Which is that we're going to get a scene where Baelor, having read All The Books instead of sleeping or eating, has to summon his one non-fuckass nephew and the kid's new pet labradoodle to be like "listen, I cannot nerd you out of this, MAYBE Aerys could've but he ain't here so essentially: you're fucked and the best I can do is fight on your team. I'm sure this won't go badly at all."
Still trying to figure out where I can diverge from canon so that Baelor gets IDK a broken arm instead, leading to a timeline where Baelor does, sadly, have to be king for a while but as bonus he gets a really awkwardly devoted hedge knight who pops into town every year or so with his one good nephew in tow, being like "Hi Your Grace hi hi hi we just accidentally almost started a local war but then solved it? Also we totally meant to unmask that Blackfyre conspiracy, that was all super dupes intentional, okay love you bye" while Egg just sort of winces in the background
Not a Pitt AU, not a Grey's Anatomy AU, but a secret third shittier thing:
Gus: dunk is the new charge nurse for the er and in true gray's anatomy fashion they sleep together the night before Dunk's first day at his new job
Gus: and gets woken up tenderly at like 6 am because baelor has to go to work but he was very taken with this twunk and is like "sleep as long as you like, I'd like to see you again--" and dunk shoots straight up and is like WHAT TIME IS IT OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO BE LATE
Gus: and yelling at baelor that what did he think he was, a lifeguard at some country club who could just swan into work late? and dunk is like oh my god you totally did didn't you
Gus: baelor: I thought a tennis instructor but broadly yes
Gus: dunk: I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT I AM THE CHARGE NURSE AT THE ROYAL HOSPITAL'S EMERGENCY ROOMS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Gus: and baelor goes completely green and is like "uhhh ok gtg" and zooms out of there
Gus: cue three hours later when dunk meets Dr. Targaryen, his ER's semi-suicidal attending
spqr: Love this
Gus: baelor fully under the impression that he's found his future husband amongst the twinks at … idk make up a funny gay bar name
Gus: where his friends had dragged him for his 40th birthday party the night before
Gus: is like instantly smitten but yes also thinks dunk is a pool boy somewhere
Gus: maybe a flight attendant? though not with those thighs probably
Gus: dunk: I HAVE A MASTERS YOU ASSHOLE
spqr: Personal trainer
spqr: And he has. He’s right
Gus: yes but he also has like, vague ideas of Rescuing Dunk From A Life Of Penury
Gus: meanwhile Dunk makes $150K a year I'M NOT A POOR YOU DICKHEAD
Dunk/Baelor, severed injured Dunk swoons into Baelor's arms (after the trial or something else fun like an assassination attempt)
"My boy! My boy!" Maekar was shouting from somewhere to Baelor's right — the damn helmet had been dented and mangled in the front, leaving him all but blind as he lunged for his brother. He meant only to keep Maekar away from Ser Duncan—
When the whistling sound of a mace came rushing toward him, stopped by a great metal wall that appeared as though by sorcery at his shoulder. Ser Duncan (it could only be he, the sheer size of him rendering him unmistakable) staggered and fell near atop Baelor. Beyond him lay Aerion, half-buried in the mud.
"Go!" roared Ser Lyonel, crashing into Maekar with the force of a warhammer, his great antlered helmet broken but still somehow upon his head.
Aerion's helm had been twisted by some great force — his crumpled shield beside him told the story. Baelor stood above his nephew, bloodied and babbling fearfully but still alive, and wondered at himself for thinking it might have been better had Ser Duncan killed him.
But Aerion caught his eye and nodded frantically, scrabbling backward on his hands and knees like a fearful crab, and Baelor turned to see Ser Duncan had regained his feet once more, though he was swaying like an elm tree in a gale and his left arm was bent at an angle that made even Baelor queasy.
"The accuser yields!" Baelor called up to the stands, and the septon's horn blew loudly across the field over the sound of ringing steel that, in turn, fell silent.
"It's over," Ser Duncan mumbled, staring down at Aerion. "It's over?"
"You fought well, Ser—" Baelor began, but Ser Duncan blinked slowly at him then, even more slowly, crumpled to the ground.
Baelor tossed his sword away in time to catch the poor man, though it was somewhat akin to trying to catch a laden pack animal. They both went down into the mud, Ser Duncan's staring up at him with the slack-jawed expression of shock or impending death, and Baelor was suddenly struck by the sort of fear he had not felt since his mother had died, since Daemon and his dear little boys — the fear of losing someone precious, whose death would tear a hole that the world would never be able to mend.
"Ser Duncan," he said firmly, "Stay with me. You must stay here, do you understand me?"
"Stay with you," murmured Ser Duncan, lifting his hand to place it, heavy and cold upon Baelor's shoulder. "I'll stay. I'm your man."
"My man," Baelor agreed. "Which means you are not dismissed until I tell you."
"Your man," said Ser Duncan, his eyes drifting closed as the crowds began to cheer.
