Missing Cat (Part 2)
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x f!reader (Modern AU)
Summary: You find a missing cat that belongs to a certain Targaryen. During the time which takes you to find the owner, Vhagar becomes attached to you, so now Aemond must deal with sharing her with you. See part 1 here.
The bandages came off on a Tuesday.
You weren't there for the removal, that happened at the surgeon's office, a sterile room full of equipment you couldn't name, with Aemond's mother in attendance and you very pointedly not invited. But you were there when he came home, walking through the door of the penthouse with his left eye uncovered.
The scar was still there, a pale silver line cutting through his eyebrow and disappearing into his hairline. But the eye itself, the eye he'd kept hidden behind patches carefully arranged hair, was visible now. Clouded, yes. A milky blue where his right eye was sharp violet. But open, and looking at you, or at least in your direction.
"How did it go?" you asked, setting down the book you'd been reading.
Aemond didn't answer immediately. He set his keys on the console table by the door, then walked to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. His hands were steady, but there was tension in his shoulders.
"Mother is optimistic," he said finally, his back still to you. "She's already talking about the next surgery. The one after this one. The specialist in Geneva she's been corresponding with."
"That's not what I asked."
He turned then, and you could see it: the exhaustion, the resignation, the carefully contained disappointment of someone who had hoped against hope and been proven right the first time. "The surgery went as expected. The eye is healed. The nerve is not."
"Oh," you said softly. "Aemond."
"Don't." His voice was sharp, then immediately softened. "Don't look at me like that. I told you. I made my peace with this years ago. It's my mother who can't let it go."
Vhagar, who had been sleeping in her cardboard box by the window, lifted her head and made a creaking sound of inquiry. Aemond crossed the room and bent to scratch behind her ears, and for a moment he looked almost normal, just a man petting his cat, the pale afternoon light catching the silver in his hair.
"There are exercises," he said, straightening up. "Vision therapy. They want me to do them twice a day, just in case." He said just in case the way someone might say just in case the dead rise from their graves. "I'm supposed to test whether I can distinguish shapes. Movement."
"Do you want me to help?"
He looked at you, his good eye assessing, his bad eye fixed on some point slightly to your left. "You don't have to."
"I know I don't have to. I'm asking if you want me to."
The pause stretched long enough that Vhagar meowed impatiently, demanding continued attention. Aemond's mouth twitched.
"Yes," he said. "I want you to."
The vision therapy kit was a sad little collection of objects that looked like they'd been stolen from an optometrist's office: a handheld eye chart, a patch to cover his good eye, a series of cards with increasingly small letters and shapes, a penlight that seemed unnecessarily clinical for a penthouse apartment. Aemond laid them out on the coffee table with the same grim efficiency he probably brought to board meetings.
"This is humiliating," he said, fastening the patch over his right eye. "I haven't done this with anyone since I was a child."
"You were a child once?"
"Briefly. It didn't take."
You sat across from him on the couch, the eye chart in your hands. With the patch on, his face looked different: more vulnerable, the scar more prominent, the clouded blue of his left eye the sole focus of his gaze. He was looking somewhere in the vicinity of your left shoulder, his pupil fixed and unmoving.
"Okay," you said, holding up the chart. "Can you see any of the letters?"
Silence. He squinted, or tried to, the left eye didn't move quite in sync with the right. "No."
"What about the big one at the top? The E?"
"No."
"Can you tell how many fingers I'm holding up?"
You raised your hand. He stared at it for a long moment, his jaw tight.
"None," he said. "Or possibly all of them. I can't tell."
You lowered your hand. "Okay. What about light? Can you see the window? The difference between the window and the wall?"
He turned his head slowly, his blind eye tracking across the room. "I can tell there's a light source. It's…brighter over there. But I couldn't tell you it was a window. It's just light and dark. Like looking through frosted glass at the bottom of a lake."
"That's something, though. Right? The surgeon said..."
"The surgeon said there was a thirty percent chance. That was before they opened me up and found the nerve damage was worse than the scans showed." He pulled the patch off with more force than necessary, his right eye blinking rapidly as it readjusted. "This is a waste of time. Mother's surgeon can bill her for the therapy kit and the follow-up appointments and the flight to Geneva she's already trying to book, but it won't change anything."
"Maybe not," you said carefully. "But you're doing it anyway."
He looked at you, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders. "I'm doing it anyway."
You ran through the exercises again and again. The second day, Aemond reported that he could distinguish the penlight when you shone it directly at his left eye, a faint brightening, like sunlight through thick curtains. The third day, he thought he might have seen your hand move, though he couldn't be sure it wasn't just his brain filling in the gaps. The fourth day, he could reliably tell you whether the lights in the room were on or off, which felt like a victory until he pointed out that he could do that before the surgery too.
"It's not going to come back," he said on the fifth day, setting the eye chart aside with finality. "I've accepted that. I need my mother to accept it."
"Have you told her?"
"I've told her every time. She doesn't listen." He rubbed his right eye, a gesture of fatigue you'd come to recognize. "She thinks acceptance is the same as giving up. That if she just tries hard enough, wants it badly enough, she can fix me."
The word fix landed heavily between you. You thought about all the things you'd learned about Aemond over the past months: the careful way he held himself, the defensiveness that masked something rawer underneath, the way he offered devotion to people who gave him scraps in return. You thought about his mother, who loved him enough to find surgeon after surgeon but not enough to let him grieve what he'd lost.
"You're not broken," you said quietly.
He didn't answer. But he looked at you, and his expression cracked open, just a little, like a door left slightly ajar.
"Now you," he said on the sixth day, pushing the eye chart across the coffee table toward you.
"What about me?"
"Your vision. You mentioned it the other day, the astigmatism. Let me test you."
"You're not an optometrist."
"I have an eye chart. That makes me qualified."
You laughed, but he was already standing up, the patch dangling from his fingers, his expression set in that particular way it got when he'd decided something and would not be dissuaded. He positioned you against the far wall of the living room. "No, further back", and handed you a plastic spoon to cover first one eye, then the other.
"Read the third line," he commanded.
"I can't see the third line."
"What do you mean you can't see it? It's right there."
"It's a blur. I can see the big E. The rest is just…fuzzy shapes."
He stared at you, the eye chart forgotten in his hand. "How long has it been since you had glasses?"
"I have glasses. They're at home. The prescription is just…" You shrugged, suddenly self-conscious under the intensity of his scrutiny. "Old."
"How old?"
"A few years?"
"A few years." His voice was flat. "You told me the sight in your right eye is at eighty percent. Your left eye is at sixty percent. You're straining your right eye constantly to compensate, which is why you need the drops. And you haven't updated your prescription in a few years."
"It's expensive," you said, crossing your arms. "Eye exams, new lenses, the frames, it adds up. My old glasses work fine. I can see well enough."
