Veil - A Box of Chocolates
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The idea for this one-shot came from one of my headcanons.
This probably won’t be the first or the last one I write based on it.
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CW ~ modern au - age gap - lyonelxreader - rockstar!lyonel - chef!lyonel - alcohl abuse - troubled past - one sided love - secret love
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Lyonel recounts glimpses of his life through a box of chocolates filled with recipes and memories of the people he has met on his travels.
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I’ll be a bit late Come in and warm up There’s some savoury pie in the fridge :D
King’s Landing had been besieged by icy gusts of autumn wind that heralded the end of summer.
Shivering and seeking shelter from the impending rain, you take refuge in Lyonel’s flat, the one and only safe haven and point of reference for the bizarre group that had come together within those chaotic walls.
As you step inside, the warmth of his flat washes over you, saving you from the chill outside, and he immediately closes the door behind you.
The day, up to that point, had been a tough one: Aerion had managed to steal your job as the professor’s assistant, Daeron had forgotten to pick you up, you’d lost your headphones, and as you were making your way home, a car had seen fit to drive through a huge puddle right in front of you.
Soaked from head to toe and unable to get back to your own flat, you’d texted Lyonel, who, as usual, always managed to reassure you.
As you opened the fridge door, covered in rock and metal band stickers, you were suddenly confronted by the savoury potato and caramelised onion tart that your saviour had made for himself this morning before heading off to work.
May the gods bless that stag.
You think to yourself as you grab the tart and preheat the oven to warm it up.
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The rain taps against the kitchen window, filling the silence of the house between one forkful and the next of that delicious cake.
The contrast between the savoury flavour of the base and the potatoes and the sweetness of the onion, accompanied by that secret spicy touch that only Lyonel knows how to create and has never revealed to anyone.
You and Lyonel met through a mutual friend at a party at the friend’s house.
His countless metal rings, his chains and strands of white pearls, the solitary earring dangling from one earlobe, and his unmistakable loose-fitting charcoal-black three-piece pinstripe suit were eye-catching, but never as much as his eyes, rimmed in black, which lent depth to that lively gaze that immediately caught you as you looked at him.
Lyonel’s style is hard for you to explain: he loves to dress up in a mix of silver and stainless steel accessories, skirts, enormous boots, vintage men’s suits that he has altered himself, various brooches, leather jackets and his unmistakable perfume.
Lyonel is hard to explain if you don’t know him, but sometimes you wonder if you really do know him.
Aside from his passion for music – which he put on hold to take up a university lectureship – Lyonel is an incredible chef.
That man had shown you time and again his flair for conjuring up dishes from the leftovers in your fridge that no restaurant could boast of serving.
“Never throw anything away.”
He’d told you that once when he’d caught you clearing out the fridge, placing an onion, some butter and some meat nearing its use-by date in a corner of the table.
In no time at all, with a few simple steps, he’d managed to whip up a risotto for you, and you had to beg him to give you the exact measurements.
Needless to say, every time you try to extract even the slightest bit of information about where he learnt it and what the recipe is, Lyonel masterfully manages to change the subject or silences you with a taste.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to speak with your mouth full, babydoll?”
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After finishing your lunch and checking the 10 messages from Daeron in which he keeps apologising for having forgotten about you, you clear the table and wash up the dishes.
You check the time – it’s 3 p.m. – still no sign of Lyonel, and it’s still raining outside.
You decide to make yourself a cup of hot tea from his vast selection to pass the time, so you head over to the wooden wall cupboard in the kitchen; when you open it, you find an endless array of boxes, both cardboard and tin.
Your attention is drawn to one tucked away at the back, on top of another tin box – too high for you to reach, but stubborn as you are, you strain to get at it.
As you try to grab it, however, the two tins fall and nearly hit us in the face; you find the tea tin on the kitchen worktop, safe and sound, whilst the heavier one lies open on the floor.
With a sigh, you kneel down to pick everything up and tidy it away, but your eye falls on an old postcard, now in your curious hands.
Dorne, 200 AC
To the one and only arsehole who managed to beat me at the drinking contest.
Doran.
Underneath was the recipe for the cake you’ve just enjoyed.
Golden onions, yellow potatoes, puff pastry, olive oil… CINNAMON, COCOA, CUMIN, PEPPER AND GINGER.
You stare at the ingredients in disbelief.
<<No way…>>
You mutter to yourself; at last, you realise what the secret ingredient in that recipe was.
Your gaze wanders over the sea of sheets of all kinds of paper scattered on the floor, until you pick up another one – this time an old red napkin from the famous ASH&MEAD restaurant.
