jaw, the same place he bit you earlier. You can feel him press his lips against the bruise. "Better. Wanted to see your face."
"Fuck you, I was about to—"
"I know, I felt it, I'm not charitable—"
What he said a moment ago registers fully in your pleasure-addled brain, and your eyes narrow. "Wait. Did you just say you wanted to see my face?"
He rolls his eyes. "Did I?" he poses dismissively.
You catch his face in your hands.
Aerion goes still. Looks at you. His eyes are dark despite their paleness, hungry and lidded. There's colour high on his cheekbones, and his hair is a disaster. The proud curve of his mouth is swollen from being bitten, and there's still a faint wet shine on his throat where you licked him. He is, in this moment, the most undone you’ve ever seen him. You stare at him, and you say, quietly:
"You missed my pretty face?"
His hand cracks down on your ass.
You yelp, laughing, and he grins at you, full and mean and absolutely delighted, grabbing your jaw between his thumb and forefinger.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," he says dismissively. "Wanna suck your pretty tits, actually."
But you're both laughing. Properly, stupidly. He's still inside you, and you're laughing into each other's mouths. Aerion’s hand slides up to cup your breast, and his mouth drops to the other one, and he's working you, slow now, the rhythm changing—deep, grinding, the angle suddenly exactly right to hit that one spot inside you—and you feel it building again, faster this time, helpless.
You feel his rings against your nape, quiet, panting breaths escaping you. A whine working up your throat as he ruts into you. "Aerion—"
He hums at the need he hears in your voice, pulling you flush to him, burning somewhere in the middle.
"Aerion, please, I need—"
"I know," he murmurs around your nipple, and you can feel the smile against your skin, "yes, sweetheart, I know what you need, let go for me, wolf—"
The coil inside your belly snaps. You come clutching him.
Both arms around his neck. Face buried in his hair. Body locking, shaking. Aerion fucks you through it, slower, his hands splayed wide across your back, clutching you, and you feel him follow a moment later. Quiet this time, no theatrics, just a starved, broken sound into your shoulder, his whole body shuddering and stilling.
For a while, neither of you moves.
Aerion’s heart hammers against your sternum. His hair is damp with sweat at the nape. You can feel the platinum of his piercing pressed against your ribs and the heat of him everywhere else. His arms are wound around your waist in that tight, possessive way that says don't move, don't go anywhere, stay.
You lift your head, eventually. To look at him.
He's already gazing at you. No smirk, not posing, gazing, with that rare, naked expression you only get for half-seconds before he remembers himself and smothers it. His full mouth is slightly open, eyes gone soft at the edges.
"What?" you mumble.
Aerion blinks, his mouth twitching. He doesn't smother it this time—too tired, maybe, or too undone—and just keeps looking at you.
"Why were you reading my book?" he asks suddenly.
You shift in his lap. He's still inside you, going soft, and your body aches pleasantly. Your forehead is against his. His hand come up to cradle the back of your skull, fingers in your hair, and his thumb is moving along the curve of your jaw.
"You annotate everything," you say vaguely.
"I know I do."
"In three languages."
His brows twitch. "I know."
"In ink so cramped, half of it's barely legible."
"Get to the fucking point, sweetheart."
You breathe out, let yourself look at him, let yourself say it. "I wanted to know how you see the world."
He goes rigid underneath you.
"I read your margins because… that's where you actually are. The real you. The book you're arguing with. The lines you double-underline. What you cross out and rewrite. The places where you've gone back years later in different ink and answered yourself." You shrug, a tiny movement, against him. "It's the closest you let me get without making me work for it."
There's a long beat where Aerion doesn't say anything at all. His thumb has stopped moving on your jaw. He's just looking at you, lavender-pale in the late afternoon light, mouth slightly open.
His arms tighten around you, hauling you flush against his chest so suddenly a breath escapes you. He drops his face into the curve of your neck. He breathes there. You feel him breathing. A ragged thing, the kind of breath a person takes when they’re trying very hard not to let anything else show on their face.
You stroke his hair.
When Aerion speaks again, his voice is hushed, mouth against your throat. You can feel the words form against your pulse before you hear them.
"You can't do that," he says.
"Do what?" you question quietly.
"That.” It’s practically a snarl. “Say things like that to me."
"Why?"
"Because." You feel his throat move against your collarbone. "I can't—you can't say things like that and then leave."
There’s a pinch deep inside your chest, and your fingers tighten in his hair. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Ever." Aerion’s arms have gone so tight his hold is almost painful, and his voice muffles into your skin. "I mean ever. If you say things like that to me, I'm going to—fuck— I’m not built to—"
You soften because he can’t see your face, and it’s easier to be open like this. "Aerion."
"—let go. Of you. I'm not going to. You understand that. You understand it, don't you? Ever."
"I do."
"I'm telling you. I'm telling you now." He lifts his head, and there’s predator’s grace in the movement. "If you stay, then I’ll burn down anything you ask me to. I will buy us a country. I’ll set my name on fire. But I’m not going to—"
"I know," you tell him quietly.
"—let anyone near you, do you—"
You cup his face in your hands again. "I know, Aerion."
His eyes are burning, lit up from inside. "—and if you ever—if you ever decided to—"
"I'm not."
"Ever?"
"Ever."
He stares at you, searches your face the way he reads. Annotating. Underlining. Cross-referencing in three languages against everything he already knows about you and him, and you two together.
Then he kisses you.
No teeth, no performance, no game. His hand comes up to cup the back of your head, and his mouth moves against yours like he's memorising it, and against your lips, half-mumbled, almost reverent now where before it had been petulant:
"Mine."
But it's different this time. It isn't the dragon claiming a coin. It isn't pretty mine or greedy mine or any of the small possessive cruelties he's been muttering all afternoon. It's quieter than that. Lower. It sounds like kept. It sounds like known. It sounds like a thing a man says when he has just understood that he will not, in any version of his life going forward, be the one to walk away.
You hum, the word closing around your heart like a fist.
"Yours," you agree softly against his mouth.
"Mine," Aerion says again, into your mouth, into your jaw, into the soft skin under your ear. "Mine. Mine. Mine."
His arms don't loosen.
He keeps his face buried in your throat and doesn’t let go once.
You stroke his hair, and Aerion doesn't tell you to stop.
pairing: daeron targaryen x fem!blackfyre!dragondreamer!reader
synopsis: when king daeron ii arranges a marriage between the concerningly lost eldest son of maekar targaryen, and the eldest daughter of daemon ‘the pretender’ blackfyre, the gods celebrate as the union they’ve been awaiting for finally takes place.
tags: yearner!daeron, drunk-in-love!daeron, soulmates au, mentions of violence, blood, alcohol, no mentions of y/n, asshole!aerion, father-figure!baelor, i can fix him trope, no description of reader other than hair, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, reader is grieving, SMUT MDNI 18+, penetration, p in v, switch!reader, switch!daeron, pathetic!daeron, slight praise kink, virgin/inexperienced!reader, daeron talks you through it, sloppy makeout, ejaculating inside.
word count: 10.5k
based on this request. gif credits to rightful owner. [inbox/requests: open]
a/n: you guys don't understand how many versions of this fic existed before this becoming the final one. sorry for taking so long, let me know your thoughts and whether the story has mini-fic potential or not :') likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated. english isn’t my first language. <3
You walked through what looked like the Red Keep. Oh, how you missed all of it. Someone would call you entitled, some Targaryen loyalist perhaps, you were merely a former princess sent to exile. Daughter to the ultimate traitor. Daemon ‘The Pretender’ Blackfyre.
You wanted to soak it all in. Had the utmost desire to lay on the ground and rest your back on the marble floor of the castle. Eager to feel something you used to occasionally feel as a child whenever you’d secretly have sparring sessions with your father. Eager to see his face once more.
As you run your hands through the lines of columns the ancient building consisted of, you heard a roar. Something that you’ve only heard in your dreams. And then you knew, the Gods were taking their chances in informing you about an important matter. And having these dreams for as long as you could remember, it was never for a good reason.
No one else knew about the dreams that you’d have. Other than your father, who had now become nothing but a part of the ground you step on. You had told him in a moment of trust, and in reality, you deeply wish you hadn’t. Since your father decided to profoundly hold you to your “gift”, as he’d like to call it, and use you for it every time he needed guidance regarding his war. The rebellion he had started in hopes of claiming the Iron Throne.
You grew sick of it. So sick that you almost considered it your biggest flaw, or when feeling too miserable, your greatest curse. Along with being born to a man who seemed to have his ambitions rank higher in his priorities rather than the well-being of his wife and children.
The Gods had been cruel to you. You had been convinced of that the minute they dared to show you how your father would die. How the black dragon would fall under the red dragon’s claws. How the red dragon so mercilessly was gnawing on the insides of the black one, how two little identical dragons had been evidently waiting for the beginning of their eternal sleep, Aegon and Aemon. With the audience of all kinds of wolves and lions staying idle. Almost glaring at the black dragon, even during the peak of his downfall, as if the red dragon should feel honoured that the others didn’t have the courage to intervene.
He’s yours, make sure everyone sees what happens when they try to take our privileges. We own all of the seven kingdoms.
So after his death, you tried to bury it, the guilt of not alarming Daemon soon enough and of course, your curse. No matter how many nights you’d stay awake, the dreams would find you. Every single time. You thought it wasn’t fair. Why would the Gods put you through such torment while having caused no harm? Why had they chosen you to give this power to? Would there be a singular time where your premonitions would be beneficial to you, and not to merely inform you about the greatest misfortunes awaiting you?
You quickly realized that those questions wouldn’t be answered. At least for a long time.
Another roar. You turned your head towards the source of the sound, to observe the clear blue sky with very few clouds in it. You swallowed thickly, afraid of what you were about to witness. You had grown too aware of that roar, the last time you’d dreamt of it, was when you were watching your family get eaten alive. Is it my turn now? Was your doom officially on its way? You thought.
There it was. A red dragon, medium sized, with forest green lines etched on its skin. You thought it was beautiful. Was this what your ancestors would see with their bare eyes on a random day? Maybe you were a Valyrian afterall, in spite of all the Targaryen loyalists trying to alter the narrative.
However, there was something different about this dragon. You hadn’t seen this one before. Strangely, the feeling of warmth and comfort filled your body while your gaze raked upon the creature. And as time seemed endless, you could’ve sworn the dragon turned its gaze upon your figure.
Your breath inevitably hitched, intimidated at the dragon’s fiery eyes piercing through your skull. Even with a great distance between you two, you took a small step back, instinctively hiding behind the shadows of the castle to feel more protected.
You felt your pulse quicken. The deep burgundy red dragon approached you midair, its wings sending waves of cold air your way, making a few strands of your hair and the hem of your gown push backwards. Oddly enough, this time you took a step forward, feeling some kind of strange familiarity between you and the ancient Valyrian creature.
One beat.
At some point, you had walked to the spot where your vision was allowing you to fully witness the dragon in all of its glory. It let out another roar and flew an inch back, almost afraid of you. Your eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.
Two beats.
You raise your hand, extending your palm out to the dragon, feeling the need to showcase your care for it. The presence of the unjustified need of comforting the dragon and taming it too intense to evade. Surely, you had gone out of your mind, had you not?
Three beats.
The dragon tilted its head in evident confusion, approaching you even more, shadowing your entire figure now. You were sure you had begun shaking, not sure of what, since you were wholeheartedly in awe by the actions of one of what were called; the most violent creatures to befriend humans.
Four beats.
The dragon couldn’t possibly land inside the gardens of the Red Keep, as it would destroy everything. But the dragon ceased to move. Its wings suddenly froze forcing the creature to drop to the nearest surface. Which was inevitably the peak of the castle, the material crumbling under its weight.
Five beats.
You gasped, panicking as you approached the peak, pieces of sandstone dropping a few feet away from you. The dragon had now begun to cough, so viciously you could swear it was fatal. The dragon spared you one last glance, releasing a desperate roar from its throat, as if to propel you in assisting it.
Your breath had gotten heavier, your eyes prickling with tears feeling useless that you were just standing watching the dragon actively take its final breaths. And you realised; this happened every time. Dream or not, this is how it always worked out for you. You would get all of these premonitions the Gods giving you sacred information for you to use them to your advantage and you never did. Never had the courage to.
In reality, you always stepped back last minute, as if your throat could never release the words that needed to be said in order for you to prevent bad from happening. It’s your fault, you thought, your fault your family’s dead. Your fault that the rest of your blood is being crucified on the daily. Everything’s your fault. Everything—
You jumped up from your mattress, strands of your hair stuck on your forehead and neck caused by the sweat your body had produced. You sat up, breathing heavily, slowly processing your surroundings. Something was about to happen, you just couldn’t decipher what. And you weren’t sure if that frightened you or not.
—————————
You wanted to vomit. Truly, you did.
It had gotten to a point where you kept replaying the arrangement in your head. “The Blackfyre girl shall marry one of our own,” the Hand of the King transferred his Grace’s words to your mother, Rohanne. As her eyes filled with tears, wondering whether to deny and continue risking your life in Essos, or accept and sleep every night in hopes of giving you the life you deserve.
But then again, who was she to be able to decide so freely? Who was she to deny King Daeron’s order? The man who put a sword right through her husband’s heart for considering himself righteous to the Iron Throne?
Rohanne could not deny the realm. Could not deny its orders. So of course, she had to let Prince Baelor know that the arrangement be settled. “My Prince,” she carefully asked, feeling an unusual sense of softness from the Targaryen before her, “please wed her to someone kind. Protect her if you wish. My daughter is merely a child—“, “I do not have a say in this manner, my lady.” Baelor replied softly, a close look of sympathy laying upon her.
“My father,” he let out a sigh, finding a proper way to word his demand, “wishes to take one of your children not for unity. On the contrary, as punishment.” Rohanne laid one of her palms across her mouth muffling her sobs. Attempting at her best not to show any vulnerability to the Targaryen who played a part in butchering her family and its supporters.
“I’ve heard whispers that she is to be wed to my brother’s oldest.” the Breakspear informed her, wanting to ultimately assist the mother, broken and wrecked sitting opposite him. “Daeron is a category on his own, my lady.” he said, his lips almost pressing into a thin line at the image of his alcoholic niece slurring and stumbling around appearing in his mind.
On the contrary, Rohanne became even more terrified at the Prince’s words. As she had been expecting the worst from a line of men despising her blood. Her children and her legacy. Reminding herself that the same hate killed her two precious baby boys and her husband, Daemon I Blackfyre, ready to reign and conquer Westeros by claiming his right to the throne. As it seemed, the Gods had other plans, permitting the Targaryen dynasty to further continue with King Daeron II and his fellow allies slaughtering every Blackfyre while successfully exiling the rest to Essos.
So there she was, Rohanne of Tyrosh, speaking to Prince Baelor Targaryen, attempting to decipher whether the man meant well for her daughter, or not. Trying to understand whether the young lord was patronising her by boasting about the incidents her daughter would have to endure. The punishment for being a Blackfyre she mandatorily had to witness. However, Rohanne couldn’t seem to detect such intention from him.
She had observed Baelor during the very few days of peace and harmony among the two Valyrian houses, where he would talk to her husband like a brother would. The memory made her heart ache, in a way that she’d hoped there would be someone to protect her. To protect her little girl.
The man’s two-toned eyes slightly frowned at her expression, noticing and reminding himself that the woman is in clear distress. Sending an immediate realisation that he had been practically negotiating the betrothal of one of her children. The young Prince made a mental note to himself, to not act in such an ignorant way ever again, towards any human being. As he had been dreaming to become the fairest King since he saw the atrocities he was forced to commit a few years prior, because of his father’s command. “To protect,” King Daeron II would claim, “to take what is rightfully ours.” and just like that, those phrases his Grace would constantly mutter loudly or under his breath, would not stop echoing in the dungeons of Baelor’s mind.
Baelor swallowed softly, a worried expression etched on his face. He leveled down to Rohanne’s height, placing his palm gently on her shoulder, seemingly convincing enough to grab the sobbing mother’s attention. “My lady,” he raised his eyebrows in an attempt for her to be slightly comforted, “excuse my words. I only meant that my nephew has undutiful tendencies. He would not hurt your daughter, wouldn’t even consider it.” he told her and his gaze hardened. “I wouldn’t allow it.”
Rohanne’s eyes continued to tear up. Not necessarily because of dread. Now, it had become a feeling of both fear and relief. Fear of her daughter walking around the Targaryen’s royal court completely submitted to them. And relief, because the young Prince seemed promising. She should’ve expected this, the gentle and heart-warming aura of the King’s heir. Rohanne had noticed it long ago, just a while after being integrated into the Blackfyre family line. Maybe, just maybe, the woman had to hope for more now. Afterall, she knew her daughter was no fool.
The first-born daughter of Daemon Blackfyre and Rohanne of Tyrosh, was disciplined. Not loud or demanding,but observant and strategic. Rohanne had made sure of that. Hiring secretly Maesters—who had presented themselves as Blackfyre loyalists—that enhanced the intelligence and the political senses of her remaining children. Rohanne would make sure they would matter, that all seven kingdoms would see that her and Daemon’s blood was no usual combination. There was no other reason she was even open to hearing such a proposal from the young lord across from her.
“I hope you won’t, my Prince.” Rohanne choked out, “I hope you will not have to stain your hands with your people’s torment and blood.” she gritted through her teeth.
