Pairing: Benjamin Poindexter x fem!Reader Word Count: 4.6k [Series Masterlist] [Dex Fic Masterlist]
Warnings/tags: 18+; domestic abuse, violence, set during DDBA, eventual smut, hurt/comfort, angst, stalker/suicidal ideation!Dex, dark themes, dead dove do not eat
Summary: All Dex needed was one good deed, something to tip the scales of his life and balance everything out a little. Crying, injured, and terrified as you wandered the streets of Hell’s Kitchen late at night, you seemed to check all the boxes of someone in need. But as Dex gets to know you, he realizes he miscalculated what his one good deed would be, and now he's not quite done with you.
a/n: This was supposed to be a one shot, but I broke it into two parts. I could potentially add a bit more than that if there's interest because Dex has been rampant in my brain lately despite me mainly writing for Matt. Feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!
series tag list: @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @snowwythegloww @skollinghunter
Rain water splashed up onto the denim of your jeans as you passed through another puddle that'd accumulated along a dip in the sidewalk. The lights of Hell’s Kitchen reflected off the wet pavement, the nighttime city twinkling underneath your feet while the distant sounds of police sirens echoed off the surrounding buildings.
It’d stopped raining before you’d found yourself wandering the streets tonight, well aware that you were out past the mandated curfew Fisk had put into place. The fear of being thrown into the back of one of AVTF’s vans and disappearing kept you from paying much attention to the cold, wet material now clinging to your ankles. So did the throbbing in your right shoulder and the stinging cuts scattered across your cheek and chin, the pain of them only made worse by the salty tears trailing quietly down your face.
Keeping your head lowered and your chin tucked to your chest, you hurried down the sidewalk without a destination as you attempted to avoid the police checkpoints. The few others still out on the street passed you by without a care as to whether you were alright, no one bothered by the sight of a lone woman walking the streets while bleeding and crying at nearly ten in the evening. The state of you didn’t even cause a single head to turn in your direction, as if you were entirely invisible to the rest of the city. Just another woman in trouble, no one else’s problem.
Taking another turn when you’d reached the corner, you continued down the sidewalk without any idea of where you were headed. Your apartment wasn’t a safe option tonight because he knew where you lived. Would he be waiting there for you if you returned home? Or would he show up shortly after you’d locked yourself inside of your place, wanting to finish what he’d almost accomplished earlier tonight when you’d tried to finally end the relationship?
You could still feel his hands around your throat, the memory of him crushing your windpipe causing your left hand to absently raise to your neck, fingers gently brushing over the tender spots where his own fingers had dug in and squeezed. He’d meant to kill you this time. To show you that you’d never be allowed to leave him. When your vision had blurred white, your mind sluggish and hazy as you struggled for a breath, you really thought he’d succeed.
It was only by sheer luck that you’d managed a swift kick right between his thighs with your last vestiges of strength–a cheap shot straight to the balls. But it’d worked, causing him to double over in pain long enough for you to stumble through his kitchen and towards the door of his apartment. Gasping for air and still struggling to see straight, you’d flung the door open and bolted straight for the stairwell. You’d half-tripped, half-sprinted down the two flights of stairs and ran through his apartment building’s lobby without him managing to catch up with you.
But now you were left with another problem. You had nowhere to go where he couldn’t find you, and you couldn’t realistically stay on the streets all night. Not only were you not safe from Fisk’s task force out here, but it wasn’t safe for a woman alone in general to be wandering Hell’s Kitchen at night. Anyone just as bad as your ex could stumble upon you, and who knew how much further of a deep nosedive your night could still take if they did.
With trembling fingers, you gingerly brushed away a few of the tears still slipping down your cheeks, but a sharp hiss of pain passed between your lips. Despite how careful you’d been with your touch, your swollen cheek stung horribly from where his fist had collided with it a few times tonight.
He hadn’t liked you trying to stand up for yourself for once.
Drawing your hand away from your face, you glanced down at your dampened fingers just as you passed beneath the bright sign of a still open bodega. The gleaming yellow lights overhead illuminated the tinge of red on your fingertips–blood, not tears. You winced at the sight only to feel a sharp jolt of pain sear its way through the left side of your face at the gesture.
Even if you could get back to your apartment tonight, did you have enough supplies left in your first aid kit to properly clean yourself up? What were you even supposed to tell everyone when you went into work this time? The cuts wouldn’t be entirely healed by Monday morning, and you felt as if you’d run out of excuses to explain away all of the injuries you'd sustained over the past year. You wished you could’ve trusted the police to do something, maybe things wouldn’t have escalated to the point they had tonight if the world worked differently. But they'd proven useless, only exacerbating the tension within your relationship.
Entirely caught up in your thoughts as you continued down the sidewalk, you hadn’t been paying much attention to the rest of the foot traffic braving curfew around you. Just as you’d started to lower your bloodied hand back to your side, someone roughly slammed into your right shoulder. With a startled gasp at the sharp pain lancing itself up your injured arm, you lost your footing and stumbled a few steps towards the street, your shoes accidentally splashing into another puddle.
