A Prayer in Perfect Piety
synopsis: When Dunk returns to your shared camp bruised and bloodied, you tend to his wounds.
word count: 4.3k
content [NSFW!]: Dunk x fem! traveling companion reader, yearning, mutual pining, explicit consent, smut, outdoor sex, submissive dunk, hand job, praise, calling him pretty, talking him through it, slight (soft!) femdom, mild blood cw (dunk is slightly wounded), pain play if you squint? but not really. (i repeat, he has minor injuries). no visual descriptors for reader, no use of y/n, (so close to hurt/comfort but i don't think it could be considered as such lol)
a/n: this is what happens when I set out to write a little drabble and then trip and fall into a 4k wc... my b.
**Fic revised 5/10/26** thank you to @goat-limbs and @ladyoftheelm for beta reads and edits <3
* * *
"Be still, Ser Duncan," you chided. "I cannot help you if you do not let me look." "Enough of that. I told you 'm fine."
Dunk was decidedly not fine; his head was propped up on the trunk of his chosen elm, face bruised and bloodied in places, with more blood yet still staining the stony blue fabric of his tunic. You'd spotted the largest of the stains as soon as he had dismounted Sweetfoot, and you were determined to figure out whether or not that blood was his.
He'd reclined in his usual spot, groaning as he collapsed onto his bedroll that was still unfurled in the grass from that morning. You had set out to the task of boiling water and gathering rags to drop into the pot you'd propped over the fire that had been going since before he'd returned to your camp.
Perched at his side now, knees pressed into the edge of his bedroll just a breath away from his hip, you steadied the cooling pot of water onto the grass. Though he lay beaten boneless beneath you, you had to marvel at his size; his shoulders spanning wider than any one person's rightly should. The length of his body stretching long even with knees knocking east and west to fit the bend of his legs.
You watched him stiffen beneath you, straying knees drawing close as pain sharpened his breathing.
"There's no need, truly," he assured you, tone softening. "I'm more bruised than anything."
"You're bleeding," your hands trembled as you reached for the hem of his tunic, and suddenly you were aware of adrenaline that had been racing through you since you saw the stain—a dark ugly bloom disgracing his abdomen.
He caught your hands in his, then. Steadying. "It's not mine."
You closed your mouth around a sigh, exhaling sharp through your nose. "Please, Ser. Just let me check."
Dunk relented, releasing your hands from his. Wasting no time, you gently pulled at the fabric, easing it taut to break the tunic off from where it stuck to skin. The garment peeled back and exposed his belly.
Catching the faintest glare from you then, he added "Well, not most of it, anyway."
Pale skin gave way to saturated dappling as the new bruises begun to set in, and while there were a few cuts into the plush of his abdomen, none of them required more than simple cleaning and bandaging. The large stain that scared you witless revealed itself to be just that: a stain. Dark and sticky, the blood coated nearly half of his stomach, coloring the hair that swirled toward his navel and trailed down below his trousers.
Relief washed over you then, soothing and sobering, loosening the tension in your body with a single exhale. "Right, let's get you cleaned up." You ghosted a finger over his skin, tracing beside the deepest looking gash. "This one will need bandaging."
Dunk squirmed under your examining gaze, "You needn't trouble yourself, truly."
Hushing him, you reached into the pot to grab a strip of cloth, squeezing out the excess water to drip into the grass below. "You aren't trouble," you said, sliding the fabric along his skin now, attempting to clear away the largest splotch of blood. "Well, you certainly were trouble to the poor bastard who bled all over you. But not to me."
Dunk shuddered, and you halted your scrubbing.
"Sorry, did I hurt you?" Your hand lifted from him.
He was quick to shake his head, "N-no. Sorry."
You nodded, then returned to your work. Attentive and careful with another drag of the cloth, you watched as the pillow of his flesh gave way under the weight of your fingers. The hair of his navel went damp, then kept catching in the weave of the fabric to follow the direction of each careful stroke. Your breath grew heavy in your chest, lungs holding onto each intake of air for just a bit too long.
Now that your panic had lessened, the reality of your proximity to Dunk took its place, giving your pounding heart no reprieve. You'd never touched him for so long at once, and certainly never anywhere so intimate. Your eyes glazed over as they followed the trail of hair that pointed down from his navel before disappearing into his trousers. You wanted to look where it led, to study where the hair grew thickest.
