“Well, well. It’s a dead man walking!” You quip as Robby heads toward the hub.
He snorts and shakes his head at you, “Isn’t a little too early for your shit talk, Smalls?”
“Never too early, Gigantor,” you reply back with a smirk.
He hums and leans down, pressing a kiss to your lips, “Morning.”
“Morning. If you can’t tell, I’m a little delirious.”
Robby chuckles, “You don’t say?”
“I can’t wait to be back on day shift and sleep like a regular person!”
“Hey! I thought you liked being a Nightcrawler,” Jack says as he circles around the hub.
You shrug, “You guys are built different.”
Both Robby and Jack both chuckle. Robby then asks Jack, “You treatin’ my girl okay, Abbot?”
“She’s a trooper…when she’s not being an annoying little shit.”
“…I’m not afraid to steal your prosthetic and beat you with it, Abbot.”
Jack chuckles, “So much fire in such a tiny body.”
You go to launch at Jack and Robby holds you back, “Alright, honey. Ease up. We’re gonna do hand offs and then you can go home. There’s food waiting for you when you get there.”
“Yay!” You hug your partner and then go finish up checking on your patients.
Both Robby and Jack’s eyes follow you. They shake their heads in disbelief.
“She’s like a gremlin.”
“Careful, if you get water on her, she might multiply,” Jack murmurs, clapping a hand on Robby’s shoulder and guiding him to the South wing.
synopsisyou and Robby had been going steady for a few months now but when a betting board is made on who your mysterious male friend could be, Robby is not happy with the outcome.
warningslanguage, smutish- allusions to smut, jealous Robby, mention of shooting- GSW
author noterobby x reader but platonic frank x reader, can you tell santos is my favourite cause i include her in basically everything i write
Santos had had a day.
More traumas than she could deal with and a young girl who came in with bruises that suspiciously looked like abuse. She’d had just about enough when she realised she’d have to give another two hours to the place to get her charting done.
When she came home she knew Whitaker was at Amy’s and you should have been home. She watched you practically bolt out the place. Santos hoped it’d be a night of crappy food and shitty movies.
So when she ditched her keys at the kitchen counter and listened out the last thing she expected to hear was moaning.
“What the?” she called out for you.
Maybe you were having a self-care night. Charged up a vibrator and such.
Santos chuckled to herself as she made to tiptoe past your room.
There was the unmistakable sound of another.
“Oh fuck.”
Trinity paused.
You and her were close, she could admit that. You were maybe her only friend. So she knew you had been going through a dry patch. Because you were making it everyone's problem.
She listened in.
There was deep groaning from a man and your moans, the soft thudding of a bed against the wall. Trinity thanked the heavens again that the head of your bed was against Denis's wall and not hers.
“Deeper, harder,” she heard you moan.
“Oh, fuck me,” the guy groaned deep. She didn't recognise the voice. Did she?
Curious she tried to listen to the mans voice, wondering what she could tell. He must have been busy as little else was said other than groanings.
Where had you met this guy? Had this been happening longer than she knew? Is this why you hurried out?
Santos thought you weren't one of one night stands. Were you proving her wrong?
She snook into her room and knew she had to tell someone, at least Whitaker.
Robby collapsed next to you on your bed, catching his breath as you pulled the sheets up to cover your slightly sweaty bodies. The bed creaked under his weight as he moved around, getting himself comfortable.
Your bed was a small double, not really built for anyone more than one. Let alone Robby.
“You want some water or something?” you asked.
Robby chuckled, the bed creaking again as he turned on his side to face you. “Aren't I supposed to be asking you that?”
You lifted your shoulders, tucking your hands under your head to admire him. “Well you're the senior citizen with the... bad back?”
His brows lifted. “Oh that's how you want to play it.”
He grabbed your hip and pulled you close.
You were still trying to recover from the multiple orgasms Robby had ripped through your body as soon as you'd stepped through your apartment door. But that didn't stop his hands from crowding around your body, pulling you into him as all his hardness turned soft.
His lips found yours as easy as one found home, kissing you the way he knew you liked to be kissed. Head tilted to reach deeper, nose moving against your cheek.
There was a sudden shriek in your apartment.
You pushed Robby off, sitting up quick in bed.
“What?” he asked, far less alarmed then you as his arm fell around your waist.
“Trinity.”
Robby hummed. “Thought you said she was at Garcia's tonight?”
“I thought she was,” you uttered as if she was in the room.
