Hello, hello!! I’m gcldie, she/her, 19, 🇬🇧 based, a student = inconsistent upload schedule :P, not active anymore on ao3 but you can still follow me!! — yeahcuzynot
I love all things taylor swift, i’m a film and book enthusiast and will write about anything if you ask nicely enough ;)) most of my stories are emotion based, but i’m always trying to learn and grow as a writer, so feel free to ask for anything you’d want to read!
Feeling a little homesick as an expat in the uk but we thug it out, also lmk if you recognise the place on the right-end photo :P
Current music obsession — i knew it, i knew you • taylor swift
Current tv show obsession — sex and the city
Currently craving — a break from my exams and a cigarette (in that order)
The air is thick with suspense as the two armoured figures continue their fight in the mud.
The gasps around you are filled with horror and disgust at the unseemly scene but all you can think of is the confidence in Aerion’s eyes as he pulled his helmet on before the trial.
He was so certain, so sure of his impending victory that he had all but laughed at the fear evident in your voice.
“Do not do me the disservice of thinking I’ll lose to the hedge knight, sweet sister.” His voice was mocking, eyes dancing over the curve of your gown.
“I would not dare suggest that you would lose.” Even you can hear the impatience in your voice. You’re half impressed he hasn’t rolled his eyes yet. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”
“A bad feeling? You’ve been spending too much time with Daeron, sweet sister. Soon you’ll tell me of the Dragon Dreams plaguing your mind.”
“I’m serious.”
“As am I.” His words are final, the familiar tone of a command slipping into his voice. “I will not lose.”
The look in his violet eyes are sure, dark with something other than the need for vengeance. With pride, you realise later, when you hear the sound of Aerion’s sword slicing into the knight’s thigh. The pride that comes so naturally to the blood of the dragon, the pride that resembles hubris with each passing day in Aerion.
“I know you will not lose.” Your voice is firm, as sure of his abilities as you are of your love for him. “But please,” his hair is soft beneath your fingers, curling at his nape as you tighten your grip in the white strands. “Come back to me alive.” Your forehead rests against his and you can feel him relax, even under the heavy weight of his armour. “Come back to me still yourself.”
He says nothing, but nudges his forehead further into yours, gloved hands caressing the ends of your silver braid.
The moment between you stretches for longer than it should, but it’s still not enough.
Anxiety crawls up your throat, wrapping around your spine and keeping you rooted in place as he pulls on his helmet and leaves the tent.
May the Gods save you from this deranged life you’ve found yourself living.
The world before you blurs, wrapped up in smoke and fog, and before you know it, the face you’ve grown up adoring, the one you’ve brought closer to your own than propriety would allow, is covered in blood, eyes full of shame, soft lips wrapping around the shape of a phrase you never thought you’d hear outside the confines of your bedroom.
“I yield.” He says, voice breaking. “I yield.”
The pit in your stomach all but doubles in size as the world tilts. The sky loses its colour and time is frozen in this moment, the look on his face, the weakness in his voice forever etched into the corners of your mind.
You’re not sure what exactly happens between the moment he yields and when you’re stood beside him, knees fighting to keep you up as Aerion lays unmoving atop his bed.
The room is empty, silent in a way it only is when it’s just you and him, alone.
Your father said something to you before he left, something you’re not sure you even heard, but his voice was heavy, so you did nothing but nod, hoping to ease his burdens.
The bed dips as your weight descends next to Aerion.
He looks so small like this, so fragile.
You’re not used to your brother being anything but strong and unbreakable.
You’ve only ever seen him like this once, not long after your mother’s passing. But even then, you could note his breathing, could count his heartbeat when you laid your head against his chest.
Now you’ve been warned to not apply pressure, to let his body heal before causing it more stress.
Those warnings mean little to you when you place your head into the dip between his neck and shoulder.
He’s been washed, his cuts cleaned and bandaged, one cup after the other of the milk of poppy poured down his throat, but you can still smell the mud, as if it’s stuck to his skin, to his soul in a way that will never be washed away.
You try to stay as still as possible, the mere touch of his skin against your own bringing you comfort, but Aerion has never been good at ignoring your body, so close to his.
His eyelashes flutter softly against the sunlight dripping into the room.
The sound that escapes his mouth is torn between a hum and a whine, and you have to bite back the cruel words that spring to mind now that you’re sure he’ll live.
You feel his shoulder flex beneath you and hear a hiss as his head falls back against the pillows.
His fingers try to flex next to yours and you know he yearns to touch, even now, drugged with poppy milk.
But even the half whimper that escapes him does little to soften your heart when you pull away from him, sitting up and away from his touch.
The look in your eyes is angry, Aerion can tell even through the haze.
You look away, fighting the words that are desperate to rub salt into his still open wounds.
You know he knows you are angry. If there is one thing Aerion has always excelled at, it’s reading you like an open book.
If it was any other day, he would place his arm around your waist, tugging you closer until your breaths came as one, hand slowly snaking up and around your throat, the weight of him heavy but comforting against your pulse.
But now he lays on the bed, unmoving.
He barely looks at you, the shame clear in his violet eyes. You’re sure he’s thinking of your conversation, his easy dismissal and boastful confidence still fresh in his mind.
You wonder if you’re a bad sister for hoping his words never leave his memory.
You’re so caught up in your own emotions, the fear and anger draining your body of its energy, skin clammy and brows furrowed, that you don’t see his eyes slide over to your face.
Aerion has never been one for apologies. Ever since you were children, when he would hurt you, instead of proclamations of woe, he would drop flower crowns he’d made with your mother, or ringlets stolen from your parents’ chambers into your lap and look at you expectantly, as if demanding your forgiveness.
And you gave it freely, every time.
Your mother would laugh, voice soft even as she warned you against falling for his charms, but you never cared enough to listen. Because Aerion did not give gifts to just anyone, and he most certainly did not look like a kicked puppy when others turned their faces away from him in their anger.
You were special to him, although he would never admit it. But you knew, and he was sure that you knew and that was all that mattered to him.
But now, with your face turned away as it was when you were younger, Aerion’s not so sure Valyrian steel can buy your forgiveness.
Apologise, he can all but hear his father’s voice echo in his mind.
Gods be good, he thinks, sighing.
“I know.” Your eyes turn to him. “I know that you are angry.”
You scoff.
“Really?” The fire behind your eyes is insatiable and Aerion has to fight the urge to reach for you. “That is all you have to say to me? That you know?”
“What do you want me to say?” His voice is rough, scraping against his throat.
“I want you to apologise.” He has to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “Properly.”
When he makes no sign of doing so, you continue.
“I mean it, Aerion. Not with your rings or flower crowns, but with words.”
“I am not sorry for making him pay-“
“Making him pay? You almost died!” You slide off the side of the bed. “Over a petty thing, a stupid slight from a stupid girl!”
“She killed the dragon-“ Aerion fights the cough that arises when he raises his voice.
“The dragon was already dead! They have been for years! Killing yourself over half-meant insults will do little to bring them back!”
You almost shout, pacing. He hates when you pace, it hurts his head.
“You cannot waste your life away, overreacting to every small disagreement!”
“Disagreement?” You’re not sure if it’s the anger or the bewilderment that drives him to sit up. “A dragon was slain! Even in jest, even in a story — it was disrespectful to our House, she had to answer for it.”
“And what has changed now that she has?” You stop your pacing in front of him. “Do you think they see you as the dragon you claim to be, my prince?” His jaw ticks. “They think you’re a fool, Aerion. That you are the reason for many a death, for the fall of a future King! And for what?”
You take a breath, compelling your voice to lower. You can feel the thrum you’ve come to associate with your brother over the years in the back of your head.
A minute passes.
Then another.
Neither one of you says anything.
Heavy breathing fills the room.
You’re about to say something, when Aerion beats you to it.
“I am sorry.” The words come out gruff, almost unsure. “That I worried you.” You almost laugh. “I will not apologise for defending our honour.” He takes a heavy breath. “But I am sorry for causing you suffering.”
You’re not entirely sure you’re awake. Aerion’s apologies died with your mother.
But when you look at him, at his broken frame, his fallen face, and his eyes, those eyes that have never left your frame since the moment you were born, you feel the fight drain from your body.
One step leads to the other, and before you know it, you’re sat by his side, caressing his hair as Aerion rests his head in the juncture between you shoulder and throat.
He noses at your skin, the still capable fingers of his half-broken arm tug at your skirts and you almost laugh at the familiar gesture.
As proud as he is, Aerion has always been desperate for the confirmation of his greatness.
When she was alive, your mother would coo over him and his achievements. Every correctly pronounced Valyrian word earned him a lemon cake, every blow landed during his training — a kiss upon his brow.
But when she passed, when your father became more distant than he had ever been, when desperation clawed at his throat, he turned to you, to your soft hands and encouraging words.
Even now, when he knows he has lost, when he knows he ought to be embarrassed, he craves your sweetness.
And who are you to deny your dragon.
“You did well, my prince.” His hum is quiet, lips twitching against your skin. “You were spectacular. They thought you all talk, but I promise you, I could feel their fear when you struck your sword again and again.”
His hair is soft under your fingers.
The noise that escaped him is almost pathetic when you tug at his ends, bringing his face to yours.
“All I could think of when I was out there was how good you’d feel beneath me after I won.”
Your laugh is small, hot breath fanning over his face.
“You need not win every tourney to have me beneath you, my dragon.” You can feel the shiver that passes through him at the familiar title. “But your injuries, and your rashness, often get in your way before you can make it to my bed.”
Aerion all but pouts.
“Let me take care of you, my love, as you ought to be taken care of.”
His face is one of wonder as you help him lean against his pillows, chest rising and falling rapidly.
You make quick work of the layers placed atop his body, until he’s bare beneath your hands.
The sight of him leaves you hungry.
You’re not sure what it is about him that leaves you breathless each time you’re bare in each other’s company, but you hope he feels for your body half of what you feel for his.
The shudder that runs through him when your fingernails dance atop his stomach tells you he might.
The hair that runs down towards his length is as white as the hair atop his head, which grows damper with each passing moment.
“Don’t tease me.” His voice is almost a growl when you’ve run your fingers over his skin more times than he deems necessary.
“You do not demand tonight, Aerion.” You keep your voice light, but the threat of retreat is easy to understand. “You take what I give you.” You raise your eyes to his. “And you’ll be thankful for it.”
He’s about to open his mouth, to argue, no doubt, when you wrap your hand around him, thumb ghosting over the opening of his tip.
You wish you could bottle the shudder that runs through his body at the action.
He is heavy in your hand, hard and full under your touch.
Your fingers flex around him as your thumb spreads the precum atop his head and he all but whines as he throws his head back in pleasure.
“Gods.” His voice is rough against his throat, but it does little to deter him from making the pretty sounds he knows you love so much.
Your pace is slow and measured in the way you know he hates. But he takes it because even under the influence of the milk of the poppy, he is desperate to please you.
One agonising stroke after the other, Aerion’s hips twitch as his desperation for you grows.
His hips lift, snapping into your hand, desperate for more friction.
The sound he makes is heavenly when you draw your hand back in agitation.
“No taking, Aerion.” Your voice is disappointed and you can see the need in his blown out pupils. “You give tonight.”
You kiss him again, alternating between sucking and biting at his jaw as you continue your slow pace.
Whines leave Aerion’s lips, whines you know he’s trying desperately to suppress but just can’t seem to win against.
Your smile is almost cruel against his sweat covered skin.
His unbroken fingers reach for your free hand, slipping between your fingers until they’re slotted against one another, as if belonging there.
His nails dig into your skin when you finally speed up your movements, fingers wrapping tightly and squeezing at his tip, wrist flicking just the way he likes it.
His huffs turn into whimpers, whines resemble chants of your name.
The room stinks of him, of sex, of his sweat, of your oils, ones he’s so desperate to smell as he noses are your throat.
You smile, small sounds of false disapproval filling the air.
When he finally looks up at you, you are bathed in sunlight, and he has half the mind to question if this is all a dream.
But then your fingers speed up again and he’s drawing blood from his lips, fighting back the sounds too unseemly for a prince.
Your smile is wicked, as you lean towards him, tongue lapping at the blood running down his chin.
The change in the angle causes your nails to drag against him and you swallow the sound he makes at the contact, shuddering against your lips.
You keep pumping until you feel him start to shake beneath you, approaching his high.
You draw back, rolling his lower lip between your teeth as you go and he has half a mind to follow you until you push him back with the fingers you slipped from between his grasp.
Aerion’s not sure if the tremor that passes through him is because of your fingers wrapped around him or the loss of contact in his good hand.
He hisses in pain as he lifts his arm to reach for your fingers again, and you oblige him, slipping your fingers into his as you run your thumb across his tip again, squeezing out the precum and rubbing it onto the rest of him.
His whines are so loud, you’re sure anyone passing by can hear but you can’t seem to feel anything besides a perverse satisfaction at the thought of them knowing how their cruel prince falls apart so easily beneath his sweet sister’s fingers.
Aerion shudders again and you know he’s close.
Your lips are on him again, licking and kissing up and down his jaw, whispering sweet nothings into his ear.
Names you have never called him outside the confines of your bedroom slip from your lips and with each one, he shivers.
You’ve slipped into High Valyrian, purring the words of ancient lovers into his ear when his whines turn into half-sentences and slurred words.
You almost slow down, trying to understand what he’s saying, but his low whines have you speeding up again, until he’s turned his jaw into your face, lips upon your ear.
“I am sorry.” His voice is bordering on a whimper. “I am sorry for hurting you. For embarrassing you.”
You are half unsure if you’re in a dream, but his eyes are so earnest when you look at him, you can’t help the love the blooms beneath your ribs.
“I am sorry for failing you.”
Your mouth is kissing up his jaw, lips soft against his skin.
“You have embarrassed me.” You can’t help the cruelty your words are dripping with. His cry is pained. “But you will not do it again, will you?”
“No.” Aerion’s answer is immediate and sure. You smile against his skin.
“No?”
“No-“ His voice cracks through the word as you tighten your fingers around him again, committing every ridge and vein to memory.
“Good boy.” Your voice is saccharine against his ear and it’s the sweetness he needs to push him over the edge.
Aerion cums between your fingers, the liquid thick against your skin as it slides down to his thighs and stomach.
Your hands continue their movements until Aerion is shuddering, pretty eyes filled with unshed tears from the overstimulation.
When your fingers part from his skin, his eyes watch as you open your mouth, licking each one clean.
The sound that leaves his mouth is half a whimper and half a growl.
Before he can say much, you bring your mouth to his, tongues dancing until he tastes himself on you. Rumbling from deep within him passes through you until you separate, a small string of saliva connecting you until you pull away.
Aerion watches you like a dragon, his fingers slipping through yours agains until they’re resting comfortably atop his thigh.
You’re about to reach for the basin placed at his bed side table when he tugs you back, sleep and desperation mixing until they form a look that makes you shudder on his face.
“Don’t go.” The command comes out more like an ask with his wreaked voice.
“I’m just going to clean you up, my love.” You say kissing him again, until he makes a satisfied sound.
The water is warm around your fingers as you dip the cloth into it, bringing it down to Aerion’s thighs and stomach.
He watches you as you clean him up, almost purring when your nails scratch his thighs.
His eyes don’t leave you until you’ve tucked him beneath his many layers and settled comfortably by his side, head placed softly against his shoulder.
You can feel his body going slack beneath you, as your fingers dance atop his chest, tracing scars, old and new alike.
You’re not sure when exactly Aerion’s breathing evens out as he falls to sleep, but you’re sure you follow him soon after to the realm of dreams and dragons.
I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave - Damian Wayne
As exhausting as it was, vigilante life had a thrill that nothing else could replicate.
You’d know.
You’d tried to.
Hard.
But alas, the thirst for danger remained, woven into your muscles, a rite of passage, a torch passed from one hero to the other.
And now it was your turn.
Some would call it destiny.
Others would accuse you of madness.
But the wind in your hair, harsh and cutting against the skin of your face, was intoxicating, stronger than any substance mundane life could offer.
So, here you were.
Yet another night spent perched upon rooftops that overlooked the nightly lives of Gothamites.
The lonely routine of looking into the lives you’d never live, people you’d never know.
But this time, you weren’t alone.
It was subtle at first.
The outline of his costume hidden in the shadows cast by the moon overhead. His steps mirroring your own, staying close enough to be felt but not caught.
The game of cat and mouse, chasing but never catching, had started a few weeks ago.
Your first run-in with Robin was rushed and unplanned.
Tired stumbling bodies bumping into each other after patrol.
Your first thought was shit, followed closely by Batman.
You had managed to escape the vigilante’s radar for quite some time, so bumping into his sidekick was the second worst thing, right after bumping into the man himself.
Robin’s face, though mostly covered by his mask, had taken on, what you had assumed was a shocked expression.
But you hadn’t given him the time to react, reaching for the edge of the building and jumping into the shadows.
Ever since, you’d felt him seek you out, had noticed him in the corner of your vision as you helped a young woman stand, her attacker slumped against the wall, knocked out.
The urge to reach out and knock him to the ground was strong, but you fought it, not needing any more trouble than you were already in.
The first few days after your first encounter were spent in agony, awaiting the dark brooding hero to step out of the shadows and demand an answer for your hero act.
But nothing had come.
Just the quiet steps, hidden in the dark of the night, that followed you more often than not.
You had grown used to the routine, two sets of steps instead of one.
But tonight it was different.
His steps were heavy against the rooftop, meant to be heard, meant to be noticed.
“What do you want?” Your voice rang out in the quiet of the night.
No answer.
“How many times will I have to repeat myself before you deem me worthy of a response?”
Your voice was strained even to your own ears, sleepless nights and unending responsibilities finally catching up to you.
When you heard no answer, you sighed, annoyance coursing through your veins.
The roof creaked softly under your weight as you rose to your feet, placing one foot in front of the other, following along the edge, eyes never leaving Gotham’s jagged skyline.
He started moving too, the echo of his footsteps matching yours perfectly, body moving parallel to your own.
Every time you stopped, to capture the view in front of you, folding it into the corners of your mind, he would stop too, footsteps continuing only when your own picked up again.
“You know, if you actually talked, you could find out the answers to all the nasty little questions that I’m sure have been plaguing your mind.”
Your voice echoed in the silence, only the sound of the drizzle answering, as it fell against the padded shoulders of your suit.
“Alright, then. If you’re not feeling talkative.” You shrugged, an idea popping into your mind.
You probably should have thought about the logistics of it a little longer. This was Robin, for god’s sake, he’d probably catch you before your feet even reached the edge of the rooftop.
But the night had been boring and lonely, and the only thing you’d be returning to at the end of it would be an empty apartment.
Might as well have a little fun.
The sound of your lonely feet slapping against the wet rooftop only lasted a second before his joined in, in pursuit of your retreating figure. But you’d gotten a head start and that was all you needed.
You could hear his foot coming down on the roof as your leaped from the edge, momentum carrying you across the gap before the soles of your feet touched down on top of the next building.
You barely had a moment to pull yourself up before you heard him descending on the rooftop.
The sound that tore out of you as you jumped from his grip was near a maniacal cackle, your pulse coming alive under your skin.
You reached the edge again soon enough, leaping with joy as you heard him curse under his breath, foot slipping on the wet rooftop.
That moment gave you all the advantage you needed, putting enough distance between you to turn back to him, a triumphant grin on your face.
“Maybe next time you’ll want to talk.” Laughter threaded itself into your voice. “Till later, birdie!”
The words left your mouth as your hand rose to you forehead, giving him an army salute before you disappeared off the rooftop, your presence fading as if you were never there in the first place
-
Damian’s first meeting with you had been in equal parts shocking and intoxicating.
A rogue vigilante was the last thing he expected when his half-numb body bumped into yours all those weeks ago.
Before his mind could even take you in, you’d slipped from his grasp and disappeared before his eyes, leaving him unsure of whether you were real or a figment of his delirious imagination.
The walk back to the batcave had taken twice as long, Damian looking over his shoulder every minute to ensure he wasn’t being followed.
You were an anomaly, if you were even real.
You had somehow managed to exist as a vigilante long enough to feel comfortable running almost soundlessly atop roofs while Batman, his father of all people, remained completely unaware of your existence, while he remained unaware.
The realisation had been jarring, that the streets he had spent years patrolling hadn’t been nearly as well known to him as he had originally assumed.
Damian’s descent into the cave had been quiet, his father’s judging eyes lingering on his frame for a second, assessing possible damage or injuries, looking away when he found nothing but pure exhaustion.
“You should rest.” Bruce’s voice was low and rough, just like how it always was after a long night. “You can finish your report tomorrow.”
Damian had fought the urge to scoff, annoyed that his father still treated him like a child in need of constant care and supervision.
But then Bruce had stood up, turned off the Batcomputer and headed toward the elevator, casting Damian a questioning look.
“I will retire soon, father.”
For a moment, Bruce had looked ready to argue, but then the elevator doors opened and he stepped in, nodding once at his son.
Damian was powering up the computer as soon as the doors closed, looking through dozens of files.
His brothers’ reports, stills from CCTV footage, the encrypted file Tim kept of all the civilians playing hero.
But nothing had come up.
No mention of anyone matching your suit or build.
It was astonishing. Somehow you had evaded every single one of them, walking the streets while they remained completely unaware of your existence.
That had started it, his obsession.
Damian had spent a week elongating his patrol route, paying closer attention to the surrounding areas of where he’d first bumped into you.
It had been so difficult for him to find you that he had truly begun to believe he had made you up.
Until one night, he caught sight of a figure leaping across rooftops, a graceful form, as you floated through the air like Superman himself.
He had all but abandoned his post, following you until he finally caught up, watching as you dropped down on the fire escape of an old brick building, sliding the window open before slipping inside.
Caught you.
It has been fairly easy, tracking you down after he has found your address.
Your profile was completely ordinary.
Gotham University student, grades good enough to be among the top students of your class but not number one.
He’d begun mapping your routes, watching from afar as you swung from one fire escape onto another, reminding him of Dick’s agility.
It has become somewhat of a game to him, following you around after patrol. The closest thing to fun he had experienced since… well, ever.
He had assumed you remained oblivious to his tracking, happy to live out your vigilante days under the grand illusion that you had remained unobserved.
That was why he was caught so off-guard by your question.
That was why he was even further surprised when you took off, feet barely leaving a trace on the rain covered roof top.
He kept up with you, even with his momentary lapse in judgement.
But then the tip of his show caught on something and he had to fight gravity to not come tumbling down.
That had given you the advantage you were looking for, because before he even had time to straighten up, your voice rang out in the rain.
“Maybe next time you’ll want to talk. Till later, birdie!”
A laugh, a salut, and then you were gone.
Damian reached the edge as quickly as he could, desperate not to lose this game you’d started, but when he looked down, you weren’t there, having no doubt faded back into the shadows.
Annoyance flared through him.
“Don’t think you’ve slipped away from me just yet.” He muttered, his lips stretching into a vicious grin.
You were good, Damian had to give it to you.
But he was better.
-
Just as you rounded the corner of your street, having circled the surrounding blocks a few times just to knock him further of your scent, your body collided with an unexpected object.
An object which’s arms wrapped around your waist, keeping you trapped against his chest as the familiar shadows danced across his face.
Shit.
“Found you.”
Your hands came up on instinct to push him away, but he held you tightly against him, rendering your attempts useless.
“Don’t fight, I’m not going to hurt you.”
The laugh that ripped out of you was cynical.
“Didn’t think you capable.” You bared your teeth, and fought the urge to smile when his lips settled into an offended scowl.
“We need to talk.”
“Oh, do we? Think we can reschedule?” You stepped harshly on his foot and watched with satisfaction as he tried to hide his pain behind a grimace.
“Not unless you want Batman showing up at your door, apartment 5B.”
A shiver ran down your spine, a cold layer of sweat making your skin sticky beneath your suit.
You looked around, considering your options.
His grip was strong, so freeing yourself would be difficult, plus he was taller than you and you didn’t have the advantage of you a gap between rooftops where one might hesitate.
You grit your teeth, forcing yourself to come to terms with the very awkward conversation you were most likely about to have.
“Fine.” You looked up at him, eyes hidden behind your mask.
“Don’t try anything funny, you can’t outrun me.” He said, readjusting his grip so he could grab you even if you tried to make a run for it.
“Yeah, gathered that much.” You huffed under your breath, but by the way his lips twitched, you assumed he heard.
“Do you have your keys?” You looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re not setting a foot into my apartment, birdie.”
He scoffed.
“Would you rather we have this conversation on the roof where anyone can look up and see? I know where you live, already. Don’t worry, I won’t judge if your bed is not made.” He leaned in, lips stretched into an insufferable smirk.
Damn you and your stupid need to be a good person.
“Fine. But you’re not dragging mud into my apartment.”
“Would not dream of it.” His voice was low as he all but whispered in your ear.
You were totally not going to address the shiver that ran down your spine at the sound of his voice.
The walk up to you apartment was eerily quiet, you had to fight to urge to check that he was still following you a few times.
The key slid easily into the lock and before you knew you, Robin was standing in your doorway.
“Take your shoes off, birdie.”
“You are not serious.” His mask was obscuring half of his face but you assumed the look he was giving you was scathing.
“I said no mud in my apartment.” You shrugged, slipping off your own boots.
You heard a clipped sigh and muffled sounds of movement behind you before he was standing in your living room practically barefoot.
“So?” You headed toward the window, sliding it all the way open. “What did you want to talk about?”
“How did you go unnoticed for so long?”
Alright, straight to business.
“Actually, it wasn’t that difficult. You guys are not as thorough as you think you are.”
You ignored his scoff as you moved toward the kitchen.
“Do you want water? Some orange juice? I think I have tea bags somewhere in these drawers.”
“I do not drink tea from tea bags.”
“Well, I’m sorry I don’t have freshly dried tea leaves, your Highness, I’ll get them for your next visit.” You said, rolling your eyes.
The water was cooling against your throat as you drained the glass.
“You did not answer my question.” You could hear impatience slipping into his tone.
Sighing, you turned back to him.
“I avoided the areas where you guys were most often sighted, stayed away from all the big crime stuff. Helped the little people, the ones you always seem to forget about.”
“We do not forget about anyone.”
“Oh, yeah? When was the last time you stopped a robber from stealing an old lady’s purse?”
His lips pursed in annoyance.
“Look, I get it. You have bigger things, really big things to take care of, things that put millions of people’s lives at risk. And I respect you for it. But let’s not act like you have the time to deal with every petty crime that occurs in this area.”
You placed the glass in the sink, reaching for your fridge.
“So, that’s where I come in. I stop the bad guys from stealing purses, the bandits from breaking windows, the kids from graffitiing the buildings.”
The fridge cast a fluorescent light into the otherwise dim room.
“You take the glory for the big things, I stay out of your way, and everybody’s happy.”
When you turned back to him, offering a capri-sun, his lips were set in a tight line.
“Look.” You placed the juice on your kitchen counter when he didn’t reach for it. “I’m not trying to make any trouble. In fact, I’d much like to go back to my normal life of a reasonable bed time and no overdue assignments or bruised sides, but I have this really annoying thing called a moral compass that doesn’t let me sleep at night knowing there are people out there who need help.”
You could practically hear the eye roll.
“Don’t tell Batman about this, please. He’ll take me off the streets or worse-“
“Batman does not kill.”
You could almost see his body tensing as he said those words out loud.