"R-really, I can clean myself up later, just wanted to rest a while before—"
"I will not hear another word of it." You interrupt, mildly startled by him breaking the daze that had fallen over you. What had gotten into you, anyway? Lusting over a man as he lay bleeding beneath you.
"Yes, m'lady." His eyes flicked back and forth between your face and hands before resigning to stare behind you at the fire. His boyish features walked the line of a solemn expression, sending a flash of guilt to your gut.
"Be at ease, Ser. I know I'm certainly no Maester. Or a healer for that matter. And fortunately you're not like to need one. Even so, this shouldn't take me too long." You coaxed, resting your spare hand on his thigh in reassurance. It seemed to do the opposite of soothing, because you felt him jolt under your touch. You dragged a thumb along him in apology before setting back to your task.
You'd finally done away with the worst of the blood left on him, discarding the dirty cloth at your side before grabbing a clean one from the pot of water to tend to the deepest cut.
Dunk sucked in a breath before it caught in his throat. He grunted near imperceptibly at the sting as you worked at the sliced skin low near the waist of his trousers. Your face was hovering so very close as you sought precision in your task. Leaning over the span of his hips, you run the fabric along him, careful not to press into the gash itself, and worked to clear away any further blood or debris from the site.
"I'm almost done with this part," you soothed. "You're doing so well for me. Just a moment longer."
Above you, Dunk's breathing—along with his expression—became anguished.
* * *
Dunk was hoping to the Gods that you'd assume his unsteady breathing was from pain.
He was hurting, sure, but the pain was overshadowed by another ache; brought on by your attentive focus on his body, your concentrated expression and gentle fingers.
Enraptured with your hands on his skin, feeling as you stroked across the expanse of his belly, Dunk wasn't sure of the last time he'd been touched so kindly—if ever—and it set his heart ablaze, but Seven above if he wasn't feeling indecent. Exposed beneath you, at the mercy of your care and command. There was only so much he could do to remain composed with your hands on his stomach, moving lower to his hip, curling a finger under the waist of his trousers to swipe the wet cloth underneath, catching every trace of blood left on him.
What a depraved sod; a man who would grow hard while his wounds were being tended to, he thought to himself. And your kind and soothing words only added fuel to the fire burning hot in him now. Praising, reassuring that this would almost be over.
Gods know he needed this to end. But, help him, he didn't want it to.
There would be more wounds to tend, so long as he didn't scare you off now. He found himself desperately needing to get his eyes off of you and his mind onto something, onto anything, else he would be pitching an awful tent in his trousers.
Dunk knew this would happen, too. Knew he was doomed as soon as you'd seen the state of him and began gathering bandages. In the time you'd been traveling together, he learned he needed to tread carefully. Every stolen touch, casual and innocent as they were, struck him through to the marrow of his bones.
Early in the mornings when the sunlight caught your hair just right, he wondered what you would smell like in the heat of it. If he pressed his nose against the crown of your head where the suns rays spent the most time, or at the base of your skull where your sweat would gather at the nape. How would it differ at dusk, after a long day of hard riding? In the evening, after you'd rinsed the day off in a cool creek, your skin primed to soak in the water, then the wood smoke as you sat across from him? Could he begin edging closer to sit beside you, could he blame it on the way the wind blew the smoke in his face, or was that a trite excuse?
After supper, when you'd share a glance that lingered too long, or let out one of your breathy full-chested laughs, he was left at half mast. He'd excuse himself for his own bath in the creek then, stroking himself at the thought of you, even through the shame of it all. Making half excuses, sometimes his mind would wander farther. To the way your skin would feel under his hands, the way you'd sound if he brought you pleasure, to the way your lips would taste. Or, how the rest of you would taste, if he were ever so bold as to run his mouth along every part of your body.
"Dunk."
He startled, returning his eyes to you then, seeing you with a bandage at the ready, long and gathered between each of your hands.
"Lift a moment for me."