The dating with Robby had started maybe three months ago when you'd had a disastrous date at the same bar Robby frequented with his buddy Duke. He'd seen the distress you were in with your date when he wouldn't stop talking about why sports people should actually get paid more than health care workers.
From there you had drinks with Robby.
From there he asked to see you again outside of work.
From there you ended up in his bed and he in yours on the occasions you had the place to yourself, which with two room mates didn't happen often.
You'd thought tonight was one of them.
“You should go,” you said, throwing the cover back to find your clothes in the dark.
“What?” Robby laughed, without moving. Instead he got himself comfortable, throwing an arm around the back of his head and tugging the covers down to his waist.
“Yes, do you want Trinity to know?”
“She doesn't sleep in your room though does she?”
Still, you tried to find some clothes.
The word around the PTMC was that Robby was a seven week itch kind of guy, the sort to never tie himself down. So though you'd been on dates with him and though he'd brought you flowers before and held your hands in bars and took you to a fancy dinner, he still fucked you like a guy that could move on the next day.
And you didn't want to scare him away with talk of serious dating. A bit of Robby was better than none of him.
You just didn't want your friends to judge you for that.
“Hey-hey-” Robby moved over on the bed, arm darting out to wrap around your waist and tug you back in.
You couldn't even protest before he was pulling you into him, hooking one of his large legs over yours and trapping you in. Your quilt was pulled up and his head rested next to yours.
At least when you and Robby were done with the sex you never kicked each other out of bed. But you did go into work separately.
“But-”
“-I'll be out of here first thing in the morning.”
With his arms around you and his calming breath you didn't think you could push him off you if you wanted to.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Robby kissed the blade of your shoulder and for the rest of the night that was how you were and when you woke in the morning with two hours to spare before your shift started, Robby was already gone.
“So who's the lucky guy?”
You chocked on your coffee, peering next to you at Trinity. “What?”
She smirked, leaning on the locker next to yours. “Oh come on, I heard you last night.”
The bitter taste of black coffee turned to ash in your stomach. She'd heard. Or worse, she'd been up to see Robby sneak out in the morning.
“What-what do you mean?” play it cool, you could totally starve of the humiliation. Maybe you could persuade her it was a dream, a nightmare, that she was sleepwalking and actually heard/saw/knew nothing.
“I heard you last night,” she said. “Quite the dicking down from what it sounded like.”
You felt the heat in your cheeks. “Oh my god.”
“Hey, I think its good, you deserve it,” said Santos as you hid yourself in your locker, taking great care in peeling off your jacket and finding your stethoscope inside. “So is it someone I know, or...”
She didn't know. You rejoiced silently before realising she still knew there was someone. “That is none of your business.”
“Oh come on, you know Garcia!”
“Because she works here.”
“Does he work here?”
“No!” you close the locker door, not as amused as Trinity was clearly finding this situation. “Please, he's just... a guy.”
She leaned in closer for the gossip. Few things got her as excited as gossip did. “A boyfriend guy or a sleep around guy?”
Wasn't that the golden question.
“Oh my god, you don't know.”
“Santos!” the call of her name should have saved you. Not when it was Robby calling for her as he stood between the two of you. “Pelvic exam in three.”
She groaned but gave a salute. “You got it boss,” she said to him before aiming a finger at you. “This isn't over.”
Santos had turned, leaving and you hardly waited anytime to turn back to the lockers and bash your head into them. Not enough to hurt but enough to erase the terrible fact that Santos had heard you.
Robby liked hearing you moan and you liked Robby so you always moaned loud.
And she'd caught enough of it.
Usually, you wished for Robby to be a bit louder in bed. You were glad he hadn't been.
The cold metal of the locker was replaced on what might have been your twentieth go at hitting yourself with the back of a rough hand.
“Everything okay?” asked Robby, coming to stand next to you, leaning on the lockers. His eyes creased with concern.
“She knows.”
His brows shot up, which didn't indicate a good reaction. “She knows?”
“Not about you, don't worry,” you said with a light scoff. “She knows that I had a good time with a guy last night, she doesn't know who.”
Robby nodded in consideration. “So we're in the clear?”
You screwed your eyes shut. You hadn't realised just how bad you wanted him to shrug it off, tell you he didn't care if Trinity knew, that of everyone in the ward knew, that he only cared about what it meant between the two of you. You only realised when he didn't give you that option.
He wanted to be sure he wasn't affiliated with it.
“Yeah, you're in the clear.”
You left Robby at the lockers before suspicions could grow. Nothing wrong with a resident talking to their attending and so far you and Robby had done a good job at not having any suspicion- not even from Dana.
The least you could do for the guy was keep it that way.
