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@phythius
—Masterlist—
Morpheus Fanfiction Masterlist
Harmony's Requiem: A Dream's Elegy (Finished)
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Dance of Two Flames (Unfinished/Ongoing?)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Whisper me a Dream (Ongoing)
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
oh to be parents with him at a controversially young age
would valarr go crazy if FMC ever wore lingerie in bed (to seduce him)??? does he have a specific color he prefers (maybe black and red…) 👀
Hehehhe smut this way.
Early on in the relationship, before things become too heavy and complicated, you genuinely do not know what to get Valarr for his birthday.
It is not because he is difficult in the usual way. It is because Valarr already has everything.
Money is not an issue for him. Taste is not an issue either. He wears expensive watches without thinking about them. His suits are tailored. His home looks like it belongs in a magazine. Every gift idea you come up with feels either too small, too obvious, or embarrassingly sentimental.
And you are still new enough with him that you are nervous about getting it wrong.
You want to give him something meaningful, but you also do not want to look too eager. You want him to know you care, but not enough to scare yourself with how much you care. So you make the mistake of telling your friends.
They are merciless.
One of them says, “Girl, what do you give the man who has everything? Yourself.”
You immediately choke on your drink.
They laugh. You insist you are not doing that. Absolutely not. You and Valarr have only been together for a year, and while things between you are already intense, you are still shy with him in certain ways. Valarr has a way of looking at you that makes you forget how to stand properly. The idea of intentionally trying to seduce him feels almost impossible.
Which, of course, only makes your friends worse.
They drag you lingerie shopping under the excuse that “it is just for fun” and “you do not have to actually wear it if you chicken out.” But somehow you end up in a fitting room surrounded by lace and silk, listening to them argue outside the curtain about whether Valarr seems like a black-lace man or a deep-red-silk man.
And the worst part is, you start thinking about it.
You start imagining his face when he sees you. That controlled expression of his breaking for half a second. His eyes going dark. His voice going quieter. His attention narrowing until the whole world feels like it has been reduced to you and the space between his hands.
You are embarrassed by how much the thought affects you.
So you buy it.
Not because your friends pressured you. Not really.
You buy it because, secretly, some reckless part of you wants to know what Valarr looks like when he realizes you dressed yourself for him. You want to know if you can make him lose control. You want to know if, for once, you can be the one who makes him nervous.
And when his birthday finally comes, you are the nervous one.
You sit on the edge of his bed in the lingerie your friends helped you choose, heart beating too fast, second-guessing everything. The gift bag you brought him is still on the nightstand, but suddenly it feels irrelevant. This is the real gift. The one you are terrified to give.
Then the door opens.
Valarr stops.
For a moment, he says nothing.
And that silence is worse than anything he could have said.
Because you realize immediately that your friends were wrong about one thing.
This is not just lingerie to him.
This is you offering him proof that you want him. That you thought of him. That you wanted to be beautiful for him on purpose.
And Valarr, who has been so careful with you up until now, looks at you like you have just handed him something far more dangerous than a birthday present.
//
You sit frozen on the edge of your bed, the black lace bra hugging you like a secret you’re not sure you should have told. The matching thong sits high on your hips, the delicate garter belt and sheer stockings framing your thighs in a way that suddenly feels far too revealing under the low glow of the bedside lamp. Your hands are clasped tight in your lap, fingers trembling. The gift bag with the tie you’d picked out as a safer backup sits untouched on the nightstand. You’d rehearsed this moment in your head a dozen times, but now that Valarr is here—door just clicking shut behind him after his shower—you feel like you might actually combust from sheer nerves.
He stops halfway into the room, towel still slung low on his hips, hair damp and steam curling faintly around him. For a long beat, he says nothing at all. His eyes move over you slowly, deliberately—tracing the lace edge of the bra, the way the garters press faint lines into your skin, the flush already creeping down your chest. Then the corner of his mouth lifts, just a fraction. Not a full smile, but something amused, warm, and unmistakably hungry.
“Well,” he murmurs, voice low and rough with that quiet laugh you’re starting to recognize as his version of delight. “This is… unexpected.”
You swallow hard, cheeks burning hotter. “Happy birthday,” you manage, barely above a whisper. Your voice cracks on the last syllable and you want to sink through the floor. You shift your weight, trying to sit up straighter, and the lace shifts against your nipples in a way that makes you bite your lip. The movement only draws his gaze lower.
Valarr drops the towel without ceremony and sets it aside, crossing the room until he’s right in front of you. He can see it—the way your shoulders are drawn tight, the faint tremble in your thighs, the way you keep glancing at the floor like you might bolt. His expression softens, the amusement still there but gentled now, layered under something protective and heated.
“Hey,” he says softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips under his weight. One hand comes up to brush a stray strand of hair behind your ear, thumb grazing your heated cheek. “You’re shaking, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, mortified. “I just… I wanted to surprise you. I didn’t know if this was too much, or—”
“Shh.” He cuts you off gently, eyes dark with want. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” His fingers trace the strap of the bra, slow and reverent, not tugging, just learning the texture against your skin. “But I can see you’re nervous. Come here.”
He opens his arms slightly, an invitation rather than a demand, voice warm and coaxing. “Come to me.”
Your heart stutters. The words your friends had whispered during that mortifying shopping trip echo in your head—kneel for him, right between his legs, look up all shy and blushing—and the reckless part of you obeys. You slide off the bed on unsteady legs and sink to your knees on the floor right in front of him, positioning yourself between his spread thighs. The carpet is soft under your stockings. You tilt your head back and look up at him—cheeks flaming, lashes low, lips parted just slightly. The position makes you feel small and exposed and utterly his, the lace of your bra brushing his knees, your hands resting lightly on his thighs as you gaze up through your lashes.
Valarr’s breath catches. Then a low, delighted chuckle rumbles out of him, warm and dark. His hand slides into your hair, fingers threading gently through the strands in a slow caress, thumb stroking along your flushed cheekbone with possessive care. But there’s a new edge in his eyes—something a little jealous, a little territorial—as he tilts your chin higher so you can’t look away.
“Who taught you this?” he asks, voice rough with amusement and that faint possessive bite. “Who told my sweet girl to get on her knees and look up at me like she’s begging to be ruined?” His thumb brushes your lower lip, pressing lightly, tracing the curve as if memorizing it. “Tell me, sweetheart. I need to know who else has been putting ideas in that pretty head.”
You shake your head, too shy and too turned on to form words, cheeks burning hotter under his stare. He chuckles again, softer this time, but the jealousy lingers like a spark he’s enjoying.
“Doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, still caressing your hair in lazy strokes. “You’re here now. All mine.” His voice drops, low and commanding, but laced with teasing delight. “Go on, then. Give me my gift. Show me what that mouth can do… but slowly. I want to enjoy every second of my birthday present.”
Your hands tremble as you reach for him, freeing his cock from where it’s already heavy and half-hard against his stomach. It’s thick, flushed, the tip already glistening. You keep your eyes locked on his as you lean in, pressing the softest, shyest kiss to the head. Then you drag your tongue in one long, slow stripe up the underside, tasting him, feeling him twitch against your lips. Valarr groans low, fingers tightening just a fraction in your hair, but he doesn’t push. He just watches, amused and hungry, as you swirl your tongue around the tip, sucking gently, taking him in inch by careful inch.
He lets you set the slow, teasing pace for long moments—praising you in that velvet-rough voice. “That’s it… just like that. Look at you, so pretty with your lips wrapped around me.”
Every time you try to take him deeper he eases you back with a gentle tug of your hair, drawing it out, making you whimper around him in frustration. “Not yet, sweetheart. Tease me the way I’m going to tease you.”
Then something shifts. A flicker of something a little cruel, a little wicked, crosses his face. His hand flexes in your hair and he thrusts forward—slow but deliberate—pushing deeper until the head of his cock hits the back of your throat.
You gag softly around him, eyes watering instantly, a single tear slipping down your flushed cheek. The sound only makes him groan louder, hips twitching again with another shallow, testing thrust that has you gagging once more, more tears gathering at your lashes. He holds you there for a heartbeat longer than you expect, watching the way your eyes glisten, the way your throat works around him, before easing back with a wet pop.
“Fuck… look at those tears,” he murmurs, voice dark with lust, thumb brushing the tear from your cheek almost tenderly. “So pretty when you choke on me. My perfect little birthday gift.” He strokes your hair again, soothing even as his cock throbs in front of your face. “Come up here, sweetheart. Sit on my lap. We’re nowhere near yet.”
You rise on shaky legs and climb onto the bed, straddling him. He guides you down so his thick cock rests hot and heavy between your bodies—nestled right under the curve of your ass and along the soaked lace of your thong, the underside pressing teasingly right against your pussy. The position makes you feel every throb of him, every vein, without him entering you yet. You whimper at the contact, hips twitching instinctively.
Valarr’s hands settle on your hips, holding you exactly where he wants you. He rocks up once, letting his cock slap lightly against your covered folds with a wet, obscene sound. Then again—harder this time—so the head taps right against your clit through the thin lace. You gasp, thighs trembling.
He chuckles, low and pleased, eyes gleaming with that mix of amusement and hunger. “Are you my present tonight?” he asks, voice velvet-rough as he slaps his cock against your pussy once more, the wet smack making you jolt and whimper louder.
“All wrapped up in this pretty lace for me?” His thumbs hook under the garter straps, tugging them lightly, letting them snap back against your skin. “Can I unwrap you, sweetheart? Can I take my time peeling every inch of this off you while you sit here dripping on my cock like a good girl?”
You nod frantically, cheeks burning hotter, a broken little “please” slipping out before you can stop it.
That’s all the permission he needs—but he still doesn’t give you what you crave.
He starts slow—seductive, deliberate, torturously teasing. His hands roam your body in long, possessive strokes, tracing the lace over your breasts without removing it, rolling your nipples through the fabric until they pebble tight and ache.
“So sensitive,” he murmurs, amused, pinching lightly then soothing with his thumbs.
"Look at you… already soaking through this tiny thong just from a few slaps and my hands on you.” One hand slides down to cup your ass, squeezing and spreading you open so his cock can slide along your folds again, the head catching on your clit over and over in lazy drags that make you rock helplessly against him.
He keeps you like that for long, torturous minutes—caressing every curve, every inch of lace and skin, pulling the bra straps down just enough to expose your breasts but leaving the rest on. He traces the garter straps with his fingertips, then the curve of your waist, then back up to tug and roll your nipples again—light, then firmer—until you’re whimpering his name, thighs shaking, trying to grind down harder. Every time you do, he holds your hips still, slapping his cock against your pussy in playful punishment.
“Not yet,” he teases, voice dark with satisfaction. “I get to play with my gift as long as I want. Listen to those pretty little whimpers… you’re getting wetter by the second, aren’t you? So desperate already and I haven’t even fucked you.”
He rubs the head of his cock against your clit in slow, firm circles through the ruined lace, never pushing inside, never letting you sink down, just building the ache until you’re trembling and panting, tears of pure frustration mixing with the earlier ones.
"Tell me how bad you want it,” he coaxes, lips brushing your ear. “Tell me you’re my present… and maybe I’ll start unwrapping you properly.”
You’re lost in the teasing, the lace still half-on, garters snapping softly every time you squirm, when the words slip out—raw, unplanned, the first time you’ve ever said them to him.
“I love you, Valarr.”
His rhythm falters. His eyes snap to yours, dark and wild. The controlled, amused man who’d been teasing you so patiently shatters.
A low, broken sound tears from his throat and he finally lifts you just enough to sink into you inch by inch—slow, deliberate, letting you feel every throb as he fills you completely after all that torment.
“Fuck,” he groans, forehead pressed to yours. “Feel that? How perfectly you take me?” His hands grip your hips, holding you still for a long moment, savoring it.
Then he starts to move—deep, unhurried rolls of his hips that drag against every sensitive spot. One hand stays on your ass, guiding you. The other plays with your clit, your nipples, then wraps lightly around your throat to tilt your head back so he can watch your face. He kisses you through it, tongue sliding against yours, swallowing every moan.
You’re lost in the rhythm, the lace still half-on, when his control finally snaps completely. He flips you onto your back in one smooth motion, still buried deep. The slow seduction turns fierce—his hips snapping forward hard, driving into you with deep, possessive thrusts that make the bed creak. “Say it again,” he growls against your mouth, voice wrecked. One hand pins your thigh higher as he fucks you like he can’t hold back anymore. “Say it.”
“I love you,” you gasp, the words tumbling out between moans as he hits that spot relentlessly.
That’s all it takes. He buries himself to the hilt and comes hard, groaning your name like a curse and a prayer, pulsing hot inside you. The feeling tips you over right after him, walls clenching as pleasure crashes through you in shaking waves.
For a long moment he stays there, forehead pressed to yours, breathing ragged. Then he kisses you—slow, deep, almost reverent now that the storm has broken.
“Best birthday of my life,” he whispers, voice hoarse, lips brushing yours.
"I love you too. Fuck… I’ve been waiting to hear you say that first.” His arms wrap around you tighter, still inside you, the lingerie tangled between you like a promise.
“And we’re nowhere near done. Not after you just said that to me.”
Grandsire
Maekar wants a grandchild, I’ll probably make a p2
Content: ooc Aerion, sweet crazy not evil crazy, Kiera is our bestie, pregnancy, nausea, language, made up my own lore for egg to be with dunk, Baelor lives, Valarr and Kiera get the baby they deserve!! Hints of Aerion murdering someone but it’s not confirmed, he loves you more than anything, just pure cuteness!!!
Valarr x reader x Kiera fic when???
“When are you having children?” Maekar says getting straight to the point after summoning you and Aerion to his private solar. Not even offering you a drink before asking.
“We only married 3 moons ago.” Aerion tells him, helping himself to some nuts that were on the table after pulling out a chair for you.
“Your mother was already with child by then. You are fucking, correct?” Maekar asks crudely but not cruelly as he pours three drinks, having dismissed the servant when you entered.
“I’m not answering that.” You say feeling your skin heat up in embarrassment fiddling with your fingers as you look down.
“Obviously we’re fucking.” Your husband informs his father rolling his eyes as he speaks. “Why are you so desperate for us to have a child? And why aren’t you pestering Daeron instead of me? He’s the eldest.”
“None of your fucking business and you try finding Daeron a wife, then I’ll pester him too.” He snaps quickly before remembering it is, in fact your business. “Baelor can’t stop going on about how nice it is to be a grandsire and I refuse to let him beat me.”
“But he’s already got a grandchild.” You say confused about what he could mean, as Kiera and Valarr’s son is now two.
“I want more, and if I get a granddaughter first he’ll be jealous.”
“You what a granddaughter? Not an heir?” Aerion asks, not expecting that explanation. “As you don’t seem to think you’ll get one of Daeron.”
“Obviously, boys are little shits, mine especially.”
“Hey!” Aerion says offended thinking he was a perfect child, if you ignore all the ‘incidents’. “I was a brilliant child.”
“You once jumped off a wall to prove you could fly, you couldn’t.” Maekar responds dryly raising an eyebrow at his son. “You were the worst.”
“I was not.” Aerion argued. Willing to accept he was and still is annoying, but refusing to accept he was the worst. “Daeron thew up on his own horse and Egg ran off to play hedge knight.”
“You were the reason Aegon ran off to play hedge knight.” Maekar countered, remembering that two years ago Aerion refused to let egg be his squire. Daeron had already ran off to hide in a tavern at that point, so egg took matters into his own hands and found himself a knight to squire for. “Aemon is my only well behaved son and that’s because he’s at the citadel.”
“That doesn’t mean girls are better, are you forgetting when Rhae made that love potion.” Aerion counters leaning back in his chair as he throws a nut into his mouth.
“That was one time and daella is perfect.”
“She bit me!”
“It was deserved, anyway I won’t keep you much longer.” Maekar says wanting Aerion to go away so he can have a moment of peace before supper. Waiting until you were both at the doors before adding. “Aerion don’t forget cum in her not on her.”
“Oh my gods.” You say hiding you face in your hands as Aerion escorts you out of his father’s solar while laughing.
-
“Have you had sex yet today?”
“It’s 10am.” Aerion says giving his father a look over breakfast, then being the first two to arrive. “Obviously.”
“Good.”
“What’s good?” You ask entering the solar kissing Aerion on the cheek before you sit next to him.
“That we’re packed for that stupid trip to kingslanding.” Aerion answers passing you a pastry. “I still don’t see why we have to go.”
“It’s the queen’s nameday and she wants a family dinner.” Maekar says for what feels like the hundredth time. “We have to go.”
“Are you talking about grandmothers nameday celebrations?” Daella asks entering dragging a hungover Daeron with her as Rhae sat in her seat. “I’m so excited.”
-
“How was the journey?” Kiera asks you as you walk around the gardens together, little Jacaerys playing on the grass with Valarr. You and Kiera having been friends for years, meeting the week she arrived in court, deciding you wanted some time just the two of you.
“It was fine, Maekar was weird though.” You say looping your arm through her’s as you walk.
“How so?”
“He’s desperate for a grandchild. He keeps trying to give me and Aerion alone time, but I refuse for my child to be conceived against a tree.” You tell her, whispering at the end not wanting anyone to overhear. At your confession Kiera, ever the best friend, burst out laughing. Covering her mouth to try and stifle the noise when Valarr looks over.