“Yeah, I know. That’s kinda the reason the crime lords are still running around-“
“Are you suggesting he abandons his moral code to never take a life and-“
“I am suggesting he does his damn job!”
He scoffed, clearly offended.
“Which is what exactly?”
You sighed.
“No, enlighten me about what you, an ordinary nobody, think Batman’s job is.”
The silence that stretched on was jarring and you could see as the guilt settled somewhere deep within his bones.
“I did not mean-“
“His job is keeping people safe, so that nobodies like me don’t feel the need to put their lives at risk to do so.” Your response did little to ease the furrow of his brows you could just barely make out from beneath the mask. “Look, we can stand here and argue about what Batman’s job is all we want, but I’m not stopping what I’m doing. Not even his semi-terrifying presence can change that.”
Damian could imagine the fire in your eyes, could see the determined set of your lips.
“I have no intention of stopping you.” He said after a minute of silence. “I will not report you to him. But I cannot guarantee that he will not notice you. And I cannot guarantee his reaction when he does.”
You could feel a weight being lifted off your shoulders.
“Thank you.” He nodded, the movement slow and controlled. “Now, take your capri-sun and get the hell out of my house.”
Damian couldn’t help the twitch of his lips.
He moved closer to reach for the juice, standing close enough that you could smell the scent of wet leather.
“I think what you are doing is good. Mischievous, but good.” He said, heading for the door.
“That’s how all the good stories start.” You leaned against the wall as he slipped his boots back on.
Robin opened the door, turning back to you and lifting the capri-sun.
“I prefer the cherry flavour. You know, for next time.”
You couldn’t help the laugh that tore out of your mouth.
“Yeah, yeah, get out of here, birdie.”
His lips twitched again and he lingered for a second, as if taking you in. Then he turned and closed the door behind him, his footsteps fading into silence.
idk why in my mind his suit is leather but we run with what we got lol, also yes he’s flirty he’s a grown man, let me dream
The breeze is warm against your cheek as you face the open door leading towards the pool, the water peaceful and untouched.
Your towel hangs over the crook of your arm, soft to the touch.
The weather is perfect, warm enough to allow for the hope for a beautiful day and yet still cool enough to remind you that the sun has yet to reach its peak in the sky.
The sound of your footsteps against the tiles are barely noticeable in the soft breeze, as you waddle over to the edge of the pool.
Pulling your towel open and draping it across the floor, you free yourself from the confines of your linen shorts and shirt.
You adjust the bra of your swimsuit over your chest, slippers falling off your feet and landing next to your towel on the floor.
The water is chilly against your skin, goosebumps poking their heads out before your body adjusts to the temperature.
It takes a few steps before you’re fully submerged in the water, hair fanning out across the surface.
It’s quiet beneath the surface, more so than above it.
Your arms move into a familiar position, legs kicking softly in the water, swimming towards the edge of the pool.
When your fingers graze the glass separating the body of water from the edge of the cliff, your head resurfaces, droplets running down your lashes onto your lips and chin.
Your palms slide across your face, wiping the what water remains from your eyes and sliding into your hairline.
Before you, the beautiful mountains of Damian’s home stretch across the horizon, the tips still covered in snow, even in early June.
Your arms lay over the glass, chin resting on your damp skin as you try to imagine growing up here.
You know, from late night admissions and the soft murmurs of his past in early mornings that Damian’s life was full of scar-worthy training and heavy expectations.
The irony of the comparison between the heavenly views and the suffering he went through in this very home is not lost on you.
You imagine the sound of a much younger Damian’s feet, fat and slippery, slapping against these very same tiles, his mother’s soft laughter following him as his body meets the water. He told you once that this was his best memory, when he was too young to face his grandfather’s brutal expectations, when his full cheeks were a sign of health rather than lack of training.
Your heart breaks as you imagine the boy who once looked at these views and saw more than just beauty and tranquility, the boy whose childhood memories are haunted by the desperate need for approval his grandfather rarely gave.
You’re lost in thought so you don’t notice Damian’s quiet footsteps over the tiles, nor do you notice as he sheds his outer layers, stripping himself down to his shorts before sliding quietly into the water, as if being welcomed by his domain.
His hands are soft as they wrap around your waist but you cannot help flinching at the unexpected disturbance.
“Did I scare you?” His voice is deep and quiet, barely above a whisper, against your ear.
“Only a little.” You chuckle, turning your head back towards him to place a soft kiss against his cheek.
“I’m sorry, Beloved.” His lips shape around the words against your skin and you cannot help but think back to the boy who could barely bring himself to admit he was wrong, let alone apologise, all those years ago.
“You were gone when I woke up.”
“League business.” His head turns towards your neck, lips ghosting over the muscles of your throat.
“Anything serious?” You hum out, lost to the softness of his mouth.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” His nose nudges your jaw. “What were you thinking about just now?”
You smile softly, a quiet chuckle escaping your lips.
“You, fat and young, running around this house.”
His scoff holds no real heat, as his brows furrow, a look of mock offence taking over his lovely features.
“I was not fat.” His protest is weak, even to his own ears.
“I’ve seen those baby pictures, Dami, you looked like a big roll of dough.”
Now his offence seems genuine, an annoyed scowl taking over his face as you laugh at him.
“I still cannot believe you convinced my mother to show you those albums.”
“I didn’t have to do much convincing, my love, she was happy to offer all the blackmail material!”
Your laugh is delightful, blending with the quiet chirping of the birds.
“Your alliance against me is horror inspiring.” He laughs softly against your damp skin. “But I am glad she has taken a liking to you.” You hum and he carries on after a moment of silence. “Even if that means she keeps stealing your attention from me.”
Your smile is bright as you turn in his arms, your own wrapping around his neck.
“Don’t be jealous, even if it is a good colour on you.” You lean in, lips meeting his softly and he all but melts into your embrace, arms tightening around your back. “My attention is always on you.” You say between kisses, smiling again when his teeth roll your lower lip between them in appreciation.
“I am glad to know that.” He says, guiding your back against the glass as his hands wrap around your thighs, hoisting them against his waist. “I plan to make full use of it.”
Your laugh rings loudly as his head dips back where your neck meets your shoulder.
—
The french toast is soft and sweet, drizzled in honey, the fresh strawberry crunching beneath the pressure of your teeth as you chew happily.
Damian sits next to you, his plate decorated in blueberries and kiwi, the toast growing soggy the longer it remains untouched.
Damian’s nose is buried in a newspaper, the large pages crinkling slightly beneath his soft grip.
“Your breakfast is getting cold, my love.” You say, placing your hand over his, lowering one side of the newspaper.
His questioning gaze meets yours as you raise an eyebrow, eyes flickering down to his untouched plate, the very one he spent fifteen minutes perfecting.
Damian’s sigh is soft as he folds the magazine and places it on the table, his now free hand reaching for the tea set next to his bowl of yogurt.
“It’s cold.” He says, wincing at the now stale taste, placing the teacup back on the plate as you chuckle under your breath.
“I want to go into town today.” You say after a moment of silence.
Damian raises an eyebrow in your direction, mouth chewing softly on the bread.
“There’s a new book shop and I want to buy some new vinyls too.” He hums, nodding. “You can come with, if you’re free.”
Damian sighs softly, waiting until he’s swallowed, washing the toast down with a sip of your orange juice, before nodding again.
“Sure, Habibti. I can come.” Your smile is radiant, reaching for the jug to fill your cup again. “Do you also want to go into the market?”
You hum in approval.
“The apricots were delicious last time. I was thinking of making the jam again. I can bake the cake too if we pick up some flour on the way back.”
“Sounds like a plan.” His grin is soft as he leans towards you, placing his sticky lips against your cheek.
“Your lips are covered in honey.” You tease, pinching his cheek.
“You are imagining things.” He claims, grabbing your orange juice again.
“You know you can pour your own, yes?”
“Yours always tastes sweeter.” You chuckle, taking your cup out of his hold and placing it by your plate again.
The silence that follows is comfortable.
The sun shines into the room through the open doors, the curtains swaying softly in the breeze.
Moments like these are rare, with how hectic both of your lives are.
The bustling cities and unending expectations seem so far away now, tucked away from the world in your husband’s childhood home.
You smile to yourself, watching as Damian’s fork stabs lightly through the kiwi, cringing when the sour taste erupts in his mouth.
“I got a new yoga instructor.” You say, reaching for your juice.
“What was wrong with the last one?”
“I don’t know, but your mother suggested I get a new one.”
He sighs, fighting a smile.
“You know, you don’t have to take every advice she gives you, Beloved.”
“I know.” You protest weakly, watching his arm flex as he reaches for his chai. “Besides, apparently she’s going to open me all the way up, so I can finally get pregnant.”
Damian all but chokes on his drink, doubling over himself as he coughs up the liquid that is no doubt sliding down his wind pipe.
“What?” He rasps out, in between coughs.
“Yeah, your mother’s really hell-bent on me getting pregnant soon.” You say sweetly, running soothing circles over his back.
You try your best not to burst out laughing when he turns his bewildered expression back to you.
“We are not even twenty-six, yet. What does she want?” His tone is so alarmed you can’t help the giggle that escapes you.
“Grandchildren.” You laugh at his horrified expression again. “She’s not the only one.” He looks at you, confused. “Bruce brought it up the last time we were over for dinner.”
“For God’s sake.” He mutters, rolling his eyes.
“I’m not getting any younger, I’d like to bounce a grandchild or two on my knee.” You deepen your voice, trying to sound like your father-in-law.
Damian flushes a scarlet so deep it’s visible even under his heavy tan.
“He’s not even that old.” He grumbles and you can see him try to physically slap his blush away, hand falling softly on the back of his neck.
“He seems to disagree.” You chuckle, popping another strawberry in your mouth, trying to ignore Damian’s stare.
He opens his mouth, looking for something to say, but you beat him to it.
“Not yet, Dami.” Your eyes slide over to his face, meeting his gaze. “But soon.”
You try not to laugh as he fights the smile stretching across his full lips, lips that are on you before you can even register that he’s moved from his seat.
“Soon, then.” His voice is so so soft, you try not to melt under his loving gaze, emerald eyes tracing the soft curve of your cheek.
—
The summer sun is hot, even in your thin clothing, but the heaviness of Damian’s hand in yours is comforting, as he carries the books and records you kept handing to him until they almost dropped from his grip, in his other hand.
The umbrellas over the vendor stands do little to ease the scorching sun, but you don’t complain.
When you spot the familiar stall, you pull Damian with you as you make a beeline for it.
The man stood over the fruit with an iced bottle of water you’d kill for, smiles as he recognises your faces.
Your hand slips from Damian’s as you grab the plastic bag hanging from the nail hammered on one of the fruit boxes.
The apricots are ripe under your touch, their gooey softness mashing against one another as they fall into the pink plastic bag.
You hear Damian converse with the vendor as you move from apricots to strawberries to kiwis to big pink tomatoes that always remind you of home.
Moving from one end of the stall to the other, you spot a box of watermelons sitting a little lower than the rest of the fruit.
The skin of it is smooth under your palm as you gently hit the watermelon, checking for the sound.
Damian appears behind your back, repeating your motion until the two of you find one you both like.
Damian grabs another plastic bag, this one bigger than all the rest, waiting for the vendor to weigh your watermelon.
You hand the older man a canary melon to weigh when he slips the watermelon into the awaiting bag.
Before you know it, the two of you are making your way back to the car, while you munch on an unpeeled cucumber to help cool you down.
Your head is hot under your cap when you finally take it off.
Your hand reaches for the AC when Damian starts the engine and the cool air is a welcome relief from the stifling heat outside.
“Did we get everything we needed, Beloved?” Damian looks over at your nodding head before turning the gear and starting to drive.
“It gets so hot here.” You say, slipping your sunglasses off your face.
“Still not used to it after all these years?” He teases, hand resting on your thigh.
“I’m not sure I could ever get used to this heat.” Your hand rests atop his, fingers drawing soft circles on his scarred knuckles.
“We should go to the beach tomorrow.” Damian says, turning at the roundabout.
You smile, imagining the sound of the waves splashing against the sand and the smell of the salt in the air.
“Sounds like a plan.” Your voice is almost a whisper, as your free hand reaches for the radio, the familiar tunes filling the car.
-
The drive up to the house is quiet, safe for the music at a low volume.
Damian looks over at your figure and smiles when he sees you dozing off, head resting against the window.
His hand is still on your thigh and your hand is still on his, where you were playing with his fingers before falling asleep.
When he drives past the gates and shifts the car into Park, Damian’s thumb traces over the soft skin of your thigh before slipping carefully from under your grip.
Damian carries the produce, along with your books and vinyls, into the house, which is quiet besides the soft breeze created by the open windows and the front door.
He slips back into his seat, moving your sleeping head away from the window, resting it against the headrest, unclicking your seatbelt.
When he reaches for you from the now open door of your side, your head falls against his chest, eyes blinking open lazily as he picks you up and closes the car door behind him with the kick of his foot.
“Thanks.” You mumble into his chest and you can feel the low chuckle against your cheek from deep within him.
You settle into him, expecting a long walk up to your room when he places you down softly against the sofa.
Your eyes flutter open and you see Damian reaching for the new vinyls, picking the cover he most fondly remembers from his childhood and placing it under the needle of the turntable.
A soft voice fills the sunroom, the flowers above you saving you from the hot light of the sun.
When you turn your attention back to him, Damian is walking out of the room, only to walk back in soon after with two plates a bowl of washed fruit.
The china is placed on the low wood table and Damian slips under your legs, placing them on his lap before he starts peeling the peaches and the apples that glisten red under the sunlight.
You watch him with half-lidded eyes, waiting for him as he cuts the fruit into the thin slices that remind you of your mother’s sweet kiss against your cheek in the summer.
When he’s done, he taps your leg, motioning you to sit up.
You sink into his side when you do and he hands you a plate of fruit.
“Eat the apple first.” He commands softly, placing a kiss against your hairline.
The apple crunches under your teeth and decide that you’d rather eat the peaches.
The sticky juice of it runs down your chin and Damian wipes it away with his thumb, bringing it to his lips to lick away the moisture.
“It’s sweet.” He comments and you nod, sinking into him further.
He chuckles quietly and takes the plate from your hand, wrapping his arm around your shoulders as he feeds you a slice.
And all you can do is look up at him with stars in your eyes and imagine this house, filled with so many happy memories that have overridden the bad ones, full of childish laughter and wonder.
And you think his parents may be right, maybe it is time to bring a new addition to the family.
AHHHH I WANNA SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH HIM FEEDING ME PEELED PEACHES 💔💔💔
The breeze is warm against your cheek as you face the open door leading towards the pool, the water peaceful and untouched.
Your towel hangs over the crook of your arm, soft to the touch.
The weather is perfect, warm enough to allow for the hope for a beautiful day and yet still cool enough to remind you that the sun has yet to reach its peak in the sky.
The sound of your footsteps against the tiles are barely noticeable in the soft breeze, as you waddle over to the edge of the pool.
Pulling your towel open and draping it across the floor, you free yourself from the confines of your linen shorts and shirt.
You adjust the bra of your swimsuit over your chest, slippers falling off your feet and landing next to your towel on the floor.
The water is chilly against your skin, goosebumps poking their heads out before your body adjusts to the temperature.
It takes a few steps before you’re fully submerged in the water, hair fanning out across the surface.
It’s quiet beneath the surface, more so than above it.
Your arms move into a familiar position, legs kicking softly in the water, swimming towards the edge of the pool.
When your fingers graze the glass separating the body of water from the edge of the cliff, your head resurfaces, droplets running down your lashes onto your lips and chin.
Your palms slide across your face, wiping the what water remains from your eyes and sliding into your hairline.
Before you, the beautiful mountains of Damian’s home stretch across the horizon, the tips still covered in snow, even in early June.
Your arms lay over the glass, chin resting on your damp skin as you try to imagine growing up here.
You know, from late night admissions and the soft murmurs of his past in early mornings that Damian’s life was full of scar-worthy training and heavy expectations.
The irony of the comparison between the heavenly views and the suffering he went through in this very home is not lost on you.
You imagine the sound of a much younger Damian’s feet, fat and slippery, slapping against these very same tiles, his mother’s soft laughter following him as his body meets the water. He told you once that this was his best memory, when he was too young to face his grandfather’s brutal expectations, when his full cheeks were a sign of health rather than lack of training.
Your heart breaks as you imagine the boy who once looked at these views and saw more than just beauty and tranquility, the boy whose childhood memories are haunted by the desperate need for approval his grandfather rarely gave.
You’re lost in thought so you don’t notice Damian’s quiet footsteps over the tiles, nor do you notice as he sheds his outer layers, stripping himself down to his shorts before sliding quietly into the water, as if being welcomed by his domain.
His hands are soft as they wrap around your waist but you cannot help flinching at the unexpected disturbance.
“Did I scare you?” His voice is deep and quiet, barely above a whisper, against your ear.
“Only a little.” You chuckle, turning your head back towards him to place a soft kiss against his cheek.
“I’m sorry, Beloved.” His lips shape around the words against your skin and you cannot help but think back to the boy who could barely bring himself to admit he was wrong, let alone apologise, all those years ago.
“You were gone when I woke up.”
“League business.” His head turns towards your neck, lips ghosting over the muscles of your throat.
“Anything serious?” You hum out, lost to the softness of his mouth.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” His nose nudges your jaw. “What were you thinking about just now?”
You smile softly, a quiet chuckle escaping your lips.
“You, fat and young, running around this house.”
His scoff holds no real heat, as his brows furrow, a look of mock offence taking over his lovely features.
“I was not fat.” His protest is weak, even to his own ears.
“I’ve seen those baby pictures, Dami, you looked like a big roll of dough.”
Now his offence seems genuine, an annoyed scowl taking over his face as you laugh at him.
“I still cannot believe you convinced my mother to show you those albums.”
“I didn’t have to do much convincing, my love, she was happy to offer all the blackmail material!”
Your laugh is delightful, blending with the quiet chirping of the birds.
“Your alliance against me is horror inspiring.” He laughs softly against your damp skin. “But I am glad she has taken a liking to you.” You hum and he carries on after a moment of silence. “Even if that means she keeps stealing your attention from me.”
Your smile is bright as you turn in his arms, your own wrapping around his neck.
“Don’t be jealous, even if it is a good colour on you.” You lean in, lips meeting his softly and he all but melts into your embrace, arms tightening around your back. “My attention is always on you.” You say between kisses, smiling again when his teeth roll your lower lip between them in appreciation.
“I am glad to know that.” He says, guiding your back against the glass as his hands wrap around your thighs, hoisting them against his waist. “I plan to make full use of it.”
Your laugh rings loudly as his head dips back where your neck meets your shoulder.
—
The french toast is soft and sweet, drizzled in honey, the fresh strawberry crunching beneath the pressure of your teeth as you chew happily.
Damian sits next to you, his plate decorated in blueberries and kiwi, the toast growing soggy the longer it remains untouched.
Damian’s nose is buried in a newspaper, the large pages crinkling slightly beneath his soft grip.
“Your breakfast is getting cold, my love.” You say, placing your hand over his, lowering one side of the newspaper.
His questioning gaze meets yours as you raise an eyebrow, eyes flickering down to his untouched plate, the very one he spent fifteen minutes perfecting.
Damian’s sigh is soft as he folds the magazine and places it on the table, his now free hand reaching for the tea set next to his bowl of yogurt.
“It’s cold.” He says, wincing at the now stale taste, placing the teacup back on the plate as you chuckle under your breath.
“I want to go into town today.” You say after a moment of silence.
Damian raises an eyebrow in your direction, mouth chewing softly on the bread.
“There’s a new book shop and I want to buy some new vinyls too.” He hums, nodding. “You can come with, if you’re free.”
Damian sighs softly, waiting until he’s swallowed, washing the toast down with a sip of your orange juice, before nodding again.
“Sure, Habibti. I can come.” Your smile is radiant, reaching for the jug to fill your cup again. “Do you also want to go into the market?”
You hum in approval.
“The apricots were delicious last time. I was thinking of making the jam again. I can bake the cake too if we pick up some flour on the way back.”
“Sounds like a plan.” His grin is soft as he leans towards you, placing his sticky lips against your cheek.
“Your lips are covered in honey.” You tease, pinching his cheek.
“You are imagining things.” He claims, grabbing your orange juice again.
“You know you can pour your own, yes?”
“Yours always tastes sweeter.” You chuckle, taking your cup out of his hold and placing it by your plate again.
The silence that follows is comfortable.
The sun shines into the room through the open doors, the curtains swaying softly in the breeze.
Moments like these are rare, with how hectic both of your lives are.
The bustling cities and unending expectations seem so far away now, tucked away from the world in your husband’s childhood home.
You smile to yourself, watching as Damian’s fork stabs lightly through the kiwi, cringing when the sour taste erupts in his mouth.
“I got a new yoga instructor.” You say, reaching for your juice.
“What was wrong with the last one?”
“I don’t know, but your mother suggested I get a new one.”
He sighs, fighting a smile.
“You know, you don’t have to take every advice she gives you, Beloved.”
“I know.” You protest weakly, watching his arm flex as he reaches for his chai. “Besides, apparently she’s going to open me all the way up, so I can finally get pregnant.”
Damian all but chokes on his drink, doubling over himself as he coughs up the liquid that is no doubt sliding down his wind pipe.
“What?” He rasps out, in between coughs.
“Yeah, your mother’s really hell-bent on me getting pregnant soon.” You say sweetly, running soothing circles over his back.
You try your best not to burst out laughing when he turns his bewildered expression back to you.
“We are not even twenty-six, yet. What does she want?” His tone is so alarmed you can’t help the giggle that escapes you.
“Grandchildren.” You laugh at his horrified expression again. “She’s not the only one.” He looks at you, confused. “Bruce brought it up the last time we were over for dinner.”
“For God’s sake.” He mutters, rolling his eyes.
“I’m not getting any younger, I’d like to bounce a grandchild or two on my knee.” You deepen your voice, trying to sound like your father-in-law.
Damian flushes a scarlet so deep it’s visible even under his heavy tan.
“He’s not even that old.” He grumbles and you can see him try to physically slap his blush away, hand falling softly on the back of his neck.
“He seems to disagree.” You chuckle, popping another strawberry in your mouth, trying to ignore Damian’s stare.
He opens his mouth, looking for something to say, but you beat him to it.
“Not yet, Dami.” Your eyes slide over to his face, meeting his gaze. “But soon.”
You try not to laugh as he fights the smile stretching across his full lips, lips that are on you before you can even register that he’s moved from his seat.
“Soon, then.” His voice is so so soft, you try not to melt under his loving gaze, emerald eyes tracing the soft curve of your cheek.
—
The summer sun is hot, even in your thin clothing, but the heaviness of Damian’s hand in yours is comforting, as he carries the books and records you kept handing to him until they almost dropped from his grip, in his other hand.
The umbrellas over the vendor stands do little to ease the scorching sun, but you don’t complain.
When you spot the familiar stall, you pull Damian with you as you make a beeline for it.
The man stood over the fruit with an iced bottle of water you’d kill for, smiles as he recognises your faces.
Your hand slips from Damian’s as you grab the plastic bag hanging from the nail hammered on one of the fruit boxes.
The apricots are ripe under your touch, their gooey softness mashing against one another as they fall into the pink plastic bag.
You hear Damian converse with the vendor as you move from apricots to strawberries to kiwis to big pink tomatoes that always remind you of home.
Moving from one end of the stall to the other, you spot a box of watermelons sitting a little lower than the rest of the fruit.
The skin of it is smooth under your palm as you gently hit the watermelon, checking for the sound.
Damian appears behind your back, repeating your motion until the two of you find one you both like.
Damian grabs another plastic bag, this one bigger than all the rest, waiting for the vendor to weigh your watermelon.
You hand the older man a canary melon to weigh when he slips the watermelon into the awaiting bag.
Before you know it, the two of you are making your way back to the car, while you munch on an unpeeled cucumber to help cool you down.
Your head is hot under your cap when you finally take it off.
Your hand reaches for the AC when Damian starts the engine and the cool air is a welcome relief from the stifling heat outside.
“Did we get everything we needed, Beloved?” Damian looks over at your nodding head before turning the gear and starting to drive.
“It gets so hot here.” You say, slipping your sunglasses off your face.
“Still not used to it after all these years?” He teases, hand resting on your thigh.
“I’m not sure I could ever get used to this heat.” Your hand rests atop his, fingers drawing soft circles on his scarred knuckles.
“We should go to the beach tomorrow.” Damian says, turning at the roundabout.
You smile, imagining the sound of the waves splashing against the sand and the smell of the salt in the air.
“Sounds like a plan.” Your voice is almost a whisper, as your free hand reaches for the radio, the familiar tunes filling the car.
-
The drive up to the house is quiet, safe for the music at a low volume.
Damian looks over at your figure and smiles when he sees you dozing off, head resting against the window.
His hand is still on your thigh and your hand is still on his, where you were playing with his fingers before falling asleep.
When he drives past the gates and shifts the car into Park, Damian’s thumb traces over the soft skin of your thigh before slipping carefully from under your grip.
Damian carries the produce, along with your books and vinyls, into the house, which is quiet besides the soft breeze created by the open windows and the front door.
He slips back into his seat, moving your sleeping head away from the window, resting it against the headrest, unclicking your seatbelt.
When he reaches for you from the now open door of your side, your head falls against his chest, eyes blinking open lazily as he picks you up and closes the car door behind him with the kick of his foot.
“Thanks.” You mumble into his chest and you can feel the low chuckle against your cheek from deep within him.
You settle into him, expecting a long walk up to your room when he places you down softly against the sofa.
Your eyes flutter open and you see Damian reaching for the new vinyls, picking the cover he most fondly remembers from his childhood and placing it under the needle of the turntable.
A soft voice fills the sunroom, the flowers above you saving you from the hot light of the sun.
When you turn your attention back to him, Damian is walking out of the room, only to walk back in soon after with two plates a bowl of washed fruit.
The china is placed on the low wood table and Damian slips under your legs, placing them on his lap before he starts peeling the peaches and the apples that glisten red under the sunlight.
You watch him with half-lidded eyes, waiting for him as he cuts the fruit into the thin slices that remind you of your mother’s sweet kiss against your cheek in the summer.
When he’s done, he taps your leg, motioning you to sit up.
You sink into his side when you do and he hands you a plate of fruit.
“Eat the apple first.” He commands softly, placing a kiss against your hairline.
The apple crunches under your teeth and decide that you’d rather eat the peaches.
The sticky juice of it runs down your chin and Damian wipes it away with his thumb, bringing it to his lips to lick away the moisture.
“It’s sweet.” He comments and you nod, sinking into him further.
He chuckles quietly and takes the plate from your hand, wrapping his arm around your shoulders as he feeds you a slice.
And all you can do is look up at him with stars in your eyes and imagine this house, filled with so many happy memories that have overridden the bad ones, full of childish laughter and wonder.
And you think his parents may be right, maybe it is time to bring a new addition to the family.
AHHHH I WANNA SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH HIM FEEDING ME PEELED PEACHES 💔💔💔
I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave - Damian Wayne
As exhausting as it was, vigilante life had a thrill that nothing else could replicate.
You’d know.
You’d tried to.
Hard.
But alas, the thirst for danger remained, woven into your muscles, a rite of passage, a torch passed from one hero to the other.
And now it was your turn.
Some would call it destiny.
Others would accuse you of madness.
But the wind in your hair, harsh and cutting against the skin of your face, was intoxicating, stronger than any substance mundane life could offer.
