i bet on losing dogs

she/her ☆ 21

[forevermiffy]

about ✩ char. she/her. 21. full time student. personal, multifandom and reader-insert blog. i don't tag nsfw. 18+ only!

tagging ✩ characters and media by name. fic rec tag. inspo tag.

[speed-s]

[heartpdfs]

[spider-stark]

SOLITARY CREATURES

pairing | matt murdock x reader

summary | Your ex-boyfriend, Matt Murdock, breaks no-contact when he needs someone to patch him up. But are things really over between you?

warnings | exes to maybe-lovers, goofy/sarcastic reader, hurt/comfort, banter, Catholicism, injury and blood, ambiguous ending that leans hopeful, matt is shirtless, whale sharks

wc | 3.8k

MATT'S LIVING ROOM SWIMS IN SHADES OF BLUE.

You glance sidelong at the electronic billboard posted outside his windows. “The aquarium’s got a new whale shark exhibit,” you tell him.

The ad shows a whale shark — surprise surprise — swimming up to greet smiling guests. In bold white letters, the ad reads: Come Meet the Gentle Giant

You frown.

“Do you think they only have one?” you ask, then immediately feel like a moron when you remember Matt can’t see the billboard. “It says gentle gi-ant,” you explain, “not gi-ants.”

Matt’s response is a pained groan.

He’s lying flat on the couch. Shirtless, bruised, bloody — classic Matt.

You’re kneeling in front of the couch, an open first-aid kit at your side. You’ve got a needle pinched between your fingers, threading it with what is definitely not medical-grade thread.

Eventually Matt chokes out real words.

“Whale sharks are solitary creatures,” he says. “They only gather to eat.”

Hmph.

You don’t like the way he answered. Casual. Or as close to casual as someone can get while fighting for breath. Like this isn’t weird. Like a whole year hadn’t passed since the last time you were in a room together. Like you’re still his girlfriend, entitled to a serious response to every “Would you still love me if I was a worm?”-esque question.

“Well that’s sad,” you say.

Matt shakes his head. Pretty stupid since every movement seems to cost him, but it’s clear he means to comfort you. “They prefer it that way. Besides,” he winces, “is it the aquarium down on Surf? The building’s too small. Even if they tried, they probably couldn’t get a permit for more than one.”

“Then maybe they shouldn’t have any.”

“Even if whale sharks prefer to be alone?” 

Your traitorous eyes flick up from the needle to his lips. No one prefers to be alone, you almost tell him.

But that’s too vulnerable. Too close to an admission.

Instead, you say, “Even if.”

A flash as the billboard changes. New colors bathe the living room: bright red and bleach white. You don’t have to look to know what ad is on display.

The emergency room wait time for Metro-General.

Ironic.

If it was up to you, that’s where Matt would be right now. In a real hospital, getting real medical treatment.

But that’s an old argument, and vigilantes are stupid by nature. “Why would I need a doctor?” asks a dying vigilante. “This random civilian has seen Grey’s Anatomy, right? That’s basically an M.D. crash course. Someone, quick! Give them a sewing kit before my intestines meet a Brooklyn sidewalk.”

With the needle readied, you chew your bottom lip and consider Matt’s injuries. His muscled torso is a sweaty mess of slashing cuts. The worst cut steals your attention, a straight line from the top of his hipbone to a little past his belly button. Looking at it turns your stomach. It’s one of the wounds that reminds you the human body is nothing more than a meat sack.

You swallow bile — swallow fear — and reach for one of the hand towels beside the first-aid kit.

Gently — very, VERY gently — you dab the towel against his bloody wound.

Matt writhes, arching off the cushions.

“Sorrysorrysorry!” You hardly recognize your own voice. You’re too focused on Matt, his clenched teeth stifling a groan, fists curling at his sides.

Apologies don’t cure pain.

Distraction might.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate that billboard? I mean, don’t get me wrong! I miss penthouse living every day. But you know what I don’t miss? Falling asleep on the couch and waking up to the lights of a hemorrhoid cream ad burning into my retinas.”

True. You do hate the billboard, and you do miss Matt’s apartment.

Your current apartment is a shoebox that Foggy helped you score two days post-breakup. To call it a hellscape would be too kind. The lights are all faulty, a massive roach has squatter’s rights under your white refrigerator, and you’re one hundred percent certain that Frank Castle lives down the hall.

You’ve been careful to keep that last bit hush-hush. If Foggy or Karen were to find out that you share a mailroom with the Punisher, they’d definitely tell Matt.

Not that Matt would care.

…

…

…

Okay, fine. Matt would care. About everything.

He’d go on for hours about the risk of electrical fire, how roaches carry E. coli, that your landlord’s violating New York State law by refusing to install a carbon monoxide detector, and oh, yeah, a convicted murderer might knock on your door any day now for a cup of sugar!

Just thinking about it makes your chest hurt. The depth of Matt’s care.

And Matt — sweet, loving, woeful Matt — makes it all worse by saying, “I offered to buy curtains.”

He had.

Countless times.

Once again chewing your bottom lip, you toss the towel aside. You’d cleaned enough blood to see what Meredith Grey would’ve called subcutaneous tissue. Or maybe she wouldn’t have. Maybe it’s something else. Grey’s Anatomy, after all, is not an MD crash course.

Either way, the raw mess of his stomach proves what was already obvious: this cut is deeeeeeeeeep.

“Sure you don’t want any pain killers?” you ask him. “I’ve got Midol in my bag.”

He shakes his head once.

You scoff. “You know you don’t earn tough guy points for taking it raw, right?”

Matt laughs at your poor phrasing; though “laugh” might not be the best word for it. It’s more of an exhale turned cough turned sound of agony, but whatever. You take it as a win! If Matt wants to feel the pain of being a human embroidery project, so be it. At least you managed to distract him for a second, make him chuckle-cough over something silly.

“Hold your breath,” you tell him.

His brows knit with confusion. Soon as he starts to ask why, you shove the needle through the edge of the ruined flesh above his hipbone. His question becomes an exclamation that is very un-Catholic.

“That’ll be seven Hail Marys, Murdock.”

A vein pulses at his temple. “Feels more like a Psalm 88 kind of moment.”

“Is that a joke?” You settle into the old rhythm of stitching him up. Needle in, out, pull the thread, repeat. “You know altar boy humor goes over my head.”

“I was never an altar boy,” he reminds you.

You tut. “How ableist.”

“Not because I’m blind.” Amusement flickers through agony, reminding you that pain is second nature to Matt. You’ve only finished one stitch, yet already he can mask a wince when the needle pops through flesh. “I was a nervous kid,” he explains, “especially in front of crowds. My hands used to shake so much the pastor thought I’d drop the candles and set the altar on fire.”

“What a headline,” you say. “Local Blind Boy Burns Parish: God’s Judgment or Innocent Mistake?”

He chuckle-coughs.

You ask him, “Couldn’t you have carried the wine?”

“You mean the body of Christ?”

Your eyeroll is affectionate. “The wine.”

Transubstantiation is one of those things you’ve always filed under Complete Malarkey. How does random bread and crushed grapes become the body and blood of Jesus Christ? By invoking the Holy Spirit? Is that not a form of witchcraft? And why is it cannibalism to eat each other, but not the Son of God?

Catholics are, in your opinion, an awfully confusing people.

Matt’s no exception. A devout lover of God — yet a glimpse up from stitching reveals his mouth curving into a small smile. He’s always liked your sacrilege. It amuses him. Gives him reason to challenge his faith.

“If the pastor was too nervous to let me hold a candle,” he says, “you can bet he wasn’t eager to hand me the blood of our Savior.”

“If only he could see you now,” you say. “Well not now, but in court. I’ve seen you and Foggy tackle plenty of cases in jam-packed courtrooms, and not once have you ever set a judge on fire or spilled Jesus down their moo moo.”

“You mean the judicial robes they work decades to earn?”

“Whatever. Hey, while we’re on the subject, how come they did away with those powdery wigs?”

“A barrister’s wig?”

“Do you get paid by Big Law to make sure I use their terminology right?”

“I do,” he says, “and you’re cutting into my paycheck.”

You laugh.

A comfortable silence settles.

Matt’s stomach remains tense under your fingertips. But his breaths come easier now — a steady rise and fall that breeds comfort inside you. It’s easy to lose yourself in the rhythm. Needle in, out, pull the thread, repeat.

The room around you glows pale purple. It’s easy to lose the present in the past, you realize. Your mind flips through old memories like songs in a jukebox, lingering on a favorite.

You and Matt used to dance in this room. You both had two left feet and spent more time tripping over abandoned takeout containers than actually dancing, but what did that matter? You were always giggling. Matt was always smiling.

The steady weight of his hands on your lower back had been the closest you ever came to finding proof of religion. Because someone like Matt couldn’t be the result of some random assimilation of atoms. Perfection at his level required divine planning. The sweetness of spirit mixed with the miracle of light. A pure heart placed inside his chest by the sure hand of God.

But despite what the Bible tells you, God is not an expert craftsman.

Matt is proof of this, too.

When silence stretches into discomfort, you glance up.

Matt’s dead.

Okay — okay, okay! — not dead since he’s still breathing. But he looks dead, eyes shut and lips parted enough to go full cadaver.

You snap, “Eyes open, Murdock.”

“Why?” His quick response eases your nerves, even if he doesn’t obey your command. “Want to see if I can tell how many fingers you’re holding up?”

“You probably have a concussion.” Not to mention a bloodborne illness or two. When’s the last time he got tested for hepatitis? “The last thing I need is for you to fall asleep and never wake up again.”

You’re pulling the thread through his wound when you notice the smirk in his voice.

“Would you miss me?” he asks.

You hesitate.

Of course.

Of course you’d miss him.

“Foggy will start ditching me for Thursday brunch if I let you die,” you tell him. “Do you know how many waffles your life would cost me?”

Matt opens his eyes. He blinks like his eyelids weigh a thousand pounds. Like they might shut again at any moment.

He keeps them open.

“Three,” he says.

“Waffles?” you ask.

“Fingers,” he chuckle-coughs. “That’s how many you’re holding up. Three.”

Amusement bubbles in your chest, rushing up your throat like a Mentos dropped into a bottle of Coke. You try to stifle it, but a lone giggle slips out.

“I’m not holding up any fingers, idiot.”

He huffs softly. “Talk about ableism.”

You’re offended, perplexed, giggling even more now. “That was so not ableist!”

“Next you’ll claim Braille offers subpar education.”

“Since when did me insulting you become me insulting the entire blind community? And I’m not even calling you an idiot because you’re blind! I’m calling you an idiot because you’re an idiot.”

“Ouch. So you really think so low of me?”

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

His head tilts where it lay on the armrest. “Remember when I graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University?” he asks.

“Remember how you currently look like the victim of a violent anthropomorphic lawnmower?” You smile when he chuckle-coughs. “Yeah, not a thing that happens to smart people, Matty.”

The world stutters for a beat. Or maybe that’s only your pulse, jolting at your embarrassing slip-up.

Matty. You almost curse yourself; what was your tongue thinking?

Matt accepts defeat with a humble “Fair enough” that doubles as your path of least resistance. He’s always been good at withholding salt from a wound, giving you time to stew in self-loathing.

You have no doubt he can still hear your heart thumping stupidly against your ribs.

This isn’t easy. Being here. Seeing him. Pretending your breakup isn’t as much a third party in this room as the billboard’s glaring lights.

You’ve already stitched three-quarters of his wound. You should finish your work in silence. Then leave before he can make this anymore difficult, remind you of some reason to stay.

And yet.

“What’s Psalm 88, anyway?”

Matt likes this question.

“You dated a Catholic for two years,” he says, “and you don’t know Psalm 88?”

“Sorry, I hadn’t realized reading the Bible was a prerequisite for sucking your—”

Ever a child of God, Matt cuts you off — his voice an octave too high — with a sudden urge to recite.

“Lord, I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life is slipping toward death. You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. You have taken from me my closest friend—” his voice wavers here “—and made me repulsive to them. Why, Lord, do you reject me? From my youth I have suffered. Your wrath has swept over me. Your terrors have destroyed me. They surround me like a flood, engulfing me completely. Darkness,” he says, “is my closest friend.”

You say nothing.

Needle in—

You think about how pain has always been second nature to Matt.