Oh, he won't make it out alive. He knew this now, beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Nodding, Dunk obeyed. Lifted his hips up off his bedroll for you to snake your hands underneath him. You passed the end of the bandage between your hands to wrap it around his torso. The fabric held between your forefinger and middle, the index sliding against his back along the way, dipping to the curve of his spine before grabbing hold of the bandage again with the other hand. Pulling it taut while his hips eased back down to the earth.
Tying the bandage tight, fingers brushing along his skin as you secured each knot. Dunk's heart was pounding in his throat at the sight of himself, now visibly straining against the fabric of his trousers.
* * *
You leaned back to check your work, and Dunk was quick to roll onto his side, facing away from you. But not before you saw the unmistakable swell at the crux of him.
"Dunk," you said, placing your hand on his hip and pulling him gently back down, "lie back before you ruin my hard work."
As you fussed with the bandage, ensuring that it remained securely tied on, Dunk watched in disbelief.
"Is this why you were fighting me so? Why you didn't want my help?" You asked. Your hands stilled.
Dunk's knees drew up, his hands moved to his face to hide from you. "Fuck I'm sorry—Seven save me—I'm so so sorry."
"Hey—hush, now. It's alright." Leaning forward, you caught his wide forearm in your hand, seeking to reveal him again. "Dunk."
His eyes, full of panic, found yours. They held a truth which his mouth refused to express, lips parting only for a peek of his tongue. His heavy lower lip shone wet, and you wanted to pull it between your teeth and test the plush of it. To soften and trace your lips against his in apology. You paused for an agonizing moment, nakedly staring.
Then: "Can I kiss you?"
"What?" The question knocked the wind out of him. He managed to hold your gaze, searching for a reasonable explanation in your face and finding none.
"Can I kiss you?" You asked again.
"I-I don't—I couldn't, that would be… improper. I wouldn't want to be—" Lashes fluttering as he fought himself, Dunk could hardly manage to keep looking at you.
"That is not what I asked, Dunk. Do you want to kiss me?" Your face was a breath from his now.
Sputtering out a ragged sigh, he looked back down at the state of himself. "Gods, yes, of course, but I c—"
At his desperate 'yes', you moved forward, hand laying over his cheek, thumb finding the corner of his mouth, eyes tracing the same path. You paused for the faintest second, silently asking one last time before you placed your lips to his in a single, long kiss; chaste, closed mouths melding together.
Asking permission again without a word, you broke away an inch, foreheads pressed to each other. Dunk's eyes, wide and blue, were even larger this close. Flicking between eyes and lips before his chased yours again.
Falling into an ill-timed, desperate pace with noses knocking and teeth scraping against flesh, you slid your hand down from where it rested against his cheek. Steadying his jaw in your palm to overthrow his pace for your own, you worked your lips against his slowly, open, wet, wanting. He moaned, hedonistic and low, right into your mouth.
Dunk managed to follow your rhythm as the palm on his jaw slid lower, flat over the velvet of his throat on the way to his collar, nails scraping over the hair that peeked from the dip of his tunic.
"This okay?" You whispered against his lips.
He kept nodding until he could conjure a response; soft, uttered in a breath. "Yes."
You kissed a trail from the corner of his mouth to his jaw, murmuring into his ear as you palm found the swell of his chest. "I've been wanting this for so long." Lashes brushing against his cheek, you tilted your head to nuzzle into him, speaking each word onto his skin. "Kiss you. Touch you. Tell you how pretty you are. Fuck, since my first night at your fire."
Dunk's only reply was an agonized sigh, his head lolling away from you as his face tinted pink. Neck exposed, flush extending there too, you took the chance to kiss it as well. Your lips pressed against where a tendon jumped beneath his skin.
You could swear you felt his pulse, thumping and quick as a hare against your palm and mouth, "you want this too?"
"Gods, yes, I just—I shouldn't." Voice tight, wanting.
"According to?" You pulled back a moment then, seeking eye contact. He turned his head back to you but struggled to meet your gaze until you spoke again. "Mine is the only permission you must seek. No God's, no Lord's. Mine. So long as you want this, too."
Your words took hold in him, finding a home next to his heart, nestling beside where his knights oath resided. "Yours." He breathes.
"So, I'll ask again—"
"Yes," he interrupted, breathlessly. "I want this. Want you." The hand closest to you worried at his side, long fingers curling and unfurling before finally laying over your knee, fingertips scarcely sliding in tentative strokes.