More tears bloomed along your waterline in response, your teeth sinking down onto the tip of your tongue in an attempt to quell a cry of pain threatening to burst out of you. Your gaze nervously darted over to the person you’d just ran into, your pulse thundering in your ears. You were terrified that you’d just pissed off the wrong person tonight with your inattentiveness, and your fear felt validated when you locked eyes with the man who’d also stopped dead in his tracks.
He was standing completely still in front of the bodega’s windows, the bright lights behind him casting a harsh glow that accentuated the sharpness of his cheekbones and lit a few cuts along his own face. At first glance you would have found him attractive with his cropped blonde hair and muscular build, but you noticed something a little off in the way his eyes stared back at you. An intimidating, calculative look held you captive like an animal trapped in a snare, your left hand now cradling your injured right arm carefully to your chest.
“I–I’m sorry,” you blurted out the apology. “I–I didn’t mean to run into you.”
It was a knee-jerk reaction by now, apologizing whenever you did just about anything that could've been deemed offensive, so the words easily rolled off your tongue as they had so often in the past. But the stranger remained quiet, his eyes slowly scanning over your tear-streaked face. You imagined your visibly swollen left cheek and the blood smeared on your face wasn’t helping your appearance, but you weren’t certain whether he was staring at you because he was concerned about you, or because you looked like easy prey.
“I’ll pay better attention to where I’m going,” you promised him, the words coming in a rush.
Turning swiftly on your heel, you ducked your head once more and started back off down the sidewalk, your arm still cradled to your chest as you tried to put distance between yourself and him. But you could feel the weight of his stare on your back like the tip of a knife dragging down the column of your spine, and the hair along your forearms prickled. You’d only managed a few steps before he called out, the tone of his voice causing your feet to halt on the pavement.
“What happened to you?”
With your back still facing the stranger, each of your muscles pulled taut at the question while fear and apprehension flooded your system. He was the first one to actually notice you tonight, but he hadn’t hit you with an “are you alright?” or “do you need help?” The edge in his tone didn’t sound much like concern, but rather something strangely close to curiosity.
Pulling your injured arm closer to your chest, your eyes focused on a particularly deep puddle farther down the street as you struggled to find a response to give him. The green lights of the nearby traffic light reflected off of the water on the road, but with the curfew in effect, there wasn't much traffic at this hour.
“Were you attacked?” he called out from behind you. “Was it the task force?”
Inhaling a quivering breath, you accepted defeat and gradually turned back around to face the stranger. You noticed with interest that he hadn’t moved any closer to you after you’d walked away, remaining exactly where he’d been standing in front of the bodega. But the second your eyes met, his expression shifted oddly fast. One second he was looking at you with a flat, hard to read stare, and the next, a friendly smile spread over his face as he held up both of his hands in a placating gesture.
The strange look in his eyes hadn’t changed, though.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured you. “I’ll even stay right here if that makes you comfortable. But you’re bleeding and crying, and it’s clear someone did something to you. Now, if the task force is nearby–”
He broke off mid-sentence, his hands gradually lowering back to his sides as his gaze swept down both sides of the street. Quietly watching him, you noticed that he didn’t seem to have the normal reaction to the threat of the task force nearby. Most people spoke about them with clear disdain or fear, but he almost seemed to be searching for them. Like he wanted to find them.
“It wasn’t them,” you told him, the words slipping out before you could stop them.
His attention fixed back on you and you stiffened, still a bit uncertain about who he was and what he wanted from you. While you highly doubted that he’d believe you if you said you’d fallen down some stairs and obtained your injuries that way, you also weren’t interested in someone trying to force you to a hospital, either. You didn’t have the money to cover what your insurance wouldn’t from an emergency room visit, but if he was going to press the question, telling him the truth was beginning to feel like the only logical option you had here.
His eyes narrowed speculatively at you, his head tipping just a fraction to the side. “Who was it then?”
Still clutching your arm to your chest, your fingers curled into the fabric of your shirt sleeve as you internally debated on how much to share with him. You’d never openly admitted what your ex had done to anyone before, but here you were being put on the spot to tell a stranger. Mouth opening and closing a few times, you struggled to find something to say, but with no believable lie coming to you in the moment, the truth fell right out.
“It was my ex,” you answered awkwardly. “I–I tried to end things, but he…didn’t like that.”
“So he attacked you because he didn’t want you to leave him,” the man clarified.
You hesitated at his completely blunt, straightforward response. Here you were visibly bleeding and shaken up, telling him that you’d tried to end a relationship and gotten attacked over it, yet he still hadn’t even asked if you were alright. He'd offered no words of comfort or sympathy. If anything, he seemed more focused on the situation than your well-being, which was…odd.
If he had stopped and taken an interest in you because he intended to mug you or assault you, why would he continue to stand here wasting his time talking to you? Because if he genuinely was concerned about you, he certainly wasn't acting in the typical manner of someone showing sympathy. Which left you wondering if there was another reason as to why he was still asking questions, a third reason you couldn't quite grasp.
