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𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 : john logan x fem!reader
𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 : angst, mentions of fainting, breakup implied or atleast taking a break implied, dizziness, medical inaccuracies for the plot.
𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 : Being a chronic fainter was a little annoying. but you learnt how to manage and by junior year at Briar, everyone around you had adapted to it too; Hannah and Allie knew how to catch the signs before you hit the floor, Garrett keeps electrolyte packets in his backpack, and the hockey house has practically developed an emergency response system.
Everyone adapts except John Logan.
Because no matter how many times you wake back up smiling and insisting you’re okay, Logan never quite learns how to treat it like something ordinary. And when one particularly bad fainting spell leaves you unconscious long enough to genuinely terrify him, the careful balance the two of you have built between normalcy and fear finally begins to crack.
Or: two times John Logan watched you faint, and the one time he realised loving you meant learning how to be scared without letting it consume him.
𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐜𝐞 : 5.7k words
𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲’𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 : First time fulfilling a request, I hope you like it anon, im sorry that it probably isn't the fluff you are looking for but I hope you like it nonetheless. thank you @mieluno & @kthice for the text dividers
fainting had always been a little bit inconvenient.
not dramatic enough to be cinematic, not predictable enough to properly prepare for - just inconvenient in the kind of way that slowly embeds itself into every aspect of your life until you stop noticing how abnormal it actually is. It all started in high school, the first time it happened was arguably horrifying- 3rd period math class, and your crush had just offered you a pen and flashed you a crooked smile. Your heart raced, like a hummingbird wild and erratic and before you knew it, one minute you were bashfully giggling at his jokes about quadratic equations- the next you were face first in your notebook. The doctors told you Vasovagal Syncope, which in your opinion sounded like a hard metal rock band, but you took their blood pressure medicines from that day onwards.
Over time, you learnt how to live with it. Sometimes it was manageable. Sometimes it was just dizziness and blurry vision making you sit down on the nearest surface before your body decided to humble you publicly. Sometimes it was waking up to panicked faces hovering over you while you tried to convince everyone around you that no, seriously, this happened all the time.
which, unfortunately, was true.
Allie and Hannah learned the quickest, being roommates would do that to you. The boys learned soon after. By junior year, there was practically a system in place for it - water bottles shoved into your hands, someone grabbing your bag before you hit the floor, Garrett texting Logan before you were even fully conscious again.
Logan, however, never quite adjusted to it the way everyone else did.
he tried to.
God, he tried.
but there was something uniquely horrifying about loving someone whose body could go slack in your arms without warning. Something deeply unsettling about the way you always laughed it off afterwards, brushing it aside with flushed cheeks and a quiet, "I'm okay,” while his heart was still somewhere near his throat.
because to you, fainting was normal.
to John Logan, it never would be.
But here are the two times he dealt with it..somewhat normally. And the one time he didn’t
𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟏
The library at Briar had a very specific kind of silence.
Not actual silence - that would’ve been impossible considering half the student population seemed physically incapable of existing without aggressively whispering every thought that crossed their mind - but the sort of hushed atmosphere that made every dropped pen sound like a gunshot.
You were currently trying very hard not to contribute to that atmosphere by murdering John Logan with a highlighter.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Logan muttered from across the table, long legs nudging yours beneath it.
You didn’t look up from your notes, underlining a sentence in your physiology textbook hard enough to nearly tear the page. “Because,” You whispered sharply, “you’ve tapped your foot against mine for the last fifteen minutes.”
“That’s because my feet are freezing.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“It became my problem when you shoved your icy ass converse under my legs.”
A snort came from beside you. Hannah quickly disguised it as a cough when you glared at her over your laptop screen.
Across from her, Garrett looked deeply unbothered by the entire interaction, lazily flipping a page in his philosophy textbook while Hannah slowly collapsed into silent laughter against his shoulder.
“You two are disgusting,” Allie informed you quietly from the end of the table.
You blinked. “We’re literally studying.”
Logan hummed beside you, not even pretending to pay attention to the stats worksheet in front of him anymore, “Yeah baby, real filthy behaviour.”
Heat crawled up your neck instantly.
The word baby wasn’t exactly new. Logan had been throwing it around for months now, slipping it into conversations with such casual ease that you’d stopped reacting outwardly somewhere around week three, despite the fact every single time still felt like someone plugging your nervous system directly into a live wire.
“You’re staring again,” You muttered.
“I’m allowed to stare at my girlfriend.”
Allie gagged dramatically.
“Oh my god,” She whispered loudly, “he’s gotten even more annoying.”
“Impossible,” Hannah replied solemnly.
Garrett barely glanced up from his book. “Give it a week. They’ll become one organism.”
“We already basically are,” Logan said casually.
You finally looked up at him then.
That was the problem with Logan. The reason you’d fallen for him so spectacularly despite your better judgement.
He said things like that so easily. Like it was obvious.
obviously he’d started keeping protein bars in his backpack because you forgot to eat when you were stressed. obviously he waited outside your exam halls even when he had practice. obviously your legs ended up over his lap every time you sat together for longer than ten minutes.
Your chest tightened softly.
And because apparently the universe enjoyed humiliating you whenever you got too emotionally comfortable, your vision blurred slightly at the exact same moment.
You frowned. That was… inconvenient timing.
The words on your laptop screen swam for half a second before sharpening again. Your heartbeat fluttered unpleasantly.
Not enough to panic over yet. You subtly shifted in your seat, rolling your neck and readjusting your posture- hoping to god that it would be enough, trying to ignore the familiar lightheadedness curling at the edges of your body.
“Hey.”
Logan’s voice dropped quieter instantly.
You looked over.
His brows had pulled together slightly, eyes scanning your face with terrifying precision.
“How long?” He asked softly.
Damn him.
Most people didn’t notice until you were actively halfway unconscious.
“I’m okay,” You whispered automatically.
A look crossed his face. Because he knew that tone. Knew what it meant when you said I’m okay in that specific careful voice. Your boyfriend leaned back slightly in his chair, completely ignoring the fact that Garrett was now openly watching the interaction over the top of his textbook.
“When was the last time you ate?”
You blinked once.
Logan sighed immediately. “Baby.”
“I had coffee?”
Allie dropped her pen onto the table. “Oh my god.”
“You can’t survive on caffeine and academic validation,” Hannah hissed.
“I literally can though.”
“No,” Logan said flatly, “you literally cannot. That’s the whole issue.”
Despite yourself, you laughed quietly.
Wrong decision.
The movement sent dizziness crashing through you harder this time, your stomach dipping sharply as black spots burst across your vision.
Logan was moving before you could even process it properly.
One second you were upright, the next his hand was wrapped around your wrist while the other steadied your shoulder.
“Hey,” He said immediately, voice calm enough that someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice the tension underneath it, “look at me.”
Your body felt frustratingly floaty all of a sudden.
“I’m fine,” You murmured weakly.
“Yeah, sweetheart, that sentence is losing credibility.”
Garrett was already standing.
“I’ll get water.”
Hannah reached for your bag without needing to ask while Allie shoved your laptop aside to make room.
The horrifying thing was how practised everyone looked doing it.
Like this had become routine.
Which, unfortunately, it kind of had.
“I hate all of you,” You mumbled as Logan carefully crouched in front of your chair.
“You love us deeply,” Allie corrected.
“Stockholm syndrome maybe.”
“You literally chose to date one of them,” Hannah pointed out.
“That weakens your argument significantly,” Garrett called over his shoulder.
Logan ignored all of them.
His thumb pressed lightly against your pulse point while he watched your face with that same concentrated expression he got before hockey games. Like he could somehow prevent your body from betraying you if he paid enough attention.
Your chest ached.
“Hey,” You whispered softly once your vision finally started stabilising again.
Logan looked up immediately.
You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing against the crease between his eyebrows. The tension sitting there.
“I’m okay.”
He closed his eyes for half a second. Then he turned his head slightly and pressed a quick kiss into the centre of your palm before standing back up.
The library collectively chose that exact moment to become aware of the fact that the hockey team’s second line centre was looking at you like you personally held his heart hostage.
“Oh my god,” Allie whispered dramatically.
Hannah looked emotional.
Garrett looked disgusted.
“Suddenly we’re all trapped in a Nicholas Sparks novel,” he muttered.
Logan didn’t even glance away from you.
“Shut up,” He said absentmindedly, still watching your face carefully, “she almost passed out.”
“I did not almost pass out.”
“That’s not medically valid.” Logan shot.
You flicked his forehead, “You’re not medically valid,”
You stared at him for two seconds before bursting into startled laughter.
And just like that, some of the fear eased out of his shoulders.
𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟐
The thing about the hockey house was that it never really felt like anyone was visiting it.
It felt like everyone was always a part of this little ecosystem, even if half of them technically still had their own places and the other half only owned two plates and a concerning number of energy drinks that nobody could fully account for.
Tonight was one of those nights where everything blurred into something almost domestic in a way you loved. Garrett and Hannah were folded into each other on the armchair in the corner, Hannah scrolling absently while Garrett spoke over her shoulder in low, easy comments about something on his screen that she kept pretending not to care about but clearly did.
Dean and Allie were on the floor near the coffee table, Allie leaning against him in that casual way that somehow always ended with her stealing his hoodies and Dean acting like he was personally offended by affection while still adjusting her position when she shifted too much.
And then there was Tucker, occupying the remaining space like a problem nobody had successfully solved yet, talking at a volume that suggested he had forgotten walls existed.
You were on the couch.
Logan was on the couch too, your legs resting across his lap, your head resting on the back of the couch. His hand had found your ankle at some point during the evening and had simply stayed there, like it had decided that was where it belonged and saw no reason to reconsider.
“Have you eaten today?,” Logan murmured into your ear, not looking up from his phone.
You didn’t look away from the conversation Dean was having with Allie about whether cereal could be classified as a personality trait. “Hmm?”
“Did you eat today baby?” He dropped his phone into his lap and caressed your hair.
“I think so.”
A pause.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It does if you really think about it.”
Hannah glanced over from the armchair. “She’s lying.”
“I am not lying.”
Garrett didn’t look up. “You had toast and emotional distress.”
“I had toast and a very normal amount of stress.”
Logan’s thumb pressed lightly against your ankle once, absent and automatic, but his attention had shifted to you properly now. Not fully concerned yet, but already recalibrating the room around your answer the way he always did when he thought something might be off.
“Baby,” he said quietly, like it was a habit more than a warning.
You finally turned your head slightly toward him. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything.”
“You’re absolutely starting something.”
Across the room, Allie made a sound of exaggerated disgust without even looking up. “I can feel the health lecture forming.”
Dean nodded. “It’s in the air.”
Logan ignored them completely. “You said you had toast this morning.”
“I did.”
“And then what.”
You hesitated.
Which was apparently answered enough.
Hannah sighed. “Oh my god.”
“I had coffee,” you admitted finally, because there was no point pretending anymore.
Garrett closed his eyes briefly like he was praying for patience. “That’s not food.”
“It has beans in it.”
“That’s not how nutrition works,” Logan said, though his voice was still calm, still even, like he was trying very hard not to make it into a bigger thing than it already was.
You shifted your legs slightly on his lap, rolling your eyes. “You’re all obsessed with me.”
“Yes,” Allie said immediately.
“That’s not-”
“Yes,” Dean repeated, “we are.”
You opened your mouth to concede and hop to the kitchen, go grab whatever tucker had made and stored in the fridge, but the words didn’t come out as smoothly as they should have.
It wasn’t immediate. It never was, much to your annoyance. It was subtle in the way your body always was about these things, like it preferred to give you enough time to be pissed before it betrayed you properly.
A slight softening at the edges of your vision first, like the room had decided to lose definition without informing you. The low hum of conversation didn’t change, but it felt slightly further away, like you were listening to it through water.
You frowned. This was inconvenient.
You shifted your weight on the couch instinctively, trying to ground yourself without drawing attention to it, but Logan noticed anyway. Of course he did.
His hand tightened slightly around your ankle.
“You good?” he asked, quieter now.
You nodded automatically. “Yea,” pushing off the sofa, hoping the movement would reboot your brain,”... yeah im fine.”
It came out too fast. Logan’s expression changed imperceptibly, the way it always did when he didn’t believe you but hadn’t yet decided whether to challenge it in front of everyone.
“Hey,” he said again, softer, his hand wrapped around your wrist- following you away from your seat.
You tried to laugh it off, but it didn’t quite land properly even in your own ears. “I’m finally listening to you guys, just going to grab something to eat.”
You pushed yourself to step away.
That was when it hit properly. Your body simply decided that it was no longer participating in the conversation. The room loosened, like the edges stopped agreeing with each other and in between the gaps your brain filled with black spots.
You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the back of the couch as your knees went weak in a way that didn’t feel like anything at first, until it did.
“Hey-”
Logan’s voice cut through immediately, sharper now, closer than it had been a second ago, but it was already too late for clarity.
There was so much movement all at once.
Someone swearing.
A water bottle being cracked open.
The shuffling of sneakers and socks against the floor.
Coming back was always the worst part.
Because there was always a moment where you could hear everything before you could properly exist inside it again. Voices layered over each other, closer this time, less casual.
“I’ve got her,” Logan’s voice said, low and controlled in a way that didn’t quite match the tension underneath it.
“She’s out cold?” Dean asked, like he was trying not to panic but also deeply failing.
“She’s not- don’t say it like that,” Allie snapped immediately.
“Water,” Garrett said somewhere to the side, already moving.
And then your vision finally returned in pieces.
Ceiling first.
Then faces.
Then Logan.
He was closest.
Crouched in front of you, one hand steadying your shoulder, the other still holding your wrist like he hadn’t fully decided whether letting go was allowed yet. His expression wasn’t dramatic in the way people expected panic to be.
He was focussed on you, in a way that made your chest tighten before you even fully remembered why. You blinked slowly.
“Oh,” you muttered. “That was annoying.”
Relief flickered across Allie’s face instantly. “She’s alive.”
“Barely,” Dean said.
“I heard that,” you murmured.
Logan didn’t smile, “you scared me,” he said finally. You swallowed, trying to sit up, but his hand immediately steadied you again, firmer now.
“Don’t,” he said softly.
“I’m fine,” you replied automatically, accepting the water from garrett with a smile, you reach over to your bag and search for an energy bar. You hated the nutty torture snacks, but Logan insisted on you carrying them around for emergencies.
Everyone around you had relaxed, Hannah, Garrett and Tucker went to the kitchen, animatedly chatting about dinner whereas Allie and Dean went back to their places on the floor, already scrolling through her phone.
Logan hadn’t moved, his fingers drumming against your knee. Your fingers moved without thinking, brushing lightly against his sleeve.
“I’m okay,” you said again, softer this time, like it might mean something more if you said it gently enough.
Logan exhaled through his nose, eyes flicking briefly shut like he was trying to steady something in himself. He shook his head, as if the movie had been unpaused and he had momentarily lost the plot.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”
𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟑
Logan got the message in the middle of something he would not later be able to reconstruct properly, not because it wasn’t important, but because everything that happened immediately after replaced it so completely that the original context never stood a chance of surviving in his memory.
His phone buzzed incessantly on his desk breaking his concentration from whatever his professor was droning about ,to the group chat notifications exploding on his phone screen. It was Hannah’s name first, then Garrett’s, then Allie’s, all stacked on top of each other in a way that made him unlock his phone and scroll through hurriedly.
you fainted. properly. you're awake now. come back.
He read it once without reacting in any visible way, which was what made it worse in hindsight, everything else that he had been doing was irrelevant, as though the idea of continuing it belonged to someone else entirely, and he was no longer that person.
By the time he got back to the house, his hoodie was half-zipped because he had started putting it on properly and then stopped halfway through, his cap still backwards and slightly uneven like he had forgotten it was there at all and his hair underneath it flattened in places that suggested his hand had been through it more times than he had noticed.
Logan shut off his ignition and ran up the stairs, two at a time until he was bursting through the front door- his bag hanging from one shoulder as he scanned the scene in front of him. Garrett stood near the kitchen counter with a glass of water he had clearly forgotten to drink from, Hannah sat on the couch angled slightly forward in a posture that suggested she had not yet decided whether she was allowed to relax, Allie hovered somewhere between the hallway and the living room in a way that made it clear she had been going back and forth between checking on you and giving you space, and Dean existed in that familiar state of pretending not to be paying attention while absolutely paying attention.
And you were on the couch. Your eyes were open but not fully anchored yet, blinking slowly in that delayed way that made it clear your body was still catching up to where you were. Your shoulders were slightly hunched forward as if you were trying to find the correct posture for being awake again and your hands were loosely folded in your lap before you noticed him properly.
The moment you did, everything in you shifted in a way that was immediate and familiar, like muscle memory rather than thought. You sat up, twisting over the couch to meet his eyes and smile with your hand outstretched- that was when the collective inhale happened, like even the house was waiting to see what he would do.
His eyes stayed on you without breaking, taking in the fact that you were sitting there, awake, conscious, present, and yet his brain still hadn’t stopped running like a hamster on a wheel, rotating again and again through all the scenarios he had plagued himself with on the drive over- a broken movie reel that fluttered between bad, worse and catastrophic.
You saw him, the way his eyes darted all over your face, how his hand was tightening and loosely against his bag strap.
“Hey,” you said, your voice slightly rough, but it jumpstarted him to begin slowly approaching you, like a wounded animal. Your first instinct whenever he looked like that, as if you could smooth the edges of his expression back into something manageable by making yourself smaller within it, which was something you did without hesitation, like it was part of a pattern you had both already agreed to without ever discussing it.
He let you.
Let you intertwine your fingers with him and pull him closer next to you. Let you kiss his hands, then knuckles and then the side of his wrist. He let you ground him before he could process anything.
“I’m fine,” you said quickly, already aware of how the room was still holding itself slightly tense, and your voice tilted into something apologetic without fully meaning to, “I’m sorry guys, I must not have realised how stressed I was. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, I just didn’t eat properly and I got a bit dizzy and I didn’t realise it would turn into anything, it won’t happen again, I promise.”
Around you, the room began to release itself in pieces.
Garrett exhaled and shifted his weight like he had been waiting for permission to stop bracing, Hannah leaned back into the couch again as her shoulders loosened, Allie moved a step closer to you and immediately started talking in that half-joking, half-relieved tone about electrolytes and how she was “putting you on a schedule if this ever happens again,” and Dean, finally, contributed something about how he shouldn’t have asked about how your paper went, and he’ll let you run him over with his car to relieve stress next time, which was unhelpful but normal in a way that helped everyone else reset.
You leaned into Logan without thinking, still holding his hand, your body molding into his as you rubbed circles on his knuckles and pressed your hand into his thigh
You looked up at him, already softer, already slipping back into the version of the evening where everything was normal again. But what you couldn’t see was the way his emotions swirled thunderously in his mind, how he couldn’t begin to relax like everyone else did- in fact he was baffled they were so normal so quickly. He barely heard you ask about his class, or notice when you peppered soft kisses to his jaw and say that you missed him- how boring it was when he wasn’t there. As though the structure of his day mattered more than anything.
He tried to answer at first, his words bubbling to the tip of his tongue, but it didn’t take long for him to realise they wouldn’t come out in a smooth, caramelised way that would flow into the calm atmosphere of the room. He gently let go of your hand, in a decisive way that made you furrow your brows and scan his face.
“Logan?” you said, quieter now, not fully alarmed but already sensing the direction this was going.
He rubbed his hands together, throat working thickly as his adams apple bobbed. Everyone else had noticed the shift, conversations slowed. Dean stopped mid-sentence. Allie’s expression changed slightly as she looked between the two of you. Hannah went still in a way that suggested she was no longer sure whether to intervene or wait.
Logan turned to you, his hair falling in specks along his forehead, “I need a minute.” He got up and went upstairs, footsteps heavy along the ceiling of where you all stayed frozen until his bedroom door clicked closed; you blinked a few times, looking at your friends who met you with confused, concerned shrugs and shakes of their heads.