“I apologise for laughing, it’s just Baelor is doing the same. He said he was ready for another grandchild so he can look after Jace whenever we’d like.” She tells you through giggles.
“They seem to think they are the ones having these children.” You giggle happy your friendship hasn’t changed in the time you’ve been away.
“How is your marriage with Aerion?” She asks you a smile on her face, noting you look to be glowing and that you were complaining of nausea earlier on.
“Honestly? Incredible, he’s crazy but a sweet crazy. He’s never been cruel to me, he’s so sweet in his weird little ways and he’s defended me against any comments people have made.”
“He does?” She asks a soft look on her face, just wanting you to be happy.
“He says I’m his dragonness so I should be treated as such.” You tell her, finding the nickname a bit odd but he loves it.
“I can’t say I’m surprised you chose him, you have always liked them a bit crazy.” She teases having missed you. “Or should I not mention ser Cairan?”
“Don’t.” You laugh lightly taping her arm in retaliation for the reminder of the man who gifted you a heart to show his eternal love for you. You’d only met him the day before and weirdly he disappeared only a few days later. Aerion kissing for the first time a few days after the man’s disappearance. “We never mention him.”
-
The next evening everyone is sat in the dining hall enjoying a family meal, just as the queen asked for. You’re sat in your seat between Aerion and Daella, when the chicken gets pasted in front of you and you instantly feel nauseous. Covering your mouth you don’t even ask to be excused before running out the room Aerion quickly following.
“Is she alright?” Queen Myriah asks having a suspicion of why you left so abruptly.
“Hopefully she’s with child.” Maekar says a tiny smile on his face hoping no one notices he’s expression. “Aerion thinks she is.”
“She is, she just doesn’t know it yet.” Kiera says not even bothering to hide her smile as she drinks some her wine.
“How do you know?” King Daeron asks intrigued if you’d told her.
“She’s my best friend.”
-
“I feel like shit.” You whine to Aerion as you sit leaning up against a wall of the castle. “I think I need to see a maester.”
“I agree, he can tell us how far along you are.” He says sat next to you, letting you rest your head on his shoulder.
“What?”
“In the pregnancy.” He clarifies kissing the top of your head.
“I’m not pregnant.” You say taking your head off his shoulder to look at him, slightly annoyed at how handsome he looks when you feel so terrible.
“Yes you are, Daeron thinks it twins.” He responds casually resting his head against the wall with his eyes closed.
“What?”
“Twins, I know. Father will be happy.” He says a small smile appearing on his face at your confusion.
“I’m not pregnant.”
“Do you what to bet?” He asks opening his eyes to look at you, a smirk now fully on his face.
“Ok, sure.”
“If I win and you are pregnant I get to name the baby and if you win, you get to name the baby.”
“If I’m right there isn’t a baby to name.” You giggle finding the bet absurd but agreeing to it given how giddy your husband seems. “But fine I agree.”
-
“What should I name them? How about Aerion jr? Or draxter?” Aerion suggests a smug look on his face after the maester left confirming your pregnancy.
“How about, no?” You suggest thinking the suggestions are terrible.
“I won.” He says a smirk on his lips as he has a snack.
“I refuse to have a child called Draxter or Aerion jr.”
“Vhagar and Meraxes?” He then suggests, loving the idea of naming his daughters after goddess’s.
“Fuck no.”
“Fine, how about Aelora and Alyssa?”
“I don’t hate it.” You say loving the names but not wanting to tell him. He’s smug enough he doesn’t need it reinforcing. “Now cuddle me, your pregnant wife demands it and we will need to think of boy names as well we can’t just assume we’re having a girl.”
“We are having twin girls but whatever my dragonness wishes.” He says softly climbing into bed with you giving you a kiss before moving down to your stomach. “What do you think my little hatchlings? Do you like the names Kepus has picked?”
“We don’t know if it’s twins and I’m only 3 moons I doubt they can hear you.”
“My little dragons can.” He says kissing your stomach over your dress before moving back up to bed to cuddle you. “Get some sleep my love, you need it.”
“Rude.” You tease, knowing he’s trying to be nice as you’ve been yawning most of the day. “I love you.”
“I love you too, I would burn the world for you and our dragons.” He says sweetly giving you a quick kiss. “You are my world.”
-
“To being Grandsire’s.” Baelor says to his brother as they sit in the tower of the hand drinking some nice wine.
“To who ever gets a granddaughter first.” Maekar says a smirk on his face, as he drinks.
Hello, just wondering why your Dream fic is tagged as x reader when it's 3rd person and clearly a named oc.
If it was second person I would understand that mc is using one of her many names but nope. I couldn't be more excluded.
oh that was just to reach more people! im so sorry for the confusion. at the time it felt awkward for me to write in a first person pov so i made an oc.
yeah so where can i petition season 5 for the cleaning lady??? it can't end this way and there's obviously a built plot for s5.
GIVE US SEASON 5 PLLLEEEAAAASSSEEEEE
okay i just finished a mafia show and somehow i need a mafia!maekar x reader fic?????
like maekar is the charmer mafia who just gets what he wants cus u know he's maekar and it's old money but reader enters and suddenly maekar's world gets fucked up cuz maekar keeps second guessing big decisions because of reader's principles.
if no one volunteers to write even just the prologue in 10 days, i'll write it i swear
THIRST TRAP!!! — AERION TARGARYEN.
pairing: modern!aerion targaryen x f!stark!reader summary: Aerion Targaryen is a vain, vain man. Unfortunately for him, his thirst traps work better on himself than they do on you. contents/warnings: smut (18+), switch!aerion, switch!reader, mean!bratty!aerion (gotta compensate for the fact he's down bad horrendously ykyk), banter as foreplay, mentions of smoking/drug use, russian lit as foreplay (😭), oral (m receiving), deepthroating, spit play, choking, hair pulling, marking/biting, fingering, multiple orgasms, possessive!aerion, edging/orgasm denial (brief), dirty talk, praise kink, degradation (mild), rough sex but they're both so into i'm not sure it counts, ultimate freak4freak... they're genuinely demons in this 😭 #freakmatched notes: I missed writing these two so much. This is the verse where you never walked away, so Baelor never happened and you two are just gross and in love. So enjoy! By a crazy coincidence, we also hit 15k followers today, so HAPPY 15K AND THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE MY LOVESSSS 💕
✶ valarr's version. ✶ modern au/trailer trash masterlist.
The text comes through at three in the afternoon.
You're curled into the corner of his couch in nothing but his t-shirt. Black and expensive, the cotton so thin it's almost translucent. The hem hits mid-thigh with absolutely nothing on under it because that's a small private cruelty you've been cultivating for weeks now.
You've got your knees drawn up, Aerion’s copy of Demons open across your thighs. The spine is cracked from repeated reading, the margins so densely annotated in his cramped hand that the printed text is sometimes hard to find beneath the ink. Three different pens. Half-Russian, half-English, the occasional Valyrian word slashed in furious black when no other language would do.
self-pitying, he's written next to one of Stavrogin's monologues, and then beneath it, smaller, almost reluctant: and yet—
"And yet," you read out loud with a quiet, huffing laugh. "Relatable, huh?"
Your phone buzzes against the cushion. You set the book aside, careful with the worn pages, and pick it up.
ari 🐉 [image]
You click on the image preview, waiting for the full thing to load.
He's in the gym bathroom. That obscene private one in the basement of the building, all black tile and recessed lighting that he probably picked specifically for this exact purpose. Shirtless. Pale hair damp and pushed back from the sharp angles of his face. One arm braced against the counter, the other angled up to hold the phone. His head is tipped slightly, that flat, bored expression he wears when he's hunting your attention and pretending he isn't.
The lighting catches every single line of him. The lean, wiry musculature he works obsessively to maintain, the cut of his hipbones disappearing into low-slung shorts, the platinum at his nipple, and, lastly, the faint sheen of sweat still clinging to his sternum. Four silver hoops in his left ear glint, his full mouth parted. A glimpse of the dragon's tail is just visible, curling over his hipbone where the back tattoo crests.
"You vain, conceited bastard."
He's beautiful. He's outrageously beautiful, and he knows it, and that’s exactly why he’s never going to hear it from you. Still, you can’t help but drink the lines of him in, heat curling low in your belly, a laugh still caught in your throat.
The caption, when it comes, is one word.
well?
You roll your eyes, humming under your breath. Unbelievable. Annoying. You let the phone fall face down on the cushion, getting comfortable again.
You go back to Demons.
Aerion gets home an hour and twenty minutes later.
You hear the elevator chime, the soft hiss of the door, and then the particular cadence of his bare feet on marble. Aerion never wears shoes in his own home, finds it gauche, a peasant's habit, sweetheart, only idiots wear shoes indoors.
You don't look up as he enters, turning another page instead. A hum builds in your throat at one of his marginalia (Tikhon is the only honest man in this novel, and Dostoevsky knew it), and you feel, more than see, the moment Aerion registers what you're wearing.
The pause is small. A fraction of a beat. He covers it almost instantly, but you catch it.
"Oh, fuck off," he says pleasantly, dropping his gym bag beside the door. "Really. The shirt? And the book? You're being deliberate."
You make a vague, distracted sound, finger tracing another note he’s made.
"You've left no note unstruck. The little tableau of it, look at her, positively domestic—" He's coming closer, voice dripping with that mean, lilting drawl. "Tell me, did you set this up before or after I sent the photo?"
"Before."
"Liar."
You turn another page. "I was already wearing it. I'm always wearing it."
"Yes," he says, and his voice has gone darker, lower, the performance briefly slipping. "I know."
You finally look up.
He's leaned against the back of the couch behind you, both hands braced on the leather, peering down at you upside-down. You have to be careful, immediately, not to let him see what your face does at the sight of him.
Aerion hasn't showered.
The shirt he pulled on after the gym is loose and unbuttoned, hanging open down his chest, and you can see the gleam still catching at his collarbones, the faint sheen down his sternum. Clean sweat, cooled now, the smell of him filtered by the elevator ride into something concentrated and warm. Beneath the warmth of his skin lingers the faint cigarette he definitely smoked in the parking garage on the way up.
There's still a vein up the side of his bicep where the pump from his last set hasn't fully dropped. The dragon's wing is half-visible where the shirt has fallen open, the ink across his skin stark and detailed, scales catching the light. The piercing glints. He's wearing his rings—the heavy platinum Targaryen signet, the cluster of thinner bands on his middle finger—and the hoops in his ear gleam.
His hair has dried slightly damp at the temples, and he’s so unbelievably hot you could choke on it.
You arrange your face into perfect blankness instead.
"What are you reading?" he asks, though he already knows.
"Your annotations sound like the ramblings of a madman,” you inform him graciously. “I hope you know that."
"My annotations are analytical."
You snort. "You wrote self-pitying next to Stavrogin and then immediately walked it back."
"He is self-pitying."
You tip your head back, pitching your voice to match his. "And yet—"
"Shut up." His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't quote me at myself. It's beneath you."
"Is it?" you pose.
You tilt your head back further against the couch cushion to look at him properly. Upside-down, Aerion’s features look even sharper. The devastating cut of his jaw, the strong line of his nose, the pale lashes lowered. His eyes look almost lavender in this light, washed pale, gazing down at you with an expression that’s half-irritation, half something he would rather die than name.
"You didn't text me back," he remarks casually.
You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing at the disgruntlement you hear simmering beneath the faux casual statement.
"You sent me a thirst trap," you say flatly.
"I sent you a photograph."
"Of yourself. Shirtless. Flexing."
"I was checking my form," he says, with the magnificent affront of someone who absolutely was not, in fact, doing that.
"You wrote the caption well?" you remind him.
Aerion’s eyes flash, mouth twisting sourly. "That was… a separate enquiry," he insists, irked.
"Into what, exactly?"
"Your aesthetic opinions, sweetheart,” he drawls dryly. “I have a body, and you, allegedly, have taste, and the two intersect at—"
You hum. "Aesthetic opinions. Right, right."
"Yes."
"On your form."
"Yes."
You smile slowly, all teeth. You watch Aerion’s pupils widen at it—the involuntary little dilation, gone before he can mask it—and feel, low and warm in your stomach, the answering pull of yes, there you are, hello, pretty dragon.
He registers the smile, registers what it means, and his mouth tightens.
Aerion drops his head and bites your jaw.
Just sinks his teeth in, no playfulness in it. His teeth find you just below the curve of bone, where the skin is thin, with enough pressure that you feel the warning in it. A small, vicious nip designed to make you make a sound.
He's been annoyed for an hour and twenty minutes. He went to the gym, worked out, rode up in his own elevator, let himself in, and found you wearing his shirt, reading his book, still not giving him what he wants. The bite is the smallest, pettiest way to communicate as much. You can smell him properly from this angle. The salt of his sweat, the warm damp of his hair, the faint cologne underneath that's gone hours-old and tacky.
You don't react.
You let him bite, let Aerion hold there, jaw locked, his breath hot and moist against your skin. You let the silence stretch between you.
Then you turn your head lazily and press a single, light peck to his cheek.
You feel him seethe.
It's a tiny, beautiful thing, really. The way Aerion’s whole body goes rigid against the back of the couch, his teeth releasing with an audible click. He makes a soft, furious sound in his throat that’s nearly a hiss.
"Are you fucking serious?" he demands.
You shrug against the cushion, stretching your toes out with a wiggle. Readjusting your weight, you turn another page of the book.
Aerion’s hand catches your jaw.
He comes around the couch in one motion, fast, his fingers closing around your face. Thumb under your chin, fingers spread along your cheek, gripping with the kind of pressure that says look at me right now as he tips your face up and kisses you.
Properly, this time.
Aerion’s mouth is hot and slick against yours. It always is. Kissing him is like kissing an open flame. His tongue slips into your mouth before you've finished registering the intrusion.
He tastes like whatever gum he chewed earlier, and underneath, Aerion tastes like him, that particular warm-skin-and-cigarettes thing that lives on his tongue. He kisses you like he's making a point. He kisses you with his hand still gripping your jaw, holding you exactly where he wants you. You let him for two full seconds, let him have the satisfaction of taking it, and then you bite his bottom lip.
He hisses, but he doesn't pull back.
"There," he mutters against your mouth, lips dragging on yours when he speaks. "That's better. Stop patronising me."
You lick at his bottom lip, and he chases the sensation, leaning closer. "You bit me."
"You deserved it."
You snort despite yourself. "Are you five?"
"Don't peck me on the cheek like I'm your fucking grandmother, you absolute —"
You drag your mouth, slow, off his.
Down. Along the line of his jaw. Past his ear—you feel him tense, the curse caught on his tongue, his hand still locked on your face—to the side of his throat where the vein is. Where the sweat is. You set your tongue against his pulse point and lick, leisurely, a flat wet stripe up the side of his neck. You taste the salt of him. The clean musk under it. The metallic edge of the chain at his throat, where the links lie cold against hot skin.
Aerion sucks in a deep breath.
"Christ, you—"
You pull back, meeting his eyes. They’re glazed, lavender almost gone now, and you lean closer at an angle and spit in his mouth.
You've still got the salt of his sweat on your tongue, and you push it past his parted lips with your own, the wet of it landing and making him go completely still.
A whole beat passes as you stare at each other. You see Aerion’s pupils blow even as a sneer twists his mouth.
"Oh," he breathes. "Oh, you—"
You smile innocently. "Yes?"
"Did you just—"
"Did I what?" you question lightly. “Use your words, baby.”
"Did you just lick the sweat off my skin—"
"And spat in your mouth, yes." You smile at him, blinking innocently. “Do keep up, dear.”
"—and spat it back into me—"
"Yes, naturally."
His grip on your face has gone slack. He looks, for a beat, like he's been clubbed across the head—eyes wide, mouth slightly open, throat working—and you can feel the heat rolling off him in waves now, can see the colour rising up Aerion’s neck above the open collar of his shirt.
"You absolute minx," he says, his voice dropping two registers, and his hips press forward into the couch behind you, fully hard now, the line of him visible through the thin shorts. "You filthy—you think you can just—"
You smirk at his indignation. "You liked it."
"I hated it."
"That’s not very convincing," you note gently, poking his cheek.
"Disgusting. Actually. Disgusting, I'm going to have to—"
He swallows.
You watch it happen. You watch Aerion’s throat move, deliberately, swallow the spit down, eyes still locked on yours, and his hand hasn’t left your jaw, his other hand coming up to brace on the couch beside your head. He swallows everything you gave him, and his lashes flutter. Flutter. Just briefly. The smallest tell.
"Hated it, huh?" you echo mildly.
"Shut up."
Your grin widens. "You swallowed."
"Shut. Up."
"You're going to let me come here—"
"Come where?"
You hook your finger into the open collar of his shirt and pull.
He comes.
Not easily because Aerion never comes easily, never gives you the satisfaction of obedience without a fight. But he lets himself be drawn forward over the back of the couch, his hands sliding down to brace on the cushion on either side of you, his face dipping toward yours. He stops, his mouth a breath from yours.
"You're being," he murmurs darkly, "insufferable."
You roll your eyes. "You're the one who sent—"
"I sent a picture—"
"Of your abs—"
"—of my form, you obscene little—"
You kiss him.