“And you're out past curfew because you just left him?” he pushed.
“Well, I–I can’t exactly go home,” you sheepishly admitted. When he only stared at you, waiting for more of an explanation, you continued weakly. “Because he knows where I live. And I’m–I’m afraid he’s going to show up if he isn’t already at my apartment. So I can’t go home.”
There was a brief silence after you’d finished where he continued to study you, and you swallowed thickly under the uncomfortable weight of his attention. After a moment the man took two steps in your direction, but when you instantly took a hesitant step backwards on the sidewalk, he abruptly stopped his approach. Both of his hands raised up in the air again in that gesture meant to remind you he meant no harm. The bodega’s sign behind him cast half his face in heavy shadows now, and a part of your brain screamed danger even though he kept trying to assure you that he wouldn’t hurt you. You weren't entirely certain what to make of him, but fear seemed the most reasonable reaction to his presence, especially after the way your night had already gone.
“So are you on your way to a police station then?” he pried, not moving any closer. “Or one of those women’s shelters?”
Lip curling back in distaste, you shook your head as a bitter huff met his questions. You weren’t entirely sure what it was about him that seemed to be drawing forth such extreme candor from you tonight. Maybe it was just the adrenaline still coursing through you after everything you’d already endured with your ex, or maybe you were just sick of hiding the truth now that it was finally out.
“The police don’t do shit to help. Everyone knows that,” you spat, eyes dropping down to your shoes. They were both drenched from all the puddles you’d stepped in while walking the streets, your socks inside of them squishing uncomfortably as you shifted your weight. “And I don’t even have any idea of where one of those shelters is located.”
Your phone had also died about twenty minutes ago, making it impossible for you to even search up the phone number to contact a place like that and find their location. But you had the good sense not to share that information with him. Whoever he was, you didn’t need him to think you were even more defenseless than you already looked as you tried to figure out what he wanted with you.
“I just…wanted to go home,” you quietly finished.
“Maybe I can help.”
The offer took you by surprise, your eyes slowly drifting up from beneath your lashes and landing on his face. That friendly smile had returned to his features again, the one you assumed was meant to be disarming to a lone woman roaming the streets at night. Your stomach gave a nervous twist at the sight of it, but the prospect of help was too hard to entirely ignore. It wasn't as if you had any other options. You couldn’t keep walking the streets.
“Help how?” you cautiously questioned.
His shoulders rose and fell in an easy shrug, his face still half hidden in shadow while the other half was washed in bright yellow. “Sometimes I help people.”
Something seemed left unspoken in that simple sentence and it made you wonder what exactly he meant by it. Whatever it was hung in the air between you both like the evening humidity. With another silence temporarily stretching around you on the nearly empty street, you stood there processing his offer and what it could mean.
Awkwardly shifting your weight between your feet again, you suddenly remembered how he’d almost seemed to be purposely looking for the AVTF after you'd run into him. Something clicked in your mind and you audibly gasped, eyes widening slightly in shock as your head raised to fully meet his stare.
“Are you–” you whispered, voice lowering so that you wouldn’t be overheard as you were struck with understanding, “–are you one of those vigilantes?” You took a few cautious steps towards him, closing a bit of the distance between the pair of you on the sidewalk. “The ones who are fighting against the task force?”
The corner of his lips slowly drew higher at the awestruck question, the smile on his face turning more amused than friendly. For the first time since you’d quite literally run into him tonight, the expression on his features looked genuine, and that helped to ease some of the nerves that'd been churning in your stomach.
Maybe you were in luck for the first time in your life. None of the vigilantes had ever come to your rescue in all of the time that you'd lived in Hell’s Kitchen. But whoever this man was, he was offering you assistance at a time when you could desperately use it.
“You could say that,” he answered smoothly. “And I’m going to make things right. I’m going to help you.”
What luck Dex had running into you while he’d been out tonight.
For the months that’d passed after he’d killed Murdock’s friend and escaped from prison, Dex had been needled by this voice inside of his head telling him that something felt off. He thought he’d have gotten his mind back now that he was finally free, no longer being fed copious amounts of pills to keep him sedated and stupid, and no longer trapped in solitary confinement, but he hadn’t accounted for all of the damn noise inside of his head that’d returned with it.
It wasn’t his conscience, no. Dex didn’t exactly have a fully functioning one of those. He figured it was the ghost of Mercer’s voice still lingering in his mind, his therapist telling him that he needed to find balance again. To try to fix all the shit that the Fisks’ had twisted up inside of his head when they convinced him to do all the awful things they had.
If only he could've just died in peace when Murdock had tossed him those four stories down. There’d been a handful of times now that Dex should’ve just died in the past, but he hadn’t. He’d spent countless nights stalking the city trying to find a purpose, to make sense of why it seemed like he kept surviving when he knew he shouldn’t still be alive.
Eventually he’d figured it out.
