mariposium

ε ї з | mari ♡ 21 ♡ she/her | ε ї з

[mariposium]

༉‧₊˚✧ › 𝙼𝙰𝚁𝙸 ─ 21, she/her, writer, 18+ mdni

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[mariposium]

sorry for the bit of radio silence here. i'm finally through with my finals, so i'm hoping to sit down and actually write soon. prioritizing second part of "his first choice," then i'm going to do some requests <3 :) thank you all again for all the love and support! i appreciate you all!

[mariposium]

aerion smut? 👀

i wouldn’t be opposed to it ;)

i feel like ive written a lot of aerion as a bad guy so id love to explore other milder sides of him. he will probably need to be written a bit ooc just so the smut isn’t ridiculously dark though

[mariposium]

Hi! I am absolutely obsessed with His First Choice! That Valyrian dialogue is chef's kiss.

thank you so much! <3 it's funny i went back and forth on whether or not to do the Valyrian dialogue because technically it's only really learned by Targaryen royalty but i'm glad i did! i think it is a huge reason baelor takes an interest in the reader because it shows her intelligence :)

[mariposium]

❀ : THE ABBOT EFFECT — jack abbot

summary — your boyfriend has a way about him that draws women in like bees to honey. it’s never bothered you before, but after a bad shift and an ill-timed bet, you are quickly reaching the limit of what you can handle. (5.4k)

featured — dr. jack abbot / fem!reader, dr. parker ellis, ahmad zidan, mateo diaz, lena handzo, dr. samira mohan (mentioned)

content — no spoilers for s1 or 2, heavy FLUFF v light angst, jealous!reader, jack is obsessed w you, established relationship but you and jack are keeping it a secret, ahmad's betting pool, prob some medical inaccuracies, he calls you love, there’s a made up nurse named julia in this im sorry if your name is julia

(cross-posted on ao3)

9:30p.m.

You can tell from the way she’s looking at him that she’s already under his spell.

You call it the Abbot Effect. All the silver fox has to do is breathe the right way toward a woman and they’re already planning their nuptials.

It’s not like Jack doesn’t make it worse with his sweet smiles, charismatic jokes, and his genuine compliments to anyone who cares enough to listen. When you first witnessed it as a young third year resident you’d thought it was actual attraction. You quickly learned, though, it’s just his personality.

So that’s why you don’t even blink when you notice him leaning across the counter talking to a pediatrics nurse from upstairs, his pearly teeth glittering beneath the fluorescent lights as he lets out a soft laugh. He looks unfairly handsome, especially at this time of night. His dark scrubs fit him a touch too well, and it is a bit hard for you to focus when he moves in your peripheral because your eyes are drawn to the fabric stretching around his forearms. You’ve definitely reached crazy girlfriend status, you think, standing just feet away, trying to look focused on the empty patient chart in front of you but quietly listening into their conversation.

The nurse from pedes lets out a high-pitched, nasally laugh at that very moment and you swear your ears are ringing from the assault. You bring your eyes up to see if you could figure out what was so funny, but her hand’s on his forearm and you suddenly feel dizzyingly sick.

Jack is a good attending, there’s no doubt about that. You started working for him a year ago. He would casually flirt with you in a way that he didn’t with other women. The path to dating followed after that quickly. Soon, you and Jack were spending almost every hour outside of work together. When things got serious–and they did, quickly–some ground rules had to be set.

A year ago, you thought that keeping your relationship a secret would be the best option for you. You thought that it would alleviate any issues involved with HR or people thinking you had slept your way through your residency. You were beginning to think, though, that you would rather have the rumors over having to watch every woman within a quarter mile flock to him.

“If you stare any harder, your eyes might pop out of your skull.”

You flinch when Dr. Parker Ellis’s voice interrupts your train of thought. You turn around to see the woman standing behind you, smacking a piece of gum in her mouth.

“What are you, a ninja? I thought you were with a patient?”  

“I was with a patient,” she replies with a mischievous smile, “but as I was leaving, I couldn’t help wondering why you weren’t with one”--she lowers her voice conspiratorially–“could it have something to do with the new pedes nurse hanging out with Dr. Abbot?”

You wrinkle your nose in your best attempt at seeming disgusted by the notion. “I’ve told you before…” you chide the woman, “I’m not into Jack.”

“Sureee,” Dr. Ellis says. “That’s why you’re hiding behind that empty chart in the middle of rush hour. Because you don’t like Abbot.”

“Maybe I’m actually trying to get work done,” you tell her, “like, maybe it’s actually good I’m not playing around when I should be working.”

Dr. Ellis smirks like she knows something you don’t. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone this far in denial before.”

You roll your eyes at your friend’s comment. Dr. Ellis seems amused by your irritation and that only makes you more annoyed.

She looks like she’s going to say something else, but then her eyes get caught at something behind you. She ducks her head down as if trying to seem busy and her lips barely move as she mumbles: “incoming.”

“--And here are some of my wonderful residents.” 

You turn your head so fast toward the voice that you worry you’ve gotten whiplash. You immediately cringe at your overenthusiasm when you remember you’re trying to play it coy. Jack and the nurse stand there, wearing near-identical smiles on their faces.

Jack’s eyes linger on you for a moment too long. They soften and trail down your face. You clench your tablet so hard you’re afraid it will crack under the pressure.

Ellis shoots a nonchalant nod toward them. You just smile, hoping it doesn’t come across as robotically as you think it does.

Jack grins proudly as he gestures to you both. “Julia, meet Dr. Ellis and—“

“Hey, sorry, I’ve got a patient I have to check on,” you interrupt with your best attempt at a pleasant smile, “nice to meet you, though, Jackie.”

The new nurse frowns. “It’s Julia.”

You look over at your boyfriend, who stares at you like you’ve got two heads. You grit your teeth and give the nurse a closed-mouth smile before you duck your head and step away.

Good job playing it cool, you think to yourself as you head toward Central 11. Why are you such a bitch? It’s not Nurse Jolene’s fault Jack is so… himself. 

“Hey, wait up—“ Speak of the devil and he shall appear. 

You stop and look back at Jack as he lightly jogs toward you. Behind him, Nurse Joy looks around confusedly, probably wondering what soap opera she’d mistakenly stumbled into.

“I was just about to see how my scarlet fever patient is doing,” you tell him even though you know that is not why he stopped you. Perhaps a small part of you hoped that was what he’d ask.

“What was that back there?” Jack says, his light eyes sweeping over your face as if trying to read it like a book. “You doing okay?”

“I’m fine… how are you doing?” 

“Fine…” he trails off, eyebrows furrowed. You notice, peculiarly, that his eyes seem wider than normal. They dart in between the two of yours like a tennis ball jumping a net.

“Well I’m glad that’s settled.” You turn to walk away when he doesn’t immediately say anything else. “And if that’s all you needed…”

He grabs your arm before you can turn your back and turn tail, and you jolt at the pressure. When he’s got your attention, he immediately lets go. You automatically look to see if anyone noticed the transgression, swallowing nervously.

“Sorry,” he says immediately, “I just… I want to make sure you’re okay.”

You feel yourself soften at the admission. You step closer, but not too close in fear someone might think it improper. You offer him a smile.

“I should be the one that’s sorry,” you say, “I’m just a little on-edge, that's all.” You decide not to tell him that when you saw that nurse put her hand on his arm, you had wanted to kiss him in front of the entire ER staff. Now is not the time for grand admissions like that.

Jack looks relieved. A quick smile flits across his face. “Well, the ER will do that to you.”

“You would think four years in, I’d be used to it,” your words are closely followed by a small laugh. 

“Sorry to say, love, but it never gets easier,” he says with a coy grin and your chest flutters at the nickname, “unless you somehow figure out how to turn your empathy off.”

“I hope I never do that.”

There’s a lapse in conversation for a moment too long. You furrow your brows when you notice him looking at you, studying you like you’re a puzzle. 

You touch your hair subconsciously. “Something wrong?” 

His response is immediate. “No, no, there never is with you,” he says. He leans forward and his voice lowers. “I just can’t get over how fucking hot you are.”

“Jack,” you groan. Despite your attempt at pretending to be annoyed, a small smile pulls at your lips.

“There’s something about you in your scrubs and work mode that really gets me going,” he tells you. “All studious and shit.”

“--I’m leaving,” you say, turning your back. A smile lingers on your lips as you turn away. “Bye, Jack.”

“Bye, love,” he says just loud enough for you to hear as you step away. “Have a good shift.”

12:00a.m.

You think the signs that your shift is about to go from bad to worse lies in the empty coffee maker in the break room. 

No good shift starts with an empty coffee maker. It’s just one of those superstitions that you believe in that inevitably and inexplicably ends up coming true. Tonight is no exception. 

Your scarlet fever patient barfed all over your scrubs when you shined your light down her throat. She’s only five, so you just have to force a smile and try not to combust. Right after you change your scrubs, an emergency comes in that you have to jump on. It's a stabbing victim. You can’t resectate her. You’re there when Shen tells her parents. Their cries ring in your ears for an hour afterward. Another young kid comes in with a nose bleed that turns into hemorrhaging that you have to seal up–unfortunately, blood gets all over your arms and you have to clean all that off and get tested for Hep B, C, and HIV. 

An hour later, you’re clued into the bet.

You’ve just gotten the blood cleaned off, a bandage wrapped around the crook of your elbow where the nurse had drawn your blood. You’re shuffling from room to room, staying on top of patient charts on your quick breaks and updating diagnosis and treatment plans. 

You let out a heavy sigh when you feel the back of your neck begin to cramp, the telltale signs of overwork pulling at your muscles. 

It’s safe to say that the very last thing you need to hear is what you do next.

You bump into the security guard on shift, Ahmad, when you’re walking. You immediately apologise, but he just shrugs. 

“I didn’t know you were on the night shift tonight,” you say to him.

He shrugs. “Yeah, been trying to get some extra hours.”

You give him a pat on the arm. “Just make sure not to overwork yourself, okay? I’d hate to have you end up as a patient.”

“Okay, mom,” Ahmad laughs. “Maybe you should take your own advice sometime, huh?”

You hadn’t realized your overtime had been noticed by anyone other than Jack, who always complained about your absences. You offer a smile and go to walk around him when you notice him going to say something else.

“Have you gotten in on it yet?” he asks. He gestures to a whiteboard in his little office behind him, a teasing grin pulling at his lips.

You can’t help the reciprocal delight that comes across your face. Ahmad’s gambling pools have been a thing since you first started as a resident at PTMC. They weren’t often, but whenever they started up you were always happy to participate. It provided a fun distraction to an extremely bleak work environment.

“What’s it about?” You suddenly grin as you remember something you saw on the way into work that morning. “Oh, is it about what caused that powerline to fall outside the park?”

“Nah,” Ahmad tells you, “it’s about Abbot.”

You freeze. You hug your tablet to your chest in an attempt to keep your hands from fidgeting. Abbot? What could that be about? Do they know…

“Abbot?” you echo. You put on your best attempt at a genuine smile. “What’s he done now?”

“It’s not so much what he’s done, as what he might do,” Ahmad says. You cock a curious brow. “We’re betting on what woman in the PTMC will ask him out first.”

Your blood runs cold. You try to force yourself to smile, but you think it might come off as a grimace instead. You caused this, you try to tell yourself, you were the one that made it a secret.

“Surely there aren’t that many women to list.”

“Eh, you’d probably be surprised,” Ahmad continues, “we have at least twelve right now. People keep adding candidates.”

Twelve. Twelve women that people in this ER think would make a better partner to Abbot. You tug at your stethoscope and your eyes subconsciously dart to your feet. You don’t want to know more, you don’t think you can take more, but Ahmad continues.

“I think most people are voting for Dr. Mohan, but there have been quite a few for… hey, you okay?”

You hadn’t realized your eyes had gotten foggy with tears. You force a smile on your face.

“Sorry, uh, I’m not going to participate,” you tell him, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand, “it’s not like I have a bunch of extra cash laying around.” (That part is technically true, but it’s definitely not the reason you’re crying.)

Ahmad continues to look at you like he knows you’re hiding something. He doesn’t press on it, and he nods slowly. You take that as permission enough to leave.

You weave around Ahmad and pretend you don’t feel his eyes staring holes into the back of your head as you do. Nurses and doctors move around you like schools of fish navigating deep oceanic waters, and you’re a shark that they automatically go to avoid. You set your expression as you head over to Ahmad’s office. You glance up and down the busy hallways before you stop completely, peering in through the slats of the blinds to the board.

You see the names Doctor Mohan, Nurse Julia, Doctor Al-Hashimi–it goes on. Your name is the very last addition. There’s only a few dollars under you. Your heart sinks and you feel disappointment roll over you like a tidal wave.

You mull in the feeling for a moment too long, then you force it away. You remind yourself that at the end of the day, you were the one that asked for this. Jack has no role to play in your own self-imposed misery. You, and only you, had been the one afraid of what others might think. You made your bed, now you have to sleep in it.

You don’t want to face this fact, so you instead open up your tablet to check for any new updates on your patients. 

4:00a.m.

You stare at the red numbers flashing on the microwave in front of you with bleary eyes. It lets out a high pitched chiiiirp when the meal you’d packed is done being reheated. You grab the container and take a seat near the back of the breakroom. 

You put your forehead into your hand and begin to fork through the food you’d packed with a heavy sigh. 

The scarlet fever patient was in the ICU now. Her fever had spiked and after the emergency ice bath, she still hadn’t fully woken up from it despite her temperature being lower. A teenage boy had been shot in the shoulder and had waited an hour before coming in. He ended up being fine, but it was so stressful your hands still trembled for thirty minutes after. An older woman woke up with chest pain and rushed to the hospital. She died on your emergency table.

You force another bite of your food into your mouth.

Suddenly, the door to the breakroom opens and Jack waltzes in with that same nurse–Julia–-on his heels. You stab a piece of food particularly hard with your plastic fork at the sight.

“Isn’t that crazy? I mean, I wonder what it is that is making people think we’d be good together,” she says, a huge smile pulling at her lips. 

Jack looks over at you immediately as he walks in. You meet his eyes and flinch at the concern on his face. He twists his lips and turns to pull his lunch out of the fridge. You had packed it for him. Jack always insisted you didn’t have to, but you liked doing it, so you always did. 

“I think the whole thing is silly,” he tells her. She doesn’t get the hint he’s giving her and lets out another giggle.

You know what they’re talking about–it has to be the betting board. You had checked it at least three times over the past hour. Pure curiosity, of course. It’s not like you were secretly a masochist or anything.

The last you’d checked, Julia’s pool had officially surpassed the lead’s. Yours still hovered around the same amount. A part of you had wanted to put some money down on your name just to get in the running, but you thought it’d probably look weird to see you betting on yourself.

Instead of taking a seat at the other table, Jack walks over to you. “Hey, got room here?”

You look over at Julia and cock a brow. You shrug a shoulder lazily. “Sure, I’m just about to wrap up.”

They take the seats across from you, and you shoot a small smile toward your boyfriend. He rolls his eyes and gestures slyly to Julia, who’s currently discussing all the cases she’s had today to nobody but herself. You laugh under your breath at his annoyance. Knowing Julia now, you wonder if the ER staff’s hypothesis that pedes makes you go crazy was true after all.

He pops open his lunch and you notice him pick up the note you’d carefully written. He smiles lovingly down at it, stroking the creases from where it had been folded. You bite your lip to hide your smile and look down at your food.

“Who’s that from?”

Julia reminds you of her presence by asking the question. You flinch and your eyes shoot up to look at her. She’s staring at the note in Jack’s hands with furrowed brows. 

You stop eating mid chew, staring at Jack’s reaction. He hesitates, eyes darting up to meet yours. His lips part, then close, then part again. Julia looks between the two of you confusedly, jealously. The anger at her audacity to feel jealousy roars up out of you before you can control it.

“It’s from me.”

Jack’s eyes widen to an almost comical size. Julia’s mouth drops open.

“You two are…?”

“Yep,” you supply, standing up from the table with a sharp jolt. “And I’d appreciate it if you kept that information to yourself. Oh, and if you could, please stop flirting with my boyfriend.”

Julia nods slowly. 

You grab your lunch and dump the rest into the trash. As you put the empty container back in the fridge, you hear him standing, giving apologies to Julia about your behavior before slipping up behind you. You notice Julia leaving the break room as you turn around.

“I need to go,” you say, trying to weave around him.

He just steps in front of you. His arms are crossed in that delightfully sinful way he knows you like, a cocky grin on his face.

“So was I going to be told we are telling people about our relationship now or…?”

You look up at Jack and try to smile but it just feels as stretched thin as you do. You notice him deflate when you pinch your nose bridge in between your fingers.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, “I should have told you. It was more of an in-the-moment type of thing.”

“You got jealous, didn’t you?” he continues grinning at you like he’s won the lottery. He stretches his hand out to softly stroke your upper arm. You feel your skin tingle where he touches.

“I mean, what girl wouldn’t, seeing her boyfriend get treated like a piece of meat all day?” you scoff, frustration flaring up with your words but falling away with the gentle strokes on your arm. “I think I should be rewarded for lasting as long as I have.”

He tilts his head. “Really?” a grin pulls at his lips. “How would you like to be rewarded, love?” A mischievous flirtation pulls at his words, his strokes now leaving hot imprints on your skin.

You duck your head, a smile pulling at your lips despite yourself. “Jack.”

He lets out a laugh and pulls his hand away. You mourn the touch the second it leaves your skin.

“I still think we should wait,” you tell him softly, “at least until the shift is over. Anything that comes after that can be handled, but I don’t need to have any more distractions today. It’s been bad enough having to see Joanna hanging off your arm all day.”

“Julia,” Jack corrects. You shoot him a faux glare. He chuckles. 

“Well, it might be hard…” Jack says, “I mean, I’ve already waited 12 months to tell people you’re mine.”

You pat his arm unsympathetically. “Well, that means you can wait a few more hours, can’t you?”

“You’re really going to make me put up with those flirty EMTs the rest of the night,” Jack deadpans.

“I’m sorry?” you really don’t know what he’s talking about.

“Being in a secret relationship works both ways, love,” he tells you, walking backwards to the door, “you have to be jealous about nurses, I have to be jealous about hot first responders. We both got it bad.”

6:45a.m.

“Waaait, where aaam I?” the young, blonde, completely shitface-drunk college girl asks, her eyes wide and bloodshot to all Hell.

“You are in a H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L, hospital. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center,” Nurse Mateo says from where he adjusts the blood pressure cuff on her forearm.

You stifle a laugh. Sure, Mateo’s a bit grumpy with the girl, but she had tried to throw a chair at him when she was first admitted. She missed by about two feet, but the intent was there enough that Ahmad insisted on putting a pair of handcuffs around one of her wrists to her bed.

The girl just frowns. “Why’m in a h-o-sss…”

You lean over and pull up one of her eyelids, flashing your pin light into her left eye. It retracts normally, but she hisses like a vampire and pulls away with all her strength.

“You fell and hit your head,” you tell her, “almost got run over by a car. You’re lucky some friendly samaritans stopped to help you.”

She doesn’t reply. She stares at something over your shoulder. You take her distraction as an opportunity to look closely at the cut along her hairline. 

It’s got quite a bit of dirt and gravel in it, and is certainly deep enough to require stitches. 

“Well, hon, I know you’re drunk out of your mind right now, but I'm still going to let you know what we have to do,” you tell her, trying to get her to meet your eyes, “we are going to have to clean and put some stitches in that laceration on your head so it doesn’t get infected.”

The girl just stares past you. You finally turn. You look through the window to see Jack there, reading a patient chart on his tablet.

Your eyes roll without you even meaning to. Of course, yet another woman is interested in your boyfriend. You’re starting to think you’ll need to get him a neon sign to hang around his neck that says taken.

“She might listen to him better,” Mateo offers, “or I can sedate her. I am not trying to get another code hoola-hoop.”

You look back at the girl who’s clearly very out of it–staring at your boyfriend, even though it’s unlikely she could fully make him out–and let out a heavy sigh. You shrug one shoulder and snap off your gloves in the same swift movement. You stand and leave the room, headed to where your boyfriend stands next to desks.

Once you reach his side, you don’t have to say anything to grab his attention because he suddenly looks up like he sensed your presence. You offer him a weary smile and he returns it in full, turning his body to offer his full attention.

“What’s up?” he asks.

He’s in Dr. Abbot the ER attending mode now, all professionalism and seriousness. You smile to yourself at the memory of your first few shifts as a resident, crushing furiously like half the other women on the night-shift.

“I have an incredibly drunk twenty-one-year-old, BAC of .16%, large forehead contusion,” you say, “and… she’s been making goo-goo eyes at you since she first came in. She’s been fairly combative, so maybe you could come in and ‘work your magic’?”

“What I’m hearing is you want to use me as eye candy?” Jack’s words end in a soft laugh. “Man, maybe I should go to HR…”

You laugh at how ridiculous it all sounds. Just a few hours ago, you’d been upset at the very idea of your boyfriend being looked at by another woman. Now, you were using his good looks to win patients over. Screw it, your shift’s almost over. Anyone who tries to take your boyfriend in the last hour of your shift will have hell to pay.

“All I need is for her to be distracted enough that I can put some stitches in her cut,” you tell him with a grin. “Shouldn’t be that hard for you to stand there and look appealing, right? I mean, that’s what you do all the time anyway.”

Jack lets out a chuckle, but he nods his head and gestures for you to lead the way. You grin and walk him to the patient’s room.

The girl’s eyes immediately widen as she sees Abbot step into the room, like she’s looking at a movie star or something. You can’t fault her. Jack in his form-fitting scrubs and hair all disheveled is really a sight to see. 

“I got your boyfriend,” you tell the girl, shooting an amused glance to Jack, “now how about I look at that cut on your forehead, hm?”

She continues to smile all dopey and lovestruck as you put on a new pair of gloves and Mateo wheels a cart near you. The spot’s been numbed for hours, so she won’t feel a thing.

As soon as you reach to probe it, though, she shoots away from you. 

“Wait, waaait,” the girl says urgently. You stop, eyebrows furrowed as you look at her. “Can’t he do it?”

You sigh and look over your shoulder at your boyfriend. Jack shoots you a smile and a shrug as if to say “I don’t mind” and you can’t say you’re opposed to the idea. Anything you can do to get this girl treated and gone is what you’re going to do.

“Sure,” you tell her, “but play nicely.”

You stand and move toward where Jack stands, gesturing with a slightly annoyed smile toward the girl. “She’s all yours.”

Jack settles down in the rolling stool you abandoned and the girl immediately lets out a high-pitched, excited giggle. 

You watch Jack and the girl quietly talking together; him asking her what she was celebrating, her replying that it was her birthday, him asking what she’s studying, her telling him she’s in law school. All through the applying of the cleaning of the wound, the sutures, and then the bandage, the girl is calm and patient. Watching Jack work so nicely, so empathetically toward the girl reminds you why you fell for him in the first place. You stifle the fond smile pulling at your lips. You look over at Mateo and he gives you a shrug. 

Your eyes get drawn back to your boyfriend as he stands from the chair and walks your way. 

He stops in front of you and crosses his arms. “She’s all patched up.”

You nod. “I’m thinking I might order a head CT just to rule out any head injury.”

Jack smirks like he’d been hoping you’d say that. “Attagirl.”

You follow him out of the patient’s room and into the main foyer. You look around at all the doctors standing by desks and mentally prepare yourself for switching shifts. Dana’s already catching up with Lena, Javadi and Mohan are chatting and updating patient charts from their previous shifts.

You look over at Jack, whose body is angled toward you next to desks.

“You hungry?” he asks you. He’s looking at his tablet to give the impression to any nosey Nancys that he’s not talking to you. You bite back your smile.

You nod, thinking back to the small meal you’d had a few hours ago. “I could eat.”

“Chinese or Italian?”

You angle your body toward him. You draw a hand to rest upon his bicep. He turns his head toward you, surprised.

“I could eat an entire gallon of fried rice right now,” you tell him, a small smile curling on your lips. “How about you?”

Jack’s too preoccupied with the hand on his arm to answer immediately. “Uh, I guess I could get a stir fry.” As he speaks, his eyes draw up to meet your own. You squeeze his arm gently and he leans forward. “Are you coming onto me, Doctor?”

“If I was?” you say with a small smile curling at your lips.

“I’d tell you we still have ten minutes left on our shift,” he says teasingly, “I thought you didn’t want any distractions?”

You pull your hand away from his arm to rest back on the desk in front of you. “I don’t know about you,” you say, filling out the order form for the CT scan as you do, “but I'm tired of hiding.”

Your boyfriend chuckles softly from beside you.

You put the completed form into the outtake area. You go to turn toward Jack when your eyes get caught on a gathering of people near the front of desks. You pat his shoulder to get his attention and then follow the crowd forming near the front.

Ahmad’s at the center of the formation, and he has a big grin on his face. You watch confusedly as Jack weaves through bodies to get to Ahmad.

Your heart drops, now realizing the cause of the big commotion. Ahmad wraps an arm around Jack’s shoulder as he looks around the crowd. “And I’m happy to announce that the person with the highest bids is none other than our wonderful—“

You catch a glimpse of the paper in Ahmad’s hand as he gesticulates to the crowd and the words come tumbling out of your mouth before you can stop them. “It’s me?” you say, surprised. 

Pleased cheers go around the room. You look between Ahmad and Jack confusedly. Who’d put you in the lead? Last you checked an hour ago, Mohan was still the highest.

“In a stunning turn of events, an anonymous donor broke the tie and put her in the lead,” he continues.

You frown for just a moment as you look around the gathered faces, wondering who would do that, before realization strikes you like lightning. You grin as your eyes dart to Jack who innocently shrugs when your gaze lands on him. 

Something comes over you in that instance that has you moving through the crowd to your boyfriend. You gently grasp his face in your palm and place a chaste kiss on his lips. You don’t have a chance to savor it before a few more cheers ring out and you pull away, embarrassed by the display. Jack wraps an arm around your shoulders and gives you a side hug, leaning over to place a kiss on your cheek.

“Okay, okay,” Lena says as she breaks through the crowd, “this isn’t an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. You all have patients to see.”

The crowd disperses quickly after that. People give each of you thumbs up and congratulations as they leave, Ellis tells you to ‘find her later’ — obviously displeased about not being the first to know, and soon you and Jack are left alone.