—out—

You think about the breakup.

—pull thread—

The breakup you’d initiated.

—repeat.

“NOT TO TOOT MY OWN HORN, but that is going to be one fine scar.”

Half an hour has passed since you finished stitching Matt up. If you were wise, you would’ve excused yourself the moment you closed the first-aid kit. But excuses are easy to come by, and even easier to make yourself believe.

I’ll stay a little longer, you keep telling yourself. Just to make sure he’s okay.

At some point the two of you switched places. You’re on the couch now, legs folded underneath you. Matt stands in front of you, testing his body for breaks and sprains — stretching an arm, rolling his neck.

At your comment, he pauses his self-assessment to run his fingertips over the stitches. You track the movement, a slow sweep from hipbone to belly button.

“Some of your best work.”

The praise straightens your posture.

The curve of his lips becomes devilish. “I’m surprised,” he adds. “I thought you’d be rusty.”

“Your faith in me is astounding, Murdock.”

“My faith in you is boundless,” he shoots back. “But it’s been a while since you last played nurse.”

With theatrical flair, you say, “An artist never forgets how to paint.”

“Even if they swore they’d never touch a brush again?”

Levity drops from the air like a butterfly hitting a bug zapper.

He hadn’t meant for it to come out that way. Not resentful, but…hurt. You know this because you know Matt, and he’d sooner walk into traffic than make you feel guilty for your choices.

Some relationships are like a winter storm. Rarely do we take the first snowflake to mean danger. Some people even find them beautiful — like noticing the quirks and habits of the one we love. But snowflakes pile up. They become inconvenient. Isolating. And, in some cases, they become dangerous, too.

Sometimes the only way to stay safe is to evacuate.

Matt will never blame you for evacuating.

With a soft sniff, he turns his head toward the windows. Too quiet, he asks, "What advertisement is showing?"

The billboard shines with a dark image, car keys lying next to an empty whiskey glass. "Think twice," you read aloud, "don't drink and drive."

Matt nods. "Good message."

You nod. "Indubitably."

Matt keeps facing the windows, but your own focus has already shifted back to him. He looks sad. Confused. Like he’s trying hard to hide both emotions, yet failing miserably.

A flash as the billboard changes. White light illuminates Matt’s profile — bruised, bloody, beautiful as ever.

As if he knows the ad has changed — as if he can hear it somewhere, electrical pulses whispering secrets only to him — he asks, “How about now?”

You don’t answer. You don’t know.

You can’t look away from him long enough to find out.

“I would’ve bought curtains,” he mumbles, and you don’t know what he’s talking about. Then it hits you. Your confession about the billboard, how you always hated it. “If you would’ve told me the light bothered you, I…” He swallows. Calls upon shaky confidence, betraying that what he says next lives somewhere between truth and wishful thinking. “I would’ve fixed it.”

Your eyes start to burn.

He would’ve tried, you know. He would’ve tried.

You find yourself rising off the couch. Taking a step — two, three — to close the gap between you. Matt looks away from the windows and you swear he can see you. He does, in that peculiar way of his. Through soundwaves bouncing off your skin. The smell of your shampoo. The rhythm of your heartbeat.

“I know,” you say.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

“Back then. Why didn’t you tell me back then? It would’ve been an easy fix.”

Your laugh is half-sob. “No, Matt–”

He reaches up to cup your cheek. “Yes,” he whispers.

It takes Herculean effort not to lean into his touch. You manage, but don’t pull away from him, either.

“Fine. You’re right. Curtains would be an easy fix. Get on Amazon and they’ll be here in ten seconds. But what about the bigger issues? The lies? The secrets? You trying to get yourself killed?”

He winces. “I’m not dead yet,” he tries to argue.

“Yet,” you say. “Key word, Matty.”

An awful key word. One that had been haunting you for far longer than the year you two had been apart.

You had never wanted to leave Matt. And if you’re being honest, you hadn’t even left because of the lying and the secrets — though they were factors. When it came down to it, you’d left because Matt was on a suicide mission. Because you wouldn’t survive watching him die.

Only now — with the warmth of his hand on your cheek — can you see the flawed logic in your breakup plan.

Sure, leaving Matt ensured you won’t be front row for his death. That it won’t be you holding pressure to wounds that can’t be stitched, crying “Lord, why do you reject him? Your perfect soldier, your pure-hearted boy?”

But that doesn’t free you from pain.

You’ll feel Matt’s death as a ripple effect through Foggy and Karen. You'll feel it inside of you, when his last breath severs the invisible string connecting you to him and him to you.

Distance will not spare you.

You will feel it.

It will hurt.

And will all this distance make it hurt worse? you wonder. Until tonight you hadn’t realized how unsteady you stood on your decision to leave. A single phone call had been all it took to undo three-hundred sixty-five days of progress. So much time spent assuring everyone you had made the right decision. That you’re happier without Matt. So much time — each second a tally toward a life free from pain, now useless as sand in an hourglass, so easy to flip.

You’re not happier without Matt.

You’re not happy, period.

The heat coming off his palm is too much. Does he have a fever? Probably. Is fever a normal response to getting sliced up like salmon on a Hibachi line? You have no clue. You'll Google it if you ever remember how to form thoughts not centered on the flecks of gold in Matt's eyes.

He speaks.

“I’m sorry I called tonight. I know I shouldn’t have. I know when you—” He can’t make himself say it. So he drags a hand through his hair. Pulls easier words from a bucket labeled: Half-truths. "I know you wanted to get away from all this. From me. And it was wrong of me to drag you back into it, but..." A chuckle-cough. "Whenever something happens...when I'm stressed, or hurt, or...or happy, I..."

His thumb traces your lower lip. Lovingly. Mournfully.

"You're still the only one I want around.”

You're bawling. You hate yourself for it, and you hate him for causing it. You sob and laugh and tell him, "You're a goddamn idiot, Matty."

He smiles at you. "I know."

"It was never you I wanted to get away from."

He hesitates. "I know."

You hate him for that, too. But what else could he have said? You both know nothing can erase the true problem. The Achilles' heel to an otherwise perfect relationship.

Daredevil.

God, you think, how is it possible to hate the mask but love the man behind it?

It's simple, though. You don't hate Daredevil. Can't. He'll be the death of Matt Murdock, but that doesn't make him any less the salvation of Hell's Kitchen.

You sigh. Does that justify it, then? Does some PEMDAS bullshit make it okay that Matt suffers so long as his suffering saves others?

You don't think so.

But you know Matt holds a different opinion.

A stupid opinion, but.

"I wish things were different," you tell him. No jokes. "Maybe we could drop Daredevil off at the shelter. Y'know, like a stray dog who won't stop digging in our trash."

Okay, fine. Some jokes.

Matt chuckles. “I don’t think the shelter will take him.”

“Can’t say I blame them.”

You don’t know when you grabbed Matt’s other hand, the one not touching your face. You only know that you’re playing with his fingers, trying to keep more tears from escaping. He hadn’t coughed when he chuckled this time. Does that mean he’s feeling better? You hope so — and hope not, too.

You're not ready to go back to your shoebox apartment. You don't want to crawl into bed alone. Spend all night wondering if walking out Matt's door a second time makes it permanent. What are you supposed to do? Go back to getting all your Matt-related info via Thursday brunch with Foggy? Search for scraps of him in your texts with Karen?

No.

You're not sure you can survive that, either.

But what does that leave?

"Let me buy you dinner."

Your pulse jolts. “Matt…”

"Nothing romantic," he promises. Though the way his thumb continues brushing your bottom lip feels opposite of that. "And it doesn't have to change anything. Tomorrow we can go back to our normal lives, pretend none of this ever happened. But tonight...how about pizza? We can call it repayment for you saving my life."

You should say no.

You smile despite yourself. "Fine, but I get to pick the toppings."

A flash as the billboard changes. Shades of blue wash over you both.

Even without Matt’s enhanced senses, you swear you hear joy spark to life in his veins.

"I wouldn't have it any other way.”

A/N | if you've read this far, i am in love with you and i've already booked our flight to Vegas. booked the Elvis impersonator, too. do you have any allergies i should know about? i love you.

seriously, thank you so much for reading! comments and reblogs much appreciated :)

[kosmogrl]

[starxs-s]

[catbritta]

i love listening to song on repeat!!!!! reblog if you love listening to song on repeat!!!!!!!!!

[gutpunchlove]

baelor targaryen + little details

[anak1n]

no rest for me and im not even that wicked ?

[alicent-florent]

for @sugurugetos

[nowadayz]

FINN BENNETT in BACKROOMS released by A24 on May 29, 2026.

[breakspearz]

— i’d sing of love in such a novel fashion (m);

modern!maekar targaryen x reader.

summary: it has been almost a year since you first moved a floor below the grumpiest, moodiest, hottest man you have ever met, and he has not yet given you the time of day. you have greeted him, regularly, when running into him in the elevator. you have baked him cookies, lent him your umbrella whenever he’s forgotten his, and looked in every single fucking store for his preferred soothing salve when he mentioned his joints were hurting. seven above, you just want him in your bed. and maekar? well, unbeknownst to you, and against the sake of his sanity, maekar wants the very same thing.

themes and genres: smut (18+, MDNI!). modern!au, hot dilf neighbor!au, best friend's dad!au. maekar is a retired wrestler. i felt like i really needed to highlight this part because it really is all i can think about.

word count: 4.77k

content warnings: canon divergence, age gap (not directly especified, but reader is implied to be in her late 20s and maekar in his late 40s), very little plot to a whole lot of smut. unprotected sex, manhandling, oral (male receiving), hair pulling, fingering, pinv, dirty talk (he talks you through itttt), creampie, rusty after-care... welp. this is pure filth, guys.

author's note: is wrestler!maekar very much cm punk coded (especially current day punk), you ask? yes, he is! mister best in the world lives rent free in my mind and is, in fact, sort of what i envision modern!maekar to have been like in the ring. anyways, i will write more about this pairing soon because i'm now obsessed with them, but tell me what you think! also, my baelor besties, despair not: his own modern!dilf au is already in the works! and without further ado, i hope you all enjoy! | crossposted on ao3.

Maekar’s peace of mind was officially, absolutely, utterly, royally, fucked.

It had only been a year since you moved into the apartment right below his, and, at first, he had not noticed you.

It was not personal. He merely lived his life by routine; a treat he allowed himself after so many years of laying it on the line, he’d often say.

In the years since he’d retired from in-ring wrestling, he lived quietly, and he lived simply, and Seven fucking hells, that was just the way he liked it. His kids were all independent adults now, living their own lives while he still tried to learn to build his own in their absence.

He had found balance in repetition, he had found solace in familiarity.

He would wake up before the sun rose and run his obligatory ten kilometers on the trail by the coast. He would stop by the same restaurant and place the same pick-up order: coffee (one sugar, no cream), a small green juice (with extra lime), and an egg white omelette with wild mushrooms. Sometimes he would be stopped and asked for a picture or an autograph, sometimes not. He always took his food back home and ate it while watching the morning news and completing a crossword, ignored his brother’s texts, and went along with the rest of his day. He'd eventually text Baelor back around mid-day, anyways.

It was not personal, it was routine. It was careful, guarded, intentional. It was how he quieted the ghosts. There were no more limelights, no more cameras, no more crowds, and there was no more Anvil. There was just a man learning to manage the stillness that came after a lifetime of motion.

But him not noticing you right away did not mean you did not want him from the first time you saw him.

By the seven, it was not your fault! He was returning from one of his runs, looking downright heavenly in a black compression shirt and sporting a deep scowl, with a series of slightly faded tattoos cascading down his arms, and you all but drooled. He grunted a quiet ‘good morning’ to you before the elevator stopped at your floor, and you decided, right then and there, that the seven heavens were real, and he was an angel made flesh.

Maekar Targaryen, you noticed, was quiet. He was grumpy. And, to your dismay, would not give you the time of day, no matter how much you vied for his attention.

No matter how many cookies you gifted him under the guise of needing an opinion on a new recipe. No matter how many times you lent him your umbrella when he would forget his. No matter how many stores you’d visited to find a salve he mentioned in passing the days he said his joints were hurting.

And so, this time, you had come to ask him for help building a bookshelf.