Aerion makes a sound against your mouth that’s half-laugh, half-snarl, and his hand fists in the back of your hair, tilting your head where he wants it. You bite his bottom lip again. Harder this time, and he bites you back, harder still, making you taste copper faintly. He's nicked the inside of your lip with his canine, and you feel him smile against your mouth when he tastes it too.
"Wolf," he murmurs, low and pleased. "I feared you’d gone all docile on me."
A snarl builds in your throat. "Shut your mouth."
"Make me."
You pull him over you.
He goes. Laughing now, properly, that rare, ugly, delighted laugh that only comes out when you've genuinely surprised him. Aerion lands half on top of you, one knee braced on the cushion, one hand catching himself against the leather beside your head. The book falls. Neither of you cares. He's radiating heat through the thin shirt. Gym-warm, sweat-warm, the smell of him concentrated now where his open collar has fallen against your face. Underneath everything, he smells like himself, that particular skin-scent that you'd know with your eyes closed in a dark room.
He braces over you. His pale hair shines in the light, a single bead of sweat caught at his temple.
"On your back already," he observes smugly. "Predictable."
You kick him. "You're on me."
"You pulled me," he sniffs.
"You came."
"I fell."
Snorting, you shove your hand up under his shirt. Your palm goes flat against his stomach, the muscle there tightening immediately at the coolness of your skin against his hot one. You drag it slowly upward. Over his ribs, the platinum bar at his nipple, up to splay flat across his chest. Aerion’s skin is faintly damp under your hand, heart hammering. He hates that you can feel it. You watch him decide whether to bite at you about it and see him, for once, choose not to.
You push the shirt off one shoulder. Slowly. The hem snags on his elbow where it's braced beside your head.
"Show me, then," you say. "Your form."
His eyes go dark.
"Greedy thing," he murmurs, and his voice has dropped into that register you only get in this room, in this apartment, in the moments when his performance starts to crack. "Insatiable. You'd think I never gave you anything."
"You give me almost nothing," you remark dryly.
"I gave you my shirt."
The bastard even manages to sound magnanimous about it. You almost kick him again.
"I stole your shirt," you say flatly.
"I gave you the key to my apartment. Ungrateful—"
He pushes himself back. Just enough to drag the open shirt off entirely, tossing it somewhere over the back of the couch, and then he's bare-chested above you, and the dragon's tail curves around his ribs, and you can see every line of him. The lean lines of him, the indent of his hipbones, a trail of pale silver hair below his navel disappearing into his shorts, the pink of his nipples and the platinum bar through the left one.
He sees you looking. Aerion’s grin tips into a slow, lazy thing, feline at the edges.
"Now she looks."
You roll your eyes.
"Aesthetic opinions, sweetheart?" he questions, tipping his head slightly to one side.
You extend your hand. "Get back here."
"No." He huffs, bracing his arm on the couch. "Look properly. You wouldn't text me back. Suffer a little."
You drag your fingertip down the centre of his chest. Purposefully. Through the faint damp of his sweat, between his pectorals, down the ridge of his sternum, over each rib. Aerion goes still above you. His abs flutter when you drag your nail across them, just barely.
"You're disgusting," you conclude pleasantly.
Aerion bares his teeth, but you hear the shallow pitch of his breathing. "You licked me."
"Tasted like gym equipment," you say ruefully.
"You liked that.” He presses into your hand, his skin burning and damp beneath your palm. “You spat it into my—"
You arch into him. "Aerion."
He drops his head to your throat.
His mouth opens against the skin under your jaw, hot and wet, tongue dragging slowly across your pulse before his teeth close. Light at first, testing. Then harder, harder, until you suck in a breath and Aerion hums against your throat like a man who's eaten well.
He sucks a mark there. The pressure of it is obscene, the wet drag of his tongue working the skin between his teeth, and you feel the bruise rising under his mouth and know it'll be on display tomorrow and know, distantly, that this is the entire point. He moves down. The hollow of your throat, the dip at the base where he likes to bite. Your collarbone. His tongue traces the bone, then his teeth, and you feel him laugh quietly against your skin when you arch into it.
"Mine," he murmurs against your throat, but petulantly, possessively, the way a child claims a toy. "Pretty. Stupidly pretty. You think I sent you that picture for fun?"
“For attention.” You huff. “Because you’re so damn vain.”
"For yours." His mouth moves to your other collarbone, teeth scraping, lapping at the skin greedily. "Hate that you make me work for it. Hate it. I should be bored of you by now. Should've moved on. It's been—" He bites down. "—months."
"Are you?" you breathe, arching into the sensation.
He bites the bone. Hard. You hiss, and his hips press down, and you feel him through his shorts, hot and hard against your inner thigh. His breath stutters against your skin like he wasn't expecting his own response.
"No," he hisses, like it's been wrung out of him. "Obviously not. Look at you. Look at the—"
His hand finds the hem of the shirt. Pushes it up. Stops dead in his tracks when he sees nothing beneath.
"Oh," he says, so quietly you barely hear it. "Oh, you absolute creature."
"I told you. I was already wearing it."
"You were not wearing anything under it."
Your lips twitch, and you fail to hold back your grin. "No."
"All afternoon?” Aerion hisses. “On my couch? Reading my Dostoevsky?"
"Obviously."
He drops his forehead against your sternum and laughs. Low, wrecked, almost helpless. You feel the laugh move through his whole body. When Aerion lifts his head, his eyes are bright in a way you don't get to see often, that brief crack in the cruelty where the obsession leaks through.
"You'll be the fucking death of me," he declares.
You hum. "Probably."
"Don't sound so pleased about it."
He pushes the shirt up slowly. Inch by inch. Drags the hem up over your stomach, ribs, the underswell of your breasts, like he's unwrapping a present. He doesn't take it off. He just bunches it up under your collarbones and looks. His mouth parts slightly. His hand splays wide across your stomach, thumb dragging slowly across the soft skin, and you watch Aerion’s eyes track over you with the unbearable, greedy attention of a man who is, despite everything, still surprised every time.
"Greedy," he mumbles, and he isn't talking about you this time.
He doesn't go for your breasts first. He drags two fingers slowly down the centre of your stomach, then back up the side of your ribs, mapping. His knuckles brush the underside of your breast. Pull away. Come back. He's making you wait.
"Aerion—"
"Patience."
"Aerion."
"You made me wait an hour and twenty minutes," he murmurs spitefully, watching his own hand move across your skin. "I checked. You opened the photograph right away. You read it for—" his thumb drags across your nipple, lightly, just once, and you arch, making him smile "—the seventeen seconds it takes to commit it to memory. Then you put your phone down. You went back to my book. You didn't text. You didn't even—"
"Fuck—"
"—send a single emoji. Insulting."
His slick mouth closes around your nipple.
You suck in a breath so hard your throat hurts. Aerion’s tongue is hot and unhurried, the curve of his teeth an excruciating tease, while his other hand comes up to cup your other breast. His thumb drags across the peak, rough and testing, while he sucks slow and dirty at the first. Aerion takes his time. He sucks until you feel the heat building, until you're squirming under him, and then he switches, mouth on the other one, and the cold of his saliva on the first against the air makes you shudder. He works the second nipple harder. Tongue flat. Teeth scraping. He pulls off with an obscene wet sound and looks down at the slick peak of you, glistening, and exhales hot air across it just to watch you twitch.
"Aerion."
"Look at you," he rasps, low and pleased. "Sensitive little—"
"Will you stop?"
"Stop what, wolf, you're—" he licks, greedily, just the one stripe. "—gorgeous, stop complaining—"
His hair brushes your skin. The piercing scrapes against your ribs as he works lower, then back up. You drag your fingers up into his hair—damp at the roots, soft at the ends—and tug. Aerion makes a small, wounded sound against your breast and bites you in retaliation. Your hand slides down the back of his neck, across the top of his shoulder, and you feel the raised edge of ink there where the dragon's wing crests over his shoulder blade. You trace it. Lightly, gently, ever so carefully. You feel Aerion shiver.
"Remember," he murmurs, lifting his head just enough to speak, mouth still wet, eyes hooded, consuming, "the night of the gala. Last month. You came home in that black thing, the silk—"
You almost hit him because you know exactly what he’s doing.
Your mouth parts, and you gasp, "I remember."
"You let me put my hand under it in the elevator."
"I did—"
"Your thigh." His teeth find your other nipple. His whole body presses into you, slick and burning above you, all encompassing. "Slick already. By the time we got upstairs, you were dripping for me. Down your leg. Onto my hand. Begging for it before I'd even—"
"I wasn't begging."
"You were. Don't lie to me. You said Aerion, please against my mouth. I have that shit memorised. I think about it in traffic. I had to—" he sucks, hard and mean, then drags his teeth slowly over the peak "—pull off the freeway last Tuesday because of it."
"That’s disgusting," you choke out, nails sunk into his back.
"Wasn’t disgusting when I bent you over the kitchen counter. Remember that part? Pulled the silk up around your waist. You weren't wearing anything underneath that one either, you absolute—" Aerion bites the underside of your breath, and you jerk, gasping. "Came on my fingers before I even got my mouth on you. Twice. You soaked the marble, sweetheart. Wouldn't even let me touch myself, just sat me on the floor and rode my face until I—"
"Aerion—"
"—couldn't breathe—"
"Stop—"
"—made me come in my own hand without you even looking at me—" His voice cracks open completely now, strangled and frayed at the edges. "Made me wipe it on the kitchen floor like a fucking animal—"
"Aerion."
"—which makes me wonder," he goes on, lifting his head fully now, eyes wicked and dark, "if you'd be that wet for me right now or if I'm going to have to—"
You shove him.
He careens backwards, startled, laughing. Back into the couch cushions, and you climb him, hands flat to his chest, and slide down his body. His shirt, your shirt, has fallen back down around your hips and bunches obscenely at your waist. His shorts are loose. You can see, clearly, how hard he is through the thin fabric, a wet patch already darkening the front of them. Aerion’s face when you look up at him from between his thighs is gorgeous. Flushed high on the cheekbones, mouth bitten red, hair an absolute mess, sweat starting to gather at his temple again from the heat of you both.
"Don’t you dare," he snaps, but you know he doesn’t mean it.
“What’s wrong, dragon?” you wonder innocently, one finger tracing his thigh. “Afraid you can’t hold out the way I did?”
His head falls back against the cushion as you slide your hand up his thigh. "Fuck."
You don't pull his shorts down right away. Just like he didn’t put his mouth on you right away. You drag your palm over the front of them, noting the heat of him through the thin fabric, the wet patch where he's leaking through. He twitches. Aerion’s hand fists into the cushion at the slip. You drag your knuckles up the length of him leisurely, watching his abs flutter. Elegant line of Aerion’s throat work, and his hips press up into your hand without his permission.
You turn your head and bite the inside of his thigh.
He makes a sound.
You set your tongue against the spot. Suck. Just enough to bruise, to claim. You feel his thigh trembling under your mouth, the muscle still warm and tight from his workout, and you lift your head and look up at him. He's watching. He's gone half-undone with it. Head tipped back against the cushion, throat exposed, the chain at his neck catching the light, lashes lowered.
"Greedy," you echo softly. “Such a greedy dragon.”
He snarls under his breath.
"You're so wet, Aerion." You put your mouth to the bite, lick it, then kiss it gently, speaking into the skin. “So hard for me, baby.”
"Quiet."
"For what? Just a photo? Did you think about me touching myself to your little photo, baby, is that it? You're dripping through your—"
His hand tangles in your hair, "Shut up."
You laugh under your breath, hooking your fingers in the waistband to pull them down slowly. Aerion’s cock springs free, flushed pink and hard, the head wet and shining. You wrap your hand around the base of him and watch Aerion’s head fall back against the leather. His abs are tightening rhythmically with every breath as he fights for control. The dragon tattoo across his back bunches where his shoulders are pressed into the leather, his throat working.
His hand leaves your ahir to fist into the cushions like he doesn't trust himself to put them on you yet.
You lower your mouth.
Not to take him in. You’re not that nice. You drag your tongue up the length of him from base to tip first. Once. Aerion shudders. You do it again—slower this time, flat tongue, the whole length of him from root to head—and he hisses something through his teeth. You circle the head playfully with your tongue, then again. You taste the salt of him, the faint bitterness of him, lick it clean and watch fresh wetness bead at the slit almost immediately. You lean down and lick that, too, kissing it. He twitches, throbbing insistently in your palm. The whole length of him jumps.
"Christ, you absolute—"
You hum, swiling your tongue around the wet, pulsing length of him.
"Take me. Properly. Stop—"
"You said patience," you remind him evenly.
"You fucking—"
You take just the head into your mouth. Suck softly. Swirl your tongue around the slit again, gathering the precum beading there. Pull off with a wet pop, and a string of saliva connects your bottom lip to him for a beat before it breaks. Aerion makes a noise like he's been gut-punched, and his hand finally flies up to your hair, gripping, not pulling, just holding on for stability.
"Please," he rasps, and immediately catches himself: "—fuck. Don't tell anyone I said that."
You smirk.
You take him deeper this time. Slower. An inch at a time, and you watch Aerion’s face, you watch his eyes lose focus, you watch his mouth fall open. His hand tightens in your hair. You take him almost to the back of your throat and pull off, slow, dragging your tongue along the underside. A sound escapes him that he absolutely would kill someone for overhearing, high and keening.
You set the rhythm. Slow first, mean, the kind of pace designed to make him beg. You hollow your cheeks, one hand sunk into the flesh of his thigh.
You drag your tongue up the underside as you pull off, and watch his stomach flutter, his head falling back. Aerion’s throat works as he tries, visibly tries, not to make any of the sounds you can feel building in his chest. You know how loud he can be, how deliciously descriptive in a way that can make you squeeze your thighs together.
You let your spit run down him, let it pool at the base, slick and obscene. You take him deep again and pull off, letting spit and precum drip down the length of him, using your hand to spread it, sliding wet through your fist, working him slowly while your tongue circles the head. His thighs tremble on either side of your shoulders.
"Fuck, fuck, your mouth, your fucking mouth—"
You suck him down, going as far as you can, and stay there. Hold. Swallow around him, throat working tight around the head, and Aerion’s hips jerk up involuntarily, choking you for a breath. You let him. Your throat eases around the throbbing hardness, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. The wet of your spit runs down your chin, and Aerion makes a strangled sound.
"Sweetheart—"
You pull off unhurriedly. Drag your tongue up, take Aerion back into your mouth, sucking lightly, insistently.
"You're going to—" Aerion’s voice catches, cracks. "Slow down. Stop. I'm going to—"
You hum sympathetically, mockingly, as the taste of him burns on your tongue.
"Fuck—don't you dare—"
But you do dare.
You take him all the way down one last time. You set a rhythm now, fast, dirty, your hand working what you can't fit, and you can feel it in him. The way Aerion’s thighs are starting to lock, the way his stomach is trembling, his hand gone vice-tight in your hair.
"Fuck, fuck, I'm—fuck, I'm going to—"
He comes with a sound that’s almost a laugh but mostly a curse. Entirely undone. His body goes taut beneath you, fingers tight in your hair. You hold him through it. You wait. Feel him pulse against your tongue, hot and thick, salt-bitter, filling your mouth in pulses. You wait for him to finish, wait patiently for the last twitch. His fingers loosen from your hair, and Aerion’s head falls back, his eyes closed. He’s gone. There’s a split second of complete peace on his face, his mind having gone somewhere far away.
Then, eyes locked on his when he finally cracks them open to look down at you, you lift your head, mouth still full, and let his cum drip off your tongue.
Down his length.
A long, white string of it, sliding crudely over the head and down his shaft, and Aerion’s eyes go wide.
You smear it with your thumb. Spread it. Make a show of it. Work it slowly down the length of him, slick and pearly, watching Aerion’s expression crack through a hundred emotions.
"What," he begins hoarsely, "are you doing?"
"Helping."
There’s a pleasant rasp in your voice from him hitting the back of your throat, and you smile when Aerion’s breath hitches slightly.
You see him puzzling out the word. "Helping."
You stroke him gently, your fingers slick and dripping, eyeing his hips twitch involuntarily. He's still half-hard, fluttering with aftershocks, and going to be hard again very fast at this rate. "In case you can't get me wet enough on your own, baby."
There’s a beat of utter silence.
Then Aerion lunges.
He hauls you up—roughly, hand around your wrist, the other in your hair—and flips you face-down into the couch cushions in one motion. You're laughing, practically cackling, half-muffled into the leather, as he yanks the shirt up over your hips and shoves your knees apart with his own. The leather is warm where he was sprawled across it; you can feel the body heat soaked into the cushion against your stomach.
"Get me wet enough," he spits, low and venomous, mouth at your ear from behind. "You insolent—"
You’re still laughing, muffled. "You came in thirty seconds—"
"I came in two minutes—"
"It was thirty—"
His hand closes around your throat.
A warning, a brand, the cold press of his rings against your pulse where they're still warm from his own skin. He drags you back up against his chest, your spine to his sternum, the dragon's wing somewhere behind you against your shoulder blades, and he holds you there. You can feel the sweat on him now properly—fresher, the heat of exertion not the gym anymore, the slick of his stomach against the small of your back.
"Behave, wolf," he murmurs against your ear.
"Make me," you mock.
His other hand slides between your legs.