“You had a hot date last night?” Princess slid up to your side before you were even half way across the ward.
You groaned. “Santos told you already.”
“Why didn't you say anything?”
“Say anything about what?” Javadi's voice suddenly came from Doctor McKay's side. The older woman tried to act uninterested but her keen eyes were watching you from over the computer.
“She had a date around hers last night,” said Perhlah, coming up to your other side.
“And she won't tell us who it was,” added Princess.
Javadi's smile grew and her jaw hung open. “Who?”
You shook your head and stared at your shoes. “This is the worst day of my life.”
“Okay!” Robby's voiced boomed out. He clapped his hands, gaining everyone's attention. “We have patients, how about we go ask them some riveting questions?”
Mel frowned from somewhere in the crowd that had formed. “We should go ask them if they know who the guy is?”
She realised quickly that wasn't quite what he meant.
Perlah and Princess walked off together, quietly scheming. “Men just don't get it.”
You gulped down, smoothing your hand over your head and where the growing headache was forming. “Thanks.”
Robby said nothing but there was the brief feel of his hands on your shoulders as he squeezed before moving past you.
It was going on lunch, you'd just gotten a trauma through and up to the OR when you spotted bright post-it notes stuck up on the board in Ahmed's office. The betting board, his mini kingdom had been put back together.
Three titles.
Who?
How long?
Casual or dating?
“Oh my god!” your shriek echoed around the Pitt.
“What? What is it? What?” Robby was at your side in an instant, body almost slamming into you with how quick he slid next to you. He steadied himself, holding on.
“That!”
Ahmed had set up a betting board based on your love life.
The who column was spread with names and the name of those that had bet scribbled underneath. In the middle there was how long had it been going on for, some thought it was only a few weeks, others guessed up to six months.
The last column, wondering if it was a casual thing or serious was filled with almost every post it note saying 'casual'.
“Oh,” Robby chuckled.
“It's not funny,” you argued. “Has every body here bet?”
“Not me, I had no idea. Besides I think that's kind of cheating, right?”
“I see you've found my latest and greatest,” said Ahmed, approaching behind the two of you. “We got this up and running two hours ago, you want me to break it down for you?”
“Holy shit,” you uttered, scanning the board. It was a great and easy way to find out what everyone thought about you.
Robby nodded, leaning on the door next to you. “Holy shit.”
“How much money's in the pot?” you asked.
Ahmed grinned like he was just waiting for you to ask. “Five-hundred and five dollars!”
Robby chocked on a breath next to you as your jaw hung open.
Someone was gonna make money of your guys' sex lives and none of that was going to come to you.
“And I'm guessing I can't get in on it?” you asked.
“No," said Ahmed. “Unless, you know, you wanna tell me who it is and I'll split the money between us.”
“And who do you think it is?” asked Robby. He asked casually, still leaning on the doorframe like he couldn't care less. If he was a girl in a rom-com he might have even checked on his nails or twirled his hair. But you'd studied him close the last couple months, you'd worked all his emotions out into your own little Robby dictionary.
There was a hint of jealousy.
“Well, I've gone with the fan favourite,” he said, plucking off his post it note to show you. “Frank. Three months. And serious.”
“Langdon!” Robby announced.
Uh-oh.
“Yeah, man,” he said. “More than half these notes say it's him.”
On further reading you noticed it did. On yellows and pinks and greens Frank's name was written in quick scribbles or thought out curves.
Frank? Sure the two of you were close. You'd worked close together for a year- nearly two. You worked coordinated well in traumas and with patients you always knew what the other was thinking.
Since his divorce with you'd been helping him as much as you could. You had a friend who was a good lawyer and when he had a chance to see the kids you always covered.
You knew, of course, everything that had happened with the benzos.
You knew Robby still wasn't back to being best-buds with the guy.
You didn't know everyone thought you and Frank were together!
Donnie side stepped past you, coming in with his bets. “I got it, I got it-”
Robby snatched them from his hand, scoffing at whatever was written.
“Langdon. Two weeks and serious.”
“Et-tu, Donnie?” you asked.
“I got fifty in the pool, looking to get a new tv, you know.”
Robby stormed off.
Donnie watched. “He got a bet in?”
“Not yet, sorry, you don't mind?” asked Ahamed.
You scoffed. “Do I have a choice?”
You left them to it, finding Robby sitting at the nurses station at a computer. His jaw clenched and fingers worked furiously over the keypads. You evaluated the area before leaning in. “If you put a pool in we could split the money?”