ASH&MEAD, 193 AD
To Lyonel, the worst waiter in the history of ASH&MEAD.
Lamb in red wine and honey.
Jon.
You stare in disbelief.
You recognise the dish served by Lyonel on one of your Friday night get-togethers, particularly on Dunk’s birthday.
You remember how you and Valarr had tried everything to pry the recipe out of him, but he – whether drunk or pretending to be – had put on one of his playlists and started dancing around the living room with the birthday boy.
Your curiosity leads you to gather everything up and, eagerly, read every single note.
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The old tin of chocolates now lies on the table, half-full, whilst the other half is scattered before you, in your hands.
Dorne, Lannisport, Lys, Winterfell, Braavos...
These were just some of the places mentioned in those recipes.
Over all these years, Lyonel seemed to have travelled to every corner of the known world.
Postcards from seaside resorts, restaurant napkins, torn pages from notebooks, old receipts, a few photos taken with different types of camera...
You find it difficult to piece together a complete picture of Lyonel’s life before you met him.
If you thought Lyonel had gone east, the next recipe would take you west; if some recipes were in your own language, others were written in languages you didn’t even know existed, using an alphabet entirely different from that used in Westeros.
The more you delve into his past, the more you realise you know nothing about the man you think you know.
Lost in your thousands of questions and doubts, you don’t notice the other person in the kitchen.
<<What are you doing?>>
You looked up suddenly, stiffening in your chair, and met those big eyes that had been watching you for a while without you realising.
Lyonel stares at you, a look you can’t quite make sense of, from someone you can’t quite make sense of at that moment.
He’s wearing a purple pinstriped suit, with a white T-shirt underneath, his well-worn trainers, his vintage brown deerskin bag slung over his shoulder, and his ever-present rings.
<<I-I’m sorry. I was… I wanted some tea but-but then the box…>>
You stammer and mull over any possible answer you could give him to justify your decision to mind your own business.
Lyonel approaches and glances at all his memories, with an expression on his face you’ve never seen before.
<<Daeron’s waiting for you downstairs. He’s been calling you for five minutes.>>
His firm tone, almost unnatural compared to what you’re used to, brings you back to reality.
You pick up the phone beside you and realise it’s true: Daeron has texted you and tried to call you over the last ten minutes, and he’s waiting for you in his car outside Lyonel’s flat.
<<It’s… Yes, I’d better go.>>
<<Yes, you’d better go.>>
You don’t look at him; his icy, calm voice is enough to make you gather your things and, without another word, leave his flat to finally head back to your own home.
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Two weeks go by and you and Lyonel haven’t been in touch; you’ve even been avoiding turning up at his place for the usual Friday dinners, making up excuses to everyone in the group.
“I’ve got to finish revising for my exam.”
“They’ve changed my work shift.”
“I’m not feeling very well.”
Even on campus, you avoid going to the café or the library – places where you often bump into each other – preferring to come up with more excuses and made-up reasons for the group.
Lyonel hasn’t asked about you, Valarr confides, but he hints that Lyonel hasn’t seemed quite the same for some time and asks if something’s happened between the two of you.
After a month, you decide to pluck up the courage and turn up at his front door, carrying one of his favourite cakes from your recipe collection: your lemon upside-down cake.
You ring the doorbell and wait until that pair of large brown eyes, rimmed with black, appear before you.
You’re greeted by a slightly tipsy Lyonel, with the shadows under his eyes smudged by smudged black eyeliner, an unkempt beard and messy hair.
He looks like the usual moody, chaotic old Lyonel, but you realise there’s something strange about him.
When he notices, however, that it’s you standing on his doorstep, something in his eyes lights up.
<<Hi.>>
<<Hi.>>
He whispers, surprised to see you again after a month away from his home.
He looks at you whilst you can barely meet his gaze; after such a long time, and remembering your last meeting, you feel embarrassed and even guilty about what you did.
<<I-I’ve brought…>>
You say, holding out the cake you’re holding to Lyonel, who, in response, invites you inside.
As you walk in, you notice the flat is shrouded in darkness; the faint light filtering through the curtains casts a red hue over the living room.
The musty smell mingles with that of red wine, which you assume Lyonel has already polished off.
The atmosphere is more chaotic and scruffy – a bubble created by Lyonel to shut himself away.
He invites you to sit on the sofa and disappears to fetch two small plates and some cutlery for the cake.