It was ridiculous, you knew, but at that point, you had exhausted all of your options. You needed time alone with him! You needed to have him look at you somewhere that was not inside a busy elevator, or the middle of a grocery store, or the smoker’s area in the shared neighbor lounge. So, because desperate times called for desperate measures, you had paired the cutest lace panties you owned with the shortest mini-skirt on sight, and had slipped on a tank-top with no bra on.

Not that you had not played that trick before.

Unbeknownst to you, Maekar had begun to pay attention. It was somewhere along the elevator greetings, and the mail room run-ins, and the fact that you had somehow befriended his eldest son, with the two of you becoming inseparable in the last few months.

He had noticed the times you bent down in front of him after ‘accidentally’ dropping your keys, and the times you wore thin, flimsy tops with nothing underneath. He remembered the times you leaned far too close to his frame, smelling like fresh tangerines, and he had not been able to stop noticing.

You were about the same age as Daeron. His son would go on and on about you every time he visited, and he would commit every detail to memory. You were about to finish a phD in early Westerosi history, owned two cats, and smoked mentol Dragon reds. You liked watching nature documentaries, growing your own herbs on your windowsills, and attending rock concerts. And he liked you.

Seven above, he liked you far more than he ever thought he would. More than he should, probably.

And so the moment you knocked on his door with a printed page of instructions in hand and looking like the sweetest of temptations, Maekar knew there was no escaping the fact that he was just as crazy for you as you were for him. 

You looked up at him through your lashes while biting on your lower lip, and that had been how his mouth had found yours: desperate, hungry, completely uncaring of anything that was not the hunger building in the bottom of his stomach.

So, yeah. Maekar’s peace of mind is officially, absolutely, utterly, royally, fucked. But when you drag your fingers down the soft, supple skin of his abdomen, he cannot find it in himself to give a single damn about anything else. He nips at your lower lip and runs his tongue over the inside of it before it enters your mouth, and his heart threatens to explode inside his chest.

He guides you back through his living room while his tongue massages yours, his hands running down your sides over the fabric of your top. He angles your head upwards and revels in your taste, kissing you deeper, walking you towards the sofa. He sucks on your tongue, swallowing a moan before it can threaten to interrupt the kiss, and grinds his growing erection against your middle.

His mind floods with desire, and it all shifts. Want is building in his abdomen, sending shivers through his skin. He takes your lower lip between his teeth and pulls, ever so gently, making you whimper against his panting mouth.

Anything else but this is completely irrelevant, the world spinning on an axis consisting merely of your touch. And your scent. And the way you look when you’re moving until you’re on your knees in front of him, looking up at him as your fingers find the waistband of his trousers.

They’d been made just for him: tailored to his precise measurements, rising one finger bellow his belly-button, with two centimeters of ease around his waist. They have a slight break, the hem covering the back of his shoe, and he’d chosen the fabric to be a deep blue linen—Gods, he really does not give a single fuck.

His hands meet yours as they undo his belt, fingers lithe and agile and way less careful than yours in their movements, as he undoes the buckle and pops the button of his trousers open. He does not even care about removing the belt from the hoops before he slides his pants down and kicks them back, out of sight, out of the way.

Your hands continue moving down until they rest on the outside of his thighs as you raise yourself on your knees just enough for your nose to reach his belly button. And Maekar lets out a breath, ragged and desperate, as your tongue flattens against his abdomen and you lick down, slowly as if to cause him the most blissful of deaths, down over the path set by a silver happy trail. Down until you reach the bulge growing under his briefs, deep gray and sinfully fitted, already damp with pre-cum; and you don’t stop, sucking on his arousal over the fabric.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, hands shaking at his sides. He fists them once, twice, and then extends his fingers again. 

Again they shake, and he waits.

He clenches his jaw and breathes in, deeply. He keeps his eyes on yours, patience thinning as his pleasure begins to thicken, and he all but moans the moment you finally pull his briefs down his legs.

His cock hangs with borderline obscene weight, throbbing with so much need that makes your mouth water. You move your hand to his base, fingers struggling to close around the thickness of his shaft, and you give him a slow, experimental pump.

He hisses, and you lower your mouth towards his waiting cock, pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses down his body. You pump him again, teasingly, as you look up to lock your eyes with his and press a soft, fleeting kiss to his reddened tip.

Your lips are wet with slick when you grin up at him, and he scowls.

“Don’t be a fucking brat,” he spits from between clenched teeth. “You wanted my cock so bad, huh? Practically begged for it for months, and now you’re not going to give it a proper suck?”

“You made me work for it for way too fucking long, as you said,” you smile, eyes shining with playful mirth. “Should I not return the favor?”

Maekar scoffs. His jaw sets tighter, and he rolls his eyes in annoyance. His moodiness has always been weirdly entrancing, but it does not compare to the downright heavenly sight of his relief when, finally, you take the tip of his cock inside your mouth and suck.

He has never been a pious man, has never thought of himself as a fervent believer, but the wet heat of your mouth envelops his length and he knows he’ll spend the rest of his life singing praises to this very feeling.

“Just like that,” he whispers under his breath. “Fuck, sweet thing, just like that.”

The nickname comes out of nowhere, born in the depths of his pleasure and expelled in a low, grave noise that knocks the air out of your lungs.

You take him deeper in your mouth in retaliation, eyes closed in the bliss that is the throbbing of his shaft against your tongue. The corners of your mouth burn at the stretch as you lean forward, taking a deep breath before the tip of your nose brushes over his lower navel. 

Maekar curses above you, hips moving ever so slightly as if with a mind of their own, and your eyes roll back as his cock pushes back against your throat. You lean back, pumping from his base to where he leaves your mouth before you dive forward again, bobbing your head along his length. You swallow around him, and he shivers. You look up at him and wink, and he all but dies where he stands.

And it’s the stretch, and it’s the heat, and it’s the way he’s holding back from thrusting inside your mouth, and your mind is spinning with how good it feels.

He exhales out his nose and throws his head back, allowing his eyes to flutter closed. His fingers trail up your back until they reach the crown of your head, weaving themselves within the strands of your hair tight enough for him to close his fist and pull upwards, ever so slightly.

You whine, the sound hoarse and ragged around his cock. He pulls again in response and your cunt clenches around nothing. It is a wet, messy affair; rivulets of slick dripping down your thighs as you pull his thick cock out of your mouth, a string of spit bridging the fat of his head to your parted lips.

He pulls back on your hair again and your gaze meets his, smile saccharine and completely unrepentant as you give his cock a slow pump before licking up the side of his shaft. Your tongue traces up a vein and he hisses, cursing under his breath as you smack the head of his cock against your flattened tongue once, twice — three torturous times before you close your lips around it and suck.

And Maekar has had enough.

“Come here,” Maekar grumbles, moving his hands down from your hair to your shoulders, hoisting you up on your feet.

Your lips are wet with saliva and slightly swollen from his girth. He grunts as he angles your face upwards, large hands cupping your jaw, and he guides your mouth up to his. 

He doesn’t kiss you. 

He stills against the side of your mouth, no doubt paying back for your teasing, flicking his tongue against the corner of your lips as his hands run down your back. And down over the curve of your ass. His breathing grows deeper as he cups the flesh in his hands, caressing slowly over the fabric of your skirt, and drinks in the gasp that leaves your lips when he lays a quick, gentle spank on it.

“You look like pure sin in this skirt,” Maekar mumbles, his grip still tight. “This is what you wanted, hm? For me to touch you like this?”

You nod, eyes darkened with desire as you keep your gaze on his. His cock throbs painfully against your clothed middle, coated in a mixture of spit and arousal.

“Or perhaps you wanted me to do more?” He asks. “Wanted me to fuck you hard, did you? Split your pretty pussy open with my cock?”

It is a strange thing.

You have been attracted to him for months. And in all that time, all throughout the torturous year where he had been nothing but your upstairs neighbor, nothing more than your friend’s ridiculously hot dad, you had managed to form what you had thought to be a somewhat clear picture of him. 

You have come to the conclusion that Maekar is quiet but polite (for the most part, ignoring the fact that he cusses like a sailor at the minor inconvenience), grumpy but attentive. He is disciplined and athletic, intelligent and collected. He is, also, pretty much what Michelangelo’s David would look like if it were to walk alongside mortals, you think. 

You thought you knew what Maekar Targaryen was like. And you had never imagined he’d be this fucking good at talking dirty. 

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Maekar hums, and tilts his head to the side. “You want me ruin this fucking pussy, pretty girl? Stuff it full of me?”

The warmth of his touch as he squeezes your flesh makes you feel like you’re on fire. You drink in his words as if they alone would quench your thirst.

“Please,” you whisper, words breaking past a moan that begins to form.

“Please what, pretty?” Maekar teases, voice deep and quiet. “Please fuck you stupid with my cock? Come on, use your words for me.”

“Yes. Fuck, yes, Mr. Targaryen—”

A moment. He stills, grip tightening. His breath hitches, almost imperceptibly, against your skin. And then he moves with a deeper hunger, with a deep noise that grows with his chest as he turns the both of you until the fabric of the couch grazes the back of your legs.

You look up at him as you fall back onto the couch: eyes wide, glazed with unadulterated lust, lips parted in anticipation. He has not seen a prettier sight. 

“Kept my hands to myself too fucking long, pretty thing,” he grumbles, and it is, finally, his turn to kneel. Finally, the moment he lays worship to your figure, and your touch, and the warmth of your skin that makes his head dizzy with want. 

He leans closer to your body as it lays against the cushions, and feels blessed once more. “Had to see you prancing around with Daeron and pretend my cock did not harden every time you wore one of these slutty little tops. Had to see you bend over in the elevator, the hall, the fucking fruit aisle at the supermarket, and pretend I did not want to take you right then and there. You see how you’ve ailed me?”

His words are slow and deliberate. The rhythm of your heartbeat is not. Maekar takes his time, running his big fucking hands up your legs, digits coarse and calloused from all of the years spent in the ring. He leans forward, hooking one of your legs over his shoulder, and presses a kiss to the soft, tender skin of your inner thigh. 

You can barely refrain from closing your eyes. His touch is unrepentant and intoxicating, and you don’t want to miss a second of it. Not when it feels like being struck with lightning.

“You don’t have to hold back any longer,” you reply, and he kisses you again. “I want—No, I need you to touch me.”

Maekar hums. Low, teasing. He lets his teeth scrape over your skin as his fingers trail up, up, up… until they hook around the soft lace of your panties. They fall to the side with a quick, sudden riiiiiiiip, baring you to the hunger in his gaze.

He looks at you the way a predator would at its prey when it is just about ready for the taking.

His pupils are blown wide, eyes hooded with desire. Soft, wild strands of platinum hair fall over his forehead, over his brows, over his eyelashes. It is a beautiful sight, the ease with which he allows himself to exist in the moment. It is only yours for the taking. You bite softly upon your lower lip, and decide you will treasure it forever.

“Look at you, pretty girl,” he mutters. His fingers graze over your lips, mesmerized by way you leak just for him, and he parts your folds to fully expose you to him. “All I’ve done is let you suck my cock and you’re already dripping. Must’ve wanted it too much, didn’t you?”

He pairs his words with a caress. His fingers press softly on your clit, and your hips buck towards him, desperate for his touch. For his warmth. For anything, please, Seven above, please —

“Answer me, sweet thing,” he says. You feel him circling your sensitive bud with a painstaking level of patience, digits coated with your slick. “Keep your eyes on me, and answer my question.”

Your mouth parts as your brain scrambles for a response. You wet your lips with a quick flick of your tongue, and he circles his finger slightly faster. Harder. Rougher.

He is looking for words and gets a moan instead. He decides, right then and there, no other sound could ever compare.

“Yes,” you breathe out, finally. “Yes, fuck. Maekar, I—”

He stops, retrieving his touch from where you need it most, before his fingers trail back down your slit until they reach your opening. And keeping his eyes on yours, and moving so painfully slow, he introduces a finger inside your clenching hole.

You moan, ragged and hoarse, leaning closer to him as he begins pumping his finger in and out. In and out. In and out until you’re aching for him.

It’s barely enough to make you feel full, his index larger than it is thicker, but you barely have enough time to dwell upon your woes when he slips a second finger past your folds and curls both digits deep inside you. Maekar grunts, and presses another skin upon your thigh as he continues his ministrations.