So, here you were.
Yet another night spent perched upon rooftops that overlooked the nightly lives of Gothamites.
The lonely routine of looking into the lives you’d never live, people you’d never know.
But this time, you weren’t alone.
It was subtle at first.
The outline of his costume hidden in the shadows cast by the moon overhead. His steps mirroring your own, staying close enough to be felt but not caught.
The game of cat and mouse, chasing but never catching, had started a few weeks ago.
Your first run-in with Robin was rushed and unplanned.
Tired stumbling bodies bumping into each other after patrol.
Your first thought was shit, followed closely by Batman.
You had managed to escape the vigilante’s radar for quite some time, so bumping into his sidekick was the second worst thing, right after bumping into the man himself.
Robin’s face, though mostly covered by his mask, had taken on, what you had assumed was a shocked expression.
But you hadn’t given him the time to react, reaching for the edge of the building and jumping into the shadows.
Ever since, you’d felt him seek you out, had noticed him in the corner of your vision as you helped a young woman stand, her attacker slumped against the wall, knocked out.
The urge to reach out and knock him to the ground was strong, but you fought it, not needing any more trouble than you were already in.
The first few days after your first encounter were spent in agony, awaiting the dark brooding hero to step out of the shadows and demand an answer for your hero act.
But nothing had come.
Just the quiet steps, hidden in the dark of the night, that followed you more often than not.
You had grown used to the routine, two sets of steps instead of one.
But tonight it was different.
His steps were heavy against the rooftop, meant to be heard, meant to be noticed.
“What do you want?” Your voice rang out in the quiet of the night.
No answer.
“How many times will I have to repeat myself before you deem me worthy of a response?”
Your voice was strained even to your own ears, sleepless nights and unending responsibilities finally catching up to you.
When you heard no answer, you sighed, annoyance coursing through your veins.
The roof creaked softly under your weight as you rose to your feet, placing one foot in front of the other, following along the edge, eyes never leaving Gotham’s jagged skyline.
He started moving too, the echo of his footsteps matching yours perfectly, body moving parallel to your own.
Every time you stopped, to capture the view in front of you, folding it into the corners of your mind, he would stop too, footsteps continuing only when your own picked up again.
“You know, if you actually talked, you could find out the answers to all the nasty little questions that I’m sure have been plaguing your mind.”
Your voice echoed in the silence, only the sound of the drizzle answering, as it fell against the padded shoulders of your suit.
“Alright, then. If you’re not feeling talkative.” You shrugged, an idea popping into your mind.
You probably should have thought about the logistics of it a little longer. This was Robin, for god’s sake, he’d probably catch you before your feet even reached the edge of the rooftop.
But the night had been boring and lonely, and the only thing you’d be returning to at the end of it would be an empty apartment.
Might as well have a little fun.
The sound of your lonely feet slapping against the wet rooftop only lasted a second before his joined in, in pursuit of your retreating figure. But you’d gotten a head start and that was all you needed.
You could hear his foot coming down on the roof as your leaped from the edge, momentum carrying you across the gap before the soles of your feet touched down on top of the next building.
You barely had a moment to pull yourself up before you heard him descending on the rooftop.
The sound that tore out of you as you jumped from his grip was near a maniacal cackle, your pulse coming alive under your skin.
You reached the edge again soon enough, leaping with joy as you heard him curse under his breath, foot slipping on the wet rooftop.
That moment gave you all the advantage you needed, putting enough distance between you to turn back to him, a triumphant grin on your face.
“Maybe next time you’ll want to talk.” Laughter threaded itself into your voice. “Till later, birdie!”
The words left your mouth as your hand rose to you forehead, giving him an army salute before you disappeared off the rooftop, your presence fading as if you were never there in the first place
-
Damian’s first meeting with you had been in equal parts shocking and intoxicating.
A rogue vigilante was the last thing he expected when his half-numb body bumped into yours all those weeks ago.
Before his mind could even take you in, you’d slipped from his grasp and disappeared before his eyes, leaving him unsure of whether you were real or a figment of his delirious imagination.
The walk back to the batcave had taken twice as long, Damian looking over his shoulder every minute to ensure he wasn’t being followed.
You were an anomaly, if you were even real.
You had somehow managed to exist as a vigilante long enough to feel comfortable running almost soundlessly atop roofs while Batman, his father of all people, remained completely unaware of your existence, while he remained unaware.
The realisation had been jarring, that the streets he had spent years patrolling hadn’t been nearly as well known to him as he had originally assumed.
Damian’s descent into the cave had been quiet, his father’s judging eyes lingering on his frame for a second, assessing possible damage or injuries, looking away when he found nothing but pure exhaustion.
“You should rest.” Bruce’s voice was low and rough, just like how it always was after a long night. “You can finish your report tomorrow.”
Damian had fought the urge to scoff, annoyed that his father still treated him like a child in need of constant care and supervision.
But then Bruce had stood up, turned off the Batcomputer and headed toward the elevator, casting Damian a questioning look.
“I will retire soon, father.”
For a moment, Bruce had looked ready to argue, but then the elevator doors opened and he stepped in, nodding once at his son.
Damian was powering up the computer as soon as the doors closed, looking through dozens of files.
His brothers’ reports, stills from CCTV footage, the encrypted file Tim kept of all the civilians playing hero.
But nothing had come up.
No mention of anyone matching your suit or build.
It was astonishing. Somehow you had evaded every single one of them, walking the streets while they remained completely unaware of your existence.
That had started it, his obsession.
Damian had spent a week elongating his patrol route, paying closer attention to the surrounding areas of where he’d first bumped into you.
It had been so difficult for him to find you that he had truly begun to believe he had made you up.
Until one night, he caught sight of a figure leaping across rooftops, a graceful form, as you floated through the air like Superman himself.
He had all but abandoned his post, following you until he finally caught up, watching as you dropped down on the fire escape of an old brick building, sliding the window open before slipping inside.
Caught you.
It has been fairly easy, tracking you down after he has found your address.
Your profile was completely ordinary.
Gotham University student, grades good enough to be among the top students of your class but not number one.
He’d begun mapping your routes, watching from afar as you swung from one fire escape onto another, reminding him of Dick’s agility.
It has become somewhat of a game to him, following you around after patrol. The closest thing to fun he had experienced since… well, ever.
He had assumed you remained oblivious to his tracking, happy to live out your vigilante days under the grand illusion that you had remained unobserved.
That was why he was caught so off-guard by your question.
That was why he was even further surprised when you took off, feet barely leaving a trace on the rain covered roof top.
He kept up with you, even with his momentary lapse in judgement.
But then the tip of his show caught on something and he had to fight gravity to not come tumbling down.
That had given you the advantage you were looking for, because before he even had time to straighten up, your voice rang out in the rain.
“Maybe next time you’ll want to talk. Till later, birdie!”
A laugh, a salut, and then you were gone.
Damian reached the edge as quickly as he could, desperate not to lose this game you’d started, but when he looked down, you weren’t there, having no doubt faded back into the shadows.
Annoyance flared through him.
“Don’t think you’ve slipped away from me just yet.” He muttered, his lips stretching into a vicious grin.
You were good, Damian had to give it to you.
But he was better.
-
Just as you rounded the corner of your street, having circled the surrounding blocks a few times just to knock him further of your scent, your body collided with an unexpected object.
An object which’s arms wrapped around your waist, keeping you trapped against his chest as the familiar shadows danced across his face.
Shit.
“Found you.”
Your hands came up on instinct to push him away, but he held you tightly against him, rendering your attempts useless.
“Don’t fight, I’m not going to hurt you.”
The laugh that ripped out of you was cynical.
“Didn’t think you capable.” You bared your teeth, and fought the urge to smile when his lips settled into an offended scowl.
“We need to talk.”
“Oh, do we? Think we can reschedule?” You stepped harshly on his foot and watched with satisfaction as he tried to hide his pain behind a grimace.
“Not unless you want Batman showing up at your door, apartment 5B.”
A shiver ran down your spine, a cold layer of sweat making your skin sticky beneath your suit.
You looked around, considering your options.
His grip was strong, so freeing yourself would be difficult, plus he was taller than you and you didn’t have the advantage of you a gap between rooftops where one might hesitate.
You grit your teeth, forcing yourself to come to terms with the very awkward conversation you were most likely about to have.
“Fine.” You looked up at him, eyes hidden behind your mask.
“Don’t try anything funny, you can’t outrun me.” He said, readjusting his grip so he could grab you even if you tried to make a run for it.
“Yeah, gathered that much.” You huffed under your breath, but by the way his lips twitched, you assumed he heard.
“Do you have your keys?” You looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re not setting a foot into my apartment, birdie.”
He scoffed.
“Would you rather we have this conversation on the roof where anyone can look up and see? I know where you live, already. Don’t worry, I won’t judge if your bed is not made.” He leaned in, lips stretched into an insufferable smirk.
Damn you and your stupid need to be a good person.
“Fine. But you’re not dragging mud into my apartment.”
“Would not dream of it.” His voice was low as he all but whispered in your ear.
You were totally not going to address the shiver that ran down your spine at the sound of his voice.
The walk up to you apartment was eerily quiet, you had to fight to urge to check that he was still following you a few times.
The key slid easily into the lock and before you knew you, Robin was standing in your doorway.
“Take your shoes off, birdie.”
“You are not serious.” His mask was obscuring half of his face but you assumed the look he was giving you was scathing.
“I said no mud in my apartment.” You shrugged, slipping off your own boots.
You heard a clipped sigh and muffled sounds of movement behind you before he was standing in your living room practically barefoot.
“So?” You headed toward the window, sliding it all the way open. “What did you want to talk about?”
“How did you go unnoticed for so long?”
Alright, straight to business.
“Actually, it wasn’t that difficult. You guys are not as thorough as you think you are.”
You ignored his scoff as you moved toward the kitchen.
“Do you want water? Some orange juice? I think I have tea bags somewhere in these drawers.”
“I do not drink tea from tea bags.”
“Well, I’m sorry I don’t have freshly dried tea leaves, your Highness, I’ll get them for your next visit.” You said, rolling your eyes.
The water was cooling against your throat as you drained the glass.
“You did not answer my question.” You could hear impatience slipping into his tone.
Sighing, you turned back to him.
“I avoided the areas where you guys were most often sighted, stayed away from all the big crime stuff. Helped the little people, the ones you always seem to forget about.”
“We do not forget about anyone.”
“Oh, yeah? When was the last time you stopped a robber from stealing an old lady’s purse?”
His lips pursed in annoyance.
“Look, I get it. You have bigger things, really big things to take care of, things that put millions of people’s lives at risk. And I respect you for it. But let’s not act like you have the time to deal with every petty crime that occurs in this area.”
You placed the glass in the sink, reaching for your fridge.
“So, that’s where I come in. I stop the bad guys from stealing purses, the bandits from breaking windows, the kids from graffitiing the buildings.”
The fridge cast a fluorescent light into the otherwise dim room.
“You take the glory for the big things, I stay out of your way, and everybody’s happy.”
When you turned back to him, offering a capri-sun, his lips were set in a tight line.
“Look.” You placed the juice on your kitchen counter when he didn’t reach for it. “I’m not trying to make any trouble. In fact, I’d much like to go back to my normal life of a reasonable bed time and no overdue assignments or bruised sides, but I have this really annoying thing called a moral compass that doesn’t let me sleep at night knowing there are people out there who need help.”
You could practically hear the eye roll.
“Don’t tell Batman about this, please. He’ll take me off the streets or worse-“
“Batman does not kill.”
You could almost see his body tensing as he said those words out loud.
“Yeah, I know. That’s kinda the reason the crime lords are still running around-“
“Are you suggesting he abandons his moral code to never take a life and-“
“I am suggesting he does his damn job!”
He scoffed, clearly offended.
“Which is what exactly?”
You sighed.
“No, enlighten me about what you, an ordinary nobody, think Batman’s job is.”
The silence that stretched on was jarring and you could see as the guilt settled somewhere deep within his bones.
“I did not mean-“
“His job is keeping people safe, so that nobodies like me don’t feel the need to put their lives at risk to do so.” Your response did little to ease the furrow of his brows you could just barely make out from beneath the mask. “Look, we can stand here and argue about what Batman’s job is all we want, but I’m not stopping what I’m doing. Not even his semi-terrifying presence can change that.”
Damian could imagine the fire in your eyes, could see the determined set of your lips.
“I have no intention of stopping you.” He said after a minute of silence. “I will not report you to him. But I cannot guarantee that he will not notice you. And I cannot guarantee his reaction when he does.”
You could feel a weight being lifted off your shoulders.
“Thank you.” He nodded, the movement slow and controlled. “Now, take your capri-sun and get the hell out of my house.”
Damian couldn’t help the twitch of his lips.
He moved closer to reach for the juice, standing close enough that you could smell the scent of wet leather.
“I think what you are doing is good. Mischievous, but good.” He said, heading for the door.
“That’s how all the good stories start.” You leaned against the wall as he slipped his boots back on.
Robin opened the door, turning back to you and lifting the capri-sun.
“I prefer the cherry flavour. You know, for next time.”
You couldn’t help the laugh that tore out of your mouth.
“Yeah, yeah, get out of here, birdie.”
His lips twitched again and he lingered for a second, as if taking you in. Then he turned and closed the door behind him, his footsteps fading into silence.
idk why in my mind his suit is leather but we run with what we got lol, also yes he’s flirty he’s a grown man, let me dream
Hellooo!! I saw your Damian wayne x Nicole/Jecka fic and I thought it was AMAZING:))
I was wondering if you'd be interested doing another fic, like the Nicole/Jecka one but with an Emily coded reader..and Damian just likee wants to 'save' her
Salvation Complex
navigation , dc navigation
requests are open
dividers by @cafekitsune
Damian Wayne had seen many things that disturbed him. Crime. Corruption. The casual cruelty of Gotham's underbelly.
But watching you sit alone in the cafeteria, earbuds in, staring at nothing while everyone else moved around you like you were furniture—that bothered him in a way he couldn't quite articulate.
You were new. Transferred in three weeks ago. And in those three weeks, you'd spoken maybe ten words total. You sat in the back of every class, turned in perfect assignments, and disappeared the moment the bell rang.
Most people didn't notice you. You seemed to prefer it that way.
Damian noticed everything.
"That's the new girl," Jon said, following his gaze. "She's in my English class. Super quiet. Kind of sad, honestly."
"Sad how?"
"I don't know, man. She just always looks... tired? Like she's been tired for a really long time." Jon shrugged. "I tried to talk to her once. She just stared at me until I left."
Damian studied you from across the cafeteria. You were eating slowly, mechanically, like you'd forgotten food was supposed to have taste. Your clothes were clean but worn. Your backpack had seen better days. There were dark circles under your eyes that makeup couldn't quite hide.
You looked like someone who'd given up on something fundamental.
It bothered him more than it should.
The first time Damian actually spoke to you was in AP Literature.
The teacher had assigned partners for a project on existentialism, and through some cosmic joke, you'd been paired together.
You looked at him when your names were called together. Just looked. No expression. No reaction.
"We should establish a meeting schedule," Damian said after class, approaching your desk.
"Okay." Your voice was flat. Monotone.
"The library. Tomorrow after school."
"I work."
"When do you not work?"
"Never." You started packing your bag. "I work every day. Three to eleven."
"Where?"
You looked at him then, really looked, and there was something defensive in your gaze. "Why does it matter?"
"Because we need to coordinate schedules for this project."
"I can do my half. You do yours. We'll combine it the day before it's due."
"That's inefficient."
"It's reality." You shouldered your bag. "I don't have time for library study sessions. I barely have time for sleep. So either we do it separately or you do the whole thing yourself and put my name on it. I don't care which."
You left before he could respond.
Damian watched you go, something uncomfortable settling in his chest.
He did what he did best when something bothered him: research.
Your file was sparse. Transferred from three different schools in two years. Grades excellent but inconsistent—periods of perfect marks followed by sudden drops, then recovery. No disciplinary issues. No clubs. No friends listed as emergency contacts.
Just a name, an address in one of Gotham's worse neighborhoods, and a note that you were emancipated. Legally independent at sixteen.
Damian knew what that usually meant. Parents who were absent, abusive, or dead. A system that had failed. A kid forced to become an adult before they were ready.
He showed up at your workplace anyway.
It was a 24-hour diner in the Bowery. The kind of place that smelled like grease and desperation. You were behind the counter, refilling coffee for a trucker who was very clearly hitting on you.
"—pretty girl like you shouldn't be working nights alone—"
"I'm not alone. Cook's in the back." Your voice was still that same monotone. "You want the pie or not?"
Damian slid onto a stool at the counter. You noticed him immediately, and something flickered across your face. Annoyance, maybe.
"We're not open for study sessions," you said flatly.
"I'm ordering food."
"No you're not."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're wearing a two-thousand-dollar watch and sitting in a diner where the most expensive thing on the menu is six dollars." You refilled a coffee cup without looking at it. "You're here to feel good about yourself by offering to help the poor working girl."
The accuracy stung. "That's not—"
"Yes it is." You finally met his eyes. "Look, I get it. You're rich, you're smart, you probably think you're going to save me from my tragic circumstances with the power of academic partnership and good intentions. But I don't need saving. I need you to leave me alone so I can work my shift without getting fired for talking to friends."
"We're not friends."
"Exactly my point."
The trucker was watching with interest. Damian ignored him.
"I'm here," Damian said carefully, "because we have a project due in three weeks, and your suggestion to work separately is inefficient and will result in a subpar product."
"Then do it yourself and put my name on it. Like I said, I don't care."
"You don't care about your grade?"
"I care about making rent. Everything else is secondary."
She turned away, dismissing him, and Damian felt that uncomfortable feeling intensify.
He left. But he didn't stop thinking about the exhaustion in your voice, the defeated set of your shoulders, the way you'd looked at him like he was just another problem in a life full of problems.
The project came and went. You did your half—thorough, insightful, better than Damian had expected. He did his. You combined them in the library fifteen minutes before class, barely speaking.
You got an A.
You didn't seem to care.
But Damian started watching. Because that's what he did—he observed, catalogued, analyzed.
He noticed you fell asleep in class sometimes. That you wore the same three outfits in rotation. That you ate vending machine food for lunch because it was cheap. That you walked to school instead of taking the bus, probably to save the fare.
He noticed you reading during breaks—actual books, not phone scrolling. Always existentialism, philosophy, sometimes poetry. You'd underline passages, write notes in margins.
He noticed that you were smart. Really smart. The kind of smart that could have gotten you scholarships, opportunities, a way out.
But you were too busy surviving to thrive.
It bothered him. More than it should.
The turning point came six weeks into the semester.
You weren't in class. First period, second period, third. By fourth period, Damian was irrationally concerned.
You'd never missed before. Even when you were clearly exhausted, you showed up.
He found you after school in the library, asleep with your head on a table, backpack as a pillow.
"You missed class," he said.
You jerked awake, disoriented. "What?"
"You missed all your classes. It's 3 PM."
You looked at the clock, and something like panic crossed your face. "Shit. Shit, I—" You stood up too fast, swayed. "I have to go. I'm late for work—"
"You're also exhausted."
"I'm fine."
"You're clearly not fine. When's the last time you slept?"
"None of your business." You grabbed your bag. "I have to go."
"Let me drive you."
"No."
"It's a twenty-minute walk to the Bowery. I can get you there in five."
"I said no." You headed for the exit, and Damian followed.
"When did you last eat?"
"Stop."
"Stop what?"
"This. Whatever this is." You spun to face him, and there was actual emotion in your face now—anger, exhaustion, frustration. "I don't need you following me around, asking questions, looking at me like I'm some project you need to fix. I'm fine. I'm handling it."
"You fell asleep in the library. You missed an entire day of school."
"So? It happens."
"It shouldn't have to happen."
"Well, it does!" Your voice rose slightly. "This is my life. I work, I go to school, I try to keep my head above water. And sometimes I'm tired. Sometimes I fall asleep in libraries. Sometimes I eat vending machine food for dinner. That's just how it is."
"It doesn't have to be—"
"Yes, it does." You cut him off. "Because I don't have parents paying for everything. I don't have a trust fund or a family name or any of the things you probably take for granted. I have me. That's it. So stop looking at me like I'm broken just because my life doesn't look like yours."
You left before he could respond.
Damian stood in the empty hallway, hands clenched, feeling like he'd failed some test he didn't know he was taking.
Jon called it what it was over lunch the next day.
"You have a savior complex."
"I do not."
"Dude, you've been obsessed with this girl for weeks. You know her work schedule, her route to school, what she eats for lunch—"
"I'm observant—"
"You're fixating." Jon took a bite of his sandwich. "And I get it. She's clearly struggling. But you can't force someone to accept help."
"I'm not forcing anything. I'm offering assistance."
"Have you considered that maybe your 'assistance' feels condescending? That maybe she doesn't want some rich kid swooping in to save her?"
Damian scowled. "I'm not trying to—it's not about me feeling superior. She's intelligent. Capable. She could do more with her life if she had support—"
"But she didn't ask for your support. She specifically told you to leave her alone."
"Because she's proud—"
"Because maybe she's tired of people treating her like a charity case." Jon's voice was gentle but firm. "Look, I'm not saying don't care. I'm saying maybe respect her enough to let her make her own choices. Even if those choices are hard."
Damian wanted to argue. Wanted to explain that it wasn't about charity or superiority. It was about waste—the waste of potential, of intelligence, of a person who could be more if circumstances were different.
But Jon's words stuck with him.
So he tried to back off. Tried to give you space.
It lasted three days.
On day four, you didn't show up to school again.
Damian told himself it wasn't his concern. That you were right—your life, your choices, not his problem.
But when you missed day five, he broke.
He showed up at the diner at 11 PM, right as your shift was ending.
You were wiping down tables, moving slowly, and when you saw him, you actually groaned.
"Are you stalking me now?"
"You missed school. Two days."
"And?"
"And I wanted to ensure you were alright."
"I'm working. That's where I am when I'm not at school. Working." You sprayed down another table. "Mystery solved. You can leave now."
"Are you sick?"
"No."
"Then why—"
"My landlord raised the rent. I picked up extra shifts to cover it. Which means less sleep, which means I'm too tired for school." You looked at him directly. "There. That's my tragic backstory. Happy now?"
"How much?"
"What?"
"How much did he raise it?"
You laughed, bitter and sharp. "Oh, here we go. The rich boy's going to offer to pay my rent. How noble."
"I'm trying to help—"
"I don't want your help!" Your voice cracked slightly. "I don't want your money or your pity or your concern. I want you to leave me alone."
"Why?"
The question seemed to surprise you. "What?"
"Why do you want me to leave you alone? What is it about accepting help that's so threatening to you?"
You stared at him for a long moment. Then you set down your spray bottle.
"Because help always comes with strings," you said quietly. "Because people don't do things for free. Because every time someone's offered to 'help' me, it's ended with me owing them something I couldn't afford to give. So forgive me if I don't trust the rich kid who suddenly cares about my wellbeing."
"I don't want anything from you."
"Everyone wants something."
"I don't."
"Then what is this?" You gestured between you. "Why do you care? You don't know me. We're not friends. We did one project together. So why are you showing up at my work, asking about my life, looking at me like I'm some wounded animal you need to rescue?"
Damian didn't have a good answer. Because the truth—that watching you struggle bothered him in a way he couldn't articulate, that you reminded him of himself in some fundamental way, that he recognized the exhaustion in your eyes from his own mirror—was too complicated to explain.
"You're wasting your potential," he said instead.
Your laugh was hollow. "My potential. Right."
"You're intelligent. You could—"
"I could what? Go to college? Get scholarships? Have a bright future?" You shook your head. "That's a luxury, Damian. That's for people who have the time and energy to dream. I'm just trying to survive until next month's rent."
"It doesn't have to be that way—"
"Yes, it does!" You were angry now, actually angry. "This is my reality! I don't get to dream about college or careers or any of that shit because I'm too busy making sure I have a place to sleep and food to eat. So stop looking at me like I'm broken. Stop trying to fix me. I'm not a project. I'm just a person trying to get through the day."
You grabbed your bag and headed for the exit. Damian followed.
"Where are you going?"
"Home. To sleep. For four hours before my morning shift."
"It's nearly midnight. Let me drive you—"
"No."
"It's not safe—"
"I've been doing this for two years. I think I can handle a walk."
"Please." The word came out more desperate than he intended. "Just—let me drive you home. That's all. No lectures. No offers of help. Just a ride."
You stopped at the door, shoulders tense. For a moment, Damian thought you'd refuse again.
Then you sighed. "Fine. But no talking."
"Agreed."
The drive was silent. You directed him to an apartment building in one of Gotham's worst neighborhoods. The kind of place where patrol cars didn't venture without backup.
"This is where you live?" Damian couldn't help asking.
"You said no talking."
"This building is structurally unsound. The crime rate in this area—"
"Is why the rent's cheap enough for me to afford." You unbuckled your seatbelt. "Thanks for the ride."
"Wait—"
But you were already out of the car, disappearing into the building without looking back.
Damian sat there for a long time, engine idling, staring at the crumbling facade.
Something had to change.
He just didn't know what.
The intervention came from an unexpected source: his family.
Tim had been the one to notice Damian's distraction. Dick had been the one to ask about it. And Jason—Jason had been the one to call him out.
"You've got it bad," Jason said during training.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The girl. The one you keep talking about like she's some kind of project."
"I don't talk about her—"
"You brought her up three times this week. 'Did you know some students work forty hours while attending school?' 'The income disparity in Gotham is unconscionable.' 'We should do more about youth homelessness.'" Jason blocked Damian's punch. "You're not subtle."
"She's not homeless."
"But she's struggling. And you've decided that's your problem to fix."
"Someone should help her—"
"Agreed. But has it occurred to you that maybe you're not the right person for the job?" Jason swept Damian's legs. "You're what, sixteen? Rich, privileged, never had to worry about money a day in your life? How exactly are you qualified to help someone in her situation?"
Damian got to his feet, scowling. "So I should just ignore it? Watch her destroy herself trying to survive?"
"I'm saying maybe your help isn't actually helpful. Maybe what she needs is resources, not a savior." Jason's expression softened slightly. "Look, I get it. You see someone suffering and you want to fix it. That's not a bad instinct. But you can't force salvation on someone who doesn't want it."
"Then what should I do?"
"Talk to her like a person, not a project. Actually listen to what she needs instead of deciding for her. And maybe—just maybe—accept that some problems can't be fixed by sheer force of will."
Damian tried. He really did.
He stopped showing up at your work. Stopped asking about your life. Tried to treat you like just another classmate.
It lasted until he found you in the school bathroom, sitting on the floor, crying.
You looked up when he entered, and for a moment, pure panic crossed your face.
"This is the girls' bathroom—"
"I know. I heard—are you alright?"
"Get out."
"You're crying—"
"I'm fine. Get out."
But you didn't look fine. You looked destroyed. Mascara running, hands shaking, breathing uneven.
Damian closed the door behind him. "What happened?"
"Nothing. Leave."
"Clearly something—"
"I got evicted, okay?!" The words burst out of you. "My landlord sold the building. I have thirty days to find a new place. And I can't—I can't afford anywhere else. The only reason I could afford that shithole was because it was rent-controlled and falling apart. Everything else in this city is—" Your voice cracked. "I'm going to be homeless. And I can't—I don't know what to do."
Damian's mind was already racing, calculating, planning. "I can help—"
"No."