Your expression tightened and you pushed yourself up to follow him, ignoring whatever advice your friends were half-heartedly giving you.
When the door creaked open under your hand, you found him sitting on the edge of his bed, hands braced on his knees and holding his head, as though he needed something solid to hold the weight of his thoughts. His cap lay discarded on the floor, shoulders slightly lifted in tension that he was not releasing, and when you entered the doorway he did not look immediately, as if he already knew what would happen if he looked at you too quickly.
When he did meet your eyes, it was not anger that you saw first, but something more difficult to place because it did not sit cleanly in any single emotion. It looked like a strain held in place for too long.
“You shouldn’t apologise like that,” he said, and you frowned slightly, stepping inside and shutting the door behind you. Trapping whatever conversation you were about to have within these four walls.
“I wasn’t- I just didn’t want everyone worrying,” you said, still trying to smooth it over in the same way you had in the other room, still trying to keep it within something manageable. The bedframe creaked under you, as if warning you from crossing your legs and sinking into this situation.
But he shook his head once, not dismissive but overwhelmed, and when he spoke again his voice had shifted into something quieter but sharper at the edges, “You were apologising for being unconscious.”
That made you stop, properly stop, because it didn’t match the version of the moment you had been holding onto, and he saw that in your face immediately.
“I wasn’t here,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it that made it clear that time had not been abstract for him in the same way it was for you. “You were just gone, and I found out from my phone blowing up, messages that had sat there for god knows how long because…” He grit his teeth, “I just had to turn it on silent for class. And I get back to everyone telling me it was fine, that you’re fine, like that changes anything.”
You try to re-anchor him in proximity the same way you always did, your hand finding his again, your voice softening as you said, “You can’t always be there Logan, I don’t want you to always be on edge. I’m okay.”
But when he looked at you this time, there was something in his expression that did not settle with that reassurance.
“I know,” he said quietly, and it came out with more restraint than anything he had said earlier, like it was something he had been holding back for a long time and could no longer keep contained in the same shape. “I just don’t know how to stop thinking about what it looked like when you weren’t.”
You cup his cheek, turning him towards you, “I’m right here baby,” You kiss him, imprinting the taste of you onto his mouth, the feel of your lips together as a way to tell him that you’re still there with him, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Logan held your wrists, his fingers shaking against your skin, “I..” his eyes were wide, pupils flicking between yours, “I never know when you aren’t going to be here.”
He tugged at your hands and you let him, nails digging into the bedsheet uselessly next to you. Your breath caught in your throat, face quaking and crumbling at the edges, eyelashes fluttering- beating away the bubbling tears forming on your lashline.
“I think I’ll sleep at the dorm tonight,” you said eventually, and your voice was softer than it had been before, tired in a way that didn’t fully belong to the moment.
Logan looked up at that, but he didn’t stop you, just watched with a shattered look in his eyes, his lips pursed and pressed against his hands that were clasped together. You collected your things as seamlessly as possible, and given that you’d stayed over for the entire weekend, it was proving to be harder than you thought. But you huffed and puffed with each new article that got shoved into the shoulder bag until the room looked as if you’d never stepped foot in there.
You’d already begun to calculate how many trips it would take to empty out the clothes from his dresser and toiletries from his bathroom.
Logan still hadn’t said anything, his eyes widening by a fraction when he realised just how much you had erased from his space, but he stayed silent when your fingers hesitated against the door handle and didn’t dare to say anything when you turned back to him- eyes begging him to stop you, to cradle you in his arms and work it out. He ignored it all, looking through you and barely flinching when you shut the dare harder than necessary.
You adjusted your bag strap over your shoulder with careful hands, stilling when you realised everyone was staring at you when you emerged from the stairwell, “I’m heading home guys..”
Your throat tightened but you shook your head and forced a smile onto your face, it felt plasticy and fake when your eyebrows tightened together, nose burning with each deep breath you took.
You added lightly, “I’ve got that test tomorrow anyway, and it’s probably better if I just- yeah. I’ll head back.”
Allie and Hannah both turned slightly, breaking out of the pitying trance when you grabbed your keys and headed for the door.
Neither of them said anything at first, because there was a specific kind of silence that settles when two people are trying very hard to behave like nothing irreversible has happened only a floor above them.
“Okay,” Allie said finally, careful but not pushing, “Text us when you get in?”
You nodded quickly.
“Yeah, of course.”
Hannah’s eyes lingered on you a little longer, not interrogating, just observing, like she was storing away the way you were holding yourself more tightly than usual, the way Logan wasn’t following you to the door, barely letting you out of his hold with attacks of kisses and whispers in your ear.
But neither of them asked.
Because to everyone else in the house, it still looked like something that could be explained away by stress and timing and too much noise and not enough food.
You said goodbye in a way that was deliberately light, stepping out with your usual version of composure stitched back together over something slightly less stable underneath it.
Back in the living room, the energy eventually returned in fragments, Logan had rejoined the group nearly an hour after the girls had left.
Allie and Hannah left together not long after you, mumbled goodbyes were exchanged and worried whispers about Logan along with promises to update them over text had gotten them out the door back to you .
And once the door closed behind them, the house settled into a quieter version of itself.
Dean was the first to fully break the tension, dropping onto the couch with the kind of exaggerated movement that only made sense when someone was actively trying to remind a room how normal they were allowed to be. Tucker followed soon after, already halfway into a joke about how “Briar parties are medically unsafe environments” that no one really responded to but still helped reset the tone anyway.
Logan stayed silent for a moment too long in the kitchen doorway before eventually sitting down on the arm of the couch, not fully joining the group, just occupying space near it without integrating into it. The others kept talking for a while, but their volume softened slightly in the way it does when people unconsciously recognise that something heavier is still present in the room.
Eventually, Dean stretched and yawned in an overly theatrical way.
“Right,” he said, pushing himself up. “I’m calling it before I start thinking about my own mortality again.”
Tucker followed immediately, clapping Logan on the shoulder on his way past like nothing meaningful had just been discussed at all. “Don’t overthink it, man,” he added lightly, already heading upstairs. “She’s been doing that since high school apparently. She’s fine.”
Garrett didn’t follow them right away.
Logan just exhaled once, slow, like something had tightened in his chest at the phrasing.
Once the footsteps disappeared upstairs and the house settled properly, Garrett stayed behind in the spot next to Logan, leaning against the couch and pretended not to be boring holes into the side of his best friend's face. Logan was still on the couch arm, staring somewhere that wasn’t really the room.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
“I can’t imagine it,” Garrett broke the silence, voice quieter now, stripped of the earlier group energy, “loving someone and knowing that at any point they might just not respond.”
Logan’s jaw tightened slightly at that, but he didn’t interrupt.
Garrett looked down at his hands briefly before continuing, “I know everyone’s saying she’s used to it and it’s normal for her or whatever, but… that’s not really the part that sticks, is it?”
That landed differently.
Logan looked down finally, his hands loosely clasped together, and when he spoke his voice came out lower than before, less controlled in the way it had been earlier.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, and there was no performance left in it now, no attempt to hold anything in place. “I love her so much it actually hurts, and I can’t… I can’t keep doing that thing where I pretend I’m okay when she’s-”
He stopped. Swallowed slightly and pressed his fingers to his eyes. Logan exhaled again, slower this time, like the words were physically difficult to keep forming.
“But I also can’t go on like this,” he finished, quieter.
That silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable in the way earlier ones had been. It was just heavy with the absence of an answer. Garrett nodded once, slowly, like he understood that there wasn’t a clean solution sitting anywhere in reach.
“I think,” Garrett said carefully after a moment, choosing each word like he was placing it somewhere fragile, “it might actually be harder to let her go than it is to keep reminding yourself she wakes up every time.”
Logan turned to Garrett, and nodded slowly- a row of tears fell from his chin and onto the soft cashmere beneath him, “I just don’t know how many times I can do it.”
Dr. Brendon "The Shark" Park x (female) wife! deaf! reader.
Summary: There's a multi-vehicle accident, and the ER staff is taken aback when Park “The Shark” refuses to treat one of the patients. They're even more surprised when they discover she's his wife.
Warning: Possible medical inaccuracies. Possible inaccuracies about deafness. Swearing. Brendon Park himself. Age difference, height difference. References to sex, but nothing explicit. Hurt/Comfort
Words: 5586.
Taglist: @my-whole-brain-is-crying @celestephung @leksi-rae @chelle-1515 @minienix @mythologicallyversed @mxtokko @tears-of-acid-and-sluts @susp3ndedindusk @helenaellie @rei-scorpio @ivy-stuffs @dutch3-10 @catharticdesire @sidneysidney123 @fics-from-the-dead @eddiemunsonguitar @thedragonsrose @mynameisbaby9 @simply-lovley44 @dr3obsessed @mayabbot @bbblackmamba @harryswizzle @miichelleswriting @alphafemale-15 @rabbotseatcarrots @b38596012 @lipsunsmokedcigarette @pastlecow @kingtitus @stevieharrington71 @asfaraslifegets @noyaisasimp @loki-trickst3r @miahelen @xoxoloverb @brown-eyes-cello-and-books @seitmai @boricuas-fic-recs
I tried to follow everything you told me to make it as accurate as possible, but I'm not sure if I succeeded. Anyway, thank you very much for replying to me @brown-eyes-cello-and-books
The sunlight filtered timidly through the fissures of the heavy blackout curtains, tracing gilded lines across the rumpled blankets. That morning, like so many others before it, the world did not yet fully exist; there was only the pervasive warmth and the steady, grounding presence at your back.
Brendon woke you as he always did. He used no words, favoring the language you both mastered best: touch. It began with soft, lingering kisses along the curve of your neck as his hand descended to squeeze your hips with possessive affection. It was a silent gesture—an unspoken “I’m here, Doll”—as he drew you flush against his naked heat, letting you feel his morning arousal brushing against the small of your back.
It wasn’t a demand for sex, but a tether—a life-affirming reminder of the electric intimacy that, even after two years of marriage, remained vibrantly intact.
You buried your face in the pillow with a languid, muffled sigh, shivering at the sensation of his calloused fingertips against your skin. Brendon was in no rush. He took his time, dragging the tip of his nose along your jawline to inhale your natural scent before it was camouflaged by the citrus perfume you always asked him to buy.
After assuring himself—with one last firm squeeze and a delicate kiss to the nape of your neck—that you wouldn’t drift back to sleep, he finally pulled away. The mattress felt cavernous without his massive frame filling his side of the bed. He stood and moved with an agility that defied his sheer size; even after all this time, and despite accompanying him to the gym, you couldn't fathom how a man of his build could move so gracefully.
He lingered for a moment at the foot of the bed, watching you as he stretched his muscles, before pulling on a pair of briefs that did little to hide his hardness—though he seemed entirely indifferent to it. His blue eyes glinted with that specific blend of adoration and mischief he reserved solely for you and your shared mornings. He gave you a slow, knowing smile, well aware that in this precise moment, the world was "silent" for you.
He knew—not for nothing had he been married to you for years—that wearing your cochlear implants for more than six hours at a time was a sensory nightmare. Usually, you only removed them when the noise became a physical torture of overstimulation. Or, more often, he would remove them himself, having learned to read every micro-expression of discomfort on your face.
He strode from the room, granting you those final minutes of absolute peace. By habit, you knew he was heading straight for the kitchen. Though you couldn't hear it, your mind reconstructed the soundtrack of his actions with crystalline clarity: the electric roar of the grinder pulverizing specialty coffee beans—ridiculously expensive in your opinion, but purchased because he preferred the best—and the delicate clink of ceramic mugs meeting the black marble island.
It was a ritual, a domestic choreography executed with a precision born of devotion. Black, potent coffee for him; a thick, velvety hot chocolate for you. This was his nonverbal syntax, his way of tending to you, of reminding you that you were his—that he chose you above all else, every single day.
You lingered a moment longer amidst the Egyptian cotton—another luxury Brendon insisted upon, and a far cry from the scratchy linens you'd known in the system—feeling his residual warmth fade. You wondered what he was "inventing" for breakfast. Brendon was not a man for simple toast; for him, the kitchen was another theatre of mastery. He was as deft with a chef’s knife as he was with a scalpel in the operating room.
Gradually, the aroma of his cooking began to seep beneath the door. You rose and donned one of his oversized shirts, ignoring the silk robes in your own dressing room. The fabric draped over your bare skin, concealing the handprints, love bites, and bruises Brendon had marked you with the night before.
You moved slowly, feeling a pleasant ache in your muscles and a lingering tenderness from your husband's attentions. Reaching for the hard case on the nightstand, your fingers closed around it with mechanical familiarity. You snapped the processors behind your ears, feeling the faint click of the magnets engaging.
A soft electronic beep signaled the end of your silence. Suddenly, the stillness was replaced by the low hum of the radio and the distant murmur of Brendon’s voice as he mentally retraced the steps of his first scheduled surgery.
You walked barefoot, the chill of the dark hardwood floors biting at your soles. Brendon’s shirt, made of an impossibly soft weave, brushed against your knees as you padded down the hallway. The scent was now unmistakable: fresh coffee, rich chocolate, and the savory salt of crispy bacon and scrambled eggs on seeded toast.
At the kitchen threshold, you paused, leaning against the frame of the French doors. He stood with his back to you, focused on the stove, his broad, muscular shoulders bathed in the clear morning light. Across his shoulder blades, you could see the evidence of your own passion: long, crimson furrows where your nails had dug in, as if he’d been marked by a wolf. They were the silent testimony of the pleasure he had elicited with his hands, his tongue, and his body. Had it been four orgasms? Five?
He didn't need you to speak to know you were there; it was a sixth sense he’d developed over their time together. He turned slowly, spatula in hand, wearing that half-smile he kept only for you.
"Good morning, Doll," he said, his voice reaching your implants with a vibrant, resonant warmth. "I was starting to think I’d have to bring breakfast to you."
His gaze raked over the shirt—recognizing his own garment—and the flare of heat in his eyes at the sight of his marks on your skin almost made you wish for more.
"Good morning, Big Guy," you murmured lazily, stepping forward to curl into his chest.
He welcomed you with a protective arm, hooking it around your waist to haul you flush against him while his other hand remained busy with the pan. The heat radiating from him was intoxicating. As you pressed your face into his bare chest, Brendon let out a low, rumbling laugh—a deep vibration you felt against your cheek before your implants even processed the sound. It was your favorite sound in the world.
"It looks better on you than it does on me, Babydoll," he said, setting the spatula aside to thread his fingers through your sleep-muddled hair, gently tilting your head back to meet his gaze. "I could get used to this view, though I’d run out of clothes in a week."
He looked at you with a predatory intensity, savoring the contrast of his massive shirt against your petite frame. His thumb traced the edge of a bruise on your neck—a mark he had carved there himself. An electric shiver of possession raced down your spine, a reminder that while the outside world was a chaotic mess, here, there was only the two of you.
"Now, breakfast," he said, punctuated by a firm swat to your backside—hard enough to sting and leave yet another mark.
You let out a small gasp, half-startled and half-delighted. The echo of the impact resonated in your implants with startling clarity. Brendon Park never did anything halfway; every caress, however blunt, was a signature—a way of marking his territory and reminding you that you had belonged to him from the moment you said "I do."
"Brendon!" you protested with a mischievous grin, though you made no move to retreat.
He laughed, guiding you toward a stool at the island. He moved with practiced efficiency, plating the eggs and bacon on white porcelain adorned with cherry blossoms—your choice, not his. Left to his own devices, everything he owned would have been black, but he used these because he knew they made you happy.
"Sit, Doll. You need to recharge," he said, setting the steaming plate and matching cup of chocolate before you.
You settled onto the stool, the shirt riding up to reveal the bites on your pale thighs. Watching him move in the morning light—so domestic yet radiating that dangerous, coiled energy—your heart hammered. You couldn't help but marvel at your luck that a man like this was yours alone.
Brendon sat beside you, but not before pressing a chaste, firm kiss to the crown of your head. He didn't eat immediately. Instead, he leaned an elbow on the counter and studied you with the same critical, discerning gaze he used on surgical interns. He knew your every habit. He knew that you sometimes drifted away from the physical world, forgetting basic needs like sustenance.
"Eat, Doll. Don't you dare leave half of that," he warned, gesturing to the plate with his chin. "I know you. You’ll drink the chocolate, decide the sugar is enough to last ten hours, and think you’re fine. You know I don't like that."
He reached out and, with a tenderness that stood in stark contrast to the raw power of the night before, cut a piece of toast and held it to your lips. He waited patiently for you to accept it. It was a command wrapped in devotion. Only when he saw you chew and swallow did he grunt in satisfaction and begin his own meal.
He ensured not a scrap was left on your plate before draining his coffee in one long draught. Once finished, he cleared the space with methodical precision, loading the dishwasher with surgical efficiency.
"I’m going to shower. I won't be long," he announced, pressing one last kiss to your shoulder before heading toward the primary ensuite.
You rose to prepare his clothes for the day. You walked barefoot into his dressing room—a space that smelled of sandalwood, cedar, and expensive, spicy cologne. You knew his routine by heart: today was a long day in the theater, which meant hours of standing under relentless lights, maintaining microscopic accuracy as he reconstructed bone and joint.
You sifted through the hangers carefully, mindful of the perfect order he maintained—a sharp contrast to the beautiful chaos of your own closet. You selected a deep navy Egyptian cotton shirt that matched the hue of his eyes and trousers of a soft, elegantly tailored black fabric. You laid them out on the bed, smoothing every phantom wrinkle with your palm.
Just as you finished setting out his socks and silk briefs, the sound of the water cut off. Moments later, Brendon emerged, a towel knotted loosely at his hips. His torso was still beaded with water, and his damp hair dripped onto his broad shoulders. He paused when he saw the clothes waiting for him.
"You're too good to me, Babydoll," he sighed, though the curve of his lips betrayed how much the gesture touched him. "And you know me too well. After a long shift, the last thing I want to do is fight with a wardrobe."
He walked up to you, his damp hands resting on your waist, just above where you both knew the marks of his possession remained etched into your skin.
"Thank you, precious," he continued, his tone softening for a fleeting second. "Now, let me get dressed before I decide that surgeries can wait—and you can't."
"I could cover my eyes, if you're too embarrassed for me to see you naked," you teased affectionately. You shielded your face with your hands, but left purposeful slits between your fingers so as not to miss a single detail of his formidable anatomy.
Brendon shook his head, clearly amused by your mischief, a spark of adoration igniting in his eyes.
"You are incorrigible, Doll—absolutely and truly incorrigible," he murmured. He dropped the towel without a trace of modesty, knowing full well you were devouring every line of his body with your gaze.
You watched him dress with practiced speed. There was something hypnotic about a man of his bulk slipping into the clothes you had curated for him. He pulled on the cotton T-shirt, which clung to his broad shoulders like a second skin; then his briefs, concealing a frame that—even at rest—was considerable; and finally, his trousers, which he drew up over his powerful legs.
Once dressed, he sat on the edge of the bed to lace his shoes. The atmosphere shifted subtly; his expression grew somber, his mind already navigating through X-rays and surgical protocols with the clinical efficiency that characterized him at the PTMC. In an instant, he transitioned from the tender, possessive husband to the meticulous, predatory surgeon capable of silencing a room with his mere presence.
He stood and approached you one last time, wrapping one large hand around the nape of your neck to draw you into his space until you shared the same air. You couldn't help but shudder—not from fear, for you would never fear him—but from the sheer electricity his proximity always sparked.
"Take advantage of your day off. Rest. Stay in bed all day if you want," he ordered, his lips brushing yours with every syllable.
You closed your eyes, letting yourself be intoxicated by that balance of tenderness and dominance only Brendon could strike. You felt small beneath his touch, yet immensely secure.