"'Well enough' is not the same as seeing." He was pacing now, the eye chart rolled into a tube that he was using to gesture emphatically. "You've been squinting at your computer screen. You've been holding your phone six inches from your face. You couldn't read the street sign yesterday when we were walking back from the park."
"You noticed that?"
"I notice everything." He stopped pacing and faced you, frustrated. "Why didn't you say something?"
"Because it's not a big deal? Millions of people have outdated prescriptions. It's not like I'm going blind."
"You're straining your eyes daily. That causes headaches. Fatigue. Decreased quality of life." He was listing the symptoms like he'd memorized them from a medical textbook, which he probably had. "And you've just been...what? Ignoring it? Hoping it would go away?"
"I've been managing it. With the eye drops. Which I told you about."
"The eye drops are a stopgap. You need proper corrective lenses."
"Aemond." You held up a hand, cutting him off mid-tirade. "I appreciate the concern. Really. But glasses are expensive, and I have other things to prioritize right now. It's fine."
"It is not fine," he said, and the words came out almost fierce. "You've been here for a week. You've been helping me with my exercises, ordering food, keeping me company at three in the morning when I can't sleep. You've done all of that without being asked, without expecting anything in return, and you won't even let me..."
He stopped abruptly, his jaw clicking shut.
"Let you what?" you asked.
Silence. He looked away, his profile sharp against the window light.
"Let me help you," he said finally, his voice quieter now. "In return."
"You don't owe me anything."
"I know I don't owe you. That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
He turned back to you, and there it was again, that expression you'd seen flickering across his face for weeks now, the one you'd been too afraid to name. "I meant that I want to. I want to help you. Not because you've earned it or because I'm compensating you for services rendered, but because I..." He stopped, swallowed, started again. "Because I care about you. Because the thought of you walking around with a four-year-old prescription and pretending it's fine makes me want to..."
"Have an affronted meltdown?"
"Don't tease me. I'm being sincere."
"I know you are." You stepped closer. "That's what makes it so funny."
His mouth twitched. "It's not funny."
"It's a little funny. You're standing there with an eye chart in your hand, lecturing me about my astigmatism, looking like you're about to call an optometrist and have them dragged here by force."
"I'm considering it."
"I know you are."
The tension broke. He was standing very close now, close enough that you could smell his cologne, clean and expensive, like cedar and cold air, his good eye was fixed on your face.
"How much do I owe you?" he asked, his voice lower than before.
"What?"
"For this week. For the catsitting. For staying here. For..." He gestured vaguely, encompassing the eye chart, the penthouse, the entire improbable situation. "All of it."
"You don't owe me anything," you repeated, this time the words came out sadder than you intended. "That's not why I stayed."
"Then why did you?"
"Because you needed someone. And I wanted to be that someone." You looked down at your hands, unable to hold his gaze. "You don't have to pay me for that. I'm not your employee."
"I know you're not."
"Then stop trying to make this transactional."
The silence that followed was heavy, charged, the air in the room suddenly too thick to breathe.
"That's not what I was doing," he said. "I wasn't...I don't see you as an employee. I haven't for a long time. I just…" He ran a hand through his hair, dislodging strands of silver-blonde from their careful arrangement. "I don't know how to do this. Any of this. I don't know how to say stay without offering something in return. I don't know how to ask for what I want without making it a transaction. I've never..." He stopped, breathed, started again. "You're the first person in a very long time who's stayed without being asked. Without being paid. Without expecting anything from me. I don't know what to do with that."
"You could say thank you," you suggested softly.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
He laughed, a short exhale that was half surprise and half relief. "That's it? That's all I had to say?"
"That's all anyone has to say. The rest is just…showing up. Being there. The stuff you've already been doing."
"I've been doing it badly."
"You've been doing it like someone who's never been shown how."
He reached out and took your hand, his fingers cool and slightly unsteady against your palm.
"I want you to get new glasses," he said. "Not because I owe you. Not because you're my employee. Because I want you to be able to see. Because I want you to stop squinting at your phone and getting headaches and pretending it's fine. Because I want to do something for you that you won't do for yourself. Is that acceptable?"
"I can't afford..."
"I know. That's why I'm offering."
"Aemond..."
"Please." The word came out desperate. "Let me do this. Let me do something for someone who actually wants to be here. Who isn't waiting for me to fix something or become something or stop being something. Just let me buy you a pair of glasses. It's the least romantic gesture I can think of. It's practically medical."
A laugh bubbled up in your throat, surprising you. "You think this is romantic?"
"I think I'm trying very hard to tell you something, and I'm doing it badly, and I'm hoping you'll meet me halfway before I make an even bigger fool of myself."
"What are you trying to tell me?"
He stepped closer. His hand was still holding yours, his thumb tracing small circles against your knuckles.
"I'm trying to tell you that I've ended things with Alys," he said. "I did it the night before the surgery. I told her I wasn't coming to Riverlands anymore. She said she'd send the salve anyway, because she'd already made it, and I said okay, and that was it. Three years, and that was it."
"I'm sorry," you said, because you didn't know what else to say.
"Don't be. I'm not." His grip on your hand tightened. "I thought I would be. I thought I'd feel...hollow. Instead I felt relieved. I felt like I'd been holding my breath for three years and someone had finally let me exhale."
"What does that have to do with my glasses?"
"Nothing. Everything." He was standing so close now that you could see the flecks of darker violet in his iris, the faint lines around his eye that only appeared when he was tired or worried or feeling something too big to contain. "I'm trying to tell you that I want you here. As you. Just you. However you'll have me."
Your heart was beating so hard you were sure he could feel it through your hand. "Aemond..."
He kissed you. It was the kiss of someone who had been holding back for months and had finally, catastrophically, run out of restraint. His free hand came up to cup your jaw, his fingers sliding into your hair, and he kissed you like he was trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, like he was making up for lost time, like you were the first good thing that had happened to him in years and he was terrified of letting you slip away.
You kissed him back. Your hands found the front of his shirt, the crisp cotton crumpling under your grip, and you pulled him closer, closer, until there was no space left between you. He made a sound low in his throat, something between a sigh and a groan, and his arm wrapped around your waist, anchoring you against him.
"You have no idea," he murmured against your mouth, "how long I've wanted to do that."
"How long?"
"Since you told me to give Vhagar a cardboard box."
You laughed, he kissed the laugh right off your lips, and somehow you ended up pressed against the back of the couch with his hands in your hair and his mouth trailing down the line of your jaw. Vhagar meowed loudly from her box.
"Your cat is judging us," you managed.
"Vhagar judges everyone. It's her primary hobby." But he pulled back just far enough to look at you, his expression soft in a way you'd never seen before. "Stay. Tonight. Not in the guest room."
"Are you sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything." He pressed his forehead to yours, his breath warm against your skin. "Stay. Let me buy you glasses. Let me cook you dinner and lecture you about your eye health and kiss you until neither of us can breathe. Let me be terrible at this and learn how to be better."
You kissed him again instead of answering, but he seemed to take that as a yes.
