Pairings: Baelor Targaryen x wife!Reader, Maekar Targaryen x sister-in-law!Reader
Synopsis: A shattered Prince, a broken crown, a heavy shadow on the town. The guilty brother bends his knee, bound to a desperate tragedy. They flee the whispers and the rain, to heal the flesh and hold the chain. She claims his touch amidst the storm, while Iron stands to keep them warm.
Warnings: SMUT 18+, Nudity, Unprotected Vaginal Sex, Baelor survived AU, Graphic Descriptions of Head Trauma, Descriptions of Physical Disability/Paralysis, Severe Guilt & Self-Loathing, Forbidden Desire, Heavy Themes of Mortality, Death Threat
Word Count: 10.2k
A/N: It will have another part
The wheelhouse did not turn; it dragged. It moved up the steep, winding cobbles of Aegon’s High Hill with the leaden, funeral pace of a siege engine being hauled through mud.
There were no clarions to split the heavy, salt-damp air of King’s Landing. There were no heralds clad in the brilliant scarlet and black of House Targaryen to clear the gutters of the smallfolk who usually choked the paths just to touch the stirrup of the Breakspear.
There was only the low, metallic groan of the axle and the wet, rhythmic plod of six dray horses, their hocks lathered in a thick, yellow foam that smelled of the road and old grease.
She watched it from the narrow slits of the solar window, her hand resting against the cold, unyielding red stone of the sill. The stone was sweating. In the late-summer heat of the Blackwater, the entire castle seemed to weep a fine, greasy film that tasted of sea salt and wood-smoke.
Below, the outer yard was a sea of upturned faces—lords in silks that had begun to sour under the armpits, Septons with their silver stars tucked into their sashes, and the ubiquitous, pale-faced scribes of the Grand Maester’s guild, their long chains clinking like dry bone against their robes.
They were waiting for a corpse. She knew it by the way they stood—not grouped in the easy, loud configurations of a court preparing for a triumph, but scattered, distinct, their eyes darting toward the empty gallery where King Daeron the Good usually sat when his joints allowed him the sun.
They were already calculating the distance between the Prince of Dragonstone and the black dirt of the Great Sept of Baelor.
She did not go down. When the heavy iron gates thudded shut behind the rearguard, the sound vibrating up through the soles of her bare feet, she remained exactly where she was.
She had stripped herself of her court stays and the heavy, wire-framed kirtle of Targaryen crimson three days ago, when the first raven had flown from the Kingsroad.
Now, she wore only a loose shift of unbleached linen, its hem frayed from the floorboards, her hair bound up in a rough, tight wool knot that pulled at the skin of her temples.
The doors of the outer solar did not open; the weight of a heavy shoulder slammed them back.
Maekar Targaryen stepped across the threshold, and with him came the stench of the Reach. It was the smell of horses ridden to the point of lung-burst, vinegar used to rinse old bandages, and the sharp, metallic tang of rusted iron.
Behind him came the bearers—four silent, iron-hatted guards from Summerhall whose faces were grey with dust. They carried a long, ash-wood litter draped in grey wool.
She did not look at Maekar. She did not give him the satisfaction of her eyes, though she could feel the heat radiating from his massive frame, a thick, suffocating wave of sweat and iron that filled the small room. She only looked down at the litter.
Baelor’s dark hair—the thick, coarse curls that always marked him as his mother’s son, the Martell Prince who looked more like the salt-shore than the Valyrian sand—had been shorn away entirely on the backside of his skull.
The bare skin was a mottled, greenish-purple, stitched together with black silk threads that looked like fat black ants crawling toward his ear. A mountain of greying linen was wrapped about his brow, damp at the center with a clear, amber fluid that smelled faintly of old beer and rot.
His right arm, the arm that had broken the vanguard at the Redgrass Field, was curled tightly against his ribs, his fingers rigid and hooked like the talons of a dead falcon.
”Set him upon the low bed,“ she said.
Her voice was not loud, but it possessed a flat, crystalline clarity that made the guards freeze before they looked to their Prince.
Maekar did not speak. He merely jerked his chin—a single, violent movement. The guards moved with a tiptoeing, fearful caution, sliding the linen-draped mattress off the ash-poles and onto the thick goose-down frame she had prepared in the alcove.
When they were done, they backed out of the chamber like men leaving a Sept, their eyes fixed on the floorboards until the oak doors clicked shut behind them.
Maekar remained standing by the door. He had not removed his gloves. His great, leather-lined fists were clenched at his sides. He stared at the small space of stone between his boots, his chest heaving under the velvet of his clothing like a blacksmith’s bellows.
He was waiting for her to break. He was waiting for the screaming, or the weeping, or the long, legalistic accusations that a woman of the court was supposed to hurl at the man who had broken her life.
He wanted the punishment; she could see it in the way his thick neck was bowed, his jaw set so hard that a small white line of tension ran from the corner of his mouth down into his beard. He wanted her to give him a reason to turn and ride back into the dark.
She walked toward him, her bare feet silent against the rushes. With every step she took, the rage inside her grew colder, turning from a wild, screaming thing into a smooth, heavy bar of iron that settled behind her teeth.
”You are smaller than I remembered, Maekar,“ she said, stopping when the toes of her bare feet were an inch from the thick, square leather of his riding boots.
The Prince did not lift his head. The shadow of his silver hair fell across his eyes, leaving only his mouth visible—a bitter, downward curve that looked as though it had never known a smile.
”He lives,“ Maekar growled, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that sounded as though he had spent the last three days swallowing gravel.
”The Maesters at Ashford said he would die before the Mander. The Maesters at Bronzegate said he would die before the forest. I brought him to your gates. My work is done.“
”Your work?“ She let out a short, sharp sound that was less a laugh and more a striking of flint.
She reached out, her fingers locking into the cold, mud-crusted edge of his coat. She did not use the gentle touch of a Princess; she twisted her hand into the leather straps, forcing his massive head up until his violet eyes were locked into hers.
”You call this work? You break his skull like a walnut at some petty hedge-knight’s tourney, you haul his half-dead meat across three hundred leagues of dirt, and you think you can simply drop him at my feet and ride back to Summerhall to nurse your little pride?“
Maekar’s breath caught, a hot, sour gust of wine and onions that brushed her cheeks. His eyes, bloodshot and ringed with black circles of exhaustion, flared with a sudden, violent heat.
He was a man who lived on the edge of his own skin, always waiting for a slight, always expecting to be passed over for his brother.
Yet, as he looked into her face—pale, fierce, stripped of courtly artifice and framed by the sharp, undone linen shift—the heat in his chest shifted, twisting into a sudden, leaden ache that knocked the breath from his lungs. It was not anger. It was a terrifying, unbidden awe at her sheer, unyielding clarity. He had never looked at her—truly looked at her—away from Baelor’s shadow.
”I did not see him,“ Maekar hissed, his hands twitching at his sides, though he did not lift them to break her grip. His eyes dropped from her mouth to the white linen over her collarbones, his knuckles tightening in his gloves.
”The sun was behind his crest. I thought... I had to protect my son. I struck to parry, and the ash split–“
”I do not care about your sun, and I do not care about your son,“ she said, her voice dropping into a low, lethal whisper.
”Look at him, Maekar. Look at what your parry did.“
She twisted her hand harder, forcing him to turn his head toward the alcove. Maekar resisted for a fraction of a second, his great neck muscles stiffening like oak roots, before he gave way with a low, strangled groan.
Baelor lay perfectly still beneath the grey wool. His left eye was closed, the skin around it white and translucent as lard, while his right eye was partially open, a thin, glassy sliver of white showing beneath the lid.
He looked like an effigy carved from old river-silt, waiting for the rain to melt him back into the mud.
”He is the Prince of Dragonstone,“ she said, her lips so close to Maekar’s ear that he could feel the cool drift of her breath against the rough hair of his beard, a sensation that made his skin prickle with a strange, defensive dread.
”He is the only man who stands between this Realm and the madness of his brothers. Aerys is in his books, Rhaegel is dancing through the halls in his shift, and you... you are a murderer who lacks the courage to stand by the corpse.“
”I am no murderer!“ Maekar roared, his hands finally flying up to grip her wrists.
His fingers were like iron pincers, his leather gloves rough against her bare skin, but he did not pull her away. He held her there, his chest heaving, his face so close to hers that she could see the small gold flecks in his violet eyes.
He looked down at the pale, narrow bones of her forearms in his grasp—so fragile compared to the heavy steel he spent his life wielding—and a sudden, sickening dread went through him.
He was terrified of his own density, terrified that he might break her, too, simply by holding her.
”If I were a murderer, I would have put the mace through his throat while he lay in the mud! I would have taken the Crown for myself! I love him... I worshiped him... he was the only one who ever looked at me and did not see the fourth son.“
”Then show me that love,“ she said, her voice unyielding, her eyes boring into his until the anger in his face began to fracture, leaving only a vast, dark sea of remorse.
