Can You Ever Love Me?
Chapter 4—Call Me Chandler
Modern!Stalker!Valarr x AFAB!reader
TW: 18+ MDNI! Shower sex, stalker mind view, possessive behaviour, manipulation, slightly creepy behaviour.
Previous Parts: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5
Morning was normally you waking up alone, the room in that Goldilocks zone of not too warm and not too cool, blankets tangled around you from the restless night of dreams and fears resurfacing and dancing across your mind. Morning was never…this.
It was never waking up beside someone else, waking up in someone’s arms with their head nuzzled into your neck, pressing sloppy kisses to your skin, hickeys forming because they nip at your skin. It was never remaining beside someone, held tight, feeling safe and loved and warm. It was never Valarr Targaryen and his sleep-glazed wolf’s eyes and mussed dark hair with a single silver streak, strands tangled together through the dark.
It was never anyone’s voice murmuring good morning, love. It was never anyone doing anything remotely loving, just you. Alone.
You hadn’t realized how empty mornings really were for you until now, until this moment, until this morning waking in the warm circle of someone else’s arms.
“Morning, love,” whispers Valarr again as you shift in his arms, wriggling to face him, your chest now pressed against his, his one hand coming up to twine in your hair, curling the strands around his fingers while he smiles at you, a lazy sleep-hazed smile.
“Morning. Can you get off of me?” you ask him and his face falls just slightly, his arms tightening around you almost imperceptibly at your words. “I kind of need to get ready for class. It’s Monday,” you add, noting the way he tugs you closer to his body, unrelenting in his grip.
“Oh,” he whispers and then his grip loosens and you smile at him, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips before rolling out of bed, feet landing on the hardwood floor. You stand, shuffling out of the bedroom, opening the door and stepping out into the library you and Dunk built outside of your attic room to house the entrance—a way to make it feel more like a normal house floor.
You pull the hatch of the attic, the staircase descending and the sounds of morning drifting up to you. “TANSY!” you call out, the yell accompanied by a crash and bang, a muffled curse and then your best friend’s head poking out of her bedroom door, looking up at you, a mascara wand held aloft like a knife.
“What?!” she snaps, irritation layering her tone, hiding the fear that lingered there. “What do you need?” she asks, her voice softer this time as her eyes meet yours.
“Are you done in the bathroom? I wanna have a shower.” She rolls her eyes at you and gestures with her mascara wand at you, the gesture violent and dramatic—just like her.
“Duh,” she answers and then slams her bedroom door shut again while you stand and step back into your room, a shock still running through your body when you see Valarr laying in your bed, covers only half-up, part of his bare chest exposed, arms behind his head as he watches you cross the room to your closet.
“Mornings are loud here,” he says, voice raspy with sleep yet at the same time conversational.
“Mornings should be loud, only you and your funeral house are quiet,” you tell him as you pull open the white particle board closet door, snagging your RKU hoodie and a pair of cargo pants, closing the door and turning to your dresser. “Can you stop watching me?”
“Why would I do that?” he asks you, rising from the bed, walking towards you, steps slow and languid, full of a grace that should not exist so early in the morning. “You’re my favourite thing in the world to look at.”
“I am not a thing,” you counter, tone angry and irritated as you slip past him, opening a dresser drawer choosing a bra and underwear, adding them to the stack of clothes. “And it’s weird to pick my clothes with you watching me. It’s so…strange.” His hands come to rest on your arms, rubbing up and down in a comforting movement.
“Why? You stayed the night with me before,” he says, stepping closer to you, his body almost flush with yours, your clothes a barrier between you two.
“That was at your place and this is mine. This is the place I’ve lived for like three years, it’s strange,” you say and his eyes darken just slightly, the look in his eyes sending that same feeling of wrongness through you, the same way his little murmurs in the night do. The same way everything with him does, that feeling that something is amiss.
The feeling you ignore, push past. Shove aside.
“So, your place is more important than mine?” he asks you and you understand—or think you do—the look in his eyes now. He’s angry that you’ve undermined the importance of his home to him, that you’ve made your place seem more, just more.
“No, but yes,” you tell him and the dark expression lifts, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
“What?”
