paladin!mike wheeler x royal!reader.ᐟ
˗ˏˋcontent: secret relationship, mutual pining, jealous/possessive dom!mike, badly written smut, mdni
𝒯𝐻𝐸 heat in the lower courtyard always smelled like baked dirt and horse lather. by midday, the stones absorbed the sun until the air shimmering off the cobbles felt thick enough to choke on, the ash wood greasy against his leather glove from his own sweat. his shoulder guards creaked with every slow, shallow breath he took. it was the only sound he allowed himself to make. a metallic rasp that stayed trapped inside the small, dark cage of his visor.
three paces ahead of him, the silk was a cool, sharp violet against the dust.
she didn't turn around. she couldn't. the young lord was already there at her elbow, his hand hovering just above the small of her back, never quite touching, but close enough that the silver fringe of his sleeve brushed her velvet skirt every time he pointed toward the orchard wall. he was talking about the irrigation from the high springs, his voice smooth and light and perfectly rested, the voice of someone who hadn't spent the night patrolling the wet trenches by the river gate until his shins were numb.
"the late plums should be ready for the feast," the lord was saying, his head tilted down toward hers with a familiarity that made the skin along mike's jaw tighten until his molars clicked together. "though i suppose we’ll have to double the wagon guards if we’re to bring them up from the lower valley before the frost. the commonborn are getting bolder with the harvest this year."
she made a small, polite sound in her throat, the one she used when the councilors stayed too long at the table. her fingers laced tight in front of her.
mike’s thumb twitched against the pike. he didn't look down at her hands. he looked at the space between her shoulder blades, where the laces of her stays were crossed in tiny, perfect x’s. he knew the exact count of them. he knew which one had the slight fray near the bottom where it caught on the iron buckle of his belt three nights ago when the room had been dark and everything had smelled like woodsmoke and wild, muffled breathing.
"the heat is rather grand today, isn't it?" the lord murmured, stopping by the low stone lip of the fountain. he reached out, his bare hand, pale and smooth, with a single heavy gold signet on his middle finger, sliding down her sleeve to catch the tips of her fingers, guiding her toward the shade of the arbor. "you’re pale, my lady. we should have stayed in the gallery."
"i’m fine," she said. her voice was smaller out here, swallowed by the wide, empty space of the gardens and the distance she had to keep between them.
the lord didn't release her hand. he held it lightly, his thumb tracing a slow circle over her knuckles, right where the skin was softest.
behind his steel visor, mike’s eyes blew out, the dark center of them swallowing the brown until they looked almost black in the shadows of the iron plate. the breath he took was too sharp, too loud, it rattled against the mouthslits of the helmet with a messy edge. his left hand, buried deep inside the stiff boiled leather of his gauntlet, clenched into a fist so violent that the iron rivets over his knuckles groaned.
the salt from his forehead was dripping into his eyes, stinging, but he didn't blink. he just watched that gold ring move against her skin. he calculated the distance between his boot and the lord’s ankle. he calculated the weight of the pike’s iron head. if he dropped the butt of the staff now, just a three inch tilt to the left, the steel would cleave the lord's silk shoes right through to the bone. it would take less than a second.
the thought didn't feel like a sin. it felt like water to a man dying of thirst in the dunes. it made his ears ring with a low, white noise that drowned out the sound of the fountain.
the captain’s voice came from the shaded archway twenty yards back, sharp and dry like breaking firewood.
mike didn't turn his head, but his spine went rigid, the iron plates of his backpiece clattering against the guard pins. "sir."
"shift to the perimeter wall. the shade is for the guests."
the words came out too thin, his throat dry as gravel. he took three measured, clumsy steps backward, his heavy riding boots dragging through the crushed gravel of the path. he kept his eyes on the violet silk until the low hanging branches of the fig trees cut her out of his line of sight completely, leaving him alone in the glare of the white stone wall where the sun hit hardest.
the latch on the window didn't make a sound. it had been greased with sheep’s fat four days ago, and it slid open under his fingers with nothing more than a faint creak against the wood.
once he climbed all the way in, he just stayed right there by the glass, his long frame crowded into the heavy velvet drapes like he was trying to disappear back into the shadows of the stone wall. his gauntlets were already off, stuffed clumsily into the waistband of his trousers, and his bare hands were shoved deep into his pockets. he looked gray-pale in the faint moonlight, his dark curls stuck flat to his forehead.
he didn't look at the bed. he just stared at a random knot in the floorboards, his jaw still set so tight the bone was jumping under his skin.