He knew he needed to right the scales of his life, balance them out a little more to make up for all the things he'd done. Dex initially thought that helping Murdock fight the AVTF and Fisk would be enough, but the noise was still drilling a hole inside of his head. What he was doing hadn’t quieted it down, so he'd begun to think that maybe he needed to find another good deed. Something seemingly more selfless somehow–because killing Fisk was also about exacting his own revenge.
Which was where you had come in.
He honestly hadn’t been paying any attention to you earlier before you’d both collided on the sidewalk, but the abrupt hiss of pain you’d loosed at the impact had caught his attention. People didn’t generally react like that from a rough shoulder bump on the street. But when he’d taken one good look at you, he’d seen a terrified woman staring back at him, one with bloodshot eyes, a swollen, bloodied face, and panic written beneath the tear tracks. He didn’t need his years of experience in the FBI to know that you were in need of help, which was the only reason why he’d even stopped to talk to you.
And while he’d been talking to you, that's when he realized what he needed to do. Killing your ex-boyfriend to keep you safe would be Dex’s One Good Deed. That would keep you–a stranger he absolutely did not fucking care about, which to him screamed selfless–entirely safe from your ex. You would be able return to your apartment with no more fear of retaliation from the real winner you’d chosen to date.
He would be saving your life. Surely saving the life of a complete stranger would even the scales. That's what Murdock would've done, right? That was what a good vigilante did. Save people.
So Dex had personally walked you back to your apartment, continuing to let you ignorantly think that he was one of the vigilantes being hunted in the city for fighting back–because in a way, he was. But he wasn’t going to correct your thoughts about who he really was since there was no need. Telling you the truth didn’t fit into his plans because the situation was straightforward–he just needed to make sure you were safe. That was all he had to do. That was his One Good Deed. Keep you safe.
After he’d walked you home and checked to make certain that no abusive ex was lurking in the hallway outside of your apartment, you’d willingly given him the asshole’s address. Dex had left you with a promise to help and a charming smile, and whatever you’d made of what he was going to do, he'd left that up to you to imagine.
Now he was slowly ascending the second flight of stairs in your ex-boyfriend’s apartment building stairwell, taking each step one at a time in the dingy, cramped quarters. Having decided to come straight here after walking you home, he figured that he’d take care of the task before something could happen to you and you wound up dead. Because that would ruin everything. He could easily take a half an hour of his evening to walk a few blocks and kill your ex and complete his task.
That was what a good vigilante did.
When he’d reached the top of the stairwell, Dex pushed open the metal door and slipped into the hallway. His eyes scanned over the multiple apartment doors on either side of it, searching for apartment number fourteen. Padding quietly down the outdated tiled floor in his boots, one of the overhead lights blinked in and out, flickering repeatedly as he walked. Outside of the building, the sound of rain beginning to fall once more came muffled through the walls.
Eventually, Dex found apartment fourteen at the far end of the hall on his right–your ex’s place. He turned and stopped in front of it, extending a hand forward and letting it hover over the doorknob. He paused for just a moment, wondering if your ex would be stupid enough to leave his door unlocked, or if he would have to find a way to break the lock to get inside. Grasping the knob, he gave it a firm twist. The door easily gave way and inched right open for him.
So he was an idiot. Just like Dex thought.
Pushing the door open the rest of the way, he casually stepped inside the apartment as if he'd been invited. Dex could hear the faint shuffling of footsteps moving in a room nearby, so he quietly closed the door after himself. It wasn’t like he intended to be here long, but he still had no interest in drawing the attention of the other tenants in the building to what was about to happen here.
Silently moving through the little entryway towards the kitchen, Dex wasn’t surprised to find a mess. Dirty dishes filled the kitchen sink, mail and garbage cluttered the countertops, and a handful of empty beer bottles were scattered about whatever other available surface was left. Papers and bits of food were spread out over the tiled floor, and Dex’s nose scrunched in distaste at the chaotic disorder.
How did men like these attract women in the first place?
“Who the fuck are you?”
Realizing that your ex had finally noticed that he wasn’t alone in his apartment anymore, Dex’s attention turned away from a precariously stacked pile of overdue bills and focused on the asshole he’d been looking for. Upon a quick once over, he noted the man was tall and carried some strength in his build, and he supposed he held some semblance of society’s conventional idea of attractiveness, but he looked so much like the stereotypical abuser with his messy hair, stained white wife-beater tank top, and the pungent reek of beer that he wanted to roll his eyes.
“I think the better question is, what the hell did your ex ever see in you?” Dex countered. He gestured a mocking hand at the man who swayed on the spot as he added, “Who the hell looks at you and thinks ‘that’s the guy I want to be with’? I don’t get it.”
A myriad of amusing emotions passed over his face right before Dex’s eyes. Initially, the man's expression briefly went blank, but then he became momentarily confused as he tried to process Dex’s insult in his inebriated mind. Afterwards, as if it had taken his few brain cells a minute to finally rub together and start working, his features eventually twisted into something furious.
“So the slut is fuckin’ you, you little shit?” he snapped, jabbing a finger in Dex’s direction. His voice rose a few octaves as a vein grew visible in his neck. “That’s what’s goin’ on? The stupid fuckin’ bitch was sleepin’ with you, wasn’t she?! That’s why she was saying all that shit tonight ‘bout ending things. ‘Cause you’ve been fuckin’ my girl, is that it?”