What neither of them knew was that the aforementioned Lady Blackfyre had been listening behind the door, with tears threatening to spill from her eyes, as she witnessed her entire future unfold right before her. Not to mention, watching her mother break down hearing such news, having not seen her be so emotional since the assassinaton of her late husband and sons.
You tried to muffle your choked out sobs of pure guilt. Your existence had brought your own pained mother here, your survival had made her negotiate your future which forced her to practically ship you away from Essos. Away from home, away from your family and\ soon marry a Targaryen and carry his babes. A Targaryen who’s a part of a lineage that destroyed yours, that demolished everything that was promised to you. And yet, this sort of life seemed better compared to the one the rest of your blood was living.
Lost in your thoughts, the Prince had departed from your small traditional Essosi apartment, and your mother was left on her own. Wiping her tear-stained cheeks, sniffling and fixing her attire. You were already guessing that she was on her way to break out the news to you. But you already knew. You already had heard. That you were to be married to a man with whom you’ve never met. That all of your dreams had been thrown out since the minute your father had been murdered, and it wasn’t going to get any better. Not for former princesses like you with a traitor’s blood running in her veins.
Or so you thought.
And therefore, here you were, days after an emotionally charged conversation with your mother took place, in your bright colored Essosi room, discussing the plans of the wedding ceremony and your arrival—or perhaps return—to Westeros, specifically at the Red Keep. Initially, you wouldn’t meet your soon-to-be husband before your wedding. The following week, you would pack your things, wear the Valyrian gown Westerosi handmaidens would specifically sew for you and get married.
Get married to Daeron Targaryen. You were told his name was. The oldest of The Anvil’s children and sons. A drunk fool who was named mad by the council because of his nonsensical comments about his dreams. Family and society deeming him as doomed that half of it was owed to his wine consumption.
With this information, you might have seen why Baelor Targaryen proclaimed your future husband as “a punishment” or that Daeron belongs “in a category of his own”. However, the Prince had also mentioned the lack of harmful behavior in his nephew. And that specific sentence of Baelor’s alone played some role of comfort in your mind. As long as he wouldn’t hurt you, or embarrass you—which essentially seems too much to ask for—you could easily settle within the Targaryen family currently conquering the Seven Kingdoms.
Your mother tried to reassure you by telling you that the feast would be a celebration in the name of the Blackfyre-Targaryen bond. The reintegration of the Blackfyres into nobility. But you weren’t sure about anything, actually. You wanted to scream and protest and yell and do whatever you could that would indicate your hatred for this wedding. The fact that you would be enforced into an eternal bond, supposedly to unite two lovers—as the sacred vow states, at least—while this was all occurring for your humiliation and to simultaneously celebrate the bend of the remaining Blackfyre line, continued to infuriate you as the day grew closer.
Your curiosity peaked and you would often find yourself, especially a few days before the wedding, asking your mother questions about your betrothed. Is he beautiful? Is he adored by the royal court? Would he be considered prepared regarding any sudden acquisitions of power? Interesting questions that you would often state to your mother and receive nothing but a shrug or a simple nonchalant answer from her.
As it was said, you were furious. You’d grown furious during all of these years of losing family, friends and allies over your father’s rebellion. You had every reason to even attempt to make political moves and present yourself strategically, as the court would also agree. As much as the capital was expecting a former princess, fragile and vulnerable, they also weren’t stupid not to expect a dragon full of fury. Hatred, metanoia and dread. Daeron II Targaryen was aware that you would do the most to see his head on a spike, but he also knew how his grandson was.
How Daeron Targaryen carried himself, mad and semi-conscious because of the alcohol overpowering his blood in his dragon body. Even before the rebellion, you were known as kind, friendly and sweet. The king knew too well about your tendencies to look after people. To take care of them even when they didn’t fully deserve it. A ladylike behavior of a princess, one would rightfully say. However, this was innate of you. Something you probably had inherited from your Tyroshi roots and your mother specifically.
The king was aware of the match he had arranged, of the benefits that would come out of it. And certainly, the strength of the bond between you would serve the realm and mostly the ongoing Targaryen dynasty.
So here you were, in your final journey to King’s Landing. Standing in what seemed a Valyrian carriage, merely alone. Your mother couldn’t be present, she wasn’t needed and the court simply didn’t want to witness the wife of the traitor and the mother of his children. On the contrary, they wanted to see her daughter, prey on her and comment on her. Enjoy the sight of Lady Blackfyre willingly getting wed to a real dragon, unlike her family, which would inevitably transform her into one too. Hosting a celebration additionally for the further elimination of pure-blooded Blackfyres.
It was only you and your handmaidens present in the carriage, occasionally listening to their chatter about the wedding they were heading to and you paying no mind to it. You had no energy or strength to utter a single word. Potentially, this could’ve been the worst day in your lifetime so far. But surely, it was one of them, since your collection of those seemed to be growing since the day your family’s name was associated with the word “rebellion”.
Westeros remained as beautiful as you had remembered it to be, with its fertile valleys inhabiting so many beautiful creatures and their offsprings, a piece of your heart was glad to be back. Since the minute you settled in Essos, hiding from danger at all times, you had made it clear with yourself that it was no place for you to live in.
You were born and almost fully raised in Westeros, mostly at Blackwater Rush. This is where you were supposed to live and grow into the beautiful woman you always aspired to be. Very similar to your own mother, she seemed like. Therefore, witnessing the raw beauty of Westeros once more almost made your eyes spill tears from the intense nostalgia clouding your brain. It was as if you never left, nothing truly changed. Maybe, just maybe, your twin brothers were missing. Young and free without a care running around the gardens of the Red Keep and the sounds of their laughter echoing around the castle.
For now, you pushed those thoughts away, seeing the Royal castle approach in your vision making the knot in your stomach tighten so intensely, you were in awe of your ability to keep breathing. Your wedding was supposed to happen in only a matter of time. Therefore, the only thing you could do was brace yourself for the teasing remarks from other noblemen and practically for your humiliation ritual.
Daeron. The name that has been circling around in your mind for days since you heard it slip past The Breakspearer’s lips. You wished, truly wished, by all the Gods, old and new, that your Daeron would be your soulmate. Someone who you could grow to love instantly and have the feelingreciprocated. Even so, that seemed very unlikely.
Or so you thought.
—————————
As you stepped out of your carriage, your ceremonial wear grew heavier with every step you took to approach the Great Sept of the Red Keep. You wanted to cry, scream, perhaps steal a blade from the nearest knight or anything sharp enough to protect yourself and leave. Escape and never be seen in the South ever again. Maybe you’d go to the North, you’d heard it’s quite cold there, mayhaps too cold for you. But you’d take anything other than this, than practically throwing all of your life away just so the Targaryen dynasty would safely continue.
But you couldn’t. You didn’t even have the energy to slightly act upon those thoughts. You merely walked towards the entrance of the sept, feeling two knights a few inches behind you. How terrible must they feel to be protecting the Blackfyre girl.
As you reached the portal of the sept, you saw an honourable presenting man. Dark curls falling on his forehead, two different shades painted on each eye of his, he turned around to look at you. And yet, you didn’t feel that he was pitying you with his gaze, it was as if he was trying to comfort you.
The corner of the man’s lips slightly lifted, giving you a small smile and extending his arm towards you. You felt a bit lucky to have him to escort you to your husband. Everyone’s gaze was about to be on you, so you were even grateful for the little things. Including the man beside you.
As you linked your arms with his, your Blackfyre cloak seeming suffocating now that you were one step away from the interior of the sept, you turned your head to observe the man. His side profile was breathtaking, visible lines of a few wrinkles accompanied by a sharp jawline and—
And then it hit you. It was Baelor Targaryen.
This was the man that tried to comfort your mother in the news of your arranged marriage by his own father. The man who insisted that he protects you whenever it is necessary. Now it all made sense. Of course the man whose heart was full of empathy had smiled at you right before walking with you towards the unexpected. Of course the same man who your father grew fond of, as you recall him expressing so, had to introduce himself to you this way. You find yourself highlighting the irony to the Gods internally, knowing there was a possibility they might actually hear your thoughts. Dragon dreamer and everything.
As your eyes started getting watery again at the realisation, you subconsciously tightened your grip around Baelor’s arm, staring ahead. And there he was.
Daeron Targaryen in all his glory.
Daeron’s eyes slightly brightened landing upon your figure. You were gorgeous, a gift that had been sent from the Gods. He had himself wondering whether he was deserving of it. However he couldn’t help but detect something familiar in you. He couldn’t exactly define what, but something made him think he was meeting you for the second time in his life, and a flicker of hope glistened in his doe starry eyes.
The first time you meet his glance, you feel a spark rush through your body. Your breath quickened and your eyes stopped to sense the need to fill with tears. Daeron was breathtakingly beautiful. You couldn’t help but notice the worn out expression on his face, your eyebrows frowning at that observation. Daeron had somewhat visible dark circles under his abyss-like eyes. Previously, wearing a look on his face that seemed to have been miserable.
Daeron uncontrollably straightened his posture, his hands tightening around each other behind his back, getting lost in your gaze, something he was sure he would constantly crave as your marriage went along.
You made your way next to him, tearing your gaze away from his, meanwhile feeling his still stuck on your face. As if he was actively trying to process how someone like you would have to put up with his situation.
Your gaze shifted from him to the Septon standing a few inches away from the both of you. The Septon judgementally observes the groom, with his sights still set on his wife, having already forgotten of his ceremonial duties.
You heard a breathy chuckle come from attendees, as you turned your head to see the source of the noise, you saw a silver-haired Targaryen wearing a smug grin on his face. Seemingly having just stopped mocking your husband. You glared daggers at the cocky Targaryen relative, which propelled him to raise his eyebrows at your reaction when his eyes found yours. Please don’t let it be one of his brothers, you swiftly wished. If that was the case, that would mean you’d have to tolerate someone like him for days on end. And right now, you were certain it wasn’t something you needed.
The Septon cleared his throat and Daeron finally let his eyes rest from painting you in the canvas of his memory with a shaky breath. You exhaled deeply and turned around, closing your eyes as you slightly flinched when the tips of his fingers made contact with your shoulders. His pupils dilated at your reaction, his assumption being proven right, you had already been scared of him. Oddly, he found himself deeply affected by it, usually behaving in a careless manner. Daeron wasn’t so sure yet if you had meant to be good for him or not, but he was sure that you would turn his life upside down.
The groom softly removed your cloak, letting it fall on the floor. The Black Dragon on it now crumpled and weak, just like you had dreamed many times. The Prince grabbed a cloak whose crimson red and ebony black colors were warmly welcomed by the sweet candlelight of the sept. An almost intimidating red dragon, a shade slightly lighter than the rest of the cloak, sewn into the middle.
You felt Daeron’s hands on your shoulders once again, now clipping the Targaryen cloak on you. Your back proudly now carries the Red Dragon who brought the doom of your family. Lost in that thought, you managed to applaud yourself internally for not breaking down right there and then.
As his hands distanced themselves away from your body, you swiftly looked around and noticed the intense silence prevailing in the sacred temple. The ritual presented itself as too powerful, almost as if the Gods were present, staring at the two of you who had been cursed with the same blessing. The union of their chosen ones.
It felt too heavy for you, everything felt too heavy. Your husband’s gaze, the Targaryen cloak, the presence of the Gods, your dream, everything was coming all at once. You turned around, your shoulder almost touching with Daeron’s and waited for the Septon to begin his speech. This is it then, you thought.
“Let it be known that Lady Blackfyre and Daeron of House Targaryen are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder.” the Septon spoke fiercely. You and Daeron turned to face each other, “With this kiss I pledge my love…” speaking in unison, “and take you for my lord and husband…” you followed as composed as you could and Daeron already thought your voice was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. “a-and take you for my lady and wife.” Daeron added, his face lifting slowly to meet your gaze.
“I declare you man and wife, one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.” the Septon finished and indicated that Daeron should proceed with the traditional gesture.
And there he was, Daeron felt all too giddy to make the move. He was feeling overwhelmingly blessed to be able to touch his lips with yours so freely. Oh how if Daemon The Pretender had won the rebellion, men would lay on your feet. And somehow, Daeron was the man capturing you like this.
He let out the quietest noise in frustration of this feeling as he leaned in close to you. With you having to raise your chin high enough to assist him. Daeron wanted to devour you, he wasn’t sure of his purpose, of his greatest desire, but now he was able to define it. Consume you one way or another. Because what he was also sure about; was the fact that he would become more addicted to you rather than wine or rum.
Daeron’s lips locked your top one between them, letting himself kiss you sweetly and have him hoping you’d feel his hidden whispers through it. You closed your eyes and started moving your lips against his, almost as if you had done so numerous times before, as if you had even kissed another person. Let alone like that.
The attendees erupted into applause as your union had officially been declared solid in the presence of the Seven Gods. As you pulled away from each other, your expression turned melancholic the minute you tasted some grape-like flavour on his lips. When you raised your face to look at Daeron, it’s like he knew that realization had hit you there and then. So he looked away with flushed cheeks and a troubled expression.
You had a long night ahead of you and this had been just the tip of the iceberg.
—————————
You and your husband had long sat at the head of one of the many tables placed across in the Great Hall of the Red Keep. It had been a few hours since you had been wed and you still hadn’t spoken a word or even turned to glance at your husband. You had been lost in your thoughts, simultaneously too aware of your surroundings, hearing another clank of a golden goblet roughly being placed on top of the wide table.
Had this been the fourth drink Daeron had downed in the span of the last few minutes? You weren’t so sure. Perhaps you’d lost count already since the faces of your twin brothers couldn’t stop appearing right before you. Looking at you all angry and bloodied.
Something snapped you out of your thoughts as someone sat on the empty seat next to you. Instinctively looking at the person responsible for the commotion and the irritating noise the chair made when it was pulled.
Oh. Of course.
The smug looking dragon who had laughed in pity at your husband earlier during the ceremony. Perfect. This is all you need right now.
Daeron had been too oblivious to realise what had occurred a few inches away from him. Replaying the view of your eyes in his mind, since you hadn’t looked at him since. And he’d survive off of the crumbs he’d had. He could ask you why that was the case, but he also couldn’t stop thinking about how easily you flinched when he lightly pressed his fingers on your shoulders. And he would hate to scare you away even more, despising living up to the reputation that named him “useless” and “a failure”.
“Lady Blackfyre.” the smug prick looked at you in mischief. With you choosing to completely ignore him, he let out a breathy chuckle, similar to the one he had let out earlier. “I see you’re not much of a talker yourself.” he commented in mockery.
“Although since I am your husband’s own brother,” he emphasized on the last word and you could feel yourself getting sicker, “I suggest we live on friendly terms. We’ll see each other quite a lot.” he saw no response from you still and leaned in close to your ear.
“It’s a shame you know,” his voice hardened, “I’ll have to put up with the whore wife of a traitorous bastard.” the Targaryen exclaimed. “I rebelled against it—against our family welcoming your blood back to our dynasty.” he hummed in fury, replaying the memory of him opposing the idea to Maekar intensely.
Your jaw tightened in fury as well, you wanted to scream; You think I want to be here?! You think I had a choice?! You remained quiet once more now staring your dead twin brothers ahead of you in the eyes, them still invading the line of your sight. “You will be the downfall of us. You will infect us, so you better not dare to—“
“Aerion.” a low voice was heard from your other side. Your husband now having abandoned his intimacy session with his drinks and glaring at the man invading your personal space. His shadow looming over you. Aerion, as you learned his name was, leaned back. Taking a few beats to shift his glare from you to his brother, his smirk now widening.
Aerion stood up, with you now being sat in between them. “Brother,” he called out to him, “I see you’re done daydreaming for the day—“, “Leave her.” Daeron growled in a low tone. Aerion let out a humourless chuckle at his older brother, almost in disbelief at this unusual behavior towards him. You had just been married and Daeron was a changed man, Aerion noted.
“Pardon me, Daeron?” his eyes blazed with growing irritation. Aerion had been commanded by his brother to leave you, making him seem smaller to the rest of the guests, something he truly despised. “Leave her, Aerion. She’s not yours to torment.” Daeron had stepped closer to him now, looking down at his face, Brightflame’s eyes had now widened in surprise.
Rarely had the Drunken dragondreamer behaved so boldly especially to his younger brother. Aerion made a mental note to himself that perhaps having you here would be better than not having you at all. At least something had manned up his brother, and had given him balls heavy enough to stand up to him.
The corners of Aerion’s mouth lifted, his gaze intently observing Daeron. “I was merely speaking to her wasn't I, brother?” his eyes move to your figure, seated perfectly still on your chair. “I am sure she can speak for herself,” he let out a humorless scoff, “the Gods granted her a tongue. Did they not-“
“Enough, nephew."
And surely, that’s what convinced you to execute the movement of turning your head towards the man whose command belonged to. The\ heir of The Iron Throne spoke fiercely, the man who made the ultimate promise to your mother that he would protect you. Any chance given.
You stared at him, almost ridiculously one would say, a glimmer of hope evident in the orbs of your eyes. Daeron had noticed, of course he has, it’d only been a couple of hours since he’s been graced by your presence for the first time and you hadn’t even bothered to look at him fully. Your starry eyed husband sensed a feeling of envy, examining the admiration you had for the man. And yet, for once more, Daeron couldn’t help but feel ashamed.
He had gained the courage to prove himself to you, to a woman he had just married, to a woman that had already convinced him to drink two cups less than usual, and he’d failed. Daeron pulled his attention away from the both of you, his fist curling in disappointment. He could feel his uncle’s eyes swiftly absorbing him closing off to himself, and Baelor let out a short sigh.