You didn't stay in the guest room. One moment you were kissing him against the back of the couch, his hands in your hair and his mouth warm and insistent on yours, and the next he was leading you down the hallway past the guest room door without even pausing, his fingers laced through yours.
His bedroom was exactly what you'd expected and nothing like you'd imagined. Minimalist, yes, pale walls, pale linens, a huge bed, but there were books stacked on the nightstand, three of them with spines cracked and bookmarks protruding. There was a glass of water on the coaster. There was a gray cat hair on a pillow, which Vhagar had apparently claimed despite having her own climate-controlled tower in the living room.
"She sleeps here," Aemond said, noticing your glance at the hair. "I've tried to stop her. It's impossible."
"I wouldn't expect you to succeed. She's very determined."
"She's very spoiled." He said it with the same gruff affection he always used when talking about the cat. "I should warn you, I've been told I'm not an easy person to sleep next to."
"By whom?"
The question slipped out before you could stop it. He didn't flinch, but something flickered across his face, there and gone. "Alys. Among others."
"Well," you said, sitting down on the edge of his enormous bed and trying not to think about Alys in this room, in this bed, "I've been told I steal the covers. So we'll be even."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Noted."
You woke several times in the night, you always did in unfamiliar places. The first time, the clock on the nightstand read 1:47 a.m., and you were cocooned in blankets with Aemond's arm draped over your waist and his breath slow and even against the back of your neck. You smiled into the darkness and let yourself drift back under.
The second time, it was 3:22 a.m., and you were freezing.
The blankets were gone. All of them. You were curled on your side in the fetal position, your arms wrapped around yourself, and somewhere in the vast expanse of the king-sized bed, Aemond Targaryen had apparently constructed a fortress and was sleeping soundly inside it.
You tugged at the nearest corner of blanket. It didn't budge. You tugged harder. Somewhere in the darkness, Aemond made a disgruntled sound and rolled over, taking the blankets with him.
"You're a blanket thief," you whispered accusingly.
He didn't respond. He was deeply asleep, his face half-buried in the pillow and his silver-blonde hair spread across the pillowcase like spilled moonlight.
You gave up on the blankets and shuffled closer to him instead, pressing yourself against his back for warmth. He stirred, murmuring something unintelligible, and his arm reached back to pull you closer. A moment later, the blankets descended over you again, tucked carefully around your shoulders by hands that were still mostly asleep.
"Thank you," you whispered.
"Mmph," he said, and pulled you tighter against him.
The third time you woke, it was 5:14 a.m. and his mouth was on your shoulder.
He was still mostly asleep, his breathing deep and regular, but his lips were pressed to the curve of your shoulder where the collar of your borrowed t-shirt had slipped down, and they were moving slightly, not kissing, exactly, just resting there, warm and dry and strangely tender.
You should have been annoyed. You'd been asleep. You'd been comfortable. But instead you felt a slow, honeyed warmth spreading through your limbs, your sleep-fogged brain registering the sensation as something pleasant rather than intrusive. You made a small sound of acknowledgment and tilted your head, giving him better access without really meaning to.
His mouth moved to the side of your neck. Still not quite kissing, just resting there, his breath warm against your pulse point. His hand, which had been curled loosely at your hip, slid up your side in a slow, absent motion, like he was petting a cat in his sleep.
"Aemond," you murmured.
"Mmph."
"Are you awake?"
No answer. His lips pressed a little firmer against your neck, then relaxed. He was definitely still asleep. You closed your eyes and let yourself drift again.
Proper consciousness arrived with the gray light of dawn and the insistent yowling of a cat who had decided that 6:30 a.m. was a perfectly reasonable time for breakfast.
"She's your cat," you mumbled into the pillow.
"She's your alarm clock now," Aemond replied, his voice rough with sleep. He hadn't moved away from you. If anything, he'd gotten closer, his chest pressed against your back and his arm still wrapped around your waist. His mouth, you noticed, was still somewhere in the vicinity of your shoulder. "I should feed her."
"In a minute."
He huffed a laugh against your skin, and the sensation sent a shiver down your spine that had nothing to do with cold. "You're a terrible influence."
"I'm a great influence. I'm teaching you to relax."
"Vhagar will destroy something if I don't feed her. Last time I was late, she knocked a first edition off the shelf."
"Was it valuable?"
"Very."
"And you still keep first editions on shelves she can reach?"
He paused. "That's a fair point."
Vhagar yowled again, louder this time. Aemond sighed and extracted himself from the tangle of blankets and limbs. You immediately missed his warmth, the solid weight of him behind you, you burrowed deeper into the pillows to compensate.
"I'm going to feed the terrorist," he said, and you felt his hand brush your hair back from your face. "Go back to sleep."
"Mmkay."
You were already half-gone when you felt his lips press to your temple, brief and soft. "I'm glad you stayed," he murmured, and then he was gone, padding out of the room with Vhagar's yowls leading the way.
That morning consisted of coffee, breakfast and a shower that had taken longer than strictly necessary because Aemond's bathroom had heated floors and water pressure that felt like a massage.
You were sitting on the couch in the living room, attempting to read the book you'd abandoned the day before. Aemond was beside you, ostensibly reviewing documents on his tablet but mostly just scrolling with an expression of vague disdain. Vhagar was in her box. It was, you thought, the most peaceful you'd felt in months.
Then Aemond reached over and pressed his thumb into the space between your shoulder blades, and you flinched so hard you nearly dropped your book.
"What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?" He was staring at you, his hand still hovering in the air. "Are you injured?"
"I'm not injured."
"Then why did you wince like I caused you pain?"
You shifted uncomfortably, trying to angle yourself away from his probing fingers. "It's nothing. I just...I exercise. Sometimes you get knots from exercise."
"That's not exercise tension." His voice had taken on that particular clipped quality it got when he was on the verge of diagnosing a problem and would not be dissuaded from solving it. "Exercise tension is distributed differently. This is concentrated in your upper back and shoulders. It's the kind of tension you get from..."
"From what, Dr. Targaryen? Did you get a degree in sports medicine I don't know about?"
"From poor sleep posture," he finished, ignoring your sarcasm entirely. "Or from stress. Or both."
"I sleep fine."
His good eye narrowed. "You tossed and turned all night. I had to put the covers back on you three times."
"You counted?"
"I count everything. It's a habit." He set his tablet aside and turned to face you fully. "How long have you had back pain?"
"I don't have back pain."
"You flinched when I touched you."
"Because you surprised me."
"Because you have knots in your shoulders that shouldn't be there." He was looking at you the way he looked at reports that didn't add up, like there was a discrepancy somewhere and he was going to find it. "What kind of bed do you sleep on?"
The question was so unexpected that you laughed. "What?"
"Your bed. At your apartment. What kind is it?"
"I don't know, a normal one? It's a bed. It has a mattress. What does that have to do with anything?"
"What kind of mattress? How old is it?"
You could feel heat creeping up the back of your neck. "It's fine. The mattress is fine."