“Should I put a bet in for Langdon?” He didn't look up to you as he slid on his glasses.
It angered you because he seemed annoyed at something he knew not to be true and because he slid on the glasses that made him even hotter than he already was.
“Is there something wrong, Robby?”
“No.”
“You seem-”
“- I'm not,” he snapped.
He was.
Robby wouldn't admit how much he let his emotions rule, especially anger. He used to be terrible for it but for a while he'd been better, lighter on his feet, patient. Since about.... well, since you started seeing each other.
“Hey.” Langdon joined your side.
You noticed a vein in Robby's neck twitch. “Hey.”
“You seen what everyone's saying?” asked Frank. “Apparently we're seeing each other?”
“Yeah,” you said, turning to him. “I had no idea.”
“You think I should buy a ring next?” he teased.
Robby slammed his hands on the counter, pushing himself up and storming off without so much as a glance.
Frank watched. “What's his problem?”
What was his problem? You'd love to know. “He had a bet on someone else,” you excused.
“Oh bummer,” said Frank. “You think he lost a lot of money?”
You didn't have time to come up with another lie as you spotted Santos and Whitaker walking by. Politely, you ditched Frank, promising you'd catch him for lunch.
“Did you start a betting system on my sex life?” you asked Trinity.
She smirked. “That wasn't me, I had nothing to do with that, seriously!”
“It's true,” said Denis. “But she was the first to put down a bet on Frank.”
You looked at her. You knew the history between her and Frank. Why would she want you to sleep with him? “You hate Frank?”
She shrugged. “So I guessed you were sleeping with him and didn't want to tell me because you know I don't like him.”
You shook your head. “I didn't want to tell you because it's none of your business.” You considered Whitaker. “Who'd you bet for?”
“I-I didn't, I-I wouldn't-”
“He bet on Nick from radiology.”
All of this from Robby sleeping with you in your apartment. Next time- if there was even gong to be a next time- you were doing it at his.
By the end of your shift anyone that hadn't placed a bet had.
Franks name had doubled and the pot was up to one thousand dollars (the highest bet in Pitt history). Frank found it funny, cracking jokes about it all day, throwing arms around you and dragging you onto cases saying 'couples that save lives together, stay together.'
Any other time you'd have laughed.
But when Robby was around every corner, glaring yet refusing to talk to you you couldn't find amusement in it.
The night had come and you were catching a break at the ambulance bay, sitting down on the curb. You were home in an hour, Denis had already gone to Amy's to deliver a lamb or something and Santos was supposed to be at Garcia's tonight.
But you highly doubted you'd have company.
“Hey,” Jack greeted, walking over to you in his midnight scrubs and bag slung over his shoulder. “How's my favourite day shift resident?”
You smiled a tired one at him. “How much money do you have in your wallet?”
Without a beat Jack fetched it and offered you what he had. Because that's the kind of guy Jack was.
“No, no,” you chuckled. “I don't need your cash. There's a betting pool on about who I'm sleeping with. I just- I was gonna ask you to not place a bet.”
Jack laughed, setting next to you on the curb, stretching out his prosthetic leg. “Would be a bit unfair seeing's as I'm best pals with the guy you're dating.”
“Not dating,” you corrected. “Probably not even seeing each other after today.”
Jack listened as you explained the distance, the glares, the snapping that returned to Robby. He didn't jump to defend his friend, he listened to you and took notes mentally. “The guys an emotional wreck. You know that. I know that.”
“But I thought he was doing better?”
“He was- is. Since he started dating you,” he said. “You ask me he's dealing with some emotions he doesn't know how to process. Jealousy. Greed. What's the other deadly sin?”
You rolled your eyes playfully. “Lust?”
“Yeah. That.”
“So I'm supposed to what? Let him be a dick all over again?”
“Oh fuck no,” said Jack firmly. “Put him in his place.”
Admittedly you didn't want to. You wanted to go back to being whatever it was you had with Robby. You wanted to hold hands and share beers in shitty bars at least an hour out of town so it was kept a secret. You wanted the brush of hands between the rush of patients and the discreet meetings at his or yours.
But how far were you willing to bend before you broke?
“So who's everyone putting bets on anyway?” Jack asked.
“Frank.”
Understanding of the situation hit him. “Ah.”
“Yeah. Ah.”
Suddenly the wail of an ambulance cut through the quiet.
The doors burst open, Robby, Santos, King, Jesse all pouring out.
“GSW to the chest, forty-two year old male, weak pulse, un-conscious on the ride over,” said Robby tugging on his gloves as you and Jack jumped up. He spared a glance at the two of you before the ambulance pulled up.