Aerion had now dropped every mischievous element from his expression, intimidated by the Prince’s command while also noticing the shift in your stance. Being reminded once more of the effect Baelor Targaryen had on every living person. His uncle simply was aware of the way he should carry himself, a trait every other relative and Aerion wished they had inherited.
Brightflame looked down in embarrassment, the blood rushing up to his cheeks, his pale skin brightening with a soft shade of red. “I think it’s high time we let your brother and his wife carry on their wedding night in their chambers.” Baelor insisted smoothly, giving you an out of Aerion’s claws and you couldn’t be more grateful.
Baelor looked over at you, still stuck in the trance his voice had put you in, and then to Daeron. The Prince indicated your husband takes you to your newly renovated shared bedroom, by tilting his head towards you, his gaze locked on his newly wedded nephew. Daeron’s eyes swiftly widened and turned towards you, “My lady, if you will-“ before your husband could finish his sentence, you scraped your chair backwards harshly. Quickly walking in the direction of the guards awaiting to escort you to your room.
—————————
Daeron stuttered, slightly taken aback by your gesture and followed you right after like a lost puppy.
You both had been walking for a bit, and you had been awfully ahead of Daeron. How could you be walking in such a haste without becoming worn out by the non-stop movement of your feet. The Blackfyres should’ve been known for their speed, he thought to himself, otherwise your need to be away from him had been too much for you to bear. A scenario he didn’t like the sound of. First one it is then.
In reality, the truth was far from his thoughts. Well, the Blackfyres were certainly not recognized for their speed in any aspect and secondly, you didn’t feel the intense need to have a fair distance from him. In fact, you weren’t sure what caused your speed. Perhaps the way the halls of the Red Keep felt all too familiar. Maybe because you remember running in the same halls with your brothers and you swore you could still hear their pants and little steps amidst the noise of your own right now.
The way your mind wandered back to when your life had been colorful, you hadn’t taken account of your almost collision with the door of your private chambers. You only did when the warmth of two hands settled on your shoulders, firmly enough to stop you from moving and potentially hurting yourself. Your whole body went numb, you could sense your husband towering over you and panting heavily near your neck.
“Be careful, wife.” His voice had lowered, quiet enough only for you to hear. You felt a shiver run down your spine at the name he had called you by, your breathing got heavier and your gown even more suffocating.
Daeron had remained there, hesitant and left in awe by his very own gesture. Perhaps the Blackfyres were also affiliated with witchcraft, because he couldn’t explain the sudden change in his behavior when it came to you. However, if this is how he’d come to be in his life, Daeron didn’t necessarily deem it as something negative.
He swallowed thickly and extended his hand over to the doorknob, twisting it around painfully slow. Almost as if his intention was for you to observe his hands, you internally cursed him for that. You couldn’t deny that your husband had neat hands, however. His veins contrast to his fairly pale skin, pushing themselves up against the force caused by his movement of twisting the doorknob. The way his fingers curled around the knob, almost caressing it but simultaneously gripping it tightly. Those same fingers holding your other shoulder firmly and—
The door opened, revealing your private chambers, Daeron’s hand that had been placed on the doorknob had returned back to your shoulder, and the realisation hit you. You were actually warm, concerningly warm. His cold hands lowered themselves to rub the sides of your shoulders comfortingly and by instinct, you shrunk them to yourself.
You heard him mumble a small apology and step back, his hands now off of your body entirely. Letting out the breath you've been holding this entire time, you took the initiative to step inside the room, Daeron following you suit.
Your eyes explored the room, reminding yourself how long it had been since the last time you’d witnessed a bedroom like this. Your chambers in Essos were the complete opposite of the place you were currently stepping foot on. Which oddly enough, propelled you to understand that you would probably never see your former residence again. And if you would, it probably wouldn’t be under pleasant conditions.
You heard the door softly slam and moved towards the vanity placed near the medium-sized windows. As Daeron stopped in the middle of your room, the sound of his steps on the wooden floor disappearing, he noticed the way your ceremonial wear was clinging to your figure. Showing off carefully what could be easily called every man’s desire. As time went on, it truly had become harder for the Targaryen man to consider accurately the reason the Gods paired the both of you.
What could he give you that would live up to what you actually deserved? He’s painfully aware of how he’s let practically everyone down, and he deems it inevitable that he also lets you, his wife, down. Although Daeron had no idea when that would occur, he was sure of it. Perhaps, he’d dream about it sooner or later, and drown himself in royal wine until his mind forgets his incapacity to satisfy you.
Daeron imagined the way your waist would fit perfectly around his grip, the way you’d shudder feeling his weight pressing into yours and the man had to practically swallow a desperate groan. He threw his head back in frustration and let out a swift sigh.
You softly caressed with your fingertips the jewelry placed on top of the vanity, seemingly untouched and prepared for your scent to mark them. You’d long noticed the stillness of your husband and distanced your fingers from the royal wealth staring right up at you.
Before your brain could process, your mouth functioned quicker. “You are my husband.” you began and you could feel the sudden snap of Daeron’s gaze piercing your skull, being met with your beautifully braided silver hair. “Precisely, my lady, it seems that-“,“You called me wife a moment ago.” you fiercely pointed out. As if demanding him to call you that for the rest of his time breathing.
“I-I suppose I did-”, “So why ‘my lady’?” you interrupted once more. You turned around, almost glaring and angry at Daeron for such a thing. “If you desire to make my time here, as your wife, any less insufferable than it already has been, you cease to use such formalities to call me.” Daeron’s mouth parted slightly, feeling a tiny sense of warmth settle in his stomach. And here he thought you hated it. He nodded quickly, “Of course, my lady-“ he was met with a raise of your eyebrow, “My wife. I mean.” Daeron quickly corrected himself, cursing his stupid heart that seemed to slow down whenever you’d give him the slightest attention.
You let out a sigh, feeling sorry for the way you’d behaved to him just now, but you had met him for the first time earlier today. This was your first legitimate conversation after your marriage, you still wouldn’t let your walls down that easily and allow him to witness your vulnerability shine.
Daeron felt his heart skip a beat with every step you took that brought you close to him, awfully close. Close enough that made his knees weak, his eyes attempting to etch every single detail and line on your face to his memory. You boldly placed your palm on his shoulder, in an attempt to even his heavy breathing, “It almost seems as if you are afraid of me, husband.” you purred.
You looked up at him and gained the instant feeling of recognition, almost as if you have looked at these eyes before, and you dismissingly turned that thought down by thinking it came from a collision between the two of you during the time you were a noble. But it wouldn’t be too long until you realised the reality of things.
“No! You’ve mistaken me, my wife.” Daeron was quick to deny your claim, which had suddenly made him more sober than ever. “I purely want to ensure your feeling of safety.” you let out a humourless scoff as you turned around, now your back facing his body.
“You want to ensure my feeling of safety, husband? Then, help me take this ridiculous dress off.” You knew the consummation of your wedding was to be expected of you in the following day, so you might as well make it worthwhile. Deep down, you felt lucky that it would have been Daeron and no one else. Had you not been so defensive of your admittance of this intense connection you had already felt to him, you would’ve been gentler, softer.
Daeron felt heat sprawl all over his cheeks, his hands suddenly going numb and the strength of his arms shrinking with every passing second. “Yes,” he let out a shaky breath, almost passing out at the thought of what was about to follow. “allow me to…” he trailed off, losing the ability to form coherent sentences the moment he untied the knot holding your dress together.
The sight of your bare back immediately made him feel the painful rise of his crotch. He let out a low groan, desperate to feel your skin kissing his own. Daeron’s eyes lingered on your bare rear, shortly enough until you turned around to catch him doing so.
You were incredibly surprised by your own movements, you’d never done this before, your instincts were merely basing your decisions off the whispers you’ve heard from noble ladies on seducing their husbands, and also by a little vague piece of advice your mother had given you weeks prior to your wedding. The basics, as she claimed herself.
Absorbing the way your husband was now staring at you with such hunger and desire, you felt shyness consume you. While your lower body was all tingly and hot, you felt a heat pool between your legs. Inevitably pressing your thighs together in seek of any kind of friction that would relieve the pressure away.
Daeron Targaryen was a gorgeous looking man. With his enchanting pleading brightest eyes and every other single one of his features complimenting them satisfyingly, it almost felt like being worshipped by a God. And damn all seven kingdoms, Daeron felt like dropping to his knees right there and then.
Attempting to maintain your bold demeanor and instinctively biting your lower lip out of pure anxiety, you swept the fabric softly off of both your shoulders. The clothing now long gone from your body, hitting the wooden floor gently. Feeling the way the cold air raised every strand of hair in your body and harden your nipples. Your bare figure was now fully exposed to your husband’s gaze, and Daeron dedicated a quick prayer to whatever superior power conquered them all. His eyes raked your body intently, fully convincing your boldness to disappear from your attitude.
As you went to cover your body, your arms obscuring your breasts to his gaze, Daeron immediately grabbed ahold of both of your wrists, “Please,” it almost sounded like he was begging, “let me take care of you. My sole desire is to make you content, dearest.” another name you’d realise sooner or later you adore endlessly.
Your breath hitched, suddenly at loss for words observing that the roles have reversed. Your doe eyed gaze collided with his pleading one, and after a few beats had passed, you softly nodded. Allowing him to take care of you the way he intended to since the second he laid eyes upon you.
His arms snaked around your waist slowly, moving carefully with absolutely no haste with the intention to make this moment the longest he’s ever experienced. If Daeron Targaryen could decide what drink he’d want to keep consuming for the rest of his life until he drowns in it, he would choose his wife. With no hesitation.
He pulled you closer, your palms landing on his chest, your exposed own pressing on his torso as he placed a firm grip on the back of your neck. Forcing you to stare up at him fully, Daeron leaned in closer with the desire to claim your lips with his own, but just before doing so, he looked into your eyes once more, “I shouldn’t have you. I am not deserving of it.” he breathed out.
You frowned softly at his remark, “You’re my husband.” you leaned in even closer, both of your lips now almost touching feeling his swift breaths meet with yours. “And I’m your wife,” he let out what almost sounded like a whine, and you swear you could feel his hardened clothed cock press into your bare cunt. You moved your face next to his ear, whispering to him the rest of your sentence, “show me how a man cares for his woman.” you distanced your face from his and absorbed the way his eyebrows had frowned as if he had been dying of thirst. Needing to drink you whole.
Daeron’s hips inevitably bucked against your clit, experiencing the new sensation that sent jolts right through your body. With that, you uncontrollably let out a soft whimper, subconsciously asking for more, and that was the confirmation your husband needed. Having remained the grip on the back of your neck, he pushed your face so his lips could collide with yours.
Instantly, Daeron let out a soft groan in the middle of tasting your perfectly shaped lips. You and him moved with perfect sync, while he slid his other hand on your back down to your bare bosom. Making it your turn now to let out a sound of satisfaction, with your back arching and your body leaning against his touch. Daeron squeezed the soft flesh there and moved his mouth from your own down to your neck.
With your eyes closed, you titled your head backwards, giving him full access to shower your neck with all the love it craves from him. You felt your husband’s mouth working hard to create marks on your neck, taking his sweet time with staining your pretty skin with different shades of purple. At some point, you slid your fingers through his silver golden locks, gently pulling them which forced out a soft growl from the back of his throat.
You let out a sweet noise when Daeron gave extra attention to a specific spot on your neck, making you feel all kinds of things, and also the need to grind your clit on your own thigh, feeling light waves of pleasure rush through your body. Daeron could feel some kind of commotion coming from you, making his eyes snap open.
Your husband took in the image of you practically rutting against your own thighs and almost cursed at himself for getting carried away in your neck long enough you’d seek any kind of relief on your own. But you were so intoxicating, so much that he had acknowledged the fact that the list of things he adored about you wouldn’t end anytime soon.
“Allow me to take you to our bed, wife.” Daeron suggested, his voice making you snap out of practically getting off on your own. As inexperienced as you were, you hadn’t properly realised that this sort of movement was very close to giving you the pleasure you needed to feel.
As you looked at him, for what seemed like the thousandth time tonight, heat flooded your cheeks once more ashamed of the state your husband had probably been observing you in for a short while. “Please.” He begged for the second time clearly so far, so how could you not let him?
“Take me.” You said and it almost seemed like a demand, you wanted to untie the knot in your belly as soon as possible and the existence of that tension was nothing but the offspring of Daeron’s attitude towards you since the moment you entered this room.
Daeron swept you softly off of your feet, his gaze locked on yours, nothing else worthy enough of it. Your husband placed you softly on your shared bed, now having your fully exposed and bare body in full display right before his eyes.
You saw Daeron untie his breeches and as they dropped down, you could feel your mouth weirdly drool at the sight, curious as to why that may be. Daeron’s cock was now on display a few inches away from you. You couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated, Daeron’s size wasn’t small but he wasn’t big. Maybe too big for you, no wonder you were intimidated. Daeron was well groomed, few silver golden curls around his cock, tip all angry and needy for some kind of release. And all at the same time, you desperately needed to be the one who’d give it to him. You were his wife after all.
“Take off your shirt.” You stated straightforwardly, making Daeron’s eyebrows raise for a split second, and executing your command right after. Exposing his well toned upper body to you, suddenly getting the will to run your fingers all over it. “Is that better, wife?” Daeron asked in almost a nervous demeanor, and you hummed approvingly, getting warmer by the minute. The sexual tension was so sharp it could cut like a sword.
“Open your legs for me, sweet wife.” Daeron instructed, sensing the feeling of your inexperience especially having witnessed a few seconds ago your reaction to his own cock. As you obeyed his order, Daeron almost moaned at the sight of your glistening cunt. He hadn’t even done anything to you and he could almost see you dripping and staining your freshly washed bedsheets.
“Gods,” he let out a soft moan slowly approaching your cunt with two of his fingers, running them up and down your folds, merely testing your slickness. You were so wet Daeron was about to embarrassingly come right there and then, as if it wasn’t embarrassing enough how hard he had been prior to even kissing you. “you’re soaking.” He remarked, almost confirming it to himself.
“Daeron,” you moaned out, feeling his fingers make contact with your folds, leaning against his touch. “please make it go away. It aches.” and with those words of yours, Daeron was sure he wouldn’t last very long. He nodded at your request, “I’ll take care of it. Trust me, wife.” he reassured you as he spit gently on his palm, leading it to his hardened cock. Driving his shaft up and down twice, he softly placed his knees under your thighs, his cock now inches away from your pulsing hole.
“This may hurt at first,” he lovingly warned you, his cock pulsing in his palm thinking about how tight you’d probably be, with him being your first. “tell me to stop and I will.” Daeron informed you, and you softly nodded. Oddly fully trusting him with your body in such an intimate way already.
Daeron entered his tip inside of your cunt and it already began to squeeze him, hissing softly as you grew worried for the man. Have you done something wrong? Daeron went completely still, not moving an inch while you felt your cunt stretching and adjusting to his size making you let out a soft whimper in pain.
Your husband held his weight by resting both of his palms on either side of your face, your legs now folding higher than when he was sitting upwards. “You’re so tight. Fuck.” he let out a desperate whimper, “Won’t last at all if you keep squeezing me like that.” he said against your shoulder moving an inch forward. Now almost half of him was inside of you, making you hiss in pain, complaining about it with the sounds you made.
“I know sweetest, I know.” Daeron pressed a soft kiss on your shoulder to reassure you, moving as slow as possible not just to extend his time left, but to also make it as less painful as he could for you. “It’ll feel good, I promise.” He continued as he felt your fingers run through his locks once more, noting that it almost played a role of comfort to you.
You could gradually feel the pain disappear as Daeron began to move with more ease and an increased pace. Not too much but not too little. Your cunt had now adjusted to his size comfortably enough to welcome the pleasure in your body and getting closer to untying that damned knot in your belly.
Your husband was now busy with your breasts, thrusting as slow as needed to suit your comfort and he seemed to have found it judging by your needy moans of pleasure. Even with his tongue circling around one of your nipples and his fingers pinching the other, he could sense your enjoyment.
“So perfect,” he murmured against your breast, “don’t know what good I’ve done to have you here like this.” he said and felt your cunt clench around his cock, now almost fully inside of you. Giving him the courage to speed up a little bit more as he felt his climax approaching, his moans mixing with yours.
The knot in your lower body wasn’t just about to untie now, snap perhaps was a better word to describe it. You’ve grown to enjoy the feeling of being filled up so perfectly by your husband, seemingly moving on your own against his thrusts for him to go even deeper. With that movement of yours, you assisted Daeron in finding the spot that would finally relieve you from this ache.
Daeron thrusted a few more times in that same spot and the grip you had on his hair evidently tightened, your eyes snapping shut and letting out a high pitched moan with your back arched and your legs trembling. “It’s alright sweetest, I’m here. Look at me.” Daeron talked you through your orgasm right after you finished observing the white light that your closed eyelids presented to you. You’ve never felt like this before, and if Daeron Targaryen could make that happen, you never wanted it to stop.
Daeron stayed still until you came down your high, ensuring your proper satisfaction. As you recovered Daeron moved inside of you a few more times until he let out a low moan against your shoulder and painted your insides white. You thought to yourself, that you hadn’t seen a prettier sight before, which was your husband, all sweaty and panting finishing inside of you as you felt your womb welcoming the warmth of his seed and settling in it.