"i'm-i’m fine," he snapped, his tone coming out way too sharp, way too loud for a dark bedroom. he cleared his throat quickly, his shoulders going rigid under his heavy steel breastplate. he didn't move an inch. "the western wall was drafty. i'm just catching my breath. don't make a big deal out of it."
she didn't answer the lie. she just rose from the edge of the bed, the silk of her shift making a soft, dry rustle against the rug as she walked across the quiet room.
mike’s eyes flicked up, tracking her approach. his mouth opened to tell her to stay back, to act like he was perfectly under control, but the words died in his throat when she stopped right in front of him. the top of her head barely reached his chin guard.
she didn't go for the straps of his helmet. instead, she reached down, her fingers catching his right wrist.
mike flinched, pulling back slightly, but she didn't let go. she pulled his arm out into the gray light of the window, her thumb forcefully prying open his rigid fingers one by one.
when his palm finally uncurled, it was raw. four deep, angry red crescents were stamped into the calloused skin at the base of his fingers, the exact shape of his own fingernails from where he’d been clenching his hand inside his gauntlet all afternoon. the skin was pinched and white around the edges, nearly bleeding.
she ran the pad of her thumb over the worst mark. mike let out a sharp, ragged breath, his jaw twitching as he tried to pull his hand away, embarrassed that he’d let himself get caught. when she didn't let go, his defensive wall didn't just crack, it turned bitter.
"he's a total mouthbreather," mike muttered, his voice cracking slightly before he forced it down into a harsh, quiet hiss. he looked away, staring aggressively at the dark tapestry on the wall. "the guy doesn't even know how to hold a cup properly. he looked like a complete idiot during the toast. everyone else was just too stupid to notice."
"mike, it was just a formal greeting."
"he was touching your sleeve," he shot back, his eyes snapping down to hers. his filter was entirely gone, replaced by that ugly, stubborn irritation that always took over when he felt small. "right in front of the captain. right in front of everyone. he does it on purpose because he knows i have to just stand there like a statue. he’s lazy. he has broad shoulders because his tailor pads his doublets, not because he actually knows how to swing a sword. if he ever had to stand a twelve hour watch in the freezing rain, he’d probably cry and run home to his mother."
he stopped, his chest heaving under the heavy iron plates of his breastplate. his face was burning red now, a sharp contrast to how pale he’d been a minute ago.
"i almost pulled the dagger," he whispered, the anger fading into something tight and humiliated. "i unlatched the safetypeg. if the captain hadn't called the shift change, i would've done it. it's stupid. i'm the guard. i'm supposed to look at the wall, and i'm losing my mind because some privileged idiot can't keep his hands to himself."
she didn't argue. she just slid her fingers through his, locking their palms together, her small hand covering the raw marks he'd made on himself.
the friction of her bare skin against his calluses finally broke his posture. mike let out a harsh, unsteady exhale and let his knees go soft, leaning his entire weight forward until his forehead thudded heavily against her neck. his arms came out of his pockets, wrapping around her waist with a clumsy and desperate sort of hunger.
"i'm the only one," he muttered against her collarbone, his voice dropping into a rough, stubborn demand as his fingers dug into her hip. "tell me i'm the only one. i don't care about the alliance or the king or whatever. just tell me."
"you're the only one, mike," she whispered, her fingers catching on the damp knots at the back of his neck.
he didn't give her a chance to say anything else. he pulled back just enough to find her mouth, his lips hot and dry and entirely uncoordinated as he pressed her back against the heavy drapes of the window. the metal of his armor clattered loudly against the glass, but he ignored it, his tongue sliding past her lips with a sudden possessiveness that tasted like salt and iron.
his hands moved up from her waist, fumbling with the thin straps of her shift, his rough palms snagging on the silk.