Aerion hisses softly against your neck. You're already wet. You've been wet since the photograph. He drags two fingers through your folds, gathering evidence, and then he pushes them inside you, and your knees give a little against the cushion. His grip on your throat tightens by a fraction. Not cutting off your air, just holding. Claiming.
"Pretty liar," he whispers viciously. "I didn't have to do anything. You’re ready. Look at this—listen to it—" He works his fingers mercilessly, and the sound is lewd, wet and slick, and you can feel yourself dripping down his wrist. "Soaking my hand. Down to my elbow in a minute. Pretending you needed me to—"
You moan, the sound caught in your windpipe, your hips pressing forward for more friction.
"Greedy thing,” Aerion hisses into your nape. “Pretty greedy thing. Couldn't even let me catch my fucking breath—"
He pulls his fingers out. He drags them up, glossy and wet, across your stomach, your ribs. He brings them to your mouth and pushes them past your lips, and you suck, and he makes a sound against your neck that’s genuine hunger.
"There," he breathes out softly, mockingly. "Taste it. Taste how wet you are for—"
"Aerion."
"—a man you claim is insufferable—"
"You are."
You feel his smirk against your skin when he mocks lowly, "And yet."
He pushes inside you in one slow, mean stroke, hand braced on your hip.
You both make sounds as he sinks in. You feel the ridiculous, absurd intimacy of him—the heat, the stretch of him slick with the cum you spread on him with your mouth—and his hand flexes around your throat. He holds very still inside you and breathes, breathes, like a man trying to talk himself out of something foolish.
"Look at you," Aerion drawls, and you hear the naked pleasure in his voice, can feel his burning stare along your body. "Bent over my couch in my shirt. Reading my book. Took my come out of your mouth and put it back on me like you were doing me a favour—"
He starts to move.
He never goes slow when he wants you like this, when the dragon-thing in him has slipped its leash. He fucks you hard. Hand at your throat, other hand braced on your hip, fingers digging in with every thrust. You brace yourself against the back of the couch and let your spine arch, listening to the obscene wet sound of it and the bitten-off curses he's mumbling into your hair. His chest is slick against your back. The chain at his neck is hot now, dragging across your shoulder blade with each thrust.
"Mine," he's saying, mostly to himself. "Mine. Pretty mine. Pretty greedy mine. Look at—look at how you take me. You'd let anyone watch you like this, wouldn't you, wolf? You'd let me film you—"
You moan at the visual, clenching around him so hard Aerion snarls against your ear. "Aerion, harder—"
His thrusts turn bruising, and you melt into him, into the feeling, your walls gripping him close, clenching tighter, tighter.
"You're close," Aerion breathes into your ear knowingly.
"Yes, yes—"
"Not yet," he breathes sharply.
He pulls out.
You let out a snarl of genuine fury, and Aerion laughs—wrecked, breathless, the laugh of a man who's enjoying himself far too much—and flips you onto your back, pulling you up into his lap in one motion. Your knees settle on either side of his hips, his hands at your waist, his cock notching back inside you before you've finished registering the absence.
"There," he murmurs, mouth at your jaw, the same place he bit you earlier. You can feel him press his lips against the bruise. "Better. Wanted to see your face."
"Fuck you, I was about to—"
"I know, I felt it, I'm not charitable—"
What he said a moment ago registers fully in your pleasure-addled brain, and your eyes narrow. "Wait. Did you just say you wanted to see my face?"
He rolls his eyes. "Did I?" he poses dismissively.
You catch his face in your hands.
Aerion goes still. Looks at you. His eyes are dark despite their paleness, hungry and lidded. There's colour high on his cheekbones, and his hair is a disaster. The proud curve of his mouth is swollen from being bitten, and there's still a faint wet shine on his throat where you licked him. He is, in this moment, the most undone you’ve ever seen him. You stare at him, and you say, quietly:
"You missed my pretty face?"
His hand cracks down on your ass.
You yelp, laughing, and he grins at you, full and mean and absolutely delighted, grabbing your jaw between his thumb and forefinger.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," he says dismissively. "Wanna suck your pretty tits, actually."
But you're both laughing. Properly, stupidly. He's still inside you, and you're laughing into each other's mouths. Aerion’s hand slides up to cup your breast, and his mouth drops to the other one, and he's working you, slow now, the rhythm changing—deep, grinding, the angle suddenly exactly right to hit that one spot inside you—and you feel it building again, faster this time, helpless.
You feel his rings against your nape, quiet, panting breaths escaping you. A whine working up your throat as he ruts into you. "Aerion—"
He hums at the need he hears in your voice, pulling you flush to him, burning somewhere in the middle.
"Aerion, please, I need—"
"I know," he murmurs around your nipple, and you can feel the smile against your skin, "yes, sweetheart, I know what you need, let go for me, wolf—"
The coil inside your belly snaps. You come clutching him.
Both arms around his neck. Face buried in his hair. Body locking, shaking. Aerion fucks you through it, slower, his hands splayed wide across your back, clutching you, and you feel him follow a moment later. Quiet this time, no theatrics, just a starved, broken sound into your shoulder, his whole body shuddering and stilling.
For a while, neither of you moves.
Aerion’s heart hammers against your sternum. His hair is damp with sweat at the nape. You can feel the platinum of his piercing pressed against your ribs and the heat of him everywhere else. His arms are wound around your waist in that tight, possessive way that says don't move, don't go anywhere, stay.
You lift your head, eventually. To look at him.
He's already gazing at you. No smirk, not posing, gazing, with that rare, naked expression you only get for half-seconds before he remembers himself and smothers it. His full mouth is slightly open, eyes gone soft at the edges.
"What?" you mumble.
Aerion blinks, his mouth twitching. He doesn't smother it this time—too tired, maybe, or too undone—and just keeps looking at you.
"Why were you reading my book?" he asks suddenly.
You shift in his lap. He's still inside you, going soft, and your body aches pleasantly. Your forehead is against his. His hand come up to cradle the back of your skull, fingers in your hair, and his thumb is moving along the curve of your jaw.
"You annotate everything," you say vaguely.
"I know I do."
"In three languages."
His brows twitch. "I know."
"In ink so cramped, half of it's barely legible."
"Get to the fucking point, sweetheart."
You breathe out, let yourself look at him, let yourself say it. "I wanted to know how you see the world."
He goes rigid underneath you.
"I read your margins because… that's where you actually are. The real you. The book you're arguing with. The lines you double-underline. What you cross out and rewrite. The places where you've gone back years later in different ink and answered yourself." You shrug, a tiny movement, against him. "It's the closest you let me get without making me work for it."
There's a long beat where Aerion doesn't say anything at all. His thumb has stopped moving on your jaw. He's just looking at you, lavender-pale in the late afternoon light, mouth slightly open.
His arms tighten around you, hauling you flush against his chest so suddenly a breath escapes you. He drops his face into the curve of your neck. He breathes there. You feel him breathing. A ragged thing, the kind of breath a person takes when they’re trying very hard not to let anything else show on their face.
You stroke his hair.
When Aerion speaks again, his voice is hushed, mouth against your throat. You can feel the words form against your pulse before you hear them.
"You can't do that," he says.
"Do what?" you question quietly.
"That.” It’s practically a snarl. “Say things like that to me."
"Why?"
"Because." You feel his throat move against your collarbone. "I can't—you can't say things like that and then leave."
There’s a pinch deep inside your chest, and your fingers tighten in his hair. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Ever." Aerion’s arms have gone so tight his hold is almost painful, and his voice muffles into your skin. "I mean ever. If you say things like that to me, I'm going to—fuck— I’m not built to—"
You soften because he can’t see your face, and it’s easier to be open like this. "Aerion."
"—let go. Of you. I'm not going to. You understand that. You understand it, don't you? Ever."
"I do."
"I'm telling you. I'm telling you now." He lifts his head, and there’s predator’s grace in the movement. "If you stay, then I’ll burn down anything you ask me to. I will buy us a country. I’ll set my name on fire. But I’m not going to—"
"I know," you tell him quietly.
"—let anyone near you, do you—"
You cup his face in your hands again. "I know, Aerion."
His eyes are burning, lit up from inside. "—and if you ever—if you ever decided to—"
"I'm not."
"Ever?"
"Ever."
He stares at you, searches your face the way he reads. Annotating. Underlining. Cross-referencing in three languages against everything he already knows about you and him, and you two together.
Then he kisses you.
No teeth, no performance, no game. His hand comes up to cup the back of your head, and his mouth moves against yours like he's memorising it, and against your lips, half-mumbled, almost reverent now where before it had been petulant:
"Mine."
But it's different this time. It isn't the dragon claiming a coin. It isn't pretty mine or greedy mine or any of the small possessive cruelties he's been muttering all afternoon. It's quieter than that. Lower. It sounds like kept. It sounds like known. It sounds like a thing a man says when he has just understood that he will not, in any version of his life going forward, be the one to walk away.
You hum, the word closing around your heart like a fist.
"Yours," you agree softly against his mouth.
"Mine," Aerion says again, into your mouth, into your jaw, into the soft skin under your ear. "Mine. Mine. Mine."
His arms don't loosen.
He keeps his face buried in your throat and doesn’t let go once.
You stroke his hair, and Aerion doesn't tell you to stop.
He won't, you realise, ever again.
an: i'm having whatever they're having 🚬🚬🚬
I need to suck their dicks AND the dicks that made them.
i added aerion to my tomodachi world, that mf arrogant af
and im bffs with valarr
#WeddingSoonMaybeHopeSo
I love your style of writing, so if I can ask you to write one shot with modern aerion and if you could make it angst to fluff? Please and thank you 🫶🏻
aerion as your fwb! who realized his feelings only after losing you.
contains. slight mention of smut, kinda grovelling but do not expect much, he is an asshole in the beginning, ooc
a/n. thank you anon !! pic is for the aesthetic purposes only — no description of reader.
aerion masterlists akotsk
the first thing you realized when you woke up that morning was that you had always known.
it wasn’t some sudden hit, wasn’t a revelation that flipped your whole world upside down. it was more like a quiet, stubborn feeling that came together piece by piece — you just never paid enough attention to it.
but you knew: one day, it would end.
when aerion targaryen — your campus’s resident fuckboy — offered you a casual arrangement in daeron’s backyard while a party blasted inside, you thought he was just high as hell.
you were never actually close. you just moved in the same circles — through valarr and tanselle. a couple of random run-ins, short greetings, sometimes conversations that for some reason dragged on longer than they should’ve when you ended up next to each other on the couch while everyone else was drunk off their third shot of vodka or the music was way too loud.
you argued about everything. it didn’t matter if you talked about how successful robert baratheon’s political campaign was or rumors that your new chemistry professor thought eating pussy wasn’t masculine.
“who the fuck in their right mind turns down his girl’s pussy? that’s insane,” he said.
you just rolled your eyes, amused.
so when he suddenly offered that arrangement, you only raised an eyebrow a little.
“we’re not even friends,” you said calmly.
he shrugged, lazily waving one hand in the air while holding a cigarette in the other.
“then we can be strangers with benefits. or just people who don't really know each other but still hook up. whatever the hell you like.”
but you smiled, shaking your head a little. “you drank too much.”
“i didn’t touch a single drink.”
“we don’t even know if we work in bed.”
for a moment, he went quiet and just looked at you — his eyes focused, hungry.
then a slow, confident smirk touched his lips. “oh, you’ll definitely work for me,” he said. “be sure of that.”
you didn’t remember every detail, but you definitely remembered how that night ended.
he kissed you hard right there in the backyard, not even bothering to suggest going upstairs or deciding whose place to go to.
not that it really needed to be discussed anyway.
because at some point he just grabbed your hand, dragged you to his car, and drove you home.
you were pretty sure he got at least a ten-thousand fine the next day — just for speeding and running a red light.
after that, you just called it what it was: a casual thing between you.
of course, you didn’t announce it everywhere, but your friends weren’t idiots. they all felt that heavy, almost physical tension. they saw how his hand always ended up on the back of your chair, or how he stood right behind you with his hands in his pockets while you all listened to raymun talking about how he accidentally got his girlfriend pregnant.
people couldn’t miss the shift. at parties, aerion didn’t hang around the bar anymore with a vodka shot, talking football with daeron and valarr or trying to shake off persistent freshmen girls.
now he just sat on the couch — right ankle resting on his left knee — watching you without looking away while you talked to rowan. or he stood behind you with his keys in his hand while everyone said goodbye, and you kissed the girls on the cheek.
just to end up fucking you in the back seat of his car ten minutes later. according to him, you had been teasing him the entire night and he didn’t really have a choice.
“it’s this fucking dress,” he breathed against your neck. “i wanted to kill every fucker who looked at you in it.”
you let out a soft gasp when he pulled you closer — even though in the tight space of the back seat, there wasn’t really anywhere closer to go.
“god,” you breathed, trying to steady your breathing. “you’re so dramatic.”
he froze for a second, then you felt his low, dangerous smirk right by your ear. his hand squeezed your thigh possessively.
“you sure that’s what you should be saying when my cock is tearing you apart inside?”
you often thought about how you had done way more than your label ever suggested.
because in no world did two people who were just casual know each other this deeply.
his family knew you completely. daella and rhae looked up at you and kept saying they wanted to be like you when they grow up. they begged you for makeup lessons, and you laughed while drawing eyeliner on them. aegon kept texting you all the time and sending pictures of himself from different places (and always asked for one in return).
aerion helped your dad build a doghouse for pops, the puppy who had been with you since childhood and constantly stole bites of your mom’s pie.
so no one could really blame you for thinking there might have been something more behind all of it, something you both just didn’t call by name.
you were so wrong.
it happened on the day you were going to tell him you couldn’t do this anymore — not like this, not in this strange space between closeness and no commitment.
“you were gone for four days, aerion. where were you?”
“i was busy.”
“so busy you couldn’t answer a single message?” you stepped closer, trying to catch his eyes.
he stood in front of you, holding some document in his hands — folded carelessly, like he only kept it there to have something to do with them. and finally, he looked at you.
“do i look like your fucking boyfriend who owes you explanations?”
then he tilted his head slightly and, with that familiar smirk. “if you really want to play a girlfriend, maybe you should find one.”
the silence that followed was deafening.
you stood still. your ears started ringing, and your heart beat so fast it actually hurt.
aerion closed his eyes for a second, realizing what he had just said. “i…”
“maybe i really should,” you cut him off quietly.
he still didn’t open his eyes, his jaw tight. “that’s not what i meant.”
“but that’s what you said.”
he finally looked at you. something flashed in his eyes for a second — something you couldn’t read — but it disappeared too fast.
“you know exactly what i mea—”
“that’s why i came today,” you said almost in a whisper, looking straight at him. “to end this. whatever this was.”
then he seemed to slip back into his usual self.
the corner of his mouth lifted, that familiar, lazy smirk returning like nothing serious had ever happened.
“whatever this was?” he repeated, tilting his head slightly. “we just fuck. it’s fun, you know.”
but you looked at him and understood: he was lying. and you knew it, and he knew it, that it had always been much deeper than that.
apparently he saw it in your eyes too, because his cocky smile faded a little. he exhaled heavily and ran a hand through his messy hair.
“don’t look at me like that,” he snapped. “you know i can’t stand girls who keep whining over things i never promised them.”
there was a lump in your throat. your eyes started to sting.
because he talked about you like you were one of them.
and you were one of those girls. you just realized it too late.
“i just wanted to know if we were looking in the same direction,” you said quietly, swallowing. “but i guess there’s no point in that anymore.”
he stared at you for a long time — too long for someone who had been so sure of himself just moments ago.
“you know i don’t do that shit. commitments.”
of course you knew.
tears were about to fall, but you held them back. not here, and definitely not in front of him.
you nodded slightly and smiled, like you were accepting something that should’ve been obvious all along.
“but i do. i know what kind of love i’m capable of. and i think… it’s fair that i don’t settle for less.”
the air between you turned heavy, almost still.
aerion didn’t take his eyes off you. his jaw was tense, and for a second his tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek — a habit you knew too well.
“i’m pretty sure you’re just having a shitty day. it’ll pass tomorrow.”
you gently shook your head, and despite everything — the shake inside you, the weight in your chest — there was still a quiet, accepting smile on your lips.
“i know exactly what i want. and i know the future i want for myself,” your voice stayed calm. “but you know what? you’re actually right about one thing.”
you lifted your hands to your neck and slowly unclasped the thin chain. the one he had once given you, saying he thought it suited your eyes.
you stepped closer, making him freeze as his eyes followed your hands.
you gently took his hand, uncurled his tight fist, and placed the jewelry into his palm. then you looked up at him.
“you’re right that this will pass,” you paused for a moment, choosing your words. “everything i feel for you right now, everything coming from my heart… it’ll disappear. and tomorrow really will be better.”
aerion didn’t look away. too many things flickered across his face at once — too quick to read — and, as always, he hid it behind sarcasm.