"Every time you say the word 'fine,' I become more convinced that something is very much not fine." He leaned closer, his gaze unnervingly intent. "Tell me about the mattress."
"Why do you care about my mattress?"
"Because I care about you, and you're in pain, and I want to know why."
The directness of it knocked the air out of your lungs. You stared at him, your carefully constructed deflections crumbling around you, and he stared back with that unwavering violet gaze. You realized with a sinking feeling that you weren't going to be able to avoid this conversation.
"It's a foldable bed," you said quietly. "Okay? It's a foldable bed with a thin mattress. I've had it since I moved to the city. It was cheap, and my apartment is small, and I can fold it up when I need more space. It's practical."
"A foldable bed."
"Yes."
"Like a futon?"
"No, not a futon. A foldable bed. Like…a cot, basically. But with a mattress. A thin mattress."
"How thin?"
"I don't know, a few inches? It's fine. I've been sleeping on it for years. My back is used to it."
"Your back is not used to it. Your back is screaming for help and you've been ignoring it." He stood up abruptly, paced to the window, paced back. "You've been sleeping on a foldable bed. For years."
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"That thing where you have an affronted meltdown about my life choices."
He stopped pacing and turned to face you. The expression on his face was so genuinely distressed that your irritation softened into closer to guilt. "I'm not having a meltdown," he said, very clearly having a meltdown. "I'm simply trying to understand why you would...how you could...you told me your glasses prescription was outdated because it was too expensive, and I thought, fine, that's a one-time expense, people put things off...but you've been sleeping on a cot? For years? While you were here taking care of me and my cat and refusing to let me pay you?"
"It's not that bad..."
"It is that bad. It's objectively that bad. You have tension in your shoulders that I could feel through your shirt with one touch. You wake up multiple times a night. You..." He stopped, his jaw working. "I bought Vhagar a custom orthopedic cat bed. It cost more than a human mattress. And you've been sleeping on a cot."
"To be fair, Vhagar is a very spoiled cat."
"Vhagar is a member of the family. So are you."
You stared at him. He stared back, his chest rising and falling a little too fast, his hands clenched at his sides.
"I didn't mean..." he started.
"Aemond."
"I meant it," he said, quieter now. "I know it's too soon to say things like that. I know we've only just...but I meant it. You've been part of my life for months now. You've taken care of my cat, you've taken care of me and you've done all of it without asking for anything in return, and the whole time you've been going home to a foldable bed and a three-year-old glasses prescription and Gods knows what else you haven't told me about." He ran a hand through his hair, disheveling it completely. "It's not acceptable."
"It's my life," you said, but the protest sounded weak even to your own ears. "I've been managing."
"I know you have. You've been managing brilliantly. You've been surviving on very little and making it look easy, and I admire that, I do, but..." He crossed the room and sat down beside you on the couch, close enough that his knee pressed against yours. "But you don't have to anymore. You don't have to manage alone. You have me now. If you want me. I have more resources than I know what to do with, and it would make me genuinely happy to use some of them to make your life easier. Not because I think you can't handle it. Not because I'm trying to buy your affection. Because I care about you and I want you to be comfortable. That's all. That's the whole reason."
You looked down at your hands, twisted together in your lap. "It's embarrassing," you muttered. "Telling you these things. I don't like you knowing how close to the edge I've been living. I don't like feeling like a charity case."
"You're not a charity case. You're the person I've been falling in love with for months."
Your head snapped up. "What?"
"Too soon," he said immediately, a flush creeping up his neck. "That was too soon. Forget I said it."
"You're in love with me?"
"I said forget I said it."
"Aemond."
"I have a habit of becoming attached to people too soon when they don't feel the same. I'm aware of this. I'm working on it."
"You think I don't feel the same?"
He didn't answer, which was an answer in itself. You reached out and took his hand, threading your fingers through his. His grip tightened like he was afraid you might pull away.
"I stayed," you said. "When you had surgery. I stayed when Alys wouldn't even visit. I stayed in your apartment for a week and ate takeout only from approved restaurants and helped you with your vision exercises and eye pains at three in the morning. Does that sound like someone who just tolerates you?"
"I don't know," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know what it sounds like. I'm not good at reading these things. I always assume the worst."
"Then let me be clear." You lifted his hand to your mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, feeling them flex beneath your lips. "I stayed for you."
He pulled his hand from yours, and for a terrible second you thought you'd said something wrong, but then both his hands were cupping your face, tilting it up toward his, and his mouth was on yours.
"I'm going to buy you a mattress," he murmured against your lips.
"Aemond."
"A proper mattress. And new glasses. And whatever else you need. And you're going to let me, because I can't concentrate on kissing you if I'm thinking about the knots in your shoulders."
"That's emotional blackmail."
"It's practical concern."
The optometrist's office was aggressively beige, the kind of institutional neutrality that made you feel like you were inside a waiting room for purgatory. Aemond sat in the chair beside you with rigid posture, his arms crossed and his good eye fixed on the wall chart like it had personally offended him.
"I don't understand why this is taking so long," he said, for the third time in twenty minutes.
"It's an eye exam. They're thorough."
"They're inefficient."
"They're looking at eyeballs. You want them to rush?"
His mouth tightened. "No."
"Then be patient."
"I'm being patient."
When the optometrist finally called your name, Aemond stood up with you. The optometrist glanced between the two of you with professional curiosity.
"Husband?" she asked.
"Something like that," Aemond said before you could answer. The casual possessiveness of it sent warmth blooming through your chest.
You emerged with a new prescription that was significantly stronger than your old one, a trial pair of frames that made the world look unnervingly sharp, and a receipt that Aemond plucked from your hand before you could even look at the total.
"This is mine now," he said.
"It has my name on it."
"Administrative error." He was already walking toward the checkout counter, his long coat sweeping behind him. "Pick out frames."
The shared calendar was your idea.
You'd missed a text from him, three hours buried in a work project, your phone on silent and your attention elsewhere, and when you finally surfaced, there were five messages waiting, each one progressively more restrained in that particular way Aemond got when he was trying not to seem worried.
Checking in.
Hope your day is going well.
Let me know when you're free.
No urgency. Just checking.
I'm sure you're busy. Text when you can.
The last one had been sent two hours ago. You called him immediately, your stomach tight with guilt.
"I'm sorry," you said before he could even say hello. "I was working. My phone was on silent. I didn't mean to disappear."
"I know." His voice was carefully neutral, the way it got when he was trying to hide something. "It's fine. You're allowed to be busy."
"I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you."
"I don't think that."
"Aemond."
A pause. Then, quieter: "I might have thought that. Briefly. But I know it's irrational."
"It's not irrational. We should have a system."
"A system?"
"I'm making a shared calendar. Color-coded. You'll be able to see when I'm working, when I'm free, when I have appointments. That way if I don't answer, you'll know it's because I'm in a meeting, not because I've decided to flee the country."