"Understood?" he insisted, pressing his lips against yours in a slow, possessive kiss that forced you to grip his massive forearms just to keep your balance.
"Understood, Big Guy," you murmured against his mouth, your voice barely a breath.
He let out a grunt of satisfaction. With one final, stinging swat to your backside that made you arch your back with a moan, he laughed and pulled away. He strode out of the room, and seconds later, you heard the heavy thud of the front door. Finally alone, you collapsed back onto the unmade bed, enveloped in the fading scent of him.
What you wouldn't give to be back there again.
What a fool you had been.
Silly and careless.
You shouldn't have done it. But he pampered you with such devotion that you hadn't wanted to be left behind. As a token of gratitude, you had decided on a gesture of your own: you would take your old car and bring him a homemade lunch. It was a rarity; you both preferred to keep your marriage private, shielded from the prying eyes of "gossipy colleagues."
The intention had been pure—an act of love for the man who adored you. You had prepared his favorite meal, ignoring the pull of exhaustion, the ache in your muscles, and his direct command to remain in bed.
But fate—or rather, a drunk driver blowing through a stop sign—had other plans.
A flash of red. The harrowing screech of rubber against asphalt. The cacophony of blaring horns. Then, the thunderous explosion of metal yielding to metal—a dull, bone-deep impact that seemed to shift the very axis of the universe.
And then, the nothingness.
That was how you ended up here.
The first sensation to register as you drifted into consciousness within the disoriented haze of the trauma room was the scent: a sterile, sharp medicinal smell that you associated so deeply with your husband. You were surrounded by a frantic blur of doctors and nurses, their mouths moving with urgent speed, but you heard nothing. Where were your implants? Had they been lost in the wreckage? You couldn't think clearly, and the silence was absolute—a rising wall that severed you from the world, leaving you skin-raw and vulnerable.
A stabbing headache made reason impossible. You tried to lift your arms to sign, to tell them you couldn't hear, but a pair of hands pinned you down, obstructing your only means of expression.
Panic flared. You were trapped in a ring of people who wanted to help but couldn't comprehend why you wouldn't—or couldn't—answer.
"It’s useless; she’s too disoriented from the impact," Dr. Al-Hashimi said. You couldn't hear her, of course, but you saw her lips moving too fast to read as you struggled against the restraints.
"Ortho is on their way down," Perlah confirmed, hanging up the red trauma phone.
It was then, in the middle of the struggle, that the agony in your hip finally surged through the adrenaline. For the first time since waking, you thought of Brendon. He would be frantic. Had the paramedics salvaged your bag, or was it still crushed in the footwell of the car? You should have been wearing the medical alert bracelet he’d bought you for exactly this scenario, but you’d forgotten it again. The universe seemed to be mocking your negligence, leaving you helpless and mute at the moment you most needed a voice. A lump of sheer helplessness tightened in your throat.
"We can’t stabilize her if she won't stop fighting," Santos muttered, though Perlah heard her clearly.
It took only minutes for Brendon Park to arrive.
The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. You couldn't hear the sudden hush that fell over the trauma bay when he entered, but you felt the change in pressure. It was like a shark dispersing a school of silverfish, or the shockwave of a blast leveling an idyllic landscape. Drs. Al-Hashimi and Santos tensed, their shoulders hunching as their gazes darted toward the double doors. Whitaker practically recoiled into a corner, looking like a gazelle in the presence of an apex predator.
"Call Ortho again and tell Dr. Brennan to get down here," he ordered, offering no explanation and looking at no one but you. He moved with predatory focus until he was at eye level with your stretcher.
"What? But you’re already here, Dr. Park," Al-Hashimi interjected, her confusion palpable. "I don’t believe her injuries are severe enough to require two attending surgeons—"
He didn't deign to answer her. He scanned you with a surgical eye, not touching you yet, before realizing that your agitation was born of pure, silent terror. He correctly guessed that the magnets of your implants hadn't survived the G-force of the collision.
"I’m here, Doll. Look at me. Only me," he signed, ensuring his hands were within your line of sight while simultaneously speaking with a loud, commanding clarity. He cared nothing for the stunned expressions of his colleagues.
"Since when do you know ASL?" Whitaker stammered, too shocked to filter his thoughts. Seeing Park—the "Shark"—signing with fluid grace was like seeing a statue start to breathe.
"Since my wife is deaf, genius," Brendon snapped, turning a steel-blue gaze on every medical professional in the bay. "And you’re terrifying her. How is it that not one of you noticed she can’t hear a word you’re saying? Am I surrounded by total incompetents?"
The silence in the trauma room deepened, spreading like a cold front across the faces of the staff. Dr. Al-Hashimi’s mouth hung open as she processed the revelation. Santos looked equally horrified, and Whitaker turned a shade of pale that nearly matched the hospital walls.
No one in the hospital knew that the cold, caustic, and brusque Dr. Park even had a personal life, let alone a wife—and certainly not that his wife was currently bleeding out on an ER gurney.
"Dr. Brennan is coming, but she’s not happy about the summons," Perlah said, returning from the phone.
"As if I give a damn about her mood. The bylaws forbid me from operating on my own wife," Brendon dismissed her. Even without hearing the thunder in his voice, you saw the granite set of his jaw. The staff shrank back as if they were on a sinking vessel surrounded by white sharks. "And I’m certainly not leaving her in the hands of incompetent residents. Brennan is the only one I trust for this, besides myself."
His gaze returned to you, transforming in a heartbeat. The "Shark" vanished, replaced by the man who adored you. He leaned in, invading your space with that familiar, possessive heat, ignoring the half-dozen witnesses who were still reeling from the word wife.
"Look at me, Doll. You’re going to be fine. Dr. Brennan is going to fix your hip, and I’m going to be right there, watching her every move. Don't worry about anything. Do you understand?" He signed slowly, allowing your concussed brain to track his movements.
You nodded, the knot of panic in your chest finally loosening. Seeing him sign in the middle of this sterile chaos was the anchor that kept you from drowning in the quiet. You didn't care that his coworkers were seeing a side of him they didn't believe existed.
"Park is married..." Whitaker whispered, utterly floored by the sight of the brutal surgeon being so tender. "I never thought it was possible."
"Yes, I’m married. Yes, I have a life outside these walls; though I fail to see why that matters right now," Brendon replied, his voice regaining its icy edge. "You should be focused on the patient, not gossiping like schoolboys."
He never took his eyes off you, even as he hurled barbs at the staff. You watched the resident who looked like a character from Ratatouille stumble backward, nearly tripping over a blue-eyed doctor, while Al-Hashimi tried to regain her professional composure.
"The boy from Ratatouille looks like he’s about to faint. Don’t be mean, Bren," you signed weakly, your arms feeling like lead.
A brief, dry laugh shook Brendon’s chest—a vibration you felt against your arm before you saw his lips curl into a genuine, if ironic, smile.
"Then... you were the one who left those marks," Santos blurted out, her eyes traveling over the dark bruises on your neck and chest. The evidence of the previous night was everywhere: shoulders, abdomen, thighs. The most prominent were the unmistakable shadows of large fingers wrapped around your waist. "It looks more like a brutal assault than a consensual act."
Brendon didn't flinch, but his eyes turned lethal. You couldn't hear the accusation, but you could intuit the tension surrounding the marks of his passion. With a slow, deliberate motion, he pulled the hospital sheet up to your chin, veiling every trace of his possession from their judgmental eyes.
"What happens between our sheets is none of your concern, Dr. Santos," he said, his voice sharp enough to draw blood. "My wife is here because of a car accident, not because of her sex life."
The rear doors hissed open. Dr. Brennan entered like a Category 5 hurricane in a small frame. She was tiny compared to the other surgeons, but she had carved out her reputation with steel. If Brendon was the Shark, she was the Orca. Her grey eyes swept the room, taking in the cowering Whitaker and the standoff between Brendon and Santos.
"That’s enough, Dr. Park. We’re taking her to the OR," Brennan said. You couldn't hear her, but the authority in her expression was absolute. She moved to the stretcher, physically nudging Santos out of the way.
She didn't waste a second, signaling the orderlies to unlock the wheels. The ceiling began to move—a blurring sequence of white panels and flickering fluorescent lights that made your head spin.
Brendon didn't leave your side. He walked flush against the gurney, his hand crushed tightly in yours, his blue eyes searching your face for any flicker of pain.
You reached the heavy steel doors of the elevator. The wait for the car to descend felt like an eternity in the absolute silence.
"We're almost there, Doll," his lips articulated. There was a softness in his expression that masked the tension in his frame. "Don't worry. I trust Brennan. She’s the best—after me."
The doors slid open, and the stretcher was pushed into the cramped, metallic box, followed by Brennan and two nurses. The space was claustrophobic. Brendon placed his free hand on the back of your neck—the exact same caress from that morning. He knew you hated confined spaces; he knew the trauma of being locked in cupboards as a child in the system.
As the familiar tremor began at the base of your spine, your pupils dilated with terror. The steel walls seemed to shrink, shifting into the dark, damp shadows of your childhood. Your breathing hitched—a silent, jagged gasp that signaled the onset of hyperventilation.
But then, Brendon’s hand squeezed firmly at the nape of your neck. His fingers were more than a caress; they were an anchor to the now, demanding your attention and pulling you back from the precipice of that dark, traumatic abyss. He stepped between you and the closed elevator doors, his massive frame becoming your entire horizon—your beacon in the storm of your own thoughts.
He knew every one of your ghosts; he had spent countless nights cradling you through the tremors of your nightmares. Seeing that glint of primal terror in your eyes made his jaw tighten to the limit, his teeth grinding with a raw, barely contained fury at the world that had hurt you.
"Look at me, Doll. Only me," he signed with one hand, the other maintaining that heavy, grounding warmth against your skin. "You aren't there. You are here with me. These doors won't stay closed for long. No one here will ever hurt you again."
His blue eyes burned with a protective ferocity. He knew how to soothe you better than you knew yourself. He forced you to synchronize with the rhythm of his own breathing, which you could feel against your face as he leaned in close. You inhaled, mimicking him, and the ghost of the cupboard began to dissolve against the reality of his presence.
"We’re almost out, my little doll," he promised, his voice a low rumble. "I’m not letting go. I’m with you until the end. You’ve always been a survivor—a fighter."
He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against yours. It was a gesture so profoundly intimate that Dr. Brennan and the orderlies averted their eyes in a rare, respectful silence.
When the elevator doors finally slid open onto the surgical floor, the relief was instantaneous. The world seemed to expand, and the sterile, chilled air filled your lungs. The stretcher rattled out of the metal cage—a vibration you felt deep in your bones. Brendon stepped back just enough to allow the orderlies to maneuver you toward Operating Room 5.
"Dr. Brennan is an exceptional surgeon," he said, knowing he had to head to the scrub sinks if he was to join you. "But I will be right there. I’ll be your voice while you sleep. I won't let anyone make a single misstep. I promise you, Doll."
You watched him stand still for a heartbeat, watching as you were wheeled toward the theater, before he turned on his heel. He strode toward the scrub room with the determination of a man who would not let fate, the universe, or any god take away the only thing in the world he truly loved.
The double doors of the OR swung wide. Inside, the lights were a raw, blinding white. They transferred you to the operating table—a transition to a cold, metallic surface that made you shudder as it met the bare skin of your back. Panic thrummed in your chest like a muffled drum, a primal response to the hostile environment, but deep down, you knew you were in the safest hands in the city.
To your left, the anesthesiologist approached, precisely adjusting the IV manifolds. Almost instantly, a glacial chill began to invade your veins, racing up your arm like a frozen river.
Your eyelids grew heavy, weighted with lead. You tried to fight it—one last desperate effort to stay awake, to stay here. With fingers numbed by the onset of the drugs, you managed to lift your hand just a few inches. The movement was clumsy and slow, but you managed to sign a final "I love you" to the imposing figure of your husband, who had just appeared at your side.
That was the last thing you remembered before the world slipped away.
You didn't see his answer.
Only darkness.
A dreamless sleep.
The next time you opened your eyes, it felt as though only minutes had passed. However, the leaden weight of your eyelids, the dry, tacky sensation in your mouth, and the scratchiness in your throat betrayed the truth: it had been hours.
You were bathed in a soft, amber gloom—a merciful reprieve from the violent white glare of the operating room. The first thing you registered was a familiar touch: warm, rough, and grounding. His hand was clamped over yours. You turned your head slowly, battling the residual vertigo of the anesthesia.
There he was.
Brendon hadn’t moved. He was slumped in the armchair pulled flush against your bedside, still clad in his surgical scrubs. His normally immaculate hair was a mess of curls; you could tell he had run his hands through it repeatedly, rubbing away the gel until it looked entirely natural. The shadows beneath his blue eyes were bruised and deep, as if the weight of the last few hours had physically aged him.
The moment he noticed you stir, he bolted upright. His eyes scanned your face with clinical intensity, searching for any flicker of pain or lingering delirium.
"Hello, Doll," he signed, a smile of pure, jagged relief breaking across his lips. "Welcome back. The surgery was a success. Dr. Brennan did an inspired job. You’re going to make a full recovery, little doll."
You tried to speak, but only a fractured, hoarse moan escaped your throat. He anticipated the need, gently guiding a straw to your lips to offer a few precious drops of water. Once you had swallowed, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an object that made your heart skip a beat.
Your cochlear processors.
They were scuffed, and one had a hairline fracture along the protective casing, but they were whole.
"I got them back from the car," you read on his lips, a spark of grim triumph in his gaze. "Well, I sent Ratatouille to fetch them. I refused to leave your side."
He leaned over you with infinite care. You felt the familiar magnetic click against your skull, and suddenly, the world rushed back in. The rhythmic, electronic chirp of the heart monitor, the distant bustle of the hallway, and—above all—the sound you had hungered for since the moment of the crash.
"Can you hear me, Doll?" His voice reached you—low, gravelly, and frayed by an exhaustion born of near-loss.
"Yes, Big Guy. I hear you," you managed to whisper. You were still floating in an anesthetic haze, but the relief of hearing him again was an instantaneous balm.
Brendon let out a long, shuddering sigh, closing his eyes as he pressed his forehead against yours. His shoulders, which had been braced like granite since he first saw you on that trauma gurney, finally slumped.
"Don't ever give me a fright like that again," he growled against your lips, punctuated by a tender, lingering kiss. "God... when I walked in and saw you lying there, I thought... I thought I’d lost you. Don’t do it again. I’m begging you."
"I’m so sorry... I only wanted to bring you lunch. To thank you for taking such good care of me." Tears pricked your eyes. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
He silenced your guilt with another kiss—one that sought to overwrite your apologies with his devotion.
"Hush, baby. Don't you dare apologize for loving me. The only thing that matters is that you're alive, that you're going to heal, and that you're coming home with me," he said. He traced the line of your cheek with his thumb, wiping away a stray tear. "I only need you. Whole. Safe. Under our roof and between our sheets."
"Brendon," you murmured, your voice sounding small and fragile. You tugged weakly at the V-neck of his scrubs. "Come up here. Please."
He hesitated, casting a wary glance toward the door of the private room. As a senior surgeon, he was flouting every protocol in the hospital handbook, but one look at your pale face and trembling lip ended his resistance. He kicked off his shoes and carefully maneuvered his massive frame into the narrow space on the hospital bed, curling around you with exquisite care to avoid your operated hip.
You tucked your head into the hollow of his chest. Brendon pulled you flush against him, burying his face in the crook of your neck, where his lips brushed against one of the marks he had left the night before.
"Rest, Doll," he whispered against your skin, the vibration of his voice resonating through your own chest. "I love you. I love you so much."
"I love you too, Big Guy."
You closed your eyes, lulled by the radiating heat of his body and the absolute security of his embrace. The chaos, the sterile hospital, and that terrifying, lonely silence were all behind you. Here, in this small room, held fast by the man they called "The Shark," you were finally home. You were safe.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x ex wife!reader Word Count: 5.1k
Description: Years after your separation, life throws you back into Jack Abbot’s orbit in the worst way possible, carrying a devastating diagnosis that could be the reason your marriage fell apart in the first place: a tumor that may had erased the part of you that fell in love with him all those years back. And he’s not ready to lose you twice.
Tags/Warnings: Ex!wife reader, no specific age, ANGST, hurt/comfort (trust), talks about divorce, reader has big ex wifey energy, resulting in a bitter Jack, mentions of a tumor in the head and seizures but the medical aspect is very superficial, bad prognosis, suggestive comments and couple’s banter.
Note: This is the result of angsty thoughts invading my head at 2 am, so enjoy (it gets better trust) 🤍
Masterlist
My hand was the one you reached for all throughout The Great War.
There was a time where you believed you were tied to Jack Abbot by an invisible string.
Despite the crazy life he’d chosen, the long hours, the abrupt calls that took him away from you, the terrors of nightmares and traumas you couldn’t take away from him, you’d managed to love him through it all.
You loved him through the military years, and the consequences he carried home. Through the transition of losing a part of himself, and made sure that what was left wasn’t damaged by it. Loved him through the process of going back to emergency medicine. Through the night shifts and the missed holidays and anniversaries.
You loved him when his haircolor changed like the seasons. You loved the man in uniform and the man in scrubs and the man who sometimes came home too tired to even speak.
You loved and loved and loved him until…something snapped.
You…started calling him out more. For the hours and the absence and for the way he could be right there and still feel a thousand miles away. And Jack, who had spent most of his life learning how to stay calm under pressure, tried to be patient. Tried to love you through the sharpness, just like you’d loved him through his, even if he didn’t understand where yours was coming from.
He tried and tried and tried until…the invisible string between you snapped in pieces he couldn’t tie back together.
Time passed, and none of you survived the war you’d started in your own home. So you left. Sent out divorce papers that you never signed. You didn’t understand why back then, but now…you kind of do.
You take a deep breath as the ambulance bay doors slide open in front of you. People who take this entrance are usually bleeding, or screaming, or being rolled in on a stretcher, but you walk in with your head high and a pep on your step. Cashmere coat on, boots clicking the floor, a purse perched on your shoulder.
Seeing the ED after all these years hits you like a deja vu. From bringing Jack something he forgot in the middle of the night, to showing up at the ass crack of dawn still half asleep but smiling, waiting for him to finish charting so you could eat something together. Your memories are a little fuzzy these days, but there was a time where you knew this place almost as well as he did.
You reach the nurse’s station with a small smile on your face, only for it to widen when the face behind is not the one you expected.
“Well, what do we have here?” You say, coming to stop in front of her.
Dana looks up from the papers she’s holding, and her eyes go wide for a second. The look of surprise gets quickly replaced by one of her signature smirks, placing one hand on her hip.
“Well, I could ask the same damn thing, darling,” she says, amused.
That makes you laugh, and Dana’s face lightens up. Because despite everything, despite the years, despite the absence, you always had a soft spot for each other.
“I thought Lena was on the night shift,” you tease. Dana sets the papers down and huffs, looking at you through her glasses.
“Please. It’s not weird to see me covering someone for the right price,” she says, not being subtle about looking up and down at you. “Now what is strange as hell, is seeing you walk in here after all this time.”
“Why? I’m just here to see my hubby,” you say casually. “Is it a quiet night, or do I have to wait like the good old days?” You ask, feigning innocence with a single shoulder shrug.
“Oh, don’t you start! don’t you jinx my shift like that,” she says, almost offended, making you laugh harder. She narrows her eyes at you playfully, shaking her head. “You evil, evil woman.”
“So I’ve been told,” you snicker, checking something on your nails. “It’s good to see you, Dana,” you add after a moment, and she pretends not to notice the way you pick on the skin of your thumb.
“You too, hun,” she says fondly, trying to search for your eyes. “Now, are you going to tell me what brings you to my ED or do I have to waterboard it out of you?”
Before you can think of a way to evade the question, you hear a voice behind you that makes everything inside you stop.