“Your house is more important to you and my house is more important to me. I mean…Dunk and I fucking builtthis room and I’ve been the only person to sleep in here. I’ve literally never had anyone sleep over before so…you know. This is…this is my place so it’s a little strange to wake up to someone in my place.” He smiles then at you, a proud smile, a greedy smile, a desirous smile. The kind of smile that threatens to make you late for your morning class—maybe miss it entirely.
“I’m the only one who’s stayed here before?” he asks you, voice low and slightly husky, body pressing closer, pressing your clothes flat against you.
“You’re getting weird,” you sing-song, stepping back, his arms falling to the sides, letting go of you as you sidestep around him, heading towards the door, to the hatch and the bathroom you share with Tanselle on the floor just below you.
“Weird? How am I being weird?” he calls after you, his footsteps pounding behind you as he jogs to catch up, stepping up beside you and following you down the stairs to the bathroom. “How am I being weird, love?” You stop just outside the bathroom door and turn to him, one eyebrow raised, your hand resting on the knob.
“Why are you following me?” you ask him and you watch his smile grow and shift, mismatched eyes gleaming with a predator’s light.
“Do you really think I’m letting you shower alone?” he asks and you roll your eyes at him, twisting the knob and stepping in, letting him follow you in and close the door behind him, his hands finding your body as soon as the lock clicks into place, your clothes set on the counter.
“You’re impossibly horny,” you say as he pulls you to him by your oversize shirt, pressing his lips to yours, teeth nipping at your bottom lip, tongue flicking out against yours, claiming it, his lips swallowing the gasp that leaves your lips as he lets his hands drift to your ass, palming it through your sleep shorts.
“Only for you,” he whispers, pulling back and smacking your ass just slightly causing you to let out a scandalized gasp, your cheeks flushing while he lets out a small laugh, his hands drifting over your body, over your curves before settling on the hem of your shirt, pulling it up and over your head, tossing it to the side of the room as he drops to his knees before you, his mouth settling on your left breast, his tongue flicking against your nipple causing you to arch and gasp in response, the heat in your body growing and coiling and drifting lower and lower.
“I need. To. Get ready for. The. Day,” you breathe out, voice husky as he looks up at you, his eyes pupil-blown, mouth hovering just over your skin.
“This isn’t getting ready?” he asks you, his voice low, playing with you, toying and so you reach your hand down, hooking it in his collar, pulling him up to you just to crash your lips against his. You’re in control this time, pushing him back to the bathroom wall as you bite his bottom lip in return, a bite for the one he gave you, your hands rising, one resting on the side of his neck and the other twining in his hair before you pull back abruptly, a line of saliva still connecting the two of you as you reach a hand up, wiping at your lip as you step to the shower.
“No,” you answer, slipping out of the rest of your clothes until you’re standing completely naked in the shower, completely exposed for his gaze which heats as it traces the curves of your body. “But you can help me get ready.”
And he needs no more encouragement than that, stripping and stepping in with you, his cock already hard as he closes the shower door, you flipping the dial on, water streaming down around you, the temperature hot, steam rising around you while he pushes you against the walls, the porcelain tiles digging into your back, water needling your skin while his mouth finds your neck, his hands finding the spot of warmth between your legs, the touch both a surprise and not, causing you to buck your hips against his hand while he toys with your clit at the same time that one finger slides inside, causing you to gasp, your head falling onto his shoulder, his mouth trailing a line of hickeys down the column of your throat.
“You’re. Toying with. Me,” you grit out, one hand flying to your mouth, stifling the noises that threaten to escape when he slides a second finger inside you, the extremities pumping in and out, the feeling good but not good enough.
“Maybe,” he whispers, lifting his head from your neck, his gaze meeting yours. “Just say the words and I’ll stop.”
“What? Ah, words?” you ask, voice hitching as his fingers hit that spot inside of you, the one that has you seeing stars, conscious thought difficult.
“The ones you said the first time,” he answers and you find it extremely unfair that he can talk in full sentences, that he’s capable of thinking coherently right now as the water falls around you, steam thickening the air, bodies slick, everything ready.
“Fuck me,” you breathe and he doesn’t hesitate, removing his hand and forcing himself inside of you, the stretch exquisite as he pushes in at once, sheathing inside of you, moving in and out with a rhythm torturous and ecstatic at the same time, his hands gripping your waist, your hips, fingers curling in hard enough to leave marks behind, his mouth moving against yours, the sounds the two of you make, swallowed between the two of you.