"That seems like a lot of effort for..."
"Blue is work. Green is free time. Red is appointments. Yellow is maybe-free-but-probably-napping." You sent him the invite link. "Accept it."
He did. A moment later, his voice came back, softer than before. "You're doing this so I won't worry."
"Yes."
"You don't have to manage my anxiety."
"I'm not managing it. I'm working around it." You added a block of blue for the following Monday. "See? Now you know I have a project deadline on Monday morning and won't be reachable until noon."
He was quiet for so long that you checked the screen to make sure the call hadn't dropped. "Aemond?"
"I'm here." His voice was rough. "I'm just not accustomed to people anticipating my needs before I've expressed them."
"Get used to it."
"I'll try."
The first time you had sex, he gave you space afterward.
He wasn't dismissive. He didn't roll over and go to sleep or check his phone or do any of the things people do when they were trying to signal that the encounter was over. But he did get up. He did disappear into the bathroom for what felt like a very long time. And when he came back, he sat on the edge of the bed with his back to you, his shoulders tense, like he was waiting for something.
"Are you okay?" you asked.
He turned. "I was about to ask you the same thing."
"I'm fine. Great, actually. Why are you all the way over there?"
He blinked, his good eye shifting from your face to the rumpled sheets to the bathroom door and back again. "I assumed you'd want space."
"Did I ask for space?"
"No, but..." He stopped. Started again. "In my experience, people usually want space. After. It's an intense experience. I thought you might need time to recalibrate."
You propped yourself up on one elbow, the sheet slipping down your shoulder. "Did Alys want space?"
His jaw tightened. "We're not talking about Alys."
"Okay. Did other people want space?"
"I don't want to talk about other people either."
"I'm just trying to understand. You gave me space. I didn't ask for it. I'm still in your bed. I haven't moved. What does that tell you?"
He looked at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, very slowly, he lay back down beside you. Not touching, but closer than before. His hand rested on the pillow between your heads, palm up, an invitation.
"I'm not good at this part," he murmured. "The after. I never know what's expected of me."
"There's nothing expected. You just stay."
"Just stay."
"Mm-hmm." You reached out and traced the line of his collarbone with your fingertip, feeling the tension in his muscles gradually ease. "And maybe bring me water. I'm thirsty."
He was out of bed before you finished the sentence, returning thirty seconds later with a glass of water and a plate of something that looked like expensive crackers. "You should eat something too. Electrolytes. Protein."
"Did you have snacks prepared?"
"I like to be ready for contingencies."
You took the water and drank half of it in one go. He watched you with an expression that was somewhere between satisfaction and relief, like he'd completed a task correctly and was waiting for feedback.
"Now come back," you said, patting the bed beside you. "You're still too far away."
He came back. He lay down beside you, closer this time, his arm tentatively settling over your waist. When you didn't pull away, he pulled you closer.
"This is okay?" he asked.
"This is perfect."
"I can stay?"
"You can stay as long as you want."
He pressed his mouth to the top of your head and didn't move for a very long time.
The second time, he brought you water and food without being asked, and when you made grabby hands at him from the bed, he climbed back in without hesitation. The third time, he didn't even get up; he just reached over to the nightstand where he'd already placed a glass of water and a small plate of fruit, his foresight so thorough it was almost comical.
"You're getting good at this," you told him, eating a strawberry while sprawled against his chest.
"I'm a quick study."
The fourth time, you woke in the middle of the night to find his arms wrapped around you and his face buried in your hair, holding on even in sleep. You didn't pull away. You pressed closer, fitting yourself into the curve of his body, and he made a sound of contentment so deep you felt it vibrate through your bones.
The thing about Aemond Targaryen was that he didn't know how to do anything by halves.
You'd suspected this early on: the caviar for the cat, the custom leather carrier, the way he'd offered you a weekly retainer instead of just asking if you wanted to grab coffee sometime. But it wasn't until he started reorganizing your kitchen cabinets that you realized the full scope of what you'd signed up for.
"What are you doing?" you asked.
"Your plates are in the wrong cabinet," he said, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to be doing on a Saturday morning in someone else's apartment. "They should be next to the dishwasher for efficient unloading. Also, you have four mismatched mugs and one of them is chipped."
"That's my favorite mug."
"It's a health hazard."
"It's a mug."
He held up the chipped mug, his expression that particular blend of affronted and resolute that you'd come to recognize as his default setting. "You could cut your lip. I'm replacing it."
"You're reorganizing my kitchen."
"The spice rack is also a disaster, but I'm pacing myself."
You leaned against the doorframe and watched him for a moment. He'd already fixed the dripping faucet last week, you'd mentioned it once. Before that, it was the wobbly leg on your coffee table. Before that, the drafty window that he'd re-sealed himself, his sleeves rolled up and his hair falling in his eyes.
"Aemond," you said.
"Hmm?"
"You're acting like you live here."
He paused, a plate in each hand, and turned to look at you. His expression was guarded, the way it got when he wasn't sure if he'd overstepped. "Is that a problem?"
You thought about it. Thought about the way he'd cleared a drawer in his penthouse for your things two weeks ago without asking, just pointed to it and said "yours" like it was the most natural thing in the world. Thought about the way he'd added your work schedule to his own calendar, the blue blocks of your meetings appearing alongside his boardroom appointments. Thought about the way he'd started saying "we" instead of "I" without seeming to notice.
"No," you said. "It's not a problem."
"Good." He went back to the plates. "Your silverware drawer is next."
The key appeared a few days later.
It was on a simple ring, no fuss, no ceremony. He slid it across the kitchen counter toward you while you were eating the breakfast he'd made: poached eggs on toast, because he'd decided your usual breakfast of cold cereal was "nutritionally inadequate" and had taken it upon himself to rectify the situation.
"What's this?" you asked, though you already knew.
"A key. To the penthouse." He wasn't looking at you; he was focused on the eggs, nudging them onto your plate with the precision of a surgeon. "You're there often enough that it makes sense. The doorman knows you, but this is more efficient."
"A key to your apartment."
"Our apartment," he corrected, still not looking at you. "If you want. I know you have your own place. I'm not suggesting you give it up. But you spend most nights at the penthouse anyway, and Vhagar misses you when you're gone, and I..." He stopped, swallowed, started again. "I sleep better when you're there."
You picked up the key. It was warm from his hand. "Our apartment."
"Only if you want."
"Aemond."
He finally looked at you, his jaw set in that particular way it got when he was bracing for rejection. You reached across the counter and took his hand, threading your fingers through his.
"I want," you said.
The tension went out of his shoulders. "Good. That's good. There's also a parking space in the garage if you ever get a car, and I've added you to the building's approved guest list permanently, and there's a form you need to sign for the concierge service..."
"Aemond."
"I'm doing it again."
"You're doing it again."
"I don't know how to take things slowly." He confessed. "I don't know how to do this in stages" He lifted your joined hands and pressed his mouth to your knuckles. "I've already told my mother about you," he said against your skin. "I hope that's not too fast."