”Do not run to Summerhall. Do not let the lords see you skulk away like a whipped dog. You will stay in this palace, Maekar. You will sit by his bed, you will lift his meat when he cannot move, and you will be the iron wall that sits between his chair and the vultures of the Small Council. You will swear it to me. Now.“
Her voice cracked.
Maekar stared at her. The silence in the solar was so thick that the only sound was the distant, oily hiss of a tallow candle burning down into its cup.
He felt the coldness of his steel breastplate—in his mind he had not taken it off—the softness of her linen shift, and the heavy, terrifying gravity of her presence. She was offering him a purpose that belonged to him alone—even if it meant standing guard over the ruin he had made.
Slowly, his grip on her wrists relaxed. His great hands did not fall back to his sides; they lingered on her bare forearms, his rough leather fingers sliding down to her wrists, feeling the quick, frantic beat of her pulse beneath the skin before he tore them away, dropping them to his sides as if he had been burned.
”I will stay,“ he whispered, his voice losing its gravel, leaving only a low, solemn weight.
”I will be his right hand. And I will be your shield. Until the fire goes out.“
The door to the private chambers did not creak; it swung open with the heavy, urgent stride of young men who still wore their spurs.
Valarr entered first. The Young Prince, the eldest son, looked so much like his father that for a terrible, heart-stopping instant she thought the Breakspear had risen from his mattress.
He had Baelor’s dark eyes, his straight, proud nose, and the easy grace of a knight who had won his first tourney garland at seventeen. But today, his handsome face was drained of its gold; his silver-trimmed doublet was undone at the throat, and his hands were trembling as he rushed toward the alcove.
Behind him came Matarys, his younger brother, whose hair—which resembled his mother’s—was a stark contrast to Valarr’s dark locks. Matarys was still small enough to look fragile in his heavy velvet robes, his wide purple eyes darting between his mother and the looming, silent shadow of his uncle Maekar by the hearth.
”Mother,“ Valarr breathed, dropping to his knees beside the low bed. His hand hovered over his father’s grey, stitched skull, not daring to touch the raw skin.
”The yard is full of crows. Lord Ambrose is already talking about summoning the Great Council. They speak as if he is dead.“
”He breathes, Valarr,“ she said, her voice softened to that tone only a mother used for her children. She stepped between her sons and the light of the tallow candles.
”And while he breathes, the succession does not shift by a single inch. You are the heir to Dragonstone, and your brother is behind you.“
Matarys shrank back slightly, his hip bumping against Maekar’s blackened greaves. He looked up at his uncle with a mixture of terror and awe.
”Did you... did you truly do this, Uncle? They say your mace split his helm.“
Maekar did not move an inch out of the chimney-shadow, his eyes fixed resolutely on the floorboards, though his mind remained helplessly pinned to the white shape of her shift.
His voice was a heavy stone dropped into a shallow well.
”The ash split, boy. The Gods held the parry, not I. Go to your brother.“
Valarr rose from his knees, his dark eyes flashing with a sudden, volatile heat that belonged to his father’s blood. He turned on Maekar, his young chest heaving beneath his silk doublet.
”You should have stayed in Summerhall, Uncle. If the King sees him like this–“
”The King is already here,“ a low, rasping voice called from the doorway.
King Daeron stood between his two white-cloaked Kingsguards, looking less like a monarch and more like a bundle of dry sticks wrapped in purple velvet. The years of his long peace had grown heavy upon him; his white hair was thin and wispy, and his eyes were cloudy with the grey cataracts that had begun to steal his sight.
”Grandfather,“ Valarr said, stepping back instantly, his royal pride dissolving into the duty of a grandson.
Daeron did not look at Valarr, nor at Matarys. His cloudy eyes drifted across the small solar until they found the alcove where his eldest son lay under the grey wool.
When he reached the edge of the mattress, he lowered his head, his thin shoulders trembling under his heavy velvet mantle.
”Baelor,“ the King whispered, his voice cracking like a dry reed. He reached out with a pale, blue-veined hand, his fingers tracing the edge of the grey wool sheet.
”My right hand... my strength. The Gods are cruel to leave an old man his breath while the vanguard falls.“
He turned slowly, his dim sight fixing upon Maekar where he stood in the shadows. There was no fury in Daeron’s face—only a vast, ancient weariness that was harder to bear than an executioner’s axe.
”You were always the Anvil, Maekar. But the Anvil should not break the Hammer.“
Maekar bowed his head so low his beard touched his collarbone.
”I am here to be his shield, Your Grace. Until he rises.“
”He must rise soon,“ Daeron muttered, looking to her, his hand reaching out to touch her forearm with a dry, papery grip.
”The Small Council is souring. Aerys will not leave his books, and Rhaegel... Rhaegel is weeping in the gardens. If Baelor does not speak to the lords, the Realm will look to the sons.“
He glanced at Valarr and Matarys, his old eyes heavy with premonition.
”Keep them close. The air in this city is changing.“
The privacy of the bedchamber was a different kind of battlefield. Here, the grand rhetoric of the Great Hall died in the sour smell of vinegar and the cloying, suffocating sweetness of milk of the poppy.
The sun had gone down behind the hills of the Reach, leaving the room in a thick, amber twilight that was lit only by a single tallow candle on the wash-stand.
She had stripped Baelor of his traveling linen, her hands moving with a slow, meticulous caution that had taken her days to learn. He was a massive man, built for the tilt-yard, and when his right side went dead, he became as heavy as an oak log.
Before she called for Maekar, she sat on the edge of the mattress alone. Baelor’s left eye was open, hazy but deeply fixed on her face. He could not lift his hand, but his fingers twitched against the down quilt, trying to find her thigh.
”You smell of... the solar,“ Baelor whispered, his voice a broken thing, yet his dark eye shone with the remnants of the fierce, boyish charm that had won her years ago.
”The ink... and old wax. You have been... ruling in my stead, my sweet?“
”Someone must keep the scribes from stealing the silver while you rest,“ she murmured, leaning down until her lips rested against his temple, just inches above the raw, black stitches.
The skin there was burning, a dry, papery heat.
She shifted her weight, sliding her hand into his left one, intertwining their fingers. He squeezed back—not with the bone-crushing strength of the Hammer, but with a lingering, soft insistence that made her throat close with tears.
”I remember... the first tourney,“ Baelor slurred, a ghost of a smile touching the good side of his mouth.
”You wore... blue wool. You told me... if I fell to a Frey... you would marry... a stable-boy.“
”And you stayed in your saddle,“ she whispered, her voice cracking as she pressed a soft, desperate kiss into his palm, her tears wetting his rough skin.
”You always stayed in your saddle, Baelor. You must stay in it now.“
He looked at her, his gaze filled with a profound, bitter tenderness. He knew what he was now—a shattered giant, a heavy burden—and she could see the agony of that realization in the way his dark brow furrowed.
”I am trying,“ he murmured.
”But the ground... it keeps... rising to meet me.“
She pulled his left hand up to her cheek, holding it there, letting the dry warmth of his skin anchor her against the darkness of the castle.
For a long, silent moment, they were simply a husband and wife clinging to each other on the edge of a precipice, the bitter reality of his broken body balanced against the sweet, enduring memory of their youth.
Then, the darkness deepened, and she knew she could not lift him alone.
”Help me lift him, Maekar,“ she called out.
The Prince stepped out of the shadows by the hearth. He had taken off his coat, wearing now only a loose shirt of grey wool that was unbuttoned at the throat, revealing the thick, silver hair of his chest.
He kept his eyes fixed strictly on Baelor’s shoulder, his great, calloused hands sliding under his brother’s armpits with a strange, trembling gentleness.
He was intensely aware of her posture across the mattress, the way her linen shift pulled tight against her shoulder-blades as she leaned down, but he clamped his jaw shut and looked only at the dark hair of his brother’s crown.
”On three,“ she murmured, ”one. Two. Three.“
They lifted together. She caught Baelor’s hips, her muscles straining against the weight until her breath came in a short, sharp gasp. Maekar bore the brunt of it, his face flushing a dark crimson as he pulled his brother’s torso up against his own chest, holding him there like a child while she slid the soiled linen sheets from beneath him.
Baelor’s head fell back against Maekar’s shoulder. His left eye fluttered open, the pupil vast and black under the candlelight.
”Mae... kar,“ he slurred, a small trickle of grey saliva running from the dead corner of his mouth down into his dark beard.
”Good... lad. You... always... were... strong.“
Maekar did not answer. His face was a foot from his brother’s, and she could see the terrible, agonizing spasm of grief that twisted his mouth.
He held his tongue, his great arms locking around Baelor’s back to steady him while she dipped a fresh linen cloth into the basin of warm water.
”Hold him so,“ she commanded.
She began to wash him. It was a slow, sacred labor. She started with his face, avoiding the black stitches around his head, her fingers moving with a light, rhythmic stroke. She wiped the road-dust from his neck, the salt-crust from his collarbones, and the sour grease of the ointment from beneath his arms.