“God. You’re so—so perfect. Love,” he groans, his thrusts sloppier as the two of you are close, so close and he looks at you with desire-filled eyes, mismatched gaze hazy and dark but filled with a question.
“I’m on. The. Pill. We’re fine,” you grit out and he nods, thrusting one last time and hitting that spot inside of you hard enough that you come around him while he comes inside of you, the feeling that of hotness inside of you while he groans, his head falling against your shoulder while he pulls out, hands still gripping you tightly.
“What now?” he asks you and you shake your head at him, chest still heaving with the exertion of the activity just finished.
“Now we get ready,” you tell him, the water still falling around you and all he does is smile, turning you around, your back to his front while he asks you which shampoo is yours, finding it amid Tanselle’s many products, his hands coming up, fingers massaging it into your scalp and the domesticity of the act, the gentleness makes you feel more than sex ever could. Because this is the effort.
Fuck, you think as he murmurs sweet nothings like “my love”, “my precious” to you, it’s going way too fast and you don’t really care. You’re so screwed.
***
“The prodigal friend returns from her interlude in the shower!” Tanselle cries when you step out into the kitchen, your hand in Valarr’s, the two of you dressed, ready for the day. You roll your eyes at Tansy, heart-warming at the familiar sight of morning in Central Perk—as you four have dubbed your house.
Dunk’s at the stove, flipping pancakes while Raymun hovers over the coffee machine, Tansy setting the table, an additional place already set up for Valarr. Dunk turns from the stove to glance at you and your hand that is interlaced with Valarr’s, his grip tightening on you.
“Nice to see in daylight, Mr. Targaryen,” Dunk says, attention drifting back to the task at hand, to the breakfast he’s responsible for like always—since the first year living together when you and Tansy found that he was skilled in the kitchen, that all his years of watching Food Network had paid off.
“Call me Chandler,” Valarr says, his tone smooth and neat, even and calm, voice conversational, light but with an undertone of steel. You know he just wants to be seen for himself, not his name. You see him and you want for your friends to too. Because they’re your family. The one you chose.
“That’s not what you want her to call you,” Tansy says, her tone high-pitched, innocent while her eyes glimmer with mischief and delight as she watches your face darken with a blush that’s impossible to hide. “I mean, you were quitevocal last night. And this morning.”
“You shut your mouth, child!” you snap, letting go of Valarr’s hand and stepping into the fray of the kitchen, grabbing the plate of pancakes from the counter by the stove as Dunk moves the pan off the burner. You skirt around Raymun as he pulls the carafe of coffee from the machine, setting the plate on the chipped round wooden table.
“Make me!” Tanselle cries, her face twisted in an expression of mock rage and you respond in kind by sticking your tongue out at her while you dart back to the fridge, snagging the maple syrup, Cool Whip and jam, stacking them together and stepping back to the table, falling into your seat dramatically, Valarr sitting down cautiously beside you. A caution that has you reaching your hand out to him, taking his and squeezing it for reassurance. He glances at you then, his eyes questioning but lips curving in a smile at your touch.
“Don’t forget,” Dunk says as he sits down finally, the pan in a sink full of hot water, his apron hung-up because yes he is the type to wear a frilly apron while he cooks—simply because it works best, “it’s Monday movie night tonight.”
“Whose turn to pick is it?” Raymun asks as he snags the plate of pancakes, taking three before passing it to Tanselle.
“Dunk’s,” Tansy answers, placing two on her plate and passing it over to Valarr before snagging the Cool Whip from the centre before Raymun has a chance to.
“You know what that means,” you say, tone rising and lilting as your gaze settles on Dunk, on your closest friend, your brother for all intents and purposes—blood runs thicker than water but both feel the same when your eyes are closed.
“It means…” Raymun announces, his tone growing loud and performative. Dramatic. Valarr passes you the plate and you set two on your plate, handing it over to Dunk who rolls his eyes when Tansy joins in crying, “drumroll please!”
“We see,” you respond, nodding once with Raymun and Tansy, the three of you all drawing in a breath and then crying, “A Knight’s Tale!” Valarr looks at you, his eyes narrowed and lips pursed, pressing back a smile as he watches you, sees you in your element—your home.