“Let me know when the labs are back, Mateo.”
You turn to the source, and for a moment you can’t control the look on your face when your eyes land on him. Jack Abbot is walking out of Trauma Two with a nurse, too focused on pulling off his gloves to realize you’re standing frozen by the nurse’s station. You clear your throat and straighten up quickly, putting on that nonchalance mask back on again as Dana just smiles to herself.
Jack’s head finally snaps up and his mouth opens, probably ready to tell something to Dana, but stops dead in his tracks when he sees you there. He doesn't have a good time controlling his emotions either. He blinks a few times to make sure he’s seeing right, and that you’re not a cruel product of his imagination. It’s too early in the shift for that.
But you’re there. You are there. Wait–you’re there?
The confusion quickly gets replaced by anger. It’s been a long time. Three years of nothing, and this is how you show up? Looking polished, composed, infuriatingly beautiful, like you didn’t leave a hole in his chest he was never able to stitch back together.
“Are you lost?” The words coming out his mouth are sharper than he expected, but the coldness is familiar to you.
“Jack,” you say, forcing a plastic smile and tilting your head. “Is that the way to greet your wife?”
“My wife…” Jack mutters with an incredulous laugh.
He looks at Dana all scandalized, offended. She just shrugs unimpressed, not interested in getting involved in whatever messy drama is about to unfold.
She will totally watch, though.
“If you’re here to tell me you finally signed the papers, then you wasted a whole trip. You could've just mailed them,” he says sharply, too blinded to notice the way your smile faltered at that.
“I’m not here for that,” you say, holding tighter to the bag on your shoulder. “There’s-”
“You know you’re not supposed to walk in through the ambulance bay unless you’re dying,” he continues, before giving you a head to toe assessing look that ends with a bitter huff. “And by the looks of it, seems like the devil has taken care of his own.”
You chuckle, because it’s the only thing you can do at this point. Because if anyone in the world has earned the right to call you a devil, it’s Jack.
For the last year of your marriage. For every sharp word, every time you didn’t want to listen, every fight that left him standing there wondering when loving each other had become something exhausting instead of home. For the way you ended things. For how you walked away and never came back.
“Dr.Abbot?” A male voice coming from the trauma room breaks the tense moment between you.
You look at the doctor, one you remember seeing last as a first year resident, trailing behind your husband with a notepad and an iced coffee in hand. You can’t recall his name, but he looks like he got his attending position after all.
Jack turns to him, “I’ll be there in a second, Shen,” he says gently, then back to you, more impatient, “I’m busy. So if you’re done making your little grand entrance, you can leave the same way you came in. You seem to be pretty good at it.”
The way he talks to you shouldn't hurt this much. You deserve it, for how unkind you were with him in the first place. For how badly you hurt him. For how you ran his endless patience thin. Now, in hindsight, there are many things you wish were different.
But wishing won’t make the medical records in your purse change. And even though you’ve earned every blow he throws at you, you still square your shoulders. Shrug it off like it doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter.
“I’m not leaving until I speak to you…privately,” you say, turning back to Dana with a smile. “Break room’s still the same way, right?”
“Down the hall to the left, sweetheart,” she says, shaking her head with a chuckle.
You blow her a playful kiss as gratitude, one she pretends to dodge, rolling her eyes playfully as she walks away to continue with her duties. You round the nurse’s station, and walk straight past Jack, close enough that the heavy fabric of your coat almost brushes his arm, but it’s your scent that hits him like a punch to the stomach.
Your perfume. The perfume. The one you wore to all your dates, the one you married him with, and the one he had to scrub off his clothes like a toxic chemical when he talked himself into getting you out of his head after you left.
Dammit.
He sees you stroll to the break room with that sway of your hips that used to keep him up at night, trying to gather the courage to invite you out when you first met. Fucking dammit. You ruined his life. You keep doing it.
“Dr. Abbot!” Shen calls again, a little sharper even for him.
Jack sighs deeply, turning defeated to the trauma room, as the same question pounds his head over and over again.
What on earth could you possibly want?
The second you shut the door of the break room and you’re alone again, your shoulders sag and the mask slips right off. The exhaustion in your bones makes you take a seat as soon as you see it, placing your bag on the chair next to you and pulling out the black folder you’ve been carrying around for months. You place it on the table, and look away as if that would change the contents of it.
Your eyes meet your reflection on the microwave sitting on the counter, and you can’t help the sigh that leaves your lips. You did well making yourself look like the ex wife who’s thriving and has her life together.
What a joke.
You slump back into your chair, and wait.
Jack makes you wait a long time. You figure it’s his petty way of getting back at you somehow, or maybe he’s just trying to ease off his anger before he walks in. But hey, at least you were able to reassemble yourself. By the time he walks in, you’re sitting at the table with your legs crossed neatly, coat still on, folder placed in front of you. Composed enough to make him think that this is still some kind of performance.
You hate that your brain keeps telling you to push more. To make him snap. The string has been broken for a while. Why do you still feel the need to pull?
Jack doesn’t sit, even if his leg would thank him for it, he just stands with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at you impatiently.
“What, you’re not joining me?” You tease, pushing open the chair across from you with your boot.
“I’m not staying long,” he says flatly, ignoring the seat. “So whatever this is, start talking.”
You hum in feign amusement, leaning back a little. “Why? Seems like a quiet night for me.”
Jack closes his eyes, shaking his head, thinking about every single self regulation method his therapist had taught him. Five things you can see, four things you can–
“Relax,” you say.
Wow. How didn’t he think of that? Could've saved him thousands in therapy.
He realizes the only way to get this over with, is getting it over with. So he opens his eyes, and this time they land straight on the folder in front of you. Whatever restraint he was trying to hold on to, spills out in a humorless laugh.
“What is that?” He nods to it, “A list of what you want to keep?”
“Jack, that’s not–”
“I already told my lawyer you can keep everything,” he says anyways, letting the words spill, because he’s been bleeding over this for years and he’s sure as hell not stopping now. “The house. The cars. Even the goddamn bedsheets. You can keep it all, I don’t want any of it,” he says calmly, like he isn't still losing sleep over it every day. “I moved out a while ago anyway, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
It gets harder to keep your resolve, especially with the sharp pain throbbing in your head. But of course he doesn’t want it. Why would he want the remnants of a home you poisoned? A marriage you turned sharp and miserable and impossible to hold together?
A lump forms in the back of your throat, but you swallow it down like every bad news you’ve heard over the course of the last months.
“It’s not about the divorce, I already told you that,” you say quietly.
Jack just stares at you, exasperated. Every second you’re in front of him burns his insides. Every second you share the same oxygen he can’t breathe. Every second of your presence is just a reminder of the greatest thing he’s fucked up in his life.
You just pick up the folder and hold it out to him. He hesitates at first, but you have no bitchy remarks left on you. The faster you get it over with, the faster it will all be over, so you shake it for him to take it, until he finally does.
Your gaze stays on him as he flips through the papers inside; lab results, endless consult notes, imaging reports. The annoyance doesn’t disappear right away, but his salt and pepper brows furrow together as his brain catches up with what he’s reading. He digs for the actual CT, and comes across a series of images that back up everything the reports say.
He instinctively steps closer to the chair, eyes still fixed on the papers, sitting down mindlessly as he spreads everything on the table. The only thing he can focus on is your name printed on every paper. Abbot here, Abbot there. When he finally looks up at you, all the color has drained from his face.
“What is this?” He asks. Because what the fuck kind of bad joke is this.
“Well,” you clear your throat, crossing your arms over your chest, “you did say I shouldn’t walk in through the ambulance bay if I wasn’t dying.”
“This isn’t funny,” he says, frustrated. God, you forgot how intense his eye contact was. “What is this? How–when did this happen?”
You play with your fingers on your lap, and sigh, “Ten months ago, I…I had a seizure at work,” you say softly, forcing yourself to keep going. “They did the scans, and it–it didn’t take long to find it.”
It.
Jack stares at it on the CT, then his eyes drift to the reports. Mass. Tumor. Inoperable. Terms that have always been technical to him, medical, now seem like the cruelest words ever written by man.
“I’ve seen a couple of neurosurgeons,” you continue, “and they all came to the same conclusion–”
“No.”
“Jack, they said they can’t take it out–”
“No,” he cuts you off sharply, shaking his head. “That’s not–I don’t agree.”
“You don’t have to agree,” you don’t raise your voice, just smile sadly. It’s something you’ve been telling yourself over and over. “Guess the devil doesn’t look after their own in the end.”
“Stop, don’t…” Jack sighs, dropping the papers just to run his hands roughly across his face. “I didn’t mean that–fuck. I didn’t mean any of that–”
You haven’t even gotten through the worst of it, and you’re already exhausted. God, these timebombs suck your energy right off. You reach for the water bottle on your purse, and drink away the premature grief building in your throat.
Jack watches you carefully, and for the first time since he saw you again, he allows himself to see past the veil of hate he’d tried to see you through. He sees the crack in your smile, the shadows under your eyes, the real strain and exhaustion you can’t quite dress up with a fancy coat.
He sees he wasn’t there to hold you through it.
“Why didn't you call me?” He asks, and you fear it’s the most devastated you’ve ever heard him.
You sigh, and set the bottle down. Because how do you even explain that? What even was it? Pride? Shame? Guilt? Love?
Fear.
How do you tell the man you wrecked that you did think of him first? That even after years apart, even after every awful thing, he was the first person you needed when the ground fell out from under your feet?
“I didn’t want to bother you,” you admit.
I was scared.
“Bother me?”
“After everything that happened, I thought…I thought I should solve it on my own,” you shrug.
I didn’t think I deserved your help.
“You didn’t think that your husband, a doctor, would want to ‘solve it’??” he snaps. Offended, yes. Furious, yes. But underneath all of it…it’s the hurt that speaks.
“You’re not a neurosurgeon,” you laugh bitterly, more defensive than you want to. “Your opinion is not gonna change–”
“It’s not just my opinion!” He says, standing up because his frustration is going to make him burst if he stays still. “It’s–it’s me being there. You went through all of this alone.”
The only sounds in the room are both your heavy breaths. You keep your rigid posture, even if every part inside of you is breaking. Jack runs his hand through his curls, once, twice, then tugs a little on the third time.
“Jack…” you call out softly, but he doesn’t look at you. His gaze darts to other five things he can see, hands on his hips as he grounds himself. “I’m not here to fight. And I’m not here for you to solve it…there’s just something I wanted to talk about.”
He finishes his little exercise and looks at you again, bracing himself for an impact he’s not sure if he can take. You know he can’t. So you take another deep breath before speaking.
“The doctors said the tumor is in an area that affects behavior. Like my moods and personality. They said it may have been growing for years.”
There’s a tremble in Jack’s lower lip that makes you hesitate, you know he already knows what it means, yet you keep going.
“They think it might explain why I was so…particular these last few years,” you let out a broken little laugh, shaking your head quickly to try to fight the tears prickling your eyes. “I know it’s not an excuse, maybe it wasn’t that,” you sniffle, wiping your cheeks angrily. “Maybe I was just a bitch.”
“Hey–no, honey, don’t say that,” he says, the endearment falling out of his lips so naturally.
Jack doesn’t think twice to step closer and drop to one knee in front of you, groaning at this prosthetic but still reaching for your hands on your lap. You try to retreat back so fast your chair screeches against the floor, but he doesn’t let you pull back, instead he interlocks his fingers with yours, almost hissing at how cold you are.
You shake your head, tears flooding your cheeks now. “Don’t–don’t speak to me like that, you can still be mad at me,” you sob, but he keeps his warm grip firm. “You have every right to be, I was so mean to you, Jack. I snapped at you for everything. I made you feel like you were always doing something wrong. I turned our house into somewhere awful and I knew you were trying, and I kept pushing anyway.”
He has tears in his eyes now too, but he lets you get it out of your system. Lets the years of regret spill out of you all at once, god knows his therapist has heard him many times.
“Jack you’d come home exhausted and I’d always find something else to pick apart. Something else to be angry about. And you looked at me like you didn’t recognize me anymore, and I hated it because I thought you were wrong. Even then. I knew I was hurting you and I kept doing it. I made you carry all of it. So maybe now I deserve to carry all of this alone.”
There it is. Jack breaks completely at your confession. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, catching the tears that won’t stop coming.
“Sweetheart…you should’ve called me,” he says again, but he’s not angry this time. He’s grieving. “You should’ve called me.”
“I know.”
“You should not have done this by yourself.”
“I know,” you cry out, he just keeps caressing your cheek with his thumb. “My–my memory is not the best now and I just…I needed to tell you I was sorry while I still could.”
You try to smile through the tears, you really do, but he looks so frightened. So wrecked. Your hands fly to his wrists now, clinging instead of pulling away.
“I’m scared, Jack,” you confess.
He remembers you saying that on a holiday when he hauled you up deep into the sea, just so he could hold you in his arms. He remembers you saying that when he put on a horror movie just so you could hide behind his biceps. He remembers you saying that before trying a new dish at your favorite diner instead of the usual you ordered.
All those times were said with a laugh, or a cheeky smile. But this? This is pure, unadulterated fear. He is scared. He’s terrified. So he does what he always did best: hold you.
He lifts himself up just enough to wrap his arms around you. You let yourself go instinctively, realizing how much you’ve needed this the past few months. He holds you so tight, so desperate, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other rubbing your back. You bury your face in his neck and sob. You feel the way Jack shifts, pressing his lips to your hair while he whispers sweet nothings.
“I’m here. I’m here, honey. I got you.”
“I don’t–”
“Don’t tell me what you deserve right now.”
That makes you cry harder. He rocks you a few times, just like he used to on the worst nights. Just like he always vowed to.
“I loved you through all of it,” he confesses. “Even when I was angry. Even when I thought you hated me. I never stopped. I never stopped.”
“I’m so sorry,” you sniffle.
“I know, honey, I know.”
“I loved you the whole time too, I swear,” you keep going. “That’s why–that’s why I never signed the papers. My heart didn’t want to let you go. It never did.”
“It’s okay–“
“No it’s not.”
“But it is,” he insists. Firm and honest. “You were sick, and I should’ve known. I should’ve seen something–“
“No. Don’t blame yourself for this too,” pulling yourself apart from him enough to look into those beautiful hazel eyes. “Leave the regretting to me.”
“Sweetheart–“
“Jack.” You narrow your eyes at him, and it brings him back to all those times you won even the most pointless of arguments with just one look.
He huffs a teary laugh, dropping his head in defeat. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he says, lifting his head again. There’s a new spark in his eye trying to make its way past the previous devastation. “Then you leave the rest to me.”
You look at him, eyebrows furrowed, but he just pushes a strand of hair from your face.
“I’m getting you admitted here,” he says, you immediately tense, but he speaks before you can refuse. “No, listen to me. We have some of the best neurosurgeons in the country connected to this hospital. I am going to pull every string I have, call in every favor I can, and get every set of eyes possible on this.”
“I can’t do this again,” you shake your head.
“Yes, you can.”
“I’ve already seen so many people, Jack. I’ve heard it all. I’ve made peace with it.”
“No you haven’t, and that’s okay. You came here because some part of you knew I would never let this go. So don’t ask me to. It’s offensive, honey.”
Well shit. Seems like your husband of years seems to actually know you better than you know yourself.
“I’ve accepted it, Jack. Memento mori.”
Liar liar pants on fire.
He grins. “Then I guess we’re both liars.”
You look at him confused, but he just sighs.
“I told you I moved out…but I didn’t,” he admits. “I still live in the house I built for you. I still sleep in our bed, on my side of course, cause I know you never liked the way I dipped your side of the mattress,” he laughs at the memory, making you smile. “Your books are still on the nightstand. I never moved them.”
You imagine all the things he never brought himself to move. The way time stopped running in a house that was once filled with laughter and love. So much love. Jack just does a helpless shrug.
“You left…but you never really left me.”
Yeah. That’ll do it. You’re crying again before you even realize it. Your hands go to cover your face, but he intercepts them midway.
“No, no, honey. No more hiding from me,” he says, so softly it doesn’t exactly help your situation. “We’re in this together now.”
You nod, his thumbs reach out to dry your tears.
“I know I’m not the type of surgeon you need. I know I can’t fix this with my own hands. But I’m still a doctor,” he explains softly. “And most importantly…I’m still your husband. So I will be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to figure this out. We are going to try. Oh honey we are going to ask questions. We are going to make the smartest people in every room look at this until they are sick of seeing my face.”
That makes you laugh. He delights at the sound.
“Jack…”
“I know you’re tired, my love,” he continues, his voice turning even softer. “I know you’re scared. I know you’ve been carrying this by yourself for too long and the idea of starting over with new doctors makes you want to crawl out of your skin. But you do not get to give up before I even get a chance to fight for you.”
The weight in your chest that has been dragging you down lately eases, if only a little, letting you breathe. Maybe he’s right. Maybe all of this would’ve been easier if he’d known from the start. Maybe it can be easier now. Even if he can’t solve it…you’ll let him try.
“Okay,” you whisper.
“Okay,” he nods. “You’re coming home with me tonight, and we’ll deal with this in the morning. We’ll start here, and if it doesn’t work there’s always New York, I can cash a few favors in Washington too–“
“But your job–“
“Can wait,” he states without hesitation. “Sweetheart, I've been here for a long time, and I’m going to use that to my advantage. Maybe it’s time for my sabbatical, yeah? That way I can take you everywhere you need to be. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“…a sabbatical.”
“Robby took one,” he shrugs. “Three months away and it didn’t kill him. I’m willing to take whatever time they allow me.”
“What about SWAT duty?” You push. He lets out a chuckle.
“I know you might miss the uniform–“
You slap his arm weakly.
“Alright, alright,” he throws his hands up in defeat. “Just–don’t worry about it, okay? I meant it when I said I got you, honey.”
You sigh, but it’s more out of relief than anything. How you needed to hear those words. How you needed him.
“And in the meantime, you can tell me your favorite memories of us…so I can keep them safe for you while we figure this out.”
Jesus Christ. How could you have ever walked away from this man? At this point you’re gonna have to sign the papers just to marry him again.
“Jack…”
“Come on, from the hip, give me one,” he says playfully, and you know he’s not letting this go.
You tap your chin and glance away, pretending to think. Your eyes light up when a very specific memory pops into your head.
“I remember our naked yoga sessions very fondly,” you say, completely serious, but it manages to get a genuine surprised laugh from him.
“Of course you do,” he laughs, throwing his head back at the memory. He still does it, at sunrise when he’s not working, with your mat still next to his. “You always ended up bouncing on me.”
“Jack!!” You say, heat creeping up your face in a way it hasn’t in a long time.
You both laugh about it for a moment, then fall into a quiet that could never be described as awkward. Not between you. Not anymore.
“I missed this,” he says quietly, those intense hazel eyes piercing into yours. You loved those eyes. You still do. “I missed you.”
You smile sadly, cupping his face with your hands. “You missed nice me.”
“I missed my wife.”
Your heart skips a beat at that. So many years he’d called you that, until you threw it all away. Or, well, the thing in your head did? Whatever. It is what it is.
Your eyes travel all over his face. Damp lashes, tension in his jaw even if he tries to hide it with a cheeky grin, all the wrinkles time has carved into him while you were apart.
“I missed my husband,” you finally say, just as soft.
He smiles at that. You loved that smile, you still do.
“Then let me take care of you, honey.”