Standing by the kitchen sink, Dex found himself already tired of this entire confrontation. He hadn't come here to talk, he'd come here to solve your problem.
From across the kitchen, your ex let out a bitter, humorless laugh as he stumbled a few steps towards Dex, and the scent of his sour, rank breath crossed the small distance between them before hitting Dex right in the nose. Unable to find the patience to deal with him any further, Dex reached onto the kitchen counter and grabbed one of the beer bottle caps discarded on it. He couldn’t stand here in this filthy apartment smelling this asshole’s breath for longer than necessary.
“After I’m done with you,” your ex continued in a rage, his finger still jabbing the air in Dex’s direction, “I’m gonna go to her place and–”
He broke off mid-threat, swaying once more unsteadily on his feet beside his refrigerator. His mouth went slack and his brows drew faintly together, right beneath the cap-sized hole now situated in the center of his forehead. A trickle of blood trailed down from the wound as his eyelids fluttered faintly, then he toppled forward with a heavy thunk, falling face first onto the dirty, paper strewn floor of his kitchen right at Dex’s feet.
Looking down at the now lifeless body, Dex let out a long, apathetic sigh. “Did you have to be such a fucking cliche?”
With a shake of his head, Dex casually stepped around the man's dead form that lay limp on the kitchen floor and headed back out the way he'd come in. He didn’t need to waste another second in this dirty apartment.
His task was almost finished now. With your ex dealt with, he figured he would need to return to your apartment and share the good news that he would no longer be bothering you. Maybe he'd even grab a first aid kit on his way back to your place and check on your injuries, just for an extra measure of doing the right thing.
Dex killing an abusive piece of shit even if it is for totally selfish reasons? You know what? Yeah, i'm here for it, i love it, it's so hot. That's what a good vigilante does.
so much of late-series WOT is rand thinking "i hope i can count on my friends to carry out the important tasks i assigned to them" smash cut to his friends miles deep in shenanigans on some fuck-ass sidequest not remotely related to their original task (though to be fair, USUALLY they did already complete the original task before the pattern dragged them off down some rabbithole)
Donal Finn was showing at least half of his bare chest every time he came on screen in the Wheel of Time S3 but the way i gasped when i saw this pic you would have thought i have never seen a man's torso before in my life, let alone his.
Your cousin was due to enter the lists the next morning. While the rest of your family drew together to support him, you grew quieter and quieter until you were able to sidle away without them noticing your absence.
You did not enjoy watching the tourney. The blood and gore made your chest tighten and palms clammy. It was bad enough watching the men get injured; you never could stand to watch the horses come to harm.
Their only purpose was to obey their masters. What was that kind of blind devotion like, you wondered? Did they feel regretful as they lay bleeding in the mud? As they charged and bled for the honour of their riders?
You stayed far away from the tourney field as you wandered. It was relatively quiet, since near everyone else had gone there to watch the jousting. Faintly, you could hear the cries and cheers and the whinnying of horses.
It became easier to walk the further you went. The mud dried out and patches of grass began to appear as you wove through tents and empty stalls. Your dress was inconspicuous and you looked plain enough that no one would bother sparing you a glance. Just as you liked it.
Eventually you found yourself at the bottom of a small hill. You climbed it with little difficulty. The sun was glaring down at you and you could feel sweat beginning to form down the line of your back. You walked into the line of trees, finding the shadiest one and settling yourself at the base of it.
From here, you could not hear the jousting. The view was rather pleasing. It reminded you of the first day you had arrived; all the splotches of colourful tents and the faint scent of cooking meat tickling your nose.
This is why you had come. For the peace, the anonymity. Here, resting against the base of the tree, you could almost fool yourself into thinking you were normal.
Frowning, you rubbed the fabric of your sleeves between your fingers. The one thing you couldn’t seem to forget, though, was Daeron Targaryen. After he had left, you’d fallen into a sleep more restful than you had expected. If you dreamed, you could not remember.
Upon waking, however, reality had begun to seep in. Daeron had been here, outside your tent, only hours ago. You struggled enough under the attention of your lord father. The attention of a Targaryen prince was another thing entirely.
You studied the blades of grass as you thought. What was it that he wanted? Well, there was that thing that all men supposedly wanted. Your cheeks warmed at the idea. It seemed a strange way to go about it, though. And why would he bother with the bastard daughter of a nobleman rather than much easier prospects?
Princes did not have to stalk, to seduce. They needed only to look, to crook their jewelled fingers and command. Women followed men like that around in droves, hoping to bear bastard children and secure income, secure safety and shelter.
Had your mother been like that? The thought came sudden and bitter. It was not that you judged her. Pitied her, perhaps, for she may have secured that future for her daughter but what had become of her?
Sometimes you prayed that the rumours were true and that your mother was, in fact, highborn. Not because of the difference that could make for your status. But because then her future may not have been so bleak.