"There are programs. Resources. My father's foundation—"
"No." You wiped at your face angrily. "I don't want your charity. I don't want to be another tax write-off for the Wayne Foundation."
"It's not charity, it's—"
"It's me being weak. It's me giving up. It's me accepting that I can't do this on my own." You stood up, unsteady. "I've made it two years. I can figure this out."
"You shouldn't have to figure it out alone—"
"But I do!" You were shouting now. "Because that's my life! I'm alone! I've always been alone! And I've learned to handle it, so stop trying to save me like I'm some damsel in distress who needs rescuing!"
"I don't think you're weak—"
"Yes, you do. You look at me and you see someone broken. Someone who needs fixing. Someone whose life is so tragic that you just have to swoop in and make it better." You laughed, harsh and bitter. "But you know what? I don't need you. I don't need anyone. I'll figure this out like I figure out everything else. By myself."
You tried to push past him. Damian caught your wrist.
"Let go."
"Not until you listen—"
"There's nothing to listen to!" You yanked your arm away. "You want to help? Then leave me alone. Stop looking at me like I'm pathetic. Stop trying to fix my life. Stop making me feel like a failure for not having what you have!"
The last part came out raw, honest, and Damian finally understood.
This wasn't about pride. It was about shame. About being confronted daily with everything you didn't have, everything you couldn't do, by someone who had everything.
"I don't think you're a failure," he said quietly.
"Then why won't you just let me handle this?"
"Because I—" He stopped, struggling to articulate something he barely understood himself. "Because watching you struggle when I have the resources to help feels wrong. Like I'm complicit in your suffering through inaction."
You stared at him. "That's the most fucked up thing anyone's ever said to me."
"What?"
"My poverty isn't about you. My struggle isn't about making you feel guilty. I'm not suffering AT you, Damian. I'm just living my life. And the fact that you think my existence is somehow your responsibility is—" You shook your head. "It's patronizing. And insulting. And exactly why I keep telling you to leave me alone."
The words hit like a physical blow.
"I didn't mean—"
"I know you didn't. That's what makes it worse." You moved to the door. "Stay away from me. Please. I can't—I can't deal with this on top of everything else."
You left.
Damian stood alone in the girls' bathroom, feeling like he'd failed at something fundamental.
Jon found him on the roof during lunch.
"Heard you had a fight with your project."
"She's not my project."
"Then what is she?"
Damian didn't answer. Because he didn't know. You weren't a friend—you'd made that clear. You weren't someone he was helping—you'd refused that categorically. You were just... there. In his head. Making him think about privilege and suffering and the distance between wanting to help and actually being helpful.
"I don't know how to help her," he admitted.
"Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you're not supposed to help her. Maybe you're just supposed to... be there. If she wants you to be."
"She doesn't."
"Then respect that."
Damian wanted to argue. Wanted to explain that you needed help whether you wanted it or not, that pride was going to land you on the streets, that someone had to do something.
But Jon's words from before echoed: Maybe respect her enough to let her make her own choices.
Even if those choices led to suffering.
Even if he could prevent it.
Even if watching you struggle was killing him in ways he didn't understand.
He didn't see you for three days.
When you finally showed up to school, you looked worse. Exhausted, hollow-eyed, moving like every step took effort.
Damian stayed away. Respected your boundaries. Didn't approach.
But he watched. Because he couldn't help that.
And what he saw terrified him.
You were giving up.
He could see it in the way you stopped taking notes. Stopped doing homework. Sat in class but didn't really attend. You were going through motions, marking time, waiting for some inevitable collapse.
On day five, you didn't show up at all.
Day six, still absent.
Day seven, Damian broke every promise he'd made to himself and showed up at the diner.
You weren't there.
"She quit," the cook said. "Three days ago. Didn't even give notice. Just stopped showing up."
Damian's chest tightened. "Did she say where she was going?"
"Kid, I don't know. She kept to herself. Worked her shifts and left. That's all I know."
Damian tried your apartment. The building manager said you'd moved out.
He tried calling. Your phone was disconnected.
Panic was setting in now. Because you'd disappeared, and he had no idea if you were safe, housed, alive—
He found you on day nine.
Not through detective work or research. By accident.
He was on patrol in Crime Alley when he saw you. Sitting in a 24-hour laundromat, backpack at your feet, reading a book.
At 2 AM.
Damian watched through the window as you turned pages, completely absorbed, like you weren't sitting in a laundromat in one of Gotham's most dangerous neighborhoods in the middle of the night.
He went in as Damian, not Robin.
You looked up when the bell chimed. Something like resignation crossed your face.
"Of course you found me."
"What are you doing here?"
"Reading. It's warm. It's open all night. It's free." You turned another page. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Where are you staying?"
"None of your business."
"Are you sleeping here?"
You didn't answer, which was answer enough.
Damian felt something crack in his chest. "You're homeless."
"I'm between residences."
"You're sleeping in a laundromat—"
"It's temporary. I'm figuring it out."
"How? How are you figuring it out?"
You finally looked at him, and the exhaustion in your eyes was devastating. "I don't know. Okay? I don't know. But I will. I always do."
"You can't—this isn't sustainable—"
"Do you think I don't know that?!" Your voice rose. "Do you think I'm choosing this? That I want to sleep in public places and hope I don't get robbed or assaulted? I know this is bad. I know I'm in a bad situation. But I don't have options. So I'm making it work. Like I always do."
"I have options—"
"No." You stood up. "No. We're not doing this again."
"There are programs—"
"With waitlists months long."
"My father's foundation—"
"Would require paperwork and background checks and all kinds of things I can't provide because I'm legally emancipated but functionally independent, which means I fall through every crack in every system."
"Then stay with me."
The words hung in the air between you.
You stared at him. "What?"
"Wayne Manor. We have—" God, how did he even quantify it? "—space. Rooms. You could stay. Temporarily. Until you find something permanent."
"You're insane."
"I'm practical—"
"You're offering to let a stranger move into your house—"
"You're not a stranger—"
"Yes, I am!" You grabbed your backpack. "We're not friends. We barely know each other. And you want me to move into your family's mansion? Do you hear how insane that sounds?"
"More insane than sleeping in a laundromat?"
"Yes! Because at least here I don't owe anyone anything. At least here I'm not—" You stopped.
"Not what?"
"Not a charity case. Not some project you're fixing to feel better about yourself. Not proof that you're a good person because you saved the poor girl." You headed for the door. "I'd rather sleep here than be your good deed."
"That's not what this is—"
"Then what is it?" You spun to face him. "Why do you care so much? Why can't you just let me handle this?"
And Damian, frustrated and scared and tired of watching you suffer, finally told the truth.
"Because you remind me of myself."
You stopped. "What?"
"Before I came to live with my father. When I was with my mother. I was trained to be independent. Self-sufficient. To not need anyone." He forced himself to meet your eyes. "And I was miserable. Alone. Convinced that needing help was weakness. That accepting support was failure."
"That's not—"
"My father saved me. And I fought it every step of the way. Because I didn't want to be rescued. Didn't want to need anyone. Didn't want to admit that maybe I couldn't do everything alone." He took a breath. "And I see you making the same mistakes. Choosing pride over safety. Independence over security. And I can't—I can't just watch that happen."
You were very still. "I'm not you."
"I know. But that doesn't mean you have to destroy yourself to prove you're strong enough to survive alone."
For a long moment, you just looked at him. Then you sat back down, heavily, like your strings had been cut.
"I'm so tired," you whispered. "I'm so tired of fighting. Of trying so hard just to stay in the same place. Of never being able to rest."
Damian sat beside you, careful to maintain distance. "Then stop fighting. Just for a moment. Let someone else carry the weight."
"And when I get used to it? When I start depending on help that can be taken away?"
"Then we'll deal with that when it happens. But right now, you need a safe place to sleep. Everything else can wait."
You were crying now, silently, tears tracking down your face.
"I don't want to be saved," you said.
"I know. But maybe you can accept help without it being salvation. Maybe you can let someone care without it being rescue."
You wiped at your face. "Your family is going to think you're insane."
"They're used to it."
"I can't pay rent—"
"I'm not asking you to."
"I won't be your project—"
"You'll be a person who needs a place to stay. That's all."
You looked at him for a long moment. Then, finally: "Temporary. Just until I figure something else out."
"Temporary," Damian agreed, even though he had no intention of letting you leave until you were actually stable.
"And no savior complex bullshit. I'm not some wounded bird you're nursing back to health."
"Understood."
"I mean it, Damian. I'm not—I don't need fixing."
"I know. You just need a safe place to sleep."
You nodded slowly. "Okay. Okay. But I'm keeping the laundromat as a backup plan."
Despite everything, Damian smiled. "Deal."
Telling his family was exactly as chaotic as he'd anticipated.
"You did WHAT?" Dick's voice had reached a pitch usually reserved for catastrophic situations.
"I offered her a place to stay. Temporarily."
"You invited a classmate to live here without asking anyone?" Tim looked up from his computer. "That's bold even for you."
"She's homeless—"
"So we're running a shelter now?" Jason asked, though he didn't sound actually opposed. "How many bedrooms are we converting?"
"None. She just needs one room. Temporarily."
"You keep saying temporarily," Bruce observed. "What's the actual timeline?"
"Until she finds stable housing."
"Which could be months. Or longer." Bruce steepled his fingers. "Damian, I appreciate your compassion, but we need to discuss practicalities. Background checks, house rules, security concerns—"
"She's not a security risk—"
"She's a stranger—"
"She's a person in need!" Damian's voice rose. "And we have resources. Rooms that aren't being used. The capacity to help. So why wouldn't we?"
The room went quiet.
"You really care about her," Dick said softly.
"I care about doing what's right."
"That's not what I asked."
Damian didn't answer. Because the truth—that you'd gotten under his skin in a way he couldn't explain, that watching you struggle felt personal, that he'd somehow come to care about your wellbeing beyond basic human decency—was too complicated to admit.
"She can stay," Bruce said finally. "But with conditions. She follows house rules. No bringing trouble here. And Damian—" He met his son's eyes. "This can't be about saving her. It has to be about offering support. Understand the difference."
"I do."
"I hope so. Because the line between helping someone and trying to control their life is thinner than you think."
You moved in three days later with everything you owned in a single backpack.
Alfred gave you a room in the family wing. Bruce had the "talk" about rules and expectations. Dick tried to be welcoming in a way that made you visibly uncomfortable.
And Damian... Damian tried to give you space while simultaneously wanting to ensure you had everything you needed.
It was harder than he'd anticipated.
"You don't have to hover," you said one evening, finding him outside your door.
"I wasn't hovering. I was passing by."
"This is a dead-end hallway. There's nowhere to pass to." But you weren't angry. Just tired. "I'm fine. You can stop checking on me every twenty minutes."
"I check every forty-five minutes."
Despite yourself, you almost smiled. "Still excessive."
"Perhaps." He paused. "Do you have everything you need?"
"I have a room with a door that locks, a bed that's not a laundromat bench, and more space than I've had in years. I'm good."
"If you need anything—"
"I'll ask. Promise." You leaned against the doorframe. "Thank you. For this. I know I fought it, but... thank you."
"You don't have to thank me—"
"Yes, I do. Because this is—" You gestured vaguely. "—more than I expected. More than I thought I'd accept. And I'm grateful. Even if it's terrifying."
"Terrifying how?"
"Because it's temporary. Because I'll have to leave eventually. And going back to—" You stopped. "Never mind. Not your problem."
"It could be. If you let it be."
You looked at him for a long moment. "You really can't help yourself, can you? The whole savior thing."
"I prefer to think of it as concern."
"It's going to get you in trouble one day."
"Probably."
You almost smiled again. "Goodnight, Damian."
"Goodnight."
He walked away, but he couldn't help looking back. Couldn't help noticing that you stood in the doorway watching him go, something unreadable in your expression.
you're too young for me!dex's life and morals all fall apart the second his eyes land on you. your laughter catching his attention and his mind doesn't register when his body does full 180° degree turn towards you. you're probably too young for him but you look so goddamn breathtaking in that short dress. and your smile? he can't look away.
you're too young for me!dex who feels his brain short circuit when you sit next to him. 'one more shot of tequila please!' you say to the bartender and look over at him, tilting your head to get a better look. he looks you up and down closer now, remembering your features - plush lips, pretty doe eyes, flushed cheeks, messy hair. he could give a detailed explanation of how you look like just in matter of seconds.
you're too young for me!dex who goes absolutely batshit crazy when you wrap your soft arms around his neck and plant a little kiss on his lips, inviting him inside your place after he walked you home. dex hesitates, oh he hesitates so bad. he knows how wrong it is but how can he say no to a pretty little thing like you. he curses and enters your apartment, picking you up while you guide him to your bedroom.
you're too young for me!dex who gives you the best time of your life, only focusing on your pleasure all night. he touches you like you're fragile, he kisses you so softly you feel like you're in heaven. 'look at you' he mumbles, looking at your fucked out face. oh he's so obsessed over you already, the way you sound, the way you smell and how soft your skin is. dex is consumed by you. he wants to be ruined by you.
you're too young for me!dex gets so shy when you initiate something first. yes, he may tire you out too much but you like kissing him a little too much, so you push him against you one more before you fall asleep. 'you're so sweet to me' you whisper as you pass out, too overstimulated, hangover and tired, but satisfied. dex melts at the sight of you and desperately hugs you to his chest. he stares at you softly snoring all night, watches every time your eyelashes flutter, every time your body twitches.
you're too young for me!dex who gathers all information about you and your personal life in a span of a few days. you already tell him lots about you but he wants to know everything there is. he knows every time you're upset with the way your jaw clenches and eyebrows furrow together. he kisses your forehead and offers to take you out on a date, or order takeout and watch your favorite show.
you're too young for me!dex who just can never get enough of you. he claims he's not too touchy but who is he lying to? his hands are constantly on you no matter where you are. dex loves to wrap his arms around your waist, pressing you to his back when you're cooking and plant his face in the crook of your neck which is his favorite part of your body. he enjoys hiding his face in there, especially when sleeping or waking up to you.
you're too young for me!dex who gets so jealous and possessive every time someone approaches you with the intention of hitting you up. to him that's every guy that looks at you. 'I'm not jealous' he claims and gets so grumpy when you tease him about it. when you try to kiss him he pulls away on purpose, it makes you laugh more, knowing he won't be able to resist against you longer than ten minutes, max fifteen if he tries real hard.
older boyfriend!dex who just loves to spoil you endlessly. be it with gifts, dates or kisses and affection. only thing you complain about is him not leaving you alone (you don't want him to leave you alone). you feel his eyes on you when you're home, laying on your couch and reading; when you're out with friends, or when you leave work late at night - you know he's always watching and the thing is - you let him. you let him have that 'control' over you because the end of the day you have him wrapped around your finger.
summary: the realm’s dragons may be gone, but you’re a dragonrider nonetheless.
aerion targaryen x reader
warnings: aerion is a warning on his own, smut, p in v, cowgirl, light breath play (m receiving), creampie, bratty aerion, reader matches his freak.
masterlist
aerion recalls the exact moment he overstepped. you’d been your poised self all evening, nodding politely at the mindless chatter in the banquet hall as was your duty; your husband, on the other hand, had remained insolent as ever.
he’d spent a better part of the night regaling his captive audience with stories of his favourite ancestors, entirely aware he was surrounded by families whose allegiance to house targaryen was thin at the best of times.
“maegor,” he mused, swirling his wine. “now there was a great targaryen. he understood the importance of legacy.”
the lords and ladies around the table tensed visibly at mention of the cruel king. aerion’s blue eyes shifted to you, and a wicked smirk curled his lip.
“he kept many wives. a testament to his ambition, i think.” he noticed the way your jaw tightened at his words, delivered like a blow of valyrian steel. “a sensible precaution, wouldn’t you agree? dragons are known for their…appetite, after all.”
silence befell the table as your guests glanced between you and the princeling with unease, goblets and forks stilling in half-raised hands. eventually, your eyes met your husband’s; to the courtiers watching on, your expression seemed bafflingly serene.
to aerion, it was a promise that he would yet answer for your humiliation.
your nails carve crescents into the prince’s chest, drawing a pained hiss from his lips as you pin him to the tufted bed beneath you. his fingers dig into your hips with intent to bruise, but you do not relent, grinding down onto him forcefully until his cock is fully sheathed inside you.
aerion moans, the sound deep and rumbling as his head lolls back. a snide smile blooms on his face when his eyes meet yours again, your expression caught between contempt and lust.
“all that composure, gone in an instant,” he coos, his voice tight from the feeling of you on top of him. “i much prefer you like this, little wife.”
you roll your hips against him, gasping at the girth stretching you open, but your pace only quickens.
“you forget yourself, husband,” you spit, biting back a whine as the head of his cock grazes the sensitive spot in your walls. “i am not some lowborn whore for you to toy with.”
“no?” aerion’s hand slips between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit to rub circles in time with your thrusting. “you certainly fuck like one.”
a breathless whimper escapes you at his touch, but you refuse to yield; your fingers weave through his silver hair, tugging harshly until another low moan rattles out of him.
“tell me, my prince,” you hiss, lowering your lips to his ear, your hips never once stilling, “if you are a dragon, what does that make me?”
your head dips lower until your teeth are grazing his throat, and you feel aerion tense beneath you, a satisfied grin settling on your lips. now you’ve got him.
“answer me,” you command, releasing his hair to wrap your hand around his neck. you level your face to his, taking in his blown-out pupils that gaze up at you through pale lashes.
“fuck—a dragonrider,” he manages at last, his voice wavering as you squeeze his throat gently. “you’re a dragonrider.”
you feel him twitch inside you at his own words, his fair skin flushed and his voice thick with desire; his hands clutch at the flesh of your ass, desperate for purchase as you ride him closer to his release, the pressure around his neck increasing his sensitivity tenfold.
“and dragons obey their riders, do they not?” your voice is firm, but your cunt clamps down on aerion’s cock, signalling your own impending climax. you sense him resisting, but the words tumble out of him anyway.
“y-yes, my princess,” he breathes, his eyes fluttering shut. with a final snap of your hips, aerion spills into you, swearing loudly in high valyrian as his body jolts beneath yours.
you come undone soon after, collapsing on top of the dragon prince in exhaustion. moments pass in silence, aerion’s fingers absently tracing your spine as he catches his breath. finally, you lift your head, taking in his dazed expression. he looks at you, and his face is laden with something new—not quite affection, but recognition, perhaps, of an equal at last.
“shall i expect you to begin collecting wives, then?” you ask, resting your chin on his chest. you don’t miss the amused smile that ghosts over aerion’s lips as he speaks.
“i have not known a dragon to have more than one rider at a time, princess.”
pairing: aerion targaryen x fem! valarr's wife! reader
tags/warnings: mdni! (18+), explicit nsfw / smut, major infidelity / cheating, toxic relationships, degradation, marking / bruising, you are responsible for the content you consume, reader understands high valyrian
w/c: 11.7k
summary: a royal hunting celebration at summerhall melts into a violent fever dream soon to be shattered. you are prince valarr's dutiful wife, yet you have willingly traded his devotion for the ruinous, intoxicating cruelty of aerion's bed.
a/n: author's first akotsk fic. honestly, there were lots of writing "firsts" for me overall in putting this piece together, and it was such a fun experience getting to branch out a bit. a massive thank you to @solstice-lullaby for all the help with this. i appreciate you so much!
ao3 | masterlist
The merciless Dornish sun slices through the gauze curtains, pinning you to the mattress before your eyes even open.
Then came the heat, thick and suffocating. The relentless, dry breath of the Marches crawled across the cold marble floor until it illuminated the alabaster silk sheets the castle servants had laid out three days prior.
Those sheets were twisted now.
Knotted at the foot of the low bed, half-dragged onto the marble floor, damp at one corner with sweat of a high treason you had willingly committed. The light finds them and turns them amber, and you lie in that amber suspension with your eyes half-open as you catalogue the room the way you have learned, these past seven days, to catalogue everything.
Above you, the ceiling boasted King Daeron II’s expensive fantasies. An artist from the Free Cities—a man with trembling hands and extraordinary eyes—had filled the plaster with dragons. Not the fire-breathing monsters of the tapestries in the Red Keep's tapestries, but courtly beasts, elongated and formal, their scales coiled around the molding in elegant repose.
You had spent considerable time staring at that ceiling in the dark and in the intervals between. You know the dragons well enough now. The largest one, positioned directly above the bed, has its head turned at an angle that gives it the appearance of watching the room below with great interest.
You watch it back as you grow conscious of the gravitas holding you down.
Aerion's arm lay across your hip.
It is not a gentle thing, that arm. It has a warden's weight—as heavy the grip of a man who takes hold of objects until he decides they are no longer worth holding.
The weight of his hand rests heavy against your hip bone, long fingers curled inward like a dormant claw, and though the grip is slack, your skin hums with the ache of what those hands are capable of.
Morning light spills across the twisted sheets, gilding his forearm in strokes of molten gold. It feels like a bitter jest of the gods to make a nightmare so beautiful to look at. Everything about Aerion Targaryen is drenched in the agonizing colors of excess, entirely too much for one mortal man to wield. A sprawl of silver-gold hair spreads across the pillow above your head, while his sun-bronzed skin stretches flawlessly over lean musculature. With those terrifying violet eyes finally shuttered, it would be dangerously easy to mistake him for a simple man.
Breathing softly, his chin slightly tucked into the shadow of his collarbone, his expression has settled into something eerily blank. It is the closest to neutral his face has ever been. But studying him now, you know better than to mistake this stillness for peace.
You do not move.
You look at his chest instead—the part of it that is visible above the loose drape of his own arm. There are marks on it. Four of them, parallel, running from his left clavicle down across the slope of his pectoral, and they are red at the edges and dark in the center, the particular dark of dried blood on fair skin.
You are aware of this fact the way you are aware of all the facts you have accumulated this week. You had made them on the second night, when his hands had tightened at your throat and you had reacted without thinking, with pure reflex—your nails dragging down through the skin, and he had laughed.
He had actually laughed a short, delighted sound, and said something in High Valyrian that you had translated in your head: you have teeth after all—and then, he had proceeded to demonstrate that he too had teeth of his own.
The dragon on the ceiling watches you count your bruises.
There is one bruise high upon your left shoulder. Though obscured from this angle, you can feel it—a dull, blooming pressure chafing against the silk shift of his that you are wearing. Somewhere upon the marble floor lies your own discarded nightgown, utterly forgotten; and beneath the fabric you now wear, the contusion boasts a livid blue at its center and the outer edges have bled into a twilight-purple, creeping toward your collarbone.
Three others complete this brutal tally. A dark band shadows the delicate skin at the inside of your right wrist where he had held you still. Another stains the high, soft curve of your left waist.
As for the fourth—it is a vivid, throbbing ache that you refuse to pay any heed.
Beside you, Aerion draws breath in the slow, heavy rhythm of sleep. Each exhale blooms hot against the nape of your neck.
Beyond the tangled silk, the light has already surrendered its fragile dawn. The tentative blushing pinks of the horizon have completely burned away into the hard gold of full morning. The Dornish Marches are merciless in summer, and Summerhall, for all its painted dragons, remains but a castle of pleasure. It may drape the world in velvet but it can never truly lock the cruelty out.
The heat stews in the room even now, thick as a wool mantle and impossible to fight. A single sheet is enough to leave a body drenched by dawn in a place like this.
…Or rather, it would be, if you had slept much at all this week.
You have existed, instead, in a state that is adjacent to sleep but is more properly described as a kind of sustained wakefulness—a physical state rather than a mental one; as if your body is running at a frequency that ordinary rest cannot touch.
Lying tangled in the sheets beside Prince Aerion, you are made aware of every point of contact between his body and yours with startling clarity. His arm rests heavy across your waist; his bent knee presses intimately against the back of your thigh. Then there is the sheer heat of him flush against your spine. He runs hot—hotter than any man you have ever been beside. He seems wholly unconscious of this, as his body seems to generate warmth without effort as a simple property of what he is.
Your eyes lay fixed on the painted dragon coiled across the vaulted ceiling. Tracing its scales offers a fleeting reprieve from the truth, but eventually, your heavy eyelids flutter shut to face the grim calculation you have been avoiding since you first opened them:
Today is the seventh day.
Come midday, your husband’s hunting party will return.
There is a moment, in the interval between sleep and full waking, when the mind is honest.
You have learned to dread that moment. It is a fleeting window—perhaps two seconds, maybe three—that has become a profound source of dread. For those brief heartbeats, all good sense lay dormant; and the raw, unmediated truth sits heavy in your consciousness, stripped entirely of the elaborate justifications you’ve meticulously constructed over the past seven days.
Within that terrible, lucid stillness, the reality of the morning strips bare: Prince Valarr Targaryen, third in line to the Iron Throne, is your husband. Yet the bed you currently occupy belongs to his dear cousin.
Thankfully, the clarity passes. Once the mental scaffolding snaps back into place, it becomes bearable, and then it becomes something else entirely—a sensation that defies every neat, polite word available in the Common Tongue. Obsession is far too imprecise. Recklessness sounds like the scolding of a septa. It carries a moralistic weight that wholly ignores the intelligence with which you have carried behind the affair; because make no mistake, this choice was made with open eyes and a clear mind.
On every single morning of this past week, the path down the east corridor back to the rooms assigned to you and your prince lay open. Each time, the choice was made to stay.
You are not a woman given to foolishness either.
Foolishness has never been a trait tolerated by your bloodline as competence was the bread and salt of your upbringing. Marrying the prince was an inevitable outcome thereof—a flawless political maneuver that yielded a very good match. Playing the role of his devoted wife came easy. You have been, by every external measure, content.
What a pale lifeless thing contentment turned out to be. The difference between that polite satisfaction and the fever occupying your flesh these last seven days… It is the gulf between the safely banked embers of a winter hearth, and a wildfire meant to consume the castle stone itself.
Even now, you feel it in this morning stillness: a residual heat in your skin, accompanied by a heavy, thoroughly pleasant sourness. It is a particular hyper-awareness of your own body that Aerion summons without seemingly exerting any effort.
Sleep renders him entirely oblivious to you, a fact that somehow deepens both the thrill and the ruin of it all. There is no conscious performance at play. He simply breathes, and the wild nature of his blood disrupts the ordered cadence of yours. You turn a word over in your mind, a word trained into you since childhood, and the only one that fits the upheaval: necessary.
It is a terrifying thought. Never before has necessity applied to anything outside the protection of your marriage bed.
Your lord husband offers a fortress. He provides wealth, standing, and a considerate tenderness that far exceeds the standard lot of noble wives. He anticipates your needs. With his diligent instructions, your morning cup is always steeped with honey and no milk, no matter whose keep lays host to you. He reads your books; he debated them by the hearthside with genuine interest. To put it simply, Valarr is the very picture of steady, even-tempered grace—and that is precisely what induces this sudden, sickening vertigo.
Beside him, you were a perfect mirror. Faultless, even, and correct.
Here, you are none of those things; not in this bed with this arm across your hip. Here you are unpredictable in ways that startle you when you catch yourself—reaching for Aerion before you have decided to reach, or speaking in High Valyrian when you have always been careful to keep your fluency private. You find yourself laughing at his cruelties, at a dark and jagged humor that possesses no conventional grace.
You do not recognize the shape of yourself here and you have spent considerable time trying to untangle the madness of it. Does it represent an authentic self breaking free from its cage, or a dark reflection he is casting upon you?
The answer escapes you and you are not even sure the question matters.