Every time her hand passed near Maekar’s fingers, the air between them seemed to tighten.
She could feel the heat of Maekar’s skin, the frantic, heavy thudding of his heart beneath his grey wool shirt.
He was staring at her hands—not with the casual lust of a courtier, but with a dark, horrified reverence. He watched the way she loved the man he had broken; he watched the way her fingers smoothed over the blue bruises and the green yellowing skin of Baelor’s ribs, and she could see that every stroke of her cloth was a stroke of the whip across Maekar’s conscience.
Maekar kept his gaze fixed on those fingers, his throat dry, swallowed by a deep, solitary shame because a part of him—the black, hidden depth he refused to name—wished those small, cool hands were tending to his own unbroken skin.
”He is cold,“ Maekar whispered, his voice a low vibration that made the water in the basin ripple.
”The blood does not move well on his right side,“ she said, not looking up from her work.
She rinsed the cloth in the basin, the water turning a pale, milky grey.
”We must rub his legs with mustard oil before the poppy takes him again. If the meat goes cold, it rots.“
She reached for the clay jar of oil, pouring a thick pool of the yellow liquid into her palms before rubbing them together until the scent of mustard filled the alcove, sharp and stinging to the eyes.
She began to work on Baelor’s right leg—the great, muscular thigh that had once held him firm against the charge of the rebel knights.
The muscle was soft now, loose and unresponsive beneath her palms like wet clay.
Maekar watched her. His breath was coming shorter now, his eyes tracking the way her linen shift clung to her back as she leaned over the bed, the dampness of the room pasting the dark hair to the nape of her neck.
He felt a terrible, forbidden weight settling in his gut, a solitary misery that made him want to turn his back on the room, yet he remained locked in place, his chest heaving like a blacksmith’s bellows.
”Let me,“ he growled, stepping forward until his boots clicked against the frame of the bed.
”No,“ she said, her voice sharp as a needle as she kept her back to him.
”Your hands are too rough, Maekar. You would tear the skin. Stay where you are and hold his head.“
Maekar froze, his great hands twitching at his sides, his face darkening with a mixture of anger and shame that made him look like an iron furnace about to burst.
But he did not move. He stood there in the twilight, the proxy King and the guard, while she rubbed the life back into his brother’s dead flesh.
The middle of the night was the worst hour. The tallow candles had burned down into greasy puddles of fat, leaving the solar in a dark, velvet blackness that was broken only by the pale grey light of the moon through the high windows.
Baelor had fallen into the deep, heavy sleep of the poppy, his breathing a slow, snoring rattle that sounded like a dog scratching at a door. He lay at the center of the great bed, his left hand tucked beneath his cheek, his right arm stiff and cold against the linen sheet.
She lay beside him. She had crawled into the space between his good side and the wall, her linen shift thin against her skin, her body curled into the small shape of a nesting bird.
She had spent all her life sleeping in the crook of his right arm—the big, warm arm that used to smell of leather and fresh grass, the arm that had always held her firm against the nightmares of her youth.
Now, that arm was on the wrong side of him. It lay across his chest like a dead branch, cold to the touch and rigid as stone.
She reached out in the dark, her fingers smoothing over Baelor’s chest until they found his heart. It was beating—slow, heavy, a steady thud-thud-thud that told her he was still there, trapped inside the cage of his own bone—but there was no heat in it.
The fever had left him, and with it had gone the vibrant, furnace-warmth that used to fill the bed when they had lain together as husband and wife.
She felt small. She felt cold.
Beside her, Baelor’s left eye fluttered open. The moonlight caught the wetness of his dark pupil, remarkably clear through the haze of the milk of the poppy.
”You are... awake, my sweet,“ he slurred.
The deadness on his right cheek made the words heavy, sliding out of his mouth like dry pebbles.
”I am here, Baelor,“ she whispered, shifting closer, her fingers tracing the silver threads of his lineage in his dark beard.
”I am always here.“
Baelor tried to turn his head toward her, but the heavy bandages around his skull caught against the goose-down pillow, and he let out a low, whistling gasp of pain.
”The bed... is too big,“ he murmured.
”I cannot... find your hip. My right side... it is like an old log... left in the rain.“
”Then let me be the sun,“ she said, her voice breaking slightly as she leaned over him, pressing her forehead against his good cheek.
”I will warm the wood, Baelor. We will go back to Dragonstone. The sea air will clear the rot.“
Baelor lay quiet for three slow, heavy thuds of his heart. His left hand, the only part of his upper body that still answered his mind, dragged itself across the linen sheet until his fingers hooked into the hem of her shift. His grip was weak, lacking the solid, easy confidence that had turned her ankles in the grass when they were young, but he held her with a desperate, small persistence.
”Maekar,“ Baelor whispered into the dark space between their lips.
”He is... outside the door?“
”He stands guard,“ she said, her voice turning hard and flat.
”He will stand there until you tell him to move.“
”He... he looks at me... and he sees... a ghost,“ Baelor said, a single, fat tear sliding from his left eye down into his dark hair, leaving a wet, silver track in the moonlight.
”He was always... the fourth son... my sweet. He wanted... to parry my weight... not break my crown. Do not... let the crows... eat him... while I sleep.“
”The crows will not touch him,“ she whispered, her lips brushing his forehead, tasting the salt-crust of his sweat and the bitter tang of the vinegar rinse.
”I have his chain, Baelor. I will hold him until you can lift the Hammer yourself.“
Baelor let out a low, dry sigh, his fingers slipping from her shift as the poppy took him once more, dragging him down into the grey silt where she could not follow.
She lay there against his good side, her heart hammering against her ribs, feeling the terrible, cold space that separated her from the husband she had known.
A low rustle of rushes came from the outer solar.
She sat up instantly, her hand flying to the small dagger she kept beneath her pillow, her heart hammering against her ribs like a bird in a cage.
”Who is there?“ she whispered into the dark.
The shadow that stepped into the alcove was too large to be a guard.
Maekar stood in the moonlight, his grey wool shirt unbuttoned to the waist, his silver-gold hair wild about his brow. He carried no weapon, but his fists were clenched, his violet eyes glowing like hot coals in the grey light.
He stopped at the foot of the bed, his chest heaving as if he had just run up the steps of the tower.
”He groaned,“ Maekar whispered, his voice a low, rough rasp that sounded like dry leaves scraping across stone.
”I heard him from the hall. I thought... I thought his breath had failed.“
”He is sleeping,“ she said, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper as she let her dagger fall back against the sheets.
She did not lie back down; she remained sitting on the edge of the mattress, the linen of her shift translucent in the moonlight, her bare knees visible beneath the hem.
”The poppy holds him fast. Go back to your guard, Maekar.“
Maekar did not move. He stood there at the foot of the bed, his eyes locked onto her form with a sudden, agonizing pain that made her own breath catch in her throat.
He looked at her bare knees, at the pale curve of her throat in the silver light, and the solitary misery that had been curdling in his chest for weeks finally split wide open. He did not see his brother’s queen; he saw the only living thing left in this tomb, and the hunger that gripped him was so sharp it felt like an arrow between his ribs.
”I cannot sleep,“ Maekar said, his voice dropping into a low, intimate growl that vibrated through the floorboards.
He took a step around the bedframe, moving with a heavy, deliberate slowness until he was standing a foot from her knees.
”Every time I close my eyes, I see the mace. I see his helm split like an egg. And then... then I see you, sitting in the gallery, wearing that crimson gown, looking down at me as if I were a dog that had bit its master.“
”You were a dog,“ she said, her voice cold, though her fingers tensed into the linen sheets.
”You were a brutal, clumsy beast who did not know the value of the thing he struck.“
”Then whip me,“ Maekar hissed, taking another step until his shins were pressing against the wood of the bed.
He reached out, his great, calloused hand finally coming down to lock around her bare ankle. His grip was firm, his fingers hot as irons against her cold skin, but he did not pull her. He held her there, his violet eyes burning into hers with a terrifying, absolute devotion.
”Whip me until the blood runs into my boots. But do not look at me with that coldness. Do not treat me like I am a ghost.“
She looked down at his hand on her ankle. A strange, terrifying heat flared in her gut—a sudden, violent awareness of his mass, of the sheer, primitive strength of the man who had broken her life.
She did not pull her foot away; she let his hand bide there, feeling the rough texture of his skin against hers, her anger turning from a cold bar into a hot, liquid current that ran straight up her leg.
”You are no ghost, Maekar,“ she whispered, her voice cracking with the first sign of vulnerability he had heard since he reached King’s Landing.
”A ghost would be easier to bear. You are the iron that remains in my House, and I am cursed to use you until you are blunt.“
Maekar let out a low, defeated sound—a growl that was half a sob—and dropped to his knees at the side of the bed. He did not let go of her ankle; he pressed his forehead against her bare knee, his great shoulders shaking under his linen shirt as the guilt finally broke through his iron walls.