His free hand curls around your hip and presses down when he feels you moving against his fingers, keeping you just where he wants you. He opens his lips to suck on your skin, his tongue flat upon your thigh as he flicks his fingers inside you even deeper, even faster.

“Take your top off,” he grumbles, breath hot against the spot he’s just sucked on. It’s sure to leave a mark. You’re to wear it like a badge of honor. “Come on, pretty. Let me see them properly. You’ve teased me too much, don’t you think?”

You do, breasts falling free, nipples pebbled and aching to be touched; so you do just that, and the sight has Maekar almost bursting where he stands.

And you’re so close. You’re so, so close, and your eyes are just about to fall shut with the promise of relief. You let out a quiet moan as you knead at your breasts, and there’s a sheer layer of sweat covering your skin as you repeat his name under your breath like a prayer. Because it’s so good, the stretch and reach of his digits so fucking delicious, and his gaze so godsdamn electrifying, and you’re seconds away from finally letting go.

Then, again, he stops. 

He retrieves his hand, long fingers completely coated in your slick.

He brings them up to his lips and sucks, keeping his eyes on you the whole time, and you moan again. You think it is cruel, and you think it is downright wicked, and he looks none but absolutely satisfied by the action.

“Maekar?” He hums, tongue flicking down the side of his finger.

A pause, and you realize your mistake. You're eager to correct it. “Mr. Targaryen.”

And he does not smile, nor does he smirk. But his eyes glisten with mischief, and your breath catches in anticipation.

He straightens, using one hand to pull you closer to the edge of the couch while the other fists his leaking cock. He pumps it, slowly, almost as if teasing himself the exact same way he teased you.

Almost as if reveling in the slowness, almost as if feeding from the wait. Almost as if trying to commit the look on your face to memory, almost as if trying to engrave the sight of you on his skin.

You wrap your legs around his waist as your cunt clashes with his navel, and the friction that comes from the contact sends a shiver down your spine.

“Look at her, all but begging for my cock,” Maekar hums, and as if to doom you to a certain kind of hell, drags his thick, throbbing length along your sopping slit. “Y’think she’s ready, pretty thing? Think we prepped her just enough? Oh, she’s fucking dripping for me.”

His tip presses against your opening, and he’s thicker, much thicker than the fingers he prepped you with. A moan leaves your lips, your body moving as if called forth by his.

“Oh, fuck,” he pushes forward just an inch. His voice breaks and his breath falters. He looks beautiful like this. “Fucking hell, that’s it. Taking me so well.”

He continues, cock pushing inside you until he’s sheathed in completely, until your clit grazes the place where his happy trail begins. You’re completely stretched around his length, absolutely full of his girth, and it has you closing your eyes in pure, pure bliss.

Maekar stills for a moment, and lets out a breath. 

“You just needed this, huh? M’doll needed my cock,” he mutters, more talking to himself than you, but his words burn through you just the same. “You just—Fuck, you just needed my fucking cock.”

Your head falls back against the couch, hands gripping onto his forearms like a lifeline. He’s breathing heavy, ragged, lowering himself until his chest pushes down against yours, and your arms wrap around his torso when he does.

And it’s heavenly, an absolute miracle, the way this beautiful, gorgeous man looses himself in you. 

Maekar’s lips find your neck, kissing and sucking on your skin as he quickens his pace. The scrape of his beard against your skin tethers you to him like an anchor, and he is everything you can see, and everything you can feel. Your lips part and a moan slips past them when he does, your nails digging into his back as he moves, thrusting faster. Harder.

“I—Maekar, I’m gonna—” you whimper, voice much quieter than it had been.

“S’okay, pretty,” he replies, with a grunt. He angles his hips just slightly before he thrusts again, and you gasp against his hair. “I got you. I got you, I—Oh, you’re squeezing me so fucking tight. My pretty doll’s gonna cum? Let go. Let go, I got you.”

You don’t answer. You cannot. But your hands grip even tighter onto his back, gentle fingertips grazing over a myriad of scars, and you’re in ecstasy. 

He keeps moving, thrusting, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling your ears until it all goes away for one blissful, perfect moment.

Your legs lock around his waist as you cum, and he keeps thrusting, and all you can smell is the depth of his aftershave and the musk of his cologne. The back of your eyelids are painted with stars, your heart explodes inside your chest, and you moan his name like a prayer. There’s only pleasure, and there’s only him, and he’s holding you through it all. And fuck, if it’s not a beautiful, all-consuming feeling. 

“Yeah. Yeah, just like that,” he whines, sound foreign and unfamiliar, but barely noticed in the peak of your orgasm. “Keep squeezing me like that. Taking my cock like you were made for it, aren’t you? Gonna make me cum, fuck!”

He thrusts one, two, three more times, and your nails dig into his skin again. Suddenly, he’s falling, and he closes his eyes, and he does not give a fuck about anything that is not the wave of pleasure that courses through him and wrecks him down to his bones.

His brows furrow, nose scrunched up in beautiful agony, body locking in and drawing tight as he rides his peak. He moves, shaking slightly when his legs begin to burn, and he moans against your body before it breaks into a sharp, sudden silence as he spills inside your spasming cunt. 

His chest rises and falls rapidly against yours, both of you trying to regain your breath as you revel in a world that consists only of each other. He keeps his eyes closed, forehead buried against your neck, breathing in your scent, and he feels warm all over. Your hands, still resting on his back, trail lower, caressing his damp skin as you come down from your high.

Not that you want to. No. Maekar pants over you, and his hair falls over your face, smelling softly of cedar and oak, and he’s still holding onto you oh so tightly. You’d stay like this forever if you could.

But it all begins to come back in small doses: the ticking of a clock nearby. The golden light seeping in through thin linen blinds. The softness of the fabric under your body. It is all there, a world eagerly awaiting for your return.

Your voice breaks through the stillness. 

“I always knew you liked me back.”

He opens his eyes and purses his lips.

“No, you did not,” he answers, quietly. “Brat.”

His voice is a different kind of deep, not the same sort of guarded that comes to him like a second nature after years of pulling walls up. Maekar hums, sated and content, and tightens his hold around you. He runs his lips down the outside of your ear, catching your lobe between his teeth, and you shiver against his arms.

Seven above, it is all absolutely perfect. 

“Maekar?” You speak again, voice dripping with amusement. He adores the sound of it. “You are going to help me with my bookshelf, right?”

“Fuck no,” he scoffs, but there is no bite. There are just mellowed, softened edges that have replaced the sharpness of barbed wire. Surrender. “I’ll just ask my brother, or something.”

You laugh, and he rolls over. He slips out of you, and you wince. He notices, and kisses your navel before he straightens. His back cracks as he stands up, and he groans. Tired. At ease.

“He’s an architect,” he elaborates. “Builds houses and all that, y’know? He can build your fucking bookshelf if you want it so bad—fuck off, no, I’m not talking about my brother right now. Fuck him.”

“Fuck him?” You tease, wiggling your eyebrows as you laugh. “Is your brother also a DILF?”

“A what?” He narrows his eyes and fights back the urge to roll them back. Oh, forget the beatitude. He looks exasperated once more, back to his prickly, moody self, and he’s and so, so beautiful. “Actually, I don’t even want to fucking know. Spare me the fucking pain. We’re taking a shower before you stain my sofa any further, and then I’ll get lunch delivered. Prawn linguine sounds good?”

Your grin only widens, and you’re in heaven.

Maekar’s peace of mind is officially, absolutely, utterly, royally, fucked. Luckily, so are you.

©BREAKSPEARZ — thank you for reading, let me know what you think! do not copy, translate, modify, repost, or claim as yours.

[redstonedust]

crazy how quickly dust accumulates. i should be allowed to put my trinkets on a shelf and not touch them and they remain in perfect condition forever. dont even get me STARTED on the inside of a computer. why do i have to brush your teeth. youre technology.

[emryses]

listen to me. this is my final message to you. when you are at your lowest a fictional guy will come to you and when that happens you must start putting them in situations. this is the meaning of life.

[osarina]

ঌ BEWITCHED

FEATURING: aerion targaryen x fem!reader

SUMMARY: aerion is sick of lys, and aerion is sick of you. so, he does what any true dragon should do, and he puts you in your place. except when you actually do leave him alone, he finds that he doesn't feel quite as victorious as he should.

WARNINGS: Aerion POV (LOL), fem!reader, jealous/possessive!aerion, mentions of Targaryen madness but no actual display of it (in this part :P), reader comes from Valyrian lineage but no physical traits are mentioned/described, tw aerion, semi-public sex (don’t worry they’ll stop being open whores soon LOL), rough sex, blood play, gagging/minor choking, switch!reader (sub!leaning this time), switch!aerion (dom!leaning this time); WC: 10.5k-ish

AUTHOR'S NOTES: EHEHEHEHHEHEHE guys I'm having so much fun writing this fic. Eventually I'm going to make a masterlist for all of the parts to throw them together and I'm going to name it "How To Train Your Dragon" KADHFISHFUSADF LOLLLLLLLL or I might save that for a different fic, but it's too funny I have to use it. I actually rewrote this part a few times because I couldn't figure out where I wanted to go with it. Originally, I wanted Aerion to have like an actual display of Targaryen madness, but I think it would be better to save that for a later installment. I think the next installment whenever that may be (gonna take longer this time bc I have a lot of work to get done) is going to center around him figuring out why she was exiled and I'm excited to get into that because it's quite the story. Anyway — I hope you enjoy! comments and relogs are always appreciated, mwah mwah!

READ: INCANDESCENCE | SAUDADE

Aerion hates Lys. 

Between magisters angling to secure a dragon for a son-in-law and perfumed courtesans drifting through torchlit halls like painted ghosts, the city feels poisonous. Decadent. Drowned in silk and scented oils thick enough to choke on. He cannot breathe without tasting rosewater and myrrh. He cannot think without fury curdling his blood and indignation fogging all coherent thought.

He curls his hand around the goblet at his side until the thin Myrish glass cracks beneath his grip. They do not understand him here—no one understands him anywhere, but at the very least, Westeros is home. Westeros hates him—fears him, whispers about him, judges him—but it knows him. They look at him and see what he is—a dragon, fire and blood—they speak his name in the Seven Kingdoms with caution, and lower their eyes when he walks by.

These Lyseni look at him and see only opportunity. A displaced prince to take advantage of. A scandal dressed in silver hair and violet eyes to exploit. A dragon clipped of its wings and sent across the Narrow Sea to be made more palatable. Aerion sees all of their calculations when they think they’re being slick. He sees the way fathers present daughters in hopes of tying their line with a prince of the blood; in the way servants watch for signs of temper, eager to report whether the exile is manageable or monstrous. 

He lifts the goblet and drains it in a single swallow. The wine is sweet—too sweet. Everything in Lys is sweet, and syrupy, and soft, and he’s sick of it. It coats the tongue and dulls the senses, trying to keep him weak and malleable. He wants something sharp enough to cut. He wants hard-packed earth and steel, not mosaic marble and silk. 

He throws the goblet at the wall furiously, watching it shatter against the pale stone, ignoring how a servant girl flinches and scurries away as he rises to his feet and paces the solar, agitated. 

He hadn’t even done anything wrong. He’d meant to teach a lesson, that was all. The puppet girl incited rebellion, the hedge knight overstepped, and the crowd dared to laugh. 

What was he meant to do? Smile? Yield? Laugh along with them?

A dragon who endures mockery without response ceases to be a dragon at all. A dragon answers with fire and blood. He had done what he was meant to do, and they treated him as though he’s the villain of the tale. As though it was his hand that struck his uncle down, his arm that swung the mace. As though Baelor wasn’t the one who chose to stand against his own blood, with some fucking oaf who dared to lay hands on a prince of the blood. 

The gods answered the Trial of Seven as they were meant to, and still, they blame him. As if divine judgment must bend itself to their comfort. Aerion might have withdrawn his accusation, but if the gods struck his uncle down on that field, perhaps it was not Aerion they judged. Except no one wishes to speak that truth aloud, because it’s easier to name him the monster and send him across the Narrow Sea to pretend the problem has been solved. 

He swallows the bitter lump in his throat, chest tight with something that he refuses to name.