“Well that didn’t go as bad as I expected,” Jack says, squeezing your shoulder once more before releasing you.

You cock a brow. “If you think that’s the last of it, you’re sorely mistaken. Robby hasn’t even found out yet and I think Ellis is going to brawl me in the parking lot.”

Jack lets out a soft laugh.

You look up at him with soft eyes, a small, flirtatious grin curling on your lips. “I’ll see you after rounds are shifted over. Want to order the food so we can have it back at my place?”

“If I ever say no to coming over to your place,” Jack says, “you can just shoot me, okay?”

You let out a barking laugh as you go to leave. Before you get more than a few steps, you look back at him over your shoulder.

“Oh, and tell any women who flirt with you that you’re off the market,” you say, “I’d hate to be fired because I assaulted a patient.”

[mariposium]

His First Choice SLAPS! Can’t wait for the next part💗

thank you so much!! i'm so appreciative of all the love it's gotten <3 i'm hoping to start working on the second part after i finish this abbot fic ive been slowly chipping away at!!

[mariposium]

“She could have been you. You could have been her.” STOP THIS MADNESS

me every time i decide to sneak an absolutely diabolical line into a scene that doesn’t call for it:

[mariposium]

✧ : HIS FIRST CHOICE — baelor targaryen

summary — when your sister is betrothed to marry a prince, it is only natural that you accompany her to king's landing. what you do not expect is for her betrothed's attentions to be focused so heavily on you instead. (10.4k)

featured — prince baelor "breakspear" targaryen / fem!stark!reader

content — no spoilers for akotsk, angst and fluff, hurt/comfort, tried and true kate sharma/anthony bridgerton dynamic, he falls first she falls harder, reader is a bastard and is called "lady snow," baelor loves smart women, forbidden romance, you know high valriyan, asshole!aerion (are we surprised?), your fictional dad is a major ass, i've rewritten this fic like 5 times it's time to commit

(cross-posted on ao3)

“I don’t think I like King’s Landing,” your sister says in her position across from you in the carriage. 

She’s been quiet most of the way to the castle, staring out the small window to the throngs of people lining the city streets. Every once in a while, she’ll gasp as if she noticed something particularly strange outside—or in one instance, she caught a glimpse of the alley you immediately recognized as being the Street of Silk, where noblemen went to commodify sex and pleasure, and a scantily dressed Dornish whore waving to passerby.

“We haven’t even seen the castle yet,” you say to her, eyebrows furrowed at her split decision.

Lyanna is not really your sister. Not fully. Your father had her with his lady wife, he had you with a whore. You are not the same—far from it. Lyanna’s everything a Stark woman should be: beautiful, exotic, and strong-willed—the perfect match to a Targaryen Prince. You are lucky you were not shoved to the streets of Winterfell or left for the dire wolves to eat. 

“I know cities,” Lyanna replies back simply, “and a city that has more people hungry than people fed is not a good city.”

You can’t help but smile a bit at your sister’s naïveté. She knew as well as you did that isn’t how diplomacy worked. No king could snap his fingers and rid Westeros of hunger and strife. It is a nice thought, though.

“And your betrothed? What do you think of him?” you ask, your inflection curious but restrained. 

“I suppose we will see, won’t we?” Lyanna tries to sound unaffected by the responsibility placed upon her slight shoulders, but you notice her hands threading the fur of her coat incessantly, the slight tremble to her fingers.

There’s a lapse in conversation as you look down at your lap as if it holds the answer to all your worries. Lyanna is not your full sister, but she is your sister nonetheless. You worry for her more than anyone else in the seven kingdoms.

“Perhaps he will surprise you,” you tell her this in earnest, but even you recognize that your words ring hollow. 

In the farthest reaches of the north, whispers of the Targaryens were as commonplace as snow. One cannot wonder what the Red Keep is like without considering the people that live there. They have ruled on the Iron Throne since the time that dragons walked among people. Some were quick to call them “gods among men” whilst others claimed they were a stain upon the seven kingdoms

You cannot blame either side. It seems to be a bit like flipping a coin whether or not a Targaryen ruler would be corrupted by the weight of all it entails. You would never gamble on those odds.

“The castle,” your sister’s voice is tremulous and weak and it quickly shakes you from your thoughts. You look over at her and notice the widening of her eyes as she peers out the small window.

Your curiosity wins over your fear as you lean forward to take in the view. The castle is simultaneously beautiful as it is haunting. Landed on the precipice of an imposing cliff, your eyes slide down the brick side to the edge and your eyes make the jump over the rocky shoreline to the water below. You briefly wonder how many people had fallen to their deaths there. You shake your head to clear yourself of such thoughts.

The rest of the journey to the Red Keep moves slowly. Each rattle of the carriage has you clutching your gown in the hope you could steel your nerves. You are not the one being sold off like a breeding mare today, so why are you so nervous?

When the horses finally draw to a stop, you bite your lip so hard that you begin to taste copper. You release your lip when you meet Lyanna’s eyes from across the carriage; her eyes looking between yours in some semblance of comfort, some kind of bravery. You reach across the carriage to grasp her hand. Her palm is slick and trembling.

“No matter what happens,” you tell her softly, “I will be here for you. Always.”

Lyanna’s quivering lips pull into a soft smile at the corners. She averts her eyes.

“I know I have not always been the best to you.” She pulls at an invisible thread of her beautiful deep grey gown as she speaks, too afraid or embarrassed to meet your eyes. “But you have always been my closest friend.”

You purse your lips at the thought of you and Lyanna’s tempestuous relationship and nod. You squeeze her hand once and pull away just as the doors to the carriage open and a burst of light blinds you.

You lean back so as to escape the light’s reach and to show deference to your sister. Lyanna is the picture of elegance and beauty as she stands from her spot across from you and takes poised steps down to the path below. You move only once she has cleared herself completely out of the way.

You stand and grab the outstretched hand of a nearby guard to help escort you down. You squint your eyes to better focus on the outside as the light assaults your senses. In Winterfell, the sun is never this bright. And if it is, it is filtered through thick tree branches or clouds. This sun is aggressive and its light immediately heats your skin through your thick fur coat.

You keep your eyes respectfully averted as you join your sister and your father, but you allow them to trail upwards after you have taken your place and successfully escaped the spotlight.

Your eyes latch onto a feeble older man near the front of the line. You recognize him immediately by his deep red robes, violet eyes, and gold crown as King Daeron. His hair is white and his skin is aged and pale as the full moon on a deep starless night. His gaze sweeps across the dire wolves assembled in front of him like the round, intelligent eyes of an owl. When they reach you, his near-white eyebrows furrow only slightly. It is an imperceptible difference that not many would catch. A bastard always would, though. 

It is the same expression that other noble ladies would make after hearing of your parentage. The same face that suitors of your sister would pull when they noticed the stark differences between you and Lyanna. It was the same face Lord and Lady Stark made every time they looked upon your visage as a child.

You look back down at the ground, content to trace the lines in the cobble beneath your feet as they spoke.

“Lord Stark,” the King’s voice is light and youthful as he speaks, a difference to his weathered face, “it is a pleasure to welcome you to the Red Keep.”

You look over at your father as he nods. His beard moves as a smile splits his face. “No words can fully capture our deep gratitude for you having us.”

The king nods once before he looks back at your sister. Your eyes unconsciously drift across the gathered faces.

Each one you recognize from stories and vague descriptions from your studies. Maekar Targaryen, the youngest son–the anvil, strong and capable. His eldest children; Daeron, Aerion, and Daella. Two other young children. And then… Baelor Targaryen.

You startle when you realize his eyes are already centered on you. His eyes, the most recognizable of his features, one violet-blue and the other a deep brown, are extremely intimidating. Something lingers there, behind those mismatched eyes. Something that you cannot quite place. You look away just as his own flit toward his father.

“And those you have brought with you?” the king beckons.

Your father’s head turns in your direction. You do not look at him, but you can feel his gaze burning holes in the side of your face. You know what he is feeling. The embarrassment at having to present his beautiful, perfect daughter and then the walking depiction of his sins on the other. He looks back to the king and you let out a breath as his gaze is removed from your face.

“These are my daughters Lyanna and–” 

“You are Lady Snow,” a small voice interrupts your father. “You are the bastard.” Your heart pounds in your ears as your eyes seek to identify the speaker. 

Your gaze meets the violet ones of a young boy across from you. Prince Aegon, you guess. He can’t be older than eight or nine, a small, genuine smile pulling at the edges of his lips. He was smiling… at you?

His father immediately grabs his shoulder and the boy falls silent under his disapproving eyes. You do not fault the boy. If anything, he made the whole thing a bit easier. Now, everyone is on a level playing field. 

“My apologies,” the king says, and you are startled to find his gaze not on your father but on you. “The boy has yet to learn when to hold his tongue.”

You smile tensely. “It is quite all right, My Grace. Ae-the boy meant no harm.”

The king smiles at you, genuinely, and you think in that moment that perhaps you had judged his character too hastily. 

Your father steps forward. “She will not be of consequence to you or your family, My Grace. She knows well her place.” 

You swallow thickly and any happiness or feelings of acceptance you had been mulling in disappear. 

“Hm,” the king does not say more. Silence settles over the courtyard like snow blanketing a valley.

You hear the sound of boots clanking against cobble and your eyes drift up from the ground to the figure approaching. Baelor’s deep black and maroon coat swishes across the paving as he takes long strides toward Lyanna. You watch from the side of your sister as he looks deeply into her eyes and a small smile curls at the edges of his lips.

“My lady,” his voice is soft. It sounds like the crackle of fire warming a room. The sound of the crunch of snow underneath heavy boots through an old growth forest. The sound of a lone dire wolf howling from afar, searching for its missing half.

Lyanna smiles gently and curtsies. Her dark hair slips from the thick coat and tumbles into her vision like the waves of a waterfall slipping off the edge of a cliff. Everything she does is carefully measured and planned, from the slightest gesture of her hand to the expression on her face. Your sister carries an effortless grace you could only hopelessly dream of. She offers her dainty hand and Baelor reaches forward to grasp it within his own. A small smile slips across your mouth as he bends his head down to plant a curt kiss across her knuckles. You notice your sister’s lips tremble with delight.

Their hands slip away from each other and Baelor takes a step back. You think he is going to go back to his spot with his house, but then he surprises you by stepping forward toward you. 

He keeps a respectful distance as he nods his head in your direction. “Lady Snow.”

You hide your tremulous hands under your coat as you do your best attempt at a curtsy. His eyes wrinkle at the edges and a smile flirts at the edges of his lips. You do not return the gesture–it is already enough that he has singled you out in the way he has, no need to stoke the flame.

As he finally steps away, you realize what emotion it is he hid behind his mismatched eyes you saw before but could not place. Curiosity. 

If Winterfell is a sleeping den of wolves, then the Red Keep is charged like a viper’s nest. Everywhere you turn, there is someone lurking. You cannot ever fully escape the stares that follow you regardless of where you are or what you are doing. 

Suddenly, you find yourself seeking the most recluded spots in order to escape it. You find yourself backing out of arrangements and responsibilities more often than you ever have. Sometimes you sit in your chambers all day in the hopes that the quilts will simply swallow you whole.

Instead of your usual wallowing, that morrow you slip away with the first rays of light to the courtyard. You have traded your usual plethora of thick fur-lined gowns with airy dresses that you feel that you can actually move and breathe in. People pass you and give you cursory glances, but you realise that most do not recognise you as the Stark you are without your fur. You smile to yourself for a moment at the realization before your thoughts are shattered by the sight of your sister striding toward you.

“Lyanna,” you say, surprised by her appearance so early in the morning. She is one to not be so easily roused from her chambers, rather, she usually sleeps until the sun is high in the sky. 

She is dressed in a beautiful fur-lined coat and a deep emerald gown that draws eyes from every corner of the courtyard. That, along with her striking northern beauty compared to your plain commoner beauty, is the reason you shrink in on yourself when you see her headed your way.

She smiles and grasps your arm, threading it across her own in a secure hold. “Walk with me.” The statement is less of a question than it is an order. You are used to following your sister’s bidding and so you simply bite your tongue and follow her as she leads you across the courtyard.

“How have you been, sister?” she asks. You startle at the title she only scarcely afforded you. Being called Lyanna’s sister–the acknowledgement of it–was not something that you were used to.

“Just fine,” you tell her, though it could not be farther from the truth, “and you?”

The smile that whips across your sister’s face makes you realize that the question had been less a genuine one and rather a formality. What Lyanna really wanted was to tell you about her day, but she had to get all the boring questions of your own out of the way first so she didn’t come across as a complete bitch.

“I have had the best few days,” Lyanna says in hurried excitement, “the gods have really smiled down upon me as of late.”

You bite your lip to prevent yourself from questioning her. The Gods? Which, those of the Old or of the Sept? 

“I’m glad to hear that,” you say. You think you might actually mean it, but a part of you stews in jealousy. While your sister thrives like a flower underneath the oppressive sun of the Red Keep, you wilt and long for the wild outside the walls.

“Baelor is so sweet,” Lyanna continues unperturbed by your lackluster reply, “he took me on a walk around the gardens yesterday. He told me all about his duties as Lord Hand, which I mostly tuned out, but then he picked a flower and gave it to me and said that I was as pretty as a rose and I nearly cried.”

You almost laugh at the irony of the differences between you and Lyanna. You would have been thrilled to hear about the duties of a hand to the king–and probably extremely put-off by the cheesy flirting. 

“So your betrothed is kind?” you say, thinking back to your conversation only a few days prior and the fear you had felt on her behalf.

“Yes, oh, I couldn’t ask for anyone better.” Lyanna’s grin stretches from ear to ear as she continues. Then, it slips away as she seems to recall something. “But I will say he is awfully busy. I do not see of him nearly as much as one should their betrothed.”

Your lips twist. “Well, he is the hand of the king. I’m sure he is very busy.”

“That’s what father said,” Lyanna groans. “But my mother always said that nothing should be more important than one’s wife, or in this case, wife-to-be.”

You look over at Lyanna in amazement at her naïveté. You had distantly remembered her mother saying that, but you do not think she had meant it in respect to the situation at hand now. Surely she realized that the fate of the kingdoms held some weight against the fate of one young woman?

“Oh,” Lyanna suddenly gasps. You follow her gaze across the courtyard where an older lady in bright red robes stands under a pillar. “I have to go. I forgot I had lessons.”

“Lessons?” you say, confused.

She looks over at you as if she suddenly remembered something. Her face turns from surprised to guilty in a flash. “Yes, er, father has me in studies to become a better wife for Baelor.”

You nod even though a pit has formed in your stomach. Father had considered it all for his true daughter, but left naught for you. You try not to take it personally. You were not the one getting married, afterall. But a bitterness sweeps over you despite it.

Lyanna runs toward the septa and you watch her as she goes. Passing noblemen watch her with wide, lustful eyes, before they snap away at the realization of her status. You ball your hands into fists, but you are not sure what you are more angry about. The impropriety of the men’s reaction to your sister or the jealousy that you had never once been looked at like that before.

You turn your head away before your thoughts further circle toward destructive tendencies. You try to remember exactly what it is you had planned to do for the day when your eyes get caught on a beautiful black stallion crossing through the courtyard, led on a lead by a young boy. 

He’s all muscle and velvet. His long, wavy mane stretches past his forelocks down to the start of his legs, jumping and falling against his side in tandem with his heavy trot. You do not realize you are following him until you are led across the castle to the stables. The stableboy is busy removing his halter and he does not notice you as he does, hanging it up on the wall, and then crossing the stable and leaving through a small door.

You move as if in a trance toward the beautiful beast. His dark eyes are sharp and follow your every step as you inch closer. His velvet nostrils flair and a deep noise comes crawling out of them, a swell of hot, ashy air lifting your hair from your face.

He leans over his stall door curiously and you reach out a tentative hand toward his face. 

“You are beautiful,” you whisper. 

Suddenly, the stallion lets out a high pitched neigh and his ears pin themselves tightly against his skull. You step backward instinctually and draw your hand back to your side.

You are not sure what you have done to offend the animal. You watch him closely.

“...His name is Vaegon.”

You do not look to the unfamiliar voice, half-assuming it is the stableboy from earlier, as your eyes stay enraptured by the stallion. “Emā se brōzi hen iā rōvēgrie vala,” you whisper. (You have the name of a great man).

The horse seems to calm in the face of your fluency. His ears lift from their tense position into their upright form. He leans forward and you are able to lay your hand onto his snout. He does not only allow you, but encourages it by pushing his face wholeheartedly into your palm. You let out an amazed laugh at his eagerness to be stroked. 

You smile. “Iksan biare īlon shifang tolie sir.” (I’m glad we understand each other now).

“Skoriot gōntan ao gūrēñagon bisa?” The voice breaks in again. This time, though, the change of language makes your head spin to look at him. (Where did you learn this?)

Your hand falls from its position back to your side at the sight of the man before you. Prince Baelor. You fall to your knees automatically and drop your head. 

“Stand,” Baelor orders and you do not know why for a brief moment you believed him to be anyone else. His voice is completely unique and gentle in a way you had never known a man’s to be.

You follow his order but keep your eyes stubbornly on the silver broach in the shape of a dragon keeping his cloak together. 

“…Kessa ao udligon nyke?” (Will you answer me?)

Your mouth suddenly seems dry as you go to answer. “I… taught myself.” You draw your hands across your gown. “Issa daor qopsa skori emā jēda.” (It is not difficult when you have time).

The prince lets out a laugh. It is not like his speaking voice. Rather, it is loud and sharp and contradictory in every way. You assume he must be amused by the thought of a young bastard girl teaching herself High Valriyan as a choice of pleasure. Admittedly, stated so plainly, it does sound quite absurd.

He stops laughing and when you look up, his eyes are soft, held together by deep crow’s feet that reveal to you his seniority to your own years. 

You can feel your throat bob as you swallow harshly.

“Gaomas aōha mandia gīmigon ziry tolī?” his eyes continue to twinkle with amusement despite the laughter having fled far off his face. (Does your sister know it too?)

“Lyanna?” you say, even though you know who he speaks of. It is not often people refer to her as your sister. It is startling when put as plainly as the prince did. “Daor, gaoman daor pāsagon sīr.” (No, I do not believe so.)

“Hm,” Baelor seems to be considering something as his mismatched eyes draw down your face. “Pār iksā mēre hen iā sȳz.” (Then you are one of a kind.)

Your eyebrows furrow before you can prevent them from doing so. Your skin prickles with unease at the thought of the stableboy watching from slats in the wood. You nervously card your hands down your gown. 

“My apologies, my prince,” you say, “I have to excuse myself. I had forgotten but I made some arrangements…”

If he is offended by your response, Baelor does not show it. His lips curl only partially at the corners, a hint at the amusement he had felt before. 

He nods his permission and you hurry away, nearly tripping over your skirts in the process. You blame your pounding heart on the fear of getting caught in a compromising position with Lyanna’s betrothed, but even you are not sure how true that is.

You had thought that perhaps you may have a short reprieve from having to deal with the royal family, but that hope is shattered as quickly as it arrives when Lyanna bursts into your room later that evening.

“Why are you not dressed?” she says urgently, looking you up and down in your shift with thinly veiled contempt.

You frown from where you sit at your desk. You look down at yourself. “You mean why am I dressed to rest?”

“I told you,” she starts, “that King Daeron has requested we join them for dinner tonight...”

You startle and immediately you stand. “You did not.”

“I did,” Lyanna says angrily, “are you calling me a liar?”

You shake your head. No use in making her angrier than she already is. “Of course not,” you reply. “Just… I need to get dressed, can you step out?”

The fire that had been stoked in Lyanna’s eyes douses out like water being poured over her head. She smiles and nods and steps out of your room without any more ceremony.

And so this is how you find yourself in the midst of the dining hall and smiling, jovial faces and the celebrations of marriage and the bringing of families together. Unlike before, your sister is happy this time—joking with Egg and shooting coy glances across the table at her betrothed. 

You cannot find it within yourself to share in the celebration and you hate yourself for it. You are lucky to be included, to be treated more of an equal and less like the bastard you were always treated like at Winterfell and yet a part of you longs for the simplicity of fading into the background like you could so easily back home.

You are not sure why you have been included. You are not adding much to the conversation or atmosphere. Really, if anything, you’re detracting from it.

You pick at the roasted duck in front of you in mild interest. You push around sprigs of parsley and thick marinate to see the strips of white meat underneath. You take a small bite and force it down.

The back of your neck suddenly prickles with unease. You lift your eyes and immediately they clash with the deep brown of your father’s across the way.

He’s looking at you like he might an animal. Or worse, an insect. You have to remind yourself that he does not hate you, he hates what you stand for, but even that seems like a lie now.

You look back down at your plate and you feel the weight of his gaze leave you as he gets involved in conversation with Prince Maekar, if you had to guess by voice alone.

“Lady Snow,” someone says from down the table.

You immediately meet their eyes and recognize the sharp violet as belonging to Daella. Even at her young age, she is already strikingly beautiful. 

Most of the eyes at the table draw to you at Daella’s beckoning as if they only just realized you were there.

Daella continues to smile at you unperturbed by the stares. “What was it like growing up in Winterfell?”

You wonder why such a question was not aimed at Lyanna. As your eyes dart to your sister, you think she’s wondering the same thing. Your experience is not the average, and most of your memories are downtrodden by the fact of your existence being a stain upon Winterfell. 

If you were to be honest with Daella, which you never would be, you would tell her that your childhood was strife with heartache. That from your earliest memories you remembered being ostracized, pushed to the side for the better sister. That you always felt bitter for how you were treated and took it out on Lyanna, causing her to hate you for much of your youth. That other noble girls would turn their noses up at the idea of even touching you, much less being friends with you and that noble boys would tease others by saying that they had a crush on you, as if the very idea of courting you was the worst their mind could conjure. That your own father and step-mother were your own worst enemies. 

Instead, you smile pleasantly and say, “it is much colder than King’s Landing, that is for sure.”

That gets a few laughs from around the table.

“I’ve heard it’s all snow and wolves,” Daella continues innocently, “what did you do for fun?”

What should be a simple question makes you sweat. Your mind goes blank. What had you done? Embroidery? Weaving? Reading? They’re all trivial things that make your throat clam up and your palms slick. 

Lyanna leans forward when she notices you struggling. “We enjoyed the things that all noblewomen did. We are no different than you.”

You meet her eyes and give a small nod of thanks for her quick response. 

Daella smiles cordially, the picture of royalty, and nods. She turns her attention fully onto Lyanna and she begins to continue her conversation with the more social of the two Stark sisters. 

A few minutes pass before King Daeron stands from his position at the end of the table, raising his goblet into the air. Your eyes get caught on Baelor’s face as he sits near his father. He watches him like he hung the very stars in the sky; his eyes wide and his lips pulled into a small smile. You feel a spark of envy at your chest at the evidence of the close relationship Baelor has with his father, a relationship you would never have with your own, but you force the feeling away as Daeron begins to speak.

“I am so happy to have the North and the South united as one again,” Daeron says, “and as much as I enjoy talking. It is time to dance!”

Your breath catches in your throat as from the corner of the room a few stewards begin to pluck at lutes. A beautiful song begins to play, the chords oddly familiar but still exotic and even harder to place. You watch as Lyanna jumps to her feet, excitedly gesturing to her betrothed to dance.

You notice Baelor’s eyes linger on his father’s for a moment too long before he grabs your sister’s hand and leads her to the middle of the room. You wonder if perhaps the prince was just as embarrassed by attention like everyone else was.

He wraps his arm around your sister’s waist and Lyanna’s hands climb up to hang around his neck. They begin to four-step around the room as the music climbs and climbs and becomes jovial and intense.

As they continue to dance, others begin to join them. Baelor’s son Valarr takes his cousin Daella to the floor. Daeron swings Aegon around the room with a burst of laughter escaping his lips. The youngest princess dances with her grandfather.

You watch with solemn eyes at the display because you cannot bear to look at your father sitting across from you in the fear that he might suddenly get sentimental.

“Perhaps you’d like to dance, Lady Snow?”

Your eyes shoot toward the sudden voice by your side and you nervously clutch your gown when you see who is standing there. Prince Aerion. He’s handsome, smiling, the picture of cordiality. But you have heard things about him that makes your stomach twist at the sight of him.

You do not have the power to deny the prince. You nod and stand and take his hand as he leads you to the floor.

Prince Aerion does not say anything for a moment. You try to focus on not stepping on his feet as he guides you around the room. You had taken lessons as an adolescent, but your skills were definitely rusty.

You keep your hands a few inches from actually touching his body, partly in the fear that he may react badly if you do.

“Lady Lyanna is beautiful,” he says suddenly. Your eyes dart from watching your feet to his staring eyes. His violet ones are not the comforting presence like his uncle’s, his are predatory. A smirk licks at the edges of his lips. “But she is no match to you.”

His eyes trail from your face to your bust and his wet tongue slips from his mouth to trail a line of spit across his teeth. You stumble at the words and nearly fall backward in your attempt at creating distance when Aerion’s arm tightens around your waist to prevent you from falling.

“Careful there.” His grin splits across his face like an open wound. His teeth are like maggots wiggling inside decaying flesh. “Wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”

You don’t say a word as his eyes continue to trail over your body. You look over his shoulder and see your father staring at you with narrowed eyes. You clench your hands from where they sit frozen on Aerion’s shoulders, a well of helplessness coming forth from your chest.

“It is unfortunate you were born from a fleabottom whore,” Aerion continues, unperturbed by your horror. If anything, he seems fueled by it. “You certainly are not marriage potential by any means… but that does not mean you are not a good lay. Tell me, did your mother teach you any tricks—“

“Prince Aerion,” a voice startles your dance partner and his eyes widen and dart to the side. You follow his gaze to where his uncle stands, his eyebrows furrowed and his hands crossed behind his back.

At the opportunity given before you, you jump away from Aerion as if his very touch scalded your skin.

“Uncle,” Aerion’s response is deferential, but in it a touch of bite rounds off the word. No doubt, he is frustrated that his toy has been ripped from his hands.

You gaze at your unlikely savior with wide eyes. You can’t help seeking your sister from behind him, but find she seems to have been enraptured in conversation with Valarr across the hall.

“Perhaps I may dance with Lady Snow for a round?” Baelor asks, though you gather it is not as much a question as he tries to make it seem.