“if this is one of your girl tricks, it didn’t work.”
you smiled softly, then nodded at the chain in his hand. “give it to the one you’ll actually want commitment with. i’m sure she’ll show up someday.”
aerion today 9:31 pm you're up, pretty girl? do you want me to come over?
today 11:47 pm you're funny if you think i’m going to beg text me when you calm down
today 03:12 am do whatever you want
your phone vibrated with another message when you finished washing the dishes in your kitchen.
you hadn’t blocked him, because you didn’t think there was any point — first, because you weren’t a bitter ex, and everything between you had ended cleanly, and second, because you didn’t think he would even text you at all.
but now, looking at the messages, you pressed that button anyway, because out of sight, out of mind, right?
at least, that was what you told yourself when you blocked his number.
when he saw the third message that didn’t go through to you, aerion targaryen felt like he was about to fucking explode on the first person he saw.
everything gone completely wrong. he said all the wrong things, the exact things he didn’t want to say, and he watched you walk away.
and now he was just staring at his phone, at messages marked with red circles showing they hadn’t been delivered.
this was already the third party, and he hadn’t seen you at any of them. he kept showing up at all those stupid nights, trying to convince himself — first and foremost himself — that nothing changed.
but everything changed. the way he wanted to leave early, the way those high-pitched voices irritated him, the only thing he wanted was to drag you back to his place.
that thought only made him more pissed off, so he downed his drink and stood up, heading toward the center of the room.
maybe if he found someone here, it would help.
that lasted exactly until some second-year girl ran into him and placed her hands on his chest, giggling.
aerion squeezed his eyes shut. the touch felt too cold, too disgusting, too foreign.
everything was wrong here — the voices too squeaky, the smell too sweet.
fuck this.
he pushed her hand away without even bothering to look guilty and walked out to the backyard.
he needed a cigarette.
when he exhaled smoke into the sky, he thought about how even the smallest details were tied to you.
how he used to hand you his pack and tell you to take one without thinking, telling you to make a wish like it was some kind of small ritual between you. and how you always, with that calm stubbornness, wished for the same thing.
for him to quit smoking.
he let out a quiet laugh, but there was no real amusement in it.
lost in his thoughts, he didn’t even hear the sound of heels behind him.
“you look like shit, motherfucker.” and he didn’t even need to turn around to know it was the annoying redheaded girl his friend always dragged around.
and your best friend.
aerion just stared at the ground, occasionally kicking small stones, and silence settled between them.
“how is she?”
“she’ll be fine.”
he only pressed his lips together. that didn’t calm him at all.
“why does everyone else have to suffer because you’re a fucking coward? especially someone like her, who gives everything she has.”
aerion clenched his jaw. “i’m not the one who made people see things i never said.”
then a contemptuous laugh came beside him. “no, but you made her feel that way. do you think if you were just fucking and leaving, she would’ve imagined things that weren’t there?
you acted like her fucking boyfriend. you never left her side. you looked at any guy who tried to talk to her like you were about to rip his spine out. you’re the reason she thought she mattered to you.”
he opened his mouth to say that yes, you definitely did matter to him, but the words got stuck in his throat.
“it’ll pass,” he said quietly, staring into the dark.
“i fucking hope so,” she said, already turning away. “fix your shit, aerion. this is embarrassing.”
when you sat surrounded by a huge makeup bag where everything had turned into chaos — eyeshadows, blushes, highlighter all mixed together — and in front of you daella and rhae argued so seriously it sounded like the shape of eyeliner could decide the fate of a country, you suddenly caught yourself thinking one strange thing — this was exactly where you wanted to be.
maybe you had cut things off with aerion, but you couldn’t cut off these little girls who looked at you like you were their older sister, their safe place.
so you just sat on the floor in their room, your hands stained with different colors — pink, gold, brown — while you carefully fixed their makeup and watched them with a soft smile as they took pictures of each other, planning to send them to their dad later.
“daella, you’re still too young for photos like that!” you smiled when the phone on the bedside table started vibrating insistently.
an unknown number lit up the screen, making you frown — who could be calling at this time?
you wiped your hands with a tissue, removing the leftover highlighter, and stepped out onto the balcony, away from the kids’ noise.
“hello? how can i help?” you asked, pressing the phone to your ear.
silence came in response. but not an empty one — something heavy, dense. you heard a broken, sharp exhale on the other end, then nothing again.
“is someone there?” you repeated, your voice unintentionally softer.
“you might have the wrong number,” you said, already about to hang up.
but something made you pause. you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and said your name. “if you need anything, please text instead.”
when nothing came again, you ended the call, slightly frowning, and went back inside.
you didn’t realize something was wrong right away.
at first it was just a slight dizziness — like the floor under your feet had turned softer than it should’ve been. the lights felt too bright. the music too close. the voices around you blended into one heavy noise that made you want to either laugh or close your eyes.
your cheeks burned.
and only a few seconds later did the simple truth settle in: you drank too much.
you leaned back into the chair, trying to pull yourself together, but your thoughts kept slipping apart anyway. tanselle was somewhere nearby — you had seen her leave to dance with dunk, and now the dance floor felt distant, like it didn’t belong to your world. you were left alone at the table.
when some guy came up to you and started flooding you with compliments, you felt uneasy and just smiled politely, hoping he would leave.
but he didn’t. he offered you a drink, and you shook your head, trying to refuse, but at some point a thought crossed your mind that maybe you should stop shutting yourself off and try talking to someone, because enough time had passed.
maybe this was your chance to distract yourself.
you went to dance with him, and somewhere in the distance you saw tanselle frowning and shaking her head in disapproval.
maybe if you weren't so drunk, you would’ve noticed.
at first it all felt normal. you just wanted to move to the music, but then his hands landed on your waist and started sliding lower.
you tried to push his hands away, but he didn’t let go, pressing himself closer, whispering sweaty “relax” and kissing your neck. you felt sick with disgust, you wanted to pull away, but your body barely responded in that heavy, sticky state.
suddenly, his grip disappeared. before you could even understand what happened, he was there in front of you.
aerion.
he came in fast, heavy steps, his fingers digging into your shoulders as he started checking your arms frantically, like he was searching for injuries. you could barely process what was going on.
“what… what are you doing here?” you mumbled, trying to focus your eyes.
his jaw was so tight it looked like it might crack. “i was about to ask you the same thing.”
and only then did he notice your state.
your gaze.
your breathing.
the heavy disorientation.
aerion turned to the guy and a short, precise punch landed straight on his jaw.
gasps erupted around you, the crowd stepping back as the guy, already drunk, collapsed to the floor, blood spilling from his nose and mouth, not even trying to get up.
you gasped, covering your mouth with your hand, when the club owner suddenly appeared out of nowhere, waving his arms.
“what the hell?! no fucking fights in my place! everyone out!”
aerion didn’t even look at him. he was breathing heavily, his knuckles already bruised, but his eyes stayed locked on you.
he came back to you, grabbed your hand, and without a word dragged you toward the exit, pushing through the crowd.
he pulled you to the car so fast you could barely keep up. the pavement felt like it was slipping under your feet, and you mumbled that he was going too fast, but he didn’t seem to hear you.
he looked genuinely terrifying — jaw clenched tight, shoulders tense, just forcing his way forward, ignoring every attempt you made to slow him down.
“aerion, it hurts,” you yelled, making him stop.
he turned to you like he had just snapped back into reality. then he took your wrist — the one he had just been gripping — and started gently rubbing it with his thumb.
“how did you even end up here?” you finally asked, still slightly unsteady on your feet.
he exhaled slowly. “your friend called me,” he said flatly. “what the fuck made you think it was a good idea to drink like that?”
that made you yank your hand away.
he had no right to talk to you like that.
“i don’t understand why this is even your problem.”
aerion looked at you like you had just punched him in the chest.
“are you serious?” he stepped closer. “you could’ve gotten hurt. that fucker could’ve done anything to you, he could’ve—”
he cut himself off, like the thought itself made his hands shake.
“i’m taking you home. that’s it for tonight.”
“no.”
“you’re going home. for your own safety.”
“you don’t get to tell me what to do,” you tried to keep your voice steady. “not anymore.”
aerion ran a hand through his hair hard, completely messing it up. he looked like he might break something.
“fine,” he said calmly. “then if you stay — i stay too.”
you just stared at each other.
you knew you didn’t want him there. you knew he had work tomorrow.
and being near him like this felt unbearable.
“fine,” you finally said quietly. “but i’m not going with you.”
he nodded immediately, like he expected that. “i’ll order you a cab.”
you hesitated for a long moment, looking away, then gave a soft nod. “okay.”
while you waited for the car, the silence became almost physical. you looked at your shoes, he looked into the dark.
“i miss you.”
it came out so quiet you almost wouldn’t have heard it if the night had been any louder.
your heart skipped. the small wound that had just started to close opened again, burning painfully in your chest.
but you knew better.
you looked up at him and forced a weak smile. “maybe you’re just having a bad day. it’ll pass.”
at that moment the cab arrived, and you got in right away, leaving him alone in the empty parking lot.
outside the window the rain was loud, filling the kitchen with a soft, steady hum while you hummed some popular tune and stirred dinner.
you were almost done when the doorbell rang, cutting through the quiet evening.
you didn’t rush at first. you just stood there for a second, listening, like you were checking if you imagined it. but then it rang again — more insistently — making you wipe your hands and go to open the door.
and when you opened it, you saw a young guy standing there, scared to death.
he didn’t say anything, just handed you an envelope and ran away, his hair was wet and his face was pale.
the envelope in your hands was soaked from the rain, so you went back inside and placed it on a warm radiator for a few minutes until it dried.
a thought crossed your mind that in a modern world where social media was everywhere, the person who did this clearly wanted to make an impression.
you still weren’t sure if it worked.
you didn’t have to think about it for long when you opened the letter. some words were smudged from the water, but it was still readable.
i don’t know if you’ll open this letter or throw it away right away, or read who it’s from and burn it. in both cases, i deserved it. but if you made it to this line, it means you decided to read it, and i’m really grateful for that. i didn’t know how to reach you in a way where you wouldn’t delete or block me, so i had to slightly (maybe not slightly) scare aegon’s friend. i know you won’t like that, but it’s not the first thing i’ve ruined. i still remember that conversation we had. how long has it been? a few months? half a year? i don’t remember. (i’m joking, i do remember, i just don’t want to sound desperate.) you said tomorrow would be better. you said it would pass one day. it didn’t. and i’m not sure it will. i said a lot of things because i was being a fucking idiot, and i’m not saying that excuses me, but it explains the kind of person i was. i pushed you away when you tried to talk to me honestly, even though i knew i felt just as much for you (honestly, i think even more, but i don’t know if you’d believe me or think it’s just words to get forgiveness, so i’ll stop there). why do you think i even suggested that whole thing in the first place? for you it probably came out of nowhere, like some random guy trying to get into your bed, but for me it started way before that. why do you think i asked you to stay over? why did i never leave after sex like people usually do in this kind of thing? i don’t feel like it gets better. it just gets worse. i hate being dramatic, but it felt like i couldn’t even breathe properly all this time. it’s fucked up, honestly. i’m not expecting a second chance, because i don’t deserve one. you were right when you said you deserved someone who could give you the kind of love you give. i’m not that person yet, even if i feel like what i feel for you is more than what you feel for me (i’m not saying you still feel anything, but let a guy dream). you said that one day everything you feel for me, everything coming from your heart… would disappear. let me know if it actually did, and i’ll never bother you again. but if there’s even a tiny empty space left in your heart, i’ll try to fill it. even one percent is enough. i’ll learn how to be the kind of person who can give you the love you deserve. i’ll learn it, because that’s what people do when they… love. with love. with love. with love. aerion targaryen
“you’ve got to be kidding me.”
if the gods had planned a personal hell for you, it looked exactly like this: valarr, barely standing on his feet, daeron grinning like a maniac, and aerion, whose gaze was locked on you with such intensity that you felt like the only solid thing in a world that kept slipping away.
dunk towered over all three of them. with his height and confused expression, he looked like a father who accidentally brought his kids to the wrong kindergarten.
“listen,” dunk shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, “aerion insisted on coming here.”
you raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. “and you just listened to him?”
the tallest man in the group looked so guilty you almost laughed.
“he can be… kind of scary when he insists. just because he doesn’t show his temper around you doesn’t mean it’s not there. he reminds me of those angry chihuahuas, you know, the ones—”
“enough,” you cut him off, noticing the dangerous squint in aerion’s eyes. one more word and there would’ve been a small war in your hallway.
speaking of chihuahuas.
you sighed dramatically and grabbed aerion by the sleeve, pulling him inside.
once inside the apartment, aerion immediately pulled you into him like he owned the place, wrapping his arms around your waist.
he turned to his friends and gave them his most smug, victorious smile, earning himself a light slap on the arm from you as a warning, while you offered dunk a tight, polite smile.
“good luck,” you whispered to him before closing the door.
silence fell in the hallway. you turned to aerion. he stood in front of you, and his eyes were full of hungry devotion and something almost childlike in its satisfaction.
well, you had definitely put him through hell these past seven months. you still remembered him complaining yesterday that it had been worse than when he was twelve and got his computer taken away for a year.
seven months he hadn’t been allowed to touch you without permission. seven months he watched other guys flirt with you, clenching his jaw so hard it must’ve hurt, never daring to step in. and you… you answered them just enough to annoy him.
every day of ignoring and restraint was worth it, he thought.
because he knew he deserved every second of it.
and now, with you finally there, he looked like he had just come home.
aerion stared at you for a long moment, his eyes overflowing with open affection. then he smiled — that rare, real smile he only ever gave you.
“i have something… i’ve been hiding it for too long,” he said quietly, stepping closer. “but you look so pretty right now, i don’t think i can hold it in anymore.”
“i swear, if you have a kid on the side—”
“i did it right after our first night together and i tried my best to hide it ever since…”
“what?”
"what?”
your eyebrows shot up. “you did something after our first night?”
he repeated, slower this time, confused: “i have a kid on the side?”
you waved him off, shaking your head, too curious now to care.
aerion stepped closer and you watched, frozen, as he unbuttoned his linen shirt and threw it carelessly onto the couch.
you frowned for just a second… until he took that final step forward.
your heart stopped.
just under his chest, written in elegant thin lettering, there was a tattoo. no heavy design, no decoration.
just your name.
you looked up at him, stunned.
aerion watched your reaction with a soft, almost victorious smirk.
he had said he did it after your first night…
like he could read your confusion, he took your hand and pressed your palm against his chest, right over the ink.
“it’s not like i wasn’t already crazy about you,” he said quietly, covering your hand with his. “but after that night, i knew it was over for me.”
you couldn’t look away from it. it was perfect.
you traced the letters slowly, almost reverently.
that was why he always refused to take his shirt off when you asked. all those nights you thought he was pulling away, or didn’t want your touch anymore…
the truth hit you completely differently.
if he did it after that first night, it meant he had been carrying your name against his heart for more than two years.
you looked up at him again, and this time there was no doubt left in your eyes — only warmth spilling through everything.
you wrapped your arms around his neck, feeling the heat of his skin under your fingertips, and pulled him closer until there was nothing left between you.
in that moment, as his breath mixed with yours, one thought came through clearly — he promised to learn. to learn how to stay, how to open up.
and he kept that promise every single day.
and around your neck was the same chain you had once given back to him — and he had put it back on you himself.
💬｡˚ @cassvictim @anontargslvt3 @mmasworld @kate-beth @tangikatanifa @aerionbrgflm @transparentwizardblaze @thestoriesitell-blog1 @agentcarter1946 @icebearcucumber @outshawty @bighead02 @anedpev @carbonated-beverage @pixel-pixie-xo @immauperfreak @ibhearts @demoniz3d @littlewritergreatgirl-blog @besonderselyy @thoughtfully-burning @rubyannebeaufoy @catmikaelson20 @unramdommas2004 @dragon-moonstar @sahvlren @quixoticrai111 @comzetogether @ladychaos1525 @hanakotateyama @bookishdelights @besonderselyy @jinmjy @naty-sunshine @jaemimpulsive @icebearcucumber @pharmacistfairytale @ae-gax @jjk174
۶ৎ ⋆. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍' 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓...
sugardaddy! baelor targaryen. 18+
ᝰ⋆.˚ the first time he sees you is when you’re working at the coffee shop across from his business center, the one he’s stepping into for the first time ever because everywhere else is closed and he desperately needs coffee at 11 pm.
he walks in and sees you — a cute, young girl in a brown apron, your hair thrown up in a messy bun like you did it in a rush.
“hi! sorry, we’re about to close,” you say, looking at him with those shiny eyes and a tired smile. “i really need it, maybe if i say the magic word?” he jokes, watching with quiet satisfaction as you pull a fake suffering face and go turn the machine back on. “you’re lucky the magic word worked, sir.”
that night he leaves you a $100 tip.
ᝰ⋆.˚ from that day on he comes to the coffee shop almost every day, leaving tips so big they sometimes cover several of your shifts. he knows you’re working yourself to the bone just to pay for your life, so when you ask him not to spend so much, he just increases the amount, calling it “a little help.”
you smile at him, draw little cats and smiley faces on the cups, and every morning he finds himself wondering what it’s gonna be today.
but one tuesday everything changes: he sees you with tear-streaked cheeks, your eyes red and puffy. you brush it off, but he notices the angry manager who comes out after you. when the guy finally leaves, he quietly writes his number down and hands it to you.
“if you need help — and you do — call me. i’m always reachable.”