You jumped into it, wheeling the gurney ahead into trauma two. Everyone working around the man.
“Okay we move him on the count of three,” said Jack as you all got a hold of the patient. “One... two... three!”
He was heavier than some, not that it would effect your level of care but it made moving him just that but more difficult. There was a breath of air and struggle from Jack and Robby, the noises you had to drown out.
“Lets get an intubation tray going!” called Robby.
The two of you crossed each other, swapping sides.
“Can we talk later?” he uttered as he paused for only a second.
“Whatever, Robby.”
He sighed heavy.
The rest of you carried on gaging the extent of his injury.
“So do you want me out the apartment tonight so your man friend can come around?” asked Santos at your side.
“I want you out cause I'm annoyed at you.”
“Ouch.”
“Okay we need to turn him to see if it went through, on my say!” yelled Robby.
The team had thinned as orders had been barked, there were two of you on either side of him: Robby and Jack, and you and Santos.
Robby passed a nod. “Okay, roll!”
You and Trinity pulled while the men on the other side pushed but maybe Robby didn't have a good grip or maybe he hadn't expected him to be so heavy.
Robby grunted and groaned. “Ah, urg-”
“Not through,” Jack grunted.
You tried to lower him as slow as you could but it wasn't slow enough as Robby's hand got trapped under.
“Oh! Fuck me!”
You and Jack lifted the body quick and Robby released his hand.
Santos was frozen.
The whole room seemed to pause for a second.
“Oh my god!” Santos cheered, arms thrown wide. “Oh my god, oh my god!”
What was wrong with her?
It took you a second to realise, memory of last night coming to you.
Robby over you, thrusting careful.
Your body moved with his thrusts but you wrapped your legs around him, pushing his pelvis in till you felt the length of him deep. “Deeper, harder,” you'd begged.
Robby had groaned out loud, just the way you liked to hear him. “Oh! Fuck me!”
He'd uttered the words into you as he pressed his weight down, squashing you onto your squeaky bed. He'd wrapped his hands around your neck, squeezing just enough to have your walls fluttering around his cock.
Santos had been home longer than you'd thought.
Now, she was practically jumping up and down, smirking. “Oh my god!”
“Trinity can I talk to you outside please?”
“It's- you- and-” her arms were waving around.
“Outside, please, Trinity!”
Everyone was staring.
“Trinity, outside!” You guided her out and she let you, abandoning the trauma and ripping off her gown. You returned, finding Robby's gaze and Jack's amused grin as he tended to the patient. “Sorry, Doctor Robby, may I talk to Santos outside for a moment?”
Robby must have jumped to the same conclusion as you. “Er yes, yes! Of course, go!”
You rushed out, nudging Trinity into an empty exam room as she laughed. You closed the door and pulled the curtain over the glass.
“It's Doctor Robby!” she said at once. “It's Doctor Robby! You're sleeping with Doctor Robby!”
“Can you keep your voice down?”
Santos laughed again, a full belly laugh. “Oh my god, this whole time I thought it was Frank. Oh, I'm so happy.” She wiped at amused tears.
“Hey!”
“How long have you been sleeping with him?”
You shook your head, tugging off your own hospital gown. “It doesn't matter.”
Finally Trinity considered you. Her laughter died. “What-what do you mean?”
How could you explain that what she'd heard last night was over hardly twenty-four hours later.
The door pushed open and Robby stepped through, gown and gloves already gone.
“Is everything okay in here?” he asked, looking between the two of you.
“You and you?” Trinity confirmed, finger gesturing between the two of you.
Robby ran his hands through the back of his hair.
“I just can't believe it,” she said. “You guys are dating?”
Robby sighed out a “yes” at the same time you shook your head, “no”
Now, Robby looked at you.
Santos folded her arms over her chest, smirking and watching like the two of you were her favourite show. “Oh.”
Robby's hands fell to his hips as he looked at you. “What do you mean, no?”
“What do you mean, yes?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” he chuckled.
Your rubbed at your temples. “I'm so confused.”
“You're confused, I'm confused,” Robby scoffed.
“Wait- I'm confused,” said Santos. “You guys don't know if you're dating or not?”
Robby's eyes squeezed shut in frustration. “Doctor Santos, please. Go make yourself useful.”
Trinity didn't move. She looked at you, waiting for what you wanted. Because yes, Robby was her attending but you were her friend. When she was insecure about Garcia you were there telling her how much better she could do.
In the hospital Santos was guided under Robby.
At home, she was guided by friendship and care for you.