Lys will suit you, his father had said while Aerion was still tasting his own blood with every swallow. While his ribs still ached with every breath, and his face was still swollen and split from that brute of a hedge knight’s blows. He couldn’t rise from the bed to argue properly, wasn’t even given the chance to defend himself. Maekar had spoken the words and turned his back on him, treating him as though he were an inconvenience to be managed rather than a son to be defended. 

His next exhale is shuddered—furious, betrayed, pained, he’s not sure. His hands wrap around the railing of the balcony, looking over Vyrano’s manse, over the glittering city and pale marble domes, knuckles white and fingers trembling. Music drifts upward to where he stands, lutes and soft laughter ringing incessantly in his ears.

He hates it.

———————

Aerion hates Lys, and Aerion hates you.

As if this wretched city of silk could get even worse, you had to come along with it. You laugh when he threatens, and lean closer when he snarls. You speak to him in the old tongue as if it’s your birthright, poured into your mouth with your mother’s milk; as if High Valyrian were not a privilege of fire and blood, but a toy to be rolled across your tongue for amusement. Aerion wants you dead, but he can’t even get people to answer questions about you, much less the opportunity to put his blade through your throat.

You are impudent, and disrespectful, and whorish, and you have left bruises up and down his throat, scratches along his abdomen, like a wild beast. 

He stands before the polished silver, fingers tracing the marks you left on him, studying them with a deep frown—bruises bloom dark where your mouth lingered, lines sting across his body when he moves the wrong way. The haze of pleasure is long gone, and Aerion is enraged. The marks do not suit a prince of the blood—a dragon. He looks almost—

His jaw tightens, gaze flicking away.

He had not meant for it to happen that way. He meant to remind you of your place—to show you the edge of the blade you thought to play with and make you flinch, to teach you that dragons are not toys to be handled at whim. Instead, you had laughed and mocked him, drawing him into a guessing game of identity, and he had let you. You had straddled him like he was some perfumed boy from a pillow house, like he was yours to take, and he had let you. 

Aerion hisses as he turns his back to his own reflection, pacing. He cannot sit. He cannot breathe. The memory of your mouth at his throat feels like flames beneath his flesh, and every time he thinks he has doused it, it flares again. The audacity you had to just leave, he thinks furiously. To rise from his lap, fix your dress, and leave him there—breathing heavy, cock softening inside silk, blood and spit smeared around his mouth like a maiden who’d just been kissed silly. You had strolled back into the festival with the ease of someone returning to their seat at supper, and he’d been left reeling, trying to pretend he wasn’t.

He drags a hand through his hair, nails catching on tangles—he needs to cut it again. He’s been trapped on this flowery prison for over a fortnight, and already he’s starting to look like one of the silk boys. His thoughts flash, sharp and ugly, when he catches sight of the bruises on his reflection as he whirls around again. He should have taken you with him that night. Should’ve hauled you down from that balcony by your hair and dared the magisters to stop him. Should have made you scream his name in the middle of their jeweled garden until the whole city remembered what it means to touch a dragon.

The doors to his solar creak open, and a servant hesitates in the threshold, bowing deeply.

“My prince,” the boy begins cautiously, “Magister Vyrano asks if you will attend supper—”

“Get out,” he says, not even turning to look at him, pacing back over to the balcony, knuckles white around the railing as he stares out to the west, where the Summer Sea gleams beneath the setting sun. Somewhere beyond it lies Westeros—packed dirt and steel, storm and smoke, not silk and perfume, not you.

The servant flees, as they always tend to when they realize he’s in a foul mood, and the doors fall shut with a muted thud that leaves the room too quiet. 

He remains at the railing, breath coming hard through his nose—everything feels wrong. He can’t sit, can’t breathe, his skin feels too itchy, too tight, too hot, burning the same way it always does before waking dreams. 

It’s just anger this time, he tells himself. 

He’s not Daeron—not weak, not a mad man, no matter what everyone else says. He’s Aerion Brightflame, a dragon—in control, always. You just pissed him off enough that he cannot think straight, so he needs to handle this, handle you. 

Still, he exhales deliberately—long, counting, forcing his breath to even out the way Daeron once taught him when they were kids, the first time he found Aerion screaming on the floor, nails bloody and ripping through the skin at his neck, before he turned to the bottle and forgot he was a brother. His pulse pounds at his temples, fingers flexing against the stone rail. 

He forces his mind elsewhere, and to his frustration, he finds it drifting right back to you, but this time, a more pleasant feeling sweeps over him. Your laugh. Your mouth. Your hands on his skin, fingers brushing through his hair, tracing his jaw, lips caressing his. 

His jaw tightens, equally incensed by the idea of feeling calmed by you as he is by the idea of feeling disrespected by you. 

He still doesn’t know anything about you, he realizes furiously. Well—he knows some. He knows the sound you make when he presses his nail into your wrist and drags his tongue up your throat. He knows the shape of your hips beneath silk, and the taste of your blood. 

But he doesn’t know your house. He doesn’t know where you’re from, or who your father is, or what banners would rise if he dragged you into the street and put a knife to your throat, or why nobody in this god-forsaken city will answer any of his questions about you. Why doors close when he asks, and smiles turn bland, and answers turn slippery, as though you’re the only thing in Lys that cannot be purchased, and he—Aerion Brightflame of the House Targaryen, dragon blood, prince of the Seven Kingdoms—must simply accept that.

He will not. 

He cannot.

He slams his palms against the railing and paces away, agitated again, itching at his too-hot skin. He needs to do something about this. 

Westeros would never have allowed this.

In Westeros, he would have dragged you into a chamber and barred the door. In Westeros, no magister would dare interfere. In Westeros, his name still carried weight enough to bend the room around it. In Westeros, he could’ve fucked you and then killed you, and nobody would’ve bat an eye. 

Here, he must calculate. He must tread carefully and pretend to be agreeable while they measure him like livestock at auction, because for every slip of restraint that gets back to his father, he’ll be stuck here longer. The humiliation of it burns deeper than your scratches, and you are complicit in it—the primary enabler of it, even—with your treacherous games.

Aerion hates Lys, and Aerion hates you.

He just wants to go home.

———————

He finds you at dusk in the same place he first met you. 

You’re sprawled on that same sun-warmed rock, red chiffon instead of purple clinging damply to your thighs, the edges of it drifting lazily in the Summer Sea. The sky bleeds gold and violet overhead, the horizon swallowing the sun in a slow descent. You look exactly as you had that first day—untouched by consequences, unbothered by the world and exile and him.

As though he has not spent the better part of three days unraveling over you. 

He already finds himself irritated, and you haven’t even spoken a word yet. He stops several paces away at the edge of the water, boots sinking slightly into wet sand. He doesn’t announce himself, but you know he’s there—he can tell by the faint curl of your lips.

“You took your time,” you say lightly, not even opening your eyes.

His jaw tightens. He steps closer, close enough that the tide laps against the edge of his boots. The hem of his coat flutters in the salt wind. You finally open your eyes and tilt your head back to look at him, and Aerion finds his mouth drying, gaze slipping to the way you unintentionally—intentionally?—bare your throat to look at him, the way silk clings to your skin, the way you lie so lackadaisical as though you have no care in the world.

“You marked me like some beast claiming territory,” he accuses, voice low and sharp, watching as you roll onto your stomach, smiling lightly as your gaze wanders openly over him, lingering on the bruises marring his neck, on the scratches you know are hidden beneath his tunic. He thinks you have some nerve, some—

“Yes, you do look thoroughly mine, don’t you?” you say, and Aerion’s vision nearly goes red, teeth grinding so badly that it almost hurts. “Does that bother you?”

“Bother me?” he hisses, stepping into the shallows until the water darkens the leather of his boots. “You presume ownership of a dragon.”

He knows he isn’t going to like what you have to say before you even say it. You smile sharply. “Well, most who ride a dragon would be considered to have claimed it, don’t you think?”

He balks at your words, furious, and then he forces his expression to smooth. “You bit me.”

“You bit me back. In fact, you bit first, if I recall correctly.”

“You made me bleed.”

You smile wider at that. “Again, I was only returning the favor.”

“You marked me,” he repeats, enraged because he still can’t get past the audacity of you leaving marks along his skin where everyone can see, as though he’s some courtesan fresh from a patron’s bed. 

The lingering looks have been unbearable—servants’ gazes dipping down to his neck with wide eyes, a magister’s daughter staring openly at the dark bloom along the curve of his neck and the length of his throat before lowering her lashes and making an excuse to leave. The only thing worse than the parasites of this city trying to pawn their daughters off to him is the way they’ve stopped trying because they think he belongs to you.

Your smile softens, just a little. You hum. “And you wear it well.”

The simplicity of it steals the next retort from his mouth, blinking once as he stares at you, thrown off by the lack of mockery in your tone. He doesn’t like the uncertain feeling that spreads through him, so he pushes it away, expression hardening, shutters slamming down behind violet eyes. He says coldly, “Do not speak as though I am yours. You mistake indulgence for possession.”

You don’t have a quick remark this time, studying him carefully, amusement fading and being replaced with something more attentive, as though realizing that he’s not as keen to indulge your whims today. He thinks he likes this less—the idea that you can, in fact, be serious, that you’re not all languid smiles and careless laughs. He feels far too seen right now—he’s too hot, he’s too fucking hot, too itchy, everything is wound too tight.

“I told you I tire of your games,” he continues, jaw set, “and you have exhausted my patience. I am done playing. You pushed too far with this—this mess. The way people look at this, at me—I am not claimed. Not by you or anyone in this wretched city. I belong to no one. You don’t get to behave as though you have some tether around my neck because you left bruises where others could see them. I am not yours, and I will not have Lys thinking otherwise.”

He is ranting. The words don’t come out as the sharp orders he wants them to be; the longer he speaks, the more his skin burns, and they end up coming out too fast and too hissed. For a long moment, you simply look at him. The soft sound of waves crashing against rock and sand, the warmth of water sinking into his leather boots. The last light of dusk is swallowed by the horizon, turning the water from gold to indigo. Something calculating flashes in your eyes briefly before your gaze finally flits away, dismissive—something about it makes him shift.

“I know,” you say at last, and the casualness of it catches him off guard. “I never said you were. You are not mine, and I am not yours. It was only some fun.”

The words don’t bring him the ease he expects, and he wants to snap that he’s not bothered, but he just stands there still as stone, staring at you, gaze trained on the side of your face as you look away from him. The sea breeze brushes your hair away from your neck, and his eyes land on the faint bruising he left beneath your ear, and he remembers the way your pulse fluttered when he pressed his mouth there, the feeling of your body against his, the soft moans and hitches of your breaths, your hands on his skin, gevie.

“Good,” he says, though the word feels strangely hollow in his mouth. “Then we understand each other.”

You hum lightly, looking out toward the sea again. “We do.”

He is unsettled. His fingers clench at his side, digging into his palms, and he has to force himself to unclench them before his nails break skin. He is unsettled, and he shouldn’t be unsettled—he got what he wanted. He drew the line, and you agreed; for once, not plaguing him with your disagreeable, disrespectful, impudent nature. He has won.

So, he’s not sure why he’s still standing, watching you from the shallows, the curve of your profile against the darkening horizon. You still look unbothered, as though nothing in this exchange cost you anything at all. He hadn’t realized he was waiting for resistance until it didn’t come.

He doesn’t like that realization, so he turns on his heel, stiff as he leaves the beach. He can’t help the part of himself that still waits for the teasing: ‘til next time, prince!

It does not come.

———————

Days pass. 

He attends suppers he does not wish to attend. He listens to magisters drone about trade routes and alliances. Their daughters sit near him again, because they’ve resumed trying to woo him on their father’s behalf once they’ve realized he is not yours. The bruises on his throat have faded, and the scratches on his abdomen have healed.

And Aerion is bored. 

He is so painfully, agonizingly bored that he writes up a vicious letter to send to his father, and then a more desperate one, wanting to come home. He sends neither, burns them in the fire in his room, and stares at the flames too long. He has been stuck on this perfumed prison for a moon, and no one has bothered to reach out to him, not to see if he’s been settled or to see how he’s doing. He won’t be the first to reach out if they can’t even bother to see if he’s alive.

He thinks about you incessantly. 

He finds himself scanning rooms without meaning to and finding them severely lacking when he does not spot your familiar lazy smile; his eyes glaze over mid-conversation with whichever magister or daughter is trying to make small talk with him, nervous, walking on eggshells in a way you never did. 