Your heart stuttered. "You told your mother?"
"She's been asking why I seem less miserable than usual. I told her it was because of you."
"What did she say?"
"She said she wanted to meet you. I told her you'd probably find that terrifying, and she said that was a reasonable response, and then she asked if you had any dietary restrictions for dinner."
"Dinner," you repeated.
"Sunday dinners are a family tradition. They're usually terrible. My brother will be there, and my sister, and probably my grandfather, who will say something offensive, and my mother will pretend he didn't, and I'll spend the whole evening wanting to leave." He paused. "But it would be better if you were there."
You stared at him. He stared back, his expression so earnest and so anxious and so completely, utterly sincere.
"You want me to meet your entire family at Sunday dinner."
"Not if you're not ready. We can wait. We can do it in stages. I can introduce you to my mother first, separately, or we can start with Helaena, she's the least intimidating, although she'll probably want to show you her insect collection..."
"Aemond."
He stopped. You stood up, walked around the counter, and kissed him. His hands came up to cup your face automatically, his body relaxing into yours like he'd been waiting for this exact reassurance.
"I'll come to Sunday dinner," you said against his mouth.
"You will?"
"Someone has to defend you from your grandfather."
He laughed. "You have no idea what you're signing up for."
Vhagar, for her part, seemed entirely unimpressed with the new living arrangements.
She had accepted your presence in the penthouse with the same regal indifference she'd shown when you found her on the concrete outside your building, which was to say she acknowledged your existence primarily by sleeping on whatever surface you'd just vacated and yelling at you when her food bowl was empty. But Aemond had apparently decided that Vhagar was not just his cat, but their cat, and he referred to her as such with a casualness that made your heart do strange things.
"Vhagar missed you today," he'd say when you walked in the door. "She was waiting for her mother."
"I'm not her mother."
"You found her on the street. You fed her boiled sausages. You introduced her to cardboard boxes. You're her mother."
Vhagar, who had indeed been sitting by the door, meowed and wound herself around your ankles.
"Traitor," you told her.
She blinked slowly and walked toward her food bowl, her message clear.
The first time you heard him say "we should enroll her in something," you thought he was joking.
It was a lazy Sunday morning, the Sunday before the Sunday dinner, in fact, and you were curled up on the couch with coffee and a book while Aemond read the news on his tablet. Vhagar was in her box, which had been upgraded to a deluxe model with a memory foam cushion that Aemond had special-ordered from a pet boutique.
"We should enroll her in something," Aemond said, not looking up from his tablet. "She needs enrichment. Mental stimulation. There's a feline agility course. It's supposed to be excellent. They have an obstacle course and everything."
"She's fifteen years old."
"Age is not a barrier to physical fitness. I read an article."
You set down your coffee and turned to face him fully. "Aemond, you're talking about our cat like she's a toddler who needs extracurriculars."
He looked up from his tablet, his expression completely serious. "She's very intelligent. She needs challenges."
"She needs naps. That's what she needs. Naps and boxes."
"I'm just saying we should consider it."
"We are not enrolling our elderly cat in feline agility."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but Vhagar chose that moment to let out a particularly loud snore from her box, and he deflated slightly. "Fine. But I'm getting her the puzzle feeder."
"The what?"
"It's a bowl with obstacles. She has to solve puzzles to get her food. It promotes cognitive health."
"You're going to make our cat solve puzzles for her dinner."
"She'll enjoy it."
Vhagar snored again. You looked at Aemond. Aemond looked at you.
"She's going to hate it," you said.
"I'm getting it anyway."
He did. Vhagar hated it. She sat in front of the puzzle feeder for ten minutes, staring at it with the particular disdain she usually reserved for Aemond's brother, then knocked it off the counter with one deliberate paw and meowed until Aemond gave her regular bowl back.
"I told you," you said.
"She just needs time to adjust." He looked at Vhagar, who was now eating her caviar from her regular bowl with the air of a queen who had successfully quashed a rebellion. "She's perfect," he said, with such genuine affection that you couldn't bring yourself to tease him about it.
It wasn't just the cat he started sharing with you. He'd schedule his business trips around your availability so Vhagar wouldn't be alone. He'd consult you on decisions that had nothing to do with you: a new investment, a dispute with his brother, whether he should fire a board member who'd made a comment about his eye. He'd listen to your opinion, weighing your words.
"People are going to think we're married," you said one evening, after he'd introduced you to a business associate as "my partner" without a flicker of hesitation.
"Good," he answered.
"That wasn't a suggestion."
"I know." He was making dinner, he'd decided your cooking skills needed improvement and had started giving you what he called "practical demonstrations," which mostly involved you sitting on the counter while he cooked and explained techniques you'd forget immediately. "Is it a problem?"
"People thinking we're married?"
"Mm." He added something to the pan that sizzled and smelled incredible. "I know we haven't discussed it. The future. What this is. But I'm not interested in being casual about you. I don't know how to be casual about anything."
"I've noticed."
"If that's too much..."
"It's not. It's not bad," you said. "It's just fast. You don't do anything by halves."
"I told you. I don't know how."
"I know." You took the pan from his hand and set it on a cold burner, then stepped into his space, your hands resting on his chest. "I'm not complaining. I'm just observing. If I had a problem with it, I'd tell you."
"Would you?"
"Yes. I told you the puzzle feeder was a bad idea."
"That was about the cat."
"This is about us. Same principle." You rose on your toes and kissed him. "I don't mind the husband thing. I don't mind the key or the fact that you've apparently decided Vhagar is our child. I'm still here. I keep staying. What does that tell you?"
He exhaled slowly, his hands settling on your waist. "That you're either very patient or very foolish."
"Or both. Or I love you. Take your pick."
He kissed you again before you could say anything else, his arms wrapping around you and pulling you tight against him.
"We're going to ruin the sauce," you murmured against his mouth.
"I don't care about the sauce."
"You always care about the sauce."
"I care about you more." He said simply, like it was the most obvious truth in the world.
The clock on the nightstand read 12:47 a.m. when you accepted that sleep wasn't coming.
It was the complete absence of sleep, your mind as clear and alert as if it were noon. You'd been lying in the dark for nearly two hours, listening to the distant hum of the city and the steady rhythm of Aemond's breathing beside you, and your body had simply decided that tonight was not a night for unconsciousness.
You turned your head on the pillow. Aemond was on his back, his profile sharp against the dim glow of the city lights filtering through the curtains. In sleep, the perpetual tension in his jaw relaxed, and he looked younger. Softer. Like the man he might have been if the world had been gentler with him.
You watched him for a while. The way his chest rose and fell. The way his fingers twitched occasionally, as if he were reaching for something in his dreams.
Carefully, you leaned over and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose.
He made a small sound, something between a grunt and a murmur, and his hand moved toward you in his sleep, reaching. You stayed perfectly still until he settled again, his fingers brushing your arm and then going slack.