Three seconds of clear-eyed honesty fade at the edge of your consciousness, leaving you anchored in the amber morning light with his arm draped heavy across your hip. The truth of the matter is simple enough: regret has not come.
Though you have hunted for it with the ruthless diligence of a maester seeking out a plague-spot, pressing mercilessly at the tender spots of your conscience, the answer is clear. What lives in your chest now is far too complex to be called mere guilt. It contains regret as an element among several but is not reducible to it. The consequences of this treason are arrayed before you—yet they pale the moment your gaze falls to the angry red half-moons your nails left clawed into his skin.
You remain there with the knowledge that your reputation and your future will be irrevocably scarred by this single act, yet you do not feel any desire to change what has happened.
The pressure in your chest is a simple acknowledgment of a fact, a recognition that you have prioritised your own immediate needs over the standards of behavior that others expect of you, and you accept that your current situation provides you with more individual satisfaction than any concept of righteousness or purity.
Aerion’s breathing breaks its steady rhythm. He is not waking, not quite yet, but drifting back toward the surface. His grip tightens fractionally, fingers pressing into the crest of your hipbone in an unconscious claim. Closing your eyes, you remain perfectly motionless. The reckoning will come, but for now, you only want to breathe in this suspended amber morning.
You want to keep the world at bay, just for a little while longer.
One moment he is asleep; the next he is awake, and his eyes—strikingly violet in the morning light, framed by pale lashes—snap open and fix upon the ceiling.
He does this every morning.
You have observed it four mornings now. He takes a few seconds to account for the room; then he sits up. The arm draped across your hip lifts, and the sudden absence of its weight is wholly physical as an abrupt emptiness not unlike the jolt of a missed step on a dark stair.
Without so much as sparing a glance at you, he rolls from the mattress. The motion carries the fluidity of a man in peak physical condition—narcissistically, rigorously, consciously so. Summerhall sees him at his training yard daily, a fact casually dropped by your husband in recent weeks. The fruits of that discipline show in how Aerion crosses the room.
Dressed only in linen sleeping trousers, he steps into the sun. The morning light spills over the half-moons scratched into his chest—your marks—illuminating them with the same indifferent thoroughness with which it applies to dust motes.
There is a paradoxical languidness in how he approaches his own reflection.
The mirror in this room is a long looking glass from the eastern Free Cities, floor-length, framed in gilded bronze. No doubt Aerion himself ordered it placed here upon arriving at Summerhall, perfectly angled to catch both the bed and the dawn from the eastern window. He stands before it, radiating entitlement. The carved stone dragons above the main gates, the ornamental fountains in the gardens, his own striking reflection—they are all the same to him. Mere aesthetic objects in which he holds a proprietary interest.
His hand finds the scratches marring his chest and traces them slowly with two fingers, expression caught between satisfaction and cruel amusement. That minute expression is perhaps the most legible thing he ever allows the world to see.
He turns to where his own discarded cup of wine sits from the prior evening on the nightstand—dried dark at the bottom now, the color of old blood—and he picks it up and examines it as though the residue contains some interest for him. He holds it a moment; then, with no change in expression, with no more effort than a man swatting a fly, he drops it onto the floor and watches it shatter against the marble with a crack that rings through the morning quiet. Unfazed, he steps right through the wreckage. Not a single shard dares to catch the sole of his bare foot.
Already, the broken thing is forgotten. This, it seems, is the shape of Aerion’s violence when boredom takes him. It is the casual, reflex erasure of anything that no longer entertains a prince who has never once been forced to sweep up his own glass.
Propping your back against the carved headboard, you draw his discarded shift around your shoulders. The coarse fabric reeks of him—a scent of cedar resin layering something fundamentally, undeniably his. Watching him watch himself, you offer no pretense of sleep.
After a time, a servant knocks at the outer door. Aerion does not raise his voice; he simply says enter.
A servant from the Summerhall household slips inside, pale and meticulously careful. Without once daring to lift his eyes to either the prince or the bed, the young man sets a breakfast tray on a low table near the window. It is an act of practiced invisibility, perhaps a testament to the fact that Aerion has undoubtedly used these chambers for this exact purpose before. That little detail gets filed away in your mind alongside the rest.
Cold meats and summer fruits weigh down the silver tray. There are sliced figs, a cluster of pale green grapes, and the dark red southern plums currently in season, alongside soft cheese, warm bread, and carafes of water and thinned wine. With an effortless, throwaway wave of his hand, Aerion dismisses the boy like a hound that has performed its trick. He wanders to the table without rushing, plucks a grape, studies it against the sunlight, and eats.
Pouring a cup of wine, he drifts to the window. With his back to the room, he stares out over the grounds of Summerhall.
"Your lord husband," he announces, his tone flat, "was seen in the lower stables last night."
Beneath the silk sheets, your fingers remain perfectly still. "The hunting party camped at the river," you murmur, recalling the itinerary.
"So it was believed." Aerion turns the cup slowly. "A man I trust brought word at midnight. The party cut their camp early, it seems—if my man's eyes did not deceive him in the dark. Either may be true."
Genuinely, he sounds unbothered by the threat of discovery. It is exactly what should be expected; Aerion Targaryen is simply not troubled by the petty fears that plague ordinary men. Obstacles that breed terror in others spark nothing in him but a kind of interested contempt.
"I see."
"You are not alarmed." Turning from the window, he pins you with that fixed, appraising stare. A look that carries a particular quality—fixed, assessing regard, the sense of being catalogued—that you have become addicted to in a way you cannot fully account for this week. It is not comfortable to be looked at by Aerion. It is not a comfortable sensation, in that regard, but you have noticed that the discomfort is not the kind that drives you away from it.
"I am aware of the facts," you state, keeping your voice perfectly level.
A sound escapes him—short, amused, not quite a laugh. "Your prince will go to your rooms and he will be there," he says, "waiting."
The word cousin comes out of him clipped and cold. "He is very patient with the things he believes are his. He will tell himself that you are with the ladies of the court, or walking in the gardens, or at your prayers. He will furnish your absence with a virtuous occupation."
Taking a slow pull of his wine, he smirks. "—because that is what my cousin does with facts he finds inconvenient. He gives them softer, more flattering shapes. Valarr has always lacked the stomach for the truth of things. It is the great deficiency of good men."
Holding his gaze across the span of the room, you tip your head. "You have been considering this."
He sets the cup down and crosses to the chair beside the low table, and sits, spreading his legs, resting his elbows on his knees with the ease of a man entirely at home in himself at all hours. The morning light falls full across his face and it is, as it has been every morning, a face of extraordinary construction—the sharp lines of it, the pale brows, the wide mouth that can be pleasant or terrible in the space of a breath.
"Your dear lord husband," he repeats. This time, the phrase carries a weight of saccharine contempt—the word dear doing a great deal of work, none of it charitable—"has always been incredibly confident in your loyalty. He said so at dinner, the first night of this retreat." He pauses. "While you were sitting beside him."
"He said that to you?"
"To the table at large. He was recounting your qualities." Aerion picks up a sliced fig, turning the soft flesh over in his fingers. "It was a solemn parade. Your virtues, listed off the way a Pentoshi merchant haggles over his wares. Loyal, gracious, composed… accomplished in all the womanly arts." His violet eyes flick up, latching onto yours. "He did not mention the other things."
The room is stiflingly warm. That hard, golden light refuses to soften the sharp cruelty of his features, and part of you is glad it does not.
"He does not know the other things," you reply.
"No," Aerion agrees, his smirk returning as he pops the sweet fruit into his mouth. "He does not."
Scraping the heavy chair right to the very edge of the bed, he settles in.
Rearranging rooms, furniture, and people is simply in his nature. He claims authority as though it were a divine right, perhaps it is, and lately—specifically over the last seven days—the sharp objections that ought to rise in your throat remain stubbornly absent. That was before, of course—before you learned the exact weight and warmth of his hands.
With one knee brushing the mattress, he deposits a tray upon the bedside table and plucks up the silver blade left by the servants. It is a delicate fruit knife, narrow and wickedly bright, the hilt forged into the shape of a wingless serpent. From the silver platter, he selects a southern plum. Four deliberate, effortless cuts quarter the dark fruit.
A single piece is offered on the flat of the blade.
He doesn't offer the point, nor does he offer a single word, merely holding the metal steady between you. Meeting his gaze, you let the silence stretch for a heartbeat before plucking the fruit from the steel to eat it.
The plum is cold and very sweet, the flesh carries a sharp, tart edge. As a stray drop of juice escapes down your chin, dashed away quickly by the back of your hand, his eyes track the movement—a thoroughly proprietary look and the deeply invested expression of a man watching a favored possession perform a parlor trick.
He cuts another quarter and holds it out—then another.
Cut by cut, he feeds you the entire plum from the flat of his knife, a mute ritual accepted without a breath of protest. Beyond the heavy doors, you could hear the castle stirring to life. A muffled clatter echoes from the kitchens below, servants murmur in the corridors, and from the eastern gardens comes the shrill cry of King Daeron II’s decorative peacocks—a dreadful noise that always sounds precisely like grief poorly performed.
You understand—eating from his blade—that this is a particular thing he is doing. It is not care in the way that your husband's consideration for your tea preferences is care. It is a form of control administered through the vocabulary of service—he is feeding you with the implicit understanding of who holds the meat and who merely opens their mouth to receive it. Recognizing the snare, however, does absolutely nothing to cool the sudden, electric flush racing along your forearms as you swallow another bite.
What your husband offers is compassion. The word anchors itself in your head. From your prince, there is unfailing consideration, enduring affection, and the steady benevolence of a fundamentally good man who chose you deliberately.
What Aerion gives you is not care for your comfort nor is it interest in your ease. What he gives you is an acute, consuming focus—a quality of focus that is almost violent in its concentration. Pinned beneath that stare, you feel yourself existing with an intensity under that gaze that you have not felt before.
A husband sees his wife through the soft, benevolent haze of courtly affection. Aerion, however, observes much like the painted dragon coiled upon the ceiling. It is a comprehensive, unblinking scrutiny that strips the world to its bones, judging every flaw against some inaccessible, sovereign standard; and gods help you—that merciless judgment is intoxicating! Never in your life have you craved something safe the way you crave that dangerous scrutiny.
Across the table, Aerion is carving a cut of cold meat with his dagger, entirely unhurried, though his heavy gaze never wavers. At the corner of his eye rests a subtle crease. It appears when he is pleased in the particular way that thrills him. It graces his features when the Valyrian tongue rolls perfectly off your lips, or when you match his temper without retreating. It appeared the first night, in the dark, when you had stopped performing the careful deference of a well-raised noblewoman and had been simply, entirely present instead.
The look appeared just as the sweet fruit was swallowed—a heavy frown of focus as his gaze dropped to the plum juice lingering on your lips. It painted a mark he looked seconds away from tasting.
Anticipation was a familiar ache by now. You knew what came next, learned in the stifled heat of these stolen mornings and in the press of his body against yours. Then his hand rose to the loose collar of the borrowed shift. Grazing the material with unhurried, possessive certainty, his touch made the air hum against your skin. Aerion pulled it down carefully, the shift sliding over your shoulders and pooling at your waist before you shrugged it off entirely, letting it fall away.
Resistance had long since become a hollow gesture, one that served only to heighten the tension coiling in your belly.
His eyes dropped to your body then, tracing the bruises on your body. The livid blue on your shoulder bloomed under the morning light, a dark flower of pressure and color that he touched first, his thumb pressing into the center with just enough force to make you draw in a sharp breath, the sensation radiating outward like a pulse of heat through your veins.
It wasn't exactly pain—more a throbbing reminder of how he'd gripped you last night, his fingers digging in as he drove into you—but the way he watched your reaction, his lips curving into that same amused crease, made your skin flush with a mix of nausea and something deeper, a slick heat that pooled low in between your legs. You didn't flinch away; instead, your body arched slightly, unbidden, the soreness in your wrist surfacing as he shifts his touch there, tracing the faint purple rings where he'd pinned you down.
He presses harder, his thumb and forefinger squeezing just enough to elicit a soft gasp from you. He looks at you with unblinking regard, as if he were mapping every twitch and throb, every bead of sweat that gathered at the base of your neck. You feel it in the heavy throb of your cunt, the way your nipples harden under his stare, leaving you aching and exposed.
Aerion leans closer then, his breath warm against your skin as his other hand moves to the curve of your waist, where another bruise lay hidden, his fingers splaying over it.
"Your lord husband," he murmurs, his voice dropping into that saccharine-contemptuous drawl, "would weep if he could see you now, wouldn't he? All marked up like this, your pretty little cunt still dripping from me."
He says it not to hurt you—not in the way that implies anger nor jealousy—but as if the idea of Valarr’s devastation was a fine wine he savored on his tongue, his eyes gleaming with genuine delight at the thought. You could hear the truth in it, the way he relishes the contrast, and it twists in your gut, not as remorse but as an insistent heat that makes your thighs clench.
His words slithers over you, crude and unfiltered, painting pictures of Valarr's imagined grief—him kneeling in some shadowed hall, tears tracking down his face while you lay here, spread out and willing under Aerion's hands—and the vulgarity of it only made the ache between your legs more insistent, your cunt throbbing with a wetness that you couldn't ignore.
You don’t think of love; there was no room for it in this moment, only the physical weight of Aerion’s attention, the way his fingers now trailed lower, brushing over the soft swell of your tits, pinching one nipple hard enough to draw a low moan from your lips. The sound was guttural, escaping before you could swallow it.
His hand slides down to the juncture of your thighs where you were already slick, your folds swollen and sensitive from the night's exertions. Your legs are parted with a firm press of his knee, his fingers stroking your cunt with unhurried circular motions that made your hips buck involuntarily.
"Look at you," he says, his voice low and rough, "so fucking eager, even after I've wrecked you. He could never make you feel like this, could he? He'd fuck you gentle like the fragile thing you are, but we both know what you need."
His words were a taunt, laced with contempt, but they fuel the fire in your blood. The soreness from his cock pounding into you last night flaring up as he slides two fingers inside you, curling them deep to hit that spot that made your vision blur. You gasp, the intrusion stretching you, your cunt clenching around him in greedy pulses, and the wet sounds of his fingers working in and out filled the room, obscene and rhythmic.
Satisfied with your reaction, Aerion shifts closer, his other hand gripping your hip to hold you steady as he adds a third finger, thrusting them in with a slow, punishing rhythm that had you arching off the bed. Your breath comes in sharp, ragged bursts.
The fullness was overwhelming, your cunt stretching around him, the slick heat building until it was all you could feel—the pounding in your core, the way your clit throbbed under the heel of his palm as he ground against it.
"That's it," he growls, his voice dropping to a crude whisper, "take it like the greedy little slut you are. A dutiful wife by day, but my filthy whore in the dark."
The words were brutal, designed to degrade, yet they only stoked the fire. Your body responds with a surge of wetness that coats his fingers, making each thrust easier and deeper.
You could feel the sweat beading on your skin, the salt tang mixing with the remnants of plum juice on your lips, and your moans grew louder, unrestrained, as he works you harder, his thumb circling your clit.
There was no escaping the raw intensity of it, the way his cruelty bled into intoxicating pleasure, and you surrendered to it, your hands fisting in the sheets as the pressure built, coiling tighter in your belly until it threatened to shatter you.
His free hand moves to his own trousers then, pushing them down just enough to free his cock, already hard and thick, the head glistening with precum that he smears along your thigh.
"Look at this," he says, wrapping his hand around his shaft and pumping it once, twice, the vulgar display makes your mouth water despite the ache still lingering from how he'd fucked you before.
"This is what you crave, isn't it?" He positions himself between your legs, the tip of his cock pressing against your entrance, not entering yet, just teasing, making you whimper with need.
The heat of him was palpable, his balls heavy and full as they brush your ass, and when he finally thrusts in, it was with a force that steals your breath, his cock filling you to the hilt in one smooth stroke.
You cry out, your cunt clamps down around him as he sets a brutal rhythm, pounding into you with deep, grinding thrusts that hit every sensitive spot inside.
The room echoes with the wet slap of skin on skin, your moans mingling with his grunts, and you lose yourself in the sensation, the physical dominance of him overwhelming everything else.
He doesn’t let up, his hands bruising your hips as he drove deeper, faster, the cruelty of his words fading into the background as the pleasure built to a fever pitch, your body trembling on the edge of release.
The aftermath is a harsh return to the waking world, the heavy silence of the bedchamber broken only by the ragged tempo of your own breathing.
Tangled in the damp sheets, the cooling air felt like a sudden admonishment. Aerion had already abandoned the ruin of the bed, crossing to the low oak table where a platter of roasted game awaited.
"You are thinking of him." Rising to carve a thick slice of meat, Aerion keeps it for himself.
He chews slowly, his dark gaze pinned upon the bed, watching over the gleaming steel of his blade. He laid the carving knife down—aligning it perfectly parallel to the rim of the silver tray.
"I am thinking of the difference," you tremble. This is true and it is also, you realize as you say it, the most honest you have been with him—perhaps with anyone—in recent memory.
"There is no difference worth your contemplation." Reaching for a silver goblet of wine, he merely cradled it in his palm, making no move to drink. "Valarr is a painfully routine man."
He looks at the cup for a moment, rotating it in a single, slow turn. "He shall provide you with a routine life. Heirs, courtly affairs, and the grinding machinery of duty executed to the letter, hour upon hour."
Lifting his chin, he locked onto his target with eyes terrifyingly certain.
"You shall grow old within it… performing."
"It is what you were doing when first I saw you across the feast table. You played the entirety of that first day with an admirable, sickening rigor." A heavy pause descended into the room. "Tell me—does he know how thoroughly you have studied the art of appearing satisfied?"
Gripping the rumpled edge of the bedsheet, there was nowhere to hide from that penetrating stare. Meeting it took every ounce of your remaining pride.
"And now..?" came your whispered challenge. "What is it you see now?"
He weighed the question, his gaze raking over the messy, bruised reality of what he had left in his bed.
"Now," Aerion murmured softly, "you perform nothing at all."
The balcony of the east guest wing looks out over the lower gardens of Summerhall, and beyond them, over the long, pale brown expanse of the Dornish Marches stretching to the horizon.
Early morning in the Marches possesses a ruthless sort of beauty. Beyond the balcony, summer has bled the scrubland into a bruised canvas of tawny golds and parched greens, beneath a sky already shimmering with a white-hot, oppressive heat. The land is flat and enormous and it goes on to the edge of visibility with a kind of indifference to human habitation, to the summer castle set upon it with its painted ceilings and its peacocks and its careful aesthetic program of royal enjoyment. The Marches do not care about Summerhall. They simply continue.
You are standing at the balcony railing with your hands on the warm stone, the sun already heavy on your upturned face. Draped over your shoulders is his silk shift—a men's garment too wide at the shoulders that smells faintly of cedar. Heat rises through the soles of your bare feet planted on the flagstones. In the dry heat of the Marches, your unbound hair catches in the arid wind, drifting aimlessly, while your hand rests on the balustrade and the other hangs loose at your side.
Aerion is behind you, somewhere in the shadowed room. You can hear him dressing without looking back.
You look out at the land.
The High Valyrian phrase arrives in your head with the casualness of a thing you have known for a long time, which you have: Bantio syt ñellyr, ñāqeso syt nopon. Your governess—a woman from Old Volantis, thin-fingered and precise in her pedagogy—had drilled the words into your twelve-year-old mind, preaching it as a proverb from the glory days of the Freehold, long before the Doom.
Back then, you had taken it as a stern, unimaginative lecture on the value of present diligence. You understand it differently now, standing bathed in the summer heat, in a lover's silk and the echoes of a dead language, the past week lies behind you—leaving every single door flung recklessly open in your wake.
Flesh for the night, grave for the morrow.
How clean the language feels on your tongue… High Valyrian never softens the blow with pretty sentiment. It states the fact—the living moment is always teetering on the absolute precipice of its own destruction. You respect this about the language. Perhaps that was why the old Volantene woman had always looked so apprehensive when you conjugated those ancient verbs perfectly. She must have known, even then, that a talent for wielding truths could be turned toward things far more dangerous
Parting your lips, you offer the dead words to the living sky.
"Bantio syt ñellyr, ñāqeso syt nopon."
The words fall into the blistering air, snatched by the dry wind until they are utterly gone.
You know what this week is. By the second night, any pretense of an accident or a fleeting loss of control had evaporated—it is an undoing willfully chosen and re-chosen with every sunrise. You are the wife of an heir to the Iron Throne. Yet for seven days, the bed you have occupied belongs to a Prince of the Blood. Here is a man exiled from court for staggering cruelties, and welcomed back simply because his father demanded such—and because the King lacks the political spine to excise the rot from his own grandson.
Aerion Targaryen. He was the Prince Who Thought He Was a Dragon, yet his inner fire brought only cold terror to those of his own blood. His younger brother, Aegon, has told you how his pet cat vanished into the damp dark of a well; that Aerion had watched the water swallow the small, struggling creature. To Aerion, his brother’s terror was nothing more than a plaything, a soft thing to be broken by his whims.
He was a man who had a stablemaster beaten to a pulp on his word alone. There was no documented offense, no witness to recount the slight; there was only Aerion's word, and Aerion's word in any household is supreme and final.
You know all of this.
Every grisly detail of it was known to you long before that very first night.
You look out at the Marches and you think about what a death sentence feels like, and you discover it feels like the sun on your face and cedar resin in your lungs and a bruise at your shoulder—the one currently being pressed, fractionally, against the edge of the balcony railing just to coax out a wince. The pressure is a highly useful, intoxicating reminder of the prior evening.
Hardly the inventory of a sane woman, admittedly.
You take it anyway.
Aerion joins you at the railing. He is dressed—properly dressed, in a light linen shirt and trousers appropriate for the heat. His pale hair is swept back, though the arid breeze is already teasing strands loose from the discipline of the comb. He comes to stand beside you at the railing, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
"You said something,” he remarks.
"It is nothing but an old Valyrian proverb," you answer.
"I heard it." He is quiet for a long moment. "Say it again."
The words feel like smooth stones in your mouth.
"Bantio syt ñellyr, ñāqeso syt nopon."
He does not turn. His profile is a jagged silhouette against the bleached white sky—the uncompromising line of his nose, the arrogant tilt of his chin. In this light, his face is simply what it is: extraordinary, and harder than the carved stone of the balcony railing, and without the softness that the common understanding of beauty tends to prefer.
"That is accurate," he says.
"Does it disturb you?"
"I am never disturbed by accurate statements." He finally turns his head, his violet eyes locking onto yours. "Are you?"
The question requires a certain gravity, and you consider this with the seriousness it deserves. "No," you say at last. "I am disturbed by inaccurate ones and I have been living with several for quite some time…"
He moves then, turning from the railing to face you fully. You mirror him, two figures standing dangerously close on the scorching stone with the Marches behind you and the castle at your backs. His hand moves to your face, fingers find the hinge of your jaw with a grip that demands your gaze, tipping your head back.
You let your face be held.
"You are not what your prince believes you to be," he says as a statement of fact. "He believes you loyal."
"I have been loyal," you reply, keeping your voice steady. "For three years, I have been nothing but loyal."
"Yes," Aerion concedes. "You may have." There is no admiration in the word, nor is there contempt "And you have been bored. You have been correct, and you have been impeccable in your performance, and you have allowed his gratitude to slowly extinguish you."
"That is not a kind observation."
His thumb shifts, pressing harder against the bone of your jaw.
"I have been aching," he says—and the word aching is incongruous in his mouth and it is more unsettling than anything he has said this week—"to take you from him."
His gaze remains anchored, scouring every line of your expression as he speaks.
"Not because of what you represent as his consort, nor simply for the drama of the theft—though I confess, it has always called to me when the audience is my dear, dull cousin. There is a certain poetry in taking from him," he pauses. "But because you are the only thing he possesses that he did not receive through the accident of his birth. Everything else he owns—his standing, his title, his future throne—fell into his lap by the mere accident of his father's seed."
His hand is still at your jaw.
"You he chose," he continues, his voice dropping into a low rasp. "He had the standing to acquire you, and so he did, and he has spent every moment since being insufferably grateful in that solemn, gracious way of his. He prizes you."
"He spoke of it at that first dinner, ensuring every soul present understood the staggering quality of his contentment."
Silence stretches between you, heavy and thick with the scent of dust and impending rain.
"My nature is such," Aerion says, "that I am constitutionally incapable of leaving a prize in another man's keeping. It gnaws at me to see a spectacle of my cousin handling something so far beyond his meager understanding."
A hot, restless wind snakes between you, tugging at your hair.
"...that is an honest answer," you manage to say, your own voice sounding foreign.
"I told you I would be honest with you," he reminds you. He had. It had been his first declaration—before the night had been what it became. He had stood by the window of the shared sitting room while your husband was occupied elsewhere, standing with a glass of wine and his back to the room and his face to the gardens, and Aerion had said it as a kind of preemptory declaration: I shall be honest with you, because the alternative would bore me. You had stayed in the room when you could have left it. That was your first choosing.
"And the other part?" you ask.
He looks at you for a long time. The hand at your jaw does not move.
"You know what I am," he says.
"Tell me what you mean by it," you say.
Aerion does not answer immediately. He is considering—genuinely considering, which is rare for him in your limited experience. He looks at the marks he can see on your shoulder, above the collar of the borrowed silk shift, the bruise that has gone twilight-purple at its edges.
"You are equal in blood," he says. "Equal in the understanding that the world is a set of facts to be managed, not a set of sentiments to be indulged. You are the only person in this castle—in this court, perhaps in this kingdom—who has looked at me without the veil of pretty delusions and without fear wearing the mask of composure."
Your heart hammers a frantic rhythm against your ribs as you look at him.
"...I know the ruin you bring," You say softly.
"Indeed," he agrees, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw. "And that ruin is the only thing that has ever truly woken you.”
The words hang in the air between you. It is a confession stripped of warmth, but it was the closest his jagged heart will ever get to what ordinary men call love.
Reaching out, your fingers find the fabric of his shirt, pressing against the marks your own nails left in his flesh just hours before. He does not flinch, nor does he move to break the contact.
"Valarr is coming back today," you say, the reality of the court closing back in.
"Yes," he says. "So he does."
The horns come from the west.
Its brassy cry shatters the silence of the third hour past midday. They arrive at the third hour past midday, when the sun has claimed its full authority over the March landscape and the gardens of Summerhall lie heat-stunned and brilliant below the balcony where you have been standing, on and off, through the long morning. Two long blasts and one short, the standard signal of a returning royal party. The call slips through the open window to mingle with the dry heat of the room.
You are standing at the window when they sound. Aerion is at the table, reading; and even as the signal of his kinsman’s return vibrates in the air, his silver-gold head does not lift.
At the table behind you, Aerion remains entirely unmoved. A servant—the one that accompanied the morning’s breakfast tray—had brought him a book earlier. His long fingers lazily trace the edge of the parchment. The blaring of the horns doesn't so much as warrant a flicker of his violet eyes; the world outside his immediate interest simply ceases to exist.
"That will be the western gate," escapes your lips, the words tasting faintly of ash.
"Yes." A dry rustle of paper is his only other reply.
You stand at the window and you look out, though you cannot see the western approach from this vantage—seeing the procession would require a walk down the corridor to the gallery, or a descent into the main courtyard. Because of this, the reality of the horns remains agonizingly abstract. You know the hunting party is out there, loud with horses and hounds, boastful with trophies and fellowship; and at the head of it all rides your husband. He will be present, checking on the welfare of the men sweltering in their leathers, ensuring the hounds are watered. He is so hopelessly, wonderfully good.