You gave her a nod and she dismissed herself.
You didn't know where to look, didn't know where to touch.
Outside the usual routine of the Pitt carried on.
Robby sighed, hands going into his fleece pocket. “You didn't know we were dating?”
No, you really didn't. “Was I supposed to? You never asked.”
He shook his head, looking down with a chuckle. He started to list things off, counting them off on his fingers. “Flowers, dinners, day trips, was that not enough?”
“But you never said!”
“I thought it was obvious!”
“Obvious to who?”
“To us!” His hands fell to your forearms.
“No to you maybe!”
“So the dinners... the flowers, you thought it was all just, just sex?” he asked.
You'd hoped it was more. You'd dreamt about it when his weight kept you down on his bed after you kissed and made love for hours. Love...
“I... yeah.”
How long had you thought him the bad guy? Were you the one that had been distant, pulling away?
You carried yourself away from him, sitting on the edge of the bed. You never realised how uncomfortable those things were.
Robby laughed to himself, standing for a moment longer. He checked that nobody was around through the curtain before he settled next to you. He shuffled, his bodies attention focused on you. He laid a hand on your knee, tilting his head to try to look at you. “I should have asked, properly.”
“It would've saved confusion,” you admitted.
Robby's hand came up, cradling your face and drawing your attention to him. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over your cheek.
You looked at him, finding nothing but warmth in his gaze. The only thing that had been there for three months. “But today, you... you could hardly look at me.”
He took in a deep breath. “I was...” his jaw ticked.
You smirked. “Jealous?”
His eyes flickered back to yours. “Nobody on that board thought I could be dating you.”
“Till about two seconds ago I didn't even know we were dating,” you joked.
Robby shook his head, wetting his lips. “We are.”
“You're not even going to ask me?”
“I don't need to,” he said. “We're dating, that okay with you?” His face inched closer.
“I don't know, I might have to ask Frank that one,” you teased.
Robby leant back, a dark look to him. The hand caressing you fell to your neck, keeping you looking at him. “You think that's funny?”
“Everyone else thinks so-”
He pulled you in by your neck and kissed you, hard, the imprint of his teeth felt through your lips.
You held onto him, kissing him with a new need. Kissing your boyfriend. Your hands wound around his head and you brought him down on top of you.
Robby climbed atop the bed that was not made for heavy make out sessions. He held the edge with one hand and the other fell down your body till it could crawl up your scrub top, un-tucking it and holding onto your hips.
He bit down on your lip and used the opening of your mouth to slide in his tongue.
“This is un-professional,” you said against his lips.
“I've been wanting to be un-professional for months.”
You were so lost in the feel of each other you didn't notice the curtain being yanked back until you heard.
“We got him stable,” said Jack, casually. “Oh and you've got an audience.”
You looked over Robby's shoulder as he looked back to see nosey nurses and night shifters along with half the day staff all looking at you.
You tapped his shoulder and though resigned to, Robby slowly climbed off you.
“Who put down Robby?” Ahmed called. “Did anyone bet Robby?”
The crowd that had watched you both suddenly rushed to the board, scanning the name.
Eventually you and Robby joined, waiting.
“Oh my god.”
“There he is, Robby, one vote!”
Robby's head perked in confusion.
“Who is it? Who?”
Ahmed collected the money and made his way through the people. To the one who had made a bet on Robby. “Doctor Robby, three months, and serious.”
He delivered the money- to everyone's shock- to Frank.
Your jaw hung open as Frank collected the money.
Everyone looked at him, silent.
You couldn't tell if next to you Robby was okay with it or angered.
Frank looked around at everyone. “C'mon, nobody else saw it? He's been happier for three months and can't take his eyes off her.”
Clealry, nobody had.
“I thought you didn't bet?” you asked him.
Frank shrugged, bashful. “Yeah well, couldn't help myself. Here-” Langdon held out the wad of cash to Robby's hand, practically forcing it in. “Take her somewhere nice.”
You wished you had a camera to capture Robby's shock.
“Okay folks! Show's over!” called out Dana. “Day shift let's pass on to night so we can get out of here to have some fun!” she winked your way.
Slowly the crowd dissipated, shaking their heads in disappointment.
Ahmed was already pulling off the notes and rubbing away at the board.
Robby waved the cash in front of you. “What do you say, you gonna let your boyfriend treat you tonight?”