You take a few minutes to look around a place that has become a second home to you: framed band posters, the two overflowing, cluttered bookcases, the oriental-style rugs, the leather sofa covered in scratches, the guitar picks and drumsticks scattered everywhere…
Your gaze falls, above all, on the coffee table in front of you, where the famous box of chocolates lies open, its contents scattered across the wooden surface, accompanied by two bottles of wine – one empty, the other half-full.
Silence fills the room; you’re sitting in a corner of the sofa whilst he stands, at a distance, taking a moment to watch you as you’re lost in your thoughts.
Your gaze is downcast, your fingers twiddling, and despite trying, you can’t tear your eyes away from those recipes.
The sight softens Lyonel’s heart, and he decides to step closer and break the silence.
<<She had a lovely smile.>>
You look up, confused, and turn your gaze towards him.
<<Pardon?>>
<<Fish soup, Iron Islands.>>
He says, sitting down on the sofa and gesturing towards the postcard with the blue edges.
<<Her name was Asha; she was an old woman who spoke like a docker, with enough strength in her arms to knock out a bear.
Everyone was afraid of her; she was the one who kept the whole place running.
When I was 16, she made me work my fingers to the bone between the daily catch, cleaning the fish and helping out in the kitchen.
She had more tattoos than teeth and knew every single species of fish that lives in the sea.
She called me Lonny; I could have corrected her countless times, but she’d always call me Lonny in that voice you use to call a dog.
She taught me the basics of cooking, after months of wandering and living on bread and whatever I could scrounge up during the day.
Her soup is still the best in Westeros and the Eastern Continent.>>
Lyonel tells you that, in the meantime, he’d cut two slices of your lemon cake and served you a portion, along with a fork.
<<And… and what was this soup like??>>
You ask, staring at Lyonel, captivated by that little confession.
<<Fantastic! Men would risk their lives at sea, braving the elements and hours in the freezing cold, fishing and struggling to survive, just knowing that when they returned, Asha would have that huge pot of soup ready for them. You know, her secret was the offcuts; most people throw away the heads, the shells, the bones... But Asha never threw anything away; in fact, if she caught you doing it, you’d find her big, calloused hands on you.>>
Lyonel sniggers, thinking back to all the times Asha had beaten him to keep him in line.
Hearing those words, you think back to her usual comments.
Didn’t anyone ever teach you that you must never throw anything away, babydoll?
Curious and resourceful, you tear off a piece of a page from an old notebook and show it to Lyonel.
<<What about this?>>
Lyonel looks at you and, whilst chewing a mouthful of that cake, gives you a sweet smile.
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Time had ceased to exist, and the only way you could gauge it was by how many slices of cake you and Lyonel were eating between one of his stories and one of your questions.
Lyonel was like a siren, enchanting you with a voice that led you to places far from home, places you’d never heard of or couldn’t even point out on a map.
You let yourself be swept up in an investigation, searching for clues and fragments within him as you immersed yourself in the image unfolding before you.
You begin to decipher him in those fleeting moments beyond your control.
<<I met her in the free cities; she was a prostitute in a brothel.
She had an eye patch and a strong accent.
She was hilarious, and no one could hold their drink like her.
We’d often hang out between her shift and mine; we worked on the same street.
I’d bring a bottle of wine I’d nicked from that bastard of a pub owner; she’d bring her phenomenal biscuits.
It took a while to get hold of that recipe – she was a tough one.”>>
<<He was a real pain in the arse.
A first-class windbag, always clinging to me and following me wherever I went.
I found out he didn’t have many friends and didn’t have a family.
He started to become a sort of assistant, helping me set up the stage at a pub where I performed, and at the end of the night we’d have a beer together.
He was only two years younger than me, but he had a childlike face that melted anyone’s heart.
He’d win you over with those sweet, big eyes.
He worked in one of those seaside restaurants, having recently become an assistant chef; their speciality was fish.
I tried to go back there last year, but it’s been closed for years.>>
<<She was weird.
A black shadow that roamed around Harrenhal.
Some said she was a tour guide for the ruins, others an archaeologist or conservator; there were those who whispered she was an ageless witch. She was very beautiful – a raw, mature beauty, with sharp, almost chiselled features.
She listened to you and was good at it – so good at getting you to talk non-stop that you didn’t realise you’d been going on for hours without her interrupting.
I don’t know much about her; perhaps I did, but I’ve forgotten.
Her liqueurs and alcoholic concoctions were deadly; some of them made me see dragons.
She gave me the recipe without me saying a word, then she vanished for good.>>
Of her, he remembered the way her voice would change when she lied; of him, he envied the scent of the cologne he often wore; of that other man, he still felt a bitter taste in his mouth just at the mention of his name; of others, he had fond memories or knew nothing of their fate.