That goodness twists like a dagger in your gut when you think of what he is returning to. What would Valarr do when the truth finally caught up to him? Unlike the man sitting at the table behind you, your husband is not prone to fiery, destructive rages; if he discovered his wife had spent the last seven days burning in the bed of his cousin, he wouldn't set the castle alight. He would simply break. You can almost picture those earnest, trusting eyes clouding with a quiet, devastating grief as he grappled with a betrayal profound enough to shatter the honorable foundation he built his life upon. Worse still, Valarr’s nature dictates that he would search for a way to blame himself for your wandering heart. The sheer cruelty of what you have done threatens to choke the air from your lungs.
A frantic arithmetic begins playing out in your mind.
The western gate is perhaps four hundred yards from the main house, and from the inner courtyard to your private apartments takes several minutes more. Fortunately, knowing Valarr’s predictable courtesy, he will not rush straight to your chambers. He is thorough and considerate in his transitions. First, he will hand off his horse, speak to the stablemaster, greet whatever members of the court have assembled to receive the party, and exchange words with the household steward about the evening arrangements. Thirty, perhaps forty minutes remain before he opens the door to the rooms you share.
You have been absent from those rooms for seven days. The court is not blind, and the ladies of the royal party have spent the last seven days noting your absence from the morning meals, the afternoon sewing circles, and the evening garden walks. Valarr does not know yet. But soon, whether through a servant's nervous report or a lady's poisoned pity, the truth will be dripped into his ear.
He will know it, at some point, in some form.
Aerion turns another page. Without raising his eyes from the text, he says, "He will speak to the stewards before he comes to your rooms. He considers it a point of courtesy to the household." His tone carries no heat and no interest. It is the tone of a man relaying the contents of a document he finds mildly beneath his attention. "Even as a boy, Valarr was so tediously burdened by the feelings of servants. It makes him tragically slow."
"How long..?"
Finally, he looks up from the book. Aerion pins you with a paralyzing stare. "Long enough."
Eight inches. That is the approximate distance between your lips and his.
You know this because you have been standing in the center of the room for three minutes utterly motionless, and he has been watching you from his chair. Neither of you has spoken. Three years as a dutiful, courtly wife and seven days as a creature utterly ruined have formed in your mind the ability to hold competing truths without collapsing into madness. How easily one life bleeds into the next, crosses your mind as you watch him watch you from the comfort of his high-backed chair.
The western gate is a few hundred yards from the main house.
The main house's southern corridor, which leads to the private apartments, is approximately another hundred long.
Aerion's guest wing is at the eastern end of the private apartments, separated from the marital suite assigned to you and your husband by the length of a corridor, two antechambers, and a set of carved doors through which you have not walked since the second night of the retreat.
Exactly thirty minutes remain.
Every passing moment is a finite quantity of stolen opportunity, bleeding out into the ether at a rate of one minute per minute.
Eight inches.
Yet your feet remain rooted to the woven rug, pointed entirely away from the corridor. Meeting Aerion’s gaze, there is a knowing amusement in his expression but he makes no move forward. His hands remain open, resting casually on the arms of his chair, because the act of surrender must be yours alone. To him, the prize is only worth taking if the prize begs to be taken. Cruel, beautiful bastard, your mind whispers. This twisted psychological warfare feels far more intimate than the illicit week of nights behind you. The choice was yours to make.
So the eight inches are crossed.
You take his face in your hands—both hands. Standing over him offers an intoxicating novelty and the sudden shift in power registers in your blood as heat. His hands come up to your waist and they do not gentle themselves, which you expected and for which you are grateful, because you need the sharpness of this moment. You need it to have edges.
You pull him to his feet by his collar.
"Careful," Aerion murmurs, a low, gravelly hum that vibrates through your wrists. "You’ll tear it."
He lets himself be pulled upward. The book tumbles from his lap, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
The illusion of submission shatters as his sheer size overtakes the space. Towering over your frame by a head and more, he forces your chin up, your arms drawn taut as the bunched fabric in your fists becomes a set of reins impossible to control. His hands find your waist the instant he's fully upright, fingers digging into the soft flesh just above your hips.
The heat of his palms seeps through the thin fabric of the shift you're wearing—his shift, still carrying the faint scent of sweat from the night before—and it radiates outward. A possessive burn travels down your thighs, pooling low in your belly, causing your breath to snag in the dry air of the chamber.
Faintly, through the open windows, the distant blast of hunting horns echoes from the wood.
But Aerion does not rush, even with the horns fading in the distance. If anything, the urgency of that sound only sharpens his resolve to ignore it. Let them come, a dizzying recklessness takes hold of your senses. Let the whole damned world burn outside this door.
His hands slide up your sides, thumbs tracing the curve of your ribs through the fabric. The weight of his unblinking stare strips away whatever courtly pretense remains, pulling a violent shiver from your spine despite the relentless afternoon heat.
Prickles of anticipation break across your skin as his fingers curl around the hem of the oversized shift, tugging it upward.
The fabric rasps against your skin as it rises, exposing your thighs first, then your hips, the cool air of the room brushing against the dampness between your legs—a wetness that's already building, your cunt throbbing with the anticipation.
He watches your reaction, and when he finally leans in, his mouth meets yours. Lips parting under his ruthless possession, his tongue thrusts deep and demanding.
The kiss deepens, and you can feel the hard line of his cock pressing against your belly through his trousers, already stiff and insistent, the bulge thick as he grinds it slowly against you in a rhythm that matches the steady beat of your heart.
Aerion breaks away just enough to speak, his breath hot against your lips.
"My cousin thinks he holds you," he says, voice low and even, like he's stating the inevitable turn of the seasons, no trace of mockery or sugar-coated disdain. "But he's been grasping at air for seven days, hasn't he? All that careful affection—smoke, dissolving in the heat of what's real."
His hand moves then, sliding down to cup your ass, fingers squeezing with that same possessive grip, pulling you harder against him so you can feel every inch of his erection, the way it throbs through the fabric, demanding to be noticed.
The words hit you as a confirmation, a stark recognition that slices through the haze; he's right, and you've known it all along, chosen it with every breath in this room, every mark he's left on your skin.
It's not guilt that flares in your chest but a fierce, clarifying heat, your cunt clenching at the truth of it, at the way his declaration mirrors the ache building inside you, making you wetter, your slickness starting to soak through the shift as you press closer, your hands fumbling at the laces of his trousers, needing to feel him bare.
He lets you undo them, his hands steady on your body as you work, but he doesn't hurry the process; instead, he turns you slightly, guiding you back toward the edge of the bed with that same deliberate slowness, as if the horns' call is nothing more than a distant irritant, beneath his notice.
When his trousers finally fall open, his cock springs free, thick and heavy, the head already glistening with precum that beads at the tip.
You wrap your hand around it instinctively, feeling the hot, velvety skin stretched over the rigid length, your fingers barely meeting as you stroke him once, twice, the motion drawing a low, approving hum from his throat.
He doesn't thrust into your grip; he lets you feel the weight of it, the way it pulses in your palm before he pushes the shift up and over your head entirely, leaving you naked under the golden light filtering through the curtains.
His eyes rake over you then, taking in the bruises and the sweat-slicked sheen of your skin, and without another word, he lowers you onto the bed, his body following yours down, pinning you with his weight.
His cock presses against your thigh and when he shifts his weight to align himself at your entrance, it's with excruciating slowness, the head of his cock nudging against your soaked folds, teasing the sensitive flesh without fully breaching you.
You're aching for it, your cunt throbbing with need, the wetness dripping down to your ass as he holds back, making you wait, his breath steady against your neck as if to prove he controls even this.
Finally, he thrusts in, but not with the frantic urgency you might expect. His cock fills you inch by inch, stretching your cunt around his thickness until you're gasping, the sensation a burning mix of fullness and friction that makes your walls clench greedily around him.
He doesn't start slow. Each stroke long and powerful, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in, the wet slap of skin echoing in the room as your juices coat him, making every thrust smoother and filthier.
A second volley of horns bleeds through the heavy stone walls—distant, yet loud enough to announce that the riding party has reached the inner gates. The sound drifts into the bedchamber, washing over the tangled linens. Your mind shuts it away.
Out there, breathing the dust of the road, is the man you married. To dwell on him is to invite the grayscale back into your life. He represents an even, steady warmth, and a patient regard that has defined three years of perfectly measured, entirely bloodless contentment.
A good, safe man, you remind yourself, though the thought tastes horribly like ash on your tongue. Eventually, of course, that is the life you will resume. For rebellion is only a temporary indulgence for women of your station, and the ironclad laws of blood and highborn obligation will always come to collect. A grim understanding of what the realm demands will drag you back to his side, and you know this surrender is already etched deep into your marrow.
You know you will return.
But you are here, now, on the eastern side of the heavy carved doors, the world dissolved into the stifling, the amber heat of Summerhall's deepest afternoon.
"Are you listening to the horns, sweetling?" Aerion murmurs, his breath a sudden, scorching ghost against your collarbone. His eyes, bright and volatile as wildfire, dare you to pull away or show even a sliver of regret. A cruel smile plays on his lips. "Let him blow his horns. A dragon does not concern himself with the bleating of sheep."
Perhaps not, you think, your fingers twisting into the damp, silver-gold silk of his hair, but the sheep's wife certainly might. Still, the cynical retort goes unspoken. Let the dutiful wife stay dead for just a few hours more.
There is no need for sundials in this blazing little purgatory with Aerion above you; time has simply ceased to matter.
Stepping back onto the balcony, you find the world has shifted.
The sun sits lower now, stripped of its midday tyranny, its colors bleeding toward the west where the hunting party has already vanished through Summerhall’s gate. The Marches in this light are amber and ochre and a dark, almost wine-colored red at the horizon where the dust of the day has caught and held the declining sun.
Standing at the railing, the warm breeze presses the fabric of his oversized shift against your thighs. Your hair hangs loose, heavy and unpinned, while the sun-baked stone scorches the bare soles of your feet. This marble has hoarded the day's heat and will stubbornly refuse to relinquish it until well past midnight, if it does at all. At your shoulder throbs a dark, blooming bruise. Hours ago, you pressed your own fingers into it, deliberately coaxing the ache, and now it is a fixed presence on your body.
You look out at the Marches.
Down in the lower gardens, a lone figure moves along the manicured gravel paths. There is no need to discern his features from this height; that deliberate, unhurried stride and streak of white hair betrays him instantly. His head is tilted in that habitual posture of his. He has the bearing of a man who is forever making room for the world around him. He still wears the same dusty riding jacket he departed in five days ago, its fabric creased and stained with the reality of a week's camp in the Marches.
Predictable to his very bones, he has not changed. He would have ridden through the gates, spoken a gentle word to the steward, and sought out your chambers. Finding them empty—exactly as you had thought he would—he has retreated to the gardens. Because he is who he is, you think, watching him. A quiet stroll among the roses is what a good man does with his wife's absences.
Pacing the gravel with his hands clasped firmly behind his back, he studies the flower beds in oblivious solitude.
He has not looked up.
You stand at the railing and you look down at your husband. Your husband whose kindness is genuine and unfailingly consistent. Whose warmth he shares with equity to every lord and servant within his sphere.
He is a good man.
You look at him for a long time.
Behind you, Aerion is lounging somewhere in that velvet dark. You do not need to look over your shoulder to know exactly where he rests.
"He paces like a penned," his voice slithers out from the gloom. You can hear the smirk twisting his mouth. "Shall I call down to him? Ask my dear cousin if he enjoyed his time in the mud?"
You do not turn around. You can feel the heavy, suffocating quality of his attention pressing against your spine.
"Leave him," you murmur, though the words lack any real venom.
Down below, your husband’s pacing ceases. He stands motionless on the pale gravel.
Then, he looks up.
He finds you immediately—directly, as though he knew the angle, as though he had looked at this particular balcony on purpose, with a destination in mind. The distance is considerable, and the dying sun glares directly into his eyes while casting you in silhouette. Yet, you are standing in a man's shift with your hair wildly undone in the middle of the afternoon. None of this paints a picture he does not already possess some silent, unvoiced awareness of. Your prince is a good man, after all, not a blind one.
He looks at you.
You look at him.
Between the two of you, the gardens remain indifferent. Peacocks drag their iridescent tails across the paths, pacing with the oblivious, mechanical elegance of creatures bred only to be looked at. The central fountain babbles its continuous, cool song, a mocking soundtrack to the stillness of the afternoon. And beyond it all, the Marches stretch out in their vast, indifferent amber.
From this height, his face is a blurred oval, its finer lines illegible.
But you do not need to see his eyes to know the expression they hold. You know the way he processes information he does not want—the compression of his jaw, his grief wearing the costume of composure. You know this face. You have lain beside it for three years, in public and in private, in the morning and in the dark.
He looks at you for a long time.
Then he looks away.
His gaze drops back to the gravel. He unclenches his hands from behind his back and places them at his sides, and he begins to walk again along the gravel, at the same unhurried pace, with the same attentive tilt of the head. He walks as though he has simply been admiring the flora all along. As though that agonizing upward glance was entirely ordinary. As though it contained nothing.
A bitter, rueful smile touches your lips. There it is. This is what your prince does with facts he finds inconvenient.
He gives them more flattering shapes.
Long after your husband breaks eye contact and disappears down the garden path, the stone railing remains warm beneath your palms.
The sun continues its descent toward the horizon. The Marches go darker gold, then ochre, then the deep wine-red you had watched them approach. Peacocks shriek their twilight complaints as they retire to hidden corners of the gardens, while the fountain babbles on. Far below, your husband has turned the corner of the path and is gone from your sight, absorbed back into the belly of the castle and the machinery of the day—the feasts, the endless social pleasantries, the steady, metronomic rhythm of a life conducted with suffocating virtue.
He knows. He looked right at you, his eyes catching the truth, and he deliberately chose blindness. But feigned ignorance is a fragile shield in a world governed by vultures. Summerhall is built on whispers, and a prince’s averted gaze cannot hold back the tide of court politics forever. Eventually, the dark will spit this secret out into the harsh daylight. The realm will demand a sinner, and it will be your absolute undoing.
You stand at the railing and you think about what you are choosing. There is no desire to dress this treason in comfortable, poetic garments: not passion, nor a temporary madness, nor the romantic tribulations of a neglected woman.
You are choosing Aerion Targaryen. You are choosing the bruises and the cruelty and the narcissism and the blade with the fruit on it and the quality of attention that is violent in its concentration. Who has told you, stripping away all chivalric nonsense, that he has taken you from your prince not for anything so pedestrian as love, but for the greedy, singular satisfaction of possessing the only thing his cousin prizes unconditionally. Who would not hesitate—not for a breath, not for a prayer—to destroy every comfortable and considered thing your husband has built around you, if the destruction served his appetite for a given moment. And when the truth inevitably breaches the walls of your husband's willful deafness, a prince of the blood will not take the fall. It will be your head on the block.
Bantio syt ñellyr, ñāqeso syt nopon.
You turn from the railing.
Aerion is still in the room, in the shadows. He has not moved—he is at the far wall, in the angle where the fading light does not reach, and he is watching you with that full-weight regard. His shirt is open at the collar and the marks on his chest are in shadow but you know the exact position of them. His face in the shadow is the face he has when no one is watching: the hard, sharp structure of it, the pale eyes, the complete and unperformed absence of any social masks he wears in public.
You cross the room.
Crossing the distance between you makes you aware of every element of the space around you and the sheer weight of the doom you are inviting. You carry the awareness of your husband's deliberate absence, the intoxicating poison of the last seven days, and the absolute certainty of the reckoning that waits at the end of this road. You do not shed a single ounce of this dread, because a choice made in ignorance is merely a mistake. This is a treason committed with open eyes, possessing the dark dignity of a true choosing.
When you offer your hand, his fingers close around yours with a warden's grip. His thumb drags across your knuckles, a slow, abrasive friction.
"He saw," Aerion says, his voice low and scraping.
"He did," was all you could reply.
He looks at you for another moment, hand tight around yours. "And?"
Meeting that pale, shadow-darkened gaze, you hold the entirety of the inevitable fallout in your mind. The whispers, the trial, the disgrace, the cold stone of a black cell, and the final swing of the executioner's blade.
"And he will continue to look away, until the day the realm forces him to see," you say, your voice perfectly steady. "Until then, it means nothing."
Aerion turns the statement over in his mind, picking at the seams of your composure, hunting for the fragile, terrified prey he so loves to break. But there is no prey here tonight. Only a mirror to his own consuming fire.
A faint crease of amusement appears at the corners of his eyes. He forces your hand over, exposing the pale skin of your wrist. His thumb finds the dark, blooming bruise where he had constrained you earlier, pressing directly into the center of the ache. He watches your pupils dilate, reading the pain in your face with satisfaction.
"Then you stay," he says. It is not a question.
"I stay."
Outside, the sun finally surrenders Summerhall to the night, dragging the Marches into complete darkness. Standing in the shadows of King Daeron II's summer castle, your hand locked in the grip of a man who believes he breathes fire, there is only a serene, terrifying clarity. You have weighed the cost of your soul, dimensions of the tragedy that will destroy your life, and willingly stepped into the inferno.
The doom is certain.
But until the flames finally consume you, the grave will keep.
Summerhall, in the years to come, will be spoken of in the histories as a place of beauty and catastrophe—a castle built for joy that became a site of ash. There are scholars who will note the irony of this. There are women who will understand, reading the accounts, that certain choices have always smelled of cedar and a summer afternoon. That certain choices are made with perfect clarity, in the full light of their own consequences, and are made anyway. Not despite what they cost. Because of what they are.
dear kat, i am on my knees begging, please, please, please, more DM verse freak4freak, cunt4cunt, ls x aerion, i need her to outmatch his freak so bad. i need to know how he'd react if she's the one being freaky on main unprompted. please and thank you <333
⊹ ࣪ ˖ pairing: aerion targaryen x f!stark!reader
⊹ ࣪ ˖ wc: 2.6k
⊹ ࣪ ˖ notes/content: stark!reader, smut (p in v), sub!bratty!aerion until he isn't, biting/marking/practically primal & blood play tbf, freak4freak rough sex (they're both grossly into it!), praising, finger sucking (and lots of it!), jealousy, mentions of past you && daeron, possessiveness, unhinged aerion (water wet), but kinda soft!aerion too if you squint, he's obsessed with you in ways that are concerning to humanity! Anyway, hormones won, here's some smut, enjoy!
devour me verse.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Aerion is already inside the room when you enter, leaning against the stone mantel with that dangerous, lazy grace he wears like a second skin. His silver hair glows in the warm heat of the hearth as he angles his head towards your voice. The severe cut sharpens the cruel elegance of his face, making the violet eyes look even brighter while they flick up and down your body unhurriedly. He wears only a loose black tunic, unlaced to the sternum, and breeches of dark wool, one boot propped against the hearthstones as if he owns the room.
He doesn’t. It’s one of Winterfell’s oldest guest towers that serves as your private retreat when the royal party visits from the south. The walls are thick grey stone veined with frost, the air sharp with the scent of pine logs burning low in the hearth and the faint, clean bite of snow.
“Why not?” he drawls.
He watches you close the heavy oak door, lips curling into a sharp, goading smile that doesn’t quite hide the hunger beneath. You don’t grace him with a response right away, shedding your cloak and gloves. Aerion tracks every twitch of your body with predatory focus, his hunger like a hand around your throat.
“Well?” he repeats, voice low and mocking, the words edged with challenge. “You dragged me all the way to this frozen pile of stone just to stare at me? Or are you finally going to do something about that pretty little itch between your legs that Daeron never could scratch?”
You consider striking him, if only to shut him up. You’ve done so before, your hand still remembers the shape of his face, the burn after, the satisfaction. Instead, you loosen the strings of your gown silently, ignoring him as you do so. Something in the air shifts as you shed layers, warps, growing heavier by the moment.
From the corner of your eye, Aerion’s head tilts, and you can almost hear the eye roll in his voice, “Ah, yes, the wolf’s growler. Give me the order to leave if my presence irks you so much. Or are you afraid I’ll bite the hand that tries to tame me?”
The heavy woollen dress you wear slips down your body, pooling at your feet, leaving you in nothing but a loose robe. You back curves as you straighten, and you hear the hitch in Aerion’s breathing behind you. You cross the room slowly, robe already slipping from one shoulder, and stop just out of arm’s reach. Your voice comes out low, icy around the edges.
“On your knees, Aerion.”
For one heartbeat, his violet eyes flash with pure, vicious amusement. He straightens, crossing his arms, that mocking smile widening into something almost hateful in its open delight. He expected much from this attempt to catch you off guard, sneak into your room in the dark, but it’s clear he didn’t expect this.
“Make me,” he dares softly, dangerously, eyes dragging down your form. His tongue absently slips against the spot where you bit his lip last time, the wound long since healed now, even if the heat of your last kiss clearly still haunts him. “Or are you going to stand there pretending you don’t want to see me bleed for you? Daeron would have dropped the moment you snapped your fingers. He’s pathetic like that. I want to hear you earn it.”
You step closer and push two fingers between his parted lips without warning, and slide them deep. “Open for me.”
His eyes widen, then narrow into slits. For a moment, you see him considering something violent, something that would draw blood. He could close his teeth, could draw blood, could flip this entire game in a heartbeat, but instead, Aerion obeys with vicious enthusiasm, because it’s you. Because there's something sick in him that can't quite resist this dance between you.
His mouth closes hot and wet around your fingers, tongue swirling greedily, cheeks hollowing as he sucks them deeper. The obscene, wet sounds fill the solar: soft, filthy pulls, the faint click of his tongue against your knuckles, a low growl vibrating up from his chest that makes your cunt throb. He stares up at you the entire time, violet eyes burning, daring you even as he hollows his cheeks harder, saliva and the faint copper of his earlier self-inflicted cut coating your fingers and dripping down his chin in thin, glistening strands.
You let him suck for a long moment, watching the way his throat works convulsively, the way his cock strains visibly against his breeches, already leaking a dark wet spot through the wool. Then you pull your fingers free with a wet pop, strings of spit connecting them to his swollen lips, and smear the mess across his sharp cheekbone. Aerion’s mouth stays parted as he watches you, his stare glazed while you pop your wet fingers in your own mouth and suck on them. The taste of him explodes across your tongue. Aerion hisses a furious breath at the sight, his hand snapping out to grab your nape, burning fingers sinking deep into the flesh as he jerks you to him, your foreheads almost knocking together.
Releasing your fingers, you lick your mouth, and tilt your chin, “On your knees. Now.”
He laughs—low, vicious, practically silk—because you didn’t hesitate, because you’re matching him and pushing further than he ever thought you’ll allow. He might never get a chance like this again, and he doesn’t waste it. With deliberate, near-theatrical slowness, Aerion sinks to his knees on the white-bear fur, eyes never leaving yours, the challenge still flickering in his gaze even as his chest rises and falls faster.
“Happy now, wolf?” he murmurs mockingly, but his voice comes out too breathy, too starved. “Or do you need me to beg prettier?”
You stand over him, robe already slipping from one shoulder, and look down at the vicious, silver-haired prince on his knees for you. Your voice comes out and rings through the room with far more steadiness than his. “Open your mouth.”
Aerion’s head snaps up. He still thinks you’ll falter, that the wolf will hesitate at the edge of the abyss he has always dared you to cross and fall into with him, consequences be damned. His lips curl into a sharp, mocking half-smile, tongue darting out to wet them again like he can still taste your fingers there.
“You think you can give what I take?” he murmurs, his voice taunting, the words edged with something almost hateful. “Careful, pretty wolf. I bite back. Daeron never could have handled you like this. He no doubt knelt and begged for scraps. I was the one who always wanted to devour you whole, exactly as you are.”
You don’t falter.
You step closer, push two fingers back between his parted lips, and slide them deep, deeper than earlier, pressing on the warm, fleshy pulp of his tongue. “Then swallow your pride and suck. Daeron had no problems showing me how badly he needed me, and he earned me, which is more than you can say.”
His eyes widen, then narrow when realisation sinks in. You see the hatred burning there, coiling like snake, the need to step out of the visual you presented him with. That his drunken, fool of a brother got what Aerion craved for so long, that Daeron had you, and you gave yourself to him willingly.
This time, Aerion doesn’t hold back, doesn’t entertain you with goading little licks. He sucks your fingers down until you’re practically hitting the back of his throat, his hand wrapped around your wrist to keep you in place. You think, stupidly and wildly, that he means to swallow you whole. That now that you’ve given him another taste, he will eat you alive. But he doesn’t. He sucks, the wet heat of his tongue curling around your digits in masterful, lazy curls.
“Strip,” you order, your voice husky, pulling your fingers back, “And keep your mouth open. I want to hear how much you hate that I’m right about your brother.”
Aerion tongues his bottom lip, his breath heavy, but his hands move fast, tearing the tunic over his head, shoving the breeches down his hips until his cock springs free, erect and already flushed dark. He kicks the fabric aside and returns to his knees, chest heaving, his head angled in open challenge that says what now?
You drop to your knees in front of him without a word, and for a split second, his expression cracks, like he didn’t expect this closeness, for you to meet him as equals, forever expecting a fight instead. You cup his face with both hands, that devilishly handsome face, and Aerion’s long lashes flutter at the contact.
You use the lowering of his guard to lean close and kiss him hard. Teeth clashing, tongues sliding against each other, the taste of blood and spit mixing with raw want, flooding both your mouths. Aerion’s hand grabs the back of your head, unwilling to let you go as he threads his fingers through your hair with a low, pleased growl. He kisses you like you’re his last meal, and he intends to savour every last brush of your lips, eat you alive one nibble at a time. There’s no shyness in the kiss, no uncertainty, only animal hunger, and despite your best attempts to remain unaffected, the steadily building ache between your thighs pulses for him, urging you on.
When you finally pull back, you whisper against his lips, voice heady with heat, “You’re already dripping for me, Aerion.”
His answer is a snarl, his fingers sinking against the back of your head, teeth bared. “Then make me bleed for it, wolf. Or I’ll remind you exactly why Daeron never stood a chance.”
You push him onto his back on the white-bear fur. The silver strands practically blend into the thick pelt beneath him. You straddle his chest and rake your nails down his torso—hard, possessive, leaving eight perfect red lines that bead instantly. Aerion bows beneath you, spine arching clean off the fur, a harsh, vicious hiss escaping between clenched teeth. You lean down and lick each scratch with slow, thorough strokes of your tongue, sucking dark bruises into the pale skin between the lines until Aerion’s breathing turns ragged and his hips jerk helplessly beneath you, cock twitching against your thigh.
You slide lower, grasping him with one hand. Aerion snarls, leaning into the firmness of your grip like he’s chasing the edge of pain beneath the pleasure. His length sits heavy and flushed in your palm, pulsing against the heel of your palm, the tip already glistening. His fingers claw at your hips impatiently, and you can’t tell if he’s urging you on, or trying to tear your cloak and finally bare you to him. You don’t give him the satisfaction of succeeding, instead sinking down onto him in one slow, owning glide. The stretch burns beautifully; every inch of him fills you until your hips are flush, and Aerion is buried to the hilt. He groans—low, broken, pride cracking as his head angles back—as your walls clench around him, slick heat swallowing him whole.