We can plant a memory garden
Say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair
There's no morning glory, it was war, it wasn't fair
And we will never go back to that bloodshed
Thank you so much for reading 🤍 feedback is always appreciated 💋
People PLEASE being a bottom doesn’t mean being physically on the bottom!!! It means you’re taking a penetrated role where as being a top means you’re penetrating. So no, a amab character cannot bottom for afab character unless the afab character is pegging!!! Please learn bdsm and queer terminology before using it! Also, you are not a pillow princess unless you’re having sex with another non male person, why? Because for one, it’s a sapphic term and two being a pillow princess means giving no pleasure to your partner, someone with a dick is still being pleasured and getting stimulated even if you’re just laying there.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITHOUT ME?— Baelor & Maekar Targaryen
Baelor x wife!reader x Maekar
Valarr, Aerion, Daeron, Egg x mother!reader
content: Your whole family has gone to shit in a matter of days without you, but they shall not worry you are here to fix them all…or perhaps they should be a little scared that you have come to fix everything
words: 1.6k
cw: none, everyone just getting put into their place and forced to apologize for the events of the Tourney of Ashford that has taken place without you.
author's note: you are both maekar & baelor's wife and all of their children are yours (you live with constant high blood pressure). this was so much fun to write and I hope you enjoy!
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Duncan stood before the table still very much confused as to what a Trial of Seven was when a an anger voice reached all within the hall, “Where the fuck are they?”
He watched as all three Targaryen men's shoulders tensed at the voice, suddenly you appeared in the doorway, little Egg and Ser Roland following behind you. The anger was evident on your face, clear as days, your eyes wide jaw clenched as you moved forward.
“You cannot handle them on your own for a few days!” you exclaimed angrily.
Dunk’s eyes flickered down to the boy beside him, “Who is that?” he whispered
“That’s my mum.”
You pushed the anger from your face turning to the two Lords of the Reach, “If you would excuse me I wish to talk to my family alone.”
The two men nodded and hurried out of the room as you turned to Ser Roland, “Fetch me Daeron and Valarr,” you commanded as the two eldest Targaryen’s shared a glance before standing making their way to you.
“Why Valarr, my love?” Baelor asked gently, reaching a hand out to you.
You swatted his hand away glaring at both the men. Dunk was now even more confused than before. If you were Egg’s mother then you must be Maekar’s wife…then why was Baelor referring to you as “my love.”
“He is the one who wrote about this shit show.”
“Of course he is,” Aerion muttered from the table.
Your burning gaze turned from them “If I hear one more snide remark from you it will be the last one we all hear because you'll be going to the wall, understood?”
He huffed out a breath before slumping in his chair crossing his arms over his chest as he nodded. He no longer resembled the vicious prince from earlier, but instead a child who had been reprimanded.
The hedge knight now wished you had been here this whole time. You finally set your sights on him and he flinched slightly, “What is your name?” you questioned.
“Dunk… Ser Duncan,” he stuttered out.
Maekar finally called out your name, and the knight instantly noticed how soft it sounded even coming from the man’s mouth. You ignored him, your eyes squinting as you stared at the large man, “Well, please take a seat, Ser,” you said kindly.
Valarr and Daeron had now arrived to join you all.
“Mum!” Valarr exclaimed happily, voice cheerful as he was the only one not bound to feel your wrath to tonight.
Duncan who now sat next to Egg looked to him in confusion, “How is she your mom and Valarr’s?” he whispered, but it wasn't very quiet as Maekar had heard him.
The man scoffed, but his youngest son got a reply out before he could, "She's married to both of them, Ser,” he said, hoping the man would drop the conversation there.
He didn't.
“To both the princes!?” he exclaimed. The young boy only nodded, shooting him a look urging him to be silent so that he could keep his head.
He had heard of Aegon the Conqueror having two wives,but had no idea that the brothers shared a wife. That seemed like something Ser Arlan should have mentioned or even Raymun on his rant about the Taragyen family earlier. He now looked at the children and could see small pieces of you in each of them, everything piecing together slowly.
He watched as kissed Valarr’s cheek slightly, and even cast Daeron a small smile as they also took a seat now the only one standing was you, and with one look alone the room became quiet. Duncan felt as if he was intruding on a family affair, but didn't dare argue with you.
“How did you manage to get here so fast?” Maekar asked, causing you to roll your eyes.
You took a deep breath, “The three of us will talk afterwards for now were going to go in order,” you turned your sights on Daeron who seemed to sober up immensely upon your gaze.
“Why is your brother bald?”
He scratched the back of his neck, then you turned to Aerion, “Do not get me fucking started on your behavior. When is that acceptable?” you asked, raising a brow. Now you turned to the youngest, “Must I tie you to your fucking bed post to prevent you from running off again?” Finally you now looked at your two husbands, “And you two! You cannot manage to keep your sons in line for a few days without me? Youre just as fucking bad as the rest of them.”
The silence was suffocating as everyone watched the wheels turning in your head. You turned to the hedge knight, “You struck Aerion because he broke a woman’s finger?”
“They were–” Aerion started, but didn't get very far as your head turned back silencing him once more.
“But!”
“Listen to your mother!” Maekar and Baeleor both commanded sternly, causing him to sulk back into his seat.
“Yes that is my recall, my lady.”
“Withdraw your accusation, Aerion,” you now commanded.
His eyes widened, “But he hit me!” he whined.
“Did you lose any teeth?”
“No.”
“Are you gravely injured?”
“No.”
‘Did you perhaps deserve a good knock upside the head?”
“Yes,” he whispered, crossing his arms.
You smiled nodding your head toward the Hedgeknight, ‘I withdraw my accusation,” he said, begrudgingly causing you to nod. “Great, we will discuss your punishment for the horse later, go clean the damn blood off yourself.”
He sighed standing to his feet, but before he could leave you moved forward cupping his face gently in your hand whispering something to him which caused him to frown slightly, but nod. You pressed a kiss to his temple and then he was gone.
“What else was there?” you now asked, turning toward Baelor and Maekar once more.
“Daeron accused Ser Duncan of stealing Aegon,” the elder reminded you, causing you to hum.
“Aegon, did you willingly go with this man?” you asked.
“Yes, mum,” he told you.
“Apolgize to your father for running off.”
He turned toward Maekar, “I am sorry for running off father,” he told him.
The man only grunted until his eyes met yours, “Do not do it again,” he told him.
“Now hug him.”
Egg stood hugging him, and Dunk couldn't help, but notice how awkward it looked especially in comparison to the gentleness you just used with Aerion. The boy then moved, hugging your legs tightly as you pressed a kiss to his bald head, “Go prepare for bed and I will come discuss your punishment with you.”
He nodded, moving out of the room. You now pinched the bridge of your nose slightly before setting your sights on Daeron. “Why is your brother’s hair?”
“I shaved it off. We were going to hide out at an inn until the tourney was over.”
“And your brother ran off and you just stayed there?”
“He told me he was leaving. I lied to father, because I didn't want him to gwt angrier at me.”
“Apolgize to your father.”
“I am sorry for lying and worrying you father,” he told him, his voice filled with genuine honesty.
Maekar nodded slightly, looking at you. “Go to your chambers and if I find you drinking tonight I will pour water over your head.”
He nodded standing to his feet, you moved to him hugging him gently like you did the other two before sending him on your way. Then you looked to your eldest, “Have you done anything?” you now asked, a slight smile playing on your lips.
“No, but I would like to point out I was right,” he declared standing to his feet moving next to you.
“That you two would perish without her,” he kissed the side of your head before moving out.
Duncan was now terrified as your eyes turned to him, along with your husbands. “I do hope you do not make it a habit of striking royalty, Ser Duncan. It is a fast way to lose your head,” you started with.
He swallowed harshly, eyes widending, “Of course, Your Grace. I mean–” he continued to splutter over his words.
“Seven hells she knows what you mean shes not a fucking idiot,” Maekar hissed.
“Maekar,” you chided, causing him to grunt leaning back in his chair.
You stared at the hedge knight, your eyes scanning him causing him to squirm, “I would like you to swear your sword to Baelor. It will show your loyalty to House Targaryen and can be seen as a punishment,” you decided. Ducan took it gratefully doing as he was told before leaving, a servant be instructed to find the man a chamber and draw him a proper bath for the night.
Now it only left the three of you, “Honestly what the fuck would you two do without me? You’d probably both have let that foolhardy play out on your own.”
Both men stood making their way to you, as they trapped you between them, “There is a reason we both married you,” Baelor teased, moving to lean in, but you wormed way out of your hold.
“Not tonight. You two will be left to your hands for release, that is your punishment,” you called out before leaving the room, going to visit each of your children like you had stated earlier.
Maekar sighed leaning moving to his chair letting out a groan, “We are never traveling anywhere without her again,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“We are in agreement on that. Can you imagine what would have happened if she hadn't arrived?”
Maekar chuckled slightly, “I do not wish to find out.”
Summary: With Mrs. Abbot heavily pregnant, the hospital makes a bet. Who will win?
Warnings: fluff; pregnancy; a mention of sex, but it doesn't happen; mentions of childbirth; full moon superstition; drug use; hospitals; friendly bets; pre-established relationship between Yn and Jack. Use of Yn.
The sun was high outside, but inside the couple's room it was dark enough to be mistaken for an intense night. Jack and Yn had their cycles reversed for so many years that they had become accustomed to the nightlife and its crazy routines. Sleeping during the day to work at night wasn't easy, but they made it seem like it was.
The woman beside him rolled from side to side on the soft mattress. Jack wasn't a heavy sleeper enough to ignore it, but still, he was used to it enough to know he shouldn't react. He didn't open his eyes, but even so, he could clearly see his wife seeking some comfort. Until she finally gave in and grumbled loudly and clearly, and that was the opening Jack needed to intervene.
"Is everything alright?" he asked, pretending to have just woken up, turning on the bedside lamp to see the large, covered mountain that was his wife's pregnant belly. Her hair was spread across the pillows, and her eyes were wide open like a tigress's, staring at him as if he had personally attacked her. "I heard you grumbling, are you feeling alright?" he asked, placing his hand on her belly and feeling their daughter move.
"I'm not grumbling. I'm breathing. Loud and clear, is there a problem with that, Abbot?" the answer came quickly, cut short by a low moan as she tried to turn over.
Jack sighed, contemplating what to say. The yellowish light of the lamp partially covered the room, fighting against small rays of sunlight that tried to penetrate the heavy, dark curtain that blocked the window. Before, Yn and he had light and calm conversations in that environment, but now, at forty weeks pregnant, it was difficult to do anything lightly. He knew it wasn't personal; if he were carrying a baby weighing approximately four kilos, pressing on all his organs, he would also be grumpy in the mornings (or all the time).
"How are you feeling?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Enormous. Uncomfortable. In pain," she listed the symptoms as if reading a shopping list. "And if you ask me one more time if I want to stay home, I'll suffocate you with the pillow." Jack smiled, a tired smile of someone who had already fought this battle for weeks. At forty years old, Jack had already gone to medical school, joined the army, gone to war, lost a limb, started his life as an attending physician in the emergency room, taken charge of the night shift, did occasional side jobs as a SWAT medic, and still felt powerless in the face of his extremely pregnant wife.
"I'm not going to ask," he said, standing up and stretching his arms. "I'm going to have some tea. Want some?" he asked, grabbing his crutches and getting up from the mattress.
"Yes. With a dozen chili peppers. And I want the Swiss ball."
Jack stopped halfway to the door, turning slowly. He saw her struggling to get out of bed, a process that involved a lot of effort, groans, and an awkward choreography that ended with her sitting on the edge of the mattress, panting as if she had run a marathon. He bit his lip, both suppressing a smile and holding back his urge to ask if she didn't want help. He learned from his past mistakes.
Instead, he crossed his arms and looked at her curiously.
"The Swiss ball?" he repeated, trying to maintain a neutral tone.
"Yes. For the exercises. And the pepper, please." She looked at him with a silent challenge in her brown eyes. "It helps induce labor."
"That's true. Just like pineapple, cinnamon."
"I tried those things yesterday," she said, gathering momentum to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. "I ate pineapple until my mouth went numb and nothing! Now it's the pepper and the ball's turn. And yoga. And…" She came out of the bathroom with her toothbrush in her mouth, foam dripping from her chin and her hair still messy from the pillow. "If it doesn't work, tomorrow when we get back from work we're going to have sex like never before."
Jack raised an eyebrow, a slow smile forming on his lips as he understood what she meant.
"So I'm the last option?" he teased, seeing his wife roll her eyes.
"Why? Want to have sex now?" she wasn't in the mood at all. Neither was he.
"Tomorrow then?" he conceded, watching the toothpaste drip from her mouth.
"Great, good that we agreed," she replied, returning to the bathroom, not seeing Jack chuckle weakly as he turned around to make breakfast.
The scene that followed for the next thirty minutes would have been comical if it weren't so pathetic. Jack watched, a mug of tea in his hand, while YN, sitting on the Swiss ball in the middle of the room, ate chili peppers as if they were peanuts. Her eyes were watery, her face was red, but she didn't stop.
"This is a scene of medieval torture," Jack commented, taking a bottle of milk from the refrigerator and giving it to his wife in the living room.
"It's a scene of…" she swallowed another chili pepper, gasping "…prenatal determination. There's a difference."
She spent twenty minutes on the birthing ball, making circles with her hips, bouncing gently, trying everything to convince her body that it was time. Jack watched her from afar, hiding his smile behind his mug. Then, she moved on to dancing. She put on some upbeat music on her phone and started to move, or at least tried to. What should have been a sensual choreography to induce labor looked more like a penguin trying to put on a talent show.
"Need some help?" Jack approached, placing his hands on her waist and showering kisses on her neck.
"Not until tomorrow, remember?" she teased, rubbing her bottom against his groin.
"Are you sure?" he asked, dragging his teeth along her neck, and then she groaned. But not the kind Jack wanted. "What? Was that a contraction?" he asked in a panic, placing his hands on her stomach in desperation.
"No." she put her hands to her mouth before letting out a terrible, burning burp. "Just heartburn." she huffed, throwing herself onto the sofa. "This little girl is more comfortable inside me than any human being should be anywhere." Jack knelt on the floor, kissing his wife's belly a dozen times.
"She takes after her father, have you ever been told?"
"No, she takes after her mother. My mother said I was born two weeks late, I only came out because the doctor threatened to come get me."
"So we're dealing with a genetic issue of stubbornness," he said, snuggling a little closer to his wife's belly, feeling her hands running through his hair as the baby kicked under his cheek as if trying to shoo him away.
"I'm going to get ready for work," she said, pushing him away enough to stand up.
Jack felt his stomach churn. He watched her walk to the bedroom, a duck-like walk that had become her pattern in recent months, and the temptation to lock her in the house, handcuff her to the bed if necessary, was almost irresistible. But he knew his wife. He knew the stubbornness she called "determination," he knew how she used work as an anchor amidst the chaos of pregnancy's emotions. If he tried to stop her, the hell she promised herself with her pillow would only be the beginning.
He followed her to the bedroom, finding her sitting on the bed, a sneaker in each hand, staring at her own feet as if they were mortal enemies. Her belly prevented any attempt to bend over, and her face was already flushed with frustration.
"Honey?" Jack knelt on the floor in front of her, a gesture that had become routine. He took the sneakers from her hands, but instead of putting them on, he set them aside. She frowned, confused.
"What are you doing? We have to go soon! Robby will kill us if we're late again."
Jack sighed, choosing his words with the care of a man disarming a bomb.
"I was thinking… what if we stayed home today?" he tried to keep the tone casual, as if he were suggesting a walk in the park. "We could go to bed early, stay in bed the whole time… Eat as much chili as you want. I could even massage your feet."
Yn's eyes narrowed. She wasn't head nurse for nothing. She knew a sign of a detour when she saw one.
"You don't want me to go to work, is that it? " her voice rose a half tone, and Jack felt the ground begin to tremble.
"Honey, you're completing forty weeks today. Your obstetrician said…"
"I know what she said, Jack"" she straightened up in bed, her eyes gleaming with that dangerous flame he knew so well. "You think I'm too old to work with you? Is that it? You think I'll be a hindrance?"
"What? No!!!" Jack raised his hands defensively. "Never. You're the best nurse I know, you run that shift better than I do. This has nothing to do with competence."
"Oh, so it's my feet?!" she pointed to her own feet as if they were proof of a crime. "You know they're swollen, how dare you throw that in my face?! I didn't ask for them to be like this! I didn't ask to look like a hippopotamus with tight shoes!"
The frustration that had been building up for weeks, the turbulent hormones, the constant discomfort, and the poorly disguised fear that something might go wrong, all came to the surface at once. Yn started to cry, not a restrained cry, but that deep, sobbing cry that came from the depths of her soul. She stood up with an impetus that surprised even Jack, her stomach jittering with the abrupt movement.
"Where are you going?" Jack stood up too, still holding her sneakers in his hands.
"TO THE CAR, JACK!" she was already in the hallway, her voice echoing off the walls. "I'M GOING TO WORK EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT ME THERE!"
The apartment door slammed shut with a bang that made the pictures tremble on the walls. Jack stood in the hallway, his sneakers dangling from one hand, his heart heavy in his chest. He sighed, a long sigh that carried weeks of worry and love in equal measure. He looked at his sneakers, then at the door, and finally moved.
When he reached the building's parking lot, he found what he expected: Yn was in the passenger seat, her seatbelt precariously fastened across her stomach, her face turned toward the window, her eyes closed. She wasn't asleep; he could see the small sobs still agitating her shoulders, but she also lacked the energy to continue the "fight."
Jack got into the car in silence. He put his sneakers in the back seat, started the engine, and drove out of the parking lot. During the twenty-minute drive to the hospital, neither of them said a word. The silence wasn't heavy, however. It was the silence of someone who had fought worse battles and survived, of someone who knew that love didn't need words to be felt.
When the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center appeared on the horizon, its emergency lights already on against the darkening sky, Jack parked in his usual spot. He turned off the engine and turned to his wife, who still kept her eyes closed.
"Honey?" he called carefully. She didn't answer. Jack sighed, grabbed the sneakers from the back seat, and opened the passenger door. With a patience that only years of marriage can teach, he knelt on the cold asphalt of the parking lot and began to put the sneakers on her feet. Each movement was careful, delicate, as if he were putting on a relic.
When he finished, he looked up. Yn was watching him, her eyes still red, but a small smile already beginning to form on her lips.
"You're terrible, Jack Abbot," she murmured.
"I know," he stood up, extending his hand to help her out of the car. "But you love me anyway."
"Yes, I do," she accepted his hand, letting herself be pulled out of the vehicle with a groan that was both of effort and resignation.
The sun was setting behind the Pittsburgh skyscrapers, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. Jack and Yn walked side-by-side toward the emergency room door, and he felt a pang in his chest as he watched her straighten her shoulders, assuming the commanding posture that defined her. She was back.
The emergency room door opened, and for a moment, the organized chaos of the ward seemed to freeze. Dozens of eyes turned to the entering pair, the chief physician and the head nurse, he in his impeccable scrubs, she with a belly that seemed to have grown even more since her last shift, wearing a nursing uniform that struggled to contain the prodigious nature it carried.
Jack, who knew the team like the back of his hand, began frantically signaling behind Yn's back. A cutting gesture over her neck, begging and warning: “Don't say anything. Don't stare too much. Don't comment. And for God's sake, don't mention the word 'baby'.”
—What is she doing here? - Robby's voice broke the awkward silence. He was at the main counter, a cup of coffee in his hand, his eyes wide as he approached Jack. - What are you doing here? I thought I was going to cover for you today. I thought the phone would ring any minute with the news.
"Believe me, it wasn't for lack of trying" Jack replied quietly, while Yn was already heading to the nursing station, where Dana, the veteran nurse on the day shift, waited with an expression that mixed admiration and horror.
On the other side of the counter, resident Santos watched the scene with the sharp gaze of someone who had money at stake. She approached Jack with a smile that was half provocation, half anxiety.
"Nothing about the baby, huh? " she asked, referring to the bet that had paralyzed the emergency room in recent weeks.