Your phone was on the nightstand. You picked it up and dimmed the brightness as low as it would go, then opened your reading app. Vhagar, who had been sleeping at the foot of the bed, lifted her head and gave you a look that clearly said why are you awake at this ungodly hour.
"Can't sleep," you whispered.
She blinked slowly and tucked her head back under her tail, dismissing you entirely.
You scrolled through articles you wouldn't remember. Checked the weather. Read half a recipe for something you'd never make. The clock ticked forward: 1:23 a.m. 2:15 a.m. 2:58 a.m. Your eyes didn't feel heavy. Your mind didn't feel foggy. You were as awake as you'd been at breakfast, which was deeply unfair given that you'd done nothing all day except lounge on the couch with Aemond and Vhagar, reading and napping and eating the elaborate lunch he'd decided to make.
A lazy Saturday. That was probably the problem. You hadn't expended enough energy to be tired, and now your body was exacting revenge.
At 3:42 a.m., you heard the first bird. A single tentative chirp, somewhere beyond the windows. By 4:00 a.m., the sky had begun its slow shift from black to charcoal, and the birds were singing, a chorus of tiny optimists announcing a dawn you hadn't earned.
You looked at Aemond. Still asleep. Vhagar hadn't moved.
With exaggerated care, you slid out from under the covers and padded across the bedroom. The balcony door was in the living room, floor-to-ceiling glass that opened onto a terrace overlooking the city. You slipped through the door and into the cool pre-dawn air, pulling it mostly shut behind you so the sound wouldn't carry.
The streets below were nearly empty, the traffic lights cycling through their patterns for no one. The sky was a watercolor wash of gray and pale blue, the first hints of gold bleeding up from the horizon. You leaned your forearms on the railing and let the cold air settle against your skin, your thin sleep shirt doing nothing to keep out the chill.
Maybe this was fine. Maybe you just weren't tired tonight, and that was okay, and you'd be tired tomorrow instead. Maybe you could watch the sunrise and make coffee and let Aemond sleep, and by the time he woke up you'd have been productive, you'd have answered emails or read a book or done something useful with this strange, stolen time.
The cold was starting to seep into your bones. You didn't move.
Behind you, the balcony door opened.
You turned. Aemond stood in the doorway, his hair disheveled and his eyes still heavy with sleep. He was wearing only his pajama pants, his chest bare, and he was looking at you with an expression caught between confusion and concern.
"You're outside," he said, his voice rough.
"I'm getting fresh air."
"It's four in the morning."
"I know. I couldn't sleep."
He processed this for a moment, his good eye blinking slowly. "How long have you been awake?"
"Since we went to bed. I never fell asleep."
"You never..." He stopped, rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, and stepped onto the balcony. The cold hit him immediately; you saw the goosebumps rise on his arms, but he didn't flinch. "It's freezing. You're not even wearing a coat."
"I'm fine."
"You're shivering."
You looked down at your arms. You were shivering, you realized. You hadn't noticed.
"Come inside," he grumbled.
He held the door open and you walked through it, suddenly aware of how cold you'd gotten, how stiff your fingers were, how long you'd been standing out there without moving. The warmth of the apartment wrapped around you like a blanket, and you shivered harder, your body finally registering the temperature change.
Aemond disappeared into the bedroom and returned with the charcoal gray cashmere blanket, the one that smelled like his cologne. He wrapped it around your shoulders, then steered you toward the couch and sat down beside you.
"You've been awake all night?"
"I don't know why. I'm not tired. I didn't have any caffeine. We didn't do anything yesterday, so maybe my body just wasn't ready to sleep."
"That's not how sleep works."
"I know how sleep works. It's just not working on me tonight."
He studied your face for a moment, then reached out and pressed the back of his hand to your forehead, the way you'd seen him do to Vhagar when she was lethargic. "You don't feel warm."
"I'm not sick."
"Stressed?"
"No more than usual."
"Racing thoughts?"
"Not really. I was just…awake. Completely awake. Like my brain decided it was morning."
He leaned back against the couch cushions, his arm coming around your shoulders and pulling you against his side. His skin was still cool from the balcony, but he was warming up quickly. "You should have woken me."
"You were sleeping. You looked peaceful."
"I don't care about peaceful. I care about you." He pressed a kiss to your temple. "Next time, wake me."
"There might not be a next time. This has never happened before."
"Then it's even more important that you wake me. If something unusual is happening, I want to know."
You didn't argue. You leaned into him and let the blanket cocoon you both. Vhagar wandered out of the bedroom, meowed once at the sight of both humans on the couch, and jumped up to settle on Aemond's lap.
"It's almost six," Aemond said quietly.
"I know."
"Still not tired?"
You took stock of your body. Your eyes didn't feel heavy. Your limbs didn't feel leaden. Your brain was still chugging along at full speed, cataloging the sounds of the morning, the texture of the blanket, the warmth of his arm around you.
"No," you admitted. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Nothing's wrong with you. Your circadian rhythm is temporarily disrupted." He said it with the confidence of someone who had definitely read several articles on the subject. "It happens. We can fix it."
"How?"
"Melatonin. I have some in the bathroom."
You shook your head. "I don't want to take anything."
"It's not a drug. It's a hormone your body produces naturally."
"I know what melatonin is. I still don't want to take it." You didn't know why you were being stubborn about this. Maybe because sleeping was supposed to be a natural thing, something your body just did, and the idea of forcing it felt like admitting defeat. "I'll just stay up. I'll be tired tonight."
"You have work tomorrow. You can't go to work on no sleep."
"I'll manage."
"You'll be miserable."
"I've been miserable before."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he shifted, gently displacing Vhagar, who meowed in protest and relocated to the armchair.
"There are other ways to induce drowsiness," his voice had dropped into a lower register.
"Like what?"
His hand found your knee under the blanket, his thumb tracing slow circles against the bare skin. "Physical exertion. Relaxation. A combination of both."
It took your sleep-deprived brain a moment to catch up. When it did, you felt heat rise in your cheeks. "Are you offering to tire me out?"
"I'm offering to help." His hand slid higher. "Unless you'd rather try counting sheep."
"I don't think sheep are going to work."
"No," he agreed, and leaned in to kiss you.
His hand came up to cup your jaw, tilting your head to deepen the angle, and you made a small sound against his lips.
"Let me take you back to bed," he murmured.
"I'm not tired."
"I know. That's the point."
He stood and offered you his hand. You took it and let him pull you to your feet, the blanket sliding off your shoulders. He led you back to the bedroom, his fingers laced through yours.
"Lie down," he said.
You did. The sheets were still warm from his body, and the pillow smelled like him. He stretched out beside you, propped on one elbow, and looked down at you with an expression that was equal parts tenderness and intent.
He kissed you again, deeper this time, and his hand slid under your sleep shirt to rest against your stomach. His palm was warm, his touch firm but gentle, and you arched into it without thinking.