There’s no patience in you for anything gentle; neither of you has ever been good at that, anyway, at anything other than bloody, raw need. You ride Aerion slow and deep, one hand braced on his scratched chest, the other feeding him your fingers again. He sucks them greedily, tongue swirling, moaning around them while you grind down harder, rolling your hips so the head of his cock drags relentlessly against that perfect spot inside you. His eyes never leave yours—wild, glassy, so dark you can see him memorising everything, every inch of you, every sensation.
Then you lean in close, voice a soft, goading purr against his ear, “Daeron could never fuck me like this. Never make me this wet. Never make me want to ruin him the way I ruin you. Say it. Tell me how much better you are. Or are you still jealous that I let him try first?”
The words hit like dragonfire.
A low, feral growl tears from Aerion’s throat around your fingers. In one sudden, fluid motion, he surges upward, flipping you beneath him on the white-bear fur, his body caging yours completely. He looms above you, eyes shining with something dark and dangerous, a type of animalistic gleam that’s usually preceded by his cruelty, by blood. He’s still inside you, still buried to the hilt, but now Aerion is the one setting the pace—deep, desperate, rutting thrusts that slam the head of his cock against your cervix with every stroke, hips snapping forward with bruising force that works a pleased moan out of your lips.
Aerion keeps your fingers in his mouth as he fucks you, sucking harder, tongue laving between them, teeth grazing the pads while his hips piston. Only when the need becomes too much does he release them with a wet pop, strings of spit connecting your fingers to his swollen lips. He bites your throat instead—hard, possessive, teeth sinking in until the skin breaks and blood wells hot against his tongue, making you squirm beneath him, fingers grabbing at the silky silver strands. He sucks the mark like a man dying of thirst, growling against your skin while his hips snap harder, the wet slap of flesh loud and obscene in the quiet tower room.
His hands pin your wrists above your head, fingers digging in as his thrusts turn erratic, cock swelling thicker inside you with every brutal stroke. He bites your shoulder next, harder, then your collarbone, then the soft swell of your breast, leaving dark, bleeding bruises that will darken by morning. Each mark is followed by a slow, reverent lick, as though he can’t decide whether to devour you or worship the wounds he leaves behind. Aerion’s hot breath burns against your skin, silver strands brushing your cheek as he buries his face in your neck, panting, biting, sucking, listening to your strangled moans.
“Daeron could never do this,” he rasps, voice raw, blood from his own lip and yours mixing on his chin. Your legs tighten around his waist, your insides clenching around him so tightly that Aerion closes his eyes, a snarl twisting his face at his attempt to control himself. He leans down to kiss you again, and again, tearing at the soft flesh of your bottom lip with his teeth. “Never make you shake like this. Never make you bleed and beg and come apart the way I do. I would carve your name into my ribs right now if it meant you’d keep… looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth wanting.”
He’s practically coming apart at the seams, you feel it. Trembling, sweating, hips snapping with desperate, all-consuming need to bring you together, fuse you together in some undeniable way. His fingers flex around your wrists, short nails digging crescents into your skin as his thrusts lose rhythm, cock pulsing violently inside you. The wet, filthy sound of your joining fills the solar, slick and loud, the white-bear fur damp beneath you both.
You feel him beginning to come undone, his thrusts turning more and more erratic as he buries himself to the hilt one final time and spills deep, flooding you with hot, endless pulses while he bites down on your shoulder hard enough to draw fresh blood, hard enough to send you over the edge so hard it’s like he’s shoved you off a wall. Near animal howl tears from your throat, leaving it bloody as your vision goes white, your back arching and muscles locking. Yet even then, Aerion doesn’t stop moving—slow, grinding rolls that keep him buried inside you, keep every drop exactly where he wants it, his violet eyes find yours, wild and shining with something softer, consuming, too fond around the edges before he wipes it away.
He licks the blood from your shoulder with slow, reverent strokes, blood shining on his lips, then presses his forehead to yours, breathing ragged, bodies still locked together in the firelit dark.
“I am yours,” he whispers, voice hoarse and dangerous, fingertips tilting your chin to him. “And you are mine. Forever.”
an: this was only checked once and written in period hormone haze so yeehaw, we move!!!! hope you enjoyed these two freaks!!!
pairing: aerion 'brightflame' targaryen x sister! reader
content: +18 | smut | targcest | hurting and vulnerable | dubcon | yandere | power imbalance | toxic relationship | slight angst | obsessive behavior | masturb. | you're the best sister.
summary: for the proud and cruel Aerion, you were always his insignificant sister, but you were always obsessed with him. You wanted him, dreamed of him, desired him.
a/n: Aerion's just a puppy, and we're here to make him sit hehe
Ი𐑼 . . . - main masterlist ❜❜ ٫٫ words count: 5,7K
Dawn in Aerion’s chambers was pale, filtering through the narrow gaps in the heavy crimson curtains. You’d been there for hours, watching the slow ripple of the fabric with each breeze that came up from Summerhall.
The maesters had come and gone twice, fretting over your brother’s state, though they always offered the same careful words. "He’ll mend, my lady. The body’s strong. Just give it time." But you scarcely heard them. Your eyes hadn’t left the bed since they’d brought him from Ashford, since you’d watched your youngest brother, your Aerion, carried from the field of ash and blood where the Trial of Seven had left him.
Daeron had tried to take you away. Your twin, always so drunk he was near enough useless, but still your twin, still the only person in the world who shared your age, your birth, your blood. "He'll be alright", Daeron had said, his hand heavy and clumsy on your shoulder. "You need to rest".
You'd ignored him. Like you ignored everyone when it came to Aerion.
Now, with the sun already high, you were alone. The servants had been dismissed by your own hand. The maesters had left with a promise to return at nightfall. Even Daeron had given up, stumbling out with a mutter about finding something to drink.
And you were there, watching.
Aerion slept. His face, even bruised, even too pale, was still the most beautiful you'd ever seen. The short silver hair, still dirty with strands of dried blood and sweat, but lovely nonetheless. His chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically, and that movement was proof he was alive, proof the gods had chosen to spare him.
You rose from the chair where you'd spent the night and day, legs numb, body tired, though the tiredness mattered little. Nothing mattered but your Aerion.
Your bare feet made little sound on the stone floor as you approached the bed. Your hand reached out before you could think, fingers touching his silver hair.
"Always so far away," you thought. "But always so close."
Aerion had always been like that, distant, treating you with the same courteous indifference he showed everyone else. You were just the sister two years older, the twin sister of the useless drunk, the princess who arranged banquets and smiled at lords and never, ever caused trouble.
You were boring to him. You knew that.
Though you also knew you weren't boring, not like he thought you were, not like he thought he knew you. There was something hot in you, intense and obsessive that no one saw because you hid your desire to devour and be devoured so well. Hid it all so well behind polite smiles, carefully pleasing words, and the perfect posture of a dragon-blooded princess.
Hid it because Aerion never really looked at you, but now he was here. Vulnerable, defenceless, and for the first time in his life, he couldn't turn away from you and couldn't ignore you.
You sat on the bed, slow and careful. The mattress dipped under your weight, and you held your breath, waiting for him to wake, but he didn't.
So you did something you'd never done before. Something you'd imagined in secret, in the darkest hours of the night, when the castle slept and you could think of things you shouldn't think.
You lay down beside him.
Moving slowly, sliding into the empty space on the bed, pressing your body against his, feeling the skin of his bare chest, wounded, against your skin that the crimson dress barely covered. Your heart beat so hard you were certain he could hear it, even unconscious.
Your arm went over him, your hand finding his silver hair again, fingers sliding gently, stroking. You felt the warmth of his body against yours, his breath against your neck, and a fire you'd fed for years but never let burn openly stirred.
The strands of hair were soft between your fingers, softer than you'd imagined. You stroked slowly, repeating the motion, hypnotised by the softness, by how his face seemed calmer in sleep.
Then his eyes opened.
You stilled the caress. Aerion's eyes — purple like amethysts, hazy with pain and sleep — found yours. There was a moment of confusion, and then his voice came out, rough and weak:
"What do you think you're doing?"
Your heart stopped. Your whole body screamed at you to get up, run, make up an excuse: you were checking his fever, you were fixing his pillows, you were...
But you didn't move, and instead, you tilted your head, a soft smile — sweet, seductive — curving your lips. The same expression you wore at banquets, in hallways, when you needed something.
"Looking after you," you murmured.
Before he could answer — before any word could drive you from the room — you leaned in and pressed your lips to his neck.
His skin was warm, alive. You felt his pulse quicken under your mouth and something primal, something triumphant, roared inside you. Your lips moved slowly, kissing, sucking gently, marking him, claiming him in the only way you could.
His hand — the one not bandaged — lifted, weak, and came to rest on your shoulder. For a moment you thought he'd push you away, but his fingers just gripped, holding, allowing.
You smiled against his skin.
Your left hand kept stroking his hair, soft, comforting. Your right, though, began to slide lower, over his chest, over his stomach, feeling every tense muscle beneath the covers. He shuddered when your fingers found the waistband of his smallclothes, when they started to slide inside.
"You-" his voice faltered, a sound caught between shock and something else. Something you'd never heard from him.
"Shhh," you whispered against the curve of his shoulder. "Let me take care of you, Aerion."
Your hand found what it was looking for.
The breath caught in his lungs was as satisfying as any word. More. You moved your hand slowly, with a skill that surprised even yourself, years of imagining, years of wanting, and now finally. Finally you could touch, could feel, could have.
He was already responding, his body betraying what his mind might still be processing. You squeezed a little tighter, the movement rhythmic, and the sound he let out — a low, lost, needy groan — was the sweetest thing you'd ever heard.
Your mouth found his jaw, kissing, nibbling.
"Always wanted this," you murmured, the words slipping out before you could stop them. "Always wanted you. You never looked at me, Aerion. Never saw."
His hand on your shoulder tightened. His eyes — Gods, his eyes — were wide, dark, fixed on you as if he were seeing you for the first time. As if something had shifted, something had clicked into place.
You kept going, the movement steady, rhythmic, and then, with a courage only desire could give, you took his free hand and guided it down. To the heat between your legs, to the dress you'd worn since the night before, to the proof of what you felt.
"Feel..." you whispered. "Feel what you do to me."
His fingers — trembling, weak, but there — touched you through the fabric. And you moaned softly, the sound lost against his shoulder, as you kept moving your hand.
The room was silent, save for the heavy breathing of you both. Save for the small sounds escaping him. Sounds you'd keep forever, that you'd replay in your mind on lonely nights.
The silence in his chamber seemed to pulse with something that had always been there, latent, waiting to break through the indifferent surfaces you both maintained. Aerion stared at you as if you were a fever dream brought on by the pain and infections the maesters so feared, but you were real. Your hand around his cock was real. The heat of your cunt radiating to his fingers was utterly real.
"You shouldn't be… here," he managed, but his hand didn't leave where you'd placed it. If anything, his fingers pressed, trying to explore beneath the fabric.
"No?" you laughed softly, a velvety sound against the skin of his shoulder. "Lying beside my brother while he slept, imagining this for years, that only ever happened in my dreams." You emphasised the words with a firmer, deliberate squeeze, and watched, satisfied, at the tremor that ran through his body. "This is everything I've ever wanted… and what you wanted too, you just didn't know it yet."
Aerion's free hand — the bandaged, immobilised one — was the only part of him that still resisted. His good fingers, though, began moving with more intention, trying to find the hem of your dress, trying to reach the skin you offered.
You helped him. With a languid movement, you shifted, guiding his hand beneath the fabric, to the damp, soft heat between your thighs. The gasp he let out when his fingers found your cunt was nearly as loud as the moan you gave when one of them slid inside.
"Slowly," you murmured, but it wasn't a request. It was an instruction. You kept moving your hand around his cock, in a slow, torturous rhythm that matched the hesitant exploration of his fingers inside you. "You're weak. Let me take care of everything."
His purple eyes, though hazy with pain and burgeoning desire, studied you. A question lived there. "Why you… why now?"
"Because you nearly died," you answered.
You stopped kissing his shoulder to look at him closely, your face inches from his. Your warm breath mingled with his.
"Because I spent the whole night imagining you cold, imagining you broken, imagining you dead in the fields of Ashford. And I realised I couldn't bear it. That I'd rather have you like this, wounded, confused, mine, than not have you at all."
Your hand quickened its pace, a little firmer, a little faster, and Aerion's body arched slightly, a hoarse groan escaping his parted lips. He was losing control, you could see. His body, even wounded, responded to you with an urgency his mind was still trying to process.
His fingers, inside you, grew bolder, more rhythmic, perhaps instinctively. He touched you as if learning a map, and you moaned softly, whispered approvals against his lips.
"There," you encouraged him. "Feel how wet I get just thinking about you?"
The curse Aerion muttered was muffled when you took your brother's lips in a kiss. It wasn't sweet or sisterly. Your tongue invaded his mouth with a hunger years contained, tasting him, mingling with both your ragged breaths. You bit his lower lip as you pulled back, tugging it with your teeth.
"You're enjoying this," you stated, not asked. "Seeing me like this. Feeling me like this. All yours."
His hand gripped your hip, pulling you closer, a gesture of frustration and desire. He wanted more, but his body wouldn't obey as it should. You knew. And that was exactly what kept you so in control.
"Don't worry, my love," you whispered, the endearment dripping like poison. "I'll give you everything you need. I'll take care of you forever."
You moved, straddling his thigh, keeping your hand firm around him, but now rubbing the damp heat between your thighs against the skin of his leg. The friction was delicious, torturous for you both. Aerion's breathing grew more uneven, his half-lidded eyes fixed on where your bodies met, where your hand worked tirelessly.
"Look at me," you commanded, your voice sweet. He obeyed, finding your gaze. "You're mine, Aerion. My brother, my blood, mine. And I'm yours. Always have been. However you want me."
You quickened the rhythm, bringing him closer to the edge, while simultaneously rubbing against him, building your own climax. His fingers were buried in you, a desperate reflex, and you guided them — faster, deeper.
"Come," you whispered against his mouth. "Come for me, Aerion. Now."
It was the combination of your voice, the grip of your hand, the sight of you moving atop him, that undid him. He moaned your name — not "sister," not a title, but your name — in a hoarse, broken sound, as pleasure took him. You kissed him again, swallowing his groans, feeling every spasm in your palm.
You didn't stop. You kept moving — slow, drawing out the sensation for him — while the friction of his thigh and the pressure of your own fingers pushed you toward the edge. You pulled away from the kiss only to bury your face in the curve of his neck, biting down on his skin to muffle your own sharp moan as the orgasm hit you, waves of heat coursing through your body.
For long minutes, only the sound of your ragged breathing filled the silent room. You lay still atop him, your hand still loosely wrapped around him, your face still buried in his neck.
Eventually, you rose onto your elbows, looking at him. His face was flushed, his eyes still dark and dazed. He looked dizzy, not just from his injuries, but from what had just happened.
"See how good it is?" you murmured, wiping the sweat from his brow with a gentle touch. "You'll never want another woman, brother. I'll make sure of it."
You cleaned your hand slowly, carefully, and then nestled against him again, your head resting on his shoulder, your fingers returning to stroke his silver hair.
He didn't speak. He just lay there, breathing hard, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, processing.
You smiled, satisfied, and closed your eyes.
You woke to the morning sun streaming through the windows and the bed empty, and you wondered when your brother had found the strength to get up, to leave without you noticing.
For a moment, panic gripped your chest and you looked to the side where he'd slept, to the floor, to make sure he hadn't fallen out of bed and was lying there dead, but then you heard his voice.
"You're going to marry me, sister."
You turned your head so fast your neck cracked.
Aerion was sitting in a chair by the hearth, his body still clearly sore, his bandaged chest visible beneath his open shirt. But his violet eyes were fixed on you with an intensity you'd never seen.
"What?" Your voice came out rough with sleep.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze burning.
"You heard me. You're going to marry me."
You sat up in bed, your dishevelled hair falling over your shoulders, your dress crumpled.
"Aerion, our father…"
"I don't care."
The simplicity. The certainty.
He rose — slowly, limping a little — and crossed the room to you. Stopped in front of the bed, looking down at you, and for the first time in his life, he was truly seeing you.
"Spent years thinking you were just another one," he said, grabbing your jaw firmly, squeezing, hurting you. And you were… liking it. "The good sister. The perfect princess. The dragon without scales." He shook his head. "But you're like me, aren't you? You're not good," he murmured, almost with admiration. "You're like me."
Your heart stopped.
"I spent my whole life looking for someone who understood," he continued, his thumb tracing your cheekbone. "Someone who burned the same way. And you were here the whole time."
His eyes darkened, he leaned in and kissed you.
It wasn't a soft kiss, it was claiming, the same thing you'd done hours before, but now he was awake, present, participating. His hand gripped your hair, pulling, and you moaned against his mouth, your hands coming up to clutch his shirt.
When he pulled back, your eyes met — purple meeting purple — and Aerion smiled. It was a smile you'd never seen before. Something predatory. Something pleased.
"You're going to be my wife," he said. "And I'm going to satisfy you until you regret this."
You should have been afraid. Should have pulled back, refused, called it madness. Instead, you smiled back — the same sweet, seductive, inviting smile — and pulled him back into bed.
"And you're going to find out I'm worse than you," you whispered against his lips, your hand finding its way again to the stiffness in his smallclothes. "But first… let me take care of you again."
And he let you.
In the weeks that followed, the corridors of Summerhall whispered.
"Prince Aerion's going to marry his own sister."
"They say he doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't talk of anything else."
"She's bewitched him."
"Or maybe they've always been like this."
You heard the whispers and smiled. Let them think what they wanted. Let them invent stories of spells, of madness, of corrupted dragon blood.
No one needed to know the truth.
No one needed to know that, in the silent nights, Aerion sought you with the same obsession you'd always felt for him. No one needed to know that he looked at you as if you were the only fire in a world of ashes. No one needed to know that, finally, after years of being invisible, you were seen.
More than seen.
You were wanted.
You were needed.
And when, on the night before the wedding, he pulled you into a dark corner of the library — when his hands found your body with the urgency of someone who'd spent too long away — you whispered in his ear the words you'd kept for years:
"Always yours, Aerion. Always."
And he answered with a smile that matched your own:
"And now you're mine forever, dearest sister."
And for the first time in your lives, you were both home.
Her room smelled of burnt-down candles and you were lying in bed, your fingers still trembling slightly, your breath short. The curtains were drawn — always drawn — and the darkness was an embrace, a confessional where no one could see what you did when you thought the world slept.
But you didn't sleep. You never slept without thinking of him first.
Your hand slid down again, because once was never enough, because the emptiness he left in you was a bottomless well. Your fingers found the heat, the dampness, and you closed your eyes, letting the image of him fill your mind.
Aerion.
Not the Aerion of the corridors, the one who passed you as if you were part of the furniture. Not the Aerion who laughed at Daeron's jokes and ignored your attempts at conversation, but the Aerion you imagined, the Aerion you knew, in the darkest corners of your mind.
The Aerion who looked at you the way you'd always wanted to be looked at.
The Aerion who touched you.
Your fingers moved faster, and a low moan escaped your lips, muffled against the pillow, hidden like everything about you was hidden. You imagined his hands — long, pale, elegant — in place of yours. Imagined his mouth on your neck, biting, marking. Imagined him saying your name — not sister, not princess, but your name — in a tone you'd never heard.
You imagined him wanting you back.
The climax came fast — always came fast when it was him — and you bit the pillow to keep from crying out, your body arching, your legs trembling. Afterwards, you lay there, breathless, your heart beating so hard it hurt.
Wedding night had come, and the ceremony had been small — intimate, the servants had called it — held in the private chapels of Summerhall with only a few required witnesses. The king had agreed with a weariness that bordered on indifference. Maekar Targaryen, tired of wars and losses, hadn’t the strength to oppose anything else. And Daeron... Daeron had shown up drunk, as always, but this time with a crooked smile you couldn’t quite read.
None of it mattered. What mattered was now.
You were in the chambers that would be yours — theirs — from that night on. The wedding gown, heavy red and black brocade, had been removed by maids who barely dared to breathe near you. Now you wore only a thin shift, silver silk that slid over your skin like water, and you waited.
The door opened without warning.
Aerion stepped in and closed it behind him with a click. He still moved carefully — the wounds from Ashford hadn’t fully healed, though the maesters assured he’d survive without lasting scars. But his eyes... his eyes showed no weakness at all.
They showed hunger.
"So," he said, his voice low and measured. "We're married."
You tilted your head, a slow smile curving your lips. "We are."
He crossed the room slowly, like a predator testing its prey's limits. When he stopped before you, so close you could feel the heat of his body through the thin silk, he raised a hand and touched your face.
The touch was surprisingly gentle, his fingers tracing your cheekbone, down your jaw, stopping at your chin. But his eyes... his eyes weren't gentle. They were dark, intense, burning with something that made your stomach clench with want.
"You did it," he murmured. "Made me drag myself to the altar. Made me beg our father. Made me want something I didn't want."
"You begged?" you teased, your voice sweet as poisoned honey. "Don't remember hearing that."
His hand tightened on your chin, firm enough to make you catch your breath.
"Don't play with me now," he warned, but the tone wasn't threatening. It was... needy. "Spent weeks thinking about what you did. What you said. The way you touched me when I couldn't fight back."
"You liked it."
"Yes."
His honesty stole your breath. Aerion never admitted anything. Aerion never surrendered. But there, in the dimness of the wedding chamber, he was looking at you like you were the only truth he believed in.
"Liked it more than I should have," he continued, his thumb tracing your lower lip. "Liked not being able to do anything but feel. Liked waking up and finding out you were the one I'd be fucking every night of my life."
Your lips curved beneath his touch.
"And that means...?"
"You're mine."
The claim came with a kiss, hard, possessive, devouring. His mouth took yours without ceremony, without gentleness, and you answered with the same intensity, your hands rising to grip his hair, pulling, demanding.
When he pulled back, you were both breathless.
"But you still haven't begged," you reminded him, your voice rough.
Aerion laughed, a surprising sound that vibrated against your skin.
"You want to see me on my knees?"
"I want to see you need me," you corrected, your hands sliding to undo his shirt. "I want to see you lose control. I want to see you crawl."
His eyes darkened further.
"Married the wrong woman," he murmured, but his hands were busy—one finding your hip, the other rising to tangle in your hair. "Should've married the version everyone else saw. At least she was safe."
"You don't want safe," you whispered against his lips. "You want this."
And you kissed him again, but slower this time, a kiss of control, of quiet domination. Your hands finished opening his shirt, sliding inside, feeling the heat of his skin, the bandages still covering parts of his torso.
He groaned against your mouth — low, lost — and you smiled.
"Take this off," he ordered against your lips, his hands finding the hem of your shift. "Want to see you."
You obeyed, but at your own pace—slow, torturous, deliberate. The silk rose up your thighs, your hips, your waist, and you watched his eyes follow every inch of revealed skin. When the shift finally fell to the floor, you stood naked before him, and the look on Aerion's face... Gods.
It was like he'd never seen a woman before.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice rough. "Look what you hid from me."
"Didn't hide," you corrected, stepping forward, pressing your naked body against his half-clothed one. "You just never looked."
His hand found your back, pulling you closer, and the contact of skin against skin — even with the bandages in the way — was electric. You felt his cock hard against your thigh, felt his breath quicken, felt the control you'd so desired slipping through his fingers.
"I'm looking now," he promised, and his mouth descended to your neck — biting, sucking, marking — exactly as you'd always imagined.
You moaned, your head falling back, offering more skin. His hands explored your back, your hips, your arse, squeezing, stroking, learning every curve like it was a map to treasure.
"Aerion..."
"My name," he murmured against your skin. "Like hearing you say my name, sister."
"Then make me say it more."
He laughed again — that rare and precious sound — and suddenly you were moving, stumbling toward the bed, bodies pressed together, mouths finding mouths, hands finding skin. He laid you down on the sheets, his body covering yours, and for a moment you just looked at each other.
Fire meeting fire.
"You're mine," he said, and it wasn't a question.
"Always was," you answered. "Now prove you're mine too."
His eyes burned.
He went down — literally — crawling down your body, his mouth tracing a path of fire from your neck to your breasts, where he paused to taste, lick, bite. Your fingers buried in his hair, pulling, guiding, while moans escaped your lips without control.
"More," you demanded. "Aerion, more."
He obeyed.
His mouth kept moving lower — stomach, hips, thighs — and when he finally reached where you needed him most, you held your breath. He looked up at you for a moment, dark eyes fixed on yours, his mouth inches from your centre.
"You wanted me to beg," he reminded you. "But who's begging now, sweet sister?"
"Aerion..."
He licked.
The moan you let out was too loud, too desperate, and you didn't care. His tongue found your clit with a precision that suggested he'd spent nights imagining this too, and when he started moving; you lost all capacity for thought.
"Like this?" he murmured against you, the vibration of his voice sending waves of pleasure through your body. "Is this how you want it?"
"Yes... Gods, yes!"
"Beg"
You arched your hips against his mouth, but he held you steady, pinning you in place.
"Beg," he repeated. "I want to hear."
"Aerion, please!..."
"Please, what?"
"Please don't stop."
He smiled against you — you felt it — and obeyed.
His tongue worked tirelessly, alternating between long, slow strokes and quicker, more precise movements that made your vision blur. His fingers found your entrance, sliding inside — one, then two — and the moan you released was almost a sob.
"Look at me," he commanded, and you obeyed, forcing your eyes open to meet his. "I want you to see who's making you feel this."
"You," you moaned. "Always you. Always."
He quickened the rhythm — his mouth, his fingers, everything — and you felt the orgasm building like a wave, growing, pressing, demanding.
"Aer... Aerion, I'm going to..."
"Come," he whispered against you. "Come for me. I want to feel it."
And you did; a muffled cry against your own arm, your body arching, your legs trembling, while he kept going, prolonging it, drawing out every spasm of pleasure until you couldn't take any more.
When you finally stopped shaking, he crawled up your body, his face wet, his eyes gleaming with something like pure triumph.
"Now," he murmured against your lips. "Now you're mine."
You laughed and pulled him into a kiss. The taste of yourself on his lips was strangely intimate, and you loved it.
"Not yet," you said against his mouth. "You're still missing."
He raised an eyebrow. "You think I don't want to?"
"I know you do." Your hand slid between your bodies, finding his cock, hard, pulsing, ready. "But I want to watch you lose control. I want to watch you beg."
His eyes darkened.
"I married the demon."
"You married yours."
He laughed — that rare laugh — and suddenly you were moving again, him on his back, you straddling him, his body beneath yours. The bandages still covered part of his chest, a reminder that he was still vulnerable, still healing.
But his eyes... his eyes showed no weakness. They showed devotion.
"Then take," he said, his voice rough. "Take what's yours."
You leaned down, kissing him slowly — a kiss of promise, of possession — while your hand guided his cock to your entrance. When you sank down, when he filled you completely, you both moaned in unison.
"Gods," he murmured against your lips. "You're so... so tight... so warm..."
You started to move watching the expression on his face. His half-lidded eyes, his parted lips, his fingers buried in your hips with a strength that would surely leave marks.
"Like this?" you teased, echoing the tone he'd used with you. "Is this how you want it?"
"Faster," he demanded. "Faster."
"Beg."
His eyes burned.
"Please."
The word surprised him as much as it did you. You saw it in his eyes, the shock, the shame, and beneath it all, the desire to surrender.
You smiled and quickened the pace.
The room filled with the sounds you'd always imagined — his moans, yours, the sound of bodies meeting, the hiss of ragged breath. You rode him with a hunger years in the making, each movement bringing you both closer to the edge.