"No. You didn't win the jackpot this time." Jack replied, a tired smile appearing on his face. The bet had started as an innocent joke in the night shift staff's break room, but it soon spread to all the shifts. Even the surgical residents were betting. Robby joined in. Dana joined in. The security guards joined in. Even the cleaning staff, in a moment of collective euphoria, wanted to participate. And, secretly, even Jack had joined in, though no one knew. By a coincidence he considered poetic, his bet was for the next day.
"Your baby takes too long, huh…" Santos teased, tilting his head.
"She takes after her father," said Ellis, appearing behind Santos to pat Jack on the back.
"They say old sperm does that," Shen teased, drinking his bobbah.
"Thanks for the support, Shen," Jack replied, rubbing his face with his hands.
Robby approached, handing Jack the shift report. There were deep dark circles under his eyes, a sign of another twelve-hour day in the hell that was Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.
"Well, since you're here and your baby isn't, I'm going home." Robby sighed, relieved, and, turning to leave, added: "Good luck, brother. You'll need it."
He took a step towards the door, but stopped suddenly, turning back to where Yn was.
"Yn, you look beautiful as always." Robby smiled, a genuine smile of old friendship. "Call me if you need anything, okay? Anything. Even if it's three in the morning."
"Thank you, Robby. Go get some rest." Yn replied, already holding a chart, her eyes scanning the list of waiting patients.
Robby left, and the night shift officially began. Jack and Yn exchanged a quick glance, one of those glances that contained entire conversations. "Are you okay?" he asked wordlessly. "I'm great," she replied, already turning her back to go to the first patient.
To say the following hours were chaotic would be an understatement. The full moon that had risen in the Pittsburgh sky seemed to have cast a haze of insanity over the city. Jack had worked long enough to know that the full moon had no scientific explanation, but it had very real effects. It was as if every madman, every accident, every crisis decided that this was the perfect night to visit the emergency room.
It all started with a smell of burning.
"Is anyone smelling this?" Jesse lifted his head from a chart, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.
Three seconds later, the fire alarm went off. It wasn't a drill. It wasn't a test. It was the shrill, terrifying sound that made any healthcare professional's heart skip a beat.
Jack left the office where he was assessing a patient with chest pain and found the main hallway ablaze. Well, not exactly ablaze. Two computers in the nursing station were spewing smoke and thin flames that licked the cables like matchsticks. — Fire extinguisher! — Jack shouted. Ellis was already there, the chemical powder spreading like a white ghost over the equipment.
The fire was under control in less than a minute, but the damage was done. One of the computers was unrecognizable, the other was in pieces. Yn, who was on the other side of the room, protected by Jack, shook her head as she called IT.
"It's the full moon." she murmured, as if that explained everything.
And that was just the beginning.
At 10 p.m., three patients were admitted within ten minutes of each other, all with the same symptoms: profuse sweating, dilated pupils, mental confusion, and visual hallucinations. A man in his forties, a woman in her thirties, and a young man in his twenty-twos. Three people who, according to their documents, lived in different neighborhoods, had no mutual friends, and swore they had never seen each other's faces.
YN placed them in adjacent rooms, coordinating the nursing staff with the efficiency of someone who had been doing it for years. But something didn't add up. The symptoms were identical, perfectly aligned. Jack reviewed the blood tests, compared the vital signs, and the answer was on the tip of his tongue.
"Food poisoning?" suggested a resident who had been assigned to one of the patients.
"The pattern of visual hallucinations suggests something psychoactive," Jack pondered, reviewing the data. "Someone take a look at their belongings."
It was YN who found the answer. She had entered the room of the twenty-two-year-old man, who was now more lucid, although still confused. Her eyes scanned the clinical environment until they landed on a small thermos inside the backpack that was on the chair.
"What's in there?" she asked, pointing to the thermos. The young man hesitated, looked at her, at his stomach, and seemed to panic.
"You can't touch my things." He tried to move, but Yn ignored him, opening the bottle and bringing it to her face. He became more agitated. She smelled it. An earthy, slightly sweet aroma.
"Mushroom tea?" the boy shrank back on the stretcher.
"It was at a party. It was a special recipe. Everyone drank it, I swear I didn't know it would lead to this. The guy said it was just to help you relax…" Yn closed her eyes, counting to three. When she opened them, her voice was calm, but firm.
You and your friends decided to drink hallucinogenic mushroom tea and now you're paying the price. The good news is that the effects will pass. The bad news is that you'll stay here until they pass. And, if you want to help your friends, you'll tell me the name of the person who organized this party and how many people were there.
Three more patients arrived in the following two hours, all with the same symptoms. The “tea party,” as Shen began to call it, had had six participants. Six people who now occupied six beds in the emergency room, all in different stages of hallucination and dehydration.
But the night still had its main act in store.
Around midnight, Jack was at the central counter, updating charts on one of the few computers that were still working, when he heard the sound that any healthcare professional can recognize from miles away: the cry of a newborn.
He looked up and saw a security guard, a sixty-year-old man who had seen it all at the hospital, running towards him with a panicked expression on his face.
“Dr. Abbot! In the waiting room! A woman, she’s… She’s got the baby’s head showing!”
Jack didn’t think twice. He ran, overtaking nurses and patients, and reached the triage area to find a scene that looked like it was straight out of a movie. A young woman, visibly in advanced labor, lay on the floor, surrounded by a team of security guards who seemed frozen, unsure what to do.
"Get out!" Jack ordered, kneeling beside the woman. "My name is Jack, I'm a doctor. Are you alright, ma'am?"
"SHE'S COMING OUT!!" the woman screamed, and Jack saw that, in fact, the top of the baby's head was already visible.
The following minutes were a blur of action. Jack asked for gloves, asked for compresses, asked for a portable incubator. The woman, whose name was Yara, had no prenatal history, didn't know how many weeks pregnant she was, didn't know anything. She had arrived at the hospital in pain and, before she could be registered, her body decided it was time.
Amidst the commotion, Jack felt a presence beside him. He didn't need to look to know who it was. Yn was there, sterile, prepared, with a tray of instruments and a calm smile on her face.
They worked in perfect sync, as only a couple who had known each other for years could. Jack coordinated the pushing, she monitored the heartbeat. When the baby's shoulder clenched in a moment of panic, it was Yn's firm hand on Yara's leg that convinced her to breathe, to relax, to trust.
The baby's cry filled the triage room like a hymn. Jack handed the girl to Yn, who wrapped her in blankets and placed her on her mother's chest. There was a moment of reverent silence, the kind of silence that happens when life imposes itself with all its force, and then the team relaxed a little.
But there was no time for celebrations. Because, while Yn was helping transfer Yara and the baby to the maternity ward, the receptionist appeared in the hallway with a pale face.
"Dr. Abbot, another pregnant woman. In the car ahead. She's already pushing!"
The night repeated itself. And repeated itself. And repeated itself.
In a one-hour period, between midnight and 1 a.m., Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center received four pregnant women in advanced labor. Four. Each of them gave birth in the emergency room, in Jack's hands, before they could be transferred to the maternity ward.
The first was Yara, who had a healthy baby girl. The second, a teenage girl in the back of an Uber, alone and panicked, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy who cried loudly enough for the entire parking lot to hear. The third was a woman named Theresa, who rushed into the parking lot with her water already broken and the baby crowning—a boy who was born before Theresa could even take off her coat. The fourth was a woman who spoke only Korean, but luckily, there was a translator on duty who helped Jack and Yn bring a pair of identical twins into the world.
When the last placenta was delivered and the last umbilical cord was cut, Jack leaned against the counter, exhausted, and looked at the clock. 2:30 a.m. He still had four hours left in his shift.
Yn was beside him, and he noticed she was resting one hand on her stomach in a different way. It wasn't the usual way someone carrying twenty extra kilos in front would support their stomach. It was a support that suggested discomfort, perhaps pain.
"Yn?" he called, worried.
"I'm fine," she answered quickly, too quickly. "Just tired," he wanted to insist, but she was called away by another nurse.
The rest of the night was an exercise in tension. Every time Yn made a sound, a sigh, a groan, even a sneeze, everyone on the team froze and looked at her with panicked eyes. Was it now? Was it time?
At one point, around four in the morning, Yn let out a loud groan as she stood up from a chair. Jack felt his heart stop for a second. Ellis dropped a vial of IV fluid he was holding. Shen opened his mouth to make a comment.
"It was a cramp!" Yn announced, with a look that promised a slow and painful death to anyone who made any joke. "Just a cramp."
The tension didn't lessen. On the contrary. Jesse, covering the night shift, had worked with Yn before, and had worked with pregnant women on a full moon before. He had his traumas, so he took on the unofficial mission of following her everywhere. He was always two steps away, carrying an emergency birthing kit, his eyes fixed on her as if he expected her to transform into a birthing machine at any moment.
"Jesse, you're making me nervous," Yn said at one point, stopping in the middle of the hallway.
"It's in case you need help," he replied, unperturbed. "I have a doctor husband for that."
"Your doctor husband is busy with a pneumothorax in room 3. I'm available."
Yn sighed, but didn't argue. Deep down, she knew the concern was genuine. And perhaps, in some corner of her mind, she also sensed that something was about to happen.
The sun rose over Pittsburgh like a promise of relief. The last patients of the night were discharged, the charts were closed, and the night shift was drawing to a close. Jack was at the counter, reviewing the cases he would pass on to Robby, when he heard the familiar sound of the emergency room doors opening.
Robby entered with an expression that was half surprise, half amusement. His eyes scanned the room until they found Yn, who was still standing, or rather, still pregnant, like a monument to human resilience.
"She hasn't had the baby yet?" Robby asked Jack quietly, as if speaking loudly might trigger something.
"No. I'm starting to think my daughter is an elephant," Jack replied, a tired smile on his face.
Jack and Yn said goodbye to the team with hugs and promises to call as soon as something happened. Santos handed Jack an updated list of bets, now with new guesses for the upcoming dates. Langdon offered his car if they needed a rush to the hospital. Dana, who had returned to her day shift, held Yn's hands for a moment, looking into her eyes.
"Listen, dear," Dana said, with the authority of someone who had more years of nursing experience than Yn's age, "You're going home, you're going to take a hot bath, you're going to rest. And when the time comes, you'll know. Okay?"
"Okay, thanks Dana," she agreed, although they both knew she wasn't going to rest, not in the way Dana meant.
Jack and YN walked to the parking lot in silence. The morning air was crisp, and the first rays of sunlight painted the asphalt gold. Jack felt a mixture of exhaustion and relief. Another shift completed. Another day where nothing went wrong. Another day where his daughter had decided that the womb was still a better place than the world.
He walked around the car, settling into the seat with a tired groan.
And then Yn spoke:
"Jack?"
He turned his head to look at her. She was standing in front of the car door, not inside. She was outside, one hand resting on the car door, the other on her belly, and there was something different in her eyes.
"What is it, darling?" he asked, a thread of concern in his voice.
"When did you bet that our daughter was actually going to be born?" the question was calm, almost casual. Jack frowned, confused by the question at such an odd moment. He looked at the date on the car's console.
"Today, actually. Why?" Yn smiled. It wasn't a tired or relieved smile. It was a victorious smile, the smile of someone who had just won a battle no one knew was being fought.
"Great. You won."
She turned around and started walking back to the hospital, her steps determined on the asphalt.
"WHAT?" Jack got out of the car so quickly he forgot to turn off the engine.
"MY WATER BROKE!" Yn's voice echoed through the empty parking lot, a cry that was both a declaration of war and a call to battle. "ARE YOU COMING OR AM I GOING TO HAVE THIS BABY ALONE?"
Jack didn't remember closing the car door. He didn't remember running. All he knew was that one second he was inside the vehicle, and the next he was stumbling on the asphalt, falling to his knees, getting up, falling again, almost crawling, until he finally reached his wife, who was standing in the middle of the parking lot with wet pants and her hands firmly on her stomach.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his heart pounding so fast he could barely form the words.
"I'm having a contraction every three minutes, Jack. What do you think?" She squeezed his hand, and Jack felt the force of the contraction pass through her arm, a wave of muscles contracting with clockwork precision.
"Let's go. Let's go back." He put his arm around her, guiding her back to the hospital entrance.
They passed through the automatic doors of the emergency room and entered what should have been the end of a shift but became the beginning of something new. Robby was at the central counter, a coffee in hand, distributing the day's cases to the arriving residents. He looked up when the door opened and saw the scene: Jack, his face pale and his knees dirty with asphalt, guiding Yn, who walked with the determination of a general, her hands on her stomach and an expression of pure focus.
"Did you forget anything?" "Robby asked, a smile beginning to form on his face as the penny dropped.
Yn stopped, a new contraction hitting her with full force. She leaned against the counter, her fingers white from being so tightly clenched, and yelled:
"SHUT UP ROBINAVITCH!!!"
The entire emergency room froze. The residents, the nurses, the patients waiting in triage. All eyes turned to the head nurse, who looked like a walking fury, a Greek goddess of maternity in a blue uniform.
Jack placed one hand on Yn's back, the other raised to the staff in a gesture that tried to be calm, but came out only breathless.
"It's time," he managed to say, his voice faltering mid-way.
The silence lasted a second. Maybe two. And then chaos ensued, but not the chaos of the emergency room. It was the chaos of the bet that had united Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center in recent weeks.
"WHAT IS IT!?" - Santos was the first to react, already pulling her wallet out of her pocket, her eyes shining with a mixture of frustration and admiration. "WHO WON?"
"JACK! " Yn shouted, still leaning on the counter, another contraction sweeping through her like a wave. "GET OUR MONEY!"
Jack looked at Yn, then at Robby, then at the entire team who were already pulling out wallets, cell phones, betting envelopes. For a moment, he thought about arguing. About saying no, that it wasn't the time, that his wife was in labor in the middle of the emergency room and that they needed an obstetrician, not a raffle.
But then he looked into Yn's eyes, saw the determination there, and knew there was no choice.
He reached out to Robby, who already had a twenty-dollar bill in his hand.
"Congratulations, brother" Robby said, handing over the money. "Not that I'm happy to lose, but… Congratulations."
"Thank you!" Jack and Yn said in unison, he taking the money, she already straightening up for the next contraction.
Santos approached, handing over a wad of bills he had collected from the residents.
"Do you think she was holding the baby until now just so they could win?" she asked quietly to Whitaker, who was beside her.
"Obviously." Robby replied, before Whitaker could open his mouth.
Jack led Yn to the elevator, one hand on her back, the other full of money he didn't remember asking for. Before the doors closed, he looked back at the staff crowding the counter, all smiling, all applauding, all celebrating that moment that was both professional and deeply personal.
The doors closed, and suddenly there was silence.
"Yn." he said, looking at her.
"Jack" she replied, and there was weariness in her voice now, but also a quiet joy. "You planned this, didn't you?"
Yn smiled, a tired, triumphant, and absolutely adorable smile.
"Planned it? No." She rested her head on his shoulder as the elevator ascended. "But when I felt the first contraction in the car, I looked at the calendar, saw the date, and thought, 'Well, what a convenient coincidence.' So I decided to wait just a little longer."
"Wait?" Jack's eyes widened. "You were in labor and decided to WAIT to break your water in the parking lot?"
"I wanted to see Robby's face when he found out he lost the bet." She laughed, and the sound of her laughter echoed through the elevator, light and free. "And it was worth every second. How much did we win?"
"500 dollars."
"IT WAS WORTH IT!" she shouted with another contraction.
The doors opened into the maternity ward. Jack helped Yn out, feeling the weight of her hand in his, feeling the life that moved between them, that was about to become visible, real, tangible.
About three hours later, Jack opened the door to their maternity room to introduce his daughter to his family, wrapped in a pink blanket with a kitten hat that Dana had given him weeks before.
PS: I have so many recommendations for last month, so I'll be skipping the blurbs
A knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Aerion Targaryen
Fire and Blood @gcldie 🔥🌤️
Incandescence @oscarina (series)🔥🪷
A Dragon and a Lioness @eraenaa (Series) 🔥🪷
To Tame a Dragon @iydiamartinx 🔥
Baelor Targaryen
Sorely Mistaken @idksmtms ☀️
Start Over Again @lovebugism 🌤️🪷
Hopelessly Devoted to You @erwinsvow (Series)🌧️☀️🪷
Not Beneath the Crown @di-nana-saur 🌤️
Ser Duncan the Tall
Blue on Black @author-morgan ☀️🪷
Chaotic Dinner @multi-fandom-imagine ☀️
His Father's Son @sedonasummer ☀️🪷
Sweet Dreams @ghostlybfgf (ft. Platonic!Baelor)☀️🪷
Beautiful Boy @/ghostlybfgf ☀️
Convincing Maekar into having another baby @cosmictheo 🔥
Hi!!! I read your comment, first of all thank you🫶🫶 and second what's the difference between oc and reader? I'm sorry I'm new to writing😭😭
You're so good! And OC is an original character, so someone you have a description for either personality or looks, and a reader is typically gonna be undescribed, so anyone can see themselves as the reader! I hope I was helpful :) feel free to ask me anything else
Oh Hey! I was wondering if you were up for some Lyonel Baratheon angst...
Something with a targ reader after the trial of the seven... maybe they are married... maybe they just got engaged or sm, and she discovers he hates targs?
Love you, love your blog!
Damn straight I'm up for it
I have this gathering dust and you helped me completed it muahaha
The only good dragon is a dead dragon.
Summary: you believed you had married the eprfect man, until you hear something you shouldn't
Warnings: cursing, battles, trial of the seven, talks of treason, idealization of death, death threats, talks about death in childbirth, pregnancy symptoms, might miss some warnings. No proof read, sorry not sorry.
MINORS DNI, +18
Wordcount: 4k
Since the first time you bled you were scared of marriage.
You could bear children now, which meant your father Maekar could marry you to whomever he pleased, to the best suitor. But you were a princess of the realm, you knew that titles and money told little about kindness and good character
You had seen loyal knights turn into beasts when they thought nobody was watching, or old sweet men from the most honorable of houses commit adultery with unwilling maids of the castles you frequented or the high court of King’s Landing.
But when Lyonel of the great House Baratheon appeared in your grandfather's court to ask for your hand in marriage, you felt your own principles waver.
He was tall, broad and handsome and heir to Storms End, meaning he was to become Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. You remembered the look on your grandfather’s -the king- face, looking silently for your opinion in the throne room. You were not yet convinced, so a week-long courtship ensued, at the Red Keep, under the watchful eyes of Daeron the Good, Baelor, and your father Maekar.
He passed every test put in front of him, he trained and defeated your uncle in the courtyard, he withstand the long dinners and the over the table dense conversations, he had the seal of approval of The King and a the Hand within three days, by the fourth, he made your own father laugh, truly laugh. You weren’t present at such a feat, it was long past the hours of propriety, but you had heard of it from three different men, even from your cousin Valarr who seems particularly impressed.
And to you, he was just the most dashing knight. He would walk with you in the gardens under your father’s watch, he would give you gifts on his house’s colours, beautiful necklaces and silks to fashion dresses… in yellow and black…
He would tell you stories and legends about House Baratheon and the Storm Kings, about his home in Storm's End, but most importantly, he would listen to you, about what you thought, about your life, about your home.
He was perfect
By week's end you had accepted his proposal.
By the fortnight's end, you had married him. The wedding was of a grand splendure, most of the great houses were there, the ceremony was celebrated by even the smallfolk chanting their adoration in the streets, the feast was spectacular, the party afterwards was the most fun, you danced with your husband all night, until your feet hurt.
You felt like the happiest princess alive.
It was like a dream came true.
And at night, when the guests to the wedding had taken you to the chambers as they undressed you, you didn’t even feel nervous, you felt excited and giddy. And when you finally were alone with him, both stark naked, and in front of each other, mind and body idled with the soft buzz of the Arbour wine you served at the banquet, he held you in his arms, he kissed you gently and lovingly, he indeed you slowly, doing his best not to harm you and he succeeded.
And as you cuddled with him in your bed, you thought you were a lucky woman.