With every recipe and story, you find yourself getting lost trying to keep track of his travels and the many – perhaps too many – people he has met.
Some have died, others’ fates you’ll never know, and a few reappear in his other adventures, but you notice that Lyonel never mentions his family.
You know that the Baratheons are a very influential family at Storm’s End and export electricity throughout Westeros, but judging by his long journeys from the tender age of 15, Lyonel doesn’t seem to have a good relationship with them.
And in his stories, you often see a young lad, with a battered guitar, homeless, scraping by on scraps of bread and cheap wine, doing all sorts of odd jobs, sometimes barely surviving and often forced to sleep outdoors even in the worst of the weather.
You wonder whether Lyonel – the rock star of the Free Cities, the party-loving troublemaker roaming the Lys, the wise one from Winterfell, or the resentful Lyonel in Ashford – would have fancied you.
<<What about this, then?>>
You ask suddenly, holding up an old card depicting a black dragon.
Lyonel falls silent; a shadow passes over his face. Hesitantly, he takes the card from your fingers, brushing them lightly with his own.
He turns it over in his hands for a few minutes, in an almost reverent silence.
<<If you’d rather not—>>
<<He was… the brother of a dear friend. The eldest. The heir to the family business.
Everyone loved him and he was a man of honour—or at least that’s what people liked to say about him.
He was a lawyer, obsessed with always doing the right thing.
His ‘knightly’ aura was almost sickening.
He died in an accident—a fatal blow to the head after a trial.
Some idiots whispered it was his brother.>>
His voice cracks with every word; you can sense it, but you can’t tell whether it’s anger or sadness that has taken hold of him.
<<Do you miss him?>>
You whisper gently, drawing closer to him whilst he keeps his gaze fixed on that note.
<<We weren’t on good terms. I feel more sorry for his brother and his children.>>
Lyonel remains chained to that memory, continuing to dwell on it and unwilling to let go.
You notice how he tries to control himself – the slight tremor in his hands, his distant gaze.
Gently, you place a hand over his – large and marked by all those experiences – stroking it lightly.
He looks at your hands coming together whilst you look at him.
You stay like that for a long, indefinite time, without speaking.
<<Lyonel.>>
You whisper close to his ear, finally catching his attention.
<<Tell me, babydoll.>>
Lyonel responds softly, looking at your face.
<<Thank you.>>
Lyonel doesn’t need to know what for; you don’t need to specify. You remain enveloped in that silence and in the darkness of the room, bidding farewell to the sunset and staying just like that.
<<You’re welcome, babydoll.>>
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<<Have you ever thought about staying in one of those places?>>
You ask him as you sit in front of the bowl of fish soup that Lyonel has made for you.
You’re at his house; you’ve popped in for lunch after he promised to let you try the best fish soup in Westeros and the surrounding area.
You’ve had time to reflect on that evening, revisit those places and ask yourself many questions, but one in particular has been tormenting you for weeks.
<<No. It’s hard to explain, but at a certain point you realise where you belong in the world, and that’s where you decide to stay.>>
Towards evening, Lyonel is home alone, sitting on that leather sofa, smoking and thinking back on the question you asked him at lunch.
And is King’s Landing that place?
He had looked at you and replied that, for work, yes, it was the place he wanted to stay, but he would have liked to give you a different answer.
"No, my place is right beside you, between a glass of wine, a dessert and the way you look at me.
With a table between us, the washing-up in the sink, your hands in that box, your smile as you listen to me, the many questions you’d like to ask me but to which even I don’t have the answers.
My place is in this room, just a few steps away from you, watching you as you fidget with your hands or look down, embarrassed.
Amongst your books and your jumpers that smell of you, amongst that bunch of runaways I feed every Friday evening and who are like a family to me.
My place is under the rain, the sun or the snow, but only if you’re nearby.
My place is where that loser was trying to chat you up the first time I saw you.
My place is you, but only if one day you want it to be; otherwise, you’ll be a place I’ll search for in that box of chocolates when it’s all over."
And with these thoughts in mind, Lyonel placed a card in the box bearing your handwriting and a smudge of your lipstick, along with the recipe for your upside-down lemon cake.
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Welcome in the closet!
I’ve had to bring this post forward this week because I’m off on Friday and won’t have time, but I promise you a little surprise when I get back.
I hope you enjoyed this version of Lyonel. I’ll say it again: this blog – and VEIL in particular – is a way for me to experiment, so I won’t always be posting smut or 18+ content.
See you for the next updates in my closet!
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