Aerion rolls his eyes, but does not argue. He does not say anything more before he turns his back and slinks away.

You stand, frozen, staring at the spot where he once stood. 

“Are you okay?” Baelor steps closer to you as he asks this.

You swallow back the desperate emotion clawing up your throat.

“I am just well,” you reply after too long a moment of hesitation.

“He will not bother you again.” your eyes snap up to meet his, and you are surprised by the anger in his clenched jaw and set gaze. “I will make sure of it.”

You are intimidated by the seriousness inflected in his voice and center your eyes on his broach again. Why should he care? It is not like Aerion had said that to your sister. You are a bastard second daughter. Your only benefit to your father is to how much dowry he can gain from the highest bidder. Baelor should not care about you. And yet, inexplicably, he does.

His hand enters your periphery and for a moment you stare, stunned, at the raised veins in his corded muscle and the rings on each of his fingers. 

“You do not have to dance with me,” you tell him in lieu of a reply.

Baelor’s lips twist. “And if I want to?”

“I would say that is incredibly improper,” you tell him. You watch for a moment as his face drops. Your heart pounds against your ribcage. He goes to lower his hand, but you intercept it and guide it to wrap around your waist.

The instantaneous brightening of his face makes you feel dizzy.

Unlike with Aerion, you place your hands gently on Baelor’s shoulders and the dance comes naturally to you. You tell yourself it is because Baelor is a good lead, but a part of you actually thinks it is something else—something deeper.

You smile despite yourself and avert your eyes. Baelor’s arm is warm around your waist. You tingle from where his fingers brush your exposed skin. You suddenly feel incredibly hot, and you chide yourself for feeling such a way with such a man.

“Why do you do that?”

Your eyes meet his, alarmed. You have to wet your lips before you can speak and his mismatched eyes dart to follow the movement. “Do what, My Grace?”

“Baelor,” he corrects quickly, “call me Baelor.”

You shake your head. “You must understand I cannot. My father would have my head.”

“In private then,” he says softly, and somehow that idea makes you even more uncomfortable. The idea seems like a secret shared between lovers, something fugitive and risqué. 

You nod just to appease him.

“Why do you not meet my eyes?” he clarifies.

You frown, unsure of how to answer the question. Unconsciously, your eyes drift to meet his own. His lips curl into a smile when you meet them and your heart stutters.

“I… I'm not sure, My Gra-Baelor,” you say, “it is something I have just always done.”

“You are a lady,” Baelor says and your heart leaps up to your throat when his arm tightens. “You should not be afraid to be yourself.”

“I am not a lady.” A flash of anger rips across you, so sudden it is dizzying. “I am a bastard. They are not the same.”

Something like amusement clouds Baelor’s face. Frustration makes you dig your nails into his cloak, but he only looks more joyed at the feeling. Like he’s finally gotten some kind of real emotion from you.

“My mother,” Baelor says and your grip loosens, “do you know of her?”

You try to remember, but the memory slips from you like an apparition. Your jaw clenches as you shake your head.

“She was of Dorne,” Baelor tells you, “and I do not know what you know of Dorne, but I will tell you that they do not ostracize bastards there. Any child of a royal is simply that — a child.”

You try to hide your surprise but you know he notices, for a self-satisfied smile crosses his face. How had you never known that? Had you truly missed that in your studies? You look over Baelor’s shoulder and meet your father’s gaze. Or had it been kept from you?

“All that to say,” Baelor continues, “I do not think your being a bastard should define you. I think that you let it define you more than anyone else does. I think you use it as a shield to keep yourself from feeling. I think you feel safe with it because it means that you will never have to feel anything for anyone in the way you have never known.”

Your feet stop abruptly in their dancing and you remove your hands from him. Tears spring to your eyes before you can stop them. You notice through bleary vision Lyanna’s gaze from across the room. You drop your head.

“You know nothing about me,” you whisper, “you know nothing.”

You push past Baelor and weave through the room to the doors at the far end of the hall. You do not look back once because you knew if you did you would say something that you would regret. 

Later that night, sitting in your bed, sleep evades you no matter how hard you chase it. Those words echo in your mind, relentlessly pursuing you. You know it is not true. It can’t be true. And yet your hands fist in the bed below you and your breaths come out in stuttered gulps as you try to recover from the hardest blow you have ever had to take.

“You look awful,” Lyanna says in lieu of a greeting as you step into the covered seating area at the edge of the garden. 

You roll your eyes. “Thanks. You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”

You cannot fault her statement. Your entire body pangs with exhaustion as you lower yourself into the seat across from her. The sun filtering through the leaves of the rose tree behind her gives a ring of gold around her figure that only further exemplifies her angelic demeanor.

Lyanna reaches over to pour you a cup of tea. You watch the dark liquid gather in the teacup with weary eyes.

You take a sip, and are pleasantly surprised by the warmth that immediately flows into your sore throat.

“This is lovely,” you tell her, “what flavor is it?”

She does not appear to have heard you as she stares out at the garden. You follow her gaze and jolt with surprise when you notice Baelor strolling down the path. Even though it is in the midst of summer, he wears at least three layers. 

You shrink in your seat as you recall your interaction with him from the previous night. You take another generous gulp of your tea to hide the cringe that comes with immediacy across your face.

“May I confide something in you?” Lyanna says.

You put down the tea cup and watch her with wide eyes as she threads her hands nervously through her hair.

“Okay…” 

“I do not want to marry Baelor.”

Your eyes widen. “What? Did you not just say the previous morrow that you cared for him?”

“…Yes,” Lyanna says, “but I was acting too hastily. Baelor is… how can I put this… boring.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose in between your fingers and try to will yourself to stay civil with your sister. She had always been this way. Lyanna would ask for a new dress one day, then it would sit rejected in her closet for years until it was eventually passed to you. Lyanna once asked for a horse and she got it, of course, but decided she did not like the way he rode and sold it as her earliest convenience. Why should she be any different with men? 

“All he wants to talk about is politics,” she continues, “I mean, what man talks about politics with his betrothed?”

“I imagine the Hand of the King does a lot of those types of talks.”

“—And then he won’t even ask how my day is,” Lyanna says, “and he won’t kiss my hand or pick me flowers or compliment my dress. It is like he does not care for me.”

“Perhaps he is just not romantic,” you say to her.

“But I want romance,” her voice quivers with emotion as she conveys this to you, “I want to be swooned and to be cared for and to be looked for in a crowd. As it stands now, he looks more at you than he does at me.”

You frown at the last statement. “That is not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Lyanna scoffs, “if we do talk about me it is about you. I was too foolish to realize that before, but now I see it clearly.”

You sigh, too tired to argue with her. As you saw it, she was just making a load of assumptions about nothing.

“Well,” you say, “what are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do?” Lyanna rolls her eyes hard. “Nothing. I can’t do anything.”

“Maybe you could talk to father,” you offer, “he always listens to you.”

Lyanna looks amused by the suggestion. “Does he? What kind of fantasy world have you been living in?”

You bite your lip.

Lyanna lets out a soft laugh and shakes her head. “Father hasn’t listened to me since I was two and ten. Ever since I got my first bleed, it’s been about what I can offer him rather than what I can get from him.”

“I… didn’t know this,” you say to her, and you truly didn’t. You had always thought Lyanna to be her father’s biggest accomplishment in life, his biggest love. You did not know his misogyny extended even onto her. “I’m sorry, Lyanna.”

She nods, taking a deep breath. “It is fine,” she says, though you are not sure it is, “I should be grateful. Many women do not get as nice a man as I am afforded.”

You smile tightly. You do not argue with that, because it is very true. Many women would die to marry as honorable and intelligent and handsome a man as Baelor Targaryen.

A moment of silence passes as you take small sips of your tea and watch the microexpressions on Lyanna’s face warp and twist as she thinks deeply about her pressing issue. Suddenly, you notice her eyes dart to something behind your head. You go to turn when she stands abruptly.

“You will excuse me, sister,” she says, “I do not want to speak to him at the moment. Maybe you could?”

Your mouth gapes helplessly like a fish as your sister quickly takes her leave. You turn your head only to see Prince Baelor Targaryen headed toward you. He looks over at your sister speed-walking away for only a brief moment before his eyes look onto yours. His hardened expression softens so quickly you may have missed it had you not keen eyes. You suddenly feel quite nauseous, but for what you are not sure.

Baelor strides forward and stops a few feet from you. He keeps his hands crossed behind his back as his eyes sweep over your form.

“You look nice in that color,” his eyes are locked onto the periwinkle of your dress, and you smile without fully meaning to. “I have never been one to enjoy the Stark colors.”

Your throat suddenly feels very dry. You do not have the heart to say that you did not like the Stark colors either. “Thank you,” you manage to reply.

Baelor, by contrast, is in the colors he always wore. Black and red. You suppose you could say something about how handsome he looks underneath the rising sun, but knowing you, it would probably come off creepy rather than genuine. 

“I… apologise my sister left in such a rush,” you force yourself to say, “she forgot her lessons.”

Baelor cocks a brow. “I do not mind.”

You notice as he draws closer a young kingsguard has accompanied him. He is far enough not to hear your conversation but close enough so he could quickly intervene should you get any funny thoughts. You nearly laugh at the idea of you attempting to overpower a man that went by the nickname“breakspear.”

“Gaomagon ao hae se rūklun?” he says, going to take a seat in the place your sister had just abdicated. (Do you like the gardens?)

“They are beautiful,” you reply with a tight smile, “as is most of the Red Keep.”

“Gaomagon ao daor ȳdragon eglie valriyan sir?” (Do you not know High Valyrian now?)

Despite his amusement at you pretending not to understand the language, you stay stoic.

“I do not find it appropriate to use it,” you tell him, “and I should have never learned it. It is not for common folk to know.”

“Qilōni vestras?” (who says?)

A flush of anger rushes over you at his continued questions. “Vestan. Sir keligon.” (I said. Now stop.)

A small smirk curls at his lips, but he listens and looks away. He seems to be watching a small butterfly flitting from flower to flower nearby. 

You smooth out a wrinkle on your gown. You feel an inexplicable rush of guilt.

“...I apologise,” you tell him after a moment of silence. “I did not sleep well the night prior.”

His eyes draw back to your expression. He tilts his head slightly as he considers your weary expression. You stare at his mismatched eyes and wonder how in the Seven such an anomaly of nature could occur.

“Is there a reason you did not sleep well?” he says and you realise with a jolt that his voice sounds like concern. “Are your chambers not to your liking?”

“They are just fine,” you are quick to remedy, “I just had some things on my mind.”

Things that were put into your mind by Baelor. Things that you would never admit had a greater impact on you than you could have ever imagined.

As you watch Baelor sitting across from you, you realise he is turning one of the rings on his hand incessantly. He notices your gaze and he stops.

“I did not mean to offend last night,” he tells you and you think his voice sounds earnest, “I just wished to comfort you.”

You frown and pull at a stray thread hanging off your dress. “I do not need comforting.”

“No, I’m sure you do not,” Baelor says with a toothy smile. “But perhaps you would like a friend.”

Your eyes dart up from where you had been pulling at your dress. You stare at him for a moment in shock. You have never… Perhaps this is some kind of sick joke? Does he think you a fool?

“For what purpose?” you finally settle on saying. “If you want a quick lay, I am sorry to disappoint.”

Baelor’s eyes widen. You bite your tongue until copper fills your mouth.

“Is that truly…” 

You feel sick at the pity that fills his expression in that moment so you avert your eyes.

“Do you truly believe every man that is kind to you wants to use you?”

The words hit like a slap against the face. Your blood runs cold. 

“Baelor,” you say finally, “every man wants to use women. And those who do not believe that are fools.”

You notice him lean forward in your periphery. He gently places his hand upon where yours continually pulls at the fringes of your dress. Your hand stills, but you do not pull away. His hand is warm, kind. It is as gentle as his voice when he speaks to you, as intelligent as his eyes when he realises your emotion. You look up at him to see his eyes narrowed in contemplation.

“Not all men,” he finally says.

He pulls away and you can only hopelessly watch as his hand rejoins his other on his lap.

You begin to think about Baelor in your every waking moment. When you walk the gardens, you watch butterflies and wonder if Baelor had seen them before. When you read your few books on High Valriyan, you think of him and the conversations you shared. When you speak with Lyanna, your mind always drifts to him.

It is a terrible thing, you think, to become friends with someone who can never fully understand you. Soon, you are talking with him during family gatherings. You are seeking him out to ask about the history of his family. You discuss the endings of popular fables. 

It becomes easy to like Baelor Targaryen. Contrastingly, it becomes harder and harder to acknowledge the fact that your relationship is only temporary until the wedding in a moon. You fear what will happen after it is all gone. Will you be able to recover?

You consider this as you weave through the hallways in the Red Keep, walking without a true purpose in mind. You keep your spine straight and your hands tucked behind your back as you walk. People watch you as you walk by with curious eyes. You do not flinch under the weight of the gazes anymore. They simply slid off you like water off a bird’s back.

As you continue to walk, you consider all that you have gained since coming to King’s Landing. You no longer shrink behind your sister and father and exist underneath the shadow of their impressively large fur coats. You do not try to hide your intelligence anymore, rather, you flaunt it to anyone who cares to listen. Most importantly, you do not think you are completely rotten anymore. You do not think you are doomed to a life of fear and ostracization anymore. Hope has sprung in your chest like blooming flowers at the start of spring.

“Lady Snow?” 

A voice says from behind you. You pause in your steps and cock your head in the direction of the tremulous noise. It is a little serving girl, no older than five and ten, her eyes wide and glassy like she was preparing for a hit. She could have been you. You could have been her. You swallow thickly and put on a gentle smile. You can see the girl’s shoulders drop with relief at your aparent kindness.

“Yes?” 

“Your father requests you in his chambers,” she tells you softly. 

Your face hardens without you even realising. You watch as the girl drops her eyes and scurries away. 

You begin your journey toward your father’s chambers with slow steps. You are not opposed to making him wait. Anyways, you could use the extra time to consider what he might say to you. 

Your father, Lord Stark, is not a particularly kind man. He is gruff and hardened by years of living in Winterfell’s unflinching cold. He had always been worse to you. He never hit you or was particularly cruel, but it was the little things. You were always cast aside. Your sister was doted on, you were a brief consideration. For many years, you thought your jealousy to be born of a place of wrong, for you were much better off than many bastards in the realm. You were not living on the streets, selling your body for scraps, proliferating with more bastards to carry on your name. But you were not equal, either. As you later realised, the rejection wore worse on you than one could ever imagine.

Lyanna’s mother died when she was five and ten. She’d had a persistent sickness that eventually stole her breath. You had not cried for her. Your father and sister thought you were a monster for not. But why should you? She had never loved you, she had borne you like a responsibility, not as the impressionable child you were.

You did not cry for those who caused you pain. But you held Lyanna still and allowed her tears to soak your gown.

You stop outside the door of your father’s chambers. You had not been inside before, but you remembered it from the tour when you first arrived. 

You place your knuckles across the mahogany door and rap them against it softly. A part of you hopes that it is quiet enough that he will not hear it. That you will have an excuse to escape before he notices.

The hopes are in vain, for he calls you in moments after you knock.

The chambers are quiet. Your father sits halfway leaned over a piece of parchment at his desk, a nearby candle casting great shadows across his face. You step closer. His eyes slowly draw up to your face and you are at once struck by the weariness in his expression.

He looks as if he hasn’t slept in weeks. Dark circles are under his eyes. His skin has an odd pallor to it. For a moment, you fear he might be sick like your step-mother.

Then his lips part.

“It took you long enough to get here.”

Your sympathy leaves you with the next breath that escapes your lips.

“I had not known you were searching for me.” 

He gestures toward the chair across from his desk and you lower yourself carefully onto it. Your father’s eyes watch you closely.

“How have you been?” 

Of all the questions you could have expected from your father, this was not one of them. You feel your eyebrows pinch together. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, how have you been?” he repeats.

“I have been… fine.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. Then, his eyes go back down to his parchment and he begins to write something down.

You scoff at his audacity after a few seconds pass in silence. “I’m sorry, did you need something from me, father?”

His eyes slowly trail back up to your face. Suddenly, you feel incredibly uncomfortable. He looks… sympathetic? You frown, tingling fear spreading through your limbs.

“What is the matter?” you say urgently. “What has happened?”

Lord Stark’s throat bobs as he considers your question. “I have been speaking with Prince Maekar often these past few days,” he begins. “And he has made me a very… generous offer.”

You freeze. “You did not.”

His eyes soften. “It will be a good match for you.”

Your hands tremble as they go to cup your head. Your eyes slide closed at the realization. He allows you a few minutes to process this. You finally open your eyes and look up at him.

“Which one is it?” you say, “please… do not tell me it is the youngest.”

“Maekar believes that you and his second son will make a good match.”

“Second son,” your voice sounds not like your own. Everything feels like it is happening from outside of your body. You tremble all over, your heart pounding in your ears. “Aerion.”

Your eyes dart to his. Fear flees to your lips. “You cannot… Aerion will kill me.”

Your father cocks a brow. “You are being dramatic.”

“I am not,” you say quickly, desperately, “have you truly not heard of his exploits in the Street of Silk?”

“Your future husband’s hobbies will be of no consequence to you,” your father replies, “you cannot find one nobleman in the seven kingdoms that does not seek the company of women outside the marital bed.”

Anger, hot and rare and real, sweeps through you.

“Just because you sleep with any woman that gives you the time of day does not mean every man does,” you bite back. You stand. Your father does too.

“You will not speak to me in that way,” your father’s face is flush with anger, “no matter what you believe of me, I have done more for you than any man would in my position. I have gifted you with this.”

“Gifted me?!” your voice is shrill. You thrust your finger into his chest, pressing hard. “You have given me nothing. You have cursed me with this… this life.”

“Do not say that.”

“But it is true, is it not?” you continue, unperturbed, “if you had not slept with that whore we would not be in this mess. Your life would be better. My life would be.”

“Do not speak about your mother in that way.”

You shake your head. “What the fuck do you care? She was a fucking whore!”

His hand shoots out before you can react and he grabs your arm in a tight, unflinching hold. Your breath turns stuttery. You are frozen, forced to stare into his dark, encompassing eyes.

“Your mother was not a whore,” he says, his voice quiet. “She loved me.”

You lean forward until your noses are but a breath apart. “Is that what she told you when you spilled inside of her? When you gave her two silvers for her trouble at the end of the night?”

You think the anger is about to spill over. You think he might strangle you, slap you across the mouth for the audacity. Then, the fire leaves him all at once like water dousing a flame. He releases your arm and you take three hurried steps back.

He drops his head and turns his back from you. “You will marry Aerion. End of discussion.”

You feel the tears before you can prevent them. Time moves in a blur as your feet take you out of the room and through the winding halls. You keep your head down, shrink in on yourself when people stop to look at you. You are ruined. Your life is over.

You turn into an empty corridor and place yourself against the wall. The tears overflow and flood your vision, falling in rivulets down your cheeks and neck and the front of your dress. Your mind spins with the realization you will never live freely again. Becoming Aerion’s wife will be an execution of you mind, body, and soul. 

The tears do not stop even when you hear the sound of footsteps. You simply turn your back and continue to shake with sobs.

“Please leave,” you tell the approaching figure. 

They do not listen. A hand falls on your shoulder and you finally turn.

Your sobs become intertwined with a gasp. 

Baelor stands behind you. His eyes watch you with a mix of solemnity and understanding. His face is bathed in shadow from the ill-lit corridor, but even through it you can see his lips pulled into a soft frown. You watch him as his eyes trail slowly down your face.

“You knew,” your realization comes with another choked sob. “You knew and did not tell me.”

“I just found out this morning,” Baelor says. “My brother told me.”

You shake your head. “My life is over.”

“I will do everything I can to convince my brother and father it is a bad choice,” he says and your mouth gapes like a fish at the admission. “I will help you any way I can.”

“Why…” you feel like you could puke. “Why would you help me?”

His beautiful eyes dart between the two of yours. His jaw clenches and you trace the muscle as it disappears into his close-cropped shave. 

“Because you are my friend.”

You watch him as he offers this as an explanation in stunned silence. You trail from his gentle mismatched eyes to the mole that rests just beneath his eye to the dark salt-and-pepper beard to the faint wrinkles that pull at the sides of his lips as he offers you a smile. You can feel his breaths as they hit your skin, as they fan across your face and heat your blood. Your eyes become locked fixedly on his parted lips.

You lean forward before you can stop yourself and you fully place your lips upon his. He is frozen for a moment and your heart stutters. You suddenly feel like the biggest fool there is. Then, his hand lifts from your shoulder to cup the back of your neck and he is suddenly returning the kiss with full force.

He tastes sweet, like the blueberry tarts served in the morrow. You feel like you are drowning in him. His nose scrapes against the side of your own. His hand lifts and cradles your cheek, softly stroking the saltwater-slick skin.

You kiss him like you are drowning and he is your oxygen. It is raw, passionate, and self-preserving. You drag a hand up from his neck to scrape against his thin hair and he lets out a soft moan into your mouth.

You go to tilt your head to kiss him harder when you hear something from behind him.

You start to pull away when you suddenly hear a gasp. You rip yourself away and Baelor spins to see who has witnessed your indiscretions.

You recognise the face immediately. Her dark, curly hair. Her wide, angelic eyes. Her mouth, which has fallen into an oval.

You immediately launch forward away from Baelor, but the damage has already been done.

You go to reach for her but she moves away.

“Lyanna, please–”

She turns her head from you and brings a hand up to stifle her shock. She stumbles away.

“Lyanna!” you call.

But she does not turn around as she runs off. 

Your life is over. You are quite certain of that now.

[mariposium]

༉‧₊˚✧ › THE PITT M.LIST

key: fluff ♡ | angst ✧ | smut ❀ | personal favorite ♪

✎ ... JACK ABBOT !!

⤷ one-shots ⊹

elevator confessional (♡✧) ─ getting stuck in the elevator with the one doctor on the emergency floor you were hoping to avoid at all costs was not on your bucket list for your shift. neither was having to face the feelings you both had buried for each other. (3.6k) the abbot effect (♡) ─ your boyfriend has a way about him that draws women in like bees to honey. it’s never bothered you before, but after a bad shift and an ill-timed bet, you are quickly reaching the limit of what you can handle. (5.4k)

✎ ... DENNIS WHITAKER !!

⤷ one-shots ⊹

green-eyed monster (♡✧) ─ you try not to jump to conclusions regarding dennis's friendship with one of his co-workers, but as more details regarding their relationship come to light, you can't help entertaining the green-eyed monster inside of you. (5.5k)

© mariposium ; do not copy, feed into ai, redistribute, reupload, edit, translate, or otherwise steal my works, thanks!

[mariposium]

༉‧₊˚✧ › A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS M.LIST

key: fluff ♡ | angst ✧ | smut ❀ | personal favorite ♪

✎ ... BAELOR TARGARYEN !!

⤷ series ⊹

his first choice series (♡✧) ─ when your sister is betrothed to marry a prince, it is only natural that you accompany her to king's landing. what you do not expect is for her betrothed's attentions to be focused so heavily on you instead. (part one, two)

⤷ one-shots ⊹

man's weakness (♡✧) ─ you thought you knew what restriction was until you fell pregnant with the heir prince's child. now all you want to do is regain a fraction of the freedoms you used to enjoy before. at a tourney, you seize the opportunity to break away, but you fail to recognize the danger in doing so. (6.6k)

✎ ... VALARR TARGARYEN !!

⤷ one-shots ⊹

a dragon's fire (♡✧❀♪) ─ your new husband is the epitome of chivalry, especially when it comes to you, but he cannot quite divorce himself from his less-than-perfect family, either. when his cousin fancies you as his new target to publicly humiliate, valarr is forced to strike a balance between his head and his heart. (8.2k)

✎ ... MAEKAR TARGARYEN !!

⤷ one-shots ⊹

and one more makes seven (♡✧) ─ after missing your bleed several moons in a row, logically you know what the most likely reason behind it is. however, with one of your step-children in exile, another an alcoholic, and the sixth off touring the realm with a hedge knight, you do not expect your husband to want another child to worry about. (4.7k)

✎ ... DAERON TARGARYEN !!

⤷ one-shots ⊹

the dreamer (♡✧♪) ─ it is a difficult pill to swallow being betrothed to a man that cannot even look you in the eye. even more difficult is finding out it is not you, but the symptom of a larger disease. (8.3k)

© mariposium ; do not copy, feed into ai, redistribute, reupload, edit, translate, or otherwise steal my works, thanks!

[mariposium]

✧ : MAN’S WEAKNESS — baelor targaryen

summary — you thought you knew what restriction was until you fell pregnant with the heir prince's child. now all you want to do is regain a fraction of the freedoms you used to enjoy before. at a tourney, you seize the opportunity to break away, but you fail to recognize the danger in doing so. (6.6k)

featured — prince baelor targaryen / fem!wife!reader, maekar targaryen, valarr targaryen, aegon "egg" targaryen, aerion targaryen (mentioned), daeron targaryen (mentioned)

content — pre-events of akotsk, fluff and angst, overprotective!baelor, threats of violence against reader, reader is naïve and makes bad choices, depictions of late-term pregnancy

(cross-posted on ao3)

When you found out you were with child, you did not expect your life to change all that much.

You were wrong. From the moment it had been shared with your lord husband that you were expecting, all measures had been put in place to ensure your safety. 

You were no longer to go anywhere without an escort, even from your husband’s solar to the kitchens had become a task required to be surveyed by a watchful eye. You could not spend too much time standing, for all the pressure on your feet and back was ill-advised, nor could you spend too much time sitting for all the sitting could allow the blood to rush to your head. You could no longer take hot baths in the morrow, for too much heat was ill-advised by the maesters, nor could you take a cold bath in the evening for a growing dragon needed some heat.

In as little as eight moons, your life had become carefully controlled and surveilled. The little things you had enjoyed doing before your condition were limited, such as going down to the city with a royal fleet for fresh pastries in the square, which your husband had frowned at and had told you was just “too risky,” especially considering the amount of crime there as of late.

For the first three moons, you could handle it. It was a fun challenge to find new things everyday to keep yourself preoccupied. By the eighth, you had exhausted all interests and were beginning to collapse in on yourself like a dying star.