You dragged your own hand further down, along his stomach again. "Like this?" And the pads of his fingers squeezed into you, long digits wrapping around your leg.
Dunk nodded, mouth slightly parted, brows pulling close. Taking your time, your hand slid across the same skin as moments before, now unbidden by propriety. Tracing your fingers along the hair at his navel, you dipped your head down to swallow every sigh from his lips. Pace slow, soft, present, but not quite enough to satiate. Your hand ventured lower, fingertips slipping just under the waist of Dunk's trousers to play with the curls that start there.
Whispering onto his mouth, "Can I untie these?"
"Please." More so feeling his reply than hearing it, you covered his mouth again. His hands slid up now, broad, resting over your legs, holding your hips, touching anywhere he could reach. You pressed your mouth against his in earnest, tongue sliding to part his lips beneath yours, licking into him. Your fingers passed over laces, coming down to caress where he pressed against his trousers, then traced up the length of him. He twitched under your light touch.
"Be kind to me." He sounded wrecked as he broke off your mouth, breath hot against your face.
Gods, Dunk was so deliciously sensitive. There was a real temptation to draw this out, to make it torture, but you swung a leg over his hip, straddling his thighs to work at his laces and relieve some pressure. You begun untying the knot at the top, hooking your fingers in the lace before pulling it loose. "You will tell me to stop if you need. At any time." A direction, not a question. He nodded in response, and you halted the fingers at his laces, watching him patiently.
"I will." He agreed, and you pull another set of laces loose.
"Very good." And Seven above, if you didn't relish in the shudder that trembled through his frame at your praise. A ruddy flush followed, creeping along his skin as you finally freed him from where he'd been pressing against the rough spun fabric of his trousers. You found him achingly hard, the tip of him blushing pink and already weeping with need. He winced as you parted the garment to make room for him, your knuckles brushing against his most sensitive skin, featherlight, only adding to his agony.
Wincing turned to a low groan, ragged and dragged from deep in his chest as your palm finally petted along the bare length of him. You pressed him against his own belly as you stroke up, fingertips nudging slightly against the ridge near the peak, then gathered him in your hand on the way down. Dunk busied himself white-knuckling his bedroll, thighs twitching under yours as you explored the heft of him in your hand. Placing the other on the crest of his hip, you leaned your weight upon his frame as you pumped his cock, still soft and slow and slight, scarcely catching the tip of him in the circle of your fingers at every pass.
Dunk sounded wounded, yet he looked up at you like you were made of starlight. Like he needed to commit every angle of you to memory, every dip and curl and plane of your body, of your face. His lids fluttered to a close, head tipped back against the tree as you reached the crown of him, wrist flicking ever so slightly as you twisted to caress him. "F-fuck."
"S'that feel good?" You eased, spare hand now running along his stomach, careful to avoid the places his skin had been scraped or slashed. You traced a finger along the bandage you'd tied, along his darkening bruises, stroking his cock all the while. He watched you, whether in awe or horror you couldn't quite gauge, though the lewd groan that tore through him now hinted at the former. The sound went right between your legs, where you were growing wetter by the moment. "It's dreadful, I know. But Seven save me, Dunk. I wanted to touch you like this—just like this—as soon as I knew you were alright. As soon as I had your skin under my hands. While you were still bleeding beneath me."
"Ohhh fucking hells, love. I, I—" He threw his forearm over the bridge of his nose, "yes, fuck."
His thighs jolted below you, near unseating you as your own legs tightened around him. He was sighing, groaning, letting out so many sounds made just for you. "Thought you'd sound pretty, Dunk, but not like this. Gods, so pretty."
"You'll do me in, you keep talking like that—" He whined out as your thumb slipped over the slit of him, "w-wont last another minute."
"You needn't, love. Just relax." His cock was dripping, length becoming slicker with each downward stroke of your hand. You could hear his feet twitching behind you as they scrambled for purchase on the bedroll, on the grass. The muscles of his legs flexed beneath your thighs with every jerk.
"B-but, Seven fucking hells, I—" His argument fell away, surrendering to the ruined moans that left his mouth in its stead. Grabbing the cleaner corner of the hem of his tunic, you ruck the garment up his body, the heel of your palm brushing along him before you lift the fabric to his mouth.