He goes to pillow houses to busy himself with at least keeping his cock warm, but he only leaves more incensed than he came. He lies back against velvet cushions while a girl with your hair color kisses along his throat, soft and reverent, and he feels nothing. She doesn’t even dare let her teeth graze his skin, afraid to leave a mark, afraid of him. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling instead, dismissing her with a flick of his fingers. 

He attends feasts and various other gatherings, hoping that you’ll be there, but you never show, and he’s forced to listen to a magister’s daughter recite poetry in High Valyrian that makes his teeth ache with how butchered it sounds. He corrects her pronunciation once, disdainfully, and she flushes scarlet and falls silent. He does not bother speaking again, and he leaves early.

He ends each day with a ride at dusk, alone, circling the island without admitting to himself where his path drifts—the northern edge, the sun-warmed rock you like to bask yourself on like a lizard, but it’s empty every single time. He tries not to acknowledge how disappointed he is—every single time. 

After a few days pass, Aerion realizes that he had expected you to push, to test the boundary he set, as you had been the past moon, no matter what venom he spat at you, but you have withdrawn completely. You don’t come to events, don’t wander the gardens, and when he idly asks the magisters about you, trying to feign indifference, nobody gives him a clear answer. He stops by the Perfumed Garden to see if you’re talking to your whores, but they deny even seeing you, and he can’t tell if it’s a practiced lie or the truth. It’s as though you’ve evaporated from Lys altogether. 

He has won, he has to insist to himself. The dragon always wins—especially against some upstart island girl who thinks herself untouchable. You have simply learned what the world knows as truth: House Targaryen always comes out on top, Aerion always comes out on top. 

So why in the seven hells does total victory feel like losing?

———————

You’re here.

Aerion knew it the moment he stepped into the room—before his eyes found you, before he had any proof beyond the way his hair was suddenly standing on end. 

He wasn’t sure if you would be—you only seem to attend events hosted by the First Magister, and Aerion supposes it’s because you’re his guest, just as Aerion is Vyrano’s, but this debauchery Vyrano calls a feast seems to be in celebration of a holy day for Lys’s cat god. It would be disrespectful for you not to show up at a magister’s manse on a holy day, and you seem well enough liked by the nobility for him to assume you wouldn’t be openly disrespectful to them, even if you are to him.

The hall is drenched in gold and smoke, braziers burn along marble walls, and Aerion can’t help the way his gaze clings to the flames, forcibly looking away to the silk banners hanging from the vaulted ceiling, embroidered with the sleek, watchful shape of their cat god. The scent of incense coils thick in his lungs, heavier than usual, not the usual rose; there’s something sweeter threaded through it that clings. It curls low in his stomach and lingers there, seeping into him in a way that makes his muscles lax.

The laughter in the hall is different too, he notes absently—looser and slower, as though something warm and indulgent has slipped between their skin and softened the edges of restraint. Sharp laughter becomes languid murmurs, and casual touches become lingering caresses. Fingers trail more boldly over silk. Heads tip back a little too far. Mouths linger too close to ears. Even the magisters seem at ease, their eyes glassy as they gesture through negotiations they will not remember in the morning.

Aerion feels distinctly uncomfortable, his tongue pressing to the back of his teeth as he ignores the incense burning in his lungs, forcibly loosening his inhibitions. He accepts a goblet from a passing servant without looking at her, using the cool weight of it to anchor his focus before anyone can see even a flicker of weakness. His gaze moves across the room, as though disinterested, and then—

And then he sees you.

You look the same as you always have, draped in silk chiffon, lounging on cushions, surrounded by beautiful women and pretty boys who smile and charm and trace your skin like they have some right to your body. The sight of it makes his blood hot, and he’s furious because he won, so he should be the one at ease, not you. He doesn’t even know why he’s so angry.

You’re reclined in the center of it all, one arm thrown lazily over the cushions, fingers idly tangled in the golden curls of a girl kneeling at your side while a boy with kohl-lined eyes pours wine into your goblet, his other hand resting lightly at your waist as though it belongs there. The magister’s son you’re talking to, a pretty thing with golden hair and violet eyes, sits close to you with his own courtesans pawing at him. He snorts at something you say, and you—

You look bored.

Your gaze drifts over the hall with faint disinterest, lips curved in something that is not quite a smile. You let them touch you, let them drape themselves across your lap and shoulders and thighs, but you don’t look as though you’re enjoying it. Don’t look the way you did that night on the balcony, eyes bright and glittering, smile sharp and taunting.  

Your attention lifts from the magister’s son and finds him across the room, as though drawn to him. Your expression doesn’t change, but you do tilt your head to the side, assessing him, and Aerion thinks he should look away, find something or someone else to distract himself with, but he can’t seem to draw his gaze from you, so he only lifts his chin, challenging. You raise your eyebrows at him, lips curved up in a small smile. 

Inexplicably, he almost moves to make his way over to you, but pauses when he watches the magister’s son reach up, fingers brushing beneath your chin, guiding your face toward him as though he has earned the right, stealing your attention back to him.

Aerion stills. 

The boy smiles lazily, wine-hazed and emboldened by incense and entitlement. He says something too low to carry, thumb stroking once along the lines of your jaw, where Aerion’s mouth traced greedily a few nights before, where your pulse had fluttered beneath his tongue, and something hot spreads through him—hot and green and very, very ugly. 

You don’t pull away, and you don’t lean in, but you let him lean in, you let him press his mouth to yours, and you let him move closer. 

And your eyes never leave Aerion’s.

The magister’s son deepens the kiss, encouraged by the fact that you don’t push him away, not noticing that you are barely meeting him either. Your mouth parts because his does, and your body shifts because his hand urges it. Your hands remain idle at your sides, lips moving just enough to feign interest.

And your eyes never leave Aerion’s. 

Aerion wants you fucking dead. 

What sort of fucking levels of disrespect is letting someone shove their tongue down your throat while holding eye contact with him?

He feels heat crawl up his spine, through his shoulders, into his throat—sheer disbelief, rage, he doesn’t even know what the ugly emotions spreading through him are. He can hear his own heartbeat, his own words, echoing through his head—I am not yours, I belong to no one, we understand each other. And he is not. He is not yours. Aerion belongs to no one. Aerion is a dragon, a prince—he is not shackled by a girl on an island of silk and perfume. 

So why is he so fucking angry?

It’s the disrespect, he tells himself. 

Your fucking impudence, the way you’re blatantly trying to goad a reaction out of him because he told you enough is enough. Aerion has never been so openly provoked before. Even that fucking hedge knight, he was trying to protect that puppet girl, not—he doesn’t even know what your goal is? Antagonizing him just for the love of the game? His face feels flushed, and his nails dig into his palms. 

This is what it looks like when I don’t play with you, dragon prince, you taunt him without saying anything at all. This is what it looks like when I’m free to do as I please. I told you I would stop, didn’t I?

He hates you. He hates you, and he hates this city. He hates that he got what he wanted, and he still feels like he’s losing. He hates that his knuckles are white around his goblet while you’re lying languid on velvet cushions, kissing another man. He hates this—hates his father, hates his brothers, hates that oaf of a hedge knight that caused all of this. He hates that he’s been suffering indignity after indignity since he arrived at Lys, and he hates that he still is now, even after supposedly fixing the issue. He hates you. 

The magister’s son pulls back slightly, murmuring something against your lips in that syrupy Lysene dialect that makes Aerion’s teeth grind. He brushes his nose along your cheek and says something that makes a few of the courtesans nearby laugh, but you only smile easily, gaze finally dragging away from Aerion to look at him.

He feels a courtesan at his side, fingers hovering above his arm, not daring to actually touch him. He hears a faint: “Might I please you, my prince?” in that soft and lilting Lysene dialect that grates Aerion’s ears now more than ever, because he can imagine whatever that boy is saying to you in the same form. All rounded vowels and syrupy consonants, High Valyrian dragged through silk and sugar until it lost its edge. Under any circumstances, Aerion would have despised the sound of it, but now it feels like blade scraping bone. 

He hates it. He hates Lys. He hates the Lysene dialect. Hates the way it sounds now against the roar building in his ears. Hates the way it sanded the edges off a language meant for dragons. Hates the way they’re trying to do the same to him with silk and incense and pillows and sweetness. Hates feeling like this. Hates—

He is moving before he even knows what he’s doing. 

The courtesan’s fingers never quite make contact; he steps forward, and they fall away, retreating instantly at the look on his face. The crowd parts for him, clearly sensing danger even in their incense-induced haze. His blood is roaring, something dangerous rearing in him that he cannot seem to control. He knows he’s making a mistake—he set the boundary, he was the one who shut you down, and if word gets back to his father that he’s acting like some unhinged beast on a Lysene holy day, he’ll only be stuck on this wretched prison island longer. 

And yet, his world narrows to the line of your throat, the angle of your mouth, the boy’s fingers resting where they should not, and Aerion just cannot think straight. 

The magister’s son looks up, mildly annoyed, as Aerion approaches the cushions, and Aerion thinks he has some nerve looking at a prince of the blood as though he’s a nuisance. This whole island is filled with impudent wretches, and you are the worst of them all. 

“My prince,” he says, attempting an easy smile.

You are pointedly not looking at him now, attention resting on the boy at your side. You say something softly in the Lysene’s liquid dialect, and Aerion thinks it's disgusting hearing you speak this bastardized version of High Valyrian. His jaw tightens, and the boy laughs at whatever you’ve said and reaches for your hand as though to pull you closer.

Aerion’s hand comes down on his wrist before his fingers can brush your skin, grip so tight that the boy immediately winces, teeth grinding together, pain flashing across his face. Aerion squeezes tighter, enjoying the way his expression twists more.

“My prince?” he repeats, tone strained now as he looks up at Aerion through long, gold lashes—more indignant than fearful. Aerion hates Lys. Back in Westeros, any lord’s son would have fumbled out apologies and fled. 

“You may leave,” Aerion says coldly. 

The boy stiffens, pride flickering to the surface, and Aerion’s eye nearly twitches. “We were merely—”

“I am aware of what you were doing,” Aerion cuts in, speaking through his teeth now. “You may leave.”

His gaze flicks over to you, and you’re watching him again, but he can’t read the expression on your face. The boy attempts to tug his wrist free, but Aerion does not release him, twisting the angle to make it more painful.

“You must misunderstand,” the boy says lightly, though the laughter has left his voice. “She did not object.”

“No,” Aerion agrees, well aware that many eyes are trained on the tense conversation taking place. A few nearby courtesans and nobles fall silent entirely now, and the music continues, but it falters, watching eyes multiplying in the corners of the room. He’s making a spectacle of himself, he knows it, and he cannot fucking stop himself. He hates you—he hates you. “She did not.”

I do. I fucking object. 

The boy’s jaw tightens. “Then I fail to see—”

“My patience wanes,” Aerion warns tightly, nails digging deep enough into his wrist to draw blood. “You do not want to see it exhausted.”

The magister’s son rips his hand back, and Aerion allows it this time, relishing in the way he cradles his wrist to his chest, desperately trying to smooth the pained expression into something dignified.

Your gaze is still trained on Aerion as you speak. “Go,” you say, leaving no room for argument. “It appears I have an ill-tempered dragon to tend to.”

The magister’s son inhales sharply, nostrils flaring, pride warring with prudence, but the blood welling at his wrist, and the way Aerion still looks as though he’s one wrong word away from worse violence, causes him to rise to his feet and leave without another word, desperately tending to his wounded pride. The courtesans flee with him, clearly with no desire to be near Aerion while he’s in such a foul mood.

“Well,” you say blithely after a moment when your area is mostly cleared. You look over him blandly. “You are in quite the state.”

Aerion’s tongue presses against the back of his teeth. He did not think so far ahead, and now that the magister’s son has left and the flames licking at his blood have started to subside, Aerion is hyperaware of the number of eyes not-so-subtly pinned on the two of you. He feels agitated, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

Mad Aerion, people would whisper back in Westeros, he knows it, even if they were all careful to never say it while he was in earshot. Mad Aerion, quick to temper, quick to violence, quick to cruelty. 

Everyone here sees it now, too—you see it now, too—and it’s going to get back to his father, and he’s only going to be stuck here longer. The disgraced son, the unwanted prince. 