Caught up in your musings, you did not notice the approaching figure until he was almost in front of you. You saw the clothing before anything else. The red, the black, the scaled pattern pressed into leather coverings.
Daeron did not ask for permission. He did not say anything as he sat an arms length from you, sweat beading in his hairline as he took in the view.
You noticed the subtle way his fingers trembled, and the absence of the flask he was rumoured to carry everywhere. Perhaps the sweat was from more than exertion. You could smell it on him, the sourness from alcohol consumed previously. It smelled like desperation.
“Is this a game to you?” you wondered out loud.
Daeron finally turned to look at you. His pupils were blown and his breath was coming in hard puffs. It took him a moment to register your words. “I – what do you mean, my lady?”
“Are you trying to ruin me?” you continued, surprised at your own boldness, “Is that what this is? A game to sully the reputation of Lord Arryn’s bastard daughter?”
Daeron blinked hard. “No. No, of course not.”
You shook your head, unconvinced. “There would be little point, anyway. I am not so easily won.”
That was an almost-lie. Perhaps you were easily won; you wouldn’t know, because you typically fled before any potential suitors got the chance to even look at you twice.
Marriage was made difficult by your status as a bastard. Men rarely saw you as the lady you had been raised to be. They invented ideas of you, created them with notions of what sort of woman your mother may have been. It made you fiercely defensive over the woman you had never known.
Your father did not bring up marriage, even when Lady Anabel nudged and whispered in his ear. He seemed content to let you roam as you wished. As an apology, maybe, to your mother. You could be free, like she never had been able to be.
Daeron nodded slowly. “As I have heard.”
Your head snapped toward him. “What have you heard?”
A smile, full and unrestrained, stretched across his lips. He had been teasing you. You looked away quickly and tried to downplay the embarrassment flitting across your face.
An uncomfortable silence descended between the two of you. You felt it every time he looked at you, this buzzing awareness of him beneath your skin. You wanted to tear at it with your bare hands, scrub away every thought of him until Daeron Targaryen was only a name and not a man with shaky hands and a pretty face and eyes that looked at you as if he knew you.
“Really, though,” you said quietly, “why are you here?”
At some point he had drawn closer. You sucked in a breath as his shoulder brushed yours. You could feel the warmth radiating off of him. Despite reason screaming in your head, you made no move to draw back.
“You seem…lonely,” he said after a moment.
Shame curdled in your gut. Were you so easily read? You opened your mouth to deny, to praise your lord father for his warmth and the fact that he so easily accepted you into his family, but Daeron interjected.
“I feel that way,” he continued, “I do not know what you know of Targaryen dreamers but I – I feel that way.”
Your heart was near thumping from your chest. What did you know of Targaryen dreamers? Not a lot. And what you did sounded fanciful and like something a child would believe. You looked closely at the man next to you. He did not seem like a liar.
You did not like to admit to the loneliness that curled around you, crowding up the space that your mother would have filled. The space that you kept coldly empty, because you did not like to allow anyone too close for fear of the repeat of a possible rejection that you could not even remember.
You felt naked sitting next to Daeron. Your first thought was that you did not like it; you did not like the way he seemed to look right past all the barriers you put up and into the core you protected. And yet there was a thrill to it. The beginning of excitement to the end of the sheer exhaustion you felt from holding everyone at arms length.
Daeron nudged you with his shoulder, this time more purposeful. “Spend the day with me.”
“That did not sound like a question,” you snorted.
“It wasn’t,” he nodded solemnly, “if it was, you would just say no. Spend the day with me.”
You knew it was foolish. That it would probably end with you getting hurt. But some traitorous part of you wanted that hurt, that potential pain hovering over you. Anything to break up the monotony of loneliness.
“Well,” you said, “if it is a command.”
Daeron smiled. Tentatively, you smiled back.
A day turned into two, then three. If your family knew that the one occupying your time was Daeron Targaryen, they did not say. Every morning you would rise, get ready, and head out to meet the prince.
It had been awkward at first. Too stiff and formal. But as the hours trickled by, you felt yourself becoming looser. Quicker to laugh, quicker to joke. Daeron remained shaky and sweaty but his eyes were focused.
You prepared yourself for hurt, even as you smiled and talked easily. How could you expect anything else? It would be worth it, you decided, for those few days of freedom. Maybe your mother had thought the same thing. Maybe she still felt the same way.
The day was disgustingly hot. You met Daeron by the treeline, like that first day. The shade of the trees did little to prevent the heat from settling on your skin and warming your bones.
Daeron was dressed casually, as were you. To onlookers he probably looked like any other nobleman. To you, though, he was still Targaryen. You could see it in his face, the Targaryen features, and the way his blue eyes sometimes looked purple. You could not forget what he was, but you could accept it.
“This heat is disgusting,” you admitted, lips curled. “I can’t stay here.”
Daeron scrambled to his feet. “It is cooler in the Ashford castle. You can come with me-“
You shook your head. You were as ease with Daeron but that comfort did not extend beyond him. Somehow, the two of you had crafted a little bubble, and you were determined to stay in it.