She watched him weep at her feet and reached down, her small hand moving with a slow, deliberate caution until her fingers locked into the thick, wild curls of his hair, pulling his head closer to her shift.
Below them, Baelor snored on, his breathing a steady, safe rhythm in the dark, entirely protected by the two who feared for his life and bonded through that shared pain.
The rain came on the fourth week—a sudden, violent deluge that turned the red clay of Aegon’s Hill into a thick, bleeding mire and washed the accumulated filth of the lower city down into the Blackwater in great, stinking torrents. The heat did not leave; it simply turned into a heavy, suffocating steam that hung over the Red Keep like a wet shroud, making the candles spit and the salt in the cellars turn to grease.
She sat at the long table in Baelor’s solar, a mountain of wax-sealed parchments spread before her.
She had spent the morning reviewing the harbor dues from Oldtown and the timber reports from the Kingswood, her quill scratching a steady, relentless path through the numbers.
The doors of the solar were opened by a guard, and Brynden Rivers walked into the room.
Bloodraven had not changed his clothes since riding through the mud of the Kingsroad from the North. His long, smoky-grey cloak was stained with dark red clay around the hem, and his high leather boots left wet, grey tracks across the polished stone of the floor. His pale skin looked translucent in the grey light of the window, and the dark red birthmark that crawled up his throat looked like a fresh splash of blood against his neck.
His single red eye fixed upon her with a cold, calculating intensity that made her quill hand pause.
He did not bow. He walked to the edge of the table, his long, thin fingers resting on the back of Baelor’s empty chair.
”My Lady,“ he said, his voice a low, melodic whistle that sounded like wind through a keyhole.
”The road from the North was... long. I had heard that the court was under new management.“
”The court is under the management of the Prince of Dragonstone, Lord Brynden,“ she said, her voice cool and unyielding as she set her quill down.
”Though he is currently indisposed, his commands remain the law of the land.“
Bloodraven let out a soft, dry sound that might have been a chuckle. He looked at the parchment spread before her, his single eye taking in the numbers with a single glance.
”The commands of a man who cannot lift his chin from his chest are... difficult to interpret, My Lady. I have seen the guards at the gates. They say the Breakspear is a prisoner in his own chambers. They say the Iron Prince has taken his brother’s place—not just in the Council, but in the bed.“
The insult was a cold blade in the room.
She stood up from her chair, her movement so sudden the silver inkwell rattled against the wood. Her face went white with a blinding, lethal fury, her hands clenching into the fabric of her skirt.
„You dare speak such treason in this room, Bloodraven? I will have your tongue torn out and fed to the crows before the sun sets.“
”He will not have to wait for the sun,“ a voice roared from the entrance.
Maekar Targaryen stepped into the solar, his boots dripping with rainwater, his great sword drawn and gleaming in the grey light. His face was a mask of pure, murderous rage, his violet eyes flashing like a lightning storm.
He did not hesitate; he lunged across the room, the tip of his blade stopping a mere inch from Bloodraven’s throat.
”Say it again, sorcerer,“ Maekar hissed, his breath coming in short, violent gasps, his knuckles white around the hilt of his sword.
”Say one more word about my brother’s wife and I will see if your white skin can hold its blood.“
Bloodraven did not move. He did not flinch from the steel at his throat. His single red eye remained fixed on Maekar’s face, a cold, mocking amusement in its depths.
”Prince Maekar... you always were too quick with the iron. It is a family trait, it seems. But iron does not stop whispers. It only makes them louder.“
”I can make them quiet enough,“ Maekar growled, his blade twitching forward until a small drop of crimson blood appeared on Bloodraven’s pale neck.
”I have five thousand men in this city who answer to my name. I can clear your nest of crows before the tide turns.“
”Enough,“ she commanded.
Her voice was not loud, but it possessed a terrifying, absolute authority that made both men freeze.
She stepped around the table, her silk skirts trailing through the wet mud Bloodraven had left on the floor. She walked straight to the white-haired lord, her eyes locking onto his red eye with an icy, unblinking clarity.
”Lord Brynden,“ she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that was colder than the rain outside.
”You are the Master of Whispers because Baelor and the King chose to trust your eyes. But do not mistake his mercy for weakness. The Iron Prince stands at my right hand, and his sword answers to my voice. If I hear one more whisper of treason from your birds—if I find one single crow nesting where it does not belong—I will let Prince Maekar have his way with your throat. Do we understand each other?“
Bloodraven looked at her for a long, silent moment. The mockery left his face, replaced by a cold, calculating respect. He saw the alignment of the forces in the room—the brutal, unyielding strength of the Prince and the icy, absolute intellect of the woman who held his chain. It was a dangerous, lethal combination, one that even his magic could not easily break.
Slowly, with a stiff, formal grace, Bloodraven bowed his head.
”We understand each other, My Lady. The birds will sing only the songs you wish to hear.“
”Then get out of my sight,“ Maekar growled, his sword remaining level until Bloodraven had backed out of the solar and the doors had thudded shut behind them.
When they were alone, the silence returned to the room, heavy and thick with the scent of rain and anger. Maekar lowered his sword, his breath still coming in short, ragged gasps. He stood completely still, his jaw locked, his eyes tracking a single drop of rainwater as it slid down his blackened breastplate.
He did not say a word, but the raw tension in his wide shoulders spoke of a man suffocating under a weight he could never confess.
”Let him whisper. Let the whole world whisper for it is not true,“ she said, walking toward him until she was standing within the heat of his shadow. She reached up, her small hand resting against the wet linen of his shirt, her fingers feeling the frantic, violent hammering of his heart.
”As long as your sword remains in my hand, they cannot touch us.“
Maekar looked down at her face, his violet eyes dark, entirely silent, yet burning with a terrifying, buried hunger. He felt the pull of her presence like a madness in his veins—the forbidden, beautiful agony of being so close to the woman he worshiped, the woman that belonged to his brother.
He reached out, his great hand hovering for a second over her shoulder, completely mute, before he let it fall, his fingers locking into the fabric of her shift with a desperate, silent force.
”I am yours,“ he whispered, his voice thick with a passion that tasted of ash.
”I am yours until the world ends.“
”I know,“ she said softly, her fingers tightening around his wrist, anchoring him to her as the rain continued to lash against the high stone windows of the keep.
The fourth week brought a brief, deceptive cool spell from the bay, but inside the high towers of the Red Keep, the air remained thick with the scent of boiled herbs and the sharp tang of clean well-water.
It was the day she had chosen to bathe him. For twenty days, Baelor had known only the damp, grey misery of sponge-washings and the dry itch of the linen sheets. His skull-wound had finally sealed itself into an ugly, puckered ridge of white flesh, and the Grand Maester had given his permission for the Prince to enter the tub.
It took the strength of both of them to bring him there.
The copper tub sat at the center of the alcove, steam rising from its depths in great, twisting ribbons that smelled of pine needles and dried chamomile. Maekar stood on the right side of the bed, his great wool shirt soaked through with sweat before they had even begun, his face set like a stone wall as he slid his arms beneath Baelor’s thighs and shoulder-blades.
”Easy, brother,“ Maekar growled, his voice a low, rhythmic grunt as he lifted Baelor’s torso from the down mattress
”I have you. Do not struggle.“
Baelor did not struggle. He could not. His right side hung limp and pale against Maekar’s chest, his left hand clutching weakly at his brother’s shoulder for balance.
Something that Maekar could never have imagined happening—his strong, golden brother relying on help like a small child.
”Strong... lad,“ Baelor slurred, his dark eye blinking heavily against the steam.
”Always... the Anvil... Maekar.“
She stood at the side of the tub, her skirts tucked up into her sash, her arms bare to the elbow.
When Maekar lowered Baelor into the warm water, she was there to catch his head, her small hands supporting the shorn, scarred backside as his body settled into the copper depths with a great, sighing splash.
”You may leave us, Maekar,“ she said, not looking up from her work as she dipped a sponge into the steaming water.
Maekar did not leave. He stepped back against the stone wall, his chest heaving under his wet shirt, his violet eyes fixed on the scene before him with an intensity that felt like a physical weight in the room. He watched the way her hands moved over his brother’s flesh.
It was a slow, deliberate ritual that held no shame, only the raw, sacred intimacy of a wife reclaiming her husband from the dirt of the road. She used a cake of soft tallow soap that smelled of lavender, rubbing it into a thick, white lather between her palms before smoothing it over Baelor’s broad, scarred shoulders.
She washed his chest—the massive, hair-darkened expanse that had once turned the swords of the rebel lords. She washed his left arm, the muscles still hard and defined under the skin, and then she moved to his right side.
The contrast was small, barely visible yet terrible. The right arm was slightly smaller now, the skin pale and thin, the muscles beginning their withering from disuse like a branch that had been girdled by wire.
”It... lacks... the sun,“ Baelor whispered, his dark eye tracking her hand as she gently massaged the dead fingers, trying to force the blood back into the rigid joints.