"Relax," he murmured against your mouth. "This isn't a race. We have time."
He took his time. His mouth traced a path from your lips to your jaw to the hollow of your throat, lingering at each stop like he was memorizing the taste of your skin. His hand moved higher, his thumb brushing the underside of your breast, and you gasped.
"Still not tired?" he asked, and you could hear the smile in his voice.
"Not even a little."
"Good. I'd hate to think I was boring you."
He pulled your shirt over your head and tossed it aside, then his mouth was on your collarbone, your sternum, the curve of your breast. His tongue traced a slow circle around your nipple, and your hips bucked involuntarily.
"Aemond."
"Mm." He didn't lift his head. "I like when you say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're already halfway gone." He moved to your other breast, giving it the same thorough attention, and your fingers tangled in his hair. "Let go. I've got you."
He worked his way down your body. His mouth on your ribs. His tongue tracing the line of your hip. His fingers hooking into the waistband of your pajama shorts and sliding them down your legs. By the time his mouth found the inside of your thigh, you were trembling, your hands fisted in the sheets.
"Please," you breathed.
"Please what?"
"Please...I need..."
"I know what you need." He pressed a kiss to the crease of your thigh, maddeningly close to where you wanted him. "I'm getting there."
He got there. When his mouth finally found you, your back arched off the bed and you made a sound that was half moan, half sob. His hands held your hips steady, his tongue moving in slow, precise strokes that had you climbing higher and higher until you weren't thinking about sleep or birds or the strange wakeful night, you weren't thinking about anything at all except the heat of his mouth and the pressure building at the base of your spine.
"Come for me," he murmured against you, and you did, your body arching and shuddering and finally going limp against the mattress.
He kissed his way back up your body, pressing his lips to your stomach, your ribs, the valley between your breasts. When he reached your mouth, you could taste yourself on his tongue.
"Tired now?" he asked.
"Mmph."
"That's not a word."
"Tired," you managed. "Very tired. Your fault."
"My plan worked, then." He pulled the covers up over both of you and settled beside you, his arm wrapping around your waist.
You wanted to say something: thank you, or I love you, or you're absurdly good at that, but your mouth wouldn't cooperate. The drowsiness that had eluded you all night was rolling over you in waves, heavy and warm and irresistible. You tucked your face against his chest and let your eyes fall closed.
The left side of the bed was the problem.
You'd established the sleeping arrangement early on: you on the right, Aemond on the left. It made sense. His left eye was blind, and having you on his right meant you were always in his field of vision. When he woke up in the morning, you were the first thing he saw: your face on the pillow beside him.
He loved that. He loved it more than he knew how to say. He'd spent so many years waking up to an empty bed, to silence and solitude and the cold knowledge that no one was waiting for him. Now he woke up to you, warm and real and there, and it felt like a gift.
But the bed was vast, king-sized. And you were a restless sleeper, prone to migrating across the mattress in the night, chasing dreams or warmth or whatever invisible thing pulled you from one side to the other.
The first time it happened, Aemond woke up to an empty right side of the bed and felt his heart stop.
He was still half-asleep, his brain sluggish with the remnants of whatever dream he'd been having. His hand reached out automatically, searching for you, and found only cold sheets. The pillow beside him was empty. The space where you should have been was vacant.
Panic hit him.
He sat up so fast his head spun, his right eye scanning the room, the bathroom door, the path to the living room. Were you gone? Had you left? Had something happened, some emergency, some...
He turned, twisting his whole body to compensate for his blind left side, and there you were.
You were on the far left edge of the mattress, practically falling off, one arm dangling over the side. You'd migrated across the entire bed in your sleep, a journey that had left him alone on his side and you precariously balanced on his bad side, completely out of his sight.
He exhaled, his heart still hammering. Then he reached over and pulled you back toward the center of the bed. You made a sleepy sound of protest but didn't wake, your body curling automatically toward his warmth.
"Don't do that," he whispered to your sleeping form. "Don't go where I can't see you."
You didn't answer. You were already dreaming again.
After that, it became a recurring problem. Not every night, most nights you stayed on your side, draped over him or curled against his shoulder, but often enough that he developed a morning ritual: wake up, check right side, panic briefly if the right side was empty, twist around to check the left side, exhale in relief when he found you there.
He hated the split-second of terror when he thought you were gone, the way his body remembered all those years of waking up alone and assumed the worst.
"I'm sorry," you said one morning, after you'd woken up to find him staring at you with an expression of barely-concealed relief. "I did it again, didn't I?"
"You were on the left side."
"I don't even remember moving."
"You never remember moving. You sleep like a migrating whale."
"A whale?"
"A very graceful whale. With excellent sleeping habits aside from the migration."
You sat up, rubbing your eyes. "Does it bother you? The left side thing?"
He hesitated. "It's not your fault. You're asleep. You can't control it."
"That's not what I asked."
He looked at you, at your sleep-rumpled hair and your concerned expression, and felt the familiar urge to deflect, to minimize, to pretend it didn't matter. But this was you, and you'd told him he was allowed to want things, and so he told the truth.
"I don't like it," he admitted. "When I wake up and you're not on my right side. I can't see you. I have to search for you. And for a moment, I think..." He stopped, swallowed. "I think you're gone."
"Gone where?"
"Just gone. Left. Disappeared." He tried to make it sound casual, but it came out strained. "I know it's irrational. I know you wouldn't leave without telling me. But I spent a very long time waking up alone, and my brain hasn't caught up to the fact that I don't have to anymore."
You reached for him, your hand cupping his cheek. "I'm not going anywhere."
"I know. I just want you to stay where I can see you."
"Then I'll try harder. Maybe I can build a pillow barrier or something."
"A pillow barrier."
"To keep me from rolling. Like a bumper lane at a bowling alley."
"That's absurd."
"So is waking up in a panic because your girlfriend rolled over. We're both absurd."
He couldn't argue with that. So he let you build your pillow barrier, a long bolster that ran down the center of the bed, theoretically preventing you from crossing into his blind spot. It worked about half the time. The other half, you somehow circumvented it in your sleep, climbing over or burrowing under or simply teleporting to the other side in a way that defied physics.
"You're a witch," he said on one of those mornings, after finding you on the left side despite the barrier. "That's the only explanation."
"I'm a very tired witch who needs coffee."
"I'll make coffee. You stay on the right side."
"I'm not even asleep anymore."
"Still. Stay."
You stayed. You stayed on the right side of the bed, and on the right side of his body, and in the right place for him to see you every morning when he opened his eyes. It was such a small thing, really, which side of the bed you slept on. But it mattered to him.
The morning after the pillow barrier failed for the third time, you woke up before him. You were on the right side, your head on his shoulder, your hand on his chest.
When he woke up a few minutes later, his eye opened and found you immediately. You watched the moment of recognition cross his face: the relief, the softening, the way his whole body relaxed when he confirmed that you were still there.
a/n: Liked the fic? You can donate on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3
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