But there is something deeply hilarious to me about the idea of Baelor and Dunk as some sort of journo nightmare team from hell, where the AU is that instead of a tourney there's a newspaper scandal that Egg accidentally-on-purpose uncovers at his family's paper. Shenaniganery ensues.
(title from David Gray's "Caroline")
-A Steel-Eyed Dinosaur-
Baelor rubbed at his head. It throbbed, as it often did whenever there was low barometric pressure. Or whenever there was a relative in his office, trying to destroy his sanity. "You're asking me for an exclusive interview as the Tribune's Editor-in-Chief," he repeated.
Across from him sat Egg, his trainers not so much as grazing the floor as he kicked them back and forth. "Yes, please."
"For your school paper."
"The Blackwater Primary School Gazette," Egg confirmed.
Next to him, Mr. Arlansen winced. Not only were his trainers planted firmly on the floor, the man's legs seemed long enough to touch the floor below. Despite that, he was doing his level best to shrink himself to something resembling a normal size.
"And during the course of this interview," Baelor continued, keeping an eye on him, "you wish to discuss discrepancies you have uncovered regarding the Tribune's finances, and my nephew's possible role in said discrepancies."
"Yes," said Egg. Mr. Arlansen flinched again.
"Said nephew also being your brother, and said paper being King's Landing's paper of record, which has been in our family for over two hundred years."
Mr. Arlansen shifted again. "Mr. Targaryen," he started, then frowned. "Actually, I don't have anything to add, really. But—"
"Don't worry, we'll come to you in a moment," Baelor said, lifting a hand to forestall him before turning his attention back to Egg. "Have you spoken to your father about this?"
"Father said I should find some more constructive ways of occupying my time than memorizing every Pokemon that was ever thought up," Egg replied, his eyes narrowing in remembered outrage. Maekar's sons were as different from each other as it was possible to be, but they were all of them masters at holding a grudge.
Just then, the man in question came barging through the door. "You—" he said, frowning at Baelor with the summons note still gripped in his hand.
"Hello, Father," Egg said, standing up and making a little bow. He'd done the same to Baelor a scant few minutes ago, and Baelor was glad to see that it irritated his father as much as it had irritated him.
Sure enough, Maekar scowled at his youngest son. "You," he muttered, and then caught sight of Mr. Arlansen. "You!"
"Sir," Mr. Arlansen said, shooting to his feet so quickly Baelor was surprised he didn't hit the ceiling. "I can explain—"
"I'm having you fired, you interfering little prick—" Maekar said, jabbing his finger at him.
"Dad, he's doing his job—"
"Not if I have anything to say about it—"
"Maekar," Baelor said, quietly enough that his brother would shut up for a moment. "Why don't you take Egg to your office and call Dyanna. I'm sure she's worried, as I imagine Egg ought to have been home by now."
"It's my week with the kids, and she's the one who wanted them in state school in the first place," Maekar snapped, but he was already pulling out his mobile as he hauled Egg, still protesting, out of the room.
Mr. Arlansen continued standing behind his chair, as though to shield himself from Maekar's possible return. After the door remained shut, he turned to Baelor with an awkward smile. "Well, Mr. Targaryen, it's been a pleasure, loving the new columns by Miss Tanselle by the way, always been a fan of her work, I'll be going—"
"Sit down, Mr. Arlansen."
"Ah, fuck," he said sadly, but took a seat.
Baelor went and got a drink for himself. When he had told Egg to pour one for Mr. Arlansen, he had not thought he would need the fortification. Now he resisted the impulse to down the whole bottle. "So, you teach journalism?"
"I teach drama and art," he replied, picking at his fingers — which did indeed have flecks of paint embedded in the quicks of the nails. "The Gazette thing—"
"The Blackwater Primary School Gazette." Baelor picked up the edition, such as it was, that Egg had provided him. "Established six months ago, it seems."
"Egg's got a lot of good ideas," Mr. Arlansen began, then sighed. "Look, this is my fault.
Baelor sat back down at his desk. "I'm fully willing to believe that."
"He's a good lad, smartest in his class. Smarter than most of the teachers, but... he always want to be doing something constructive, you know the sort?" He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, earnestly shaping his thoughts as he spoke. "I just thought, when he suggested starting a school paper... I dunno, I thought maybe it'd be a chance for him, get to work with his dad a bit. He's always going on about his dad and his uncle, running the King's Landing Tribune together."
"So you suggested he investigate our finances?" Baelor asked, though he couldn't tell if it was aggravation or some strange, turned-round gratitude. Not just for uncovering a problem he would most certainly have had to have dealt with eventually, at even greater cost and scandal, though that was more than enough. But it seemed that this strange large man had had no other motive for doing so than to help out his student, out of a hope it would make him happy. Still. "Did you think he would find something?"
"No, no, not at all," Mr. Arlansen said reassuringly, before his mouth twitched in a smile he did not try overmuch to hide. "I actually told him he should write a piece about how you've not let your workforce unionize." He raised a bashful fist. "Power to the people."