Pairings: Jack Abbot & teen!reader (also includes Robby)
Imagine: Jack promised his wife before she died to take care of you, but he can only do so much when your home is killing you from the inside, or simply put Jack’s neighbour’s kid finds comfort in his home
Warnings: mention of abuse, parental neglect, injuries, broken wrist, mention of blood, stitches, inaccurate medical things, Jack literally being your unofficial dad, reader is described as malnourished and smaller then Jack because of abuse, and also cause reader is a teenager and Jack is a full grown adult
A/N right so here we are with the first Pitt fic I was actually planning to post, i must admit it turned out longer then expected and i don’t even know if this is good or not, i also hope i didn’t make any characters ooc, but its my second pitt fic so it’ll hopefully get better with time
Also I have no idea about Jack’s timeline when it comes to his past so that may not make much sense in this one, though I tried keeping it vague, and secondly I’m from Sweden and medical visits are usually free most of the time for people under 18, so I’m sorry if there’s any inaccuracies around that.
Around 3200 words (not proofread)
The Pitt Masterlist
Jack Abbot’s head hit the back of his car seat as he closed his eyes. He’d just come up in the driveway when he could see the teenager sitting on his porch. “Not again” he thought as he opened the door and stepped out. Eyes scanning over you. He was certain if he looked close enough he’d see a purple mark peeking through the hoodie, the far too big hoodie. Was that his hoodie? The one his wife had given you the first day you showed up by their door?
You’d been ten back then. He would have thought you just another scrawny kid. You were selling cookies for your class… alone. Which in all honesty made the two adults worry, usually when kids knocked on their door their parents were right behind them. So when his wife had looked out the window and seen the cute kid knocking on their door she went to answer it. Only to notice the bruises poking out of your sleeves the moment they rid up your arms when you showed her all the options.
It’d taken them two months to get you to confess about your parents. They’d tried to help, but according to authorities there was no proof even when it was staring them through the cracked mirrors of your home. So by the time you were eleven it’d been a routine in the morning before the school bus came to go home to them and get a packed lunch by Jack’s wife. They- or well rather Jack’s wife let you stay over for dinner, sleepovers on nights your parents seemed extra angry (it wasn’t like your parents ever wondered where you were anyway). She’d helped you a lot. She adored you. Meanwhile, Jack stayed mostly out of the way, not only because he was still somewhat adjusting to his leg but he was also certain a kid wanted nothing to do with a depressed grumpy vet.
Then you’d turned twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Jack had lost count on the numerous times he’d gotten home in the morning from a night shift and saw you on the porch. He’d lost count on how many times he had to patch you up. How many times they’d called the cops, CPS but nothing was ever done. Not even themselves as witnesses helped your case. Not even your own words, so you were stuck in that place. The color of the house fading from blue to a chipped greyish look as your parents spent money on alcohol rather than important things. Moss growing on the roof and one of the windows were still broken since your dad had tried to throw a shoe at your head when you were thirteen. The glass still laid outside the window on the yellowish grass and dried up flowers in the window boxes.
When you were fifteen Jack’s wife died, and it took you half a year to show up at his door again, you’d turned sixteen by then. And then it was Jack’s turn to realize why his wife had adored you so much.
You were 18 now, or well you would be in a few months. He let out another sigh before he stepped out and closed the car door. Steps filled with a heavy tiredness as he made it up on the porch. Bending down to be eye level with you. Head tilted somewhat to reach your eyes as you ducked your head lower away from him. He nudged you on your arm carefully, as soft in his movements as he could get. Watching as your eyes flicked up to meet his. Jack’s head tilted again to reach your eyes fully. “You okay?”
He watches as you bite the inside of your cheek, sniveling once as if to keep the tears that brimmed the corners of your eyes in. Swallowing before you nod. His eyes search yours again. “You sure?”
This time he watches your face contort into a mix of pain and sadness as you shake your head stiffly.
“Come on” he uses that soft voice he always use with you. Years of dealing with you scared and crying in his wife’s arms had taught him something. And as you stand up reaching your right hand towards him he takes it, letting you help him up.
He doesn’t even have to lead you anymore to the kitchen. Instead he lets you wander his house alone to settle on the stool by the kitchen aisle while he gets the red band aid box in the upper cabinet in the bathroom. He’d need to restock it.
He watches you from the bathroom. The way you curl in on yourself. Left hand held close to your chest. Sniffling as you rub your eyes with your right hand, stopping the tears. He couldn’t help but to see that ten year old kid again. You’d been short for your age, hell even now, you still were. If he’d had to estimate you were probably underweight too. It wasn’t like your parents fed you. It wasn't like they bought you warm clothes for the winter or new shoes that didn’t drench your socks when it rained. Wasn’t like they’d paid for hobbies or a working car to pick you up from school. The only credit he could give your parents was the fact they kept you in school other than that they were the ugly thorns that’d grown in the dead roses in the window flower boxes.