You travelled to Storm’s End with your husband, the journey took a whole fortnight, in which you slept together in a huge pavilion they set up every morning, or sometimes, when you managed to arrive in some towns, you would sleep in the great halls along the way.
You believed it was in the Bronzegate where he -between hard thrusts- told you he loved you for the first time
When he arrived at Storm’s End, the party continued, according to his words, he wanted all of Storm’s End to meet their new lady, so he threw a massive event and invited all his bannermen and the house of the nearby villages.
Even though you both had separate quarters he insisted for you to stay with him every night. He would consummate the marriage every night without fail, he would hold you all night afterwards, he would care for your every need before you even voice it.
And then, the invitation to the Ashford tourney arrived, alongside the knowledge your whole family was attending the event. Lyonel couldn’t be more excited, like a child on his nameday. And he passed it onto you.
But everything changed when you arrived at Ashford Meadow.
It was your first tourney as a married couple, and you saw a side of Lyonel that excited and intimidated you in equal measure.
The man was in his element, all smiles and big gestures. You finally discovered why they called him the laughing storm, he raised the longest pavilion there, he invited everyone around for a big feast the first night.
You proudly sat by his side as he wore that huge antler crown and you both drank until you felt like you could giggle the night away.
You had to admit you sometimes felt a bit embarrassed by his antics, but tonight you were as drunk as him, but even you could remember Ser Duncan the Tall.
The very next morning, you saw your brother jousting, you saw how he passed your husband’s tent, looking at the man with a grin on his face. you knew he could challenge your husband just to humiliate him, but you also knew he knew your husband would beat him, so he rode past him.
Instead challenge a lesser knight, and permanently damage him after killing your horse.
You knew your brother’s monstrous nature, that is why you weren’t truly surprised by the events that happened that night with the puppeteers.
But what you were truly surprised, was the trial of seven
You couldn’t blame your husband for coming in rescue of the hedge night, Aegon, your baby brother had spoken to you and explained the situation, how he liked this man Ser Duncan, how he believed in him. And you knew Aerion, and how he was…
You knew your father’s prowess, he was not going to fall easily, neither was your husband, you still didn’t know how he convinced you it was a good idea, how everything was going to be alright.
It was the worst day of your life, but you knew your husband was not going to kill your father, you knew your husband was not going to die either, you had too. Besides, your uncle was fighting alongside him.
With tears in your eyes, because of your uncle’s Death, you helped the maester clean up your husband, you cleaned his wounds, and kissed his bruises, with his firm hands he grabbed your trembling ones and consoled you for the loss of the heir of the Iron Throne.
You woke up with your stomach twisted in nausea. You were barely able to reach some sort of pot and threw up in it.
Perhaps it was the jitters from the night before, you turned to meet your husband, but he wasn’t there. You recalled that the night before he spoke of going to see Ser Duncan, see how he was fearing, so you paid little mind to it.
Eleonora, your lady in waiting, came inside to help you dress for the day.
You found yourself with mixed feelings, for you were relieved that your father was alright, as your husband… but… your uncle Baelor had lost his life, in the hands of his own brother.
You still weren’t able to quantify what this would mean, not only for your family, but for the entire realm.
“Oh!”, you moaned, as she tightened the corset, your breasts were tender, it was an odd sensation
“I’m sorry my lady”, she offered softly, removing the guilty piece of clothing
“My breast hurt”, you whispered
“Maybe you are with child”, she said carefully, eying the pot where you threw up in. But you dismissed it, it was probably nothing.
Once you were ready, you exited the tent, willing to go get something to eat, despite the theatrics of your poor stomach, you were famished.
That is until a figure caught your attention.
You saw Lyonel’s maester return from the riverbank, angry, whispering angry insults and walking by you like he was about to push you out of his way. It was very odd, to say the least. Perhaps he couldn’t help the hedge knight, but perhaps the royal maester who had come with your family to Ashford could.
So you came to find him, and took him with you to meet Lyonel and Ser Duncan where his camp was.
It was a beautiful day
You knew you were in the right direction because you heard your husband’s boisterous voice from afar, you smiled at the thought of seeing him, he looked so handsome this morning.
There he was… with his cape, you really hoped the limp would go away someday soon, you knew he enjoyed jousting a bit too much, and not being able to practice it would dwell terribly on him.
When you were able to see him more clearly, you frowned as he turned to speak to the Hedge Knight who was laying against a tree.
“You've done the realm a kindness. You'll see that one day. The only good dragon is a dead dragon”, he saw you, but too late, he saw you on the edge of his eye, he turned and looked at you.
You just stood there, frozen.
The Hedge knight laid there looking at the both of you like he was about to witness a murder
“What?”, you asked him.
The only good dragon is a dead dragon
There was no way to misinterpret it.
He meant your uncle, he was referring to your family
The maester, old man as he was, clearly either didn’t care or hadn't listened and went straight towards Ser Duncan, but you just stood there, you just heard your husband talking treason.
“Wife…”, he said carefully, once he realized there was no mistake what he had said
He took a step towards you, grabbing onto his antlered cane, but you swore, in the second he took to make that movement, it looked like a weapon.
You gasp, taking a step back from him, even though there was at least 10 feet in between you.
You gathered the courage to look at his face, finally, and you didn’t like what you saw in it.
You turned and ran away from him, tears forming in your eyes, clouding your vision, you heard him behind you, cursing.
You didn’t know what to do
You married this man
The only good dragon is a dead dragon
Is that why he joined the trial? He hoped to kill one of your family members?
Your uncle Baelor, the most honorable and joust member of your family, one would argue that the best of you, was dead, and Lyonel was relieved about it.
You arrived at the tent under the look of everyone you crossed in your way, as you were now fully crying. But who could blame you? your uncle was dead, his funeral pyre was this afternoon…
You didn’t know what to do, the only thing you did know is that you couldn’t be around Lyonel anymore, he wished your family dead, he collaborated in the deed… disguising it as chivalry and justice… as the defense of the innocent.
You grabbed everything that belonged to you, everything you could and threw it inside one of your trunks, your cape, your dresses, your riding boots, all of it. Every time someone walked past the entrance to the tent you stopped and watched, but Lyonel didn't come.
When you made sure all your things were stored, you sat on the bed, defeated, like you just jousted yourself. You took a long, shaky breath, feeling your chest constricted, your hands instinctively went to your breasts, and you wined in pain, they had never hurt before, that you were sure off. Then, as he had planned it, Lyonel himself entered the tent.
But you were so tired, as life itself had been drained out of you, that you didn’t fight it, not one bit.
“What I don’t understand is…”, you began, “if you think we are better off dead, why did you marry me?”, you asked him, voice cracked. “Why did you come to King’s Landing to ask for my hand in marriage?”
But he didn’t answer
“Why?”, you asked him again, tears streaming down your face, “Uncle Baelor was the best of us, he was going to be a great King and yet… you wish him dead”
“He was a fraud!”, he said loudly, exasperated, “he fought against men swore to protect him!”
“In defense of that man!”, you said, “to try and protect him from my brother…”
“You see? don’t you?”, he asked, “you hate your brother! he is sadistic and cruel…”
“He does not represent my entire family!”, you fought back, “not my father… of Daeron, or Baelor, or my cousin Valarr…”, you then stopped and looked at him, “or me”
“You are not a dragon anymore are you?”, he asked, as this whole thing was overreacted, “you are a doe now, a Baratheon”, he was not answering your question, he was evading.
“Who is going to give you children with dragon blood…”, you interrupted yourself as you looked back at him wide-eyed. He just looked at you and he saw it, in your eyes
“If I wanted your family dead I could have done it, you know?”, he asked, “at least two of them”
“I remember my father’s maze on your face at least twice, not your sword on him”, you defended, he laughed, you stood up from the bed, but not wanting to escalate this further. Only then he noticed the trunks
“Your things…”, he tried, “what is happening?”, he asked carefully
“I do not wish to return to Storm’s End with you”, you said, voice cracking, not at all convincing. He looked like he wanted to laugh, but when he realized you weren’t kidding, he got really serious
“You don’t think I could… do something to you”, he didn’t dare ask the question, and your silence told him everything, “for the gods”, he whispered, not believing it, “you are my wife!”, he said, exasperated
“Yes and you just said that the only good Targaryens are dead Targaryens”, you whispered, he shook his head
“You are twisting my words”, he said firmly
“It’s exactly that”, you said sadly, he took a step towards you and before you could run, he grabbed you, ever so gently, his big hand cradled your cheek
“I would never harm you, you hear me?”, he asked severely, “you are my wife, and I will never touch you with anything but devotion and care”, he whispered, he leaned in, to kiss you, but you pulled away
“I have a funeral to attend”, you whispered.
He did not make any indication to follow you to attend the funeral, so you just went without him. Valarr was unconsolable, and you couldn’t even think about your father and what he must be feeling… he was the one to give Baelor the blow that ended his life after all.
His own brother
He might be called Kinslayer, or certainly, whispers will deem him as such.
After the pyre was extinguished, you followed your father and Aegon back to Ashford castle. You knew Lyonel intended to part Ashford right after the funeral, and the mere thought brought tears to your eyes, of being alone with her, of parting ways from your family.
You sought an audience with your father, which was granted immediately, right before Ser Duncan. He clearly thought you wanted to say goodbye.
“Papa, can I go back with you to Summerhall?”, you asked him, so quietly you doubted he could even hear you, but he did
“Why?”, he asked, frowning at you, “you are supposed to go to Storm’s End, with your husband”
“Yes… but…”, how do you tell your father your husband talked about treachery?, “with everything that has happened… I wish to be with my family”, you tried to explain, to lie, but his face, his unmovable face told you everything that you needed to know.
“You are to go with your family, your husband, to Storm’s End”, he said, and you just stood there.
“Well, Aerion is gone, and after what happened with Uncle Baelor… I do not wish to leave you father”, you should have stopped, but at the sole mention of his deceased brother, his face turned
“What happened with your husband?”, he asked severely, you shook your head softly, “you are married now…”
“I know”, you said softly
“You made a vow…”, he said, “does that mean little to you?”, he asked, angry, he was twisting the whole thing.
“No! I didn’t mean it like that…”, you tried to explain
“I don’t know how my own offspring would come out so disloyal”, he might as well slap you, it would have hurt less, “so unreliable”, he continued, “unworthy”
“Papa”, you called, like begging for mercy
“You could only hope your husband doesn’t know about your plans”, he snapped, “now go back to him”, he commanded, you just nodded solemnly at him.
“Yes father, I’m sorry”, you whispered brokenly. You wish to hug him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, to beg him not to let you go.
But you couldn’t
So you walked away from him, not really knowing if or when you were going to see him again.
Lyonel’s words returned to you as well
The only good dragon is a dead dragon
Why would he say something like that? King Daeron the good was one of the greatest Kings of your dynasty, everyone said so… Prince Baelor is… was… even a greater choice for the throne, in his hands, your family would have been at his highest…
If he really thought that… then you wondered what his plans for you were… you wondered again why he married you in the first place.
When you returned, the great pavilion was being put away, Ashford itself seemed to be losing their clothes, you were not the only ones leaving. Your tent, though, still stood whole, the one you shared with Lyonel.
Only then you realized you had not bled since a fortnight before you married Lyonel, and its been three moons since that.
You were with child
Most likely
Lyonel followed the servants who brought your things from the tent to the carriages, and as soon as he spotted you he stood there, looking at you, waiting for your next move.
You certainly couldn’t go back to Summerhall, you had to return to Storm’s End with him, your father was right, he was your husband. You had made a vow, you were his and he was yours, from this day to the end of your days.
You took a long shaky breath
He didn’t wish for you to ride your own horse, you were to ride a carriage, so without a word, you climbed onto it.
Being locked inside a box for most of the day actually gave you time to think, and at night, when you stopped to sleep in a quick made up camp, you could not evade your husband much longer.
You shared a bed on the tent, there was no more room, you climbed onto the bed while he had not returned yet, you hid under the cover the furthest you could from his side of the bed. You heard him come in and sigh loudly
“Wife”, he didn't even use your name, you guessed he didn’t like it. You closed your eyes even though he couldn't see your face, and hugged the pillow tightly. “I would never hurt you”, he whispered, the bed dipped under him, he moved until you felt his warm body behind yours. you tensed, coiling like a snake, he still surrounded your body with his arm, you still felt his breath on the side of your face. He kissed your cheek, he pulled you towards him.
“Lyonel”, you called
“I’m sorry about what I said”, he whispered, “you are mine now”, he kissed once more, and again, “I might not like your family, but I would never do anything to hurt them”, he continued
What choice did you have but to believe him and trust him?
His hand sneaked under the covers and cupped one of your breasts, you whined in displeasure.
“What?”, he whispered
“They hurt”, you whispered
“Oh?”, he teased, “maybe my beautiful doe is carrying a fawn?”, his hand travelled to your belly and kept it there, its warmth making you tremble.
“I’ll probably die in childbirth”, you said bitterly, “You’d like that”, you cried
“For the gods”, he released you like you burnt him, and sat on the bed away from you, “what do I have to do to prove to you… I fucking love you!”, he said, exasperated
He never said it out of bed, so hearing it like this was certainly surprising
“I cannot turn back time, and we are married for life… so we really should find a way to get past this”, he said with greeted teeth
“I cannot let go of the fact that you believe my family, the reigning family is better off dead”, you said wiping your tears
“Yes, I don’t like them, you know that half of Targaryen Kings were mad as fucking goats, the last one almost destroyed the country in half by provoking a succession crisis and a civil war!”, he said, “madness brought forth by the fact that your family married brothers and sisters for generations!”, he said angrily
“Then why the fuck did you married me?”, you asked him
“Your grandmother was a Dornish princess, your mother a Dayne, you are not insane”
“How do you know?”, you asked him, he smiled at you.
“The men might be lunatics, but certainly, the best things about the Targaryens are their women”, he said with a husky voice, “when I looked at you I knew it was over for me, you are the most beautiful woman in the Kingdoms”, you let out a sigh
He went for a kiss, even at a moment like this… he couldn’t keep his hands off of you.
“You are going to fucking die one day, but after me…”, he teased
“Lyonel”, you whined, trying to get away from his grabby hands, but no such luck
“I’m going to die with eighty name days over me”, he whispered huskily, “after a long night of fucking my gorgeous dragon wife, my heart will finally gave out”
“Lyonel this isn’t funny”
“Then I’ll come back for you, ten years later, I’m going to be bored as hell so I’ll come back for you…”, he has surrounded you with his arms caressing your body, his mouth was searching for yours to kiss your lips, you wouldn’t let him so he’ll leave wet kisses all over your face.
“I hate you!”, you cried
“I fucking love you”, he grunted against your ear, “I fucking love the fact that I get to have you, a dragon princess in my bed, and your are going to have my children”
“No”, you whined, he made you lay on the bed, him over you
“I’ll make a doe out of you yet”, he said, you spread your legs for him, it was almost automatic, you realized he still had this power over you. He has taught you the ways of pleasure…
But he stopped, as he looked down on you, he lean in and kissed you softly
“I’m not going to have you like this”, he whispered against your lips, “I will earn your trust again, I fucking promise”, you didn’t say anything as you looked into his eyes.
You were not going to trust him, you didn’t know if you even could forgive him.
But you were never truly going to know his true reasons about marrying you
Because both things could be true, he could love you, but also he could have married you for your blood.
Hiiii!! I’ve ate up your fics and I’d love to see how you’d write Targ!reader whose married to Lyonel, and he said something cruel or mean about the royal family (especially after the trial) I’d love a hurt/comfort pleaseeeee 🫶🫶
harsh words
sum: the morning after the trial Lyonel takes it too far with his words about your brother leaving you utterly heart broken
warnings: hurt comfort, talks of death, lyonel being a douche
word count 1.2k
a/n: I'm not too happy with this but I hope you all enjoy. I hope Lyonel isn't too ooc.
Everyone was packing things up around, in still resignation. A girl's thirteenth name day ended in such horror. Your brother was dead and the killing blow was dealt by your other brother. It felt like Seven were mocking everyone.
You hadn’t spoken a word to anyone once you received the news of your brother’s passing. The news knocked the wind out of your body. And you crumbled in on yourself as you fell to the ground.
Lyonel was dismissive of your grief, acting like nothing happened complaining loudly that the hedge knight would not take a place in his court. You found his whining insipid. Who cares about a fucking hedge knight your brother was dead. Just the thinking of it made you nauseous.
You were still in your black dress, your fingers digging into your palms.
“Did you hear anything I said?” Lyonel’s voice felt so distant but you felt standing right next to you.
You just sniffled, looking down at your feet. “I do not wish to listen to you whine about your hedge knight.”
Your voice was low and rested deep in your chest. You felt the air around Lyonel tighten around you. As he looked at you he scoffed. “You can’t possibly be this upset about him. He died for nothing.”
His words hit you like a slap across the face. “He died for your hedge knight! He died for something he believed in! You can not be so cruel to think so lowly of your prince.”
Lyonel scoffed, “How naive are you woman? He risked nothing involving himself. Meanwhile I risked my whole status! Your status!”
“Mind your tongue! Baelor was my brother! He risked his life and lost it! And now we are worse for it!” You didn’t allow Lyonel to argue back. You stalked off to your carriage
For three weeks you didn’t speak to your husband. You moved back into your chambers, didn’t share meals with him and avoided him at all cost. You closed yourself off to him in all ways. Lyonel’s words were irresponsible at best and his blatant disregard for your grief gut wrenching.
The ghost of your presence was blaring to the whole keep, they felt you melancholy through the halls. Lyonel the most. He sulked about, without you by his side he felt lonely. He even began to regret the words he spoke to you in Ashford Meadow.
But he is too proud to admit that.
But pride comes before the fall. And in the weeks you hadn’t spoken to each other the marriage felt like it was on the fringes. You were so very hurt, but what do you say to your husband when shows you how he truly feels about your family, about you.
And for Lyonel how could he walk that back? What could he say to you? He didn’t think you wanted to listen to him even if he did apologize.
So it continued, going from weeks into months. You mourned in silence, hiding in your room for hours on end watching the rain through the window. The depression of grief consumed you. Lyonel was none the wiser to your condition. Mainly because he was tired of hearing the same answer when he asked about you.
Then he grew tired of that, deep down Lyonel worried. You fully retracted from social life, even your ladies-in-waiting would not hear from you. The worry he tried to ignore only grew. His heart clenched every morning and every night as you were the last thing on his mind and the first name on his lips.
It became so bad he gone to a Septon. And spoke to the man in confidence on what has conspired between the two of you. The Septon spoke to him with calmness that Lyonel needed. He encouraged him to reach out, make the first move to rebuild the relationship and apologize. To pray to the Seven for forgiveness for his action as well.
This led him to the door of your chambers. Dressed down in humility, as he knocked on your door his chest was tightened.
When it opened the door creaked. It revealed your room shrouded in darkness with every little candle light. You looked up at him with glassy eyes with dark circles around them. Lyonel wanted to reach out and cradle you.
“Yes?” Your voice croaked out.
Lyonel just frowned at the state of you. “Oh…my love…” his voice was barely over a whisper.
His hand reached out for you but you flinched back.
“What do you want, Lyonel?” Your question was sharp.
“Yes. I’m…I’m sorry. For what I said to you.”
You shook your head looking down at your feet.
Lyonel hated your silence. He moved forward, entering the room and closing the door behind him. He came down to his knees in front of you. “I hated that I hurt you. You deserve someone better than who left you alone in this time of grief. And for that I am so very sorry.”
His hands traveled the expanse of your waist. His head leaned on your stomach. “All I ask for is forgiveness. The words I spoke can not be unsaid but I can do better. I will do better.”
Your hands traveled to his hair. Pushing it off his forehead. Looking down at him your heart felt like a pit in his stomach. “Lyonel. I just don’t understand. He was my brother, your family by law. How could you say something like that?”