Daeron looked up and pressed a kiss to your lips, despite being worn out. Shortly after, he pulled out his softening cock and laid his head on your chest. Roughly falling asleep on the spot, as finishing inside of you might have been the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced so far.
You observed your sleeping husband, still feeling his load claim its spot inside of you, realising this man that you’d been so worried about would also be the man that you’d potentially spend the rest of your life with. And maybe, just maybe, that didn’t seem as bad as you expected. It was still too early to tell, and for some reason, you felt that the Gods would be knocking on your door with some news soon enough. Therefore, you allowed yourself to let loose, appreciate the peaceful moment you were currently in and prepare for your life amongst the Red Dragons.
With all the strength you had, you pulled the duvet over you and your husband, who continued to lay his head on your bare chest, as sleep took over you only a few moments later. And for the first time in years, you sensed that the Gods wouldn’t be at your door tonight, that for once you’d have a peaceful sleep, free of premonitions and visions regarding your future.
—————————
You assumed it’d been a while since you fell asleep, however, you could feel movement near you and worried grunts fill the silence of your chambers.
You softly opened your eyes, letting them adjust to the lightning of the few candles decorating the space around you, and they quickly darted toward the man whose head was still on you.
Daeron had now been sweatier than earlier, his body shaking and twitching as if he was trying to get away from something, and fierce inaudible mumbles were escaping his twitching mouth. You placed your palm on his cheek and he was concerningly cold and that made your eyes widen in worry.
You had just made the observation your mother did to you right after she’d wake you up from one of your visions. Your mother would always tell you how sick and worried some of your dreams would make her, because during them, you’d be in the exact state your husband was right now next to you.
And then it hit you, the Red Dragon in your dream, the Gods have been telling you all along. And the more you think the more you realise his need to drink, to forget, an urge you’d find yourself often to fulfill. You just didn’t have anything at your disposal, other than daydreaming and seeing your dead family appear in front of you on many occasions. The lack of sanity has caught up to you on a concerning amount, its most recent presence being your wedding feast the day before.
The Gods have a funny way of planning things. And only then did you understand what that meant.
Daeron Targaryen shared the same gift you’d been cursed with for as long as you could remember.
Summary: After witnessing something you weren’t supposed to, there’s a price on your head. It would be easy for the excellent marksman to finish the job, but something about you makes him reconsider.
Or- I saw Wilson talking about how Dex needs a weirdo freak gf and was like ‘well, yes’. Reader is implied to be neurodivergent but its kept a bit vague.
Word Count: 15.4k
Warnings & Content: no use of y/n, fluff, smut, slow burn (sorta), swearing, attempted murder, actual murder, stalking, violence, blood and injury mention, mention of death, happy ending, slight angst, toxic attachment, 18+ mdni please
I do not authorize my work to be used for Al or reposted across platforms
For most of your life you felt invisible.
Your friends and coworkers seemed to advance easily in life, getting degrees that led to solid jobs and fulfilling relationships. You, despite your best efforts, did not have the same experience.
In high school, you first became aware of your…difference. The way people would easily talk to others and make friends, but with you they would only feign politeness and share wordless looks behind your back.
Even teachers thought you were weird. It wasn’t said explicitly, they had to be professional of course, but there was only so many times they could call you ‘an interesting yet quiet young lady’ without you catching on.
You had tried hard to change it, to ‘put yourself out there’. It never worked out well. Dates would go fine at first until there was something you said or did to unnerve the other person. Even situations you were sure had gone great resulted in you being ghosted.
You wish that they at least yelled at you or complained, then you could know for sure what they didn’t like.
Once you were in your twenties, you made peace with the fact that it wouldn’t happen for you. The relationship thing wasn’t in your cards, you just weren’t built for it. It created a sad acceptance within you, but one that was needed to not go into a mental spiral.
“-ey, were you listening?” The words drifted to the forefront of your mind, dragging you away from your trail of thoughts.
You paused in folding the shirts on display before you, turning to your coworker that was looking at you expectantly.
“Uh yeah, the closing right?” You struggled to remember what Jess had walked over to you for, but you were sure it was because she needed something. Nobody really spoke to you when they didn’t need something.
“Yeah, you can do it right? I can’t do it and Marcus needs someone to cover.” Her green eyes stared at you pleadingly.
It was a request, but it didn’t feel like one. Especially since you were the only ones still working in the clothing store this late.
“Ah, I don’t-" You thought about what was waiting for you back at your apartment. A relaxing shower, the usual quick dinner, and a puzzle of choice. Not the most exhilarating routine, but you enjoyed it. You really didn’t want to close alone.
Just do it, say no. It’s not fair for you to do everything yourself and it’s not like she’ll appreciate it.
You almost did. The refusal was on the tip of your tongue when you had a flash in your head, the disappointment on her face, the awkwardness of the next shift. How she would talk about you to your other coworkers.
“Okay, I can cover.” You blurted, adverting your eyes to continue folding.
She gave you a quick grin, already turning towards the break rooms before replying, “Great! You’re a lifesaver. I’ll definitely pay you back.”
She wouldn’t, just like she didn’t for the four other times you covered her shift.
“You’re welcome.” It’s muttered with a sigh into empty air, Jess was long gone. You thought about all the unfinished work you had to do alone, already regretting your decision.
You went into autopilot for the next few hours, slipping into the mindless task of organizing displays and adjusting price tags. The small upside was that the clothes in your store kind of sucked, so you didn’t have any customers to tend to.
“You set?”
The words made you jump. You looked up in surprise to find Marcus, who had meandered out of his office without your notice. Being a middle aged man on the heftier side, you didn’t know how he could move so quietly.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The drawer, are you ready for me to take it? I’m gonna close a little early, don’t think it’ll be picking up anytime soon.” He motioned a thick hand towards the empty room to accentuate his point.
You nodded jerkily, shuffling out the way as he unlocked the cash drawer. Another beat and a ring of keys were being tossed your way.
“We’ll, I’m gonna count this out then I’m off, you know what to do.”
Marcus was already shuffling down the hallway before you could form a response.
He wasn’t wrong, you did know what to do. Once he was gone you got back into the automatic motions of clean, lock, organize, until the shop is fully shut down.
There was no stress, no talking or loud music, it was almost fun in a way. Fun if you forgot how you were forced into working at least.
You clicked the last light off with a sigh, shrugging your purse up your shoulder where it threatened to fall off. Going out the back door sent a wave of trepidation within you, but unfortunately it was required. The alarm was already set on the front doors and you didn’t have the keys to those.
You took a deep breath, steeling yourself. New York had only gotten more dangerous in recent years, with the corruption in politics and anti-vigilante outrage.
Once you were outside, you had to be careful to avoid any trouble. No one could be trusted, not even the police who were put there to protect citizens like yourself. You imagine if you got mugged on your way to the train, the officers on the corner wouldn’t even flinch.
Definitely not an anxiety inducing thought. Not at all.
You swung open the door, locking it quickly behind you. Ignoring the trembling of your hands, you started to make way to the front of the building.
The alley stunk of pee and other things you really didn’t want to identify. The only light around was motion sensor activated and perched on the doorway. Said light was already fading the further you stepped away, the alley delving into darkness.
You quickened your steps.
There was a slight relief in making it back onto the main street. At least there you had streetlights and the buzz of the city around you.
The sidewalk was mainly empty, and you could count on one hand the amount of cars that passed by. Most people out at this time were like you, getting off work, or getting to an early shift with a bleary look in their eyes.
You kept your head tucked down, avoiding eye contact with anyone around you. All you had to do was make it to the train, from there it was a straight shot to your apartment. Easy, simple. You could do this.
You reached the subway entrance, practically flying down the steps. The trains were relatively reliable in this part of town, so you shouldn’t have to wait too lon-
Your thought process was interrupted by a series of grunts, followed by a shout. Ducking behind a pillar, your eyes grew into saucers as you scanned for the cause of the noise.
It wasn’t a hard search, in the middle of the station was a group of men standing over something-no, someone. There was a man there, curled into himself on the cracked tile of the subway. You could barely make out his face past the blood streaming from his nose.
“Please! I don’t have it, I- just give me one more week I’m begging!” His words could barely be understood past a thick Brooklyn accent and the gurgle of blood in his throat.
One of the men snapped his fingers, and another kicked the whimpering man in the stomach, the impact making a sickening crunching noise.
You covered your mouth in an attempt to not scream, mind racing with options. Calling 911 was firmly out of the question, but running back up the stairs seemed promising. You just didn’t know if you’d be quick or quiet enough that they didn’t notice you.
Then there was the train. A quick glance at the schedule showed a less than three minute wait. If you timed it right…
“Please, I’ll do anything please-“
He was cut off by the man before who gave the attack order. “You should’ve thought about that before trying to steal from Moretti, fuckin’ rat. You should be grateful it’s just you and not your fucking family too, that’s how nice boss is.”
It was clear the man speaking was in charge, at least of the small group there. He was faced away from you, but a wayward glance from any of the men could put you in danger.
You stifled a gasp, sucking a sharp intake of air. In focusing on the group, you had forgotten to breathe.
Your heartbeat was a staccato in your ears, the blood flow dimming the sound around you.
They were going to kill that man, and there was nothing to do but watch. They were going to kill him, then they were going to kill you. Oh god, they were going to kill you if they found you.
You felt the telltale beginning of a panic attack start up, your heart rate escalating even further. This was not the time to freeze up. You pinched the skin of your hand between two fingers, the pain sobering you.
This was not the time to freeze.
The man was saying something else, the tone threatening. He was speaking in a much lower tone than before, and you couldn’t make out the words.
In a blink, he dove forward, hand jutting towards the man below him in quick successions.
It wasn’t until the growing pool of red that you realized he had stabbed him. There was a sick gurgling noise that reverberated around the subway that took the strength out of your legs.
Your purse slipped off your shoulder, clinking to the ground.
The sound alerted one of the guys closest to you. A frown quickly overtook his face as he looked you up and down.
“Hey! What’re you doing over there?”
This is how you’ll die, in a dirty subway all alone. Your family probably won’t even find out what happened.
Light flowed onto the platform from the incoming train. The screech of wheels flipped a switch in your brain.
No, you scrambled to your feet, not like this. You were not going to let it end like this.
You could hear a series from shouts and pounding footsteps behind you as you ran down the platform. Nearly tripping over a bench, you righted yourself as the train finally screeched to a stop.
The doors opened, but you kept running, an internal timer ticking in your head.
A little bit more… five, four, three-
You shoved your self to the side, slipping into a train car right as the doors closed. The others tried to follow, but they were too far behind.
You stared, wide eyed as they pounded on the window in anger. You could hear muffled threats behind the metal, but your eyes focused on the man from before.
He wasn’t yelling, or beating on the door. He only stared at your chest with a scowl. More specifically, the logo on your work shirt and your printed name tag beneath it.
Shit.
Dex was unbelievably, inconceivably, bored.
This meeting was already taking longer than he usually tolerated, and if he didn’t have good work with them before he would’ve left.
But no, this gang boss in particular was quite an egotistical bastard, and liked to pay a very nice penny on all his hits. It probably made him feel important to wave an excessive amount of money around and have people disappear.
Quite frankly, Dex couldn’t give a shit about what he felt. Money or not, his patience was running thin. Another five minutes waiting in this damp warehouse and he might just leave, or start throwing things.
He hadn’t decided which.
“Taking his sweet time huh?” He wasn’t really speaking to anyone in particular, just musing aloud, but one of the nearby goons replied anyway.
“Sorry, he had something else to wrap up. He should be here any second.”
Dex only clicked his teeth in response, busying his hands with a dagger absentmindedly. The other man’s eyes widened slightly at the display, tracking the dagger is it was thrown in the air.
Behind his mask, Dex’s lips flicked into a smirk. He wondered what the man would do if he started using the wall behind his head as a dart board, that would be interesting.
The seconds ticked by, and he was about to start some impromptu target practice when the man of the hour walked in.
“Bullseye, my friend! So kind of you to join us.”
Moretti was a small man, much smaller than one would expect the boss of a crime empire to be. There was nothing overtly menacing about him other than the beady gleam of his eyes. Of course, no one vocalized their surprise at that, because they’d end up at the bottom of the Hudson.
He reminded Dex of a small pet with a snappy temper. Like a rabid chihuahua nipping at people’s heels.
“I would think with all that money you’d own a clock.” The man’s words had ignited a flare of irritation within him. He was always annoyed by fake niceties, especially after he had waited thirty-five minutes.
Moretti’s thick eyebrows scrunched in faux concern, “My apologies, I had something else to finish up, I would never mean to keep you waiting-“
Dex cut in before he could finish the bullshit speech, “Who, and where?”
He was here for a job, not to have a tea party. All he needed was the marks information and the payment, then he’d be on his way.
Despite being cut off, the smaller man didn’t show any sign of anger. He knew better than to start unnecessary fights. “A small problem, you shouldn’t have much issue. It is time sensitive however, if she talks it would cause a great deal of issues for me.”
A woman then. Unlikely she’ll put up a fight. Disappointing.
“She saw some things she shouldn’t have. Here,” he stepped forward, a folded paper in his outstretched hand. “they got the job and her name, you should be able to take it from there yes?”
He snatched the paper, scanning over the information quickly before turning on his heel. “Fifteen thousand, same as before.” His voice carried behind him as he walked to the exit of the warehouse, hands in constant movement.
Moretti clapped his hands as if he were signing off on the deal. “Agreed, you’ll receive the wire tomorrow.”
“She’ll be dead by the end of the day.” Faster than anyone could track, he flicked the paper behind him, the point of a paper airplane imbedding into the forehead of the wide-eyed grunt from before.
The man let out a startled shout as blood trickled over his nose.
Dex ignored the commotion, grinning as he walked into the crisp night air.
Time to find a little tattle-tale.
Maybe you did have powers.
It wasn’t super strength, or advanced intelligence. It wasn’t even the power to turn invisible.
No, it had to be the ability to get in the worst situations imaginable. Super bad luck. No one’s life could be this laughably bleak, it had to be a higher power.
After that night at the subway, you couldn’t even sleep, much less leave your house. The day after the incident was your off day, so it didn’t affect much. You did however have to call off two days after that, feigning sickness.
You don’t know if your boss bought it, but considering you have never really taken a sick day before, you felt it was due.
But you couldn’t stay inside forever, you had to go back to work eventually. Getting fired would definitely do you no favors.
There was something else.
In the last few days you’d had a feeling, like spiders crawling over your skin. It was the sinking feeling of being preyed upon. Watched.
You knew they were there. You didn’t know how you knew, but you did.
There was no evidence, no threatening letters or anything out of place. Anyone listening to you would think you were insane, but you knew it wasn’t just your hysteria. You could feel it.
The only thing you were confused about was their inaction. Why hadn’t they killed you already? Not that you were complaining of course, but it just didn’t make sense.
Were they waiting for you to try to call the police? Were they not fully sure it was you at the station?
It was the cycle you went through. For days just driving yourself mad with questions and counting down the time. You hadn’t come up with a plan yet, but time was running out.
You had to go out into the world eventually.
The time went quicker than you expected. You had called off your fourth day when Marcus firmly hinted that your job might be in danger if you didn’t come in for your next shift.
You agreed, one last day of hiding and then you would come in.
Your hands trembled as you clicked the combination to your locker in the break room. Taking a deep breath, you took one last furtive glance at your belongings before turning to clock in.
“Didn’t know you hated customers that bad Oranges.” A mocking voice chimed behind you.
You tried to ignore him altogether, but he picked up his pace to walk by your side. “Don’t worry, I won’t snitch.” Matthew shot a conspiratorial glance your way, winking.
It took all your resolve to not roll your eyes. As if today wasn’t already horrible, you had to work with your least favorite person.
Matthew always found a way to antagonize you somehow. It wouldn’t have been that bad, if it weren’t non-stop. He always singled you out about something, with a fake friendly tone as if you were both in on the joke.
It started with the first week you started working. You were eating your lunch quietly, and as you started to unpeel the included orange a stream of juice shot at your face.
You could only sit there in mortification as Matthew cackled in your face. He insisted on calling you Oranges after that.
“What are we so worried about?” He continued, like you weren’t ignoring him. “If you need to relax I think they have a stress ball in the back rooms. I know you have issues with that stuff.” He could barely get out the words without laughing.
More silence from you.
“Alright then. Don’t blame me if you freak out, see ya Oranges.”
You let out a relieved sigh at his retreating frame, grabbing the clothing rack near you and resigning yourself to eight hours of torture.
Your neck let out a series of pops as you stretched it in your doorway. The house keys in your hand were tossed in the dish by the door and your jacket was shrugged off your shoulders into a pile on the ground.
“You should take better care of your things.”
The words stopped you in your tracks. You’d been so focused on the aches in your body and getting to the shower, you failed to notice the large figure in your living room until they spoke.
There was a man shrouded in shadow sitting on your lounge chair. In his hands was one of your puzzle boxes, and he seemed to be reading over it like it was the most important thing in the room.
“Please don’t.” You could barely recognize the way your voice squeaked out, strained with fear.
He looked up for the first time, eyes glinting behind a blue ski mask. “Don’t what?” His voice was deep but scratchy as it travelled across the room, as if he’d worn it out by yelling.
You could also hear a hint of amusement in his tone. He was enjoying toying with you.
“Don’t mess up my puzzles, or my apartment please. If you can, make it quick.” Your reply was more stable than before, having overcome the initial shock of his appearance.