“No,” you waved your hand, “follow me.”
Daeron followed without complaint. The pair of you picked your way through trees and overgrown bushes. Leaves snagged in your hair and you did not bother to brush them away. You were content.
You emerged onto the bank of a stream. The water was relatively clear and you could see the stones beneath the surface, smoothed from years of water bubbling over them. It was sheltered by trees and already the air seemed slightly cooler.
It was easier to breathe here. Your bubble felt secure. It was your own nerves that made the air along your arms rise.
Long grass grew in tuffs around the bank. You picked at it and wound it over your fingers before glancing over your shoulder at Daeron. “Well?”
It was a test, really. As a child you had spent so much time playing in streams and rivers that you had not seen the luxury of a bathing tub till you were almost eight. Those days had been carefree and light. Grubby hands and grubbier dresses but smiling faces.
You blinked when Daeron kicked off his boots. He did not break eye contact until he bent at the waist to pull his trousers up around his knees, as far as they would go. Your eyes dropped to the bared flesh faster than you cared to admit.
You swallowed and toed off your own slippers, looking away. You made your way to the bank and sat on the grassy edge before lowering yourself to the water. It was not a far drop.
The water reached to your mid calves and was surprisingly cool. You bit back a moan as the heat seemed to scatter from the surface of your skin. The hem of your dress was quickly soaked but you did not bother raising it. Something like shyness had you stubbornly ignoring the wet fabric.
You heard a splash behind you as Daeron dropped into the water and turned. “Oh!”
Daeron had not only raised his trousers. At some point, he had taken off his shirt. You could make out the bundle of white fabric back on the bank and you kept your eyes firmly fixed on it, over his shoulder.
His bare shoulder.
“I –“you stumbled over your words, “it is not that deep!”
Daeron shrugged as made his way over to you. “It is hot.”
Your eyes dropped to his chest before you could tell yourself not to. The skin there was pale and smooth, bar a few scars long healed. There was one that begun at his ribs at trailed beneath the belt line. You could not tear your eyes from it, even when you knew Daeron was watching you.
There was sparse hair littering his chest, practically white in colour. He was surprisingly muscular for someone who drank as much as he did, but there was an underlying softness in his stomach that made you feel unbearably warm.
You felt faint. It was not just the hem of your dress that was wet.
At the thought, you reached down and scooped up a palmful of water. You launched it at Daeron, hitting him square in the chest before turning away. Perhaps he was trying to ruin you. Maybe he already had.
Daeron swore at the sudden cold water trickling over him. You saw the scene clearly in your mind’s eye; the water dripping down, over his stomach, disappearing beneath his belt. You dared not turn around, for fear that you would be compelled to follow those drops with your hands, or worse, your tongue.
Fool. Fool, fool, fool.
You had not thought yourself naïve to the ways of man and woman. You had been asking questions ever since you first became aware of what a bastard was, and first heard the names servants called your mother beneath their breath.
Men could be animals, you knew. They wanted. They did not always think with their heads and they rarely faced repercussions for it.
And as you were discovering, you could want too. Fiercely.
You squealed as water drenched your back, prompting you to whirl back around. “That – ungentlemanly!” was all you could manage.
Daeron ran his hand through his hair, smoothing back the tangles from his face. He looked deliriously happy. You could not help but return the look, even as cold water dripped down your spine.
“You are beautiful, you know,” he said quietly.
Your smile faded. It was easier to want, you decided, than to be wanted. You dropped eye contact and went back to tiptoeing through the water, bending down occasionally to pick up interesting stones.
Daeron did not say anything. You could hear him splashing about behind you. You jumped when you felt him brush your arm and hold out his hand. In his palm was a stone, pale blue and almost glittering from in the light that poked through the canopy of trees.
“Do you like this one?” he asked.
You nodded. Daeron did not hand it to you. Instead, he reached down and slid it into the pocket at your hip. His touch was firm, fingers brushing your hip through the damp fabric as he dropped the stone in.
He was so close that you could feel his breath against your cheek. For a moment you debated stepping back, clearing your throat and pretending that it had never happened. But then you remembered the loneliness and the hurt that you were prepared to embrace if only to part with it for a moment.
You met his eyes. “Daeron.”
He froze, eyes darting over your face. Looking for – what? Desire? Acceptance? Greed? Whatever it was, you knew the moment he found it.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
And then he was stepping in, wet hands finding your shoulders, and pulling you into his chest. One hand slid up your neck, cupping your cheek and holding you steady as he brought his mouth to yours. You were thankful for that hand. Without it you would have fallen apart.
Daeron kissed you with surprising tenderness. His lips slid firmly over yours like he knew them already, tongue smoothing over the seam as he licked into the wet heat of your mouth and thoroughly tasted of you. He tasted faintly of the fruit you had eaten that afternoon as you found yourself softening further at the memory of the meal shared.
He cradled the back of your head; hand still damp from the water. The other hand slid down to rest on your waist and squeezed until you moaned into his mouth. He chased the sound with his tongue, coaxing more shameless sounds from you until you were shaking.