Title: The Songs and the Stories, the Lies and the Glories
Chapters: 8
Fandom: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Rating: M
Wordcount: 105K
Pairing: Ser Duncan the Tall/Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen
-
"When you said you were going to die," Duncan said, annoyance in every word even as a cool cloth was pressed against his face, "I didn't think you meant today."
FINALLY making real progress on the next chapter of the dunkbaelor fic and all it took was scrapping everything I'd already written and changing the POV character
He woke up with his head on Baelor's chest, an arm loose about his shoulders and the press of a chin against the crown of his head. Despite the chill of the early spring it was warm in this bed, under these blankets and next to this man. Duncan curled in more closely, tucking himself in a line down Baelor's side. The apartments belonging to the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms had windows enough to set all the glaziers of Braavos to work for a year, and so without turning his head Duncan could see the grey-green promise of dawn, even while the sun still slumbered beyond the Narrow Sea.
The king slumbered too, his whistling snore the same as Egg's. Ser Arlan had taken pains (Duncan's pains) to stop him from snoring when he was a lad newly made a squire. It was all to the good — such noise could bring all sorts of unwanted attention in the dark along the road — but he'd never had the heart to beat it out of Egg, who now slept behind thick stone walls and was like to do so for the rest of his life. Listening to Baelor underneath his cheek, Duncan smiled to think of all the soft beds he'd lain in, his snores confined to the safety of his castles and keeps.
Duncan had slept beside Baelor those precious nights on the Redgrass, but the cold and the leathers and wools — and Egg — had given him only the faintest idea of what it might be like, what this might be like, waking up beside him in the quiet of a still-dark morning, the world beyond the two of them just a bit out of reach for another while yet. He'd opened his eyes to the back of Baelor's head, the grey curls hiding the great gash that Dunk's foolishness had given him so many years ago. He'd tipped his head forward just another bare few inches to press his forehead to that spot, wondering if it was more sensitive or less, if Baelor might awaken at the touch, not knowing what answer he'd truly wanted.
He still had no notion lying here now, but his hand slid carefully down the silk tunic — of course it was silk, some fine thing that had been crafted for three months in a silk weaver's studio before being cut and sewn to fit Baelor's shoulders and chest and hips and thighs. Duncan's calloused hands dragged at the fabric and beneath his ear Baelor shifted. Duncan froze, but the whistling went on, and at last he let out a breath and continued his survey.
Baelor's chest was warm beneath his hand, Duncan's thumb stuttering pap-pap-pap along his ribcage. "He never eats enough," Alys had told him once. "Likely thinks that's one more thing someone else will for him, so he can work himself to death without distraction."
Before Ashford, Duncan had never thought kings worked at all, much less hard enough to neglect their suppers. He'd had vague notions that to be a king was to be a fine fat old man who waved from a chair and granted boons and perhaps made a speech to the people from some sort of balcony on feastdays. Then he'd met Prince Baelor Targaryen, and learned all that was done every day to keep the nine kingdoms of Westeros in good order and away from each other's throats. Perhaps the wonder was that he wasn't already wasted away; he was nearly seven years into his reign, and a Targaryen rarely lived longer than ten, once he sat upon the Iron Throne.
Duncan's hand drifted onward, down Baelor's side to his hip. Here Duncan's fingers came upon warm skin instead of smooth fabric, for the long tunic parted at each side in a long, tantalizing slit. Duncan was careful not to dig into the tempting meat of Baelor's thigh, but he couldn't deny the want of it.
The want of it — here in Baelor's arms, the most exasperating man he'd ever had the bad luck to meet and who set him alight as no one ever had or could. Duncan was dizzy just from the scrape of his palm against the hairs on Baelor's leg, from the cool calm smell of him like mint and honey. Duncan turned his face into Baelor's chest to take a breath, feel it clear down to the bottom of his lungs.
Beneath him, Baelor stirred, the snores halting as his arm tightened round Duncan's shoulders. "You're here," he rasped into the tangle of Duncan's hair.
"Did you expect me to be gone?" Duncan asked, lifting his head to look down at his king. He kept his hand upon Baelor's thigh, claiming what was not truly his in these last moments before Baelor said yes, he'd hoped Duncan would have slipped out and away. It was the sensible thing to do, to say, and Duncan braced himself to hear it and obey.
Baelor's face was still soft from sleep, his hair in defiant curls about his face. But his smile warmed the whole of the room. "I expected you to be another dream," he said frankly.
"Another dream?" Duncan asked, not bothering to hold back his grin, though whether it was amusement or relief or both he could never say. "How many of them have you had?"
Baelor's brows pulled down in a mockery of annoyance. "I shan't answer that."
"Oh, you shan't. An answer in itself, Your Grace."
Dunk would 100% be Weird about Baelor had he lived is the thing. He looked like he saw the face of God when Baelor rode in and declared himself as the 7th champion
Seriously I love that Peter Claffey went with "shell-shocked by devotion" as his acting choice while Baelor rides up, it's truly one of those Peak Cinema moments that can be made or broken by everyone else's reaction and he absolutely nailed it.
But yeah those two would be so DEEPLY AND UNCOMFORTABLY weird about each other. GRRM why did you deny us???