That is why the opportunity of attending the tourney at Maidenpool was one you had to jump at if you wished to retain any amount of sanity by the end of your term. 

“I heard there will be a tourney in a fortnight,” you say softly to your husband over the breaking of fast in his chambers. You rub the forming bump beneath your gown as if to soothe the increasingly very active babe beating against your ribs.

Your husband sits across from you in a velvet-lined chair, his mismatched eyes sweeping across a pile of letters placed haphazardly across his desk. He drums his hand against his gold goblet in quiet contemplation.

“Yes, there will be one,” he replies curtly. His eyes flicker to yours.

You look down at your plate of food in order to escape your husband’s inquiring gaze, even though most of it you can’t even pretend to enjoy at the moment. Lately, the babe has been very picky and anything it deems unworthy it forces you to suffer for. Perhaps the picky appetites of dragons started as early as in the womb.

“What is it to celebrate again?” you ask coyly. You already knew–of course you did. Your ladies-in-waiting had been quick to inform you along with all the other little details. 

Your husband frowns as he peers down at a piece of parchment on his desk. “I believe it is the Lord Mooton’s son whose marriage is being celebrated.”

“Will Prince Daeron, Aerion, or Valarr be travelling to participate in the joust?”

“I’m not sure,” he replies, pausing to take a sip from his goblet. His eyes move from his plate to yours, focused and as sharp as a dragon’s.  “I suppose there is not any particular reason for your questions about the tourney?”

You startle a bit at the question. For a moment, you can scarcely believe that you had forgotten how easily it is that your husband can read you. The answer to his question hangs like sandpaper on your tongue. You debate how to phrase it, trying each version in your mind and weighing the potential risks.

“I’m sure our young dragon would be quite happy to get some fresh air,” you finally settle on saying, “it seems all it wants to do as of late is run.”

Your husband’s eyes dart to where your hand rests on your bump. A small smile curls on his lips before it flits away. He stands from his seat and draws over to where you sit. He leans against his desk and places a chaste kiss against your forehead. His dark beard scratches familiarly against your skin. 

Your heart sinks. You are quite certain now that rejection is forthcoming.

“I am not sure it would be a good idea,” Baelor replies, moving to stand beside you as he rubs your shoulder with one ringed hand, “Maidenpool is quite far and the roads may be treacherous due to the recent storms.”

“I would have you, wouldn’t I?” you say. You reach out to grab his arm as he goes to move, commanding his attention in the only way you know how, drawing his hand to rest upon your swollen stomach. “You would protect us. Just as you have so brilliantly thus far.”

You do not wish to add the other part wherein you have grown quite suffocated by his protections as of late, not if you do not have to.

A ghost of a smile flits across Baelor’s mouth as he begins to stroke the spot where the babe is currently kicking incessantly. “As much as I appreciate the compliment, I know you are not in earnest. You do not enjoy my hovering. Was it not just last week that you tried to run away from your guard?”

You pull away from his hand and frown as stubborn tears immediately spring to your eyes. You duck your head to try to avoid the shameful well springing forth from them. It is in vain, for your husband tilts your head to face his with a finger underneath your chin. 

“Why are you crying, my love?” he asks, his voice patient and gentle and with a loving tone just makes you all the more emotional. “Surely it is not just about this tourney. I did not know you even liked jousting.”

You shake your head as more tears fall. “You must have realized how bored I have become, my prince. I spend every day the same as the last”--you pause to sniffle–“I have not been outside the castle walls in five moons. I cannot even remember what the sweet pastries of the markets taste like.”

Baelor reaches forward to catch a tear as it streaks down your cheek. “You want pastries?” he tells you in reverence, “I will have them gotten for you, all you have to do is ask.”

“It is not…” you begin to say, voice defeated, “it is not the pastries. It is not the jousting or the hovering, even. I just want to experience some semblance of normalcy before the babe is here.” You swallow back a fresh wave of saltwater tide springing to your eyes. “Before I am no longer just a princess, but a mother, too.”

Prince Baelor has experienced more in his lifetime than any one man should. He fought in the infamous Blackfyre Rebellion and had the scars to prove it. He’s currently perhaps the most experienced man alive with diplomacy and negotiation. He’d fathered two sons and helped raise his copious nieces and nephews. But at the end of the day, Baelor is still a mortal man. And within every mortal man exists an inherent weakness when it comes to one’s wife.

Your husband closes his eyes and tilts his head back for a brief moment. You dry your eyes with a nearby handkerchief as you watch him.

“I fear you will be the death of me by the year’s end,” he says quietly, a small, fond smile on his lips. 

He turns to face you, his face growing serious. “I will consider making some arrangements for the Targaryens to attend the tourney if”—he puts a heavy emphasis on the word as he notices your jump in excitement—“if you agree to stay near your kingsguard at all times. It will not be a negotiation. You will not sneak away or scheme or wander. It is for your safety as well as the babe’s. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course I understand,” you reply giddily. You can’t help a huge smile from taking over your features.

“Thank you, my love.” you say, standing to give him a soft kiss. He smiles into it as you pull away. You keep a hand on his cheek as you speak, narrowing your eyes to convey your seriousness, “I will do everything I can to keep our dragon safe. I would never intentionally put them in harm’s way.”

“Good,” he replies, “and yourself?”

Your eyebrows furrow. “Myself?”

“Will you do everything you can to keep yourself safe?”

“Oh,” you say with a light laugh as if the notion itself is ridiculous, “of course, my prince.”

As you take your first steps outside the carriage, you speak to the little dragon resting against your ribs. Your two kingsguards follow closely behind you as you begin to walk.

“And this is Maidenpool,” you tell it, your own eyes alight at the new scenery around you. Colorful pavilions signal each house’s presence and you begin to list them off as you pass them. “There’s House Baratheon, House Fossoway, House Beesbury…”

You perk up when you hear the sound of clomping hooves against the cobble paths, but you do not turn your head. “House Tully with the fish, of course…”

“Getting our dragon acquainted with his lords?” you hear your husband’s voice come from beside you. You turn your head toward him and grin at the handsome figure riding slowly up on his black stallion.

“It is very important for a little prince or princess to know their history,” you inform, face entirely serious but voice in jest. “How else will they be prepared to answer all the maester’s serious, intellectual questions?”

Prince Baelor grins, but it quickly fades when he notices your slow movements. “Why have you exited from the carriage so soon? The castle of Maidenpool is still quite a bit away. Surely your feet will grow tired.”

You smile up at him. “Getting some fresh air, remember?”

Your husband simply shakes his head at your sarcasm. He goes to say something else when his brother sides up next to him on his own horse. They begin to speak in hushed whispers and so you tune them out.

Your eyes stretch across the tourney grounds with wonder. Perhaps you are too easily impressed, but you think it is more likely that you had forgotten the beauty of the Seven Kingdoms in your time hidden away. People mill around you in a way that would never happen in King’s Landing. In King’s Landing, you stand out like a sore thumb. There are still a few people watching the Targaryen fleet, but most go about their own lives. 

“It’s the princess!” you hear a small voice from one of the people gathered.

You turn your head to see a young girl that could hardly be more than nine, her eyes wide as she stares straight at you. You give her a smile and a sly wink. She giggles with delight.

By the time the Maidenpool castle is within reach, you observe with mild annoyance that your husband has been entirely correct in his estimations. Your feet hurt like they never have before. Your back, too, but you would never admit it for it was exactly in line with what the maesters had told you about physical activity.

Your husband has retaken his spot at your side as you are welcomed into the castle by the Mooton house and led inside. He wraps an arm around your waist and you accept it to alleviate some of the weight you are carrying, leaning into his warm side.

The Lord Mooton begins to explain the historical significance of the castle in great detail as he walks toward the dining hall, and you notice Baelor’s arm tightens as the time goes on without any purposeful progress being made.

“Perhaps,” Prince Maekar cuts in. You look over with surprise. “We could be shown to our rooms before your riveting tour. Your lord hand’s lady wife has been on her feet all afternoon.”

You give your brother-in-law a small smile of appreciation, to which he nods curtly. Prince Maekar, the big softy.

“O-Oh, of course, My Grace,” the shrewd man stutters out. He gestures to a few stewards standing by. “Show them to their rooms.”

The stewards nod and the Targaryen family begins to follow them through the halls. As you walk beside your husband, your eye gets caught on your step-son, Prince Valarr, talking with his youngest cousin, Prince Aegon “Egg.”

“I hear there will be a puppet show in town tomorrow,” Prince Valarr tells the young boy with a small smile. “It will be a retelling of Jonquil and Florian the Fool and their meeting in Maidenpool.”

Your attention perks at that. A puppet show? Had you ever seen one of those before? You could not recall. Surely it would be the most amazing thing to see.

“I’m much too old for puppet shows,” replies Egg, his wispy white hair falling into his eyes.

Prince Valarr grins at his youngest cousin’s attempt at playing older. “Truly? Well, I was planning on going…”

Egg’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline at that. You stifle a laugh at the admiration clear on his face for his older cousin. 

You meet Baelor’s gaze and squeeze his arm. You nod toward the interaction occurring between Egg and Valarr. “I hope our child looks up to their siblings and cousins just as much,” you tell him softly.

Prince Baelor hides his grin by ducking his head. He leans over to place a kiss upon your cheek. “I’m sure their family will teach them everything they know,” he pauses, mulling over his words, “a frightening notion.”

You stifle your laughter with your hand.

“Prince Baelor and his lady wife will stay here,” one of the stewards says, gesturing to the closest door to them. “Prince Maekar across the hall…”

You tune the rest of the sleeping arrangements out as you break from the group and go inside the room. It is not the most grand place you have ever stayed. Actually, it is quite homely. You think you spy a leak in the corner of the room. The bed is narrow, but the quilt looks sufficiently warm.

You look over at your husband, whose eyes sweep over the room with a slight frown. He turns to you, drawing close.

“Will these arrangements be suited to you, my love?” he says, eyebrows furrowed, “perhaps the Lord Mooton has more comfortable quarters…”

“It is just fine, my prince,” you reply with a soft smile. “It actually quite reminds me of the chambers I grew up in.”

“Hm,” Baelor says as his eyes rove over the cobwebs in the corner of the room, “I must talk to your lord father about that.”

You let out a soft laugh. “I assure you, husband, it was not a problem then nor is it now. When it is all you know, it is actually quite comfortable.”

Your husband closes the door softly behind him as he steps inside. He drags his hand across one of the tables in the room and it comes away covered in dust. He shakes his head, but does not utter a word. That is just how your husband is. He does not express his contemptuous thoughts if he does not see that you share them. 

You slide off your heavy coat and hang it on one of the bedposts. You go to remove your gloves and shoes, but your husband stops you with a hand on your wrist.

“Are you not planning on joining us for dinner?” he asks, stroking the lace of your glove with a single thumb.

You give him a soft smile. “Of course,” you reply, “I just need to relax for a little while. The babe has been restless today.”

“You are growing a dragon,” Baelor says with a grin, “they can be quite fiery.”

You continue to smile as you slip out of your shoes and gloves, placing them in a neat pile by the bed. You sit on the blanket, then swing your legs up to rest on it. You can’t help letting out a soft sigh at the instant relief of the pressure gone off your feet. Resting your hand upon your belly you look up at Baelor, who watches you with a softened expression.

He turns his back and begins to stride toward the door.

“Perhaps…” you say, your voice testing the waters before sinking in. Baelor’s head turns in your direction. “Perhaps arrangements could be made for me and the babe to see the puppet show on the morrow.”

You notice your husband’s jaw clench underneath his salt and pepper beard, a muscle jumping underneath his skin. “I do not think…”

“Then perhaps if not that, I could go see some of the things being offered at the stalls,” you offer, inflection hopeful. “I saw an ironwork stall that had the most beautiful necklaces…”

He strides toward your side of the bed and you fall silent as you watch him. His eyes do not meet yours until he takes a seat at the end of it. He reaches forward to grasp your ankle.

“How about you rest now,” he says, “and then we will talk about it on the morrow.”

You swallow thickly. A part of you knows what the answer will be, but you decide you will not give your husband any more undue worries. You nod curtly and your husband excuses himself from the room.

You look down at your bump and at the baby who seems to have finally calmed down and you release a heavy sigh.

“You are a lot of trouble, you know that?” you whisper to it, “I think your father is going to die of stress the way you have been running him ragged and you are not even here yet.”

The baby punctuates your statement with a sharp kick to your ribs as if to say: it’s not me stressing him out, it’s you.

By the time the light begins to break over the hills and bathe the tourney in swaths of amber rays, you are already awake. You stare at the tiny people milling about below, going from their tents to the market to the stables, each moving with a purpose unbeknownst to you. You clutch the fabric of your shift within your hand, trying to prevent yourself from doing anything hasty.

You listen to the soft snores of your husband beside you and mull on the consequences of sneaking away. It could be so easy to escape for just a few hours. Your husband will not wake until the horns blow at the crest of the morrow, and you could leave and be back before he’d ever wake. You know that the kingsguard will be changing shifts soon, which means that you could theoretically slip out without anyone knowing.

As you sit there for a moment longer, counting your husband’s shallow breaths, you think of what you promised before the tourney. That you would not try to escape to the market, that you would not try to undermine your husband’s word. But you also wonder, what is the point of attending a tourney if you are going to spend it locked inside?

You continue to stare out the window even though you know deep down that your mind has already been made up. Now it is just about the follow through.

You are able to get out of the castle much easier than you had been expecting. Most of those inside are still sleeping, and those that are awake are indentured to service to the Mooton house and therefore are not within their rights to ask you where you are headed. The cloak you put on over your head also dissuades a lot of stares and conversation as most do not care to look at you long enough to decide which Targaryen you are. 

The only slight resistance you face is when Egg turns the corner right as you begin to make it to the door. You pull the hood closer to your face, but the damage has already been done.

“Princess?” he says quietly, his violet eyes wide. The boy, only seven years, looks so much younger standing there in the foyer, enveloped by large shadows of the light coming from the windows.

You put on your most believable smile as you turn to face the young boy, your hands shaking beneath your long cloak. “Egg, what are you doing up so early?” 

The boy lifts his hand, where a pastry filled with jam covers his fingers. “Eating.”

Despite your nerves, you cannot help a small smile from curling up on your lips at the innocent answer. You tilt your head toward the door out of the castle and know that you must leave now or the whole plan will be ruined.

“I will be out for a little while,” you tell him, “so if anyone asks, you tell them I will be right back, okay?”

Egg’s light eyebrows furrow. “Uncle Baelor does not know you are leaving?”

The lie slips through your lips before you can properly process it. “Your Uncle Baelor is still sleeping. No need to wake him for this.”

Egg’s young visage looks conflicted, but he knows better than to argue with adults. “Are you going to see the puppet show of Florian the Fool and Jonquil?” His face is filled with delight as he recalls the tales his older cousin had spun of the performance.

You smile gently at the boy. “Perhaps,” you reply, “I am sure your cousin Valarr would be happy to take you to see it later. We will have to discuss it once I return.”

The boy nods excitedly before he darts off, apparently having forgotten the unease at which he felt at seeing you sneak away.

And so you continue out the door and down the hill to the tourney without any more delay. Despite the slow start in the castle, the tourney is wide awake. You are able to fit in with the crowd easily, either that or people are too kind to say anything, and you are able to joyfully appraise markets selling handmade wares and street performers that vie for your time.

The dragon begins to stir underneath your breasts when you feel a jolt of excitement like a child as you come close to a beautiful stall stocked to the brim with elaborate cakes and breads. You gasp when you spot a perfectly cooked slice of your favorite.

“See somethin’ you like, dear?” an older woman asks, her footsteps hobbling toward you.

You point at which baked good had caught your eye with a giddy grin. “Oh, how much is a slice of this? I used to have it so often in my youth…” 

You begin to rifle through your change purse when the older woman places a wrinkled hand on yours. You look up, startled.

“Dearie, don’t you know not to show how much money you are carrying?” she asks, her milky eyes wide, “not everyone is as nice as me here… I would hate to see a lady like you taken advantage of.”

You feel your skin crawl underneath your cloak. You had not thought of that. You pull a couple of silvers out of your coin purse and tuck the rest away. You look around at the faces around you, but do not feel anything immediately wrong.

You place two silvers in her outstretched hands. Her eyes widen at the coins, but she does not correct your estimation of the cost.

You grab your sweet treat with a smile and tuck it into your satchel. The older woman waves you away with a huge, appreciative grin.

You spend the better part of the morning strolling around the market, bouncing from stall to stall collecting goods with eager hands. 

You do not realize how much time has passed until you notice a band of kingsguard passing by, their swords clanging against their sides and their heads on a swivel. One near you stops a young man and talks to him in soft whispers.

Your heart drops to your feet. Your little dragon gives you a kick as if to say: I told you so. 

The Kingsguard begin to head your way and you duck into a small alleyway to get out of their path. You lean against the cobble wall, trying to calm your breaths. You tell yourself that there is still a chance they did not know you were missing, but even you had seen how high the sun was in the sky. Your husband was surely up by now, how had you missed the morning horns?

You stand there for a moment longer before you go to leave. Before you can exit back into the light, a figure jumps in front of you. You go to let out a surprised scream when the assailant claps his hand over your mouth. Your satchel drops to the ground with a clatter and your hood falls from your face in the struggle.

You fight against him, but he is a large man with wild eyes that makes your blood run cold. When you almost escape, a knife is placed at the base of your throat. Your eyes go wide and you instinctively clutch at the wrist holding it.

“I haaave watched you,” the man’s hot breath slides across the side of your face and it smells distinctly like cheap ale. He’s drunk, you realize, but with your condition, he would still be difficult to overpower. You recoil, but that only brings you closer to the man behind you so it does not exactly help the situation. “You… are a Targaryen.”

Your breathing quickens. Your stilled movements must give you away for he chuckles.

“Everyone can tell,” he says, “they are juss too polite.” He pauses. The blunt of his blade catches your skin. “Unfortunately for you, I am not.”

“Please,” you manage to say, “please let me go. I… you will not be arrested. I vow to you.”

“Your family has been the bane of my exis…existence for years,” he continues, words slurred and nearly indistinguishable as common tongue, “after the rebellion, I lost my family, my home… I do not see reason why I should let you roam free.”

“I… I am with child,” you plea, “you would be committing two murders in the eyes of the sept and for that the only result would be execution.”

You are surprised at your ability to negotiate even under the circumstances. However, despite your words, the man does not let up.

“Do not give me even more reason to end your life, whore,” he grits out. “Every child born to you white-haired bastards is a stain upon the Seven Kingdoms. I would be doing the realm a favor.”

You realize then that you have only added fuel to the flame. What should have sparked empathy, only stoked malice. You close your eyes as a tear escapes, protective hands clutching your belly. Just as you begin to think it is the end, you hear a stampede of hooves clattering against the ground in your direction. 

The man behind you freezes, as if the impropriety of his actions were just catching up to him.

“She went that way,” you hear a familiar voice call. As the horses break through the darkness of the alley, you realize it is the old woman from earlier. She gives you a wink and slips away. Your chin wobbles as more tears leak from your eyes, a rush of shame and gratefulness and fear mixed into them.

The kingsguard that halt in front of you part to make way for a familiar black stallion at the lead. You can see your husband’s face as clearly as you remember it from this morning, even through the darkness, and the slight tremble to his hands as he takes in your position.

Baelor slides off his steed and begins to walk toward you.

“O-o-one more step and I-I’ll slit this whore’s throat,” the man behind you calls out. 

More tears escape your eyes, a sob building in your throat.

“Are you injured, my love?” Baelor calls out, his voice powerful but undercut by a deep concern. 

“No,” you can barely manage to say through your tears.

“She will be,” the man says, “if you do not give me enough silver and a horse to leave this damned tourney unscathed.”

You do not think the man, in his altered perception, realizes there will be no situation wherein he is allowed to walk free. 

“You will let go of the princess before we give you anything,” Baelor says, his once-gentle voice now deadly. He takes a step forward.

The man’s grip on you tightens and you let out a whimper. From behind you, you think you hear the sound of soft footsteps landing against cobble, but you do not dare to look and confirm in case it is.

“I want to see it,” the man says, “I want to see the horse and the money.”

“I have money in my bag,” you say, voice tremulous and weak. The footsteps inch closer. You are sure someone is behind you now. 

“And the horse?” he says.

“You may have my horse,” Baelor says, pulling the reins of his beautiful black stallion toward the man. “Just let go of her.”

The man, in that instance, makes a choice. His grip on your waist wavers as he decides. 

At the same moment the knife clatters to the ground and the man steps away from you with an inebriated stumble, a sword pierces through his back to his chest and he lets out a gasp that turns into a gurgle as blood spills from his mouth. Prince Maekar pulls the blade from your assailant’s back and he crumbles to the ground.

You feel a rush of relief mixed with anguish at the sight. You nearly drop to the ground when your husband’s hands dart out to catch you. You turn your face into your husband’s chest and let out a sob. His ringed hands stroke over your hair, his other curled around your waist so tightly that you think he might never let you go again.

You pull your head back enough just to look in his eyes. Tears obstruct your view of his face in its entirety until all you can see is his soft gaze. “I-I’m so sorry,” you manage to say, “I’m so sorry.”

Your husband’s face softens as he reaches his hand up to wipe away the wetness clinging to your cheeks. “It is okay, my love,” he whispers. He bends his head to reach your ear as he continues: “but never again.” 

The ride back to the Wooten Castle is cloaked in a heavy silence broken only by your soft tears. Despite the fact that the altercation is far resolved, your hands still tremble and the tears keep coming. Your husband keeps his arms around you from behind like a wrought iron cage, his eyes fixated on the castle ahead.

He does not move to comfort you in the way you expected he might when he helps you off his horse. You continue to wipe the tears away with your thick cloak, a well of shame and fear harbored in your chest.

“Do you need anything else, brother?” Maekar says as he gets off his own horse and thrusts the reins into a wide-eyed stable boy nearby.

Baelor’s mismatched eyes dart to his brother’s violet ones. He shakes his head.

Maekar’s eyes dart to look at you and a flash of pity rips across his face before he nods at his brother and turns his back. 

Your husband begins to walk away from you and toward the castle, but he does not take two steps before looking back over his shoulder to ensure you are following behind. You swallow thickly and nervously thread your hands in the tight fibers of your cloak as you follow behind him. 

The inside of the castle is dark as you step inside. Near the entrance, Egg stands wide-eyed, peaking around a door. He looks incredibly frightened and small standing against the cobble walls. Your heart skips a beat and a rush of shame steals your breath. You had caused that. 

His father notices him and grabs the back of his tunic, gently leading him away from the commotion. 

You take careful steps up to your room. The entire castle feels like it is trying to swallow you whole. The baby has been quiet through the whole ordeal, as if even it realized the gravity of the situation.

Baelor moves to the door of your shared chambers and opens it for you. You bite your lip when he avoids your gaze and step on through.

The door shuts behind Baelor as he drags himself behind you. He takes a seat on the side of the bed and stares silently out the window.

Inside the room, you carefully shrug off the cloak, finally revealing the bump you had so carefully hidden from the rest of the world’s prying eyes. You put the fabric down on the back of a nearby chair and remove the slice of the dessert from one of the pockets. It is nothing but crumbs now. Smushed against your side in the struggle for your life. You expect tears to come, but none do. You put the ruined slice onto a nearby table.

You flinch when your husband’s voice comes out in a low, rasping tone. “Was it worth it?”

You follow his eyes to the sweet you had bought and you feel your hands tremble.

“I’m sorry?” you croak. 

“The sweet bread,” he repeats calmly, slowly, “was it worth it?”

Your throat bobs as you attempt to swallow past the saltwater forming in your throat. “I did not… I did not intend for…”

“--And what did you intend?” your husband interrupts. Your eyes jump to his as they narrow. “Because it seems to me that you went out to get yourself killed for a slice of sweet bread.”

“Please,” you plead, “I am exhausted.”

The bed lets out a loud creak as your husband stands up from it. His footfalls reverberate in your skull as he draws nearer. You close your eyes and duck your head, trying to escape his disapproving gaze.

“I told you,” he says, “I told you that you will not run away. You will not put yourself into danger. And what do you do?”

You shake your head. 

“You are not a young girl anymore,” he continues, unperturbed by your silence, “you are a princess. And you are carrying an heir to this realm. You cannot…” he trails off, a frustrated sigh escaping his lips.

Your eyes go to meet his. You startle at the sight of his eyes beading with tears. He drags a hand over his face, trying to hide from you. You reach forward, grasping his cheek before he can.

His mismatched eyes dart between yours as if searching for some kind of regret, some kind of understanding. A single tear trails down his cheek and you catch it with your thumb.

“You are my heart,” he says, his voice now quieter, “can’t you see that I cannot live without you?”

“I am…” you start, “so sorry, my love.” You sniffle, a similar pressure building behind your own eyes. “I was foolish. I am foolish. My father always said so, but I can see it clearly now.”

A few wrinkles form in between Baelor’s dark brows. A frown tugs at his lips. “You are not foolish,” he says, “but you are incredibly stubborn and you must listen when I warn of these things.”

“I know,” you tell him, “I knew it was wrong. I did it anyway.”

“Why?” his voice is weak when that word floats off his lips. “Have I not given you everything you have desired and then some?”

“You have,” you reply softly, “you have. I just…” you frown, trying to parse together the sentence that sits on the end of your tongue. “Have you ever been on a royal hunt before?”

Your husband shakes his head at the abrupt change of topic, but he obliges. “Yes, of course.”

“When I am within the walls of King’s Landing, doing my embroidery and my painting and strolling the gardens not some days but every single day and I look around and I see nobles vying for my attention and wishing they were in my shoes, I sometimes feel like a fox cornered between hounds. Like wherever I look I am being hunted, I am trapped and I cannot escape.” 

Your husband suddenly looks incredibly regretful, so you continue. “And I know it is probably difficult for someone like you to understand this, someone that has much more stressful duties as the Lord Hand than I and that I am quite foolish for wanting something new, but I…”

“Do not…” he starts, lifting your chin up so you will look him in the eyes. “Do not apologise for this. I… admit I did not fully understand the gravity of the situation…”

“But that does not mean I can just… run away,” you tell him, “I was incredibly foolish. I almost died. I could have died. Our child…” you avert your eyes, tears welling up again.

“Yes, you could have.”

“Or I could have been robbed or injured…”

“Yes, that too.”