”The sun will find it again on Dragonstone, my love,“ she murmured, her voice sweet and steady as she rinsed the lather away with a silver pitcher of warm water.
”The sea air is clean there. Not like the grease of this city.“
As she leaned over the copper rim, the thin linen of her shift became wet from the splashing, the cloth sticking to her skin until the pale curve of her ribs and the dark shadow of her spine were visible in the grey light of the window.
Maekar let out a short, sharp catch of his breath from the shadows.
She heard it. She did not turn her head, but her hand paused for a fraction of a heartbeat on Baelor’s shoulder, her own skin flushing a sudden, hot crimson beneath the damp linen.
The chemistry between her and Maekar was a living thing in the small alcove—a thick, suffocating current of yearning and guilt that seemed to rise with the steam from the water.
Maekar was watching her loving his brother, and she knew that every touch she gave Baelor was a knife she was twisting in Maekar’s heart. He wanted to be the one she washed; he wanted to be the one who lay helpless beneath her hands, yet he would rather die than betray the man who slept in the tub.
”Maekar,“ Baelor slurred, his left hand reaching out through the water until his fingers brushed the copper rim.
”The... gold cloaks... are they... firm?“
Maekar took a step out of the shadows, his face pale beneath his white beard, his eyes avoiding her wet shift with a desperate, iron effort. He forced his gaze to stick to Baelor’s face, his heart knocking violently against his ribs like a trapped beast.
”They are firm, brother,“ he said, his voice dropping into a deep, solemn register that was his only shield against the madness of his own thoughts.
”The gates are guarded by my own men from Summerhall. Lord Ambrose tried to send a courier to Oldtown this morning, but I had the rider turned back at the river gate. The Council will do nothing without our leave.“
”Good,“ Baelor breathed, his eye closing as the warmth of the water began to soothe the long, aching pain in his skull.
”Listen... to him, my sweet. He is... the iron... of our House.“
”I am listening,“ she said softly, her hand moving back to Baelor’s hair, rinsing the soap from the dark curls with a gentle, rhythmic motion that never varied. But as she did, her eyes lifted, locking onto Maekar’s face through the ribbons of steam.
There was no anger in her gaze now—the fury had burned itself down. She saw the raw, absolute devotion in his violet eyes, the way he stood like an iron pillar at the foot of his brother’s bath, ready to break the world if she gave the word.
She had bound him to her wheel, and as she watched the muscle in his jaw twitch in response to her gaze, she knew that the Iron of Summerhall would never run from her again.
The fifth week brought a heavy, suffocating stillness over the city, the air thick with a premonition that made the horses in the stables kick at their stalls. The wind from the south tasted of sulfur, and the ravens coming from the Reach carried whispers of an unnatural blight creeping through the border towns.
She stood in Baelor’s solar, watching her sons.
Valarr was polishing the crossguard of his sword, his jaw tight, while Matarys sat at the small side table, nervously rolling a dragon piece between his fingers.
They were young, but they were not blind. They could feel the invisible threads tightening around the castle.
”We are leaving,“ she said, her voice cutting through the silence of the room like a cold blade.
Valarr looked up, his brow furrowed.
”Leaving, Mother? Grandfather has just called for the autumn ledgers. He expects us at the morning court. And Matarys was to ride with the Gold Cloaks on the morrow.“
”Matarys will ride nowhere but to the docks,“ she said, turning her gaze upon her youngest, whose purple eyes went wide.
”The fogs in the lower town are thickening, and the air in this keep has turned sour. I will not have my sons waiting in the shadow of this Throne until the Council determines how to carve up your father’s inheritance.“
The door opened, and Maekar entered. He was dressed for travel, his dark charcoal doublet buttoned to the chin, a long leather riding cloak over his shoulders. His face was gaunt, but his eyes were hard and fixed on her.
”The Black Betha has taken her water,“ Maekar said, his voice a low vibration that made Matarys rise from his chair.
”The captain has set the watch. If we are to move him, it must be before the evening guard changes at the sally-port. Bloodraven’s men have been sniffing around the lower wharves since noon.“
Valarr stood, his hand resting on his pommel. He looked from his mother to his uncle, a sudden, sharp understanding dawning in his dark eyes. He saw the alignment between them—the raw, physical weight of the Prince and the absolute, icy clarity of his mother.
”You are taking him to Dragonstone. Without the King’s leave.“
”Your grandfather is old, Valarr, and his eyes see only the peace of yesterday,“ she said, walking over to press her hands against her eldest son’s shoulders.
”Dragonstone is your father’s seat. It is the only place where the stone is thick enough to keep out the vipers of this court.“
She paused, looking down at the heavy gold signet ring on Baelor’s desk.
”But you two must remain. For now.“
Valarr’s jaw tightened, his hand dropping from his pommel.
”Remain? Mother, if the city is souring, our place is by his litter.“
”No,“ she said, her voice dropping into a whisper.
”The court expects you both to take your places at the Council table on the morrow. If all of us vanish into the bay before the sun sets, Bloodraven will have the city gates closed before our hull clears the harbor. You and your brother carry the full face of the succession. By staying, you draw their eyes away from the sally-port. You protect him by letting them see you.“
Valarr stared at his mother, searching for a jest in her features—but there was none. The fierce, dark pride of the Breakspear flared in his eyes, but he bowed his head.
”I understand, Mother. We will hold the yard until the tide turns. Matarys, polish your greaves.“
”And you?“ Maekar whispered, his voice dropping into a low, intimate rasp that was meant for her ears alone. He stepped closer, his presence a dark, suffocating force that filled the space between them.
”If I take the tiller... if I carry your House across the water... will you bide by my side when the King’s grace demands our return?“
”The King will not demand it, Maekar,“ she whispered back, her fingers reaching out to lock around his bare wrist, feeling the frantic, heavy pulse beneath his skin.
”He is too old to chase Dragons. We are the iron that remains. Let them stay in their palace until the winter takes them.“
The sally-port was a narrow, dripping cleft in the red stone of the cliff face, leading down to the private wharves beneath the King’s steps. The rain was falling in great, silent sheets that turned the Blackwater into a grey, churning soup, the air thick with the smell of old salt and the rising fog from the bay.
They moved in perfect silence. Maekar walked at the head of the line, his great shield slung across his back, his drawn sword gleaming in the pale lantern light.
Behind him came the four guards from Summerhall, their boots wrapped in rags to deaden the sound of their steps against the wet stone, bearing Baelor’s litter between them.
She walked beside the mattress, her long crimson cloak wrapped tight around her shift, her hand resting on Baelor’s left shoulder to steady him against the rocking of the path. Her heart ached with the weight of the two sons she had left behind to hold the court’s attention.
Baelor was conscious, his dark eye blinking heavily against the rain that drifted through the archway, his left hand clutching weakly at the fur of her collar.
”Clean... air,“ he slurred, his voice a thick whisper that was nearly lost in the rushing of the tide below.
”My... sweet. We... are going... to the sea?“
”Yes, my love,“ she murmured, leaning low over the litter until her wet hair brushed his forehead.
”We are going to Dragonstone. The stone is old there, and the wind is clean.“
Baelor let out a low, satisfied sound, his eye closing as the salt breeze began to clear his lungs of the heavy grease of the Capital.
”Good,“ he breathed.
”Maekar... is he... with us?“
”I am here, brother,“ Maekar said from the front of the line, not turning his head as his eyes scanned the dark mouth of the wharf below. His voice was a solid bar of iron in the night, a reassuring shield that broke the terror of the dark.
”The ship is ready. The lines are cast.“
The Black Betha lay against the stone pier like a long, black water-beetle, her single mast stepping into the grey sky, her sails furled tight against the rain. The captain stood at the gangway, his face hidden beneath a wet leather hood, his hand resting on the rail as he watched the Prince’s guard approach.
”Quickly,“ she commanded, her voice a low, sharp whistle that made the bearers quicken their pace.
They transferred the litter across the narrow wood of the gangway, Maekar standing at the center of the rail to steady the ash-poles with his own massive hands. Once the mattress was safely settled in the small deck cabin, she stepped inside, leaving Maekar to guard the deck.
The cabin was cramped, smelling faintly of old tallow and sea salt. Baelor lay beneath a mountain of dry wool, the rocking of the swell rolling him gently against the wooden partition.
He looked up as she entered, his dark eye remarkably clear in the amber glow of the small whale-oil lamp swinging from the rafter.
”Come... closer,“ Baelor whispered. The slurring was lighter now, smoothed out by the sharp, clean scent of the saltwater.
She did not hesitate. She shed her heavy, wet crimson cloak, letting it drop to the floorboards, and stripped away the damp, salt-filmed shift until she stood bare in the amber twilight of the cabin.
When she crawled onto the narrow berth beside him, the space was so tiny that her skin pressed flush against his good left side. She tucked her head beneath his chin, but she did not remain still.
She needed the heat of him; she needed to drown out the memory of Maekar’s iron grip and Bloodraven’s pale, mocking eye.