In truth, you’d come to the conclusion you’d probably die no matter what days ago. At first, you were scared out of your mind, but like every other bad hand in your life, you accepted it. You just didn’t want whoever found you to have to deal with a mess.
His head tilted as if considering your answer, one finger twirling the box like one would do a basketball. “Not gonna beg for your life? Plead for another chance?” There was still the mocking tone, but now it carried confusion as well. He genuinely couldn’t understand why you were so calm.
Taking careful steps over to the couch, you could make out more details of him in the light of your living room lamp. He looked like a textbook assassin, wearing all black, save for the blue mask covering his face. The dark fabric of his ensemble held more compartments you could count, and the rest was stretched over a sturdy frame.
He was leaning back in your recliner chair leisurely, legs spread to take up even more space.
You let out a deep sigh as you flounced down on the couch across from him. “No, not really. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but it’s not much to plead for.”
He stopped spinning the box and looked around, as if taking in the apartment for the first time. Your lack of personal photos, the books and puzzles lining the walls. Every item spoke of a very monotonous lifestyle. “This is pretty depressing, yes.”
Of course, what were you expecting? Hopefully he doesn’t make it too difficult for anyone to clean your blood out the place.
You nodded in acceptance and closed your eyes, waiting for the inevitable. After about a minute of waiting, you opened them to find him staring at you.
The piercing gaze kept you still until he spoke again, “What’re you doing?”
‘Waiting for you to kill me’ just sounded silly, so you said nothing, adverting your gaze.
After a few more moments of quiet, you cleared your throat, “If you don’t mind, how long have you been in here?”
It was a morbid curiosity that drove the question. The idea of him waiting in your living room just to kill you, twiddling his thumbs was enough to make a sardonic chuckle rise in your throat.
You pushed down the urge. The man seemed fairly calm so far, but laughing at him definitely would do nothing in your favor.
He reached up a gloved hand, scratching at his jaw. “About a half hour.”
You blinked, “Oh, okay.”
Quite frankly, you were running out of things to say. How does one even strike up a conversation with their killer? You shouldn’t have even felt the need to make the man comfortable, but you did for some reason.
In a flash he was leaning over you, one hand on the back of the couch to speak directly in your face. “What’s your problem? Hm? You didn’t even do anything wrong and you won’t fight for your life? How is that fair?”
His other hand gripped your chin firmly, you could feel the warmth of the of his hand seeping through the fabric. With his face so close, you could see every detail of his brown eyes scrunched in anger.
You could also see more of the little items strapped around his waist and in the compartments of his pants. Knives. More knives than anyone (murderer or not) should need, in your opinion.
“I’m sorry?” Now you were a bit peeved. Who was he to lecture you about valuing your life when he came in here to kill you?
Unless… he wasn’t here to kill you, but do something much worse. A new flash of fear goes through you. You were prepared for a quick death, you were not prepared for torture, or the other ways a man could hurt a woman.
He must’ve seen the change in your face, because the hand on your chin swiftly dropped to his side.
He moved slightly out of your space, mumbling to himself. You could barely catch the words ‘balance’ and ‘worth it’ in the rambling.
“Okay,” he dipped away, back to the chair. “okay.”
You blinked at him again, “Okay?”
“Yes.” His tone, despite being amused again, invited no further questioning. He had reached a decision within himself, you just had no idea what that decision was.
With that, he settled back into your chair with all the ease in the world.
“You should go to sleep now. Been a long day.” Like before, his tone was closed off. What might’ve been misinterpreted as a request was definitely a demand.
You slowly rose to your feet, half convinced it was a trick and he’d shoot you at any moment, but nothing stopped you from gathering your bag and going into the bedroom.
Even as you shut and locked the door, there was no action, just a glinting gaze following you in the darkness.
You didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing you recall was the unnerving conversation with the intruder before jerking awake the next morning.
A quick check showed that none of your clothes had been moved and there were no injuries on you. Despite your hair looking like a birds nest, you looked exactly did after work the day prior.
You were alive. Another day knowing someone was out to get you, and another day of being able to do nothing about it.
You groaned, trying to settle your hair with one hand as you rolled out the bed. Washing up in the bathroom was quick business. After feeling clean again in new clothes you moved to unlock the bedroom door.
Wait. He wouldn’t still be here, would he?
You highly doubt the intruder would stay for coffee in he morning, but the whole thing had been so strange you couldn’t rule anything out.
Slowly, you pressed an ear to the door, straining to hear anything on the other side.
Nothing.
You un-clicked the lock, still moving at a snails pace. Once there was a half inch sliver open, you took a peek into the living room. Empty, no homicidal men with a hundred knives in sight.
You let out a breath of relief, walking into the room. One last search throughout your place proved that there was truly no one there.
Even so, there was an unsettling feeling you couldn’t shake. You ignored it, moving to start up your coffee maker.
It wasn’t until you were halfway through your breakfast that you realized the issue. Your place was spotless, much cleaner than you’d usually keep it.
You didn't consider yourself a slob, but there was always little things here and there left behind. A few dishes in the sink, a bit of dust. The room was now so clean it looked clinical.
Every can or box of pasta in your cabinet was neatly organized and turned to the front. Swinging open the door to your fridge, you found that all your old food you’d been ignoring was thrown away. Each shelf was sparkling clean and just as orderly as the cabinets.
All your puzzle boxes were in straight, dust free columns next to books sorted by size.
What the hell is happening?
It’s just because you’ve been bored. Nothing else.
Dex had been rationalizing his actions since that first day. He had yet to come up with a solid reason for letting you live, and it sent a distressing feeling up his spine.
He did not do things for no reason.
That was a quick way to spiral, to sink into nothing. No, everything in his life had a reason and purpose. So what were you?
It started the day after the meeting with Moretti, he was poised just across from your window. There was a bolt-action rifle in his hands, and he was perfectly poised to take the shot as promised.
As he watched, you walked around your bedroom in circles. He could see your mouth moving at certain points, but no sign of you talking on the phone. It was clear you were in distress, but made no attempts to get help.
He already had access to your phone line. Throughout the night into the next day, you didn’t try calling the police, not even once.
It seems New York is catching on, those scrubs in uniforms can’t help you. If you want justice, you have to take it yourself.
He continued to watch you with a detached expression, not taking the time to consider why he hadn’t finished the job yet.
He watched as you left to take a shower, coming back a bit later in loose pajamas. He watched as you put a show on your tv, your distracted expression half aware.
You eventually found the television insufficient at calming you, and started digging through the haphazard boxes of puzzles on your shelves.
His fingers practically itched at seeing it, old habits compelling him to march in there and line everything up neatly.
He shook it off, eyes trailing to where you sat on the floor beginning the edges of a very large landscape puzzle.
You were losing yourself in it, the frown in your eyebrows lessening the more progress you made through the picture. Eventually, you had calmed enough that there was almost a smile tilting your mouth.
His eyes stayed there for a moment, wondering what a full smile from you would look like. He definitely hadn’t seen one today, and no search online showed any pictures of you exhibiting anything other than mild discomfort or apathy.
He could almost imagine it, the plush of your lips tilting up, then slowly growing. How your eyes would crinkle, glinting up at him.
At him?
At him?
The fuck was he doing?
He had a job to do, a job he was paid quite handsomely over, and he was sitting here on his ass playing make believe.
He whipped the rifle in position, capturing your face in the scope. He didn’t really need it, your shot was clear enough, especially with his abilities.
Even though it was simple, the clearest shot in the world, his fingers never pressed the trigger. He sat there, as the sky darkened into reds and melted into a dark navy, never taking a single shot.
He couldn’t even pretend that the sick worm inside of him wasn’t hungry for more. He didn’t try to act like he wasn’t coming back the next day.
He thought that would be enough. One more day of observation would be enough to satiate him. Just one more.
Dex felt like the sad sons of bitches at the liquor store on the corner. Just one more bit, I can quit any time I want to.
But he did need just one more bit, and he could quit any time he needed to. This was nothing like Jul-
He broke that train of thought with a snarl. Tonight. Tonight he would end this game and get it over with. She got off work at ten, and when she did he’d be waiting there. After that, it be simple, one shot to the head and she wouldn’t be his problem anymore.
Moretti didn’t exactly ask for proof of delivery, nobody was stupid enough to question Dex after he worked a job. If he said he did it, then he did it.
Except he didn’t do it. Moretti hadn’t asked, and he didn’t tell. But the man wasn’t an idiot, he’d find out eventually.
Even more reason to get rid of you as soon as possible.
He had the plan solidly in his mind. Wait until you walked in with your guard down, lodge a knife in your throat before you could blink.
This night, you took a bit longer than usual. Dex was dully aware that this didn’t bother him. He wasn’t upset by waiting, there was a tingling anticipation within him.
Eventually, you walked through the door, shutting it behind you with a click. You didn’t notice him at first, stretching out your neck and the muscles in your back.
You dropped your coat to the ground, stepping over it without a second glance. You were still shifting your head from side to side, trying to alleviate some tension.
He would be able to do it almost immediately. With his hands on your neck he could target the exact points of your muscle pain. His index finger flinched at the thought.
His eyes flickered to the flash of skin on the side of your neck, words coming out of his mouth before he could recall the plan he came in with.
He was barely even aware of what he said, just your response. He watched with rapt attention as your eyes widened, taking him in.
As your eyes scanned his frame, he could feel his hips shift forward slightly.
A myriad of expressions flickered through your face, fear, surprise, anger. He took them all in with delight. The buzz of anticipation from before rose to a crescendo, he couldn’t wait to see what you’d do.
Would you beg? Offer to pay him for your life?
Despite coming in your apartment with a clear directive, he wasn’t sure exactly what he’d do if you asked him to spare your life.
Not important, focus.
You didn’t do anything he expected. Instead of a blubbering mess, you were composed, if not a little annoyed.
If he didn’t already know it before, it was clear you valued your small possessions. You seemed to care about the puzzles more than your own life.
It made him angry.
Who were you to throw him off? Why were you doing this to him? This is not how this was supposed to go.
He got within a hairsbreadth of your face, trying to intimidate you. Break the facade. It didn’t work, you only seemed more annoyed by the attempt.
Until you weren’t. Something about his stance towering over you seemed to ignite a thought process. He wasn’t a mind reader, but he could tell the cause of your discomfort pretty easily.
He let you go quickly, as if he were burned. He would not hurt you, not like that.
Dex weighed his options. Killing you would make things a lot simpler, both with Moretti and the urges in his mind. This is what he knew best, the only real thing he’s good for. You would be no problem to take care of.
Only issue? The more he thought about putting a bullet in your head, the more he was sure that was the last thing he wanted to do.
This wasn’t even his typical area. The snitches he usually tracked down had blood on their hands, a dark past they were scrambling to escape.
You weren’t necessarily a good person, you didn’t volunteer at food drives or regularly give to charity, but nothing warranted your death. There was no scale for him to equal.
You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He’d reached his decision. Fuck Moretti, he’d deal with that weasel bitch later. For now, he’d have to get you shuffled off to bed.
There was something he was itching to do since he got there.
He didn’t show up that day.
Your off day was spent with anxious anticipation, like he would randomly jump out of your cabinets and scare you shitless.
Despite your worry (hope), Knives never showed. You took a page out of Matthew’s book and gave him a nickname, if only to avoid calling him ‘the man’ in your head.
The more you thought about it, the more perplexed you were.
A masked killer came into your home, had a fairly civil conversation with you, then did your chores?
No matter how much you thought about it, none of that made sense. You should have been dead days ago. If they decided not to kill you, they should at least know by now you weren’t going to snitch.
You didn’t even consider calling the police.
You groaned, head tilting back against your apartment elevator. Your day at work had been relatively uneventful.
Nobody really spoke to you much, sans Matthew who always had something to say. This time about your dark circles and whether or not you had a mental breakdown. And he wondered why his girlfriend left him.
You cracked open bleary eyes to look at yourself in the metal walls and winced. Maybe they had a point, you wouldn’t talk to yourself either looking like this.
There was prominent darkness under your eyes, framing the haunted look within them. Your face was pinched in a permanent frown, and you lifted up a hand to relax the expression.
The elevator doors opened with a ding, and you started the trek over to your door. You raised a hand to unlock it, pausing half way.
Putting your keys back in your pocket, you tried the handle of your door. It opened easily.
Your heartbeat quickened but you didn’t halt your movement, continuing inside the apartment. Everything was just like you left it earlier, dim lights and the tv on as background noise.
You took slow steps to the center of the room, spinning in a circle. He wasn’t there.
The living room and kitchen were both empty, and you didn’t know whether to be happy about that or not.
Why would he just leave your door unlocked when he wasn’t even here? There were robbers in the area, what if someone happened to try your door?
You ran a hand through your hair, barking a laugh. You had forgotten for a moment who he was. He was not a friend or visitor that would care whether or not you were robbed.
But why would he clean your house then?
You weren’t sure if you’d ever find the answer to that last question.
Still on edge, you tip-toed towards your couch, where you unceremoniously dumped your bag and coat. Stretching out your shoulders, you walked towards the bedroom.
You were expecting a boiling shower with warm pajamas to slip into before crashing. You were not expecting a six-foot something man to be leaning over your bedside drawer, rifling through its contents.
“Hey!” You said, equally in surprise and indignation. “That’s private. Put that down.”
Brown eyes flicked up to you from where he’d been reading your notebook. It wasn’t a diary per se, but it held some personal thoughts you’d rather stayed private.
Knives leisurely sat the book on your bed, putting up his hands in faux surrender. “Were you looking for me?”
His voice was just as gravelly as the first night, snaking over your ears. It was much lighter however, he sounded almost… happy?
You cleared your throat, fighting back a shiver. “What?” Did he see you searching your apartment like a goof? Probably.
You could see his lips curl into a smirk beneath the mask, capturing your attention for a moment.
You wondered what he would look like without it.
You could see more of him in the daylight, like the light eyelashes framing his eyes and the similar tone of his eyebrows. The mask was filled out with a sharp frame, and you could see the cut of prominent cheekbones under the fabric.
“Nothing. What’s that about?” He nodded towards your notebook he had been reading.
He was still holding his hands up, for what you had no idea. Maybe he thought it was funny to act like you were the one in power here.
“It’s a notebook, you write in them.” You didn’t care to go over your innermost thoughts with a stranger, briskly avoiding the subject.
His eyes flashed in an emotion you couldn’t place, hands finally coming down to rest at his sides. “How was work?” He asked placidly.
What?
The hell?
Your eyes burned with tears that had yet to fall, sucking in a sharp breath to compose yourself. “Haven’t you had enough? I have been waiting for the day you finally-“ you waved your hands around animatedly. “And then you just-“
He only stared on with the same solid expression.
You took another breath, “Are you going to kill me or not?”
“No.”
You swore you could feel your heartbeat hiccup, “No?”
Before you could pull it back, the words were out of your mouth. “Why not?”
You regretted the question immediately, watching as his eyes darkened.
There was a stretch of silence, and you were wondering how to do damage control when he spoke again, “Because I don’t want to. You…”
His gaze rakes up and down your frame. “You aren’t my North Star, no, something else. I want to find out what you are.”
Your words were little more than a whisper. “What I am?”
He sauntered towards you, slow as if walking towards a spooked animal. Or like he was hunting one. He only stopped once he was directly in front of you, toe to toe.
“Yes, I’m going to watch you and learn you. Why I feel this urge to-“ he cuts off abruptly, eyes widened in surprise.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
It seems like he wasn’t even prepared for what the answer was.
You stared at him, heartbeat still thundering in your ears. It was silly to believe a masked intruder from his words, but you did.
Nothing about that seemed like a lie. Despite what he’d initially found you for, he didn’t look like he wanted you dead. So, you believed him.
Your only worry was what he would do with you.
“O-Okay.” Was all you said before grabbing your clothes out the dresser and locking yourself in the bathroom.
You could only hope you turned fast enough that he didn’t see the redness in your face.
He was gone from the bedroom when you got out the shower. Everything was put back in its place, there was no sign of him. It made you wonder how many times he looked through your things without you knowing.
It should’ve made you unnerved… it didn’t.
He said he wanted to learn you. That you weren’t a north star. What did that mean? Why were you kind of excited about finding out?
You sniffed the air, there was a smell drifting from your kitchen filled with spices and butter. Like it were activated, your stomach suddenly released a large growl.
It seemed no matter how shocked you could get, there were still more surprises, Knives was at the stove, stirring something in a pot. You could see your oven was on as well, the light showing loaves of garlic bread on a sheet inside.
“You should go start a puzzle, it’ll be another five minutes.” He spoke without turning around, still continuing to stir the pot on the stove.
There’s a breaking point in a persons life where they stop asking questions. You were at that point.
So you pushed aside the wonder of why he was cooking, or where he even got the ingredients from, and sat down in your lounge chair.
You froze. It smelled like him. Gunpowder and metal, with a tinge of spearmint, the chairs leather still held a hint of him. You wondered how many times you could breathe it in without him noticing.
He was still focused on the food…
No. Stop. Get yourself together. You can’t just turn into a weirdo at the first attractive man you meet. Who’s to say he’s even attractive? He could be hideous under that mask.
You glanced over at him, eyeing the broadness of his shoulders and the muscle shifting under cloth.
You didn’t notice before, but he had taken off his gloves. His hands were big but deft, he probably would’ve made a good piano player in another life.