"take it off," he rasped against her mouth, his breathing heavy. "the metal. get it off me."
she worked quickly, her fingers moving over the leather straps at his sides with practiced familiarity. the heavy breastplate came apart with a dull, metallic click, and she helped him hoist the weight of it off his shoulders, letting it drop to the thick rug with a heavy, muffled thud. without the iron cage, he felt smaller, thinner, his linen undershirt damp against his ribs.
he didn't wait for her to undo the rest. he grabbed the hem of her shift and pulled it over her head in one impatient motion, throwing it somewhere into the dark.
when he looked at her naked body in the gray moonlight, his eyes blew out completely. he stopped, his whole frame going rigid as if he’d just been struck. the frantic rush to get out of the armor fizzled into a breathcatching silence. he looked terrified, like he was looking at something he wasn't allowed to see, something that belonged to a world he was supposed to protect from a distance.
"you're so..." his voice trailed off, completely failing him. he reached out, his fingers hovering just above the curve of her collarbone, trembling slightly before he finally let his skin make contact with hers.
he didn't push her back onto the bed. instead, he eased her down, his movements turning uncharacteristically determined, as if he were trying to memorize the exact texture of her skin to carry back to the courtyard tomorrow. he crawled onto the mattress over her, his weight settling between her thighs with a slow hesitation.
he pinned her wrists to the mattress above her head, but he didn't squeeze. he just rested his calloused palms flat against her inner wrists, feeling the contrast of her smooth skin against his rough hands, the hands that spent all day gripping rough ash wood and iron reins.
"look at me," he commanded, his voice dropping into a deep, scratchy whisper that was entirely devoid of his usual sharp bark. he hovered just inches above her face, his curls falling forward to shadow them both from the moonlight. "don't look at the door. don't think about tomorrow. just look at me."
he moved with an agonizingly deep pressure that made them both catch their breath at the same time. mike let out a tight, strangled sound in the back of his throat, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles in his neck strained as he forced himself to stay still, just feeling the heat of her wrapping around him.
he didn't rush the rhythm. he stayed slow, his hips driving into hers with a heavy friction that made the silver rings on the bedpost let out a single, lazy clink each time he moved. it was torturous for him, you could see it in the way his eyebrows furrowed, that permanent, worried line deep between his eyes as he stared down at her face.
"he doesn't get this," mike whispered fiercely, his eyes locked onto hers in the dark, his voice shaking with a strange, bitter triumph. he withdrew slowly, almost completely, before pushing back in just as deep, making her chest heave. "he doesn't get to touch you like this. he doesn't know anything about you. i'm the one here. me."
he unlocked his fingers from hers, sliding his hands down her body with a slow drag until he could catch the undersides of her thighs. he pulled her legs up around his waist, lifting her hips slightly to change the angle, pressing himself even deeper until there was absolutely zero air left between them.
the slowness of it seemed to undo him more than the speed ever could. his skin was slick with sweat now, his breathing turning into long, ragged gasps as he hovered on the edge, his chest heaving against hers.
he leaned down, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his teeth lightly grazing the soft skin right above her collarbone. he didn't break the skin, but he held her there with his mouth, sucking a hot, flushed mark into her flesh that he knew would stay red and obvious until morning. a secret brand hidden beneath her high royal collars.
with one final, long, slow push that felt like it took everything he had left, his whole body went entirely rigid. his fingers dug into the mattress on either side of her head, his knuckles turning white as he spent himself inside her, letting out a long shuddering breath against her throat. his heartbeat was hammering so hard against his ribs that she could feel it vibrating through her own chest.
he didn't move away after. he just collapsed sideways, his limbs instantly tangling with hers. his head dropped onto her chest, his breathing still loud and congested as the massive sleep debt from the barracks finally rolled over him. his thumb traced a small, slow line against her hip in the dark, his grip still tight, still stubborn, even as his eyes drifted shut.