“I’m so very sorry,” you say again, because you have to do something to make up for this grievance. “I will never do this again.”

“You will not,” he agrees.

A silence lapses between you. Your husband’s eyes trace across your face as if trying to memorize the slight contours of your face. He blinks several times and looks up to the ceiling.

His voice is a deep rumble as he speaks next. “We will leave on the morrow,” he tells you simply.

Your heart drops even though you knew logically that it was the only option given the circumstances.

“But… I shall be more lenient to your requests from now on,” he continues. Your eyes dart to meet his, wide and startled by the admission. He is quick to continue, “as long as they are within reason, of course.”

“Of course.” 

His eyes soften as he looks over your face. “You nearly died today,” he says, “do you know how devastated I would have been?”

Tears leap to your eyes. 

Your husband softly strokes your cheek. “I love you so much,” he says, his other hand reaching to stroke your bump. “I am sorry I have kept such tight reins on you as of late.”

“...Kiss me,” you whisper in response.

Baelor’s lips quirk up without his conscious approval. “You are ridiculous,” he says, “I am trying to be serious.”

“I’m sorry I cannot focus when you are this close to my face,” you say with a teasing grin. 

He rolls his eyes but his lips stay in the same position. He leans forward and you close the distance, reaching forward to gently cup the back of his neck.

Your husband continues to kiss you, drawing circles across your cheek and a hand warm around your waist, when you break away with a sharp gasp. You reach forward to grab your stomach and your husband’s eyes follow the moment.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” you say, shaking your head with furrowed brows. “Just felt a pain–”

Suddenly, you feel a strange sensation between your thighs. Liquid. Your hands dart down to clasp at your dress, frantically feeling for the moisture. Your hands come away coated in a clear liquid.

“Oh gods,” you say. 

“Is that…”

“The baby’s coming.”

[mariposium]

❀ : GREEN-EYED MONSTER — dennis whitaker

summary — you try not to jump to conclusions regarding dennis's friendship with one of his co-workers, but as more details regarding their relationship come to light, you can't help entertaining the green-eyed monster inside of you. (5.5k)

featured — dr. dennis whitaker / fem!reader, jesse van horn, dana evans, michael robinavitch, trinity santos

content — set somewhere between s1 and 2, mostly fluff w/ some angst, dennis and trinity are roommates, dennis's money problems, reader works at a law firm and likes smut audiobooks, awkward and lovable!dennis, jealous!reader, miscommunication, very small trinity santos / reader like you really have to squint, light descriptions of medical procedures

(cross-posted on ao3)

You stare at the bright red EMERGENCY sign in front of you for a moment too long. When you blink, the letters are still embedded behind your eyelids. 

The setting sun bathes the front of the building in golden light. A shadow of a nearby tree obscures half the entrance to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center and effectively prevents you from seeing inside the dark glass paneled door. You shift in your too-high heels and try not to look as awkward as you feel standing on the side of the street staring into space.

You look down at your phone for the fourth time in a row. 7:30pm. Thirty minutes late.

A cold breeze slides by your skin and you cross your arms over your chest in an attempt to cover your exposed skin.

“Did you need help with anything, ma’am?” 

Your eyes shoot up from where they had been tracing the cracked concrete underneath your feet to the gray-haired man standing in front of you. He’s wearing dark scrubs and a small smile on his lips. He has a tag on that clearly says NURSE.

You swallow back your nerves and return his smile. “Sorry,” you say, “am I in the way? I tried to avoid the loading zone…”

“Oh, no,” he replies immediately, “I just noticed you standing there for a few minutes, thought I’d see if you needed help.”

“I can see why you’re a nurse,” you say with a soft chuckle.

He grins and goes to walk away.

“Actually,” you say, and he turns to face you again, “do you think… I mean, if it wouldn’t be much trouble… the guy I’m seeing is an ER doctor here. We were supposed to meet up and go to dinner, but I guess he’s gotten busy?”

“What’s his name?” he says, eyebrows furrowed.

“His name is Dennis,” you say, then shake your head as you remember who you’re talking to, “sorry. He might go by Whitaker? Dr. Whitaker?”

The nurse nods his head. “Yeah I know him,” he says, “here, I’ll take you back there.”

“You don’t have to,” you say, though you begin to follow him as he heads to the dark doors. “I’m sure he’ll be out soon.”

“Eh, my break’s almost over anyway,” the nurse tells you. “I’m Jesse, by the way.”

You smile and tell him your name. He pushes open the doors and lets you step in before him. 

You immediately freeze at the amount of people inside. There’s people groaning, hunched over in pain, holding gauze to wounds. You lock eyes with a woman coughing furiously into a napkin, and you suddenly feel like you need to cover your mouth and nose to prevent catching something.

You break from the stare when Jesse puts a hand on your shoulder. 

“Welcome to paradise,” he tells you. More like hell, you think.

His hand falls off your shoulder and he begins to weave through the throngs of people. You shrink in on yourself at the stares that the people you pass give you. Jesse gives a wave to a nurse behind the counter and she gives you a short look before she presses the button to open the doors to the ER.

You follow Jesse as the warm waiting room turns into sterile white hallways and people standing around in thin gowns and stiff gurneys. You keep your arms crossed around yourself subconsciously as every person you pass turns to look over at you. You really shouldn’t have decided on wearing a dress.

The hallways clear to an open area surrounded by windowed doors with large numbers painted on them. There’s a circular desk in the middle where a few doctors and nurses stand by.

You look around for Dennis, but don’t see any sign of his curly brown mop.

“Hey, Dana,” Jesse calls out to an older blonde woman as you approach the circular desk.

As her eyes fall on you and Jesse, you immediately feel like you know exactly what kind of woman she is. She just looks like she knows how to get shit done.

“Who’s this?” she asks, gesturing to you. Her words are blunt, but her eyes seem kind. She gives you a once-over as if assessing for any injury.

“We’re looking for Dr. Whitaker,” Jesse tells her, “he apparently forgot he had a date scheduled before he decided to clock in overtime.”

You nervously shuffle on your feet as Dana’s eyes turn critical. They give you another cursory look over before she nods like she approved of her findings. Relief rushes over you, though you think it is silly given the fact you don’t actually know or care what the woman thought.

Dana puts half her body over the counter, a small smile pulling at her red lips. “You must be the one we’ve all heard so much about.”

You can feel yourself immediately get hot. Dennis spoke about you? To his colleagues, no less? You aren’t sure whether to feel flattered or worried. What if he’d told them all your embarrassing moments, like that time you got food stuck between your teeth at Chili’s?

“I hope only the good things,” you say with a small smile.

Dana lets out a laugh. “From the way he described you, I was expecting you to come in walking on rainbows or something.” 

The smile that pulls across your lips then feels shockingly genuine. You duck your head to hide it.

“I’ll go find him,” Dana says with a nod toward you. “Jesse, you might want to go check on the septic patient in Central 2? Then head home, please.”

Jesse gives a thumbs-up toward the nurse and gives you one last smile before he backs away toward the room.

Dana goes to leave her desk when a room behind you opens loudly and you follow her eyes to the commotion.

Almost immediately, your eyes lock onto Dennis. He hasn’t noticed you yet, talking quietly to an older doctor beside him. He looks pensive, all hard lines and furrowed brows. You wish at that moment that you could get into his head in order to figure out the issue he was trying to solve and help him, even though you knew more about law than you did medical jargon. 

You’ve never seen him in his element before. His dark scrubs highlight every detail in his body, and as his arm flexes to drag through his curly hair, your eyes catch on the muscles in his forearms that jump beneath his skin. 

His eyes move away from the man beside him and land on yours almost like he could feel your stare. They stop on your form and widen to a comically large size, his mouth dropping open slightly as they drag over your exposed skin.

You smile tightly and raise your hand to give him a little wave.

“Guess my work here’s done,” you hear Dana say from behind you. You shoot her an appreciative look before your eyes drag back to Dennis.

He’s gotten closer since you last looked at him. His wide doe eyes look between the two of yours as if asking a silent question. You get a whiff of his cologne and you unwittingly breathe it in in deep gulps.

“I was waiting outside,” you tell him sheepishly. His eyebrows furrow in a silent question. “We were going to go try that new Italian place, remember?”

“T-That was tonight?” Dennis grabs his phone from where he had it in his pocket and begins flipping through it. He stops once he finds something and he lets out a quiet expletive.

“I had it set for tomorrow in my calendar. How did I mess that up?” he shakes his head and closes his phone. He looks at you, and you swear you’re looking at a little puppy begging for scraps from the table. He reaches forward to grab your hand. “I-I’m so… sorry. H-How long did you wait? Are you cold?”

You let out a soft laugh. “I’m fine, Dennis.” You squeeze his hand and look around at the hospital. “Are you up for tonight? We can always reschedule. It looked pretty busy in the waiting room, I’d hate to be the reason someone doesn’t get seen.”

“I…” he begins to reply, eyes darting around the hospital behind you. “No— I mean you’re all dressed up. I can’t bail.”

You hate the relief that rushes over you in that moment. You feel like a wilted plant and Dennis’s attention is like the watering can, your only chance at quenching your thirst. It’s pathetic.

“Whitaker!” someone shouts from across the room. 

Your eyes dart to the noise. The older doctor from earlier is looking over at you two from where he stands next to Dana. He pulls off his glasses and points them at you two.

“Stop loitering and go buy this girl dinner!”

You bite your lip to suppress a smile.

“A-Are you sure, Dr. Robby—“

“Yes!” the man, Dr. Robby, says exasperatedly. “Now get out before something big shows up.”

Dennis’s lips quirk upwards at that remark as he turns to look back at you. He leans forward and plants a quick kiss to your cheek. You smile bashfully at the show of affection, eyes darting around to see if anyone noticed.

“Let me go get my stuff and change. You stay here, okay?” 

You nod and Dennis practically skips away. You feel like you’ve just run a marathon. A taste of the adrenaline of being inside a hospital. Is this the high he chased? 

You feel awkward standing in the middle of the hall, so you step back a few feet. You turn around and catch eyes with Dana at her desk. She smiles and waves you over.

You smile back and shuffle over to where she stands. Once you get close enough, she passes a folded piece of paper across the counter. 

You pick it up and unfold it to see a phone number written in bright blue ink. Your eyes dart up confusedly to the woman’s.

“In case you ever need anything, hon,” Dana says, her voice taking on a familiar tone. “I do it for all the women I come across. Just good to have people to talk to.”

You smile slightly, flustered by the gesture. You tuck the note into your bag. You aren’t sure if you will ever use it, but you suppose it is a nice gesture. 

“Who’s this?” you hear a voice from behind you say.

You spin around to see a pretty dark-haired woman standing there. Her sleek hair is pulled up into a tight knot on her head. Her equally dark eyes are narrowed as she takes you in. She’s wearing the same colored scrubs that Dennis was wearing and her badge confirms your suspicions—DOCTOR.

“This,” Dana says, “is Whitaker’s girlfriend.”

“…Not girlfriend,” you correct with an awkward smile, “we have been seeing each other for, like, three months. Haven’t made it official yet.”

“Sounds pretty official to me,” Dana says, sliding down her glasses to look at something on her tablet, “but what do I know? I’m old.”

As Dana gets distracted with work, you are left alone with the stoic doctor. She makes you nervous.

“So why’s a pretty girl like you hanging ‘round Huckleberry?” she says after a moment’s contemplation.

You go to swallow, but find your throat has suddenly gone dry. “You mean Dennis?” 

“Huckleberry,” the dark-haired doctor corrects you. 

“I haven’t ever seen you before,” she continues, unperturbed by your stunned silence, “but he talks about you plenty.”

“Do… you see him often?” you ask, your nails digging into the skin of your arms.

The doctor scoffs. “Only everyday,” she says. Then, her eyes draw up to meet yours, her eyebrows furrowed. “I mean, he hasn't told you?”

“Told me what?” your voice sounds weak.

The doctor goes to say something else, but she closes her mouth as her eyes get caught on something behind you. Right at that moment, a hand grasps your forearm. Your eyes look to the side and Dennis is there. He’s changed into different clothes and looks like he’s combed his hair a bit. You give a fond smile. 

Dennis looks nervous, though. His eyes dart between you and the other doctor like he’s watching a ping pong match.

“Santos,” Dennis greets, his voice thin. 

The brunette doctor, Santos, lets out a low whistle. “Huckleberry knows how to clean up! Who knew?”

Standing there, between them, you feel like a third wheel. 

“Don’t be condescending,” Dennis tells her. 

“What? I’m not lying.”

Dennis rolls his eyes and turns to you with a small smile pulling at his lips from the exchange. You look over at Santos who gives you a two-finger salute. You bite your lip.

“You ready to go?” he asks.

You nod. Dennis says goodbye to Santos and loops his arm through yours to lead you to the door. He waves to several other doctors and patients as he passes them, a permanent grin etched across his face. His hand eventually migrates to rest over your waist, gently tugging you through the waiting room to the outside of the hospital.

You feel like you can breathe again once you have breached the outside of the hospital. You step away from the shaded awning and into the golden light of the sunset. 

As you look over at Dennis, his eyes are already gazing back at you.

“You okay?” he says. “Been kind of quiet.”

You smile tensely. “I’m good. Hospitals just stress me out.”

And it was true. You were good. You liked knowing this side of Dennis. The side that helped people selflessly every day, that worked seriously and with unflinching dedication. But another part of you keeps straying back to what the doctor, Santos, implied. Of how pretty she was and their teasing dynamic.

You’ve only been seeing Dennis for a couple months. Neither of you have said anything about making it official. You don’t know anything about Santos, really. You have no claim to jealousy. And yet…

“If you’re sure,” Dennis says. 

“I’m sure,” you say tersely, “want to meet up at the restaurant?”

You go to turn to where your car was parked a little ways on the street when a hand grasps your arm. You turn back, confused.

“Uh, actually…” Dennis starts, a bashful hand going to rub the back of his neck, “would you mind… I, uh, rode in with a colleague this morning.”

With a colleague. You wonder if it is the same colleague that made you feel inferior just by existing in her presence. You think your smile must come across as more of a grimace, because Dennis goes to pull his arm away.

You feel guilty for not answering, so you grasp his hand in yours before he can fully retreat.

“Of course not,” you say, “I usually take the bus actually, because I like to save money on gas…”

“Smart,” Dennis says with a nod. “I had thought about getting a bus card but—“ his words abruptly fall short and you look back at him over your shoulder. You cock a brow, wondering why he stopped.

Dennis smiles sheepishly, his eyes searching for something in your expression. “Sorry. I… don’t know the first thing about buses. I know more about herding cattle than I do public transportation. Santos calls me a huckleberry for good reason.”

You stay silent at that last comment, opening your car door to unlock the trunk. Dennis slides his bag of things into it and you close it with a soft click. You go into the driver’s seat and Dennis slides into the passenger.

Your car starts with a purr of the motor, some part of your steamy audiobook starting up immediately at volume 20 and 1.5x speed. You immediately scramble into action, hands flying to turn the volume down before you remember to mute it. About half a page goes by in the chaos, and it just so happened to be in the middle of one of the copious amounts of love scenes.

“Sorry,” you apologise, unable to bring yourself to look at him. The narrator had just said something about wet lips. You can feel yourself cringe in on yourself like a grape left too long in the sun. You could see this moment replaying in your mind later in bed tonight.

“What was that?” Dennis says, an amused smirk on his lips. “Fifty Shades of Grey?”

You pat your hand against your cheek, trying to cool yourself down. “I’m sorry, it’s some… fairy smut book my book club’s reading.”

“Dang,” Dennis says and you can see him nodding in your peripheral, “I need to join a book club.”

“Please,” you beg, “I’m going to die if you keep talking about it.”

You and Dennis are waiting for your food to arrive later that night in the new Italian restaurant. It’s all ambient lighting and hushed conversations and elegant piano music in the far corner. It’s all really fancy and way above what you’re used to.

Most of you and Dennis’s dates thus far have been walks around the park, small mom and pop bakeries and that one time you went to see the latest Marvel movie neither of you liked. Nothing like this. It feels more intimate, somehow.

“Work any interesting cases today?” Dennis asks you as he wraps up the story of the emergency thoracotomy he’d done shortly before your arrival, you cringing behind your drink at the detailed descriptions of cracking ribs and clamping aortas.

“Nothing to that level,” you tell him, before you pause. “Actually, I had a funny thing happen today. This woman came in because she suspected her husband to be cheating on her. And she asked if we could sue for emotional damages. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, we’re a probate office, not an episode of Judge Judy.”

Dennis shakes his head, laughing. “Must have been watching too many crime dramas. It’s probably similar to when we get Dr.Google’s thinking they’ve self-diagnosed all their problems.”

You let out a short laugh at the description, feeling like it lines up well with your experience with some of the people who came in for legal advice. Almost once a week, like clockwork, you had someone coming in thinking they had all the answers.

The conversation lapses for a moment when the waiter delivers the food and you take your first bites.

“God,” you moan as your taste buds erupt in flavor. “It’s so fucking good.”

Dennis seems to be experiencing a similar epiphany. Eyes closed, licking his lips clear of residual sauce.

After you’ve tried the food sufficiently, Dennis’s eyes lock back onto yours.

“I’m sorry about Trinity,” he tells you, “I know she can be a lot.”

You frown. “Trinity?”

“Dr.Santos.”

“Oh,” you say, your eyes falling to your plate in an attempt to hide your dislike. “No, she was fine.”

“She can be a lot when you first meet her,” Dennis says, “but she grows on you.”

You nod, not really needing an explanation for the woman’s behavior. If you were lucky, you’d never have to see her again. If only Dennis would stop bringing her up and reminding you of your inadequacies.

A logical side of your brain says that Dennis wouldn’t keep bringing her up if he had something to hide. The side with green eyes and a clear pessimism says otherwise. That perhaps they were not together yet but Dennis was using you as a placeholder, or worse, a thing to make her jealous until he could get her instead.

You lean over to take a sip of your wine and put your fork down on your plate.

“You done?” Dennis asks, eyes wide.

“I’ll save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch,” you tell him with a bitter smile, “better than having to get up early to pack something.”

“I wish I could pack a lunch,” he tells you, “but I don’t really have time to eat it during the day.”

You shake your head. “That’s awful. I would not last without lunch.”

“It’s not so bad,” he says, “you mostly just forget you’re hungry because you’re doing so much.”

“Sounds abusive.”

“Are we ready for the check over here?” the waiter says as he approaches, an obnoxiously large smile on his face.

You look over at Dennis, who nods. 

“Yeah,” you reply, “we’ll split it, if that’s okay.”

“—actually,” Dennis interrupts, “just one. I’ll pay.”

“Are you sure?” you ask, surprised. You lean forward over the table, eyes wide. “I don’t mind paying my side…”

Dennis waves your concerns away with a flippant hand and the waiter nods as he goes to fetch it. You know that he is only a new doctor and that as a med student he got paid little to nothing for his work. You had paid for a lot for things; movie tickets, ice cream in the park, bus tickets. But nothing would equal up to the amount he was putting down tonight.

It made you nervous while equally flattered. 

The waiter brings the check and Dennis takes a cursory look over it, his face stoic. Then, he puts his card down and nods for it to be taken away.

“Was it a lot?”

Dennis nods, but when he sees your face drop, he quickly adds: “but it wasn’t outrageous.”

You begin to pack your food into the styrofoam containers they’d given you and Dennis does the same. You work in silence, you shooting him a glance between scoops of pasta, trying to figure him out.

Once his card is returned and the food is packed, you and him step outside of the restaurant. It is dark outside, the only light coming from amber street lamps and passing headlights of cars.

You clutch your food close to your chest as you turn to face him.

“Need a ride home?” you ask. You had never been to Dennis’s apartment. He’d been to yours once or twice, but you’d never really asked to visit his.

“Uh…” he says, “I can call an Uber.”

Your heart sinks at the blatant rejection. You flatten your lips and nod.

“Well, I had fun,” you tell him softly. 

“Yeah, me too,” he says with a genuine smile. For a moment, you think the rejection may have all been in your head. “Want to—“ he’s cut off by his phone as it rings a pleasant tune in his palm.

You can’t see the caller id before he answers it.

“Trinity?” he whisper-shouts into the receiver.

He tries to keep his voice low enough that you can’t hear it, but you do. You feel your blood run cold. It’s nearly 9:00pm, why is she calling? She knew you were on a date. She had to have.

You turn your back as tears unexpectedly well in your eyes. You feel like a fool. 

“Yeah, I can head over there,” he tells her and it feels like you've been shot.

You begin to step away, but you’re stopped by a hand grabbing your arm.

“Hey—give me a second, Trinity—“ he says, his eyes wide and questioning at you trying to leave. He looks even more startled by the tears in your eyes.

You slip your arm out of his, a rush of embarrassment clogging your senses, and you walk away.

You get into your car and put your food into the passenger seat and it starts with a quiet rumble. As you drive away, tears blur your vision, the streetlamps are long streaks of color and the road ahead is cloudy and disfigured. 

It’s silly, especially considering you had only known him for at most three months, but you can’t help it. The jealousy that overwhelms you in that moment is one of the worst emotions you’ve ever felt.

A few days later, you decide that it is probably best you don’t continue to see Dennis. 

You consult friends, your favorite shows, and a bowl of ice cream almost every night after the miserable date. You think they’re all telling you the same thing. That if he really liked you, then he wouldn’t be talking about another woman—or calling her.

There’s still a lingering fear, though. That perhaps you’ve completely misjudged the situation and that you’re overreacting. But there had to be a reason, right? Normal people didn’t try to hide friends of the opposite gender, didn’t look ashamed when talking about them, didn’t lead every conversation in their direction. It feels inane, hasty; but the question remains.

Did he really like you, or was he just using you?

He texted you almost non-stop, or what felt like non-stop. You haven’t looked at any past the first one where he asked if he did something wrong. You don’t have the heart to tell him. It feels like a bad dream that you just need to wake yourself up from with a bucket of ice water.

The realization comes into the fifth day of self-imposed isolation from Dennis, when you’re loading several boxes of files into your trunk.

There’s a black duffel bag in your car. And it feels like an ice pick just went through your chest. 

You think back to the night, of how Dennis had loaded his bag into your trunk before you two headed off. 

“Damnit,” you mutter.

Because as much as you wanted to ignore it, throw it on the side of the road and forget it like everything else to do with Dennis, you couldn’t. 

You groan as you grab the bag and hustle it back into the elevator of the parking garage to take it back to your apartment. You unlock your phone and finally open your text conversation with him.

It’s not much. The question about if he’d done anything… a day later, a question about going to some concert together… the next day, another question if he did something wrong and an apology. And most recently, a text asking for his bag to be returned. 

You drop the bag inside your apartment and pinch the bridge of your nose. 

You look back at your phone and type a response: Sorry, I have your bag, can you come by and get it sometime today?

You put your phone down beside you and let out a heavy sigh. 

It feels like mere seconds pass before you hear your phone buzz. You grab it quickly and unlock it.

Dennis<3: Yea, I’m in the area. Can I swing by now?

“Shit,” you say, but you aren’t sure why. He had to come to get it, why delay the inevitable?

Sure. You finally send back.

After it is sent, you jump up from the couch and hurriedly begin to clean your apartment up. Admittedly, in the past few days you’d become a bit of a slob. You don’t just clean up when people come over, but a huge motivator to stay on top of things was Dennis, so without that in your life things had kind of fell by the way side.

In the middle of picking up the last shirt off the ground, you hear a sharp rap against your door. You feel your heart pounding against your ribs as you throw the shirt into a hamper and go to the door.

You open it just wide enough to see outside and Dennis comes into full view. He’s wearing a loose shirt with some sports logo on it you don’t recognize (some team from Nebraska, most likely) and sweat pants. His hair is a mess, but in an endearing way. His doe eyes look so earnestly sad that you have to avert your own in order to stay calm.

You reach down and grab the bag by the door and hand it to him.

“Uh, thanks,” Dennis says, grabbing the bag.

You nod with a tight smile and go to close the door, but he sneaks his hand in to prevent it from closing.

“Wait—“ he says, eyes wide, “uh, can we talk?”

You want to say no. You should say no. You already feel like you could cry tears of shame just looking at him, much less actually talking to him. 

But for some inexplicable reason, you nod.

You pull open the door a bit to allow him to come in.

Dennis steps inside, but lingers by the door as he takes you in.

“H-Have you been okay?” he says, eyes sweeping across your ruffled loungewear and tired expression.

“Yep.”

“A-Are you sure?” Dennis continues, “I-I haven’t heard from you since our last date… I just wanted to know if I’d done something wrong?”

“I-I’ve been busy,” you say. You can’t meet his eyes and the words fall flat. You know immediately he isn’t buying it.

“Right…” Dennis says, “well, do you have anything planned this weekend? There’s going to be a fair in town on Saturday and I have the day off.”

“I don’t know,” you say curtly, “I’ll have to check my schedule. Maybe Trinity will go with you?”

Dennis frowns. “Trinity?” he looks close to laughing. He shakes his head. “I don’t think Trinity would hang out with me outside of work if she had a gun against her head.”

Your eyes dart up to meet his from where they’d been tracing the pattern of the flooring beneath you. You narrow your eyes, trying to understand what he’s saying.

Dennis steps forward, reaching to gently grasp your arm. “What’s going on? Seriously?”

“I talked to Dana,” you tell him, worrying your lip beneath your teeth, “I know you and Trinity ride to work together. I know that you guys are roommates. I know that you probably see her way more than me and I know she’s been friends with you for much longer and she’s so pretty—“

Your words cut off when Dennis captures your lips in a kiss. Your eyes flutter shut on instinct, a hand reaching up to grasp the back of his neck. His arm wraps around your waist as the chaste kiss gets deeper. Your chest flutters beneath your skin, a tremble in your hands.

He breaks the kiss, but doesn’t move far, a small laugh escaping his parted lips.

“Trinity and me,” he starts to say, another laugh escaping his lips at the thought, “we’re just friends. We are always going to be just friends.”

“But…” you say.

“Also, I’m pretty sure she’s a lesbian. She’s been having this other doctor, Garcia, over, like, every night,” Dennis tells you, which shuts you up immediately. “It’s funny, because I was worried she might flirt with you. She’s been talking about how pretty you are for, like, days.”

You let out a small laugh.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, unable to come up with much more in response.