ᝰ⋆.˚ he invites you to one of those quiet, expensive restaurants with a panoramic view of the city when you finally call him after an exhausting shift and a fight with your boss. he watches you for a while as you look through the menu and tells you to order anything you want, no hesitation.
when it’s time for dessert and you’ve gotten used to him enough, he gently takes your hand into his warm palms and says he’d like to help you in any way he can, so you don’t have to wear yourself out with night shifts and constant exhaustion. when you ask if he does this kind of thing regularly, he just lets out a quiet laugh and shakes his head, saying he heard about it from a friend recently and immediately thought of you.
ᝰ⋆.˚ for your first trip together, he takes you to new york because he has an important deal there, and he’s dead set on you accompanying him that evening. at receptions and formal meetings, he doesn’t leave you alone for a second, always keeping a hand on your waist and proudly introducing you to everyone as his girl. he catches every glance you give him, and when you get tired of all the small talk, he checks on you and quietly leans in to whisper praise in your ear, unnoticed by the others.
ᝰ⋆.˚ when he finds out you’re preparing for a tough finals, he turns your studying into the most comfortable process possible: he sends his personal chef over to your place, drives you around all the time, and gives you advice whenever you talk to him about your lectures.
ᝰ⋆.˚ baelor sets one clear rule from the very first day: he’s never going to pressure you or push you into anything sexual.
and even if you’re grateful for it at first, now you’re practically losing your mind over how badly you want him.
i mean, he’s attractive, tall, rich, and built — who can blame you?
but he just smiles and shakes his head anyway, no matter how much you tease him.
ᝰ⋆.˚ sugardaddy! baelor who finally snaps when you come up to him in his home office and literally start rubbing against his thigh in those expensive pants, whimpering. "does my pretty girl need something?" he teases, moving your hips and literally making you ride his thigh until you come, leaving a wet spot.
"got so wet just from my leg, hm? what's gonna happen when my cock is inside you?" he spreads your knees wide, your skirt pushed up to your waist and your panties lying somewhere on the office floor as you come again, first on his huge fingers that barely fit inside you, and then on his heavy cock while he pounds into you balls deep. "is this what my baby wanted? for me to rip her sweet pussy apart?"
ᝰ⋆.˚ he absolutely loves spoiling you. for him, nothing matters more than your eyes lighting up when you get something you’ve wanted for a long time. it’s not always dresses or shoes, sometimes it’s the simplest things: a brand new coffee machine, a massage device because you once mentioned your back hurts from sitting all the time. he doesn’t know the word no when it comes to your comfort. if you look at something for more than five seconds, the next day it’s already yours.
ᝰ⋆.˚ sugardaddy! baelor who has you settled on his lap in the back room of a private jet, your legs spread wide over his, your back against his chest, while one hand holds you possessively as he’s in you up to his knuckles. his fingers are long and thick, pounding into you with smooth strokes, hitting that exact sensitive spot you could never reach on your own. "nngh! please, i need... please..." he just laughs and kisses your neck with open-mouthed kisses. "mmmh, good girls speak up about what they want."
your hips tremble and lift every time, but he pins you down with one hand. "come on, my baby, tell me what you want and i'll give it to you." "i wan— mmnh! please, i want to come, please please plea— ...haaaah!" "such a good girl for me, my sweetest baby, come on my fingers so i smell like you for a whole fucking week."
and when you come with a loud cry, he grabs your chin and turns your head toward him to pull you into a deep kiss.
ᝰ⋆.˚ baelor, who has to fly to singapore for work but can't go a day without seeing you. what starts as a normal chat turns into something entirely different when he switches to facetime. "put the phone lower... yeah, right there. now open those pretty legs and show me how much you missed me. use your fingers, baby."
he makes you say out loud how bad you want him inside you, how you miss his fingers and his mouth, making you blush and lose your breath in front of the camera.
he starts moving his hand faster, his cock is hard as fuck, breathing heavy while he watches you. he let out a low groan when you came, moaning his name. "fuccckk, you're not leaving the room once i get home."
ᝰ⋆.˚ he’s an eater. he claims it’s primarily for his pleasure, not yours. he loves leaving you naked on his silk sheets, slowly covering your thighs and stomach with a trail of kisses. he can spend hours worshiping you with his tongue, driving you to one orgasm after another until you start crying from the sensory overload, and then he just presses you against his hot chest, cradling you and whispering how lucky he is and how you make him the happiest man alive.
ᝰ⋆.˚ baelor, who seats you onto his cock, making you sit like that until he's finished with his reports. he loves the feeling — how your inner muscles stretch around him, trying to get used to his size, and how you squeeze him every time he moves even an inch. "can you sit still like this for me, princess?"
you start whimpering quietly from the fullness and the heat inside, trying to move just a little, but he only smirks and holds you tighter. "behave. you know good girls get whatever they ask for, right?"
you're literally dripping onto his dress pants, leaving a terribly awkward wet spot, but he doesn't give a shit. "look how you've messed me up, is being inside not enough for this little pussy? does it want more?" when you’ve turned into a complete mess, unable to do anything but moan and whimper, he tosses his pen aside and finally touches your swollen clit, slowly rolling it between his fingers. "okay, let's take care of my sweet baby."
ᝰ⋆.˚ maybe others think it's nasty, thinking you’re just fucking some old dude for money, but he treats you like a princess, spoils you to death, and fucks you until you're complete mess. and he's hot, so honestly, you couldn't care less.
masterlists.
💬｡˚ @cassvictim @anontargslvt3 @mmasworld @kate-beth @tangikatanifa @aerionbrgflm @transparentwizardblaze @thestoriesitell-blog1 @agentcarter1946 @icebearcucumber @outshawty @bighead02 @anedpev @carbonated-beverage @pixel-pixie-xo @immauperfreak @ibhearts @demoniz3d @littlewritergreatgirl-blog @besonderselyy @thoughtfully-burning @rubyannebeaufoy @catmikaelson20 @unramdommas2004 @dragon-moonstar @sahvlren @quixoticrai111 @comzetogether @ladychaos1525 @hanakotateyama @bookishdelights @besonderselyy @jinmjy @naty-sunshine @jaemimpulsive @icebearcucumber @pharmacistfairytale @ae-gax @jjk174 @kravitzwhore @bibibug4444 @justvibbinghere @dear-fifi @aerangi
thinking about iceflame trailer trash au but to make it messy ls’ ex is golden boy billionaire valarr who’s out to get her back and aerion will NOT let that happen
Anon, you just activated me like a fucking sleeper agent ong. I pure rawdogged this so perhaps not my finest outing but brainrot is so strong I had to get these thoughts out of my noggin'. pairing: valarr targaryen x f!stark!reader x aerion targaryen includes/warnings: 18+, implied dom/sub dynamics (valarr is basically your billionaire boytoy lol #feminism), power imbalance, toxic relationship dynamics, obsessive & possessive behaviour (ending #disney prince valarr agenda), to that effect; kinda dark!valarr, emotional manipulation, jealousy, references to drug addiction & substance abuse including benders, codependent relationships, class warfare & resentment, family dysfunction, emotional trauma from abandonment.
✶ modern au/trailer trash masterlist.
[Alexa, play Redbone by Childish Gambino 🚬🚬🚬]
You and Aerion broke up for the eighth time in March of your third year.
Something stupid—a fight that spiralled, a bender he went on, you saying things you couldn't take back. He said you were slumming it. You said he was using that as an excuse to push you away (again). He said maybe he should make it easier and never come back.
You told him fine, don't.
He didn't come back. Not for two months. Which was unusual because Aerion always came back. That's when you knew this one was different.
By April you'd stopped checking your phone constantly. By May you'd stopped tensing every time someone called your name. You spent your nights working until unreasonable hours, running yourself into exhaustion so you wouldn't have to lie awake thinking about him. You stopped going to the places you used to go together. You deleted his number twice and recovered it both times.
And that's when Valarr Targaryen enters stage left like he was born to make your life more complicated.
You meet him at an investment club mixer your father forced you to attend—the kind of event you'd usually find an excuse to skip, but you're numb enough from missing Aerion that showing up feels easier than explaining why you didn't. Twenty-six, Harvard MBA, inherited his family's tech holdings at twenty-four when his father died unexpectedly. Net worth that makes even your trust fund look modest by comparison.
He's striking in a way that registers across the room. Dark brown hair that falls in a careful but natural way, with a single streak of pure white at his right temple (genetic, you'll learn later, not styled) that gives him a distinctive, almost theatrical quality.
Heterochromia: one eye pale blue, the other dark brown, and the asymmetry makes him impossible to stop looking at once you've noticed it. Boyish features softened by old-money polish, a jaw that's not quite sharp enough to be imposing, a smile that goes easy, cheekbones that make him look younger than twenty-six in certain light.
He's dressed beautifully but understated, a suit that fits too well to be off-the-rack, no visible logos, a watch that people who know watches would recognise and everyone else would think was just tasteful. He looks, specifically, like money without being obnoxious about it.
He sees you across the room and smiles. It's not the hungry smile men usually give you.
Something more interested than that. Patient, curious, like he's found something he wasn't expecting. He doesn't approach immediately. He lets you notice him first, lets you see him across the crowd. Works his way over through other conversations, nodding at people, clapping shoulders, letting you track his approach for fifteen minutes before he's finally in front of you. By the time he gets there you've already decided you'll let him.
"You're the Stark heir."
"I am."
"Valarr Targaryen. I own—"
"I know who you are." You take a sip of your drink, meet his mismatched gaze without flinching. "Halcyon Holdings. Tech portfolio, some strategic real estate, a shipping arm your father was trying to divest before he died. You took over in 2021. You've restructured aggressively and your numbers are good."
He blinks. Then laughs, delighted—a real laugh, not the performed kind. "You've done your homework."
"I do homework on everyone in my father's orbit," you inform him bluntly, and to your surprise, see his grin widen at that. "I saw you were on the guest list. Wanted to know who I'd be making small talk with."
His eyes twinkle. "Are we making small talk?"
"You're not now. You jumped straight to direct introduction."
"Waste of time being anything else."
There's sudden, blunt tightness in your chest. That's a Targaryen thing to say—a phrase you've heard in another voice, in another context, three hundred miles from here in a trailer park kitchen. But Valarr isn't like his distant cousins. Valarr is everything the Targaryens were supposed to be before the other branch of the family collapsed. The golden line. The one that kept its money and its influence and its reputation intact through the generations while the other side imploded.
Does Valarr know he has cousins in a trailer park?
You'll find out he does, technically. Knows they exist in the abstract. Has never met them. Hasn't thought about them in years, in fact. To him, that branch of the family is a cautionary tale his parents used when lecturing him about responsibility, about the danger of bad investments, about the importance of never over-leveraging yourself.
He has no idea you've fucked one of them on a regular basis for three years and you rather keep it that way.
After that first meeting, he pursues you like you're his personal project.
Flowers to your dorm—always peonies, somehow knows you're indifferent to roses without you having told him. Reservations at restaurants that have waiting lists months long. A first edition of your favourite book showing up because you mentioned it in passing. He listens when you talk and remembers. Recalls details three weeks later that you've forgotten you mentioned, weaves them back into conversation without flagging it, lets you realise only afterward that he'd been filing it all away.
It's charming. Not intoxicating, exactly—you've been pursued your whole life as Stark heiress, gifts don't move you the way they'd move someone who grew up without them. But Valarr's pursuit has a quality you're not used to.
He's not trying to impress you. He's not trying to buy you. He's just genuinely interested in making you happy, and the gifts are expressions of that interest. He does it because it pleases him to see you pleased. There's something almost self-contained about it, like he'd probably do this whether you responded or not. The gifts are for him as much as they are for you. He loves the project of figuring out what you'd like and then making sure you got it.
And he's hungry. That's the part that registers underneath the charm. For all the golden-boy polish, there's something underneath that wants you with an intensity that's not quite socially appropriate.
You catch it in moments sometimes. The way his eyes track you across a room, the way his hand lingers at the small of your back a beat too long, the way he goes slightly still when you laugh at something he said, like your laugh is something he's collecting for later enjoyment. He's well-trained enough not to let it show too often, but it's there beneath the veneer. And the fact that he's working to keep it leashed makes it more interesting than if he weren't.
Aerion never gave you anything, couldn't afford to. The things Aerion gave you were his presence and his all consuming attention and his body and his burning intensity. All of which mattered more than any gift ever could.
But there's something about being given to that you didn't know you'd missed, and there's something about being wanted with this much focus and discipline that registers as its own kind of pleasure.
Valarr takes you to dinner at places Aerion couldn't have gotten into with six months' salary. He doesn't order for you (you'd checked, early, and he'd laughed and said, "I wouldn't presume") but he remembers your preferences. He remembers how you like your meat, which drinks you prefer, what desserts you like and which you hate. Knows you hate tasting menus because they take too long.
He kisses you three weeks in. Slow and careful and nothing like Aerion. Gentle in a way that feels almost reverent. Asks first. Actually asks: "Can I kiss you?" No man has asked you that in years. You say yes and he kisses you like you're something precious, and it's lovely and it's wrong in a way you can't articulate.
You fuck him a month in. At his place. A penthouse that makes even the most grand places you've been to look modest. He takes his time. Is attentive in all the ways that matter, focuses entirely on you. He's clearly skilled, clearly experienced, clearly trying to make this good for you, make himself memorable.
You eat him alive.
Because he's golden but he's not vanilla. There's an edge underneath the polish that responds to you being in charge in ways that are immediate and intense.
The first time you pin his wrists above his head, his pupils dilate so fast you can see it happen—the brown eye goes almost black, and the pale blue one gets near luminous. The first time you order him to stay still while you ride him, he shudders like you've touched a live wire and then obeys with an intensity that tells you he hasn't had to try not to touch anyone.
He likes being taken apart by you.
It's not submissive exactly—he's too controlled for that, too accustomed to power to give it up wholesale. But he opens when you push, gives ground, lets you take what you want, lets you use him.
Watches you with that fascinated, hungry focus that tells you he's never experienced someone like you and he can't quite believe you're real and his. He looks at you during sex like he's immortalising you, like he's filing every expression away, and it's flattering and consuming and slightly unnerving all at the same time.
You get rougher with him than you mean to, the first time.
You drag your nails down his chest, leave marks you're worried will upset him, and he just looks at you with those mismatched eyes going dark and croaks out, "Do that again."
You fuck him hard enough that he has bruises on his hips the next morning, and he texts you a photo of them with Thank you underneath. You sit on his face for twenty minutes and make him earn permission to breathe, and when you finally let him up he follows you around the apartment for an hour after, attentive and slightly dazed, like he's recalibrating what he wants from a partner.
"Where have you been all my life?" he asks you once, half-joking, half not.
You don't answer because you're thinking about Aerion's hand around your throat, about how he'd look at you while he did it, about the specific way he says your name when he's angry. How what you're doing to Valarr is what Aerion used to do to you, and how the power doesn't feel right in this direction. How you want to take but also be taken apart.
You fuck Valarr for three months and during all of it he looks at you like you invented the concept, and you fuck him hard because you have to—because anything gentler would feel like an even bigger lie, because you can't receive what he's trying to give you, because the roughness is the only language you have left in you after Aerion.
Valarr absolutely doesn't understand this. But he loves it so deeply, craves it so badly, that it works.
Valarr is intense in ways that reveal themselves slowly.
Not frightening in any obvious sense. He's too polished for that, too aware of how things look. But there's a quality underneath the charm that you start to register more and more over time. Something calculating, something that keeps score, something that tracks you in ways you don't always catch until later.
He remembers everything. It was charming at first, the way he recalled offhand preferences, referenced small details, built an increasingly accurate model of your tastes and habits. But six weeks in you realise he's been cataloguing. He knows your class schedule. Your routine. The coffee shop you go to when you're stressed. Your friend Sophie's boyfriend's name, because Sophie once mentioned him and Valarr has since referenced him in conversation twice, casually, like it was data he stored for later use.
"You have a good memory," you observe one night.
"I pay attention to what matters."
"To what matters."
"To you." He smiles, boyish and warm, the white streak at his temple catching the light. "Is that a problem?"
It's not. Technically. But the way he said it—to you—made your skin prickle. Like you're being studied, like he's building a file.
He gets possessive in ways that are thinly veiled as chivalry.
A guy at a bar hits on you once, nothing serious, harmless flirting while Valarr's in the bathroom. When Valarr comes back, he doesn't react obviously, but you catch his mismatched eyes flick to the guy, then to you, then to the guy's glass, then to the bartender. Three weeks later the guy's Instagram says he's moved across the country for a sudden job opportunity. You mention it to Valarr and he says, "Oh, that's interesting," in a tone that tells you nothing. You never ask again.
In bed, his hunger becomes consuming.
He wants all of you. Every weekend, every night he can have you, several times a night. Gets hurt when you want solo time. Nothing big, just quietly disappointed in ways that make you feel like you're letting him down. He'll hold you like he's afraid you'll disappear. Will check his phone when you're apart. Will ask who you're with, where you are, when you'll be free. Always casually, always phrased like genuine interest.
"You're pretty curious about my schedule," you tell him once.
"I like knowing your day," he replies with a warm, genuine smile which is the part that trips you up. "Is that weird?"
"It's a lot."
"I'll dial it back." And he does. For two weeks. Then it creeps back in so gradually you don't notice until you're already answering questions you resent.