"Can you bite onto this, for me?" His eyes held a silent plea, but Dunk followed through, shuddering again as you watched him pull the hem between his teeth, the pad of your fingers pressing to his lip before they fell to his now exposed nipple. "This alright?"
He nods with fervor, brows pulling tightly together, whining heartily through the fabric between his teeth. You imagined the only times he'd been asked to bite down on something were followed by painful stitches or cauterized wounds, a depraved part of you enjoying providing their equal opposite. "Ease, it's alright. I have you." You cooed as you pinched softly, increasing pressure while you twisted his flesh between your fingers, your other hand continuing its rhythm on his cock.
The tunic between his teeth did little to muffle his loud whine, the muscles in his pecs and abdomen jumping under the plush of his flesh at your attentions, so sensitive beneath you. Salivating as you played with him, your heartbeat pounded between your legs at every noise he made. Eyes screwing shut now, he nearly jumped out of his skin as your hand left his nipple to catch the very tip of his cock, palm ever so slightly touching before wrapping around it. Working at him with two hands, one thumb pressing in to ride the length along the underside of his cock, the other twisting around him as you increased your pace.
His fight to wrench his eyes open was futile, blown out pupils rolling to the back of his head at the lightening that surged up his spine, white-hot and unforgiving. They squeezed tightly shut again, head rolling side to side against the tree in avoidance. It was too much; he couldn't look at you, he couldn't listen to you, your hands on him, the wet noises they made. Couldn't think about your weight on him, the heat of your thighs around his hips. You set a ruthless pace, squeezing and pulling and twisting and—
"Oh, fuuuuck—" He keened out, tunic sticking, then falling from his lips as he came, twitching while you wrung every drop from his cock, catching his spend in your hand so he wouldn't make a mess of his bandage. His hips strained against you, rocking up as he fucked into your hands through his release. Once he slowed, you stroked both hands down the length of him again, softening and oversensitive now. But his wrecked face, the sounds he made, along with the obscenely wet noise of his cock in your hands, were too irresistible. You continued stroking him until he was nearly kneeing you off his lap, legs spasming from overstimulation. "Ah, love—please. S'too much."
You responded mercifully, easing the pressure of your ministrations before ceasing them entirely. Dunk was a ruined mess beneath you, his eyes sopping wet with admiration as they met yours. You leaned down, humming as you kissed him slowly, messily, completely enamored with him.
"So good t'me, love," he murmured between kisses, petting his palm down your arm, the other resting against the nape of your neck. So chaste; meanwhile your own palms were coated in his release.
You broke from him after a beat, his hands falling down to rest against your knees. You paused, a faint smile playing at your lips as you looked down at him before moving to grab the forgotten pot of water still resting in the grass to Dunk's side. You rinsed off your hands, grabbed the last strip of cloth, wrung it out and cleaned Dunk off for the final time. Tucking and tying him back into his trousers, you wiped up any of the spend that had slipped from your fingers and onto him before easing his tunic back down to cover him. He watched all the while, eyes glossy and chest heaving with the effort to catch his breath.
You gathered each cloth, dropping them back in the pot before covering his frame with yours, hugging your arms under his, head resting against his collar bone. He restrained a pained groan at your weight against his fresh cuts and bruises, but made no complaint as you took a deep inhale. He smelled of sweat, sunshine, creek water, and the leather of his gear, and you couldn't get enough of it. Your nose pressed into the crook where his neck met his shoulder, and you stayed there a moment while his hands skated up and down your back.
Finally, you sat up. Placing a kiss to his forehead, you pushed yourself off of him, gathered the pot, and moved toward the creek to clean up. "Rest here a while. You've had a long day, I'll go get supper started for us… But, you're cooking tomorrow." Dunk looked at you, perplexed, about to argue. As a knight, you knew he was going to hold tight to the ideal of fairness.
As he rightly should.
"But-" his words halted in his throat with just a look from you, then a grin cracked his expression, "alright, love." Your thighs clenched together at his voice, still breathless even minutes later. He looked giddy, sated, yet still a bit of a mess—especially in that damn bloodied tunic.
You grabbed a clean one for him, fed the fire, then made for the creek to clean up. And, for some privacy.