Baelor let out a long, shuddering sigh, his left arm coming up to wrap tightly around her shoulders, pulling her so close she could feel the steady, heavy thudding of his heart beneath his wool shirt.
”You are... cold,“ he murmured, his lips brushing the crown of her damp hair.
”I have been cold since you returned from Ashford, Baelor,“ she whispered against his collarbone, her fingers working the laces of his tunic. She pulled the linen apart, exposing the broad, sun-darkened expanse of his chest. She wanted him bare, stripped of the Prince and the tragedy, down to the raw, heavy mass of the husband she knew.
”I know,“ he said, his voice dropping into a soft, aching register that made her eyes burn. He turned his face into her hair, inhaling deeply.
”I know what... I have given you. A broken knight... a half-dead Prince to drag across the Kingdoms. It is a... bitter gift, my sweet.“
”It is the only gift I want,“ she said fiercely, lifting her head to look into his dark eyes.
She shifted her weight, sliding her thigh over his left hip. Because his right side lay dead and unresponsive under the wool, she took the full burden of their mass, straddling him with a slow, deliberate caution.
Baelor’s left hand—the big, scarred hand that had held shields and broken vanguards—slid down the curve of her spine, his fingers heavy and warm as they dug into the flesh of her hip, pulling her down against him.
”I cannot... lift you,“ he whispered, a sudden, dark frustration flashing in his good eye as his rigid right arm trapped him against the bedding.
”I cannot... hold your waist, my sweet.“
”You do not have to lift me,“ she murmured, her lips brushing his jaw, tasting the salt-crust of his sweat.
”I am here. I have you.“
She guided his left hand between them, her own fingers locking with his as she pressed his palm against the warm, damp junction of her thighs.
She was already slick, her body responding to the desperate, terrifying proximity of him, the sheer relief of his living skin after weeks of stone and silence.
Baelor let out a low, thick groan, his thumb catching the small, sensitive bud of her flesh, stroking with a clumsy, heavy insistence that sent a sharp, liquid ache straight up into her belly.
She lifted her hips, her dark hair falling forward to veil their faces as she positioned herself over him. Slowly, with a steady, unyielding downward pressure, she took him inside her.
The fullness of him was a sudden, breathless shock—the familiar, furnace-warmth of his body stretching her, filling the cold void that had settled behind her ribs since Ashford. Baelor’s breath caught, a hot, ragged gasp against her neck as his left hand gripped her thigh so hard his knuckles turned white.
”Baelor,“ she gasped, her hands planting flat against his chest for balance as she began to move.
The rocking of the Black Betha dictated their rhythm, the heavy creak of the hull beneath them matching the slow, deep slide of her hips.
She set the pace, shifting her weight to accommodate his ruined side, her skin slicking with sweat as the heat in the small cabin turned suffocating and thick. Every downward stroke brought a low rumble from Baelor’s throat, his chest heaving under her palms, his left leg flexing against the mattress to meet her thrusts.
It was a beautiful, heartbreaking coupling—lacking the easy, sweeping vigor of their youth in the grass of the Reach, but weighted with a fierce, territorial hunger. With every heavy, sliding friction of their skin, she was clawing him back from the grave, asserting her right over his flesh against the Gods who had tried to split his skull.
Baelor’s dark eye remained locked onto hers, wide and burning through the amber haze of the whale-oil lamp. He watched her mouth, his lips parting as the friction mounted, his left hand sliding up from her thigh to lock into her hair, pulling her down for a deep, desperate kiss that tasted of salt and old devotion.
The end came with a sudden, rolling swell of the bay. She drove down hard against him, her internal muscles clamping tight around his length as a violent, shivering release shattered through her lower belly. She let out a sharp, crying gasp against his mouth, her forehead dropping to his shoulder as Baelor stiffened beneath her, his left hand wrenching her hair as he spent himself deep within her with a low, defeated growl that shook his entire frame.
They lay tangled together in the aftermath, the rhythmic thudding of their hearts slowing to match the roll of the sea. She did not move off him, remaining curled against his good left side, her skin cooling in the draft from the deck.
Baelor’s left arm wrapped tight around her waist, holding her to his chest as if the world outside the cabin door did not exist.
Outside, Maekar stood on the open deck, the rain plastering his hair to his brow, his wool shirt soaked through until it looked like a second skin across his chest.
He carried no shield now; his hand rested on the rail, his knuckles white against the dark oak, his eyes fixed resolutely on the black, empty mouth of the bay.
He could hear the low, muffled murmur of their voices through the thin timbers of the cabin below—the soft, intimate sounds of a husband and wife finding each other in the dark.
He did not speak. He did not let out a single groan. He simply stood there like an iron pillar in the storm, his violet eyes burning with a solitary, absolute devotion that required no words, a shield that would break the world before it let the night touch them.
The Black Betha began to drift away from the stone pier, out into the deep, grey waters of the bay, while behind them, the red towers of the Keep faded into the silent grey horizon, leaving the sons to navigate the storm while the Anvil slipped out to sea to protect the weakened Hammer from the oncoming storm that was knocking on the gates of King’s Landing in the form of a sickness.
blah blah blah, complete debauchery because i was left alone with my brain, blah blah.
Pairing: Baelor x sister-wife!reader x Maekar
Warning(s): +18 MDNI, explicit sexual content, AFAB reader, threesome (M/F/M), canon typical targcest, baekar (you make those silly boys kiss), anal sex, double penetration.
It had started, as many of the best evenings did, with you wanting something and deciding to negotiate for it.
The three of you were in your shared chamber — the large one, the one that had been yours collectively for long enough that it had stopped feeling like any one person's room and had become simply yours, the furniture arranged around three people's habits, the books stacked in three different systems, the bed large enough to be almost architectural. Baelor was at the window. Maekar was on the bed, back against the headboard, reading something with the focused severity he brought to everything including leisure. You were sitting in the chair watching both of them and thinking.
"I think I want something," you said.
Maekar turned a page. "You always want something."
"And I usually get it."
"Debatable," he scoffed.
Baelor turned from the window. He read your face with those mismatched eyes — the specific quality of his attention when he had registered that this was not ordinary — and the corner of his mouth moved slightly. "What do you want?"
You looked at both of them. Took a moment to appreciate the specific sight of them — Baelor at the window with the evening light catching the dark hair threaded with white, broad and certain and composed; Maekar on the bed with the white hair loose and those violet eyes now lifted from the book and doing their assessment, the old scars visible above his open collar, the sheer presence of him.
"I was thinking on having both of you," you said as simply as stating the weather of the day. "At once."
A pause in which the room processed this.
Maekar's eyes moved to Baelor. Baelor's moved to Maekar. A communication passed between them that had no words.
"That is not," Maekar said carefully, "an unusual request, coming from you."
"The specifics are unusual." You held his gaze. "I want one of you in my cunt." A beat. "And one of you in my arse."
The quality of silence that followed was entirely different from the one before it.
Baelor's composure remained intact, which cost him something — you could see it in the slight tension at his jaw, the specific effort of a man receiving information that has gone directly to his body and is being managed upward. "That is," he said, "a very specific request."
"It is."
"We have not—" Maekar started.
"In some time," you agreed. "I know. That is rather the point." You settled back in the chair. "I find I miss the feeling and I am offering it. The question is how you earn it."
Another silence, this one with a different texture entirely — the specific charged quality of two men who have just been told there is something rare on the table and are beginning to calculate.
"Earn it," Maekar repeated.
"There are terms," you said pleasantly.
Baelor, who had been watching your face with the full and undivided attention of a man who had decided this conversation required it, moved from the window. He came to stand a few feet from you with his hands clasped behind his back and his expression doing something complicated. "What terms."
"Whoever impresses me most," you said, "gets to choose their position."
The look that passed between them this time was different from the first. Still communicative, still the language of two men who had been in each other's orbit their entire lives — but with something new in it. The competitive edge. The specific quality of Maekar when he has been told there is a prize and someone else might get it first.
"Define impresses," Maekar said.
"I'll know it when I see it."
"That is not a useful metric."
"It's the only one I feel inclined to offer," you amusely completed.
He looked at you. At Baelor. Back at you. Something moving through his expression that was equal parts calculation and the specific anticipatory quality of a man who had already decided he was going to win this and was working out the method.
Baelor, meanwhile, was looking at Maekar with an expression you had not entirely seen before.
"Come here," Baelor said.
Maekar looked at him. "I'm reading."
"I am aware." Baelor crossed to the bed. Stood at the edge of it, looking down at his brother with those mismatched eyes and the composed certainty of a man who has made a decision and is past the point of reconsidering it. "Come here, Maekar."
Something shifted in Maekar's expression. The book was no longer relevant — it had been set aside without his appearing to notice. Those violet eyes reading Baelor's face with the thoroughness he gave everything, arriving at a conclusion that moved through his expression in stages.
"You cannot be serious," he said.
"Have I ever said anything I didn't mean."