Lyonel just shook his head, “I have no answer for you, but I make no excuses for it. The Seven above will judge me for the rest of my life. I want you to know how sorry I am.”
You just started to sob, your knees buckling under you. Lyonel held you up and pressed his face into your stomach. Rubbing your sides gently, he did his best to calm you. But you only cried harder. He raised to his feet pulling you into an embrace. You stayed like this for a while, he became your strength as you fell apart in his arms.
He soon moved to your bed letting you sit down comfortably. He just sat with you in silence, allowing his presence to speak more. He would not leave you again like this. When you finally spoke your voice was soft but your words were strong.
“If you do this again, I’ll remind you what a Targaryen can really do.”
Lyonel laughed, his voice booming like thunder, he pulled you into a tight hug and gave you a cautious kiss on the cheek. “I would expect no less from you.”
You did not smile but you nuzzled into him further.
Lyonel just held you close. He was lucky you allowed him to hold you so tightly.
“I do not forgive just yet, you’ll have to work to earn my hand back.” Your voice was muffled by his clothes but Lyonel heard you. And he understood.
“I would think you a fool if you accepted me back with open arms. But I will prove myself to you, a hundred times over if I have to.” His words were honest. Said with the fullness of his body.
Even though regret would haunt Lyonel for the rest of his days for what he did to you and worked to prove himself to you. It was relentless work but he did it for you anyways.
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Warnings: Brief mention of sex
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I wish you all a good read!
When your father told you that you would be going to King's Landing and marrying Prince Aerion, you weren't exactly thrilled about the idea. You knew you should be grateful for such a good match, but you were afraid to leave Winterfell, your home. You had always imagined yourself growing old in the North, married to a northern man from another noble house.
But now, moons later, you were glad your father had arranged this marriage. You are happy with Aerion.
When you first met him, you didn't know exactly what to expect—the truth is, the ladies and maids of the court didn't help calm your nerves and uncertainty when they told you to be careful around him while they were preparing you for your wedding—but Aerion had surprised you. During your wedding, he had asked the singers and musicians to play northern songs. You danced together for much of the celebration, and he showed you the artist he hired to take portraits of the two of you during the celebration. But Aerion completely won you over when he defended you from a lord who was getting a little too handsy during the bedroom celebration.
Oh, and your wedding night also held a pleasant surprise. You were afraid he'd go straight to the point and treat this solely as his duty to produce his heir. You were also afraid he'd be too rough and hurt you. But Aerion took his time with you and made you feel things you never imagined you could feel.
Aerion had shown you how a man could please a woman with just his mouth. He had spent what felt like hours with his head between your thighs, savoring your flower until he was satisfied, then kissed you with your arousal still on his lips. You kissed again and again as he prepared you with his fingers until he thought you were ready to take his cock. He whispered compliments, like how beautiful you looked to him and how lucky he was to have you all to himself, promising to make you feel good as he entered you.
The next day, you didn't understand why the maids looked at you with concern when they came to help you get ready for your day. Yes, Aerion had left many love bites all over your body, but you didn't see anything wrong with it. He hadn't been rough with you.
You thought that with time, the people at court would stop staring at you so much. You believed it was because your northern dresses were different and more salvaged than those of the court. Also, your northern accent was too strong. You thought that perhaps that drew people's attention, but you had no idea that the real reason for their stares was that they couldn't believe how happy you looked with Prince Aerion.
For the noblewomen of the court and the servants, it felt surreal to see you strolling through the halls, your arm linked with Aerion's. To see the two of you laughing and kissing as if you were a normal couple. Perhaps people wouldn't be so shocked if it were another man, but everyone had seen how cruel the prince could be. That's why, during the first weeks of your marriage, your maids kept asking if you were alright while discreetly searching for any bruises, until they saw you were becoming irritated and stopped.
It didn't go unnoticed that since Aerion married you, he no longer seemed to cause nearly as much trouble as before. He didn't look for any excuse to punish or mock the servants or other nobles.
Some began to think that perhaps you were what Aerion had always needed. A loving wife to soothe the monster.
King Daeron also noticed the change in his troubled grandson, so in the middle of a family dinner, he innocently remarked that he was glad he had chosen you as Aerion's bride instead of Prince Valarr or Prince Daeron, as he had initially considered.
You were surprised. Perhaps you were too caught up in your own head because you didn't notice the discomfort and tension at the table.
"It's unfair. Why didn't you ask me? I would have liked to have such a beautiful wife," Daeron said, clearly joking, trying to lighten the mood.
You laughed, knowing it was just a simple joke.
But Aerion didn't find it funny.
After that scene, you saw the change in your husband. You noticed how Aerion now seemed more aggressive in the yard when training with Valarr, how he seemed to look for any excuse to make a tasteless comment or a "joke" to his cousin or brother, as if he wanted to prove to everyone, especially you, that they were inferior to him. You didn't like it. He had never shown you this side of himself before. You hated seeing this attitude in Aerion.
You reached your breaking point after seeing Daeron's sad expression when Aerion made a joke about him potentially choking on his own vomit from drinking so much at dinner. That's why, as soon as you two returned to your shared quarters, you confronted your husband directly.
“You have to stop. Right now,” you said firmly, your eyes never leaving his. Your gaze was icy, mimicking the look your father had whenever he judged someone.
For the first time, you weren't looking at him like a sweet girlfriend, but like a Stark ready to fight.
“Stop what?” the prince asked, still somewhat surprised by your attitude. He didn't recall ever seeing you look at someone like that during your entire stay.
“Ever since your grandfather mentioned he considered marrying me off to Valarr and Daeron, you've been acting like an idiot. You're mean to everyone for no reason,” you said, crossing your arms, your annoyance evident in your voice.
“I…”
“But nothing,” you interrupted, not wanting to hear excuses. “The way you've been acting lately, instead of making me think well of you, is only ruining the image I had of you.” Your words left him speechless.
Aerion didn't want to lose your affection. He had worked hard all these moons to show you his good and charming side to win you over. He didn't want to lose all the progress you had made together, and he let himself be carried away by his anger and jealousy.
“I’m sorry, my lady. You’re right, my actions were terrible,” he said, because he knew it was the right thing to say and what his wife expected him to say, as he approached you, wanting to close the distance between you.
“I can forgive you, but I won’t yet,” you said, though you allowed him to put his arm around your waist. “Your attitude offended me deeply. You don’t need to boast or try to improve yourself in my eyes by humiliating other men, your family. I’m your wife now, my eyes are only for you,” you said seriously, taking his chin in your hand. “Remember that next time you’re tempted to be an idiot, I’m yours now.”
Aerion can't help but smile when he hears you call yourself his. Even so, he starts thinking about getting you a necklace with his initial. He was glad to know you were clear that you belonged to him, but he needed men to understand that too.
"I'll remember it," he promises, and kisses you. You barely manage to resist before melting in his arms.
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Aerion Targaryen x wife!reader - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Summary: Once married against both of your wishes, learning how to charm a Targaryen prince as mad as Aerion is not easy, unless you know exactly how to play the game. A continuation to Growing Strong, Married Life, Growing Familiar , Deep in the Meadow, Dragon Dreams, Perzys ānogār and Awakening. Can be read as a oneshot?
Warnings: Reader is Margaery Tyrell coded, pregnancy/childbirth themes, talks of death, Aerion has insane ideas, angst, hurt&comfort, Targaryen lore, this is Westeros people, politics. Aerion's pov.
It was nearly three weeks before she could stand without swaying.
The maester forbade it at first, but she had always possessed a stubbornness that no decree, medical or royal, could fully bend. One morning, resolute, she pushed herself upright from the bed. Aerion was at her side before she could take a step, hands hovering.
“I can walk,” she said, breath thin but defiant.
“You nearly died,” he answered.
“And yet I did not.”
He did not argue further. He simply stayed close enough that if she faltered, he would catch her before she struck the ground.
The nursery had been moved to warmer chambers overlooking the inner yard. The hearth there burned constantly now. When they entered, the nursemaid bowed and withdrew discreetly, leaving husband and wife alone with their son, and the creature curled along the cradle’s edge.
The dragon had grown a bit. Its body was longer, its limbs stronger. Its scales had deepened in hue, silver brightening to near-white along its spine, gold tracing the edges of each plate like delicate filigree. It lifted its head at their entrance. Its eyes, bright amber, fixed first on the babe, then on Aerion. It did not hiss.
She stepped closer, slowly, and gazed down at both child and dragon. Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached to lift her son. The dragon shifted but did not protest. Instead, it coiled its tail loosely around the edge of the cradle and observed.
She cradled the infant against her chest and closed her eyes for a moment, breathing him in.
“He is perfect,” she whispered.
“He is Targaryen,” Aerion replied.
She looked at him then, studying his face as if measuring what had changed in it since the Stranger had hovered over her head.
“You have not told me everything,” she stated.
Aerion did not pretend ignorance.
He dismissed the last lingering servant with a sharp glance and shut the door himself. When he returned to her, there was something almost restless in his movements, like a man pacing the edge of confession.
“You remember nothing?” he asked.
“I remember pain,” she said. “And fire. And screaming.” Her gaze flicked to the dragon. “Not that.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Daeron dreamed,” he began. “He saw you lying in your own blood. Unmoving. He heard a dragon cry.” Aerion’s mouth tightened. “You know our bloodline carries such dreams. I did not dismiss it.”
“You believed I would die.”
“I believed you might,” he corrected. “And that if a dragon was to be born, it would be paid for in blood.”
Her fingers tightened instinctively around their son.
He told her everything.
How he had sent ravens across the Narrow Sea and beyond, offering gold for knowledge of old Valyrian rites. How the sorceress had come, nameless and cold-eyed. How she had spoken of blood and fire, of sacrifice, of dragons starved by peace. How she had said that if Daeron heard a dragon cry, then a dragon would come, but that it would demand payment.
“She said it must be you,” Aerion said, voice low. “Or you and the child. That your blood would birth strength. That once dragons flew again, I could take a bride of purer Valyrian stock.”
Her face drained of what little color it had regained. “And you listened?”
“I listened,” he said. “I did not agree.”
He told her of the circle of stones, the candles, the murmured high Valyrian spells. Of the moment the maester had asked for leave to cut her open.
Her breathing grew shallow as he spoke, but she did not look away.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“I gave the ritual what it demanded,” Aerion said. “Valyrian blood. Fire. A life for a life.”
Understanding dawned slowly in her eyes.
“You killed her.”
“Yes.”
“In front of...”
“In front of everyone who needed to believe she meant you harm.” His jaw flexed. “I slit her throat over the circle she made. I pushed her into the fire. Fire and blood. If a sacrifice was required, it would not be yours.”
Silence filled the chamber, heavy as smoke.
At last she said, “You gambled.”
“I risked, yes.”
“You had no guarantee.”
“No.” His gaze burned, fierce and unwavering. “But I was not about to let some Essosi witch decide that you were expendable.”
Her eyes shimmered not with fear, but with something more complicated.
“And if it had failed?” she asked him. “If the egg had remained stone?”
“Then I would have broken the world until it yielded another way,” he replied without hesitation.
She huffed an incredulous breath. “You are mad.”
“I am a Targaryen.”
She studied him for a long moment. “And if I had died despite it?”
His expression shifted then, just slightly.
“I told you once,” he said, quieter now, “that I would have a child by other means if I must. That our line would not end with me. But I also told you that I would not replace you as my wife.”
She remembered. The words had unsettled her then.
“I meant it,” he continued. “I do not care that you are Tyrell. I do not care that your blood is not Valyrian. The dragon hatched beside our son all the same.”
His hand brushed against the cradle where the dragon lay coiled.
“I will not trade you for some pale cousin because a witch thought it convenient.”
It was not tender in tone. It was not gentle. But it was, in its way, devotion.
Her throat worked as she swallowed.
“You frightened me,” she said at last. “Even now.”
“Good,” he replied reflexively.
“Not good.”
He stepped closer, one hand coming up to cup her cheek.
“You are alive,” he said. “Our son is alive. A dragon breathes in his cradle. I will accept your displeasure.”
She leaned into his touch despite herself.
After a moment, she glanced toward the dragon. “What now?”
“Now,” Aerion said, “we do not make the mistakes of our ancestors.”
He straightened slightly, mind already turning.
“The last dragons were kept chained in pits and domes. Fed and displayed like ornaments. They shrank. They withered. If she is to grow, she will fly.”
“She?” his wife echoed.
“The maester examined it,” Aerion said. “Her. Female.”
Her gaze softened as the hatchling lifted its head, as if sensing attention. Its small chest expanded, and a thin ribbon of smoke curled from its nostrils.
“She will need space,” Aerion continued. “Air. Sky. Not a cage beneath the Red Keep.”
“The city will panic.”
“The city will learn.”
She adjusted their son in her arms. “If she grows large...”
“Then the realm will remember what we are.”
“But if no other egg hatches?”
That question lingered heavier than the rest. Aerion’s expression darkened slightly.
“If she is the only one,” he said, “then she cannot lay fertile eggs alone. Dragons are not made from nothing. If another healthy dragon does not hatch, if the magic is not strong enough…then she will be the last.”
He did not say what that would mean for his son. They both understood.
“We wait,” he said finally. “We watch the other eggs. We see whether what was begun in blood has strengthened what was fading.”
She looked down at the child in her arms.
“They are already speaking of his name,” she said.
His mouth curved faintly. “They protest.”
“Maegor,” she said pointedly.
He did not look ashamed. “They forget that Maegor was also a dragonrider.”
“They remember the cruelty.”
He huffed an irritated breath. “Baelor lectures. Grandsire scowls. Even father suggested that perhaps the boy should not bear the weight of that name.”
“You disagree.”
“I do not bend easily.”
“No,” she agreed dryly. “You do not.”
She considered for a moment, then said, “Maeron.”
He frowned slightly. “Maeron.”
“It keeps the strength,” she said. “But sheds the shadow.”
He tested it under his breath. “Maeron.”
After a pause, he inclined his head. “Very well. Maeron.”
Relief flickered across her face.
“What about her?” she asked, nodding toward the hatchling.
Aerion’s gaze turned reverent as it settled upon the dragon.
“She is born of blood and flame,” he said. “She answered sacrifice. She will not be named lightly.”
He considered the old Valyrian pantheon, names of deities half-forgotten, whispered in fragments in crumbling scrolls.
“Aegarax,” he said at last. “For the goddess of blood. Queen of the gods.”
His wife arched a brow faintly. “Subtle.”
“I have never pretended to be subtle.”
The dragon, Aegarax, lifted her head and released a sharper cry than before, a sound that made the fine hairs along the back of his neck rise.
Maeron was barely a fortnight old when Aerion began holding him up, far more carefully than anyone would have expected, and angling his tiny fist toward Aegarax as though the child might meaningfully grasp at destiny.
“Look,” Aerion would murmur, as if speaking to a young squire rather than a swaddled infant. “That is yours. She chose you.”
Maeron responded as infants did: with a gurgle, or a squirm, or a sudden indignant cry when his father’s enthusiasm disturbed his comfort.
Aegarax, for her part, had been removed from the cradle after the third night she singed the edge of the linens with an errant puff of flame. Even Aerion had conceded that a dragon, however small, did not belong pressed against a newborn’s face while its fire came and went like a hiccup.
She was given a brazier-lined alcove instead, ringed in iron lattice, open at the top so she might stretch her wings. She did not like it.
When Maeron cried, she would claw at the iron with a metallic scrape that echoed through the chamber. When he quieted, she would settle, tail coiled tight, eyes half-lidded but alert.
Aerion interpreted this as proof of bond. The maester interpreted it as instinct. His wife interpreted it as both.
Yet for all his intensity with the child and dragon, it was her he hovered over. At night, he did not allow space between them.
He slept on his side, one arm beneath her neck, the other banded around her waist, as though she might dissolve if not physically grasped. If she shifted even slightly, his eyes would open.
The first time she slipped from the bed after midnight, aching but restless, drawn by the quiet rustle of the nursery, he woke to cool sheets and nearly overturned the bedside table in his haste.
He found her standing over Maeron’s bassinet, one hand resting on the edge.
“You left,” he said, voice tight.
“I walked five paces,” she replied gently.
“You left.”
She studied him in the flicker of candlelight and saw what lay beneath the sharpness: fear. Not of assassins. Not of prophecy. Absence.
“I will wake you,” she promised.
“You will,” he insisted. “Every time.”
She did. Even if it meant rousing him to stumble half-awake to her side while she checked that their son still breathed, that Aegarax still lay curled in her alcove, that the hearth had not burned too low.
He would stand there, hair mussed, eyes shadowed, watching both child and dragon as if memorizing them against loss.
The small council pressed again about the dragon’s confinement.
“She must not be seen flying above the city unchecked,” Baelor argued during one meeting. “The memory of dragonfire is not so distant that the sight will comfort the smallfolk.”
“She will not grow chained,” Aerion replied.
“There is a difference between chain and prudence,” Baelor said evenly.
Maekar leaned back in his chair, studying his son. “You intend to let her fly.”
“Yes.”
“Over King’s Landing?”
“When she is strong enough.”
“That could cause panic.”
“It could cause reverence,” Aerion countered.
Daeron, lounging near the window, tilted his head. “Or both.”
Aerion’s gaze flicked to him. “You have no dreams?”
Daeron’s mouth twitched faintly. “None that concern dragons.”
That answer seemed to settle something in Aerion, though only slightly.
In the end, a compromise was reached. When Aegarax’s wings grew strong enough to bear her weight for more than a few frantic flutters, she would be taken at dawn beyond the city walls, to the rocky outcrops near the Blackwater, escorted by guards sworn to silence. There she would stretch her wings properly.
It was Maekar who suggested the location.
“If she is to learn the sky,” he said, “better rock than rooftops.”
Aerion agreed.
His wife’s recovery was slower than she let on. The maester spoke plainly in private.
“Another pregnancy would be…inadvisable,” he said carefully. “For more than a couple years, I'm afraid. Her body barely survived the first.”
Aerion did not hesitate. “Then there will not be another.”
“You will drink moon tea,” he informed her unceremoniously. “Regularly.”
She blinked at him, startled.
“You object?”
“No,” she said slowly. “I expected argument.”
“I have a son,” he replied. “I have a dragon. I will not gamble you for the possibility of a spare.”
There was something darkly practical in the way he said it, yet also fiercely protective.
“You would deny yourself more heirs?” she asked.
“If Maeron dies,” he said evenly, “I will burn the world.”
She sighed. “That is not reassuring.”
He touched her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“You are not a broodmare,” he said. “You nearly died proving the line continues. That is enough for now. Our son needs you.”
The maester measured the dragon obsessively.
“She is outpacing the records of the last hatchlings,” he admitted one afternoon, ink-stained fingers tapping parchment. “By nearly a third.”
Aerion’s satisfaction was quiet but unmistakable.
Yet another question began to stir beneath the surface.
Other eggs remained.
If blood had strengthened something unseen, if the current that the sorceress had spoken of had indeed been stirred, would another egg answer?
He did not speak of it openly. Not even to his wife.
But one evening, as they stood together watching Aegarax snap playfully at a strip of raw meat, he said, almost to himself, “If she is alone, she is the ending.”
She rested her head lightly against his shoulder. “You are already thinking of more.”
“I am thinking,” he said carefully, “of balance.”
“Meaning?”
“If she grows large,” he continued, “and no other dragon lives to match her, she will never lay fertile eggs. Dragons require each other.”
She studied Aegarax as the dragon unfurled her wings and leapt clumsily from stone to perch, landing with a scrape of claws and a triumphant hiss.
“Let us survive the first miracle before chasing a second,” she said softly.
He glanced down at her.
“You were the miracle.”
a/n: Okay, the next chapter will be longer than this and will include smut! And multiple plot points. It's not what you'd expect probably hehe.
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