It's the golden-boy version of dark, you realise. Controlled. Palatable. Never anything you can point to and call wrong. Just a steady accumulation of moments where you realise he's more invested than you are, and that his investment has teeth you hadn't noticed at first.
He's not dangerous the way Aerion is dangerous—he's not going to put his fist through a wall, he's not going to disappear for three days on a bender, he's not going to corner you against a dive bar bathroom and fuck you like he's dying if he doesn't have a taste. His darkness is quieter, more patient, more strategic. It's the darkness of someone who's never been told no in any real way and is charming and beautiful enough that he's never had to learn how to accept it.
And through all of it, you can feel the hollow.
Because Valarr is everything Aerion isn't and that's the problem.
He's stable where Aerion is volatile. He's present where Aerion disappears. He's golden where Aerion is tarnished and dark. He has money, status, a future. He wants you publicly. He wants to take you to his parents' Hamptons place, wants to introduce you to his board, his friends, wants to make you part of his visible life in ways Aerion never could.
And it's all wrong.
You realise it slowly and then all at once. You're in his perfect penthouse, in his perfect bed, after perfect sex, and he's holding you like you're his, and you feel nothing but absence.
You miss Aerion.
You miss his sharpness. His darkness. The way he'd say something cruel just to see if he could make you laugh. The way sex with him felt like a fight and a homecoming simultaneously. The way he knew things about you no one else did, and the way he never pretended to be anything he wasn't. The way he met you every time. With teeth, with hunger, with a willingness to hurt you a little that you needed to feel like yourself.
Valarr performs perfection. Aerion never performed anything.
Aerion's brokenness was honest. Valarr's wholeness feels like a mask.
And Valarr doesn't bite.
You've been taking him apart for three months and he lets you do it, receives it with that dark delighted fascination, and you've come to realise you're exhausted. You don't want to be on top of everything all the time. You don't want to be in charge in bed every time. You want to claim, yes, but you want to be claimed back, too. You want someone who takes, who demands, who meets your ferocity with his own instead of just opening his mouth and swallowing it.
Valarr can't meet you there. It's not in him. He likes being the recipient of your intensity, to your darkness, too much to ever give it back. You've tried (you've goaded him, provoked him, offered yourself up) and he just smiles that beautiful boyish grin and lets you have control again.
He's a man who's been worshipped his whole life. He doesn't know how to take. He only knows how to be adored or to adore, and he'd rather adore you than have you adore him.
You need someone who knows how to have you. Valarr doesn't. Valarr collects you. It's not the same thing you've come to understand.
You can't articulate this to him. He'd never understand or he'd take it personally. He'd double down on trying to be what you want. Because that's what he does. He identifies the goal and pursues it, relentlessly, with every resource at his disposal. He thinks love is a project he can complete if he just works hard enough at it.
But the thing he can't understand is simple: you don't want perfection. You never did.
You want to be consumed, you want to be known, and Valarr doesn't know you. Not really. He knows the version of you he can see—the heir, the smart one, the woman who's impossible to impress who drives him crazy.
He doesn't know about Aerion. About the trailer park or the fact that you've been in love with someone far less shiny than him for three years, and nothing about Valarr's pursuit has changed that.
You end it six weeks before graduation.
You do it at his place, at his insistence. He wants to talk somewhere private and you think he knows it's coming. He's been clingier, more attentive, asking if you're okay more than usual. Checking in more. Reading you.
"I can't do this anymore," you tell him bluntly.
He goes still, too still. "Do what?"
"This. Us. It's not working for me."
"You're ending it."
"Yes."
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful, level in all the respectful ways. "Can I ask why?"
"It's not about you," you tell him, and it's not even entirely a lie. "You're—you've been wonderful. I just—" You search for words and feel grossly underprepared despite thinking about this for days. "Something's missing. I can't name it. But it's there."
"Something's missing."
"Yes."
He stares at you. "With me."
"With us."
Valarr gets up, walks to the window. His back is to you and you can see tension in his shoulders. When he turns around, his face is composed but his eyes are wrong—the blue one darker than usual, the brown one almost black. This is a version of him you haven't quite seen, only caught glimpses of.
"Is there someone else?" he asks softly.
Your pulse jumps. "No."
"You sure?"
"There's no one else."
Which is true. Aerion hasn't been in your life for months. You don't know where he is and you haven't heard from him. He's not "someone else" in any sense that matters to Valarr's question.
But Valarr is watching you and he's calculating.
"Okay," he says, too evenly. "Okay. If that's what you want."
"I'm sorry—"
"Don't apologise. You're doing what you think is best." He crosses to you and takes your hand. His grip is just a little too firm. "I want you to know something."
"Valarr—"
"I'm in love with you." He says it plainly, but you can see the rawness of his words on his face. "I've been in love with you for months. I'm not going to stop being in love with you just because you want to end things tonight. I'll give you space. I'll respect your decision, but I want you to know that my feelings don't have an off switch."
You pull your hand away. "Please don't say that."
"It's true." He's still smiling that small, gentle smile, and his mismatched eyes are steady on yours. Nothing about his face is threatening, but his eyes haven't softened. "You don't have to do anything with it. I just wanted you to know where I stand."
"I think you should let me go," you tell him softly.
"I am letting you go." He steps back, opens his hands like he's showing you they're empty. "I'm just not pretending I don't feel what I feel. When you're ready to talk again—whenever that is—I'll be here."
"Valarr—"
"I know. I heard you. I won't contact you. I'll give you all the space you want." He reaches out one more time, tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear with a gentleness that almost undoes your resolve, his fingertips lingering against your jaw. "Take care of yourself. Really."
You leave. You feel sick the whole drive home.
He gives you two weeks.
No texts. No calls. No flowers. You're almost impressed. You expected him to flood your phone with apologies and declarations, or the opposite, some cold performative absence designed to pull you back. Instead he does exactly what he said he'd do: nothing. You can feel him not-contacting you. It has weight. It's almost louder than contact would have been.
Then finals end and you come out of your last exam to find him standing outside the building, super model beautiful, holding a coffee—your order, of course—and looking like the patient, handsome man you first met. The June sun catches the white streak at his temple. He looks, objectively, breathtaking.
You understand perfectly why women have wanted him his whole life.
"Valarr."
"You said I could have space," he greets with a smile, drinking you in with intensity most would find flustering. "I gave you space. Now I'd like to talk."
"That's not how how this works."
"I know. But finals are over. I've respected the timeline I thought you wanted. Ten minutes. Please. Just ten minutes and then if you want me to leave, I'll leave."
You give him ten minutes.
Because you're tired and it's easier than making a scene. He takes you for coffee, doesn't try to win you back exactly. Just... talks. Tells you he's been thinking. That he understands he was too much, too fast. That he wants to try again, slower this time. That he'll wait as long as you need.
"I'm going home for summer," you tell him.
His head snaps in your direction, clearly a problem he hasn't accounted for. "Back North?"
"Back home," you say. "My family's estate."
"The one you've been renovating."
You're not surprised he remembers. "Yes."
A ripples rolls through his expression. "You're going to be there all summer?"
"Probably."
"Alone?"
"My family's there. Staff. Usual people."
"Right." He's thinking. Actively thinking about something he's not saying. "Well. I've been meaning to tour some potential acquisitions in that area. Maybe I'll be in town."
Your stomach drops. "Valarr—"
"As a friend," he says at once, hearing the edge in your voice. He chuckles warmly, adding, "That's all. I'll be in the area anyway. Could stop by. Say hello. No pressure."
You don't say anything and he takes your silence as permission. Kisses your cheek, gentle and brief, inhaling your scent like a man starved.
You sit there for a long time after he leaves, and you realise, with a low, sinking feeling in your gut that he didn't mean he might be in town.
He's coming.
But Valarr stays true to his word and doesn't contact you, as agreed, and you arrive back at the estate in early June, emotionally exhausted and ready to just... not think for a while.
The renovation is in its final phase. Your grandmother's house is almost finished—years of work, coming to completion. You have some oversight duties but most of the heavy lifting is done. You plan to spend the summer in the main house, reading, picking up some niche hobby, not dating anyone, not dealing with anything.
You run into the crew on your second day.
They're doing final exterior work, landscaping restoration that takes precision. You've managed the renovation at arm's length through the project manager, avoiding the site during phases you didn't need to oversee personally.
You've been vaguely aware that Aerion's father was contracted somewhere in the supply chain, but you hadn't thought about it in months, and you hadn't thought about the possibility that Aerion himself would be on the property, like even now he can't stop chasing your ghost.
You walk around the back of the house and there he is.
He's tanner than you remember. Leaner, somehow even sharper and more handsome for it. His hair is longer, you note at once. It's starting to curl at the ends from the heat and the sweat. He's been working, and you can see it in him. The set of his shoulders is different. He looks sober, for the first time in a long time. And he's looking at you like you've materialised out of his nightmares.
You haven't seen each other in months.
The last time you spoke, you told him not to come back.
He puts down the lumber he's carrying, doesn't say anything. Just walks toward you.
You stand there because you can't move. Because your feet have forgotten how to work and every part of your body is recalibrating to his presence the way it always does, the way it has since you were seventeen years old and too stupid to know you should run from him.
He stops in front of you. Close enough that you have to angle your head. Closer than anyone else is allowed to be.
"You're back."
"Yes."
"For the summer."
"Yes."
He studies your face with that laser focus that at once makes you feel several degrees too hot. Whatever he sees there makes his jaw tighten.
"Who is he?"
Your pulse jumps, trips. "What?"
"You smell different. Or you look different. Something. Who is he?"
You have no idea how he knows, if he's just able to sense it in the fabric of you the way you can sense things about him. You search for something to say and settle on. "He's not—we broke up."
His eyes narrow. "Recently?"
"Six weeks ago."
Aerion's eyes go darker. "Name."
"Aerion—"
"Name."
You should lie. You know you should lie and keep lying for the rest of your life. But you've never lied to him about anything that mattered, it's the one thing you've always seen eye to eye on, and you're not going to start now.
"Valarr," you say. "Valarr Targaryen."
Everything in Aerion's face freezes, every muscle, every tendon. He stops blinking for a solid minute.
"My cousin."
"Yes."
"You knew."
You exhale. "I knew."
"The whole time."
"Yes," you admit, "The whole time."
He laughs; a horrible, mean little laugh you haven't heard in a long time.
"You fucked my cousin. Knowingly. My cousin." He laughs again, this time more so a snarl, teeth bared, "The one who's living my life. The one our father talks about when he's drunk enough to admit he wishes things had gone differently."
"We weren't together, Aerion," you remind him coolly.
"No," he says softly, hatefully. "We weren't."
"You told me not to come back. You said that. You meant it enough that you didn't come back for months." Your voice comes out level. Cold, even. "I'm allowed to move on. I'm allowed to date other people. I don't owe you a justification for what I did when you weren't in my life."
"You owe me the basic decency of not fucking my cousin. How about that?"
Your nostrils flare. "I didn't plan it, Aerion. He pursued me. I didn't go looking for a Targaryen to replace you. He found me at an investment mixer and asked me out and I said yes because I was tired of mourning someone who'd made it clear he didn't want to be found."
His grin goes feral, mean and cold around the edges. "Oh, you were mourning. That's cute."
"Don't start."
"Mourning me by riding my cousin," he spits out with another cutting laugh. "Very tragic. Very Shakespearean."
"Are you done?" you ask coldly.
"I don't know. Am I?" He steps closer, so close you feel his breath, his heat against every inch of you and time and distance has done nothing to dampen the effect of him. "You didn't end it when you figured out who he was."
You keep your voice flat. "No."
"Why."
It doesn't sound like a question.
"Because by then I liked him," you tell him, watching his expression tighten with hate. "Because he was good to me. Because I had no idea if I'd ever see you again and I wasn't going to end something real on the off chance you'd come back from whatever ditch you'd crawled into."
His jaw works. "Good to you."
"Yes."
"That fucking pampered, spoon-fed, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life golden boy was good to you."
You glare. "Yes."
"Then what are you doing back here?"
Your mouth closes on that question.
"Let me guess," Aerion drawls, and now his voice has gone to that quiet, mocking register you forgot how much you hated. "Mr. Good-To-You didn't quite scratch the itch, huh? Couldn't give you what you actually wanted. Couldn't fuck you the way you needed to be fucked. Was he gentle with you? Did he ask if you were nice and comfortable first? Did he make love to you?"
Your eyes narrow, voice dropping into that cold register you know he loves and hates. "Stop it."
"He doesn't know you," Aerion continues, soft and vicious. "That's what you're not saying. He had you for three months and he still doesn't know the first real thing about you. And clearly he wasn't that good of a fuck, because here you are, back on my side of the map, dealing with me again." He smiles, and it's vicious and rotten as the rest of him. "I'm flattered. Truly."
"You're a fucking asshole."
"I'm a fucking asshole who knows what you sound like at 2 AM when you're scared. Who knows every scar on your body and how you got them. Who knows your mother's middle name and that you cry when you're furious and how you take your coffee on days you haven't slept. Who knows exactly how to fuck you and how to make you laugh. He knows an idea of you. I know you. And that's why he couldn't keep you. Because you can't be kept by someone who doesn't actually know what he's holding."
You push away from him, your heart hammering inside your chest. "We're not doing this."
He follows you, perfect mirror, like you're two magnets. pushing and pulling. "We're absolutely doing this."
"I came here to get away from him, Aerion," you spit out, glaring. "Not to restart something with you."
"Is that right." He tilts his head. "Then tell me he's not coming here."
You don't answer.
"Tell me," he repeats, slower now, realisations honing his expression into something dangerous. "Look me in the face and tell me Valarr Targaryen isn't on his way to this estate to try to win you back."
You meet his eyes and say nothing. Aerion's expression shifts. Not to satisfaction. Something darker and more focused, almost predatory.
"He's coming here," he says, quieter, almost to himself.
"He said he might be in the area," you admit.
"Here. He's coming here."
"Probably."
Aerion looks past you at the house. At the life you've been building since you told him not to come back. His hand flexes at his side. When he speaks again his voice is level in a way that's worse than yelling.
"He's not stopping by."
"You don't get to decide—"
"I said he's not stopping by," he snarls, meeting your eyes, looking you over. "I don't give a fuck how much money he has. I don't care that he's family. He doesn't get to come here."
"We're not together," you remind him coolly.
"No. We're not." He steps back, finally puts distance between you. "But if you think I'm going to let that rich motherfucker come here and try to take you back—if you think I'm going to stand by and watch him use his money and his name and his fucking perfect life to convince you he's better than me—"
"Aerion, enough."
"He's not better than me." Quiet now, soft in how furious he sounds, like he's about to crack something open with his bare hands. "He might have everything I don't, but he doesn't have you. He had you for three months and he couldn't fucking keep you. I don't need to do anything to beat him. He's already lost. He just doesn't know it yet. He can have all the money in the world but he doesn't have what we have."
You want to say something cutting, shut him down, remind him that there is no we, that he made sure of it. Yet you can't think of anything that doesn't feel like concession.
Aerion surges forward suddenly, cups your face, calloused thumb brushing your cheek. Rough from work. Familiar in ways that make your insides coil up.
"Tell me to go away and I'll go away," he rasps, the switch flicking from rage to tenderness as he drinks you in and you hate the ache you feel in your chest at the raw need you hear in his voice. "I'll go back to work. I'll never bother you again."
You don't tell him to go away.
"But if you want me to stay," he says quietly, "then Valarr doesn't come here. Period. And if he tries—" His eyes are colder and darker than ice. "I'll handle it."
You jolt at that, snapping out of the daze of his nearness. "What does that mean?"
"It means he doesn't get you back."
You stare at each other. Across the yard, his crew is pretending not to watch. The summer air is heavy around you and smells like cut grass mixed with the lavender your grandmother planted forty years ago.
You realise, with sudden, painful clarity that you're in trouble.
Because Valarr is coming.
And Aerion will not let this rest.
i dont think modern aerion is punk.
cus being punk means being against the worst side of politics.
and what is aerion? the bad side of politics.
modern aerion would be chic or edgy high society cuz that's what he is, high society
A typical day in summerhall, when daeron decided to cut his hair he looked so much like valarr in certain lights...
yeah f u for this cus wdym this seems like the first time in kiera had sparks in her eyes after valarr died
brb gon cry
the most attractive thing about valarr and baelor is that they have a face that looks like he loves listening to you and it just makes u giggle and kick.
meanwhile, aerion and maekar has a face that looks like "why the fuck am i even here" and it just makes u want to scream at their face and ride them right then and there out of frustration and tension.
Daeron the Drunken
If the gods are kind, one day I shall have your hand.
daeron x reader
daeron x fem!reader
Daeron stumbled into your chambers, his senses dulled by wine, and pressed a written confession into your hand.
warning: none, angst to fluff
Daeron Targaryen had always been easy to love and impossible to endure.
That was the trouble with him.
He smiled as though he knew every secret in the world and meant to keep only the amusing ones. He laughed like a man who feared nothing, mocked everything, and somehow managed to make even his worst habits seem charming. Court whispered of him as Daeron the Drunken, the prince who preferred wine to discipline and dreams to duty, but none of them knew him as you did. None of them knew the wit beneath the idleness, the softness hidden under the slouching grin, or the strange sadness that sometimes came into his eyes just before he reached for another cup.