"Look at me," you commanded, echoing his words. "I want you to see who's making you feel this."
He obeyed and what you saw in his eyes made your heart stop.
It wasn't just desire.
It wasn't just lust.
It was need.
"You," he murmured, his voice breaking. "Always will be you."
The orgasm hit you both at once, a collapse, a surrender, a fire that consumed everything. You heard him cry your name, heard your own voice raw and screaming his, and for a moment there was nothing else beyond it.
Beyond them.
Afterwards, when their bodies finally stopped trembling, you collapsed onto him, your head resting on his chest — carefully, avoiding his wounds — and felt his heart beating against his ribs.
"Still alive," you murmured.
"Still," he confirmed, his hand finding your hair, stroking with a gentleness that contradicted everything that had just happened. "And you?"
"More alive than ever."
The silence that followed was filled only by their ragged breathing, by the distant sputter of candles, and by the warm pulse of blood still racing through their veins. You felt his heart against your cheek, and the hand stroking your hair was such a cruel contrast to the violence of what they'd shared that it almost hurt.
It was then that you felt his lips brush the top of your head, a kiss so light it might have been accidental.
"If you ever try to leave," he murmured, his low voice tinged with a sweetness that made the threat all the more terrifying, "I'll burn every ship in King's Landing. I'll lock you in the highest tower of Summerhall, and I'll tear out the tongue of anyone who dares look at you."
His fingers tightened slightly on your scalp, a possessiveness you knew all too well.
"You'll be mine until our flesh rots and our bones turn to dust."
You lifted your head slowly, meeting the violet eyes that stared back at you with an adoration so twisted, so complete, that any sane person would have recoiled. Instead, a slow, satisfied smile, as corrupt as his own, curved your lips.
You leaned in, pressing your mouth to his in a kiss, and when you drew back, it was to whisper in return.
"And I'll love every second, brother. I'll love watching you hate yourself for loving me so much, and I'll love loving you back with the same madness. You're mine, Aerion. And I'm your worst curse."
The smile he returned was a mirror of your own, and as he pulled you closer, they both knew this wasn't about love, nor about sanity. It was about possession. It was about blood. It was about two equally warped hearts beating in unison in the darkness, knowing that the hell they'd built was, for them, the only home possible.
Warnings: cannibalism, smut, coercion (if you squint), third person pov, gore, dom/sub dynamic, lowk just a descent into madness, mentions of blood, biting
Summary: The forest carries a haunting presence- one that whispers in your ear without a single knowing. Another freak tragedy just turns into another folkloric story.
Word count: 2.3k
A/n: I haven’t written a fic since 2019 and the absolute LACK of Shawn Heard fics has made me come out of my little hole. English is not my mother tongue so please bear with me, there’s most likely mistakes.
He took her face in the palms of his hands- Shawn was like a bloodhound, in some senses. He could sniff out her insecurities, could sniff out all the anxious voices that whispered to her. She looked up at him, and it’s all he could see.
God, she was just too fragile of a girl for a guy like him to pass up on. He knew what kind of girl she was right when she first spoke to him.
“Don’t worry baby, I’m right here with you, see? Hold my hand it’ll make it hurt less”
His southern twang rang in her ears, all soft honey and tender bones. She didn’t know if he meant the dull ache of despondency in her chest would hurt less, or if it would make what was to come hurt less. She didn’t want to know- not now, anyways.
“Okay,” She whispered so softly she feared he may not hear her- but he had. He always had.
He leaned in slowly to kiss her, but not before pulling away slightly and laughing teasingly. He liked seeing her chase after him.
She smacked him hard in the chest; he really was an asshole.
“Cut it out!”
He kissed her with all the fervor one could muster. It was all teeth, hands groping and squeezing whatever flesh they could, all heavy breath stirring with unadulterated ardor- it was the essence of Shawn. The tree bark dug into her back with the force he’d pushed against her with, and she liked the way it hurt.
The way their bodies searched for one another held something animalistic- a kind of intimacy that she’d been searching for.
He said her name then, all breathy and soft, and she hated how she couldn’t trust his tone or the way his mouth curved when he’d said it. She knew what he was. She knew what she was to him. But, even if Shawn was an instigator to chaos and held little care to all but himself, she liked feeling like she mattered to him.
She’d participate in her own deception. Even if it was only for the night.
She shivered as his fingers glossed over the curve of her skin gently, her shirt lifting up tauntingly in the process. The soft breeze of the forest was like a third kiss in the air- something presumptuous that made the hair on her arms stick up and her nipples harden under her thin shirt.
His pace slowed now, forcing her to submit to soft kisses she did not ask for. It made it even harder. Now, he was permitting her to really feel him. To touch the bare of his nape until his skin was the only thing she knew indefinitely.
“Your lips were fuckin’ made for me”
She let out a shaky exhale from his words. Was this the make of an actor? She could be his actress. If he gave her the promise of his hands and voice being sweet like mercy, she would be whatever he’d have her be.
He leaned down, giving her neck open mouthed kisses as his hands now lingered down to her thighs. He gripped the back of her thighs with a harshness that contradicted the gentleness of his mouth. Both feelings at once made her head tilt to the sky.
She wore her shorts today, as she had most days in cause of the damp humidity. She became thankful for the unrelenting heat instead of cursing it like she had the past few weeks, because now Shawn had the access he needed to grip her ass. The tips of his fingers toyed with her panties- coquettishly swiping up and down, going under them to feel what skin was hidden from him.
She gave him a soft whimper when he sucked on one particular spot of her neck, and she could feel him grin against her skin. His hands moved from her ass- though still never leaving her body- and found themselves on her pelvic bone.
His hands moved with such practiced ease, she hadn’t even noticed they’d slipped down to the buttons of her shorts. She went to look down, and perhaps put a stop to something she could not name and would not dare to. However Shawn was a bloodhound that knew of her insecurities, and he kissed her before she could even form a retort.
He kissed her with a promise of sweetness- a slow death as she’d have it.
She pulled away slightly as his fingers undo the last button and his fingers begin pulling her shorts and underwear down.
“I don’t deserve good things” she whispers, and it sounds definite, like a sentence already passed. As if she does not deserve small joys and even smaller love.
But Shawn is bred from violence- he knows what he is and what he is not.
She craves something familiar now, because the softness of his touch is something alien and terrifying to her now. It is best kept to himself, and Shawn realizes this as soon as he looks into her eyes and her furrowed brows.
He could do that for her- be her ruin and chaos; give her teeth and mar her skin. If it isn’t comfort she seeks, he’d make her pulse beat stronger than the thoughts in her head.
He doesn’t reply to her, because he knows it’s useless and that the truth lay bare and naked in front of both of them.
He pulled down her shorts harshly as if they were an offense to him, and kissed her so hard her head slammed against the tree behind her. Patience was now a threat, and she began to simmer her fingers down to his waistband.
She stood only in her thin t-shirt, with her shoulders down and vulnerable. His mouth ravished her own in hastiness, brutality had now replaced his softness, and her lips were becoming a plump-dull red.
She’d finally managed to shimmy his red shorts low enough so she could reach into his boxers, her fingers ghosting over the length of him. He pulled from her and hunched over her shoulder slightly, his mouth twitching.
She reached her other hand up to him; whether to tug at his hair or to scratch at his neck, she did not know. She stroked his cock until he gave a groan he tried to mask with biting her neck.
When she let a soft moan escape her, he took her jaw in his hand and roughly turned it to his face, and she was met with a clench in his jaw and a want in his eyes that was so predatory it made her very soul vibrate.
“Let me fuck you. I swear to God I’ll never ask for anything else. Just lemme fuck you.” He slurs like a man possessed.
It wasn’t a question, not really anyways. She knew that even if she’d refuse him, he’d take her anyways. And as perverse as it was- she felt herself become even wetter with the thought.
Maybe it was because it was an action of unquestioned desire that cared not for its disallowance. That his carnal desire was her- simply, plainly, her.
God, there was something wrong with her head. But he was the same, and perhaps that’s why she was so attracted to his maddening ways.
“I want every nerve of my body to feel you,” She whispers as if they were performing an ancient ritual- two animals circling one another, seeing which will bite first, which will succumb to death first.
He swallows at her words, and wordlessly lifts her leg up so her ankle dangles over his waist. He grips her thigh with so much force that she bleeds, and the blood that runs from her and onto the ground is nothing compared to the way the tip of his cock feels sliding up and down against her, wetting itself with all she has to offer.
He kisses her cheek sloppily, moving to the corner of her jaw until he reaches her mouth. He ruts against her until she’s left whimpering against his lips, but it’s still not enough for him.
He’s harder than he’s ever been in his life, and the head of his cock throbs so intensely he feels as though it might combust right there and then, but still- he wants to hear her plead and beg for him. Who was he if not a greedy bastard?
“Please… please please please” She gripped his neck and forearm so tensely, she could only hope he might feel the desperation that leaked from her.
“Please Shawn, let me have this. Let me have you”
He grinned down wolfishly with all his teeth to show.
“All you had to do was ask baby” He’d said it so mockingly- so fiendishly.
He didn’t enter her softly- no- he hadn’t even given her a warning. He simply shoved himself inside of her, uncaring of the lack of preparation he’d given her.
He swallowed her cry with his lips and took the hand that was clenching his forearm so intensely into his own. His hand pinned her wrist to the tree behind them, and the old bark scratched the back of her hand raw.
He didn’t go inside of her inch by inch to savor the feeling. He was too hungry for that, starved for how she could make him feel, aching to feel the warmth of her. His pelvic bone met hers as he let himself become swallowed by her.
She was besieged with such strange sensations; dark sensations. The carnal kind, that made her pant and moan and cry.
He fucked her like a man bewitched. Thrusting in and out of her at a pace she could not match.
The mark of his nails on her thigh was no longer the crescent of his fingertips; they were long, bloody, scratch marks. She didn’t notice. Pain and pleasure was all that was left of her.
He moaned into her mouth, the air he breathed became hers.
“Fuuckk” She let out a simpering whine, and a gasp that followed.
“You feel so fuckin’ good. So fuckin’ good. S’like you were made for me.”
She could barely make out what he was saying, too lost in the pleasure he was giving her. His hand detached from her wrist and instead went down to her clit, massaging her in rough circles that matched the pace of his hips.
It was all too much, too many sensations, she could only moan and scratch at his back to bring him even closer- if that was even possible.
The scratches on his back now matched those of her thigh, and they were both left dripping with small beads of blood.
He was no longer grunting in whispers; he was a left a mess of whimpering and groans that almost matched her own.
The rough pads of his fingers and the feel of his cock hitting the sweetest spots left her on the very brink of her demise.
“I’m gonna come! Don’t stop, please don’t stop” She begged him, because she would simply die if he could not grant her this.
Her words only encouraged him, merging even closer to her body until all she could feel was that fucking tree and the heat of his body.
When she came, it was not soft and loving. It was brutal, and he did not slow down for her.
His fingers left the bud of her clit and instead moved to her mouth to cover the harsh cries of overstimulation that left her lips.
Now, he was chasing his own demise.
He bit into her neck again, but this time was different from the last. This was pure intoxication- this was the hunger he felt coming to light. He was a starving man, and her flesh was on display so prettily for him.
His thrusts had not slowed, he raised her thigh higher so he could grasp a better angle, and God, had he ever found it.
His mouth left her neck, and he could feel the wetness soaking his chin. His hand slid sloppily from her mouth and instead went to base of her throat, squeezing pressure.
He bit her so hard she saw stars. He bit her so hard, she saw God.
There was something strange in these woods. Something that made every humaine ideation shatter and crumble into dust. Something that made what they were doing to each other make perfect sense, something grotesque that made them both shudder and grasp for the air they could not seem to find.
He picked her up, kissing her without technique; just lips and blood that he coated her mouth with.
They went to the ground, her head hitting one of the giant roots the tree held.
She gasped as he entered her once again, her arm that wasn’t attached to his shoulder flying to grasp at something, yet finding only the base of the old tree.
She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist, as if to bring him closer, and he obliged without a second thought.
“I need you”
She didn’t know what exactly she needed, she only felt the overwhelming feeling that she needed him in some otherworldly sense; something she could not explain, something she had never felt before, but rather a feeling that rose primitively from her soul.
His hand went to her mouth, as if knowing exactly what she felt, as if offering himself as a sacrificial lamb.
Both her hands cusped his own, and she bit.
He groaned, and his pace inside her quickened.
Her back arched from the dirt beneath her, and she bit, and bit, and bit.
Until his hand was nothing more than a mess of blood. Till his fingers went missing from hedonistic teeth.
Until the warmth of her became too much, and he finished inside of her with his own teeth going towards her neck once more. He rode out his orgasm with her flesh between his teeth, the delight of having her entirety to himself, to have her body and soul at the mercy of his hands.
tw/cw - aerion (he lowkey thinks he's a dragon) (you kinda encourage him), smut ! oral (fem receiving), slight blood/knife play if you squint, lots of biting, switch! aerion and switch! reader, they're both bratty, you lowkey blueball him, maekarlings mentioned, not proofread !
a/n - he whimpers but you kind of have to bully him a little bit (he deserves it), enjoy ! <3 feel free to share your thoughts, i feel like im cheeks at writing for him lol
You did not particularly enjoy the company of Maekar's children.
Daeron was a drunk.
Aemon was absent.
Aegon would have rather been born a commoner than a prince.
Rhae was spoiled.
Daella was quiet.
And Aerion... He was as cruel as he was pretty. A temperamental thing, really. But so fun to watch.
You served the sisters, as a lady-in-waiting. It was an easy enough task. They were much younger, however. And you found yourself unable to relate to some of their fancies, at times. They were tolerable, compared to their brothers.
The drawing room was empty, save for yourself. You sat at a mahogany table, a stack of letters in front of you. Princess Daella was having you sort through them.
It irked you slightly. You were not some common-blooded handmaiden. You were noble born, from a filthy rich house. You were above replying to birthday party invitations.
Still, you slit another envelope open with a ruby colored letter opener, sliding the parchment free with a quiet sigh.
Another invitation. Another tedious pleasantry. You set it aside.
The door behind you slid open, without so much as a knock. You did not look up immediately. Both princes and princesses had a dreadful habit of entering rooms as though they owned every inch of them.
Which, unfortunately, they did.
"Is there something else you need done, Princess Daella?" You guessed, tone a little flat. Your eyes still on the pile of ivory letters.
A haughty scoff answered you, and footsteps dragged closer. Wrong princess, then.
"You mistake me, for my soft-handed sister, wench?" Aerion Targaryen hovered by the windowsill.
His silver hair was still cropped. You assumed he had cut it to make himself more menacing.
But you liked to believe he'd accidentally burned most of it off, and cut it out of embarrassment.
"Apologies, my prince." You said, smoothly, "I did not mean anything by it." You let you gaze linger on him for just a moment longer, before averting it.
He hummed in reply, his head cocking to the side slightly. Always watching.
"A mistake I can forgive, I suppose." Aerion ran his tongue over his teeth, "An error made by the less observant."
You almost rolled your eyes, "Indeed." You agreed, "The family resemblance is to blame, perhaps."
He scowled, unsure if you meant to insult him or not. Aerion pushed off the sill, and wandered closer to your side, ".... What are you doing? I've been looking for you. Daeron makes for hardly amusing company."
"Reading letters." You answered, turning your cheek to the side.
He glanced down at the pile in front of you, mildly disgusted, "Your prince is in the room with you, and still, you choose to read letters? Are you truly that insolent?"
"I am speaking to you now." You replied, keeping your tone even, "... And it was your sister and father who instructed me to do as such." It wasn't technically a lie.
He looked slightly disappointed. No doubt at the thought of not being able to torment you further.
"They are just invitations." Aerion's lips curled downward, as if thoroughly unimpressed.
“Your sister’s admirers are relentless.”
“Daella has admirers?” He rolled his eyes. He plucked one letter from the stack before you could stop him, scanning the contents briefly.
You reached to snatch it back, "I have yet to see your name mentioned. It seems you've been omitted from some guest lists."
"I should be. It would improve the entertainment. " He murmured. “.... It matters little to me. I do not concern myself with the irrelevant tea parties of girls."
Aerion set the letter down again, though not in the correct pile. Deliberately, you suspected.
"You're doing it all wrong." He had the audacity to snark.
“Then by all means, your grace,” you said dryly, “take over.”
You slid another envelope toward yourself and pressed the letter openers blade beneath the wax seal.
The paper resisted, so you applied more pressure. Your hand slipped, and the blade sliced cleanly over the pad of your thumb.
“... -Damn it.” A thin line of crimson welled instantly. You held your hand up limply, resisting the urge to strangle someone. The closest person, preferably. Which happened to be Aerion.
"You should be more careful." Aerion said, feigning worry. He looked delighted at your discomfort.
"Thank you for the concern." It was your turn to scowl now, "There is no need for it, though. It's hardly a mortal wound."
"You should lick it. The spit closes the wound faster."
"...What?" You scoffed, looking up at him, slightly bewildered.
Aerion's hand caught your wrist before you could wipe the blood off on your skirts. The movement was quick enough to surprise you.
"Like this." Before you could pull away, he turned your hand slightly, examining the cut with a strange sort of fascination. Then he leaned down, and licked the blood from your thumb.
If you had half a mind, you would have slapped him. Or maybe shouted. But the way his tongue moved was almost mesmerizing. Warm and slow. It flicked away the swell of blood.
You could feel a flush crawl up your neck, and you swallowed thickly. Your eyes followed him, taken with his movements.
He dragged the pad of your thumb over his lips, letting it linger for a second more than necessary, before dropping it.
Aerion lifted his head slowly, running his tongue over his lip, "Disappointing. I thought it might have tasted sweeter. But that was foolish. You lack the blood of the dragon, after all."
"You are demented." Your voice returned with a snap, "That was hardly-..."
"But I liked it, all the same." He interrupted, without a care in the world.
You stood from your seat. And you should have stormed out of that room. But there was a challenging glint in his eyes. Like he was waiting for you to run away scared.
That pissed you off more than it ignited fear.
Your hands found the collar of his velvet doublet, and without a regard for consequence, you pushed him against the stone wall. Harshly.
His breath hitched, a little surprised. You almost missed it. Aerion's eyes zoned in on you, his pupils dilating.
"mmnh..." He leaned in before you could, pressing his forehead against yours, rather like a cat, "... I should have expected as much, wench."
"Talk to me in such a way again..." You hummed, almost sickeningly sweet, "And instead of letters I'll be opening, it will be your throat."
You would not grace him with the dignity of a response. You closed the distance between you, your lips finding his.
Aerion's hand found the back of your neck, pressing you closer. He licked at your bottom lip, with a surprising gentleness. But the moment lasted only a second longer, he soon gripped your lower waist with his free hand and pushed you against the cold wall.
In slight retaliation, you bit at his flip. And your mouth filled with a shared faint metallic taste.
Aerion's head tilted, before he broke away. His breath was warm, and heavy, as it fanned over your jaw. He bared his teeth.
"You believe yourself so worthy to taste the blood of a dragon?" He mocked, pulling away slightly, so you'd look him in his eyes
You did not glance away. You matched Aerion's defiant gaze, "You tell me, my prince."
"Perhaps, after I finish tasting you..." He mused, pressing a tentative kiss to your throat, "I might have an answer."
Your fingers threaded through his short hair and gave it a sharp tug, "Then by all means... Be my guest, your grace." You cooed, your gaze half-lidded.
He made an odd noise, between a choke and a moan. But he hid it quickly, by biting at your collarbone, "... Gods...-fuck." He breathed.
Aerion tugged at the front of your gown, displeased by the lack of access to your breast. You scoffed slightly, and made no move to unlace it. It was too much of as hassle for a rendezvous in a drawing room.
His hands slid down your sides, Aerion would have to make do somehow. He nosed down your stomach, planting kisses on your abdomen.
Eventually, he was on his knees in front of you. Never, in this lifetime, or future ones, would you have ever imagined this would be happening to you.
A faint smirk tugged at your lips. And he scowled up at that, "You should not look so pleased with yourself. You bring shame upon your house."
"As do you." You replied, "A dragon on his knees for a... how did you put it again? A wench."
"A wench." He repeated, looking pleased despite himself, "A pretty one, at that."
"Should I feel flattered?" You rolled your eyes, watching him press a kiss to the inside of your wrist.
"Very." He leaned into your touch, as if savoring the attention, "Lift your skirt up."
You obliged him, and he wasted no time in gripping a thigh. He pressed his face against the inside of your thigh, biting at the soft flesh there. His teeth were sharp enough to make you gasp, but not enough to be painful.
You felt him grin, as he smoothed his bite over with his tongue. He had refrained from biting down too harshly on your neck. It did not seem he held that same restraint with your thighs.
Your back was flat against the wall, one hand gripping his hair still, the other running over your collarbone. An almost nervous gesture.
He left more marks, leaving indents of his teeth behind, almost gloatingly. Slowly, he made his way to your core. He was panting, you could feel it through your damp undergarments.
"You are too easy." He scoffed, pulling them down to your calves with a lazy finger.
"Then go seek out more of a challenge. I have little reason to keep you around." You said, hoping you sounded more threatening than you looked.
Aerion didn't seem convinced, but he didn't press. He was distracted by your musk. A sweet perfumed-oil, and something else. It was frustrating. He liked it.
You let a gasp slip, when you felt his tongue flick at your pearl. Warm and soft. Your head hit the wall gently, your lashes fluttering shut.
"...gods." You sighed, as he moved his head slightly for a better angle.
You could have sworn you felt him grin, almost knowingly. You clamped your jaw shut. Not wanting to give him the luxury of a victory.
You swallowed another moan; your thighs began to tremble. Aerion's fingers pressed into the plush of your leg, "...don't." He said, so softly you almost missed it, "... you sound so pretty."
It was almost sweet. But you knew better. If anything, it was an ego boost. Something he'd mock you about later.
Still, it was getting hard to stay quiet. Your stomach was coiling, and your skin felt hot as dragon's fire. His tongue swirled strangely, almost reptile-like. It was all the more pleasurable for you.
"It must not be a sound you hear often, then." The quip quickly fell from your lips however, as he ravished you more deeply.
"Gods... there-..." You sighed, your head thrashing around, "...please-..!"
Aerion hummed, pleased, "... since you asked so politely." He humored you, his eyes flicking up to look at you.
Your eyes were shut still and your brows scrunched, focusing on the intense feeling building up. Your cheeks were flushed, and thin beads of sweat gathered along your neckline.
"...ah-..." You could hear him pant softly. You could feel his heavy gaze on you. And you opened your eyes slightly.
His expression was nothing short of hungry. And he only gripped your thighs tighter.
The coil within your stomach snapped, your back arched off the wall slightly. Your cunt grinded into his face slowly, and Aerion did not pull away.
He lapped at your release, eagerly.
You tugged his head back, the stimulation almost too intense. Aerion's eyes were clouded, with a certain lust.
He stood slowly, his head tilting to the side, assessing you. He stepped closer, his leg between your thighs. He gripped your chin with his hand, before pressing a kiss to your lips.
You could taste your slick on him. And you supposed that's why he kissed you. Like a fool, your arms wrapped around his neck. His hands found your lower waist, fingers pressing into the plush of your ass.
You parted your lips for him, a little too desperately for your liking. You bit at his lip, drawing blood. And this time, he let you.
You felt him press into you. Hard. And aching, you'd wager. From the way he whined, not even bothering to hide it.
For some reason, that made reality come back to you. And you suddenly realized how dangerous of an idea this was.
You pulled away quickly, and his lips chased yours, almost needily. But he quickly caught himself, and furrowed his brows.
"I can't." You cleared your throat, "... your sister... She is expecting me. I cannot linger."
Aerion stared at you for a beat, chest still rising a touch too quickly. His eyes dark with something ugly and hungry and offended all at once.
"You can't be serious." He drawled, dryly, "Cannot? Or will not."
You stepped back, smoothing your skirts with fingers that were unsteady, "Does it matter?”
“Yes." He answered quickly.
“How unfortunate. for you, then.” You furrowed your brows and tried to clean up the slight mess of your hair.
His mouth twitched. You hated that he looked prettier with blood on his lip.
"You have quite the mouth on you." Aerion tilted his head, studying you with the same unnerving attention he gave to those he meant to humiliate, "Such insolence would usually go punished. Should I remind you, that you kissed me?"
He took one step forward, then another. Not enough to crowd you, though the room suddenly felt stuffy.
"You needn't be so smug about it."
"I am smug, because I am usually correct." He said, with an unsettling softness, "It inspires confidence."
You snorted despite yourself, then immediately regretted it when his smile sharpened.
“There she is,” he murmured. “I thought I had frightened you.”
“You should aim higher, my prince. I am not so easily frightened.”
“No,” he said. “I noticed.”
His gaze dropped briefly to your mouth, and you hated the answering heat that crawled up your throat.
You turned away first, gathering the scattered letters into a neat pile if only to have something to do with your hands.
"This was merely a lapse of judgement." You said, "It does not mean anything."
“Mm.” The sound was infuriatingly unconvinced.
You glanced at him over your shoulder. “You agree?”
“No.” Aerion reached for one of the letters, breaking the seal with his thumb and scanning it with deliberate insolence. “I simply enjoy hearing you lie.”
You snatched it from him, "For a prince, you are illiterate in social graces.”
“For a lady, you are remarkably eager to be found alone with one.”
"I had not intended for you company." You grit your teeth, growing both flushed and annoyed. A horrible combination.
Aerion licked at his lips, slightly swollen from your kisses, "Perhaps I sought you out."
You hated how calm he sounded. How utterly assured. As if scandal were a game built for his amusement, and not a blade that could be laid across your throat.
"Then you'd be a fool, my prince."
“Would I?” he asked, low and amused. “For seeking out the company of a woman who does not cower when I enter a room?”
You lifted your chin. “No. For thinking that makes you interesting.”
That, at last, earned him a pause. A small one. But you saw it.
You stepped around him before he could recover, gathering the last of the letters to your chest. His hand caught lightly at your wrist, more instinct than force.
“Stay.” The word came rushed.
You looked down at his hand, then back up at him, "How sweet,” you said coolly. “You almost sound sincere.”
He scowled. Something you noticed he did often. “Do not mistake indulgence for weakness.”
“And do not mistake curiosity for devotion.”
You slipped free before he could tighten his grip, smoothing your sleeve where he had touched it.
Aerion watched you like something half-starved, all violet eyes and wounded pride, blood still bright against his lower lip.
You stopped at the doorway and glanced back, letting your gaze drag once, to his mouth.
“If you mean to hunt me down again, at least learn to hide it better.”
And with that, you swept out, leaving him standing in the middle of the drawing room, high and dry.
The corridor beyond was blessedly cooler.
You had scarcely made it three steps before Princess Daella rounded the corner, a small bundle of bright ribbons in hand. She blinked when she saw you, all soft eyes and quiet surprise.
“There you are,” she squeaked. “I was beginning to think you’d been stolen away.”
You steadied your expression at once, “Only delayed, princess.”
Daella’s gaze flicked briefly to your mouth, then to the letters clutched too tightly in your hands. Her brow furrowed, curiously.
From somewhere behind the half-open door, there was the sound of something being knocked over. Or tripped over. You chose to believe the latter.
Daella looked past you.
You did not.
“Shall we?” you asked lightly.
And when she nodded, you walked on beside her, leaving Prince Aerion Targaryen alone with his temper, and wanting.