Mad Aerion, the Brightflame, the prince who got his own uncle killed over an imagined slight, the unhinged exile who cannot govern himself in a room of silk and wine.

You seem to recognize the stiffness in his shoulders, because you sigh, looking away briefly before holding your hand up to him, beckoning him to help you to your feet. He does after a moment, fingers wrapping around your wrist, feeling the warmth of your skin, the flutter of your pulse—it reignites the flames beneath his skin, except not with rage this time. He hates it. Hates even more that a part of him relaxes when your skin is against his. He doesn’t let go right away, not until you raise your eyebrows at him. 

“Walk me to the gardens,” you say, hand coming up to hold his bicep. Your gaze slides to the side to land on Vyrano, who watches Aerion warily. You tell him blandly, “The incense is quite strong tonight, magister. It’s making me feel agitated.”

Aerion’s eyes slide shut as soon as you say it—frustration and helplessness eating him alive, fury at himself, at Lys, at you. The incense isn’t bothering you at all, he thinks furiously. You’re handing him back a sliver of the dignity he destroyed. Giving him an excuse for his behavior, so his erraticness doesn’t get back to the wrong people. You understand the necessity of restraint better than most, he bets—birds of a feather, a fellow exile—any mistake can extend a sentence, a single lapse of temper and one year becomes ten.

You squeeze his bicep, beckoning him to play along. He inhales once, steadying himself and forcing his shoulders to lower by sheer will. 

“The room is stifling,” he says coolly, letting just enough irritation lace his voice to make it believable, but not volatile. “We will take some air.”

Vyrano nods quickly, apologizing, relief plain on his face that this spectacle will not escalate further. The music resumes its earlier cadence, conversation slowly returning in your wake, but the watching eyes remain, tracking the two of you as you make your way out to the hall in the direction of the gardens.

“Mm, you know, you are quite fickle, prince,” you say lazily as soon as there are no unwanted ears listening in. “You indulge me. You fuck me. You entertain my little games. Three days later, you decide you are above it all and declare yourself done. And now—” your fingers trace idly over the sleeve of his shirt, “—now you’re throwing a tantrum when I behave exactly as you demanded.”

He doesn’t answer because answering requires admitting you are right, and he would sooner bite his own tongue off.

“You wanted distance,” you continue, “so I gave it to you. You wanted to be unclaimed, so I behaved as though you were. And suddenly, that is as intolerable as my games supposedly were. What am I to think, prince?” 

He says, voice clipped, “I did not throw a tantrum.”

You hum, unconvinced. “You nearly snapped his wrist in half.”

“He was presumptuous.”

“I was allowing him to be presumptuous.”

“You were provoking me,” he hisses, grabbing your wrist and backing you into a marble pillar, angry again as he remembers how you held eye contact with him while you allowed that silk boy to touch you. His forearm presses against your chest to hold you in place, and you look as unbothered as ever—pleased, even. He hates Lys. He hates you. “Do not pretend as though it was anything else. It was just another game of yours.”

He almost expects you to deny it, but your lips curl up into an easy smile. “Everything is a game, zaldrītsos,” you murmur, looking up at him through your lashes. Little dragon. His throat bobs. “I was only curious as to how much you meant those words on the beach.”

His teeth grind together. “So you meant to what? Humiliate me to figure it out?”

“I did not humiliate you. You did that all on your own, prince,” you say, and Aerion has half a mind to force you to your knees and put that insolent mouth of yours to better use, stitch up the pride he just shredded before half of the Lysene court. “For all of your concern about being seen as… claimed, you were the only one in that room who behaved as though you were.”

Aerion’s jaw tightens. His forearm presses more firmly against your chest, not enough to hurt—enough to remind you he could.

“You think this is amusing,” he says. “You think you can prod and poke and taunt me like some beast in a pit.”

“I never thought you a beast,” you murmur. “Beasts are simple. You are woefully complicated.”

“You said you would stop,” he reminds you.

“I did no such thing, I only agreed that you were not mine—yet.”

Aerion inhales sharply through his nose,

“So what? You vanish, and then came back with more games even more impudent than you were originally? Is that how this works?”

“I did not vanish. I was giving you time to cool off. It was a strategic retreat,” you say with a lazy smile. “You didn’t really think I would give up so easily, did you? I was just deciding on a new plan of attack, since I seemed to have thoroughly upset you with my first. I was, ah, reevaluating, so to speak—you’re quite the ill-tempered dragon, prince, it’ll be a challenge to make you heel, but rest assured, I enjoy a challenge.”

Aerion thinks he should put his blade through your neck. Wrap his fingers around your throat and squeeze until your eyes bulge and your pulse dies beneath his fingers. He’s never met a woman so fucking disrespectful before.

He presses his tongue to the back of his teeth to clam himself and seethes, “And you thought this would be a better ‘plan of attack’?“

“Actually, this was not part of my plan at all,” you say with a laugh so easy that it makes him startle. “I only meant to goad you into a conversation. I did not anticipate that you would get so jealous just from a kiss, prince.”

Aerion’s vision swims red. His arm leaves your chest to close his hand around your neck, pulling you close to him, and he hates how hard his pulse thrums against his skin, how his breath hitches when he touches you.

“I am not jealous,” he hisses. “Jealousy is for weak men. I am a dragon. Dragons take. They do not beg or pine or stand idle while others lay hands where they should not.” He leans in, breath ghosting over your mouth. “They claim—with fire and blood.”

Your pulse flutters wildly beneath his thumb. He feels it. He likes that he feels it. Likes that your breath catches, but you don’t look afraid of him, that your pupils are blown wide, but not in terror. This is not silk or perfume or the syrupy indulgence that Lys tries to drown him in. 

This—this is sharp enough to cut, this is steel. 

For a long moment, the world narrows to the heat between your bodies and the blood rushing through his ears.

He has been drowning since he set foot on this cursed island. Drowning in sweetness, and watchful eyes, and magisters measuring him like livestock, offering daughters to him like whores in expensive silk. Drowning in the humiliation of exile, and the knowledge that every laugh in a hall might be about him, and the fact that his own father would see him cast across the Narrow Sea as an inconvenience to be managed. 

But this is not drowning. You are infuriating. You are impudent, and disrespectful, and whorish, and you bruise and scratch and treat him like an equal instead of a prince. He hates it, he hates you, and yet—it is fire, and steel, and blood. If he must suffer here—if he must endure silk and incense and fathers parading daughters before him and whores too afraid to properly touch him—then he needs something that will keep him sharp while Lys tries to sand down his edges and call it refinement. 

He will have you, he decides, and Aerion always gets what he wants. 

“And what,” you murmur, “exactly are you claiming?”

His grip shifts from your throat to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair to crane your neck back, baring your throat to him. He likes this too, itches to bend his head down and put his teeth into your neck, the same way you did to him. 

“You,” he says simply. He adds immediately, “Do not misunderstand. Claiming you does not mean I belong to you. You are mine, and that’s the end of it. It’s not a bargain or mutual surrender. It simply is.”

Neither of you speaks. He’s close enough to feel the warmth of your breath on his lips, close enough to almost taste the wine on your tongue, close enough to see that your lips are still swollen slightly from that magister’s son’s kisses. His grip tightens in your hair instinctively, twisting, and you let out a breathless noise.

“Gods, you are something else,” you laugh. Aerion almost finds offense to the fact that you’re laughing at him, fingers bruising your hip, but he hesitates when he sees the way you’re looking at him: pleased, almost adoringly. He realizes that you, too, must be drowning—have been for much longer than him, even. He knew from the moment he met you that you weren’t cut from the same silk cloth and pillowed touches as the rest of this island. “Aerion Brightflame, I will never tire of you.”

You don’t give him the chance to say anything else, leaning in despite the fingers twisting your hair to press your lips against his, and Aerion lets out a low groan into your mouth, lashes fluttering shut. His hand tightens reflexively in your hair, angling your head to deepen the kiss. 

It’s nothing like the way you let the magister’s son paw at you, lips barely moving against his, attention drawn elsewhere—you kiss him like you want to fight him, like you are fighting him, lips sliding messily and teeth threatening to break through skin when it seems like he might win. You slide your hands up his abdomen, slipping beneath his shirt, and Aerion fights a shudder, muscles tensing when you drag your nails against him, lips parting against yours as you roll his bottom lip between your teeth. 

“You mistake one thing, though, zaldrīzes dārilaros,” you murmur against his lips, smiling. Aerion inhales sharply at the sound of your smooth High Valyrian, cock already aching in the silk he wears. Bitch, he thinks bitterly, furious at himself, because he couldn’t even get his cock working when he had two whores draped across his lap in a pillow house, but the moment your lips are against his, and you’re whispering in the old tongue, he’s almost spilling himself untouched. You’ve used black magic on him—he’s sure of it—and yet, all he does is roughly hike one of your legs up around his waist and press you back against the pillar again, muffling a grunt against your skin as his lips slide down to your jaw. “You will be mine.”

He bites down hard, and your breath hitches, a low moan of his name spilling from your lips. His mouth drags down your neck, open and wet, trying to distract himself from the heat that rapidly spreads through his abdomen. He slips his hand between your bodies to slide his fingers against your cunt, letting out a smug huff when he feels how slick you are.

“Līve,” he breathes out, hand slipping into his own pants to pull out his cock, hissing, so painfully hard that his hips instinctively jerk into his fist when he wraps his fingers around himself. “Nyke yenka ezīmagon ao drāmmagon va ñuha orvorta isse bona tistālion syt mirre hen lī turgon naejot ūndegon.”

Whore. I should split you open on my cock in that hall for all of those parasites to see.

You let out another breathless laugh, one hand sliding up his body to thread through silver hair, pulling his face from your neck. His breath hitches when your nails scrape against his scalp, and his jaw falls half ajar when he feels you drag your tongue up his neck before pressing your lips to his again, sucking lightly at his bottom lip.

Fuck, he thinks, throat bobbing as he squeezes hard at the base of his cock to stop himself from finishing before he even sinks himself inside of you. You’re going to be the fucking death of him.

“Skoros keligon ao, ñuha dārilaros?” you say, dragging your lips to his ear and sucking hard at the spot beneath it. 

What’s stopping you, my prince?

My. 

My. 

Aerion’s grip on his cock tightens to the point it’s almost painful in a desperate effort to keep some semblance of pride, but there’s no hiding the choked noise that spills out of him. 

“Ah, gaomagon ao hae bona?” you say, tongue flicking out to trace his ear. His forehead drops against the marble next to your head, desperately trying to use the coolness of the stone to anchor himself before he makes a fool out of himself. “Skori nyke brōzagon ao ñuhon?”

Ah, do you like that? When I call you mine?

Aerion might actually kill you—he wants to sink his cock into your cunt and his blade into your throat with equal fervor. Maybe both at the same time, if you’re lucky.

Later. For now, he just needs to focus on not spilling himself untouched.

“Hoskagon zaldrītdos,” you continue, mouthing at his neck, bruising him again, despite the painful grip he has on your thigh. He pants against your neck, barely biting back a noise closer to a whine than a moan. “Skoro syt gaomagon ao daor ivestragī aōla sagon ñuhon? Mazeman syze gaomagon hen skoros iksis ñuhon. Aōha orvorta lōz, aōha ēdrugan bāne—

Prideful little dragon. Why won’t you let yourself be mine? I take good care of what’s mine. Your cock wet, your bed warm—

Aerion hisses, letting go of your thigh and relishing in the way you yelp when your leg hits the ground. You blink, confused, and he grinds his teeth together before he grabs your hips and flips you around so that your chest is flush to the pillar. He kicks out one of his feet to hit your ankle, forcibly spreading your legs, and hardly gives you the time to orient yourself before he’s pulling your hips to him, thrusting into you to bury his cock deep into your cunt.

“Hah,” you gasp. “Fuck—”

Aerion relishes the expression on your face now, lips parted and swollen, eyes wide. His nails dig deep into your hips to keep you still, teeth grinding together as his abdomen tenses and cock twitches inside of you. He brings one hand up to slide your silks down your body, revealing the bare skin of your back, before settling it back on your hip. He dips his head down to lick up your spine, feeling the way your body shudders beneath him. 