You had known him too long to be fooled by reputation. He had been your closest friend for years, your companion through feasts and hunts and dull courtly obligations, your partner in every bit of mischief that did not end in complete disaster. He was the one who stole sweetcakes from the kitchens and brought them to you with a flourish as if they were jewels from Asshai.
He was the one who leaned far too close in crowded halls just to murmur some wicked little observation that nearly made you laugh aloud in front of lords and ladies who would have fainted to hear such things. He teased you constantly, and you returned it in kind, and somewhere in all those easy years of companionship, affection had turned into something far more dangerous.
You loved him. Quietly, helplessly, and with no small amount of irritation.
It would have been easier if he had not looked at you the way he did sometimes. It would have been easier if he had been careless with everyone. But Daeron was not the same with you as he was with others, and that made a ruin of any peace you might have had. He sought you first in every room. His smiles softened for you. His voice lowered when the two of you were alone, as though there were things only you were meant to hear. It was enough to feed hope and starve certainty, and so you had learned to live in the narrow miserable place between them.
The confession came on a night that smelled of summer wine, candlewax, and foolish courage. A feast had run long into the evening, and by the time you had retired to your chambers, the castle had settled into that half-sleeping silence that came only after too much revelry.
You had only just loosened your sleeves when there came a knock at your door, hesitant at first and then repeated with greater confidence. When you opened it, Daeron stood there, one hand braced against the frame, silver hair disordered, cheeks slightly flushed, and eyes bright with drink.
You ought to have sent him away at once. Instead, you leaned against the doorway and folded your arms. “You are drunk.”
He drew himself up with a dignity made entirely ridiculous by the fact that one side of his doublet had been fastened wrong. “Before you scold me. I have done something exceedingly brave."
"That is rarely a good sign."
"It is, tonight."
Before you could answer, he fumbled inside his doublet and drew out a folded parchment, already a little crumpled at the edges.
All the humor in his expression softened then, and suddenly he looked less like a prince laughing at the world and more like a young man who had come to the edge of something frightening and decided to leap anyway. He held the letter out to you.
“For you.” he said quietly.
You took it before you could think better of it. The parchment was warm from where he had kept it close, and when you unfolded it, you recognized his hand at once. The ink was a bit smudged, the lines not as steady as they might have been if he had written it sober, but the words were unmistakably Daeron’s—clever, aching, honest in a way he almost never allowed himself to be in speech.
I think I loved you from the moment you called me a fool to my face.
You are the only person who looks at me and sees Daeron before prince.
If the gods are kind, one day I shall have your hand.
When you looked up, he was watching you with the sort of nervousness you had never seen in him before. Daeron, who could jest with lords, insult knights, and slip through danger as if born to mock it, was waiting for your answer like a boy.
“You mean this?” you asked, your voice smaller than you intended.
He stepped closer. The moonlight from the corridor window silvered the edge of his cheek and caught in his pale hair, and beneath the scent of wine there was something warm and familiar that was only him.
“I do,” he said. “Even if tomorrow I’m cursed enough to remember none of the poetry, I know I mean that.”
That should have warned you. It should have made you wary. Instead, happiness bloomed so brightly inside you that caution never had a chance. You laughed once, half from relief and half because the sheer audacity of him was so very Daeron.
“Your poetry is dreadful.” you told him, though your eyes had already begun to sting.
“Then you must pity me and accept it anyway.”
You smiled at him then, the kind of smile you had kept hidden for far too long. “I am happy you finally admitted it.”
Something changed in his face at that. His expression went soft and wondering, as if he had not truly believed he might be answered kindly. Then he took your hand, bowed his head over it with exaggerated gallantry, and pressed his lips to your knuckles. “My lady,” he murmured with a smile in his voice, “I promise my hand is yours.”
You ought to have laughed at the dramatics of it. Instead, you held that moment as though it were something holy. After years of wanting, you had finally been given words to match all the looks and half-measures and lingering glances. When he left, you pressed the letter to your chest and stood smiling long after the corridor had gone quiet.
The next morning, you were awake embarrassingly early.
You dressed with more care than usual, pinned your hair as neatly as your hands would allow, and carried the letter hidden safely in your sleeve like a secret blessing.
By the time you reached the breakfast table, your pulse had not yet settled. You told yourself not to be foolish. He would come in late and hungover perhaps, but he would grin when he saw you. He would remember the letter. He would say something teasing to cover his embarrassment, and then perhaps, beneath the table where no one could see, his hand would brush yours.
Instead, Daeron arrived looking perfectly ordinary.
He greeted the hall with his usual lazy ease, sat down, and reached for bread. He glanced at you and smiled the same smile he always wore, warm and infuriatingly untroubled. “Good morning,” he said.
You stared at him. “Good morning?"
"Yes?" He glanced sideways. He poured watered wine. He asked for honey. He made some idle remark about the sausages being overcooked. He did not blush, did not glance at you with new meaning, did not say one word about the letter still tucked against your wrist like a brand. It became hideously clear, moment by moment, that he remembered nothing.
The humiliation of it hit slowly and then all at once. You had sat there with your heart all but laid bare, waiting for him to claim what he had confessed, and he had come to breakfast as though the night before had been no more memorable than any other drunken wandering. It was not only hurt that rose in you then, but pride. Pride wounded, pride furious, pride determined not to let him see how deeply he had managed to cut you without even meaning to.
You left the table stiff-backed and polite, and when he looked after you in surprise. "Leaving so soon?"
"Yes."
"Have I offended you already? I have barely had time to speak." He says, brows furrowed.
You forced a smile so cold it could freeze a wildfire. "Do enjoy your breakfast, my prince."
The entire day, you avoided him. Every corridor. Every courtyard. Every garden path.
If Daeron appeared, you disappeared. At first he thought it amusing. By noon, he was confused. By afternoon, annoyed.
He finally cornered you in the gallery, leaning against the archway with that infuriating smirk.
“There you are.”
You kept walking. He fell into step beside you.
“You have been avoiding me.”
“I have not.”
“You have.”
“I am simply lightheaded.”
He tilted his head. “Lightheaded.”
“Yes. I am not in the mood." You gave him a pointed look.
That finally made him pause. Daeron stared after you as you left. For the first time all day, he looked troubled.
Let him wonder. Let him feel even a fraction of the confusion he had given you.
By the afternoon, bitterness had begun to curdle into something pettier. That was when Aerion found you.
Under any other circumstance, you would have excused yourself the moment he appeared. Aerion Brightflame was handsome in the cold polished way of a blade, and nearly as pleasant to be near.
He smiled as if the world existed only to admire him, and there was always some edge beneath his courtesy that made even harmless words sound like a challenge. But when he began making some sly remark about one of the younger knights failing spectacularly in training, you answered him. When he followed it with a sharper observation about court, you even laughed.
It was not that he amused you greatly. It was that you knew who was standing in the courtyard arch before either of the Targaryen brothers said a word.
Daeron had stopped dead the moment he saw you.
The change in his face was almost laughable in its speed. Surprise flashed first, then disbelief, then unmistakable irritation. His entire body seemed to go rigid. The squire he had been speaking to trailed off uncertainly, but Daeron was no longer listening.
His eyes were fixed on you and Aerion, and in them there was something darker than annoyance—something sharp and possessive that sent a strange, guilty thrill through you despite your anger.
Aerion, of course, noticed immediately. He cast one glance in his brother’s direction and smirked like a man who had just discovered a delightful new way to be intolerable.
“Well,” he drawled, “it appears Daeron has finally found a thing worth sobering for.”
You should have apologized then. You should have ended the conversation and spared yourself what came next. Instead, perhaps because you were hurt, perhaps because you wanted Daeron to feel it, you smiled once more at something Aerion said.
That was enough.
Daeron crossed the courtyard with the air of a man approaching battle rather than his brother and a friend. He did not look at Aerion at first. He looked only at you. There was an intensity to it that made your stomach tighten. Then, without preamble, he took your wrist. The grip was not painful, but it was firm enough that there could be no pretending he meant only to guide you politely. Aerion’s smile widened to near obscenity.
“I shall leave you both,” Aerion said, sounding delighted, “to settle whatever absurdity this is.”
Daeron ignored him entirely. He led you into the corridor just beyond the courtyard, where the noise of the castle faded into a distant hum and only the torchlight moved along the walls. When he finally stopped and turned to face you, his expression was somewhere between anger and bewilderment.
“What is wrong with you?” he demanded.
You blinked at him. Of all the things he might have said, that had not been the one you expected. “With me?”
“Yes, with you.” He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration so unlike his usual lazy ease that it might have been funny if you had not still been wounded.
“You have ignored me all day, turned aside every attempt I made to speak to you, and now I find you laughing with Aerion of all people. Aerion.”
His disgust with that last name was almost enough to soften you.
Almost.
You folded your arms. “I was not aware I required your leave to speak with your brother.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“It is what you sound like.”
He stared at you for a moment, and then some of the anger in his face shifted into something more vulnerable. “You would smile at him,” he said, “but not even look properly at me.”
There was genuine hurt beneath the irritation. You saw it and hated that you saw it, because it made your own anger feel suddenly less righteous. But the memory of the breakfast table returned, and with it all the humiliation you had spent the day swallowing.
“Perhaps,” you said coldly, “I am not in the habit of chatting pleasantly with men who forget what they say.”
His brow furrowed. “Forget what I say?”
The fact that he still did not understand broke the last of your patience. “Gods, Daeron, must I say it plainly?”
“Yes,” he said, and there was no mockery in him now, only confusion and rising alarm. “Because I swear I do not know what offense I’ve given.”
You stared at him, searched his face, and realized with a new wave of misery that he truly did not know. He had hurt you by accident, and somehow that made it both better and worse. Your voice trembled despite your effort to keep it steady. “Last night,” you said, “you came to my chambers.”
His eyes widened slightly.
“You gave me a letter.”
He went very still.
“You confessed your feelings to me,” you said, every word costing you more than the last. “You said you loved me. You said you wanted my hand.” Then, because the ache in your chest would not be contained any longer, you looked straight at him and said the line that had burned in you all day. “You do not even remember promising that you will have my hand.”
Silence fell like something struck dead.
Daeron simply stared. It was the strangest sight in the world—to see him without a quick answer, without a smirk, without any of the wit he wore like armor. For one suspended moment he looked not princely, not drunken, not clever, but simply stunned. Then he lifted a hand to his brow and exhaled in a way that was almost a laugh and almost a groan.
“Oh, seven hells,” he muttered.
You drew yourself up, stung anew. “That is all you have to say?”
His gaze snapped back to yours at once. “No. No, that is not—” He closed his eyes briefly, visibly trying to gather himself. “Gods. Is that why you have hated me all day?”
You gave him a look that should have answered well enough.
To your utter disbelief, a brief, incredulous laugh escaped him. It was not mocking. It sounded more like a man astonished by the shape of his own disaster. “You let me think I had somehow offended you beyond repair,” he said, almost to himself, “and all the while it was because I had confessed and then turned up at breakfast like a witless fool.”
“You did turn up like a witless fool.”
“Yes,” he admitted at once, then took a step nearer. “I did.”
The simplicity of that, the lack of excuse, made it harder to remain perfectly furious. He saw the shift in your face and gentled immediately.
“Listen to me,” he said, quieter now. “I may not remember every word I wrote or every ridiculous thing I said after too much wine, but I know this much: I would never have spoken them if they were not true.”
You hesitated.
He stepped closer still, enough that the space between you felt charged with every year of friendship and every moment of wanting. “Do you truly think I would say such things to you in jest?”
“No,” you said, but softly.
“Then believe the heart of it, if not the drunken poetry.” His mouth curved faintly. “Though I should like very much to know whether it was good poetry or dreadful.”
“It was dreadful.”
“That does sound like me.”
Despite everything, a laugh slipped out of you. It was small and unwilling, but it was there.
Relief transformed his face at once. The tension eased from his shoulders, and some familiar wickedness returned to his eyes. “There you are,” he murmured. “I thought I had lost you to Aerion forever.”
You rolled your eyes, though your pulse had begun to settle into something warmer. “I was speaking with him for perhaps five minutes.”
“They were the longest five minutes of my life.”
“You are overdramatic.”
“I am a Targaryen. It is one of my finer qualities.”
You tried not to smile and failed. He noticed, of course. Daeron noticed everything about you that mattered.
“For the record,” he said, and now there was teasing in him again, but softer, threaded through with real feeling, “I hated seeing you laugh with him.”
“You seemed jealous.”
“I was jealous.”
The frankness of it caught you off guard.
He lowered his head slightly, just enough that his voice dropped into that intimate register he reserved for you alone. “How could you talk to Aerion and not me?”
The question, simple and sincere beneath the grievance, undid the last of your anger. “Because I was hurt,” you admitted. “And because I wanted you to feel some of it back.”
He winced. “That was cruel.”
“You deserved a little cruelty.”
“I probably did.” He reached for your hand then, slower this time, giving you the chance to pull away. When you did not, his fingers curled around yours, warm and careful. “May I attempt this again,” he asked, “with less wine and more memory?”
You looked at him, at the prince who had blundered his way into your heart years ago and blundered his way through confessing it now, and you realized there was no part of you that truly wished to deny him. “You may,” you said.
His smile then was softer than any you had ever seen from him, as though he had set aside every jest and every mask at once. “Good,” he said. “Because I do love you. Entirely sober, to my lasting horror. And if I promised to have your hand, then I shall stand by it gladly.”
You felt laughter and tears rise together, which seemed unfair. “That is not a very elegant proposal.”
“It is not a formal proposal,” he said. “It is only the truth.”
“And if I told you that I loved you too?”
His fingers tightened around yours. “Then,” he said, with a smile returning to the corner of his mouth, “I should consider myself the most fortunate drunk in the Seven Kingdoms.”
You laughed properly then, and this time he did not merely look relieved. He looked awed.
He lifted your hand and pressed a kiss to it again, but there was less performance in it now, less princely flourish, more tenderness. When he looked up, there was mischief back in his eyes. “Though I should warn you,” he said, “if you ever use Aerion to make me jealous again, I may be forced to commit treason.”
“You were jealous after five minutes. How fragile are you?”
“Very,” he said gravely. “You must treat me with care.”
“I do not believe anyone has ever accused Daeron Targaryen of fragility.”
“They have failed to know me intimately.”
That made your face warm in a way you absolutely refused to let him see. You turned your head, but he caught the movement and laughed under his breath. “There,” he said. “That is the look I was hoping for.”
“You are insufferable.”
“And yet you love me.”
The cursed thing was that he said it so lightly and yet with such certainty that you could not even deny it. Instead, you narrowed your eyes and tried to look severe. “You still owe me a proper confession.”
“I’ve given you two.”
“One of them you forgot.”
“Then I shall give you a third tonight, sober, eloquent, and ideally somewhere with less chance of Aerion appearing out of nowhere to ruin my life.”
You arched a brow. “Eloquent? You?”
He placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. “You wound me. I can be eloquent.”
You should have made him work harder for forgiveness. You knew that. You should have let him stew a while longer for forgetting so precious a thing. But Daeron was smiling at you with all the warmth he never gave anyone else, and your hand was still in his, and the memory of his words from the night before no longer felt spoiled. If anything, they felt more precious for having been spoken again soberly, without wine to hide behind.
So when he leaned in a little closer, giving you every chance to refuse, you did not move away.
His kiss was soft at first, as if he still half-feared that you might vanish, laugh, or tell him he had misunderstood everything. Then, when you touched your free hand to his sleeve and stayed there, it deepened—not wildly, not hungrily, but with all the tenderness of years finally allowed to turn into something more. When he drew back, he looked dazed in the loveliest possible way.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “that was far better than talking to Aerion.”
You laughed against his mouth. “You truly cannot let that go.”
“Never.”
“And if I speak to him again?”
“Then I shall hover nearby looking tragic until you pity me.”
“You would not look tragic. You would look sulky.”
“I can do both.”
“Yes,” you said, smiling now without effort, “you truly can.”
He touched his forehead lightly to yours, and for once there was no jest in him at all. “Do not ignore me all day again,” he murmured.
“Do not confess to me and forget it by morning.”
“That seems fair.”
You stood there for a while in the quiet corridor, hand in hand, the afternoon light falling warm through the window stones. Somewhere out in the yard a shout rang out, followed by the clash of practice swords and the distant bark of laughter. Life at court went on as it always had—messy and loud and full of vanity and ambition and too many people who mistook cruelty for strength. But in that narrow stretch of silence between the noise, Daeron looked at you like none of that mattered at all.
It occurred to you then that perhaps this was what loving him had always been leading toward. Not perfection. Not ease. Certainly not dignity. But this—this warmth, this foolishness, this tenderness wrapped in teasing, this man who could ruin everything by accident and yet somehow make you glad to forgive him.
“You know,” you said after a while, “I still have the letter.”
He groaned softly. “Burn it.”
“I think not.”
“It is probably humiliating.”
“It is definitely humiliating.”
“Then I command you, as a prince of the realm, to destroy it.”
You smiled sweetly. “No.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You are going to keep it forever, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“To blackmail me.”
“Possibly.”
A pause.
Then he grinned. “Good. I would expect nothing less from the woman who has stolen my heart.”
And because this time he remembered saying it, and because now it belonged to both of you, you laughed and let him pull you close again.