The evidence of this life was there as well. White scars marred his hands and trailed up his forearm to disappear under his shirt sleeve. You had no doubt they continued to the rest of his body too.
You tried to remind yourself of what those hands could do, why they were dangerous. Unfortunately your brain didn’t think it was that important at the moment, because the only thing you could remember is how they felt on your face.
You shook off the thoughts, blindly grabbing the closest puzzle box to you, it was a city landscape.
The pieces tumbled onto your living room table, sound echoing throughout the apartment. The only other sound past your moving pieces was the crackle of fire in the kitchen.
You needed some background noise.
You clicked on the tv, the low droning of the weather report filling the empty space. The screen had half your attention, but that was enough for your ears to perk when you heard the next segment of the news.
“And here we have the aftermath of another brawl from the vigilante known as Daredevil, he was in this very warehouse last night when the reports of gunfire started-“
The newscaster was one you’d seen before, usually for the more serious cases around the city. Her mouth was set in a hard line as she continued her warning.
“-advising all citizens to report any vigilante activity to the NYPD or AVTF whenever you become aware. If you do encounter Daredevil, do not engage-“
The tv went out in a wink, making you flinch. Like a bullet, a flying quarter had hit the power button dead center on your remote. Didn’t need many guesses to know where it came from.
The man in question was sauntering over with a steaming plate, glaring at the tv like it had personally offended him.
“You could’ve just asked me to turn it off.” You mutter, loud enough for him to hear you.
He didn’t answer, setting the plate in front of you with a clink. “Eat.”
You looked from him to the plate of food, then back again. It looked wonderful, a creamy heap of pasta with sautéed vegetables and garlic bread. It was all neatly arranged on your only kitchenware you hadn’t chipped.
You only wondered why the hell he had cooked it.
He seemed to misread your trepidation, leaning down to tug up a corner of his mask and shovel in a bit of the pasta. “Not poisoned. Not my style.” He said after a thick swallow.
The flash of lips, regardless how quick, distracted you. You stared on as a pink tongue flicked out to swipe at his mouth before he tugged the mask back down. It took you another few seconds to get it together.
“I know. You prefer to give people a million paper cuts.”
To your surprise, knives barked out a laugh, “That’s one way of putting it, sure.”
You turned to the food and started eating in an attempt to bypass the awkwardness. It was hard to suppress a groan when the first bit hit your mouth, the food was as good as it looked. If not better.
Do all hitmen take culinary classes or was it just his hobby?
You thought he would find something else to do, maybe vanish into thin air like he’d never been there at all, but the man chose to sit right across from you on the couch.
Dark eyes fixated on you as you ate in complete focus. He didn’t seem to want more conversation, just be a spectator. His only movement was circling a small knife around in his hand, but the movement didn’t seem threatening, more absentminded than anything else.
You didn’t realize how hungry you were until you were finishing the meal in record time, only clearing your throat to speak once you’d cleared the last bite, “It was great, thank you.”
He was grabbing the plate from you before you could even offer to clean up, making his way back to the kitchen and placing it inside your dishwasher with the other used pots and pans.
“Really, you don’t have to-“ you started, but he was already finished and walking back over to you.
“I know. I don’t have to do anything at all, advantages of self employment.” It was clear by his tone and the crinkle of his eyes that he was smirking. He took his time walking back to the couch, this time spreading his arms across the back in the appearance of complete comfortability.
What he said made you curious, “You don’t work for the man at the train?”
He tilted his head as if considering the answer. “I don’t work for anyone,” a new tinge of bitterness coated his tone, “but if you’re referring to the bozo who took a hit out on you, yes. I was the one given the assignment.”
“Ah, I figured.” The response came out more nonchalant than intended, but he truly didn’t tell you anything you hadn’t already suspected.
“You’re not bothered by that?”
You shrugged, “Nah, I trust you.” You meant for it to be fully sarcastic, and almost succeeded, but there was a bit of honesty that shone through. Against all better judgement and sound mind, you did trust him.
He stared at you, only providing a small scoff and muttering under his breath as response.
With the newfound silence, you decided to follow his earlier request and complete the puzzle that was started. You almost invited him to do it with you, but your mouth closed with a snap after looking over at him.
He seemed to be lost in thought about something, dark blonde eyebrows furrowed as he stared somewhere out your window.
Your eyes went back to the puzzle, the only sounds being the soft scrape of the pieces and faint breathing. You grimaced while reaching for some of the further pieces, the movement had aggravated the neck pain you usually had after a long shift.
Rolling your neck in a circle only slightly helped, there was still a crick in the muscle that most likely wouldn’t go away until after a lengthy soak in epsom salt.
Your distracted mind was only half aware of the other figure rising from the couch and making his way over to you.
“Sit back.”
You looked behind you in surprise, wondering how he’d gotten right behind your chair without you knowing. “Why?” You weren’t really concerned about the request, just curious what he intended.
“I can’t keep watching you do that without doing something. Sit back.” He tapped the headrest for emphasis.
Okay, bossy.
You rolled your eyes but did as he asked, sliding back to fully rest in the chair. It was a moment of nothing until you felt warmth against your shoulder blades.
You let out a full body flinch at the contact, but his hands didn’t falter, continuing a path from your shoulders into the sides of your neck. Strong thumbs dug into the muscles and nerves causing you pain, and you couldn’t keep a satisfied sigh from seeping out.
You practically melted into his hands as they traveled over every aching part of your back. Every time he dispelled a knot it knocked a quiet sound out of you.
It was firm but precise, every drag of his warm calloused hands left a tingling sensation in their wake. You couldn’t help but think about what else his hands could do…
The idea created a burning within you. The smell and feel of him so close was dangerous, and you were already wanting more of it. Needing more of it. You were absently aware of his breathing kicking up, almost delving into a pant in your ears.
He eventually slowed down, rubbing his fingers in circular motions on the top of your spine before retreating completely. He didn’t retreat too far, barely taking a step back as he stood behind your chair.
You didn’t look at him, focusing on calming your breathing and not appearing like the mess you were on the inside. You didn’t need a mirror to know your the flushed expression you wore.
You opened your mouth, then closed it, not trusting yourself to beg for his hands to touch you again.
He spoke before you could work up the nerve of a response, “I have to go.”
“Wait-” But it was too late, he was already closing the front door when you turned around.
Knives arrived more frequently after that night.
He didn’t stay as long, or touch you again, (much to your disappointment) but he would usually pop in without rhyme or reason with gifts and a bit of conversation.
You never asked him for anything, but he somehow always knew what you needed.
A new detergent when the old one just ran out, some more butter in the fridge, your favorite ice cream when you were craving it.
As far as you remembered, you never told him what your favorite flavor was, nor did you ever have one in the freezer since meeting him. He still knew.
Someone knowing so much about you should’ve probably unnerved you, but it only gave you a sense of serenity. You didn’t have to worry about explaining yourself to him, there was no pressure on your end. He just watched, and learned.
Except in one area. He seemed to be oblivious to your attraction to him, not flirting with you even once. There were his snarky remarks and knowing smirks sure, but that seemed to be less hitting on you and just more of who he was.
Unless, he does know you’re into him and just doesn’t feel the same so he’s ignoring it.
You brushed the thought off, sighing as you unlocked the door to your apartment. It was really no use wondering about it, even with all the time spent with Knives, you barely had a clue what was going on in his head.
Besides, after the day you’d had it was hard to think about anything else.
To say it was a bad shift would be an understatement. You’d overslept that morning, rushing through your morning routine but still arriving twenty-five minutes late to clock in.
It was a rare busy day in the store, and you could barely push past people to get to your register.
“About time.” Matthew shot you a dirty look between filing away the bills in his hand.
Your job was severely understaffed, and today was no different, which meant that in your absence Matthew had to handle the hordes of people on his own.
You gave him an apologetic nod, waving the next person in line over to you. Soon enough, the lines dwindled into nothing as the rush passed.
You wiped your sweaty hands on your pants leg, signing out of the POS to go work on other things. A stack of boxes caught your eye, and you moved closer to start unpacking the items inside.
“Go do the inventory. He wants it in the front on the orange display.” Snapped Matthew behind you. He was pointing at the very boxes you were already walking towards.
You didn’t bother correcting him in saying you were already going to do that, instead giving a curt nod.
“What, you can’t speak today? Didn’t take your meds?” He raised a brow, grinning at you.
Breathe, don’t let him get to you.
“I’m just going to do my job.”
His grin only widened at your answer. “Heh, okay. You do that.”
You ignored him, quickly pulling a dolly from the back transport the boxes to the front of the store.
You wiped a hand over your brow, starting to sweat with the effort. It would be a lot easier with two people, but like hell you were going to ask that asshole.
Matthew wasn’t really nice to anyone, except maybe the new hires he wanted to flirt with, but you still never understood why he seemed to hate you so much.
Because you’re always the odd man out, the one no one really likes, the one-
“Shut up.” You spat out the words, making sure you were quiet enough for no one else to hear. Matthew didn’t need more ammunition to call you crazy.
You directed your attention to the store display and away from your bleak thoughts. You couldn’t help what others thought of you, the only thing you could do at the moment was finish the stupid display and move onto your other work.
You vacantly slapped the folded clothes onto the shelves, mind drifting elsewhere.
I bet knives never had to work in retail.
You’d be very surprised if he ever had a real job before. Trying to imagine his scowling face behind a cash register made a chuckle bubble within you.
He’d probably stab someone on his first day.
Shit, he can stab Matthew for all I care.
You half scolded yourself at the thought, realizing how fucked up it sounded to wish that someone stab your coworker. You weren’t as upset by the thought as you could’ve been.
There was a sharp creaking noise, and before you could react, the metal shelf you had been stacking on crashed down on your arm.
“Shit-” You jumped back to avoid falling with it, but the damage had been done. The edge of the shelf dug a cut down your forearm that was already spurting blood over you and the merchandise.
“Oh no, shit, shit, shit-” You couldn’t think straight, only standing there in a panic as you gripped your bloody arm.
“What the fuck did you do now?” If you thought Matthew was mad at you before, he was pissed now. “I asked you to do one simple thing and you can’t even do that? Who’s gonna clean this shit up?”
He’d left a customer at the desk to see what the sound was, but he didn’t seem to care about their existence as he yelled at you.
“Fuckin disability hire, can’t even stock a shelf. I don’t know why you’re standing there, you should be-”
You didn’t wait for him to finish, bumping into him as you rushed towards the back room with tears in your eyes.
Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry in front of him, he’s not worth it.
You ignored his calls for you to come back, slamming your work locker open and grabbing your things. You didn’t even bother clocking out, only stopping by the lunch corner to grab paper towels and wipe down your arm.
The harsh wind from outside only aggravated your eyes more, but you steeled yourself against the cold.
You got plenty weird looks on the train ride home, but nobody said anything to you. It was probably the mix of blood staining your hands and scowl that discouraged conversation.
A ten minute ride followed by a brisk walk brought you back to where you were, standing at your apartment door with an aching cut.
You shouldered the door open with your uninjured side, immediately dropping your things to the ground once you were inside.
The cut hurt like a bitch and was still freely bleeding, but you shouldn’t need stitches or anything dramatic. The med kit from under your sink in the bathroom should more than suffice.
You turned the corner towards the bathroom, but stopped short at the figure standing there.
The visitor was more expected than not these days, but you didn’t think he’d be here this early since he usually met you after your shift.
“What did I say about taking care of your things?” He half turned from the window where you assumed he’d watched you come in.
You’d usually muster up something equally as playful in response, but this time, you were not in the mood.
He seemed to sense the shift, whipping his head over to you. It didn’t take long for his eyes to rake over you, gaze landing on your right arm.
“Who did that?” His demeanor changed completely after seeing the injury, voice turning steely.
It only took a few strides for him to reach you, hand snapping out to grasp your forearm. His eyes were blazing with anger behind his mask and he looked two seconds away from disemboweling someone.
Even though you knew his anger wasn’t with you; it still took a moment to stutter out a response, “No one, I-i did it myself. Well, not did it, it wasn’t on purpose. An accident at work.”
Your clarification didn’t seem to calm him much.
He stepped to your side, scooping an arm under your legs to pull you to his chest, his other arm supporting your back. He walked towards your bathroom with purpose.
You let out a squawk of surprise at being airborne, “Hey, I can still walk. It’s just a cut, you don’t have to carry me.”
“Blood loss causes dizziness, and it looks like you’ve already lost too much.” Someone would’ve thought you were bleeding out by how aggravated he sounded.
You didn’t want to mention that the main reason you were dizzy was his close proximity, not the injury. You were closer to him than you ever were before, and you couldn’t stop yourself from taking in a deep whiff. Blood, metal, mint.
He knocked your bathroom door open with enough strength to make it rattle, marching over to your closed toilet where he set you down gently but firmly.
As always, he knew where you put everything, so you didn’t have to direct him as he pulled out your small med kit.
It was just the buzz of the fluorescent lights for noise as he rummaged through the kit, occasionally pulling out select items he’d need.
You watched as hazel eyes narrowed in concentration, stomach doing a flip at how focused he was on helping you. How caring.
There was a mix of disinfectant and many bandages on the counter (more than you’d probably need), and he looked over them quickly before washing his hands and snapping on latex gloves.
“It’s going to hurt, you can hold onto me if you need to.” Was the only warning you got before he was gripping your arm with one hand and wiping down the cut with the other.
The antibacterial liquid was cold and stinging, you let out a sharp hiss at the stab of pain. As the blood was cleaned away, you could see that the cut was a bit deeper than you thought.
“I-ah, you don’t think I’ll need stitches, right?” You were a bit scared to ask, his frown had only deepened once he started working on you.
“No. It’s not to that point, but you’ll need to keep it wrapped tightly for a while so the skin can join back together.”
And he was right, after cleaning the wound thoroughly, he stuck some hefty bandages over the opening and wrapped it all in a tight cover of gauze.
He tucked the end of the fabric inside to secure it, and tugged off his gloves to clear away the mess of dirty wipes and wrappers on the counter.
You didn’t bother thanking him, knowing by now that he wouldn’t accept it.
You looked down at his work, neat as usual. You startled as a pill bottle was being shaken in front of you, eyes focusing to read the label.
“It doesn’t really hurt that much.”
He shook it again, insisting, “It will later, take one.”
You knew there was no chance of changing his mind, and it didn’t seem like the worst idea, so you grabbed the container and swallowed down one of the pills.
Satisfied, Knives leaned back against the wall opposite you, muscular arms folded over his chest.
Despite his quietness, you could still sense the underlying anger rolling off him. Knowing the answer, you asked anyway, “Are you upset?”
“Explain what happened.”
You hesitated for a moment, then started the retelling of what happened that day. You kept your composure for the most part, voice only hitching when you repeated what your coworker had said about you.
Knives stood stock still through it all, watching with that calm dangerous air that he had.
By the time you were done, you felt the telltale signs of tears, but you pushed it down again. You didn’t want it to bother you, but it did. After a life of dealing with rejection, it still stung.
A warm hand lifted up your chin, thumb swiping away tears you weren’t aware had fallen. “You don’t deserve that, none of it. It won’t happen again.” There wasn’t an ounce of question in his tone, he was sure of it.
You let out a weak laugh, sniffling. “I could only hope, he’ll probably be worse after today though. Especially since I left early.”
He hummed, “I’ve always disliked the name Mathew, all of them are annoying.” He sounded like he usually did again, slightly amused as if he were in on a joke that you weren’t.
You laughed again, stronger this time. “I can’t say I’ve had experience with that many Matthew’s to agree with you.”
He ran his thumb over your cheek one more time before backing away. “Trust me, they are. You should take tomorrow off.”
There he goes again, giving demands veiled as suggestions.
“I would love to, but unfortunately some of us common folk need jobs, and if I call out again I’ll probably be u employed. I’m sure you’ve never worked one, so it’s hard to understand.” Your tone was playfully mocking, but it was the truth. There was no way your manager was going to be okay with that, plus, you needed to make up for the money lost by leaving early.
“I have.” He adverted his eyes to your left, “worked a job that is.”
You perked up, it was rare that the man offered information past what model his knives were, and you didn’t want to lose the opportunity to learn more about him.
“Oh really? As what?” You kept your tone light, to not seem like you were prying.
“An officer.”
“Like, a police officer?”
“No. Not exactly.”
You blinked in confusion.
He shifted in his stance, like the conversation was suddenly making him uncomfortable. “Agent, would be the better term. I-” He paused, finding the right words. “I locked away the monsters of the world, and protected the people I needed to.”
You cocked a brow, “So, you were a spy?”
He huffed, giving you a look. “No. How the hell did you get spy out of that?”
“You are amazingly vague at every answer, I figured it would fit.” You shrugged, wincing when the movement aggravated the skin of your arm.
He zoned in on the expression, eyes narrowing again. “You should go to bed, especially if you’re insisting on going to work tomorrow.”
It was clear that was all the answers you’d get out of him, this night at least. You let out a huff of breath, using the counter to pull yourself into a standing position.
There was a wave of wooziness, and you fought to keep balance. Clearly the pill was doing its job.
An arm snaked around to your back, steadying you as you walked to your bedroom. As if there were an invisible barrier, he stopped at the threshold. In the dim lighting, you could only see the dark outline of him and the glint of metal strapped to his person.
To anyone else it would be menacing, terrifying even, to have the attention of the killer focused on them. You only craved more of it.
“There’s soup in your fridge if you want it. Change the wrapping in the morning, it shouldn’t cause any issues before then.”