“She took me in when she found out I didn’t have anywhere to live when I started interning,” he explains, “I’d been sleeping in an empty wing of the hospital…”

“Oh wow,” you say, eyes wide. “Did you get in trouble?”

“No,” Dennis says, “she helped me, gave me a place to stay. I just didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to think of me any differently. People always pity me once they find out. I didn’t want that from you.”

“I’m sorry,” you say again, “for assuming.”

He just shakes his head with a small smile. “I’m just glad we got this all straightened out. I’ve been, like, seriously stressing over it.”

“Me too.”

You pause for a moment, twirling a piece of his hair at the back of his neck around your finger. You remember something. “And the date? When she called?” you ask.

He frowns for a moment as he tries to remember. Then he nods. “Oh, Trinity saw a cockroach in the bathroom. She wanted me to come get it.”

“Because you’re her huckleberry,” you say with a teasing grin.

Dennis lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he says, “I’m pretty sure the only reason she keeps me around is for pest control.”

“That’s not true,” you say with a grin, “you’re plenty likable. If you were my roommate, I’d keep you around for a while. The pest control is just a plus.”

“Is that an invitation?” he asks, a flirtatious smile pulling at the edges of his lips.

“Dennis,” you say, smiling, “don’t you know you’re supposed to ask a girl out before being so indecent? I mean, we haven’t even made it official yet.”

“We haven’t?” Dennis says teasingly, “that’s embarrassing. I’ve been telling people we’ve been dating for weeks.”

You roll your eyes and let out a short laugh.

“Do you…?” he says, his eyes suddenly wide, “do you want to make it official?”

You bite your bottom lip to stop the grin from pulling at your lips. “Of course I do,” you reply immediately, “well, as long as you promise you don’t have any more surprises in store for me.”

“Can’t promise that,” Dennis says, bringing his hand up to cup your cheek. “I’m full of surprises.”

“I guess I can live with that.”

You punctuate the statement by leaning in to give him another kiss and as he leans into you with full abandon, you think perhaps there is a benefit to indulging the green-eyed beast every once in a while.

[anelimvix]

I cant

[mariposium]

✧ : AND ONE MORE MAKES SEVEN — maekar targaryen

summary — after missing your bleed several moons in a row, logically you know what the most likely reason behind it is. however, with one of your step-children in exile, another an alcoholic, and the sixth off touring the realm with a hedge knight, you do not expect your husband to want another child to worry about. (4.7k)

featured — prince maekar targaryen / fem!reader, dyanna dayne (mentioned), aerion targaryen (mentioned), aegon “egg” targaryen (mentioned), daeron targaryen (mentioned), baelor targaryen (mentioned)

content — post-events of akotsk: spoiler warning, angst and fluff, hurt/comfort, you are in denial, pregnancy, descriptions of pregnancy symptoms (morning sickness, irritability, fainting, baby bump), disordered eating (you skip several meals due to nausea), dead baelor (again ☹), maekar’s dad spidey sense, loving!maekar, protective!maekar

(cross-posted on ao3)

Your bleed does not start when it is supposed to. It is four moons late now. 

You know the most common reason that ladies may miss their bleeds, you are not as innocent a maiden as one may believe, but you refuse to take it at face value. Most of the time, when you and your husband had… sex, he did not spill inside you. He would grunt, and with the composure that only a man in his middle years could possess, would turn and spill onto the sheets or your stomach. And if you know anything about pregnancy, you know that two things are required to make a baby: a man’s seed and a fertile womb.

So you turn to other possibilities.

One of your ladies-in-waiting once told you that stress can make a lady miss her bleeds, but she had ended up with a bastard child of a visiting lord in her womb so you did not know how compelling her testimony was in all actuality. 

You could ask a maester, though you think you would rather die than do that. You could consult your mother, but letters moved so slowly that the issue could be completely solved by the time her response returns to you in the Red Keep. The only other confidant you have is Prince Maekar. But something inside you shrivels up and dies at the notion of coming to your husband about such a frivolous thing.

So you stay quiet. 

You go about your normal routines like nothing is wrong. Because nothing is wrong, you remind yourself sternly. The human body is a mystery even to the most studious maesters, who were you to try and make this one symptom seem bigger than it is?

None of your principal duties as the lady wife to Prince Maekar could be put off while you tried to abate some of your stress–still your only explanation to your issue–but you could take measures to relieve it.

That morning you take a stroll around the gardens. At the height of summer, everything is in bloom. Orange and pink hibiscus, red lilies, and sweet snapdragon. You watch as butterflies flit among the flowers, pausing only shortly to take sips with their curled proboscises, and as small songbirds watch you sheltered in the tall shrubbery.

You come across a bubbling marble fountain at the end of your path and take a seat at one of the benches surrounding it. 

As you sit there, taking in the vivid display of flowers and wildlife, you notice two birds as they land on the edge of the fountain. One has bright, fluorescent coloring, while the other is drab and tawny, specked with dots. The tawny one turns to the bright one beside it and opens its beak wide, loud chirps escaping from their mouth.

You recognize the begging bird to be a juvenile. The colorful one is likely a parent. The colorful one does not give into its offspring’s incessant begging. It does the opposite—it turns and delivers a sharp peck to its backside. The young bird clumsily takes to the air away from the other. The colorful one bends to take a sip of the fountain, its responsibilities to its young now avoided for the time being.

You do not realize how tightly you are holding onto the fabric of your gown until the other bird leaves too and you can at once release the sigh kept pent in your chest. 

You realize then, that despite your best attempts, stress is unavoidable. Like those hounds that are taken on royal hunts, it has your scent and can seek you out from wherever you are. Your mind drifts as you feel anxiety take root. 

Your husband, Prince Maekar, was no stranger to being a father. He’d had six of them with his previous wife. Only one of them remained in the castle, the rest strung across Westeros in varying attempts at removing themselves from the Red Keep they had been raised in. Maekar did not speak often about his children, only in passing. Most of what you knew about them came from other sources.

You know your husband is done with children. You can see it in his eyes every time he catches wind of Aerion’s exploits in the Free Cities or his youngest’s adventures with the hedge knight. The stress of preoccupation with his children is slowly eating him alive.

The very last thing you need is to provide him another bundle of worry.

Your thoughts are so encompassing and worrisome that you do not hear the knights coming up behind you until one stands right beside you.

You look up at the kingsguard only as he blocks the sun, casting a shadow over your vision and disrupting your thoughts. 

“Mi’lady,” he says, “I hope I am not disturbing you.”

“You are fine,” you reply. “What is the matter?”

“Your lord husband requests your presence in his solar,” the kingsguard replies. 

You frown as you stand. It is not often your husband sends for you during the day. Ever since his brother passed during the tourney at Ashford, many responsibilities had been put onto him. Worrying about his wife’s whereabouts were not high on his to-do’s. 

You follow the kingsguard out of the garden and through the castle to where your husband’s solar is. The castle is alive with noise and activity, and many people pass you, bowing their heads in your direction as a show of respect. Despite having been married to Maekar for several moons already, your position and authority still have not fully sunk in. It makes you nervous to realize how many eyes looked to you for security.

The kingsguard leads you to your husband’s solar, but does not go inside. You nervously pull at the skin of your fingers, looking back and forth between them and the door blocking the entrance to his quarters, before you take a deep breath and push it open.

Your husband’s desk sits in the far southernmost corner of the room, a beautiful mahogany that melds well with the black and red curtains and gilded armoire. A stack of parchment covers the entirety of Maekar’s desk, so densely you cannot fully make out the wood beneath it. Your husband’s in the midst of those papers, his near-white eyebrows furrowed in tense contemplation at whatever it is he reads. 

The heavy door behind you shuts with a resonating noise that makes your husband’s eyes finally leave what he was looking at to focus on you. 

You are always quite struck at the beauty of your husband’s eyes. The violet tinged irises narrow in on your shrunken form by the door, a cartwheel of nerves erupting in your stomach. You step forward, deeper into the room, and your husband’s eyes drag from your feet to your face in one fell swoop.

“I did not see you breaking your fast this morrow,” your husband’s voice is deep–the tenor reverberates through your skull and ricochets off your spine.

You feel a burning prick as a piece of skin near your nail pulls away. 

“I was not hungry,” you reply softly. The truth was more nuanced than that. Most of everything recently made you sick to look at, much less to eat. Another thing you attributed to stress. 

“Hm.” your husband says in lieu of a proper reply. 

You think you might be getting off scotch-free, until his ringed hand flexes and he pushes himself to stand. He strides over in front of his desk, pushing his legs back until he leans halfway on top of his papers. The light coming in from behind him puts a silver ring around his form, whilst bathing the rest of him in dense shadow.

“And the morrow before that?” he says.

You had not realized he’d noticed that. Last you’d heard, he was busy that morrow, breaking his fast away from company. You swallow thickly and nod, but find that your voice has all but left you in the moment.

“Is the food not to your liking?” he asks. His voice sounds sincere, but his face has not moved from its impassive stoicism since you arrived.

“It is just fine.”

“Then why have you not shown?”

“I did not know I had to attend every meal.”

“You don’t.”

“Then why is there a problem?” you say, eyebrows furrowed. “Is this truly why you called after me, to ask about my eating habits?” 

The flash of anger that you feel at the conversation with your husband is shocking. So shocking that it immediately flies away with the rest of your statement. Seven Hells, you truly were losing it.

“Fuck me,” Maekor curses, shaking his head. He does not even look mad at your statement, just concerned. “I didn’t mean to start an argument.”

You heave a sigh at the sincerity inflected in your husband’s voice. You feel a rush of shame at your anger, at the strong emotion that now seemed entirely unprovoked. “I apologise,” you tell him, “I have just been… stressed lately.”

“I can tell,” your husband says, eyes glancing over your form. He steps closer, reaching out to take your hand within his. He strokes your knuckles with a thumb calloused from decades of brandishing a sword.

“I suppose some of it must be from me,” he continues, his hand dragging softly over the cuts around your fingernails, “I have not been as present lately.”

You duck your head. Your husband steps closer and tilts your chin up with a single finger. His hand trails up to your cheek, cupping it within his palm. His rings feel cold against your warm skin.

“I have missed you,” you say, pushing your bottom lip out for extra effect, “terribly.”

A piece of his white hair comes apart from the others, falling into his line of sight. A small smile curls at his lips, sending butterflies swarming in your belly.

“Now that just won’t do, will it?” his voice is hardly more than a whisper. 

He leans forward until your lips are but a breath apart. When you do not push away, he closes the distance to seal them together.

Your head rushes at the exhilaration of having your husband’s affection all to yourself again. His hand slides from your cheek to cup your neck and a flurry of goose flesh prickles from underneath it. His other hand comes around to hold your waist, keeping your body pressed tightly to his. Maekar’s beard is slightly scratchy against your skin, but you do not mind it. 

You drag your hand from up his arms to his hair, dragging through the straight white tendrils with little resistance. You let out a soft moan when he deepens the kiss by pulling you impossibly close to his body. He is practically laid across his desk at this point, you leaned on top of him.

As the kiss progresses, you begin to feel the familiar light-headedness you sometimes felt when kissing your husband for an extended period of time. It often feels akin to the light-headedness felt when doing something particularly frightening or new—a thrill of danger. This time, it feels like you are going to be sick.

You pull away with a quick gasp, clutching at your forehead. You stumble to the side and your husband is quick to break from his trance to clutch your elbow in an attempt to stabilize you. You realize with a clarity that you might lose consciousness, your faintness is so bad.

“Are you okay, my love?” Maekar’s voice sounds like it is underwater. “Do I need to…”

“Seven hells,” you mutter as your vision begins to clear at last. 

Your stomach feels as tumultuous as when you accidentally ate too many lemon cakes before dinner as a child. 

Maekar grabs you around the waist and guides you to his chair. The instant rush of relief you feel at being off your feet is tremendous.

You are still panting when your husband’s voice finally breaks through the fog.

“—Get the maester,” he’s telling someone outside. “What?! For my wife, you fucking fool!”

“Maekar,” you call out. Your husband rushes back from where he was by the door, his eyes wide.

“I’m fine,” you tell him, “I just got light-headed. Probably because I haven’t eaten much today.”

“Because you haven’t…” Maekar trails off incredulously. “I’m sorry, when is the last time you have eaten?”

Your throat bobs as you try to remember. “I had… a bit of bread and roasted duck at dinner yesterday.” Roasted duck that you could only take two bites of before it tried to expel itself from your body.

Your husband is pinching his nose bridge between his fingers, taking deep breaths through his mouth. “By the Gods,” he mumbles, “you are going to be the death of me.”

The solar’s doors burst open at that exact moment. The old, grey haired maester stands there. Two of his apprentices follow after him, their eyes as wide as saucers. The poor old maester looks as if he’d run (or speed-walked, knowing his age) all the way here.

“What is the matter?” the man says as he comes to your side. “The guard said something about the princess falling ill?”

“I’ll save you some time,” Maekar says, “my wife has not eaten a proper meal in days. Could someone please get her a hearty plate of chicken, greens, and a slice of lemon cake.”

The maesters stare like they have seen a ghost. 

The head maester steps forward, a furrow forming between his brows. “You want us… to fetch a plate from the kitchens… for your wife?”

“Are you exceedingly simple?” Maekar says, his voice verging on a growl. You grab his hand and his face softens. You cock a brow toward the maesters and your husband lets out a sigh. “Could you… grab a handmaiden on your way out then. Stress the importance of it being delivered timely.”

The maesters nod and begin to leave.

“A berry tart, instead, please,” you call out before they can breach the door. Lemon cake, despite being one of your favorites, is not something you felt like eating at the moment. 

The doors shut behind them with a dull click. Maekar drags a hand down his face, pacing back to his desk. Silence settles in the room like a choking fog. 

You realize in that moment you have been the cause of the one thing you sought to avoid in your husband. The stress. 

“I apologise,” you tell him, your voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I did not realize… I did not intend for this to happen.”

His eyes are not angry when they look upon yours. Just worried. “It is not your fault, my love,” he says. “I just need you to take care of yourself. Lately, it has been difficult enough taking care of myself and the castle and the affairs with my sons.”

He does not say it, but you think you know what he truly means. Do not burden me like everyone else in my life. Do not become another chore for me to handle.

You swallow thickly and avert your eyes to your lap. Gods, you need your bleed to come swiftly.

By the time evening comes and still without a bleed to show for it, you are thoroughly exhausted. Between the stress of the morrow to the chores of the day, you just need to relax.

Once you make it to your quarters, you have the maidens draw you a warm bath. You swiftly undress with their help and sink blissfully beneath the surface. You close your eyes and recline back in the tub as the warm water holds you close like the embrace of a lover.

“How has your day been, princess?” one of your handmaidens asks. She holds a small sponge which she drags over your exposed skin.

“Horrible,” you reply. You crack open one of your eyes and a small smile pulls at your lips. “I just jest. It has been just as stressful as the days prior.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, mi’lady,” the handmaiden replies. “Perhaps… perhaps you may find more time to rest during the day. I have heard stress is not good for developing babes.”

Your entire body freezes. Suddenly, everything around you just feels wrong. The scrubbing on your back, the lukewarm water at your sides. You clench your fists and your eyes snap open.

“Why…” you start to say, then clear your throat, “do you think I look to be expecting?”

The handmaiden, a young girl no older than eight and ten, looks just as horrified as you did. Her sponge freezes from where it sits on your skin. 

“I-I-I beg for forgiveness, mi’lady,” she stutters out, “it’s just, I had heard…”

“And what have you heard, girl?” you say, voice sharp. You are not angry at the girl, not truly, but you think it might be easier to get truthful answers from her if she is a little scared.

“Some of the serving girls noticed you have not been eating,” she forces out, “and a few others have cleaned your chamber pot of vomit… the girls have not noticed blood on your sheets this moon… oh, I’m so desperately sorry, mi’lady, please forgive me for my… impudent mouth.”

Your eyes drop from her face to the water in front of you. To have it all laid out like that paints a horrifying picture. To find out that even the servants knew what you refused to admit. It begs the question, who else suspected? 

The water ripples as you sit forward. “I am not with child,” you tell her sternly, though your voice comes off weak and unimpressive even to your own ears. “I am just stressed.”

“Of course, mi’lady, just stressed,” the handmaiden agrees enthusiastically. 

Your lips tug downward as the girl goes back to scrubbing your back. Underneath the water, you pull at the skin of your nails.

You hear the doors to your chambers open from behind you. The attached room for your bath goes quiet as you turn your head to take in the footfalls. You recognize them immediately.

You look over at the confused handmaiden.

“You are excused.” you tell her. 

The girl does not need any encouragement other than that, especially after nearly saying enough to have herself removed from her station. She scurries away and shortly thereafter you hear the sound of heavier footfalls coming up behind you.

You do not have to turn your head to know it is your husband. 

“Should I be concerned with that girl’s expression that I passed?”

“It depends,” you say with a grin curling at your lips. “Do you think she looked sufficiently traumatized?”

Your husband lets out a short laugh as he draws closer to where you sit lounged back in the bath. 

“And what…” he starts to say as he bends the knee to lean over the edge of your bath, “did that little mouse do to offend you?”

“She…” you swallow thickly, recalling the accusations from moments before, “she just did not realize her place.”

Maekar sighs. “And I suppose that is as specific a response as I will receive.”

“You are right about that.”

“Did you eat?” your husband picks up the sponge from where the girl had left it floating in the water and he begins to gently scrub your back. Unlike when the girl was doing it, the touches come across more like a caress rather than a task that needed to be completed. 

“Yes of course, my love,” you reply. “I will not be making that same mistake again.”

“I just want you to be healthy,” Maekar’s statement underlies a particular level of vulnerability that you are not used to hearing from him. You turn your head to look at your husband, eyes flickering between each of his.

“I know,” you say. You lift your hand from the water to lay upon his at the edge of the bath. “And I thank you for your concern.”

“If you want the truth,” you continue, “I have felt a bit nauseous lately. It is due to the stress.” You are quick to add that last part so your husband does not draw any conclusions of his own.

Maekar pauses in his movements. “Nausea without any apparent cause seems like it should be seen by a maester.”

“It is not without cause,” your voice is thin as you say this, bordering on the anger you felt earlier, “it is because I am stressed.”

“I still think you should see him.”

“This is why,” you say, a flare of frustration propelling your words, “I did not want to tell you. I do not need a maester.”

He lets out a sigh and stands, turning his back to you. He has one hand on his hip and the other drags through his hair. Your fingers twitch with the impulse to lessen his worries, but you restrain yourself.

He turns his head only slightly in your direction. “I have heard from some of my informants that Daeron has become inexplicably tied to the bottle and the Street of Silk. I received word from Aerion, finally, although it was a bit like reading the ravings of a mad man. And no one has seen Aegon or his fool knight in weeks. My other three want nothing to do with me or the Red Keep, therefore I can only seek to imagine their difficulties.” he pauses. “So I apologise if I worry too much. I only wish to know that at least one of the people I swear protection over is safe.”

Your eyes fall to the water that has long gone cold around you. Guilt crawls up your throat like a vine up a tree.

You push yourself to stand and the water falls down your skin in rivulets. The burst of cold air that assaults your skin should be criminal. You wrap your arms around your chest as you shuffle to find something to dry off with.

While you are distracted, you do not notice your husband’s eyes on your form. When you finally look up, you are surprised to see him staring. This stare in particular, you fear, may haunt you. 

His mouth is slightly ajar. His skin is a deadly pallor. And his violet eyes are locked onto… your stomach.

You look down at yourself self-consciousnessly. What? What is it he is so taken by? 

You lift your hand to smooth over the skin of your abdomen and you feel it at once. Your once-plush belly is now hard, and the curve of it feels slightly different from how it used to under your hand. Your movements freeze, pulse thundering in your ears.

You grab the night gown you had been looking for in one quick movement and pull it around your body as if to hide away and never be seen again.

You can hear your husband’s footsteps close behind you as you stride away into your chambers. Night has fallen quickly and the only light is from two scarce candles on your bedside tables.

The tears come before you can fully stop them. Sharp, panicky breaths from parted lips.

Your husband grabs your shoulder, gently, and you allow him to pull you into his chest. His head comes to rest upon the top of yours like it belongs there, one hand rubbing your back. 

You are not sure how long you stand there crying. You think that if you stop it will all be over. That your lovely life with Maekar will be shattered into pieces that cannot be rebuilt.

Eventually, the tears abate. Maekar continues to stroke your back patiently, gently. You do not deserve such a husband, you think, for all the trouble you have caused him.

“I’m sorry,” you blubber into his chest.

“What for?” his chest rumbles as he speaks. “As I stand, I see no wrongdoing.”

Your eyes feel severely depleted of any and all moisture as you draw them up to look at him. You think you must look a mess, but your husband simply pulls you closer and plants a kiss to your cheek and says “there’s my love” with a sickeningly sweet tone that makes your chest flutter.

“I… have caused you too much worry,” you finally decide to say. “You have so many responsibilities, between the castle, picking up your brother’s duties, taking care of your children strewn all across the Seven Kingdoms. I do not seek to add to that.”

“Last I checked,” Maekar says, a small smile pulling at his lips, “it takes two to make a babe. And two to bear the weight of all that entails.”

“So you think it is so,” you say, your voice sober and raw, “you think I am with child?”

Your husband’s eyes look all over your face, as if he’s trying to fully decipher your preoccupation. 

“Don’t you?” he says, “if you are not, then it is quite the contradictory set of symptoms.”

You swallow thickly. 

Maekar leads you two to the velvet chaise in your bedroom. You sit, but stay close to your husband, one hand wrapped around his arm for stability.

“My previous Lady Wife. Lady Dyanna,” your husband begins to say, “she loved cinnamon bread. She could eat it day and night, with any type of meal or no meal at all. I knew when she was with child each time because she would suddenly refuse to eat it at all. And then every word I’d say to her, I was never fully sure what emotion I could be expecting or the severity of it.”

“That does sound like me at the moment,” you say with a short laugh. 

“Dyanna did not like being pregnant, but she loved her children fiercely. So much so, she always forgot how much she hated being pregnant after she had the previous one.”

“And what of you?” your voice comes out soft then. It does not sound familiar to your ears. When your husband turns to look at you with a question in his gaze, you clarify. “Did you like being a father?”

Maekar frowns for a moment as he considers the question.

“I did not hate it in the moment,” he says, “but I have many regrets now.”

You grab his hand and squeeze it gently. Your husband looks at you with dewy eyes he quickly blinks clear. The silence hangs heavy as his words settle like a blanket over you. The vulnerability in his expression sparks a twin feeling in your chest.

“I worry I will not be a good mother,” you whisper into the stale air, “that I will not do it right.”

Your husband lets out a short laugh. “There is no right. There is only what we can do with the skills given to us.”

Maekar strokes the back of your hand with his thumb. “I understand if you feel you are not ready,” he tells you softly. “But… in my opinion, it is worth a try.”

Images flash through your brain of long nights without a lick of sleep. Of kisses planted on chubby, grinning cheeks. Of a child wrestling with rules and expectations and responsibilities. Of laughter that soaks into tears that soaks into anger.

As you think of that future, you look between his two eyes, those doe-shaped violet-blue orbs, and you are shocked at the relief that rushes through your veins at his statement.

“I want to be a good father,” Maekar says, “if not for the others, than for this one.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “You are not a bad father, Maekar,” you tell him, “just bad circumstances.” And you truly believe it as you say it. 

Maekar nods, although it seems his mind has drifted elsewhere. 

He is snapped back to the present when you speak again. “I do want to have this babe,” you tell him, “I want to have it with you.”

Your husband leans forward to capture your lips within his own. You draw your hand up to cup his cheek, tracing the scars on his cheeks with a gentle thumb. 

When you pull away for air, Maekar makes a point of staring directly in your eyes.

“I love you,” he tells you. He reaches forward to splay a hand on the thin fabric covering your stomach.

You smile, still stroking his cheek. “And I you.”

[mariposium]

❀ : ELEVATOR CONFESSIONAL — jack abbot

summary — getting stuck in the elevator with the one doctor on the emergency floor you were hoping to avoid at all costs was not on your bucket list for your shift. neither was having to face the feelings you both had buried for each other. (3.6k)

featured — dr. jack abbot / fem!trauma physician!reader, nurse dana, dr. robinavitch (mentioned), yolanda garcia (mentioned), trinity santos (mentioned)

content — no spoilers for s2, angst and fluff, implied age-gap but no specific ages, reader has phobias of elevators and falling, based on when i got stuck in an elevator once but we won't talk about that, they used to date and still have feelings for each other, hurt/comfort, anxiety, light medical/injury descriptions, mentioned patient death

a/n: do i think an elevator in a hospital would stop working due to a power outage? probably not. is this a fanfic and therefore not real life? yes.

(cross-posted on ao3)

The rain’s been coming down for hours. You can hear it pelting against the roof even several floors removed from it. Every once in a while, a crack of thunder will make you pause in your hurried steps across the OR floor and flinch.

Rainy days like these make for bad accidents. You'd only just made it into work, coming in early to cover the last hour of one of the night surgeons along with your usual workload. What you really want to do on a day like this? Curl up in bed with a good book and a hot beverage.

Instead, your pager’s buzzing incessantly in your pocket asking for a consult. You look around the room at the rest of the surgery team with furrowed brows. Two of the interns are laughing at something at the desks. You gather that their pager isn’t buzzing, and neither is Garcia’s, from the serious look on her face as she passes you. It isn't often you’re paged alone. Garcia is often the first one to jump on the opportunity to see a new patient (and Santos), sometimes before anyone else gets the chance to process it.

You sigh heavily as you head over to the elevator. Looking down quickly at your watch, you worry your lip between your teeth at the crack-ass of dawn hour flashing back at you. Dr. Abbot’s probably still on the floor, you think. Just what you needed this morning — to run into him. You press the floor number and close your eyes and count to ten as the elevator jolts and you feel a sense of weightlessness as it goes down.

You wait with baited breath for the ‘ding’ and let out a heavy, relieved sigh once it does, quickly crossing the threshold to the already incredibly busy ER.

Your eyes search for the charge nurse, Dana, and smile when you find her already looking your way. She must have just come in, her raincoat’s still on and her hair isn’t up in its signature claw clip yet. She gives you a small wave and you quickly hurry over to her side.