You jumped at the line of hardness that was suddenly pressing into your stomach. Breathless, you pulled back. Your hand raised to your lips, gently testing the skin there and the way it had swollen from Daeron’s attention.
Daeron’s eyes followed your fingers. His hand squeezed the nape of your neck before he drew back. You were shocked at how unsteady he looked himself, and a little satisfied that you were not the only one who felt knocked off guard.
You expected it to be awkward, then, but it wasn’t. You both went back to picking through the stream, sharing interesting rocks and pocketing the best one. You tried to ignore that Daeron always gave the best ones to you and the way his hands would linger in your pockets a moment longer than appropriate.
You were way past what was appropriate.
The pair of you eventually retreated to the bank and allowed your feet to dangle over the edge. Daeron redressed and sat firmly by your side, arms pressed to each other as though to part would be a tragedy.
You were not much of a romantic. Being a bastard had killed that part of you – or at least you thought it had. Romanticism led to nothing but tears and shame. You knew that. Yet you remained at his side, chatting idly about the weather and your families.
Alas, you could not stay there forever. It was evening by the time the two of you made your way out and back into the fray. The sky had darkened ever so slightly and things seemed busier as people began to prepare for supper.
The air was still warm but it had noticeably cooled. You were thankful for it as you and Daeron walked leisurely through the camps, winding round tents and past stalls. Your stomach reminded you that soon you would have to say goodbye for the evening and meet your respective families for meals.
Daeron always seemed particularly reluctant to part with you in the evenings. Sometimes you got the feeling that he came back, like that first night, and lingered outside your tent. You hadn’t tested your theory, nor had you asked him about that first time. The answer felt like something you were not ready for.
You kept a slow pace for him. The stones in your pocket tumbled together as you walked. In the privacy of your tent, you would add them to your jewellery box and your small collection of precious things. You wanted to remember today forever, wanted to remember it even when you felt regretful or stupid or wistful.
Things were lively in Ashford Meadow. There was a pleasant silence between the two of you as you approached your family’s camp. Daeron’s hand kept brushing yours, fingers threatening to tangle together, and each touch sent sparks up your arm.
“-Arryn’s bastard.”
The words were like a bucket of ice down your back. You did not know who said it. For a moment, all you could think about was the cool water from the stream and how it felt entirely different from this.
Reality dropped in around you. The sudden change may have choked someone else but you had lived like this your whole life. You did not even miss a step. You focused on the sound of the stones in your pocket and Daeron’s warmth at your side and continued on like you had heard nothing at all.
When that warmth disappeared, you noticed immediately. You stopped suddenly, glancing back for Daeron and panicking at the sight of his back headed toward the group of men the words had come from.
It happened so quickly you almost believed you had imagined it. Daeron raised a hand and struck out at the first man he came across. The violence was more than you had thought him capable of. The man dropped to his knees, cradling his nose and trying to stem the blood that began spurting from between his fingers.
Someone started yelling. It might have been you. Daeron had hands on another man before anyone could stop him but that didn’t change the fact that it was five versus one.
Your heart dropped when he disappeared between them. You shot forward but you were stopped by a firm hand on your shoulder. You turned to claw at it but the colours of the Kingsguard had you shouting and pointing in Daeron’s direction instead.
The whole thing lasted less than two minutes. The Kingsguard swarmed in and peeled the men from Daeron like nothing. He was remarkably unharmed; was the first thing you noticed. Then your eyes fixed on the stream of blood trickling from his temple and you felt sick to your stomach.
You walked to him on unsteady feet. The Kingsguard let you pass. If they looked at you in any type of way, you did not notice. Vaguely, in the background, you could hear them dealing with the men Daeron had attacked. They would not be coming out of this unscathed. You could not bring yourself to feel sorry for them.
“Daeron,” you were shaking your head, “you shouldn’t have done that. It is alright-“
“No!” he said, tone sharp. His hands fluttered around you as though you were the one who had been hurt. “It is – it is not alright. It’s never alright.”
A member of the Kingsguard appeared at Daeron’s shoulder. “My prince. Your father will want to see you.”
Good, you thought. He could get in no more trouble now. You stepped back. He would be safe with his father.
You dodged Daeron’s reaching hands and ignored the wounded look he gave you. All you could see was the blood trailing from his temple. If he touched you now you would dissolve into a flurry of worry and potentially even tears and you refused to do so.
“I will see you tomorrow,” he said firmly, still trying to meet your eyes.
You did not respond. You turned your back and fled, desperate for the safety and predictability of your family. The day was catching up to you, it seemed, and you felt ready to fall to your knees and scream.
You felt Daeron’s eyes on you right up until you disappeared from sight.
a/n- phew this was overdue. If you enjoy this series, please please leave likes, comments & reblogs!! It keeps me fueled
Just thinking about how Rand al'Thor is the fictional character I relate the most because I too am hauted by paranoia and anxiety every waking moment, afraid of my own toughts, unsure if I can trust my own mind and terrified at the idea of going mad.
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