You could only blame the strength of the pain pill for your lack of restraint, “Do you have to leave right now?”
A pause. “I do. I have something else to take care of.”
You tried not to take it as a dismissal, but it hurt nonetheless.
Something else. Not you.
“Right, okay.” The disappointment was obvious in your voice.
Steady steps made their way over to your bedside, “I don’t want to, but are some things I need to do. I’ll see you soon.”
You could barely make out the shape of him standing over you, drowsiness and the pain medicine muddling things together. “Aye, aye captian.”
A deep chuckle, and then a quiet response, “Dex.”
Dex. It suits him. You couldn’t tell if you’d said the name aloud or in your head, already giving way to unconsciousness.
The last thing you felt was a hand lightly trailing down your face before blackness.
Other than feeling like a sledgehammer hit you, your next day at work was uncharacteristically peaceful.
Even though Matthew was scheduled alongside you for the week, he never showed up for work that day.
Or the next day. Or the next one after that.
He didn’t call out, and based on the grumble from your manager, hadn’t quit either.
You never said anything, never even thought the words in your head, but you knew what happened.
If you were really honest with yourself, you knew what was going to happen when you heard the assurance in his voice that you wouldn’t have any more problems.
Kni-No-Dex, was a killer, regardless of how he treated you. You knew how he solved problems.
You were a little nervous at how little it bothered you. You had the same tingling feeling you got when he replaced one of the lightbulbs in your apartment without asking.
Cared for.
But there was another problem, Dex was nowhere to be seen either. He’d never shown up again after that night, and you were starting to get concerned.
Even though he didn’t show up every single day, missing several days in a row was out of character for him. You could only hope that he wasn’t dead or arrested somewhere.
It seemed silly to worry about him, especially with how competent he seemed. You didn’t steadily watch the news, but everyone in the city had heard of a man in a blue mask who could lodge a knife in your head faster than you could blink.
Bullseye.
He’d never told you it was him, but you weren’t an idiot, all the traits aligned. Not to mention his name, Dex, most likely short for Benjamin Pointdexter. The man who was sent to prison a while back for murder.
You didn’t care about any of that. Your only concern was that he was M.I.A. and it was out of character.
Maybe he just got bored, found someone else.
You ignored the slithering thought, knowing it’s not true.
Despite not knowing all of his life, you knew him, he was obsessive to a fault. His cleanliness, the order of his knives, and seeing you all fell into a cycling routine that he didn’t stray from.
He wouldn’t just dissapear.
Your leg shook nervously as you focused on the television. The news was covering a recent stock drop or something related. You were half listening for anything that could be related to him.
You were sure that an extremely wanted convict being detained would make front page news, so if anything happened, they’d talk about it here.
So far, it was nothing of substance, just the economy and a new court case with the slime-ball mayor.
You were shaking your leg so vigorously that you almost didn’t hear it at first. Your hand shot out, muting the tv before straining your ears.
There it was, a soft shuffling sound coming from your bedroom. You jumped up, heart fluttering in your chest as you rushed over there.
You only stopped short of your bedroom door to grab a nearby book, just in case it wasn’t Dex in your room and you needed a weapon.
Turns out, it was unnecessary, you saw him immediately upon entering, slumped against your open window.
“Dex-” His name was expelled in a relieved breath, but you only grew concerned again the more you looked at him.
Dark patches covered his mask and the fabric of his suit. His gloves were on, but you could see the clear glisten of blood coating them.
“Hey. Thought you’d be asleep. I can go soon, just gotta take a breather.”
You scoffed indignantly, quickly going over to him, “A breather? Jesus, what happened?”
“Not Jesus, just me.”
You glared at him. It was not the time for jokes, definitely not as he was dripping blood on your floor.
“You can explain later, here.” You supported him under his shoulder as you guided him to your bed.
“Gonna get it dirty.” He pushed back slightly as you tried to sit him down, but fell back anyway when you applied more force.
“It’s okay, I have other sheets. I’m worried about you right now.”
You could tell he was smirking based off the look in his eyes, further proven by the next statement. “Worried about me?”
You didn’t even bother hiding the emotion in your response, “Yes, I do. A lot.”
That made him quiet, glinting eyes searching your face for any hint of a joke or lie. He seemed to find none, but had no response for you. It was hard to tell his full expression behind the mask, and you found yourself sick of it.
Besides, it’s not like you didn’t know who he was.
Your fingers curled under the edge, lifting it gently, but a firm grip on your wrist stopped you.
“Ben, it’s okay.”
His eyes widened in slight surprise at your use of his first name, but it did the trick. The hand holding you fell away and you pulled the fabric fully off his face.
You sucked in a breath at the injuries before you. A trickle of blood coated his blond grey-flecked hair where it stuck to his forehead, and there was a bruise blooming on his cheekbone.
The lips you had admired not that long ago were sporting a cut, but even with all that, Dex didn’t appear to be in a lot of pain. His face showed an openness and tiredness that you’d never seen on him before.
Without thinking, you raised a hand to brush lightly over his mouth, relishing in the slight flutter of his eyelids as you did so.
You couldn’t stop, addicted to the reaction. Your hand trailed from his lips to the side of his face, and over his sharp jawbone. You mapped out everything that was hidden to you before, ignoring the smear of blood on your hand.
His piercing gaze stayed fixed on you as he pressed his head into your palm. His only other movement was twitching hands where they rested over his thighs. He stayed still, not trying to stop you or rush you, just accepting.
It wasn’t until your fingertips brushed over his throat that he shivered beneath you. The movement was nearly imperceptible, but he had definitely tilted his head back slightly to give you more access.
It made something swirl in your abdomen. How much he trusted you, how willing he was beneath your hands. How good he looked, injuries and all.
You told him as such, and his eyebrows knit together like he had been hit.
“Don’t say that, you don’t know what you’re starting.” His voice was weak, barely a whisper in the quiet of the room.
“I do.”
“No you don’t. You said you care about me, I’m not easy to care for.” The words weren’t said in self deprecation or a stab at sympathy, just factual. He truly believed that care and tenderness wasn’t made for him.
It sent a pang through your heart, for so many years you held a similar sentiment about yourself. You were difficult to understand-to accept, but he did, and you could do the same for him.
“I know.” You held his face in both palms, a hairsbreadth away from him, “Neither am I.”
Your lips meeting his seemed to ignite action within him, hands that were previously dormant snapping up to grab at your hips firmly.
You were pulled down to straddle his lap, already feeling a poking hardness in the fabric. It was your turn to shiver, giving an experimental grind forward as you continued to kiss him breathlessly.
That caused a deep groan to flood from his throat into your mouth. He quickly found purchase over your ass to guide you into repeating the movement.
While you grinded over the hard length in his pants, his tongue explored the expanse of your mouth, flicking over the ridges and smoothness inside. You could taste the uniqueness of him, but also the metallic tang of blood from his lip.
You only pulled away to breathe once the burning in your chest couldn’t be ignored. Chest heaving, you pulled back and watched as he did the same.
He couldn’t seem to see enough of you, eyes raking from your chest down your frame and back again. His lips were swollen and spit slicked, and you were sure you had a similar look of dishevelment.
His hands trailed up your spine and back down to where you sat on top of him. You could hear the swallow he took before speaking, “If I’m going to have you, it’s going to be all of you. If you go through with this, you’re not leaving me, you get that?” His voice was steady despite being out of breath, tone deadly serious.
You could read between the lines for the warning. There was no going back for Dex if you continued, no breakups, no do-overs.
Lucky for him you didn’t want any.
In lieu of response, you surged forward, attacking his mouth with your own as you drug yourself firmly over his crotch.
You gasped out a moan as the movement caught between your legs, right where you needed it most. But it wasn’t enough. You needed to be closer.
You shrugged off your top, throwing it to an unseen side of the room. Another shiver racked your body as lips made use of the newly exposed skin, nipping and sucking over your chest and sternum.
His fingers grabbed onto the latch of your bra, but you stopped him short. “No, get out of that suit first.”
He backed away from you with a half lidded gaze, trademark smirk flicking on his lips. “Yes ma’am.”
He seemed to enjoy watching you squirm as he unlatched all the zippers and buttons of his suit, moving much slower than necessary. The utility belt came off first, knives clinking as he threw them on your nightstand. The top part of his suit was soon to follow, dark fabric peeling away to reveal fair skin.
He wasn’t as injured as you’d assumed, just a dark blooming bruise on his ribs and left shoulder. Every other mark was old and weathered, the raised scars scattered across his torso spoke of years of pain.
You took him in unabashedly, eyes raking over pronounced pectorals and the defined abs that covered his stomach. Light hair dusted his chest and led in a trail past the waistband of his pants.
His smirk only widened as he watched you watching him. Patiently waiting, he sat there for your next move.
It was only fair that you lost the next bit of clothing, so you rose off him to shimmy out of your pants, leaving the underwear on.
His brow rose as he caught onto the little game you were playing. His pants came off quickly after, joining yours in a dark heap.
The only thing shielding the prominent bulge in his lap was dark grey briefs. They didn’t leave much to the imagination, clinging to the long rod of him and wrapping around solid thighs. You could see a dark patch in the fabric where he’d already started leaking, your core throbbing in response.
You settled on his lap again, smiling at the soft hiss he let out from the pressure. Your hand wrapped around his wrist, guiding him to your bra clasp as you trailed fingertips past the waistband of his briefs.
His fingers deftly unlatched the clasp, and the cover fell away right as you pulled his length free.
It slapped loudly against his lower stomach, smearing white across his skin and your hand.
His eyes weren’t focused on that though, only staring at your chest with intimidating focus. “God, the things I want’ta do to you.”
It was spoken under his breath so quietly, you were unsure if the words were meant for you to hear.
“So do them.”
He only laughed, leaning back on his elbows to watch you.
He knew what you wanted, he just wasn’t going to give it to you that easily. Your frustration only made him impossibly harder.
Despite his blasé act, you could see you were having an effect on him. Every rock of your hips made his cock twitch, a bead of white dribbling out the top. His neck and chest were covered in a flush, and every breath he took seemed labored. Shaky.
You decided to play his own game, fuck with him a little, “C’mon Dex, show me what you promised.”
You reached down, rubbing a thumb over the leaking slit between you. He let out a breathy moan, hips involuntarily bucking up into you.
You didn’t stop in your ministrations, leaning down to speak directly in his ear. “You said you wanted all of me, so take it. You have me.”
Your words caused another twitch in your hand. “You have me, I’m yours.”
The words were barely out your mouth when you were flipped onto your back, bouncing against the mattress. You let out a startled giggle at the movement, only sobering when you looked down.
The look Dex gave you made your heart stutter for a moment. The only way you could describe it was carnivorous. His eyes were dark and shadowed, and if you didn’t know him well enough to recognize the want in his expression, he looked almost pissed off.
It only made wetness pool in your core.
“You want this?” He left a trail of open mouthed kisses down your stomach.
It was a rhetorical question, but you nodded anyway.
“Where do you want me? Here?” He bit at your hipbone, soothing the flesh with a lick afterwards.
“Or here?” His breath ghosted across the damp patch of your panties, making you thrum in anticipation.
“Yes, right there.” Any more dilly dallying and you’d probably start begging. You had a feeling that’s exactly what he wanted.
“Hmm, interesting.” He ignored the area, trailing lips down your inner thighs. His hands gripped your knees, preventing you from closing yourself off to him.
He bit random spots all the way down your thigh, licking a stripe on the way up.
“Dex- c’mon.” You huffed. The feeling of his mouth on yours was amazing, but it wasn’t nearly enough and he knew it.
“Whose are you?” The words are spoken into your skin, in the crease of your hip.
“Yours.”
“And who do I belong to?” He grasped the waistband of your underwear between his teeth, dragging them down slowly.
“Me.”
You only saw the flash of a smile before his mouth was on you fully. You let out a shuddering moan as his lips latched onto your clit, sucking hard.
He juggled between your bundle of nerves and trailing his tongue down to your entrance, licking inside.
You could feel him groan against you as you grabbed a fistful of his hair, holding him steady.
Between your existing wetness and his mouth, you were soaking, juices dripping down to the bedsheets past his mouth.
His mouth traveled up again to focus on your nub while one of his hands snaked around to press two fingers against your entrance.
They slipped in easily, quickly building a rhythm trusting into you while his tongue lapped at you from the outside.
You couldn’t even make a sound as your peak quickly approached, your body just seized with the amount of pleasure rolling through you.
Your eyesight blanked out, and you took a few heaving breaths before you were able to find your voice again.
Even as your moans turned to over sensitive whimpers, he didn’t let up, only slowing down the movement of his hands and mouth. He seemed to be lost in the action, only focused on you and your enjoyment.
You had to yank his head back to get him to stop, and he did so with a bit of reluctance.
His hands trailed over you, running smoothing circles over your hips and legs.
Impatiently, you dug your heels into his back, nudging him upward towards you.
He followed happily, the same hungry expression on his face, except now there was a lack of tension. He seemed more relaxed, like he was the one who came and not you.
“I might not last too long. Don’t do this much, or at all really.” He analyzed your face after he’d said it, looking for any shift in your expression.
You were kind of shocked by the revelation, but weren’t put off by it at all. For a normal guy that looked like Dex, you’d assume they had a steady stream of people coming into their bed.
He wasn’t normal, and he definitely wasn’t the type to have one night stands. In fact, before tonight, you weren’t completely certain he was interested in sex at all.
You would’ve accepted him either way of course, but it was nice to know he shared the same want as you did.
“That’s fine, I just need you inside me.”
The words shocked a groan out of him, and he nuzzled his head into the juncture of your neck.
You could feel his hands wrap around your legs to reposition you accordingly.
He slid out of the last piece of fabric covering him and reached down to position his head at your entrance.
It slipped at first from the wetness, but after a few tries the tip caught onto you, slipping inside halfway.
The pressure punched the air out of you, mouth falling open in an ‘o’ shape. Even with his preparation it was a tight fit.
Dex let out a noise somewhere between a whine and a moan, dipping down to capture your mouth in his, siphoning heat into your mouth.
The taste of yourself on his tongue only heightened the experience, and you could barely catch your breath between that and his slow ruts forward.
Every movement pushed him further into you, and before you knew it he was sheathed inside you fully.
You both shuddered at the feeling, and you were sure you could feel every ridge and vein of him in your walls.
“Shit- you feel so good. I gotta pause for a sec.” He breathed against your mouth.
So you waited.
Until you didn’t.
His head tipped forward with a groan as you squeezed around him. One of his hands held your hip in a vice grip, sure to leave bruises later.
“Don’t do that.” His eyes flashed at you in warning.
You couldn’t even focus on a teasing response, you only wanted him to move.
Then he did, starting in shallow thrusts into you, building into longer drags where he pulled almost fully out before snapping into you again.
He grabbed your wrist, planting the palm firmly over his throat and guiding it to squeeze.
You followed the instruction even as his hand fell away, tightening around the corded muscles of his neck.
His eyes fluttered, hips stuttering before speeding up into a faster pace.
His breaths panted against your face as he pounded into you with quick succession. The angle shifted slightly, and he flashed a sharp grin at me hearing your higher pitch.
He pinpointed that spot, hitting it over and over again, only pausing to slip your ankles over his shoulders before continuing.
You couldn’t tell where you began and he ended, mind so blissed out. It was clear from your noises that you were reaching your peak again, and he slipped a hand down over your clit to accelerate it.
He didn’t rub, just pressed down his thumb firmly over you as you tightened around his shaft again.
The feeling of your fluttering walls made him follow right across the edge with you, letting out a shuddering moan as he pumped a few more times and released inside you.
All the strength seemed to sap from him once he came, body falling onto you heavily. You could still tell he was holding himself up a bit on his forearms in order to not crush you completely and you pulled him down solidly to increase the weight.
His rapid heart rate beat in unison with yours where you were pressed to his chest, the slick feeling of sweat and other fluids clinging to your bodies as he softened within you.
The time stretched on as you both sat there in breathless blissfulness, neither one eager to move positions.
His face hadn’t moved from where it sat nestled in your neck, warm breaths disturbing the strands of hair there. When he spoke, you felt it more than you heard it.
“You okay?” It was spoken with an air of unsureness that was unlike him. Based on what he’d said before, you had an idea of what his worries were.
“That was amazing.” And you weren’t lying, the entire experience had knocked a bit of your soul out your body and you were certain there’d be consequences of soreness the next day.
He made a humming noise, satisfied with the answer, and moved to lift off you.
A flare of panic lit up within you. Eventually, you’d have to go back to the real world, real responsibilities and concerns, but at the moment you didn’t want the stretch of peace to end. “Wait, not yet.”
He lowered himself back down immediately even though a frown creased his expression. “You need to get cleaned up, it might feel worse later.”
“Well,” you let out a soft chuckle, rubbing a hand along his scarred spine, “that’s for later me to worry about. Just a bit longer.”
He didn’t make much argument about it, settling his head back over your chest where he gave soft nips at your collarbone.
Despite relishing the peacefulness, there was something else nagging at your mind.
“Hey Dex?”
He hummed out a response, still mapping you out with his mouth.
“What happened?” You didn’t have to clarify, you knew he knew that you were referring to the event that caused him to show up in your room covered in blood.
A soft sigh, and he was leaning back to respond, “The one who put a hit on you, he found out that I hadn’t exactly,” he paused deliberating the words, “followed instructions. He sent a team to finish the job, and I made sure that didn’t happen.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.” There was a burning in his eyes that showed the extent of violence he was capable of.