“Now don’t hate me,” she says and your smile quickly morphs into a confused frown. “But it’s about Jack.”

“Goodbye, Dana.” You turn to leave.

“Wait,” she calls out, quickly following behind you. She reaches out and gently grabs your arm. You spin around to look at her and she releases her hold. “He needs someone. Please. It’s… been a bad night.”

You pinch your nose bridge between your fingers. “Why… can’t someone else talk to him? Someone, preferably, who hasn’t had sex with him?”

“Robby’s with a trauma in room one,” Dana says, disregarding that last sentence coolly, “Dr. Shen and Dr. Ellis are already catching up on sleep… and we’re already stretched thin as it is.”

“And I’m not?” you say, exasperated.

Her eyes stare back at you like the eyes of those shivering dogs in the ASPCA commercials. You can hear Sarah McGlauclin’s singing from here.

“Fine,” you say with a groan. When Dana immediately grins, you give her a stare that quickly puts an end to it. “He’s on the roof, I assume?”

Dana nods and you turn to leave.

“Thank you!” she calls as you hit the elevator button.

As the doors slide open with a pleasant ‘ding!’, you shout back to her, “if I get pushed off the roof, I’m holding you personally responsible!”

The doors slide shut before she can respond. The elevator begins to glide upward, past several floors, and you pinch the skin of your arms between your fingers. 

The elevator doors reach their destination and slide open. You quickly turn off of pediatrics before you can start to hear the wails of tiny humans and into the stairwell leading to the roof.

You stop right before opening the door. You stare out the slender window at his broad back and your heart skips a beat. Rain pours through his scrubs, drenching his grey hair to the scalp. Was he insane? Standing in the rain on top of a building? 

You open the door and cautiously step forward across the roof. The rain isn't a cute sprinkle, it's a near-torrential downpour.

“Are you cosplaying Batman?” you call out once you realize your footfalls are not being heard over the rainfall and rumbling thunder.

What were the chances of being struck by lightning on top of a building? Had to be somewhat high, right?

Jack slowly angles his head toward you. The lights from below make his skin glow a deep amber that highlights his strong cheekbones and parted lips. His eyelashes are dripping in wetness and you trace one drop in particular as it slides from his hair down his cheek to his neck before it disappears from view. He looks away from you again. You bite your lip and take a few steps forward until you are just a few feet away from him.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, not turning back around. “Dana send you?”

“I heard you had a rough night,” you tell him in lieu of a reply, “want to talk about it? Inside, preferably?”

He looks over at you finally. “If I wanted to talk about it,” he says, his light eyes roving over your face, “I probably wouldn’t be on the roof.” He averts his eyes back down at the twinkling lights of the buildings below and you feel a sympathetic pang in your chest. 

You shake off the feeling and let out a heaving sigh. “C’mon, Jack, it’s freezing out here.”

He doesn’t budge.

“Well,” you say, raising your leg over the rail and lifting your hips so the rest of your body can follow suit, “if you aren’t leaving, then I’m not either.”

Even if you are freezing your ass off, and soaking wet, and tired, and slightly panicking at the thought of falling to your death–it’s about making a statement, not about your discomfort.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he tells you. You just shrug. “Really?” he says, his voice gritty and annoyed, “you’re going to be this immature?”

At that word–that stupid, 3 syllable word–you freeze. Your blood runs cold, somehow colder than it was a few seconds ago. 

“Wow,” you scoff. He looks over at you as if only just then sensing the weight of his words. You pinch the skin of your arms with your fingers and turn your back from him, going back over the rail. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Jack follows you in one swift movement, lifting his body over the rail. He goes to grab your arm in a similar move to Dana’s from earlier, but your skin is slick from rain and his hand just slides right off. “I’m sorry,” he says, following you as you head to the door, “I didn’t realize what I was saying, it just slipped out.”

You let out a quivering sigh. It isn’t anything new. Not a jab you should be exactly surprised by. It still hurts just as the first time he’d said it in your last argument as a couple. Your hand falls from the doorknob. “Jack… I was just trying to help,” you tell him. “I’m sorry, genuinely sorry, that you’ve had such a bad night. I won’t bother you any more.” 

You push open the door and slip inside, half-expecting him to go back to his sulking when an arm weaves through the crack and stops the door short. You take careful steps down the linoleum stairs as puddles form beneath your shoes (because the very last thing you need in this moment is to bust your head open) and you can hear Jack’s slightly heavier footfalls right behind yours. 

“You’re right,” he says to you, “I’ve had a bad night. But all nights are bad nights here. I shouldn’t have said that, especially when it isn’t true.”

You look over your shoulder at him as you reach the end of the stairwell. You have half the mind to ask where the confrontational Dr. Jack Abbot had gone, but then you bite your tongue and force yourself to look away.

You exit the stairwell, shooting an apologetic smile to a passing cleaning lady who gives a scornful look to the water you’re tracking in, and press the elevator button. Jack stands right next to you. You notice him cross his arms and your eyes narrow in on the muscles that flex beneath his dark scrubs. 

You remind yourself of what he said just a few moments before and the feelings you’re mulling in disappear. 

The elevator doors let out a ‘ding’ and slide open. Jack steps forward to put his arm over the sensor to prevent it from closing. You roll your eyes at the unnecessarily chivalrous behavior and step inside. He follows right after and you watch the doors slide close with your heart pounding in your ears.

You close your eyes. “Hit my button, too, please,” you tell him.

You don’t have to be looking at him to know he’s watching you. You can feel his gaze from across any room, no matter how busy or how strained the relationship is, because that’s just how he is. How you are, together.

“Still afraid of elevators?” he asks quietly. It isn’t asked in a joking or insulting manner, but the hairs on the back of your neck still prickle with unease.

“It’s called cleithrophobia,” you reply, “it’s the fear of being trapped.” The elevator begins to move and you can feel the weightless feeling overtaking you again.

You begin to count, but you don’t even reach number 2 before the elevator jolts and your eyes shoot open because suddenly the entire metal death trap is swathed in darkness except for a tiny battery-powered safety light at the top of the buttons. 

“Oh god,” you gasp out.

You are immediately hit with an overwhelming nausea. You reach forward to press the call button but nothing happens. You continue to press it in vain.

“Why isn’t it working?” you say, your breaths sharp and panicked in your own ears, “why wouldn’t it work? Isn’t it always supposed to work?”

“The power must have gone out,” Jack says, “shit, I bet it is chaos outside.”

“Doesn’t every hospital have back-up generators?!” you shout desperately.

“Yeah,” he replies, “and I bet the power’s already back on, but sometimes the elevators have to be manually restarted even when they get power again.”

You look over at him with wide eyes. He’s typing something in his pager. 

“What are you doing?” you ask, panicked, “shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“I’m alerting everyone on the outside,” he replies. “The more the better. Luckily, unlike our phones, pagers don’t need cell service, so it should go through,” he looks up at you and stares at your frazzled face and sopping wet scrubs and gestures to the floor. “Why don’t you sit down?”

You follow his instructions without argument, because your head felt light and you could swear the entire elevator was swaying even though Jack seemed fine standing on his two feet. You place your hands on your wrist and count your pulse to calm down. 

You stop when you hear Jack’s pager beep. 

“Robby said technicians are on the way. 10 minutes out.”

You let out a huge sigh of relief and watch Jack sit down on the floor across from you criss-cross applesauce. You pull your knees to your chest and close your eyes.

It’s silent for a few seconds before a burst of laughter escapes from your lips. Jack’s eyes shoot open from where you assumed he’d been meditating, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Sorry,” you say between giggles, “just… the irony. The worst possible situation that could happen with…” you trail off, not realizing where your sentence could be leading.

“With the worst person it could happen with?” Jack surmises.

You frown. “You know that’s not what I was going to say,” you tell him. He doesn’t immediately reply. “Right?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” he says, “I mean, our situation”--as he says this, he gestures between the two of you with his hand–”is not exactly… ideal.”

“Jack,” you say quietly, “you’re, like, the only person I’d want here. Anyone else would probably be just as panicked as me. I think you’re the only reason I’m not having a complete mental breakdown.”

You pause, looking over at your ex-boyfriend with saddened eyes. “But yeah it would have been nice not to tip-toe around our… history.”

Jack cocks a very pointed brow. “Our history,” he grins, “is that what we’re calling it now?”

You roll your eyes and an affectionate smile pulls at your lips. 

He begins to tap his foot against the floor like a nervous tic. You watch him silently, eyebrows furrowed.

“How…” you pause when his eyes dart to yours, “how bad was it?”

“My shift or our relationship?”

You ponder the question for a moment, biting your lip. Which did you mean? “Both.”

He stares at you for a moment, seemingly deciding how he wanted to reply. 

“The shift was as bad as it always is,” he says quietly, “just… a young woman came in at 2 or 3a.m. She was complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. She’d apparently been coughing for weeks. I immediately thought it was something viral, Covid or the Flu maybe?” He ducks his head, eyes tracing the lines in the tile of the elevator floor. “It was massive heart failure. She got asystole within seconds and we couldn’t revive her.”

He lets out a heavy sigh. “It’s awful, what happened to her, but I… I couldn’t stop thinking”—his eyes meet yours then with frightening intensity—“about you. I mean, she was your age, looked like you. That… if something like that happened to you? I’d be broken.”

You swallow thickly, staring at the puddle forming underneath your legs..

“The reason we broke up,” Jack says softly, “the truth is, it was never about you being too young for me or too immature or me not being ready for commitment.”

“It was me being too afraid of losing you,” he whispers, “I realize that now.”

“Jack…”

“I know, I know,” he says with a sigh, “we’ve been broken up for two months. You’ve probably long since moved on, I just… had to get that off my chest.”

You nod. You can feel yourself about to say something you’d probably live to regret.

“The reason I switched to the day shift two weeks ago,” you start, “do you know why that is?”

“I had an inkling it was because of me.”

“Well, it was, but probably not in the way you’re thinking,” you tell him. You stare at him earnestly, compassionately. “I got tired of seeing you do so well,” you tell him, “every time I’d come down and see you working perfectly and you’d look at me and smile professionally and I’d have to pretend we didn’t used to be together… it was killing me.”

His throat bobs, his eyes deadly serious. 

Suddenly, you hear a loud banging noise from above you. You flinch and suddenly you are reminded you’re currently in a hanging death trap.

“Pittsburgh Fire and Rescue, are you two alright in there?”

“All good!” Jack answers for you, thankfully, you aren’t sure your vocal chores would let you otherwise.

“Okay, well, hang tight for a little bit longer. You two are between two floors so we’re going to have to open up the ceiling, drop a ladder in and you’ll have to come up out the top.”

“Oh god,” you groan, feeling nauseous. Was now a bad time to mention your fear of heights?

Jack scoots to your side of the elevator and takes your hand. It’s warm and lightly calloused and perfectly fit to yours. 

“Take a deep breath,” he tells you softly, “we’re going to be okay. I promise.”

The firefighter on top of the elevator begins to pound at the top of the elevator and you close your eyes as every time he moves the elevator gives a shudder. Your mind can’t help but go back to all those movies you’d seen of elevator cords snapping or bouncing like a bungee cord.

“I’m never getting in one of these death traps again,” you say, trying to calm your breathing. “If I have to climb three flights of stairs a day, then so be it.”

“Stairs are actually a lot more dangerous than elevators,” Jack says, “you should see some of the head lacs and broken vertebrae I’ve treated from people falling down them.”

“I’m good, thanks.” you tell him, “I’ve had my fair share in the OR. Actually I had one just the other day…” as you begin telling Jack about the surgery you’d done to this 70-year-old woman who’d fallen down her apartment’s stairwell and broken her left hip and tibia and the impressive surgical maneuvers you’d had to complete—you fail to notice the shaking of the elevator or the pounding from above when finally the ceiling screen is removed and a young firefighter jumps down.

Jack quickly stands and outstretches his hand for you to take. You gratefully grab it and pull yourself to your feet.

“You two okay?” the firefighter asks. He turns to you in particular. “You alright, ma’am? Look a bit pale.”

“I’m okay,” you reply shakily. “Just a deadly fear of getting trapped in elevators. Oh, and I’ve been in these soaking wet scrubs for twenty minutes, courtesy of Dr. Abbot here.”

Jack holds onto your arm in a tight grip, trying to keep you upright in case you suddenly decide to keel over.

Another firefighter on top of the elevator drops a ladder down and the one inside the elevator locks it into place.

“Okay,” he says, turning to you expectantly, “who wants to go first?”

You look over at Jack who nods toward the ladder. “You go first. I’ll be right here in case you slip.”

You hit his shoulder and he lets out an overly dramatic groan. “Really? Slip? Do you want me to have a panic attack?”

The firefighter continues to smile at your interaction as he holds the ladder steady. You take a deep breath and put your foot on the first rung. 

Your fear of falling is so bad you already feel nervous just a few inches off the ground, but you persevere. At your back, you feel Jack’s hand on your tailbone, helping keep you steady. When you make it to the top of the ladder, you carefully crane your head back and see three other firefighters there. You can’t help but look above you at at the huge, endless abyss and the tiny cord holding the entire elevator and you feel your head swim.

“Okay, just put your foot on this little strip here,” the firefighter standing on top of the elevator says, “and then your other right here,” she points to the other side, “and I’ll help you out.”

Easier said than done, you think. You clumsily begin to lift your right foot but put it back down when you feel an immediate bout of motion sickness. You take a deep breath and try again, trying your best to do it as quickly as possible so you don’t think too hard and sike yourself out.

Once you get your first foot into place, the other comes easy. You grab the outstretched hand of one of the firefighters and you land on the top of the elevator.

“Watch your feet now,” one of them says, “lots of cords there.”

You’re mostly trying not to look behind the elevator down the shaft as you follow their instructions. 

 You step from the top of the elevator onto the solid ground and you feel like you could drop to your knees and kiss the linoleum tile (if you weren’t uncomfortably aware of how many bodily fluids had been spilled on them).

You hear cheers and look up to see Dana, two of the surgery interns, and a couple of nurses. You look to the right and realize you are on the OR floor, and think that they must have all come quickly to make sure you were okay.

“Don’t act too happy,” you say to Dana, “I might still sue for emotional damages.”

Behind you, you hear footsteps and turn to see Jack.

“You can’t blame Dana,” he says with a grin, “if it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t have had that lovely heart-to-heart moment in there.”

You look at the charge nurse who gives you a big grin and a thumbs-up before she tells the rest of the stragglers to get back to work. The crowd disperses and you are left with Jack.

“Did you really have to say that?” you say, “she’s going to hold that over my head for weeks now.”

Jack chuckles.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the way Jack’s looking at you with those pretty blue eyes like you hold the entire world in your hands, but you can’t help but blurt out: “want to get a coffee? After my shift, I mean?”

You think for a moment he’s going to say no. Had the words been performative? Did he really care about you or was it all some manipulative way to keep you from losing your head? Then, his face shifts and a small, affectionate smile curls on his lips.

“Sure. Usual place?” he asks.

“Yep, 7p.m. sharp. Be there or be square.”

Just as you finish talking, your pager starts to go off. You sigh. “Duty calls. God, I still need to change my scrubs and get dry.”

He nods and begins to head toward the stairwell. Before he is completely gone from your sight, he turns back around, walking backward as he says: “knock ‘em dead today!”

You roll your eyes and flush when you catch Dana’s knowing look from across the room. From the expression on her face, you wouldn’t be surprised if she’d cut some wires and it had all been a setup.

[mariposium]

“The words hit like a mace to the head.” YOU ARE EVILLLLL THATS SO CRIMINAL 😭😭😭

rip Baelor I miss you 🫶

lmaooo im sorry 😭😭 i was like a dc supervillain planning to take over gotham city cooking that line im ngl

[mariposium]

✧ : THE DREAMER — daeron targaryen

summary — it is a difficult pill to swallow being betrothed to a man that cannot even look you in the eye. even more difficult is finding out it is not you, but the symptom of a larger disease. (8.3k)

featured — prince daeron targaryen / fem!unspecified house!reader, maekar targaryen, aerion targaryen (mentioned), aegon targaryen (mentioned)

content — no spoilers for akotsk, angst w/ some fluff, hurt/comfort, alcoholism, some descriptions of withdrawal and recovery attempts, maekar the wingman, pushing people away as a coping mechanism, daeron's visions, prob ooc!daeron, your fictional dad’s an ass im sorry, mentions of death, reader is a bit of a pushover, happy-ish ending, about 2k longer than i planned again oh well

(cross-posted on ao3)

There’s something profoundly cruel in forcing women to marry men forty years their senior, just as there is something cruel in being forced to marry a man that cannot even look you in the eye.

When you had been told by your father you would be marrying a prince, perhaps a part of you had been truly naive in believing it would be like the storybooks you had been read to as a child. If Prince Daeron Targaryen is from a storybook, he is not the prince who came to save the princess in the end. He is the dragon that slumbers and greeds and bares his teeth when you look at him for too long.

Perhaps your first warning should have been when you stepped out of your carriage and your betrothed was nowhere to be found in the large group of Targaryens waiting to greet you. His father, Prince Maekar, had simply laughed like it was all one big misunderstanding when your mother inquired to his absence.

Your second was when you tried to speak to his brothers on the walk to the castle in curiosity about what their eldest brother was like.

The youngest, a boy named Aegon, had furrowed his brows as if he’d never been asked such a ridiculous question. “Are you curious about his personality when he’s drunk or when he’s not drunk?” he’d asked you in return. You did not think the boy intended to be so blunt with the question, but the truth implied in his words hurt you anyway.

The third was when he finally showed up. 

The dining hall was a flurry of noise and activity as your family melded with the dragons. There were more options on the table than you’d ever seen in your life; venison and salmonberry tarts and steaming piles of cooked potatoes and rye bread. It was unfortunate for you that your stomach was so tightly in knots that none of it looked appetizing.

You ate gingerly, mostly just to appease your mother, but each swallow felt a bit like eating sandpaper. Your lack of an appetite was all in part due to the empty seat across from you. 

Nearly six hours had passed since your arrival, and yet your betrothed was still nowhere to be found. There must have been something seriously wrong with him, and yet not one person seemed to question it. 

Just as you began to think the entire trip was but a huge jest, the doors near the back of the hall slammed open and a man in a dark hood came slowly walking–actually, more like stumbling–through them. Everyone’s merry-making halted as the figure moved slowly, with heavy footfalls, to the table. As he grew closer, you realized his breathing was heavy, like he’d been running, though you seriously doubted one as inebriated as he could have been.

As he got to the table, he grabbed the last empty chair directly across from you and pulled it out. He practically fell into his seat and as he did, you got a huge whiff of the alcohol on his breath.

You knew by that smell and his entrance which gathered no questions who this person was. 

“So the drunken arrives,” you remembered hearing his younger brother Aerion say.

Prince Maekar shot his second child a glare and reached forward to grab his eldest’s hood. He pulled it back with a sharp yank and finally your eyes were allowed a full viewing of your betrothed.

His hair was dirty blond and down to his shoulders in length, greasy and clumped together as if he’d completely abandoned any part of taking care of himself except for the bottle. His purple-blue eyes were surrounded in red, likely irritated from his excess consumption and a lack of sleep. Other than that, he was not nearly as ugly and far-gone as you had been expecting. He was not scarred from battle like his father and uncle, nor did he seem incredibly cruel and haughty like Aerion. There was a part of him you could see that reflected his youth, his personality. But it had long been hidden behind years of trauma and affliction.

He didn’t look at you the entire feast. Your parents had gone quiet, answering only a few questions with short answers. You thought perhaps your father had finally realized the level of dysfunction in the family he was giving his only daughter away to, but that was likely only wishful thinking.

Prince Maekar seemed to be growing irritated by the way his eldest son had refused to say a word since arriving.

“Daeron,” he grumbled finally, his voice deep and gritty, “perhaps you’d like to say a few words to your betrothed.”

Daeron’s eyebrows furrowed. The crease that formed between them suggested it was a face he was quite accustomed to making. 

However, when his bleary eyes finally met yours, something clear passed over them. It was like a fog had been lifted from his face. For a moment, you thought you saw fear in the clear periwinkle of his eyes. His throat bobbed. His lips parted as if he were about to say something, either that or belch. His eyes darted all over your face as if trying to figure out the answer to a particularly difficult puzzle. 

Then you blinked and he stood abruptly, his chair screeching across the floor. The fog of inebriation fell back over his face.

“Ess..cuse me,” he slurred, “I’m quite tired.” He then did a spin that was punctuated with a stumble and left as ceremoniously as he’d arrived.

To have a betrothed who won’t look at you is one thing. To have one who looks and does not like what he sees is another entirely.

The scene replays itself over and over as you are getting ready for bed two nights later, trying to search for some kind of sense lingering behind the drunken glower that will not leave your mind’s eye. The mind could be a cruel thing, especially when all it wants for you to see is that flash of rejection that tears across Daeron’s face and then the small, muffled laughter that came from his younger brother’s mouth from down the table and then the profuse apologies from his father.

You had not seen Daeron again since that dinner. You could have written it off as being that Daeron is the eldest son of a prince, therefore likely had many responsibilities that kept him busy during the day. But a part of you sincerely doubts that the prince you had met a few nights ago was very concerned with such royal frivolities.

You are beginning to think that the Red Keep is a cruel place. That despite its glamor, in it lies a disease that infects every poor soul caught in it for too long. The castle’s made to chew girls like you up and spit them out once they had come to the realization there was no escaping the cold, unflinching hand of fate. Dragons are not meant to be trapped behind glass cages, they are meant to soar across the sky. It makes you wonder what it is that happens to one when it spends too long confined by the impressively high walls surrounding King’s Landing.

Once the night grows cold and dark and your candles are all but whittled into wax that spills onto the wood dressers, you stand from the bed and creep to the door. On your way, you shrug on a cloak and boots to cover your indecently exposed skin and sheer shift.

You step outside and smile stiffly at the kingsguard you had not planned on being there. As you try to go by him unnoticed, he stops you by smoothly stepping in front of you.

“Were you heading somewhere, mi’lady?” he says, “it is quite late, you know?”

“I do not need to explain where I wish to go,” you tell him softly. “I just hope you will gladly tell anyone who comes knocking at my door–which I’m sure there will be few, given the hour–that I am resting.”

You try to weave around him again, but he prevents you.

“It is dangerous at night, even within the Red Keep,” the guard says, “I cannot in good conscience allow you to go unchaperoned.”

“She will not be,” you hear a voice come from behind you and jump and spin around to see who it is. You cannot make out the figure standing there as it is completely shrouded in shadow, but you recognize the voice all too well. It is the same voice that has been on repeat in your head for the last three nights. Prince Daeron. He steps forward and his figure slowly becomes bathed in the light of a nearby sconce. “I will escort her.”

Prince Daeron is an enigma, you decide right then and there. Tonight, he is not drunk, he is not sleep-deprived (though he might be by the end of this interaction)--he looks almost… normal. Despite the fact that his periwinkle eyes have not spared you a glance since he came. Normal men do not ignore their betrothed’s the way in which he does. You wonder if you still repulse him so that he still cannot even give you one quick glance.

“That is very honorable, m-mi’lord, but that brings up another problem,” the kingsguard man stutters, “it-t is looked down upon for unmarried lords and ladies to go walking together after dark. It can b-bring up unsavory questions.”

Prince Daeron takes a step toward the kingsguard man and he flinches back. You fear for a moment that a new side will rear its ugly head of your betrothed in that moment. Then, he smiles. “I suppose it will be our little secret then, hm?”

The Kingsguard would be an idiot to argue with a prince. And it seems that this one is not an idiot. Prince Daeron turns his back and begins to stalk down the hall. You give the guard a tight smile and start to speed-walk after your betrothed.

When you finally catch up, Daeron still does not look at you. “You are welcome,” he murmurs out, his voice no louder than your footfalls and impressively monotone, “you are free until sunrise. Go walk the gardens. They are quite pretty at nighttime, so I’ve heard.”

“I’m sorry?” you say, your heart dropping to your feet.

He moves his head toward you, but stares pointedly at the broach holding your cloak together rather than your face. He sighs as if he could not possibly comprehend your confusion. “Your guard will not bother you any more tonight,” he tells you, his voice still impossibly soft, “so you may do whatever it is that you wanted to do without having to worry about getting into trouble.”

He turns his back and begins to slowly walk away.

“My prince,” you say just as quietly, “have I done something to offend you?”

He pauses in his movements. His shoulders heave with his breaths. “No,” he replies, still not turning around, “you have done nothing at all.”

When he does not move, you step closer to his back. “Then why do you ignore me so?”

He does turn his head a bit after that question. His light eye catches the flickering candlelight of a nearby sconce as it falls onto your face at once, finally. But it does not last long. At once, he recoils as if he’s been struck and looks away. You shrink in on yourself with a hurt whimper. Were you truly that distasteful?

He closes his eyes and you can see a muscle in his jaw jump underneath his skin as he clenches it tightly. “You do not need to worry anymore about getting to know me,” he says in lieu of a reply, “I will be going to my father in hopes of annulling the betrothal tomorrow.”

You do not follow him as he leaves this time. It would hurt too much to bear to do so.

You do not hear any whispers of a broken betrothal the next morning. Your mother still rises to wake you as early as dawn’s first light in order to get dressed. As she orders your handmaidens to cinch your waist and to do your hair, you do not believe anything has changed at all.

After the breaking of your fast and your mid-morning lessons, you begin to believe that the events of the previous night were but a distasteful dream. It isn’t a particularly well-founded argument, considering that you had never had a dream so vivid before, but you use it to get by throughout the day like a shield to protect from any bit of reality from striking you when your guard is lowered.

During your first break of the day, you go to sit underneath one of the marble gazebos overlooking the rocky shoreline and tumultuous water. It is surrounded by pleasant-smelling hibiscus that almost seem to turn to face you as you take a seat. 

It is the first time since the day started that you are completely alone in your thoughts. 

You hate it.  

Your thoughts recently have not been very kind to you. While you had not initially been particularly thrilled with the notion of marrying Prince Daeron, it had just become one of those things that you expect in life. Every young lady, from the moment they are able to understand, are taught to expect marriage. It is a bit like death, in that way. You expect it so keenly your whole life that when it finally happens, you expect you will not be completely caught off-guard. Because it is just what your future, what your life, entails.

Prince Daeron breaking the betrothal is not what you are scared of. It is the aftermath you fear. The unknown.