“See, Chandler,” Raymun starts, a smile on his face as he looks between you and Valarr, the smile that of an annoying brother, noting something he’ll tease you about later while Tansy passes the whipped cream to you and Dunk hands you the jam without you even having to ask. “Every Monday, one of us picks a movie and we all watch it. We work it into our schedules and Dunk here,” Raymun slaps him on the back, his grin growing wider as Dunk coughs, the cough sounding more like a muffled curse than anything, “only ever chooses between like two movies.”
“A Knight’s Tale,” Tansy says, “or Brokeback Mountain. We think he just has a crush on the late Heath Ledger and, I mean, we’re not complaining.”
“What time did we decide on this week?” you ask, squeezing Valarr’s hand one last time before letting go and grabbing your fork.
“10:00,” Dunk answers, his voice soft, gaze darting between you and Val, noting the way your posture drifts towards his and the way his eyes focus on you and you alone, the gaze soft and warm and a million other things. “You’re happy,” he says to you and you look up from your plate, meeting his gaze, noticing the soft smile and a bloom of warmth fills your chest.
It was his reaction you were worried about. Because he knows you, all of you. He knows your past and your fears and if anything was wrong, you believed he would see it.
“He makes you happy,” he continues and you nod, watching as his posture relaxes and he nods at Val. “Welcome to Central Perk.”
***
Valarr didn’t like the morning, the closeness and ease of your life with your friends—the life he wasn’t a part of. He knows you like no one else did. He knows you better than those idiots ever would. He’s more important to them. He didn’t like how you were around them, how you talked more to them than him.
He thought you understood. He thought you knew. Knew that it was the two of you and the two of you alone against the world. Not them, never them. He thought you understood, but apparently being near them meant you needed a reminder.
It was why he was the one who offered to grab your bag and his before the two of you went off to the Red Keep campus, letting you remain with your friends, his smile that of convincing you he was giving time with them without him, but in reality he had a call to make, an order to place. A cameraman to place just outside your house with a telephoto lens for the up-close shot of the two of you, his hand on you, the image of a relationship.
He needed the world to know that you were his and for you to remember that it was you and him against the world. He needed you to have that reminder, that knowledge.
He needed you to know what you had understood.
What your friends made you forget.
“Got them,” he calls out as he descends the stairs, landing in the hallway between the kitchen and living room. He sees you then, waiting by the door, your coat done up and a beanie settled on your head, contrasting yet matching with your hair, the look so effortless that he feels weak for just a moment as he remembers.
Remembers why he fell for you in the first place three years ago.
It was three weeks into the first semester. He was walking alone down the cobbled paths, his steps hurried, bag over his shoulder and a paper cup of coffee searing his hand, formulas running through his head, things he would have to tell his father, ideas. He was so in his head that he hadn’t noticed you, not until he literally bumped into you. You hadn’t remembered in the coffee shop, which had hurt, but wasn’t unexpected. He remembered that your eyes were shadowed, darkened, the apologetic smile you gave him broken and sad, but there was something in your eyes, those beautiful eyes that drew him in.
“I’m so sorry,” he’d said to you and that was when you smiled at him, eyes on him but hazy, focus elsewhere looking through him. You were the first person to look through him, not at him or to him. You looked at him like he was nothing and that made you everything.
“Don’t be. Happens all the time. You get in your head and can’t see outside of it. No one got hurt, don’t stress,”you’d said and nodded at him, shoving your hands in your pockets, ducking your head and walking off. To you, that had been a single moment, one of many, unremarkable.
But to Valarr? It was the first time in his life that he had someone who saw a person not a name or a fortune or a future. And he wanted to know why. That’s how it started: why didn’t you know him? Why did you look through him? And then it became that he wanted you by his side because you would always see him not a fortune or a name or a future or potential. But him, the person. Him, entire.
And he promised to do the same for you.
And he has. Always will.
“Thank god!” you reply, stepping forwards, taking the bag from his outstretched hand and slinging it over your shoulder. “I was about to go see if you were alright. You took forever.”
“Yeah, I called us a car,” he tells you, amused by the way your face knits together in horror while you toss him his jacket, your other hand straying to the door.
“You know I have a car, right?” you ask him and he knows, of course he knows, but that’s not the point. The point is that the car is the first domino to be knocked down in establishing you and him not you and your friends. He needs to have that proof of you and him everywhere and that won’t happen if the two of you take your car to the campus.