A pause. "What exactly are you—"
"The terms," Baelor said, with the mildness of a man discussing logistics, "did not specify what would constitute impression. I have a proposal." His eyes did not leave Maekar's face. "Unless you are not interested in winning."
The specific effect of that sentence on Maekar was immediate and visible — the jaw, the slight straightening, the competitive instinct locating the challenge and responding to it before the rest of him had fully processed what was being proposed.
He moved to the edge of the bed.
They were close now — close in the way they had always been close, the physical proximity of a lifetime of shared space, but with a different quality to it tonight. Baelor looking at Maekar with the careful attention he gave to everything he was about to do. Maekar looking back with the expression of a man who had run out of certain ground and was standing at the edge of something he had not mapped.
"I do not—" Maekar started.
"I know," Baelor said. Quiet. "Tell me to stop and I will."
A silence. Maekar said nothing.
Baelor moved slowly — the same careful quality he brought to everything, nothing sudden, nothing that didn't give Maekar time to register and respond — and closed the remaining distance between them, and pressed his mouth to his brother's.
It was soft. Almost tentative — which was not a word that applied to Baelor in most contexts, but here it did, the specific care of a man who was attending to something delicate. His hand came up to Maekar's jaw, barely touching, a question rather than a hold.
Maekar went very still.
You made a sound.
You hadn't planned to. It left you entirely without consultation — something immediate and involuntary at the sight of them, of Baelor's hand at Maekar's jaw and the specific frozen quality of Maekar receiving the kiss with the expression of a man whose system had encountered something it had not been built to process.
Maekar heard it.
His eyes, which had been closed, opened. They found you across the room — dark and violet and reading your face with the focused assessment that missed nothing — and what he found there moved through his expression in real time. The flush. The way you were gripping the arms of the chair. The specific quality of you watching them with your lips slightly parted and your breathing already changed.
Something shifted in him. He turned back to Baelor and kissed him back.
Not tentative. Maekar had processed the available information — this is what she wants, this is what it does to her — and had arrived at a conclusion and committed to it with the same decisiveness he gave everything. His hand found the back of Baelor's neck. The kiss moved from chaste to something considerably less chaste with a speed that suggested Maekar had decided that if he was doing this he was doing it properly, and properly for Maekar had always meant thoroughly and without half measures.
Baelor made a sound against his mouth.
You gripped the chair harder.
They were extraordinary. The specific sight of them, the dark hair and the white, Baelor's hand still at Maekar's jaw now with more certainty and Maekar's at the back of his neck pulling him closer, the kiss deepening with the specific quality of two people who knew each other completely and were discovering that knowing someone completely translated even here. Maekar's other hand finding Baelor's shoulder. Baelor's moving to his brother's hair.
You stood up from the chair. You crossed the room.
You sat on the bed beside them and said nothing because there was nothing that needed saying — just your hand at Maekar's back, just your presence, just the specific thing of being close enough to feel the warmth of both of them and watch from this proximity and feel the sound building in you again that had started everything.
They broke apart. Both of them were looking at you. Both of them flushed. Baelor's composure present but reduced to its foundations. Maekar's entirely absent, replaced by the expression of a man who has done something he did not anticipate doing and found the data surprising.
"Well," you said. Your voice was not steady. "That was very impressive."
Maekar's eyes moved over your face. Reading the flush of it, the quality of your breathing, the very obvious effect. The competitive certainty assembling itself in his expression with a speed that was almost amusing.
"We are not finished," he said.
And reached for Baelor again. What followed was less tentative.
Maekar, having decided, was Maekar — the competition had located its footing and was proceeding with the focused dedication of a man who intended to win something specific. He kissed Baelor with the thoroughness you recognised from other contexts, his hands certain now, and Baelor responded with equal certainty, and you sat beside them and watched with your hands moving over both of them and the sound you were making had gone past the occasional involuntary to something more sustained.
"Tell me," you managed against Maekar's ear, "what you want."
"You know what I want," Maekar answered, against Baelor's mouth, which was frankly an extraordinary sentence to hear from him.
"Say it," you bit his lobe.
He drew back from Baelor. Those violet eyes finding yours from close range, dark and certain and carrying the specific quality of Maekar who has won something and knows it. "I want your arse," he said, with the flat directness of a man placing an order. "I've earned it."
You looked at Baelor.
Baelor, who was flushed from jaw to chest and whose composure was somewhere in the vicinity of the floor, looked back at you with those mismatched eyes and something that was not quite a smile. "I find," he said, with the remnants of his diplomatic voice, "that I am entirely content with the alternative."
"Entirely content," you repeated.
"Enthusiastically content." A pause. "Urgently content."
You laughed. It came out somewhat wrecked.
The logistics of three people were not, after years of practice, a mystery — but they required attention, and you gave them attention, and Baelor gave everything attention as a matter of principle, and even Maekar — who was not patient in most contexts — was patient in this one because the prize was specific and he intended to arrive at it correctly.
You took your time. There was oil on the cabinet in the bathroom — Baelor, who thought of everything, had ensured this somehow some moment in the past without raising the matter as something relevant — and hands that knew you, and the specific luxury of two people attending to your comfort simultaneously with entirely different qualities of attention. Baelor's careful and thorough and narrating quietly in that wrecked precise voice. Maekar's focused and purposeful and punctuated by the occasional sound that suggested his patience was finite but holding.
By the time you were ready you were beyond ready.
Baelor had seen to that with his usual thoroughness — the oil warm from his hands, his fingers careful and patient and attentive to every sound you made, reading you the way he read everything until he was certain, and then continuing past certain because Baelor's standard was not the minimum required but the best possible. His mouth at your jaw, your throat, murmuring things against your skin in that precise wrecked voice — you're perfect, you're so good, tell me if you need me to stop — and the specific quality of being attended to by Baelor while Maekar's hands moved over you from behind, less patient and more purposeful, the heat of him against your back and the low sounds he was making into your hair that suggested his finite patience was approaching its limit.
"She is ready," Maekar said. Not to you. A conclusion delivered to the room.
"I think I will determine that," your tone nowhere near a reprimand with the shaky voice you managed.
A sound from behind you that was almost a laugh. Almost. His mouth at your neck. "Are you ready."
"Yes," you said. "I've been ready since the chair."
The sound Maekar made at that resonated through his chest and into your back.
Baelor lay back against the covers — unhurried, because Baelor was always unhurried, because Baelor's patience was the kind that had almost no bottom to it — and looked up at you with those mismatched eyes dark and attending and his cock flushed and hard against his stomach and waiting with the same quality of composed certainty as the rest of him.
You swung your leg over him. Reached down, positioned him with your hand and sank.
The sound you made — and the sound he made simultaneously, the specific harmony of two people arriving at the same overwhelming fact from opposite directions — belonged to no public occasion. His cock filling your cunt completely, the familiar stretch of him, the specific completeness that made your eyes close briefly and your hands press flat to his chest.
"Gods," Baelor said. Low. His hands at your hips, steadying, the grip of them careful. "You feel — every time — you feel—"
"I know," you said.
"You don't — you can't possibly know what you—"
"Baelor." Maekar, behind you. His hands finding your waist. "Later."
Baelor exhaled. His hands tightened on your hips. Those mismatched eyes finding yours with the specific quality of a man tabling a conversation he intends to finish. "Later," he agreed.
Maekar's hand found the back of your neck — not gripping, steadying, the specific pressure of him orienting you forward, and you went, leaning into Baelor's chest, changing the angle, and felt Maekar shift behind you.
"Breathe," Maekar said, against your hair and pressing a kiss against your temple. The word quiet and direct and carrying none of his usual severity — just the specific instruction of a man who was paying attention to you and intended to keep paying attention.
You breathed. He pressed forward.
The sound you made this time was entirely different — lower, longer, pulled from somewhere that had nothing to do with thought, the specific overwhelming sensation of him breaching that tight ring and pressing inward, slow and relentless and impossibly careful for a man of his general approach. The stretch of it — the specific fullness of Baelor in your cunt and Maekar pressing into your arse simultaneously, the thin wall between them meaning you felt both of them with a clarity that was almost unbearable — made your hands scrabble at Baelor's chest and your breath come in short intervals.
"Still," Maekar almost hissed. His hands at your waist, anchoring. "I have you. Stay still."
"I'm — gods — I'm trying—"
"I know." His mouth at the back of your neck. The tenderness of it, from him, in this moment — extraordinary. "You're doing perfectly. Stay still."
He pressed deeper.
Baelor's hands on your hips tightened. His eyes on your face — reading every flicker of expression, the composure entirely absent, replaced by something that was raw attention and barely managed wanting and the specific effort of a man holding himself completely motionless while everything in him wanted to move. "Tell us," he said. Careful. "Tell us if—"
"Don't stop," you said. "Please don't stop."
The exhale Baelor released. The sound Maekar made above you.
Maekar pressed forward the last remaining distance and seated himself fully and the sound you made at the completion of it — at the specific overwhelming fact of both of them, buried in you simultaneously, the fullness of it beyond any single word you had available — echoed off the walls of the chamber and neither of your husbands looked remotely apologetic about having caused it.