No lord will want to marry a lady who was turned away by a prince because it begs the question: why? If the annulment happens, you will likely become a spinster–or worse, married to some minor lord forty years your senior in the off-chance of proliferating your family’s lineage.

You do not simply and foolishly wish to stay betrothed to Prince Daeron. You wish it had never been conceived in the first place.

“—Have you ever come here before?”

The voice breaks you from your thoughts. You turn your head sharply to see the very last face you expected to be standing there. Prince Maekar. 

His face is solemn. You feel a pang in your chest at what you immediately suspect to come. He has abided by his son’s wishes, caved to his whims because he has tried so hard Daeron’s whole life to mold him into something he just isn’t meant to be. Perhaps the kinder option is to allow his son to be who he really is.

You swallow past the lump of saltwater gathering in your throat. “No,” you reply softly, your voice hardly audible past the roaring waters, “it… is quite beautiful.” You turn your head back to the wide river in front of you. 

“...Yes,” he says, “as are many places in the Red Keep.” You see him in your peripheral vision as he takes a seat on the bench across from you. Two kingsguard stand a distance away, close enough to protect him while also affording some privacy.

As you turn to look at him, you are at once struck by the shade of deep periwinkle that is so very similar to his eldest son’s. Only these can actually look you in the eyes.

“My son came to me this morning,” his voice is gravelly and hoarse as he begins to speak. Your heart hits like a drum against your ribcage, nearly drowning out every other sound around you. “He wished to annul the betrothal.” 

The words hit like a mace to the head. You knew they were coming, but the impact is still just as great. You turn your head back toward the water to prepare for the final blow.

“I… did not agree with his proposal.” 

The words make you snap your head back to look at his. 

Your voice is tremulous as you speak: “w-why?” 

Prince Maekar seems to be incredibly thoughtful. You had not known him to be anything more than the father of six boisterous dragons and a renowned knight of the Blackfyre Rebellion. You had not known the depth of his mind. You had not been shown it before.

“Did you wish for it to be annulled?” he asks.

You aren’t sure how to answer the question. You had grown so used to the possibility that the choice would be taken from you that you had not considered your own feelings on the matter. The truth was, yes, you had dreamt for many years of the possibility of being able to escape your fate. For you to be able to have the opportunity of choice. But now? You were not sure. What would happen, were it to be annulled? The uncertainty of it all made you trepidatious to act so hastily.

“I have been preparing to be a princess for many years,” you answer finally, your words carefully poised to remain ambiguous, “to lose that would hurt. But I know that your son is not very keen on me as his lady wife and I believe his wants should be respected, too.”

Prince Maekar lets out a soft chuckle. You frown, fearing you may have said the wrong thing.

“You sound like my brother,” he tells you, laughter in his breath, “so fucking diplomatic.”

You can’t help the raising of your brows at the flippant use of the curse word, but a small smile flits across your mouth at his amusement.

Once Prince Maekar sobers up, he leans forward on his heels to stand. You stand out of instinct as well, your eyebrows pulled together in a silent question.

“What I think your problem is,” he says, “is that you two have not been given a chance to prove your preconceptions of each other false. You have not tried to get to know each other.”

You nod without really thinking about it. “I agree wholeheartedly.”

“Good,” he says with a toothy grin that makes him suddenly look quite a bit younger than he actually is, “I will have dinner in my son’s chambers prepared for tonight. Hopefully, you two can become better acquainted there.”

He begins to walk away before you can fully process his words. “I’m sorry?” you call out, trying to keep up with his long strides but miserably failing. “Prince Maekar–”

“I will have someone come get you when it is ready!” the white-haired prince shouts over his shoulder at you.

And so, by the time that the sun is low in the sky, you are standing outside the chambers of the eldest son of Maekar with your heart in your throat. You stand there for a moment trying to calm your nerves. You should not be this nervous, and yet it feels like you are in line for an execution.

“Are you ready to enter, mi’lady?” one of the servant boys asks, his eyes as wide as the saucers in his hands. 

You bite your lip. Were you ready? Would you ever be ready? Probably not. You were only delaying the inevitable at this point.

“Yes,” you reply softly. The boy nods and steps in front of you to open the door.

Prince Daeron’s chambers are both exactly what you had been expecting and what you hadn’t. Your eyes are immediately drawn around the room at the ornate black and red furniture, at the  copper mirror in the corner of the room pointed toward the door, a large settee made of rich velvet–that had all been expected. What you hadn’t were the bits and baubles stashed around the room; a small painting hanging on the wall depicting a slightly younger Daeron and a beautiful older woman with dark hair and eyes that makes you think she must have had some Dornish ancestry, a small jewel-encrusted knife that if sold, would likely pay for your father’s debts and then some, a flask sitting on the stand by his bed.

Several candles have been lit around the room, casting it in a rich amber light as they flicker and cast great shadows across the floor. In the middle of the room, a short wood table sits, a decanter of wine and various dinner options on top.

Daeron is nowhere to be found. You nervously shuffle to the chair closest to the door and take a seat. The plushness that has been woven into the cushions makes you sigh as your back feels immediate relief from standing for so long.

As you stare at the food in front of you, you get a sudden beastly urge to throw the wine out the window so that you do not have to worry about Daeron being severely inebriated during your dinner. You immediately catch it as one of those pesky preconceptions that Prince Maekar was referring to earlier, so you disregard it and carry on. 

After a few minutes pass in silence, you wonder if Prince Daeron will refuse to show again. If you will spend hours waiting for an arrival that will never happen. You tell yourself that once the food grows cold, you will not spend any more time waiting.

Suddenly, the door behind you opens. 

You turn your head just as he waltzes through the door. You swallow a gasp at the sight. Daeron’s wearing a beautiful black velvet coat with a line of red cutting down the side. He has pushed his long hair into a small knot at the base of his neck, but some pieces of hair fall stubbornly over his eyes. On his hands, he wears several rings that flex as he steps in front of you. You can’t help thinking that he looks incredibly handsome.

Those eyes are the most surprising part. He looks at you right in the face, as if he had no qualms with it whatsoever. That him not wanting to look at you before was all in your head. They seem so much brighter, more present than before.

“Good evening,” he greets you courteously as he takes his seat across from you. “Shall we eat?”

You aren’t sure you’d be able to talk even if you tried. You manage a nod and Daeron begins to fill his plate with cheese and grapes and pieces of beef and lamb. You follow his example, putting smaller bits of food on your own. 

The room is silent for a moment apart from the sounds of clanging cutlery and plates as you begin to dig in. Every once in a while, you cut a glance at your betrothed as if not fully believing his transformation.

“I would like to apologize,” you say after a moment of realizing he would not be making the first move. “I know that I am not the wife you had envisioned for yourself. I have often been told I’m a bit… homely and meek, so I cannot fault you for having reason to want to get rid of me.”

The self-deprecating remark shocks even you as you say it. Your betrothed, whose eyes had remained glued to his plate ever since he sat, slowly trail up from his meal to meet yours across the table. His periwinkle eyes catch the light of the candles in a way that you think would make for a beautiful painting. You avert your eyes when you realize the extent of your errors.

“It’s not…” your betrothed says softly, “‘tis not your looks or your character.”

You frown and slowly meet his eyes. He tries to hide it, but you can see him having to force himself to keep your eye contact. Not your looks? You wonder. Was he in jest?

“You do not have to lie to me, my prince. I can see your repulsion every time you look upon my visage,” you say with a bitter smile. 

Prince Daeron averts his eyes and you consider that must be his answer. You can feel yourself begin to tremble again, bitter tears clogging your senses. You force them back to remain the last shred of dignity you still hold.

You do not notice his eyes fluttering shut until he begins to speak. “Have you ever had a dream so horrible, so vile that you wake up not knowing for sure what is real and what is imagined?” his voice is hardly louder than your own breathing. 

You are not sure how to reply. “Like a night terror?” you whisper. “I had them occasionally as a girl, but…”

“Worse,” Daeron says with a bitter chuckle. “Sometimes I wake up and I can still feel what I dreamed around me. I will open my eyes and see death and destruction until I pinch my arm and scream and sometimes it does not go away even then.”

You are not sure what to offer. Sympathies? Advice? You are sure he had heard it all and did not need it coming from you.

“My dreams,” he says, his eyes finally meeting yours. They’re blazing, a dragon slumbering behind them. “The worst part is they come true.”

You feel shocked for a moment. Then it bleeds into hurt. “You are jesting with me,” you tell him, feeling heat blooming behind your skin, “it is not amusing, my prince.”

Prince Daeron suddenly leans so far over the table you have to recoil in order to prevent your noses from brushing. “I am not jesting,” he tells you, his voice and eyes deadly serious, “I am haunted in my every waking moment by these dreams–these dreams of dragons.” Considering that every other time you’d spoken with him, he’d been like a stone wall, you find the argument compelling. You’d not seen such passion from him before.

He leans back in his chair, the fire all but extinguished. 

“I have not told many people this,” he tells you softly, “I hope for your discretion.”

You nod almost immediately. You would not betray his trust, not for what you feared he would do if you did. There is a lapse in conversation as you cut yourself another bite of meat and chew on it while you ponder your next question.

“...Have you seen me? In your dreams?” you ask him. His eyes widen from where they stare at his plate. “Is that why you do not wish to marry me?”

Prince Daeron clenches his jaw. You can see him fighting the impulse to speak in every physical move he makes.

“You do not have to answer,” you decide to tell him, “I’m not sure I want to know, honestly.” You let out a short laugh at that final bit.

Prince Daeron loosens up at you relieving him from speaking. It worries you, though–what lingers in his dreams that he found too troubling to share.

“Perhaps,” you say after a moment of silence, “you could tell me about your childhood. I’m sure it was always busy growing up in King’s Landing.”

He smiles slightly. “I have five younger siblings, I was beating them off my curtails with sticks.”

You let out a small laugh at the image of Daeron chasing away little versions of his very nearly-grown siblings.

“I spent most of my days reading,” he tells you after a moment, a small smile on his lips, “my father educated me well, and made sure that I always had a book in one hand and a quill in the other taking notes.” He then tilts his head, as if remembering something else. “He always wanted to make knights out of me and my brothers. I think he missed what he had growing up with Uncle Baelor and thought we needed that as well.”

“But I hate the sword,” he tells you with a mild shake of his head. “Perhaps more than I hate raw lamb.” He stabs a piece of the meat on his plate to show you the red, tender meat on the end of his knife.

You wrinkle your nose. “I thought the Red Keep would have the best cooks in the Seven Kingdoms at their disposal.”

“You would think,” he says with a sigh. He grins as he remembers something else. “When we were boys, Aerion and I would often sneak away to catch fish by the river. We didn’t catch things often, but once we caught this one that had to be as big as Egg is now. The taste was shit, but we ate it all the way down to the bone because we were so proud of ourselves.”

You return the grin with one of your own. “I bet you two were constantly making your parents worry.” You look back down at your plate and push away all the lamb you have not eaten to the corner as you begin to eat some grapes and vegetables.

You do not notice his face drop. “We did,” he replies simply.

A moment passes as you eat in silence. Daeron fills his second goblet of wine and you watch as he takes a sip.

“Have you always been so quiet?” he asks you as he sets the goblet down.

You look at him with a small smile pulling at your lips. “Ladies are often taught to hold their tongues as soon as they can speak. I think I took that lesson a little more to heart than others.”

“Well,” Daeron says after a moment of processing your words. “You do not have to hold your tongue around me.”

You give him a small smile.

A week passes at a snail’s pace crawl until you blink and suddenly you are just a few days away from the wedding. 

It is late at night. You are getting undressed for bed and blowing out the candles that sit on every surface of your room. You can hear the distant hoots of an owl and the sounds of water crashing against the rocky shore. You can’t help but shiver slightly as a cool draft comes through the room from under the unsealed window by the bed. 

Other than that, it is quiet. Peaceful. You draw yourself under the heavy cover on your bed and close your eyes. But your mind wanders. 

You think of your betrothed the most. Of his dreams that haunt him without pause. Of his overreliance on the bottle. Of the hesitance that flashed across his eyes as you asked him if he had ever dreamed of you. Those periwinkle eyes burn through your skin and make you tremble at night, thinking of what they hid so carefully from view. You also think of what all he had told you about himself. Of his love for his brothers that he keeps closely guarded. Of his mother, the beautiful Dornish woman who’d died too young, and her soothing voice that would always chase away his dreams. Of his worries of disappointing his father, who had grown too used to disappointment.

Your thoughts are broken when you hear faint footsteps outside your door. Your eyes open and your brows furrow at the noise, thinking that it really is quite rare for you to have visitors at so late an hour. Perhaps it is a shift change of the kingsguard, you think. But then a knock cuts through the quiet of the night.

You raise your head from your pillows with a frown. “Who is it?” you call out.

“It is Maria, my lady. Your betrothed… he is asking for you.”

You sit up taller at that statement, your eyebrows furrowed. You swing your legs to land on the hard wood, flinching a little at the frigidity of the floor, and then stand and grab your cloak from a nearby chair. You tuck it around your person tightly so as to not allow any cold air to seep in. 

You go to the door and open it to see a middle-aged woman by the door. 

“What is going on?” you ask, concerned, as she begins to lead you quickly through the halls. “Does the maester need to be called?”

“He is having a nightmare,” the woman replies, “they are quite common for him, I hear.” She pauses, looking over her shoulder at you. “However, it is not as common for him to ask for someone to come see him while in the throws.”

You swallow thickly. “Well,” you say, clenching your hands by your side, “I am his betrothed. Different from others.”

“That is very true, mi’lady.”

The woman continues to lead you through the halls until she stops, presumably, in front of his bedroom door. You feel your palms become slick with anxiety as she opens the door for you to enter. Once inside, you can hear the screams immediately.

“Gods, make it stop!” he shouts at the top of his lungs as he flails on the bed. “I do not want to see it! Make it stop!” His chest is bare and slick with perspiration, heaving with panicked breaths that rattle his chest.

Two handmaidens attempt to hold him down, which seems to only make him want to fight harder. You remember something he said and your feet move before you can stop yourself. 

“Unhand him,” you order.

The ladies look to Maria behind you for the final word, and she must nod for they both release him unceremoniously. 

The thrashing ceases, but his panicked breaths do not. You come closer to his side, and with a gentle hand, place it against his cheek, letting out a low, soothing hum.  

At the touch and noise, Prince Daeron’s eyes shoot open and land immediately upon yours. He pants softly through his mouth, eyes wide and darting between your hand and your face. You stop humming and he reaches up to grab your hand within his own. His hand is slick with perspiration, but it fits easily within your own.

“You… could you do that again?” he says, his voice hoarse and raw from all the screaming. 

You swallow thickly and take a seat by his side on the bed. You notice from your peripheral the handmaidens leaving quietly out the door. You start to hum again and your husband’s breathing begins to calm.

His hand still has not left yours when his eyes open again.

“Your question, that night,” he whispers into the still air, “I do dream of you. I dream of you often.”

You already knew the answer from the look on his face when you asked, so it does not surprise you. You continue to stroke the back of his hand. “All good things, I hope,” you say with a weak laugh.

He purses his lips. “I cannot say,” he replies, “an unfortunate symptom of my dreams. Only that I knew from the moment I saw you at that dinner a fortnight ago that your life was inescapably intertwined with mine.”

“And you still tried to have our betrothal annulled,” you whisper. 

Daeron’s purple-blue eyes meet yours, wavering across your face. “Yes,” he replies, “I did.”

You look away and to the moon shining through his window. Your heart skips as you come to a terrifying realization. “You have seen me die, haven’t you?” you say, a pounding pain forming against your temple, “that is why you did not want to marry me.”

When you look back at your betrothed, his eyes are glassy. His throat bobs and he lets out a shuddering sigh. “I have seen almost every death in my family,” he replies, “including my own.”

You assume that is the only answer you will receive on the matter. Your eyes dart to the flask on his bedside table. It is limp and a small ring of deep red has been left on the grain of the wood beneath it.

“I have not drunk in a few days.” 

You do not realize he has traced your eyes until he says that. You bite your lip as you take in his earnest expression.

“My body has hurt for days because of it,” he tells you, “my dreams have been especially punishing, too.”

“Does the alcohol dim your visions?”

“Just enough for me to get by,” he replies. “I do not want to be known as Daeron the Drunken anymore,” he tells you as tears spring to his eyes, “I cannot have my fate be determined by something within my control.”

“It will be a hard road,” you tell him, “my uncle tried to quit many times. It never worked for him.”

“I have you, don’t I?” he says, a small teasing smile curling at his lips. “That gives me an advantage.”

“Of course,” you reply with a wobbly smile. 

He brings your trembling hand to his lips and plants a chaste kiss to the back of it. You squeeze his hand in return.

“If you do not want to be known as the drunken anymore,” you start, a small smile curling at your lips, “we will have to find you a new title.”

He lets out a soft laugh.

The wedding comes upon you like a fever. All morning, you are in the chambers getting plucked, stretched, dressed, and roughed into perfection. By midday, you had been brought into the fold of the Targaryen black and red. At night, you are swaying on your feet and your cheeks hurt from smiling.

You sling your arm around your husband and throw your head back with a hearty laugh as he swings you around the floor. He leans forward in the midst of your laughter to plant a breathy kiss against your neck that makes butterflies erupt in your stomach. The room’s spinning and people around you brush your sides as they dance around you, color and noise and the warmth in your chest from all the wine. 

Daeron’s dressed finely in garbs of black and red, his eyes wild and alight with joy and love and excitement. You surge forward to give him a kiss across the mouth and he lets out a garbled laugh against your lips.

“You are absolutely plastered,” he says, a grin pulling at his flushed cheeks. “Where did my shy little betrothed go?”

“Shuddup, Daeron,” you slur, leaning forward to give him another kiss. He turns his head so it instead hits his cheek. He maneuvers you close to the edge of the dancing floor with quick, measured steps. Your head swims as you take in the flurried movement with blurry vision.

A beautiful woman donned in a deep emerald dress brushes by you, her hand holding a goblet of fresh wine that she offers to you with a hypnotizing smile. You go to grab it from her, but your betrothed–no, husband, now–pushes it away. 

“She’s had plenty, thank you,” Daeron says. A muscle jumps beneath the skin of his jaw as his eyes skim the red liquid held tantalizingly close to his face.

Your eyebrows furrow as the woman bows her head and slips away with the crowd and your sweet nectar. 

“Daeronnn,” your voice sounds like a high-pitched whine as it lets loose from your lips, “why…”

“I think it is about high time we retire,” Daeron tells you, his eyes flighty and unfocused as he surveys the room around him. “Don’t you agree?”

You swallow down bile rising in your throat and try to look around to see what he’s looking at. Your eyes instead land on a familiar set coming toward you.

“Father!” you say with a sharp gasp, breaking away from your husband’s stern grip to embrace your father.

Your father wraps an arm around you but you stumble back from the hug shortly after it starts, your stomach as tumultuous as the Narrow Sea. You think he might not take well to you spilling your guts on his fineries.

“Seven Hells,” your father curses. You frown as you take in his expression as it darts to the man behind you. “She smells like a tavern. How much has she had to drink?”

“I’m right here,” you say to your father grumpily, “why don’t you ever address me? I’m juss as much a person as you are.”

“That’s very correct, my love,” Daeron says, wrapping an arm around your waist to keep you stable. “My apologies, my lord, I was just saying to your daughter that we should best retire for the night. I do not think she is in any condition for the bedding ceremony.”

“Bedding ceremony,” you say with a scoff, “what a performative way to say you hate women!”

Your father balks at the statement, but you feel your husband’s chest rumble as he suppresses a laugh.

“...Yes, I think that is for the best,” your father says, his eyes sweeping across your form with thinly veiled disgust. Even though you’re severely inebriated, a part of you shrivels up and dies at the expression on his face. “I sincerely hope that this is not indicative of her future. If I’d known her marrying the drunken made her a degenerate, I'm not sure I would have agreed.”

You do not fully grasp the weight of your father’s statement but you feel Daeron’s arm around your waist tighten. Perhaps, you think, you may have been able to say something quite clever had you not been so absolutely plastered.

“Excuse us,” your husband says.

He begins to lead you through the crowd of people all too drunk out of their minds to fully realize your departure. 

Everything is so fuzzy in your mind and time feels so weird that you do not realize you are in a bed until your head hits a soft pillow and a comforter is drawn around your waist.

“Oh gods,” you exclaim dramatically, “I’m drowning. I’m dying.” Your hands begin to claw at your corseted gown with the fury of a woman actually suffocating.

You feel two warm hands grasp your own and Daeron sighs heavily as he gently turns you over on the bed and begins to unlace your dress.

“Don’t be pervy, my grace!” your shout is muffled by the pillow directly in your face. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

“Now I know why everyone’s so irate when I show up the next morning after visiting Flea Bottom,” you hear Daeron murmur from behind you.

When the corset is finally removed from your body, you let out a heavy sigh of relief. It is as if you can physically feel the wires holding your waist together being unfolded from around you.

With the annoying corset gone, you can fully relax into the amazingly soft bed beneath you. It is so much nicer than the bed you have in your chambers. The sheets feel like silk against your skin. Your eyes flutter shut, but you do not fall fully asleep, instead listening to the soft sound of shuffling from within the room.

You think a few minutes pass. You can’t exactly tell.

Then you feel the bed dip beside your head and your eyes flutter halfway open on instinct.

Daeron’s fuzzy figure sits halfway perched on his side of the bed. He’s dragging his hands through his hair like something’s wrong. You hear a groan or a whimper or something, you aren’t sure. You’re pretty sure it didn’t come from you, so it must be from Daeron. 

You hear his hand fall upon the stand next to his bed. It’s loud enough for you to flinch slightly. He grabs something off the nightstand and pulls it up to his head. He tilts his neck back and you think you can see him drinking something.

He puts it back down again. You feel uneasy at the movement but you are not sure, in your inebriated mind, why. Daeron finally moves the rest of his body onto the bed and you shut your eyes again.

The last thing you feel before you drift asleep is a trembling hand stroking your cheek and a soft kiss being planted across your head.

Your eyes snap open before you can fully realize what it is you’re hearing. It is so dark you cannot see even a few feet in front of you. All you can do is hear. Screams—they’re ricocheting across your brain like you might imagine being stabbed might feel like. Your head feels like it is splitting open, but you have enough coordinated sense to raise up and look around for the offending noise.

Something leans over and hits you and you flinch and your eyes dart to the figure in bed beside you. Daeron, you realize, and like a veil has been lifted he comes into perfect clarity.

A vision. His bare chest heaves with the exertion of his screams and his arms flail as if there is not a bed beneath him but empty air and he’s falling through the sky. You had dealt with a handful since the first one you helped with. This one looks especially fraught, though.

You quickly place your hand upon Daeron’s cheek as you angle yourself to land on top of his shivering form. The compression always seems to help along with the gentle caresses against his face and the slow humming from your lips.

Surely enough, his breathing begins to calm. You go to remove yourself from on top of him when you feel an arm circle loosely around your waist to halt your movements in their tracks.

Daeron’s eyes slowly flutter open. They are misty with unshed tears.

You reach forward to catch one as it slides down his cheek.

“W-Was it a bad one?” Each word let loose from your lips sends a sharp pain to your head. Gods, how much did you have to drink?

Daeron’s chin wobbles. His eyes move from the top of your forehead, tracing the slope of your nose, to the flesh of your cheek to the lips that slowly part under his inspection. He closes them once he reaches the end, another few tears escaping from his eyes.

“I…” his voice is hoarse as he goes to speak and he has to clear his throat a few times in order to continue, “I cannot lose you.”

You feel a pang in your chest. You do not let your fear show.

“You have me,” you reply, your voice hardly more than a whisper, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Daeron throws his head back into his pillows and his throat bobs. “It is inhumane,” he says into the still air, “to be given a power you cannot control. To have it torment you relentlessly.”

“But you know this,” you tell him, your eyebrows furrowed. “You know that I will not live forever. You do not need visions to tell you that.”

“I feel helpless,” he continues despite your reasoning, “that I can only watch as everyone around me dies from deaths I have seen in my mind’s eye. It is a particularly cruel torture I am not quite sure I deserve.”

He lifts himself into a seated position on the bed and you roll off of him to the side, but keep close, one hand drawing shapes into his bare skin.

Daeron’s hand reaches blindly into the night. Your eyes squint as you take in his shaking hands and the familiarly shaped flask in them.

He bends his neck to take a sip and you watch with wide eyes.

As if sensing your horror, Daeron explains. “The maesters said that I will likely die if I quit drinking completely. So I take small sips of wine throughout the day to keep me going. I will admit, though, I still sometimes wish I was black-out drunk so I did not have to live in my head.”

He drops the rest of the flask onto the nightstand with a labored sigh. You draw your hand down to grasp his own. He gives it a small squeeze. His eyes trail across the bedsheets to lock on your own. Even in the cloak of darkness, you can make out the faint shape of his periwinkle irises.

“I thought I was being punished when my father said I was going to marry a prince,” you tell him softly. “But I don’t think that is the case. I think… perhaps naively, that there is a reason I was made to marry you. That perhaps you and I… we share an understanding.”

You pause. “Daeron, I do not know what the future holds. I do not know what horrible fate awaits me, nor do I want to know. What I want is to be with you. To kiss you in front of my stupid fucking father and eat lemon cakes together and dance in a room full of people drunk off of bubbly drinks.”

“I can’t possibly imagine what it is you have seen, what you experience every night when you close your eyes,” you say, bringing one hand up to cup his cheek. “But I don’t want to worry about the future anymore. I don’t think you do either.”

His eyes flutter shut almost on instinct. “I would give… anything to not worry anymore.”

“I know,” you whisper back sadly. “I know.”

There’s a lapse in conversation for a brief moment. Daeron strokes the back of your hand with his thumb, eyes shut against the horrors of the world.

“I thought of a new title,” you say softly, a small smile pulling at your lips. Daeron nods for you to continue. “Prince Daeron The Dreamer.”

Daeron does not reply immediately. You feel your heart skip a beat at the pause.

“I think it is a good way to reclaim yourself,” you whisper, “a way for you to gain some control over how you are viewed and your visions themselves. I understand if you do not like…”

“It’s wonderful,” Daeron whispers, a small, heartbroken smile pulling at his lips, “It’s wonderful.”