He likes this—you helpless on his cock, cunt spasming around him, wide-eyed and cockdrunk just from—

You let out another breathless laugh, halting his thoughts. “Mijessis ilinītsos zaldrītsos. Ozmijiō nyke. Nyke—”

Impatient little dragon. You’ve missed me. I—

One hand leaves your hip to slide up your body, grabbing your mouth roughly. You let out a surprised noise when he shoves two fingers in, pressing down hard on your tongue to silence you. 

“Ao ydragon tolī olvie,” he hisses before sinking his teeth into your shoulder to muffle a moan as he rocks his hips hard against your ass. 

You talk too much.

His hand slides around your body to press flush against your abdomen, holding you still as he fucks you hard. His eyes fall shut, tongue lapping at the blood he’s drawn at your shoulder, fighting moans as your walls spasm around his cock, sucking him in deeper with each thrust of his hips. You try to say something around his fingers, but he only presses down harder on your tongue, shoving his fingers deeper down, making you gag once before he lets up.

He drags his lips up to the crook of your neck, sucking and biting and marking you up the same way you had the nerve to do to him, drowning in the lewd sounds of his hips slapping against yours and the sloppiness of his cock plunging in and out of your cunt. He pulls you back so that your back is flush to his chest, your hands braced against the pillar, and he presses his lips to your ear.

“Ivestragon nyke aōha odre,” he pants. “Kesan addemmagon ziry. Skoros mirre issa.”

Tell me your price. I’ll pay it—whatever it is.

He means it. He thinks he has never meant anything so earnestly except for when he was a child and swore he would be the one to bring dragons back. He would drain the royal coffers, take Casterly Rock by force, and drain its mines—if that’s what it took to match your price. He would have you. You would be his. No matter what it takes. 

“Ivestragon nyke!”

Tell me!

The words tear out of him violently, desperately—he is not begging, he does not beg, but something drips from the words that makes him feel smaller, so he resorts to fucking you harder, fuck out any memory of him being weak, bury himself into your cunt, mold it around his cock so that you never even think of another man. 

Dragons do not beg or plead; they take what is theirs, so he will take you. Fuck your price, your price won’t matter when the only cock that can please you is his. He slides his fingers out of your mouth, but covers it with the palm of his hand to yank your head back more, tilting it to him.

Your eyes are glassy, half rolled back, and he can feel the spit dribbling from the corner of your mouth against his palm, the wetness against his thighs that spatters every time his cock plunges inside of you. His hand over your mouth tightens, squeezing your cheeks, holding the back of your head against his shoulder, and each muffled, broken you let out against his hand makes his cock ache.

He kisses up your neck messily, leaving a trail of blood and bruises, and he presses his lips into your temple as he rasps, “Gevie. Ñuhon.”

Beautiful. Mine.

He chokes over a moan as you writhe against him, hips rocking and eyes rolling back when you cum on his cock. His hand slides down your abdomen to your cunt, finger dipping between your folds to rub your clit. You strain against him, head tossed back against his shoulders, kicking your heels back into his shins to try to push him away, but he only presses you back against the marble pillar, keeping you pinned between him and it as he snaps his hips up faster, determined to make you break.

He laughs breathlessly, licking up the tears that spill over your cheeks and mocks, “Ōdres, iksis ziry daor? Gaomā daor hae ziry gaomagon ao?”

Sensitive, isn’t it? You don’t like it, do you?

You sob out something muffled that sounds like his name, and Aerion hisses, hips stuttering and breath leaving his lungs in a gasp of yours as he buries his cock deep and cums inside of you, forehead pressing against the back of your head as his heart races, desperately trying to catch his breath. His hand drops from your mouth to slink around your waist, eyes sliding shut.

You, naturally, break the brief moment of peace to speak as soon as your mouth is free, because you can’t help yourself. His eyes slide shut in exasperation—impudent.

“Gods, it’s been ages since someone’s fucked me like that,” you sigh, and Aerion is pleased that a good fucking seems to be all it takes for you to drop your disrespectful behavior and show some proper gratitude. Then you add, “Does the prospect of being mine really bother you so much? We are both exiles, both alone, both bored, and we please each other well enough, don’t we? Why must you throw a tantrum over it?”

Aerion clicks his tongue, fighting a hiss as he pulls his softening cock from your cunt and fixes his trousers. You turn around to face him, leaning back against the pillar as you fix your dress. Aerion finds his lips curling up into a smug smile when he sees how thoroughly wrecked you look—lips swollen, blood and spit smeared across your lower face, chest still heaving as you try to catch your breath. 

“I do not belong to anyone,” he repeats, ignoring how you roll your eyes. “I’m a dragon, not a common whore—and I did not throw a tantrum.” 

“Most dragons were claimed,” you remind him, and he sneers at that. You tip your head back against the marble, looking up at the night sky. “Unfortunately for you, I am not a common whore either. I suppose that means I can’t be yours.”

Aerion presses his lips together and says, “You might be, for all I know. A well-connected, well-versed common whore who taught herself High Valyrian to charm her way into a dragon’s bed and poison him once he’s let his guard down.”

You hum as though amused, and then you say, “I brought you something.” Aerion flicks a curious look at you, watching as you loll your head to the side to look at him. He raises his eyebrows. “From home. This was my actual plan of attack before your tantrum, if you were wondering. A gift—and a hint, if you’ll indulge my games.”

Aerion clicks his tongue disdainfully, because of course you never intended on abandoning your loathsome game, although he can’t help the curiosity that pricks at him. He spits, “I don’t want anything from Westeros—and I did not throw a tantrum.”

You raise your eyebrows. “My home, not yours,” you correct with a mysterious smile, and he furrows his brows at you, watching as you pull something from your sleeve, dangling it in front of him. 

At first glance, it only looks like jewelry, and Aerion is a split second from a snide comment about how you have some nerve gifting him a necklace as though he’s a common whore for you to woo with trinkets, but he pauses when he looks closer and sees the rubies embedded in the black metal and the ripple patterns that swirl around them. He takes half a step closer, lips parting, is that…

You dangle it out of reach when he tries to grab it, and he scowls at you, but his heart is beating rapidly, breath lodged in his throat. 

Is that Valyrian steel? 

His heart feels like it’s about to race out of his chest, blinking once at where you’re holding it—almost all of the Targaryen’s Valyrian steel heirlooms are gone. The bastard, Bittersteel, fled with the sword Blackfyre across the Narrow Sea, and Aegon’s crown rots in Dorne after King Daeron’s death, while the Dornish lie and claim ignorance. Aerion only recognizes the necklace for what it is because he’s seen Dark Sister in the Bloodraven’s hands in passing.

Bitterly, he thinks it’s typical. Everything of value in his house, everything that connects them to their ancestry—it all either ends up dead or in the hands of enemies or bastards. The dragons were killed off because of their idiotic ancestors, and the only thing left to connect them to the old blood was stolen or is in unworthy hands. 

Except… he could have something. Him. Not his father, not his brothers, not his cousins. Him. And he deserves it anyway, doesn’t he? He’s the only one who actually bothers to learn about their ancestry; he’s the one who has spent hours poring over crumbling accounts of the Freehold, over sorcery and dragonlords and a people who did not kneel to gods or kings, while his brothers and cousins focused on the Conqueror and their recent history. He stares at the necklace you hold greedily, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

“How do you have that?” he rasps, throat bobbing, gaze snapping toward you, and then slipping back to the necklace. “Why would you give me this? If you are jesting—”

“I’m not jesting,” you say, and Aerion’s heart pounds, breath quickening. “Turn around.”

Aerion watches you for a moment, pride warring with hunger, and after a few long seconds, he turns his back to you, stiff, shoulders tense. He half expects you to leave while his back is turned, make him look like a fool by getting his hopes up and disappearing. But he hears you make your way over to him, feels the warmth of your body against his back, and then—his breath hitches when he feels the cool metal snug against his neck, when he feels your fingers brush his skin as you clip it on, and your lips press against the nape of his neck as you step away.

He clenches his fist once to stop his fingers from trembling as he lifts his hand to brush it against the metal, lashes fluttering shut. He swears he can feel the magic thrumming within it, hear the beat of wings in the air, and the warmth of flames against his skin. He turns to face you, throat tight and eyes sharp and accusatory.

“Why would you give me this?” he asks, voice low.

“Why not?” you counter, as lackadaisical as ever, as if you didn’t just place a piece of his ancestry—one that he never thought he’d have—against his throat. “It suits you.”

He hates that answer.

Hates how easily you say it. As though Valyrian steel were silk ribbon. As though dragonforged metal—older than kingdoms, folded in fire and blood and spells men no longer understand—were something to be chosen for aesthetic pleasure.

This is from your home, you said. Where in the world would have Valyrian steel in abundance that you would just casually give it away? Qohor? Maybe? But it doesn’t explain why the Lyseni treat you as though—

“Volantis,” he says, knowing it’s right as soon as the words leave his mouth. “You’re from Volantis.”

How had he not seen it sooner?

Volantis—the last city that still pretends the Doom was an interruption rather than the end of an empire, where the blood of Old Valyria runs thicker than anywhere else in the world. They say that within the Black Walls is the closest the world will ever come again to the Freehold—streets walked only by old blood, families who trace lineage back to dragonlords. There are even whispers that the Volantene old blood retain the secrets to Old Valyrian blood magick and pyromancy.

That’s where you come from—he knew it, not Lysene silk and softness. Fire and blood of your own right. No wonder he’s been so drawn to you; no wonder you are the way you are.

“Udrimmi dārilaros,” you murmur with an easy smile. Clever prince.

Who are you? He wants to demand again. Why were you exiled? Why would you give me this? Who are you?

Instead, he settles for: “Volantis does not give Valyrian steel away for free.”

What do you want in return?

“No,” you agree. “It hoards it. Sits on the relics of a dead empire and calls it heritage. You should see my family’s vault—you’d think it was common as copper.”

Something ugly and envious curls in his stomach, but he forces it away. At least everything is finally coming together—why you speak High Valyrian as though it’s your mother tongue, and why the Lysene tread so carefully around you, refusing to answer his questions. The Old Blood of Volantis are powerful, and the Targaryens no longer have dragons to keep themselves above the rest of the world. The only question left is why you were exiled from the Black Walls, but he has a feeling you won’t answer that.

“Why did you give me this?” he asks again, more subdued this time.

“Well, consider this a proper declaration,” you say easily. When he furrows his brows at you, you wink at him, lips curling up into a smug smile as you explain, “For courting, of course.”

Aerion’s face flushes red, balking at your words, but before he can say anything, you lean in close, lips brushing against his ear as you breathe out, “Also, it makes you look thoroughly mine.”

You nip at his ear playfully, before you skip back a few steps, and give him an easy smile. 

Flustered, he snaps, “You—”

You turn on your heel to leave, making your way back to the hall. You wave over your shoulder and sing, “‘Til next time, prince!” 

Aerion exhales, staring after you, lips parted, body wound tight, fingers still brushing the metal you laid against his neck. He can’t still the rapid pace his heart beats at, no matter how hard he tries. 

He hates Lys, he really, truly does, but maybe—

No, he definitely hates you, too. 

———————

reader: sure, we understand each other Also reader: plotting to disappear off the face of earth for a week to make him miss her and then return with a gift that she knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse so he would have to parade around Lys wearing a collar everyone knows damn well is hers 

Aerion: I do not belong to anyone Also aerion: wears someone’s collar just because it’s Valyrian steel  

If you guys couldn’t tell, I am so fascinated by Volantis and the Black Walls, so I’m excited to get the chance to use this little series of one-shots to expand on my image of it. I imagine that within the Black Walls is probably the closest the known world will ever come to knowing what Old Valyria was like. And I think it will be interesting to explore with Aerion as a love interest since he would be interested in knowing more about his heritage, also think he might be wildly jealous, which serves for interesting dynamics LOL 

I also like the idea of certain cities hoarding old relics of Valyria. We know canonically in Westeros, there are only 227 Valyrian steel weapons, many of which are missing, but TWoIaF says there could be thousands in the rest of the known world/Essos. And it just makes me snort that these noble houses in Westeros prize their single heirloom, while people like the Volantene old bloods have entire vaults full of it LOLLLL

[cosmosnout]

Guys they’re literally fine what is everyone talking abt 🥀🥀🥀

[maykitz]