You felt everything — the specific heat of both of them, the way they filled you from different angles with different qualities of pressure, the thin wall between them meaning every slight shift of one was felt by the other, meaning the three of you were connected in a way that was almost absurdly complete. Baelor's chest beneath your hands, rising and falling. Maekar's chest against your back, the old scars warm against your skin.
"Move," you said. "Please — I need you to —move."
They did.
Not in unison — that was not how it worked between three people, not how it had ever worked, and the lack of unison was precisely what made it extraordinary. Baelor's hips rolling upward in the deep certain motion that was specific to him, the full deliberate stroke of a man who had decided to be thorough about this, his cock dragging against the walls of your cunt with a precision that suggested he was attending to this with the same focused care he gave everything. And Maekar pulling back and driving forward with the controlled urgency that was always him, the possessive deep thrust of a man occupying territory he has won and intends to hold, his cock filling your arse with the specific relentless certainty of Maekar doing anything he had decided to do well.
The counterpoint of them.
Baelor rolling deep and slow when Maekar thrust forward, the two rhythms creating something that hit you from both directions simultaneously, that built something with no single source and no single peak but a sustained overwhelming accumulation of sensation that made coherent thought increasingly theoretical.
"Fuck," you said. The word arriving without consultation.
Maekar made a sound against your hair that was not entirely dignified.
"Tell me—" Baelor, beneath you, his voice demolished, his hips finding their rhythm and holding it. "Tell me how it feels."
"Full," you managed. "I feel — gods — I feel both of you — I can feel you both so—"
"Yes," Baelor said. The word rough and immediate, the composure entirely gone. "Yes — I can feel him — I can feel Maekar through you — you feel—"
"Don't," Maekar said, above you. His rhythm stuttering for a fraction of a second. "Don't say that."
"Why," Baelor said, with a somewhat playful breathlessness that had no diplomatic quality left in it, "does it bother you."
"It doesn't—" Maekar's thrust landing harder than the previous ones, the specific response of a man whose composure has been prodded— "it doesn't bother me, it's simply—"
"You can feel him too," you said. The words coming out wrecked and certain. "Can't you. Through me. You can feel him."
The sound Maekar made was not a word. His rhythm intensified as Baelor's thumb found your clit.
The specific arrival of that — the pad of his thumb working in slow deliberate circles while his cock drove upward into your cunt and Maekar's drove into your arse from behind — collapsed whatever remaining composure had been holding you. Your head dropped to Baelor's shoulder. Your hands gripping him. Maekar's hands at your waist pulling you back to meet every thrust and the sounds you were making had gone past language entirely, just the raw physical fact of being completely, totally, overwhelmingly full of both of them and Baelor's thumb and the specific counterpoint rhythm that was hitting you from every possible direction.
"She's close," Maekar said. Above you, directed at Baelor, the two of them communicating over your head with the specific language of men who had been in each other's orbit their entire lives and had added a new vocabulary tonight. "I can feel her — fuck she's—"
"I know," Baelor said through gritted teeth. His thumb moving faster. His hips finding a deeper angle. "You are taking us so fucking well, my heart."
"Don't stop," the words barely words. "Whatever you do don't — please — both of you — please don't—"
"We have you," Baelor said. Certain. Warm. Even now, even this undone, the specific quality of Baelor present and attending. "We have you."
Maekar's hand moved from your waist to the front of you — finding where Baelor's thumb was working and joining it, not replacing, the two of them together — and the specific fact of both their hands on you simultaneously while both their cocks filled you was the thing that finished it entirely.
You came apart.
Not the sharp clean peak of bilateral sex — something longer than that, more sustained, rolling through you in waves that kept arriving because there were two of them, two sources of sensation, and every tremor that moved through you was felt by both of them and responded to by both of them and the feedback of it was extraordinary and endless and you were saying things that were not words and gripping Baelor like he was the only solid thing and feeling Maekar's forehead press to the back of your neck with a tenderness that undid you as thoroughly as everything physical.
"Perfect," Baelor said. Into your hair. His voice entirely wrecked. "You're perfect — you're so — gods, you feel—"
"Again," Maekar said, against your neck. The word rough and wondering. "She's — Baelor — she's going again—"
You were going again.
The second one arrived before the first had finished, the overstimulation of both of them still moving — Maekar's rhythm gone from controlled to urgent, Baelor's thumb still working despite the shaking of his own hands — and this time you were louder and less coherent and heard both of them respond to the sounds you were making in real time, felt both of them tipping toward their own edges, the specific tension of two men who had been building to this all evening finally arriving at the point of no return.
Baelor first.
His hips losing their rhythm entirely, his hands gripping you with both arms suddenly, pulling you down hard against him as his cock pulsed in your cunt and his voice broke open against your throat with your name in it, said the private way, the specific way that had no public version.
Maekar mere seconds behind him.
Which was also Maekar — competitive to the last, holding on for the seconds that meant he did not finish first, the seconds that cost him visibly and enormously — and then the composure gave out completely, his hips driving forward one last time and holding there, buried as deep as he could go in your arse, his face pressed hard into your hair and a sound leaving him that was rougher and more private than anything he had produced all evening.
The three of you shook. Then stilled. Then breathed. The chamber was very quiet except for three people's hearts returning to their usual business. Your brain did not entirely register just how you disentangled from each other. Not that it did matter, after all.
Maekar's forehead was against the back of your neck. Baelor's arms around you from your front. The specific warmth of being completely surrounded — pressed between them, held by both, the evidence of the evening present and warm and thorough.
"Both of you," you said, eventually, against Baelor's chest. The words arriving from somewhere underwater. "Simultaneously. I want it on record."
"Noted," Baelor said. His voice demolished against the crown of your hair. "To be revised in the near future, I should hope."
A pause in which you did not find the strength to laugh.
"I won," Maekar said, smugness clear in his voice.
"Technically," you teased.
He lifted his head. "What the fuck does technically mean."
"It means the terms were most freaky and I'm not certain the kissing qualified on its own merits."
"I kissed my brother."
"You kissed your brother adequately and then fucked my arse, yes."
"Which was exceptional."
"Which was very good," you agreed. "Not quite the same thing."
Maekar stared at the back of your head. You did not need to turn around to know exactly the type of face he was sporting.
Baelor made a sound. "She's doing it again," he said. To Maekar. The tone of a man reporting a known weather pattern to someone who should have prepared for it.
"I can hear you," you said.
"I know." Baelor's hand found your back. Patted it once, twice, with the specific quality of someone soothing an animal they find both troublesome and dear. "I'm speaking to Maekar."
"And exactly what am I doing?" you asked in a playful voice.
"Poking the bear," Baelor said. "You always poke the bear when you've gotten what you wanted. It's a victory lap."
"It's not a—"
"She does this," Baelor said to Maekar. Conversationally. "You know she does this."
"I know she does this," Maekar said, with the flat resignation of a man who knows he is about to rise to something and cannot stop himself. "It was exceptional," he said to you, directly. "You said my name four times in a row."
"I usually say Baelor's name frequently."
"You said mine four times."
"I was being polite."
The sound Maekar made. "You were screaming."
"Enthusiastically polite," you raised your pointer finger in defence.
"Four times—"
"All right," Baelor said. With the composure of a man managing a room that has gotten away from him. "Both of you." A pause. "I was not aware this counted as a game, but Maekar won. The evidence is extensive and I was present for all of it." Another pause. "You are both catastrophic and I am going to need everyone to be still for approximately ten minutes because I am held together with goodwill and I would like to keep it that way."
You laughed softly against Baelor's chest. Maekar's arm came around you and his hand settled on your sternum, your own covering his and interlacing your fingers together.
"I know you won," you finally conceded to Maekar. You could almost sense his smile through the back of your head.
"She knows I won," Maekar said.
"I know," Baelor said, smiling. "Quiet."
A.N.: i am not gonna comment on how long this idea has been plaguing my mind. i think i cannot blame ovulation anymore, i think this is the real me
Series Summary: The birth of your youngest, Rhae, nearly kills you and leaves you with health issues for the rest of your life. The rest of your family and most notably your husband Maekar tries to adapt to this new reality.
Notes: This series is not in chronological order. Its a series of snapshots into their lives. Themes of injury, illness, blood, birth and sex are discussed. MDNI 18+ Would love to hear peoples thoughts and ideas for this universe in my ask box if anyone has any. I hope you enjoy reading :) divider cred: @saradika-graphics
Well Enough - You are made to go to Ashford despite your condition, only adding to Maekars stress. (1.3k)
How Things Used To Be - You have a candid conversation with your husband.
Memories That Linger - Maekar gets lost in some bad memories, luckily you are there to pull him out. (1k)
Another grandmaekarling has been added to my collection, my precious Vaella 😩 sorry I haven’t been active, I’ve been on clinical placements and I fall asleep at 7 💀
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