The idea of him choosing to not kill you even though he’d been ordered to do so, and fighting off anyone else who tried was… rousing to say the least.
His eyes tightened in a wince of overstimulation as you involuntarily tightened around him.
“It’s gonna be a bit longer for that.” He sounded like he detested that fact just as much as you did.
You grinned, “I’ll be counting down the minutes,” you were going to continue with something teasing, but the look on his face stalled you.
The light from your open window casted a bluish tint over his face, contouring the edges of features softly. He fixed you with a searching gaze, like you were the only thing worth looking at.
“I meant what I said before,” You started, “it’s no going back for me either. I’m with you.”
He traveled up to your face silently and your eyes fluttered closed in preparation. Instead of kissing you on the lips, his mouth pressed firmly over your forehead. The touch trailed down to press two consecutive pecks over your eyelids and finally melt against your mouth.
“I’m with you.”
You knew that no matter what was coming in your lives that you weren’t afraid, fully willing to delve into the future with the person that knew you best.
Div by: @pixopix
AN: boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, I wrote this on company time. So if there’s any typos or inconsistencies… sorry. It’s minimally edited from my flow of consciousness.
If anyone even reads this, lemme know what you think, is it good? Bad? Just meh? Lmk :D
⋆˙⟡ summary your husband has been tormented with jealousy at your new sworn shield.
⋆˙⟡ notes this was fun and hot.
⋆˙⟡ warnings sex 18+, p in v, riding, possessive and jealous baelor, dirty talk, pussy eating, implications of a biting kink
MASTERLIST
Baelor knew of your standing amongst the many folk of the Realm. They looked upon you, his second wife, as a young beauty. It seemed both Lords and Ladies alike got lost within your gaze, stammering their House names as you greeted them. Your beauty gained you a vast amount of attention, the good in hand with the bad. Perhaps this was why your guard must double on your tours of the Realm, or why you followed after your Husband as he walked through the Keep.
"Husband," you called out, his pace swiftly outdoing your own, "you must think it as silly as I. A sworn shield?"
"Yes, my dear wife." He did not halt in his trail toward the small council room, wanting this conversation to be brought to an end, though that did not seem likely. The death of most conversation was when you willed it so, not him or anyone else. You had that effect on people, and what was worse, you were aware of it. Used it to your advantage, in fact.
"I am not a Queen. Merely a Princess save by marriage." You reasoned.
Baelor finally stopped, eyes closed to refrain from talking to you as he did his many small council men when they would not listen to him. He held the patience of many Houses of men in his body alone, that would not falter with you. You had picked up your skirts to chase after him, finally stopping as you reached his chest.
A familiar scent. A very familiar scent.
You craned your head toward his neck, standing on your toes to better reach him. "Is that… lemon?"
Baelor felt his cheeks heat at your observation, wanting to run from his sweet wife as you stared up at him, a challenging smirk stuck to your face. "I miss you during my day of many duties, I carry your scent as a reminder."
He said it so casually, as if this was not such a grand declaration of love toward you. Your knees nearly buckled at his admission.
"Baelor Targaryen." You gasped, hands clutching your chest. "I will find this marriage annulled to wed you all over again, if you are not careful with your words."
He breathed out a laugh, reaching his hands to grasp your cheeks within them. "Must I be so careful? I am enraptured by you, even after our many years of marriage."
The scarce moment between you was sweet, innocent, free of any duties that you were both bound to, you did not want to sour it with digging your heels in on the matters of your protection. But you did anyway, you were nothing if not a vessel to keep Baelor on his toes.
"Must it be? A sworn shield for me sounds like utter nonsense." You pleaded, your hands shifted from your chest to his. Your touch waged war between his mind and body, he had little option than to submit.
"You sound much like Maekar." His tone was amused, light, hopeful to sway his decision on this sworn sword. "But your protection is paramount to me, I will not risk your life because you wish to wander the halls alone."
You huffed, stomping your foot like a sulking child not getting their way, before shuffling away from your Husband. "Nonsense."
You were not even permitted to choose your sworn shield. Not a grand moment of the Kingsguard lined before you, pointing below to a particularly beefy one. No, in stead, you had been woken and summoned to the gardens by your Husband, the cloaked guard stood beside him.
"My dear wife," Baelor greeted you, taking your hands into his and bringing them to his lips. His kiss was soft, any firmer and you would be dragging him to your bedchambers. "This is your sworn shield, Ser Caine."
The knight bowed his head before you, your polite smile convincing enough to have him smile back at you. Baelor was contented with his decision as he looked at you, accepting the protection, being safer for it, settling Baelor's heartbeat during his routinely duties. But as he looked at Ser Caine, a familiar sight as he had seen before in most Lords that met with his wife. He had been damned.
You were beautiful, Baelor knew that. He was more than happy with it, to have a wife that was so easy on his eyes, it made his duties as a Husband simpler. But he could not cage the chill in his bones, as it swept through his chest like a wind from the North. Ser Caine's gaze had not left yours, as you rambled innocently about something only you thought so fondly of.
Baelor spent many a day and night listening to your words, how they fell from your mouth in a ramble completely separate from your mind. He entertained it, encouraged it, you were a person of your own will, and felt natural enough with him to carry yourself in such a way. It felt foreign to see it happen so quickly with this Ser Caine.
But Baelor was nothing if not dutiful. This was the happenings from this moment forward, there was little to be done with it.
Baelor could not fault the poor knight, he was exceptional at his duty. He spent every moment at your side, or at the door of the rooms you occupied. Some nights even guarded your bedchambers. He was simply performing his duty, doing as he had sworn to do. So why did Baelor feel so… vexed? He was a busy man, though he wished he was not. When not in small council meetings, he would be at the King's side, aiding him on his authority over the Realm. He did not have the time to give you, even if he yearned for it, so you mostly existed in thought.
He would pass the library, dragging himself to yet another called upon meeting, catching you drifting between the shelves, Ser Caine closely behind you, his own eye upon you. As if the books that surrounded you were any threat. He simply continued on his path, shaking his head free of his poisoned thoughts.
He would venture outside to locate his sweet wife, to take a moment at your side to look upon you fondly, to relax the stiffness in his shoulders. And would see you, blunted steel in hand, sparring with Ser Caine. Albiet lightly, the knight was not a fool. He did not clash your swords, did not attack, only defend from your strikes. His lip firmed, bordering a sneer, at the sight of you both.
Your laugh echoed through his chest, only lifting the smile of your sworn shield. You engaged in your laughter, the swords clattering to the ground beneath you as you played the victor. Baelor was controlled by envy, jealously, this feeling had not yet been named. He had not felt this with Jena, his late wife, only with you, his younger, prettier wife.
"Husband." Your voice was smooth against his ears, melting whatever hardened, sour feelings had gathered within him. You approached him with a simple kiss to his cheek. "Did you see my technique? I feel my call to war is imminent, I must be armoured and horsed immediately."
Ser Caine laughed behind you. Stolen the laughter from Baelor's throat.
"If only, dear wife." He spoke, his fingers reaching to fiddle with your necklace, the gem he had gifted you settled on the hollow of your throat. "The Realm would not lift a sword toward you, for you are too kind."
"And pretty, I hope." You added, allowing Baelor's eyes to shift over your body. Awaiting his answer.
"I need not say it, for you already know what I think of your beauty." He answered, taking hold of your heart as he did every time you spoke. It was simple for him, he need not do much to have you a mess in his hands.
He was not oft so affectionate with you in public view. He saved his sweet words and sweeter touch for the privacy of your chambers, but he was a man at his core, he would not be mistaken for his place at your side. He allowed your hands to rest on his chest, he allowed his hands to cradle your cheeks. He yearned to kiss you, touch you, have you come undone around his fingers. But duty had called him away once again.
"Your Grace," a serving man stood behind him, taking him from your grasp, "The King summons you to his solar."
"At once, Husband." You bowed your head, stepping away as he drifted away from you. Scarcely a look over his shoulder at you, and your heart retired to its sunken place in your stomach. With a deep sigh, your chest felt hollow.
"Ser Caine," you spoke, eyes stuck on the wall your Husband just disappeared behind, "I wish to visit the gardens this afternoon."
"Of course, my Lady." He spoke, taking his place ahead of you and taking the lead toward the gardens.
You would not dare admit it to your Husband, but you were delighted of his appointment of Ser Caine as your shield. He was dutiful, but kind, indulged in your humorous remarks. Made your days less hollow. Of course, when Baelor had appeared to see you between his day, he retired to his role as Guard. Or when Valarr and Matarys would bombard you with excitable happenings of their days. But when your Husband and sons-by-marriage had been stolen by responsibility, you found a friend in Ser Caine.
You sat opposite each other in the library, books open between you. You had reached such new depths of boredom, you had made a game between you. The first to find spilt ink on a page won. Won what, you had not yet gotten that far. But it evolved into a race, who could find the splotch of ink first?
Your fingers dragged over the rough page, assessing between the lines of words for any abnormalities. Ser Caine contained as much vigor as you, flipping between pages faster than you had. You were both so lost in your fun, you had not noticed your Husband enter the library.
Ser Caine raised from his chair with haste, spine straightened and hand atop his pummel. Only then did you look up from your book.
"Do not tighten your guard on my account, Ser Caine." Baelor commented, reaching for his wife to raise you from your seat. "You are at my wife's service, not my own."
The knight did not move.
"Husband." You cooed up at him, an affectionate hand on his cheek. "To what do I owe this visit?"
"I missed you. That is all." He spoke, his next words quieter. "I must speak with you."
As you followed your Husband's path, Ser Caine had shuffled to folow you.
"Stay, Ser Caine." He ordered.
Baelor had taken you through the library's doors leading toward the gardens, seating you before himself on one of the many benches that aligned with the rows of foliage. His hands held yours, cradled them in their vast size over your own, smoothing his thumbs over your knuckles.
"What is the meaning of this, Husband? You concern me." Your eyebrows knotted where they separated, eyes glassy as you looked upon your Husband's uncomfortable face.
"I must go to Oldtown." He declared. "There are trade disputes I must settle."
"And why must I stay here? I can accompany you." You argued softly,
Baelor just shook his head, only tightening his grip on your hands. "There is little need, sweetheart. If I bring you, we would only stop along the roseroad more. It is much swifter this way."
He was right. It would be quicker had you remained here, but you would not be happy. Your heart would be ripped from your chest as he rode from the gatehouse. You knew he would take Valarr and Matarys, too. The boys were ripe for learning responsibility. So you would be utterly without your family.
"I will be back with haste." He assured you, freeing a hand to pull your shoulders into him. "Scarcely a moons passing."
He peppered kisses into your hair, marking you with his love as he prepared to leave. You would feel hollow until his return, it sickened you with grief. You kissed the boys cheeks, cradled them against you to wish them a safe journey. You could not see their horses leave, you could not be near the gatehous as they rode off. In stead, remaining in the gardens, where Baelor had told you of his departure.
You turned blue in their absence. In Baelor's absence. Your bed was a vast wastland of fabric, unnessary for the little room you took up. You did not feel his affection on your shoulders come the morn, nor did you feel it between your thighs. You ate supper alone, duty says not even Ser Caine could be seated with you.
It gave you little option but to spend your efforts talking with Ser Caine. You had grown fond your sworn shield, the knight vowed to make you laugh as much as he did to protect you. He would walk aside you around the gardens, around the Keep, would talk with you through your chamber door as you bathed. It passed the time until your Husband would return.
Baelor was reeling with your absence from his side. His temper was shorter than usual, though still more evident than Maekar's ever would be. He could not believe a moons passing was wasted on journeying to Oldtown to slap the wrists of some Lords, and journeying back. Time wasted away from you, your beauty, your kindness, your touch. His mind would wander to Ser Caine, how he was undoubtedly fawning over your every breath. His gaze steadfast on the curve of your waist, or the bare skin of your sternum. Laced with his jewels, as the knight looked at his wife.
He knew your difference in age was something oft mentioned in his leave, how you were young and beautiful, yet handed to a once-before married Prince of the Realm. He was tormented by how softened the Lords and Ladies gazes upon you were, how sweetly they spoke to you. Of you. His ego was of no concern to him, he took pleasure in the Realm looking so kindly upon you. A match well made for the goodness of your Houses. But seflishly, he wanted you entirely for himself. Only he would be admitted to look upon your beauty.
He nigh on exerted the energy of his horse on the return to King's Landing, the horse scarcely halting before he dismounted. He did not conform to waiting until nightfall for you, the thought of being envious of the fabric you wore had decided it for him. You were to be reclaimed by him. Now.
Not a moment wasted.
He found you, walking aside your sworn shield, and advanced toward you. His footing was firm, his hold on you the opposite.
"Allow me to see my wife, Ser Caine." Baelor was rigid in tone, eyebrows raised in search of defiance, but was met with none. "In fact, you must guard our bedchambers from any person requiring my presence."
You could scarcely keep the pace of your Husband's, who held your hand in his on your movement toward your bedchambers. You were ravenous for him, your mind and body yearned for this very moment. Whatever conversation you held with Ser Caine now forgotten, laid to rest the moment you saw your Husband in his approach.
Baelor closed the door after ushering you inside, a passing glance at your sworn shield as he disappeared behind it. You were already tugging at the fastenings of your dress, cursing your maidens for tying it with such force this morn.
Baelor was busying his hands with his own garments, eyes remained on your frame as it lost your skirts, revealing more of your skin to him. He felt his mouth water, hungry for the taste of your flesh coated in lemon scented oil.
"Did you settle the trade disputes, Husband?" You questioned him, climbing onto the bed on your hands and knees, crawling like an animal over to where he laid.
"I do not wish to talk of the Realm with you." He grunted, taking firm hold of your hips as they settle atop him. He was already hardened beneath you. "I only wish to hear your pretty little sounds."
You giggled, placing your hands onto his bare chest as you lowered onto him. The feeling was familiar, made your toes curl as they settled on his legs. His fingers dug into the flesh of your ass, guiding you as you moved against him. Even as you mounted him, taking most of the range of movement, he still controlled you.
"I have longed for you around me, sweetheart." He breathed, not daring to close his eyes in fear of missing how your eyes rolled back. "So soaked for me, sweetheart?"
You only nodded, fastening your pace as you took him over and over again. The sounds coming from your cunt were just as the ones he dreamt of, in the many nights spent away from you. But the sounds coming from your mouth were new, desperate, whiny. He would not last under you.
He protected your frame against him, turning you both so your back hit the bed beneath you. "So beautiful." He sighed, kissing down your chest, giving his attention to your breasts and how they firmed under his touch.
"The Realm knows it," he kissed down your ribs, your breath shallowing, "I know it."
"But you are all for me." He paused at your hipbones, ghosting kisses at them before lowering himself further. "Isn't that so?"
You nodded, his tongue delving deep into you. The way it danced over you had your stomach tensing, you nigh on pushed him away. But you would not dare do such a thing, when he was so skilled at finding your release. Better than you ever had yourself.
"Say it." He moaned, pausing his tongue just to order it from you.
"I am all for you, Husband." You whimpered, your fingers shook as they cradled the back of his head. He could not be any further inside you, but you wished him to be.
"Louder." He ordered, lifting his head to insert two fingers and to watch your face as they entered you. "I want the Keep to remember that regardless of your beauty, you remain my wife."
"I am your wife, Baelor." You cried, his fingers curling inside you to further chase your release. You felt tears build in your eyes, lost in the haze of desire that Baelor had called upon. He knew your body so well, knew what you did and did not respond to. No other could do as he did. He would remain confident in that fact.
But his gaze was dark, that chill not yet satisfied. He must enstate himself further, in a manner no man would forget.
He tore his fingers from you, and in his gaze was not the soft Husband you were so used to. You saw dancing flames, ash, dragonfire within him. You would hunt it down, find it, assess it, take it for yourself. You hungered for him in this moment.
He gestured you to the edge of the bed, taking you in his arms and lifting you. With a strength you seldom witnessed, the Hand scarcely finding a moment to show such a feat. He carried you to your chamber doors, and your heart quickened as he pressed your back against the engraved oak.
His lips found yours once more, grunting into your mouth, the sounds undoubtedly echoing through to this sworn shield of yours. The worst had not yet come for that poor, lovesick knight. Baelor slammed into you, jolting your bodies against the door, only forcing your moans out of your chest with a volume so unladylike.
"Louder, my wife." He instructed, his forehead colliding with yours. "They all must know. You are mine."
His venomous words in your ear, the oak against your back, the way he thrusted into you, it had all mixed into a mighty charge for your pleasure. He was hunting for it, you could see the embers in his eyes heighten, taken completely by desire. He built a vengeful rhythm against you, his grip tighter than it oft was when he fucked you, consumed by something darker, twisted. You invited it, regardless.
"That's it." He grunted against your jaw, flexing his jaw to refrain from biting at you. Lost in hunger, pleasure, jealousy. "All mine."
His words sent you over the edge, your entrance tightened around him as you welcomed his seed within you. A collision of your pleasure with his, erupted from your mouths against the thick door. You had no concern with who heard you be undone, only the man that cradled you, restored your soul to what it had been before he left.
He chuckled as he held your sweltering skin, lips flush against your cheek.
"What has taken you, my Husband?" You breathed against him, the throes of desire still biting at you. He remained inside you, not wanting to part with the pleasure he brought upon you both. And the satisfying heat he felt sweep across his chest.
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