“I do now,” he says, voice carefully neutral, expression playing at the emotion of confusion and embarrassment, ones that will make it seem like he didn’t know. Couldn’t possibly know because this is new.
For you.
That was why when he left to grab your things, your friends had cornered you, Raymun complaining that you were rubbing his single nose in it—despite his fwb with Red—Tansy, worried and Dunk, quiet.
“It’s way too fast,” Tansy had said, shaking her head, arms crossed as she leaned back in her chair. “I mean, yeah he’s hot but this is what? Two dates? And he’s staying here while you paint his room. It’s weird.”
You’d had no answer for her, nothing to tell her to wipe those worries from her mind because you had the same. You did worry it was too fast, that you were being too much and that he was just going along with it. You did worry about him staying over, of the way he sometimes was, those moments when you knew something was wrong but also not because your feelings can’t be trusted—not after Brendan.
“You like him,” Dunk had said, eyes solemn as he nodded at what he saw on your face, in your interactions. “It’s like that poem you love. Time isn’t a measure of love—you might never feel it in a relationship of years but feel it in an instant with someone new. As long as you’re happy, Monica-slash-Rachel.” That’s how you knew he meant it, him calling you by the nickname, by the idea the two of you had constructed. Him using that instead of your name meant more because it was the creation the two of you had made to create a community—and he was welcoming Valarr into it.
“The car you called is definitely nicer than mine,” you say now, shaking your head and pulling open the door, “so it’s cool. Come on, Val.” And you reach for him, tugging him after you out the door, away from your friends, your family. The life you’ve welcomed him in.
“Fancier,” he corrects. “The car I’ve called is fancier, but I have feeling yours is nicer. It probably has stickers and a style of its own.” You glance over your shoulder at him with a smile, one that only grows when you look at him, the way his grey coat looks pristine and perfectly straight lines, everything perfect—except his eyes. God, you love his eyes, those perfectly imperfect, mismatched eyes.
“You know, for only two dates, you know me pretty well,” you tell him and he smiles a small smile, his lips curving up just slightly as he closes the distance between you two, one arm snaking around your waist, the other brushing a strand of hair behind your ear, gaze focused solely on you, capturing your gaze with his, unrelenting as the sleek black car rolled to a stop in front of your house.
You never noticed the camera flash.
Not that it would have mattered if you did.
***
I don’t like her friends; the life she’s built with them. Not because of her, no never her. She’s perfect. I don’t like them, that there’s no room for me. I need her to notice; I need to break them apart.
I need her to choose me over them, but those bonds have been cemented. I’m new as she reminded me this morning, reminded me after they told her. I need to break them apart.
I need her to know the truth—that I am the only one for her. The only one who knows her, understands her.
This article should be a start.
It will be.
I always get my way after all.
—V.T.
“Did you see this?” he hears you call, hears your footsteps in the hallway, your head poking around the doorway of his office as he tucks the black notebook back in its home, its proper place.
“See what, love?” he asks, his mind already spinning, the headline emblazoned on his mind, the image of the two of you lovestruck and happy together something he wants to see forever, the headline TARGARYEN HEIR SEEN WITH MYSTERY GIRL: AFTER THREE YEARS OF SINGLEHOOD, VALARR TARGARYEN APPEARS TO BE IN A RELATIONSHIP, SO…WHO IS SHE? Flashing before his eyes as you step into the room, expression shocked and slightly stricken.
But that can’t be. This is good. This is the first sign of the two of you, of your family, of the future you’re building together.
“The world hates me,” you whisper and then he knows what you’re talking about, the comments on the news article, the haters and the freaks. The people obsessed with him.
“The world doesn’t matter,” he says, tone fierce as he crosses the room to you, his arms wrapping around you, pulling you tight to him, your head resting on his chest, arms around him. “All that matters is us. And don’t we have a movie to go watch, love?”
He can play the game.
He will play the game and win—because you’re the prize.
You’re everything.
Taglist: @qardasngan, @arginadoll, @julczimozart, @clocksonthewall79, @a-beaverhausen, @xxvelvetxxxx, @ninaaaaa2007, @inessv27 Comment if you want to be added or removed from the taglist!