Ten year old you had sat on the same barstool, the same time of day. Eyes watery with tears gathering to the brim of a waterfall. Your clothes had been so baggy then, they fell on your form like a sheet had been put on you for Halloween as a ghost. The bottom of your jeans were dirty and scuffed. Your sweater too long, but not long enough to hide the bruises of purple and blue covering your arms when reaching for something. He’d made you hot chocolate on his wife’s request while she’d softly talked you into letting Jack look at your bruises. They’d let you pick how many marshmallows you’d wanted. And while you’d watched the white clouds melt Jack had checked you over. Pressing carefully on the colorful canvas on your arms to rule out any major injuries. And when you’d opened up enough he’d with your permission even checked the bruise on your stomach. He’d disinfected a cut on your arm before it’d had the chance to get infected, stitched it up too, there was still a scar there to this day. He hadn’t liked how you flinched every time he touched you when he checked your bruises back then, nor did he like how you still to this day flinched when he’d check you over.
Blinking once, staring at his somber reflection in the mirror Jack walked back out of the bathroom, setting the medical kit on the counter.
“What happened?” Jack’s voice was still gentle, soft even. Eyes focused on disinfecting a small cut on your cheek, that thankfully didn’t need stitches. His face softened even more as he watched your face fill with hesitation, like always. “You don’t have to tell me but it’d help for your injuries” he always said that, every time, like he knew the words would coax out a confession of what happened. It worked, every time.
Your lip gets caught in your teeth as your eyes cast down. Your dad had gotten fired yesterday. You remembered his very colorful rant of his boss. Having went over to a friend’s place knowing Jack wasn’t home at the time. Mind scrambling to remember what you’d done to set him off this morning. A shrug leaves you. “Don’t know, dad just got angry, threw stuff at me” You’d frozen at the time, just stepping in the front door when the object came flying at you. Eyes stinging as it had cut your arm and blood had started to drip on the floor, making your mom chastise you for making a mess. Cue your dad grabbing your wrist so tight he broke it. It hadn’t been the first time, you knew you were probably malnourished making your bones weak. Pretty sure you’d heard Jack mumbling about it once as he’d ruffled your hair when you were 12 as his wife had told him to give you a lunchbox she prepped the day before.
Wincing while his hand moved to press gently onto the bruises you continued to tell him what you could remember.
Moving on Jack gently pried your left arm from your right hand’s hold. Inspecting your wrist. “Can you flex your fingers?” He watched you wince as your fingers wiggled slightly. “Rotate your wrist” he watched you carefully move your wrist, another wince leaving you. Taking into account the swelling and the pained movements, hand printed bruises and the way you winced when he touched it he came to a conclusion. “pretty sure it’s broken kid” He glanced back up at you, meeting your eyes once more to coax out the truth. “You hurt anywhere else?”
He watches you nod, rolling up the sleeve of the hoodie. Showing a rather large cut, the hem of the hoodie's sleeve getting caught in the blood that still hadn’t completely dried from the way the bodies sleeve had kept rubbing against it making new blood appear every time. His eyes inspected the cut, it was clear it hadn’t happened all that long ago, he was certain you went straight over to his house as soon as you’d been able to get away from your dad, what he’d gathered from many of your stories it was always your dad that did the most damage, who’d for example throw things at you. Your mom, not being much better, but she at least seemed to have the common sense of not throwing sharp objects at you.
“It’s gonna need stitches, I could do it here but I’d rather we do it at the hospital, can get you an x-ray for that wrist too” he watched the way your face contorted into protests. He knew you hated hospitals but he really did want to get that wrist x-rayed.
“It’s not really that serious besides I‘ve got school and it’s not like my parents will pay fo-“
“I’ll pay for it” he said while wrapping a bandage around your arm, covering the big cut with such concentration you weren't sure if he actually thought of what he’d said. “Can write you a note too if your school needs it”
Eyes widening, staring at him, almost moving backwards if it wasn’t for Jack still holding your left hand, gently keeping you in place, a large contrast to what your dad had done merely an hour or two ago. “You don’t have to I can manag-“ He raised a brow, as if prompting you to continue the protest. Except his raised brow did the opposite as it made you shut up. The next words dying in your throat. He knew as well as you did that your parents wouldn’t pay for a hospital visit, nor would they care to call you in sick for school. And Jack was more than happy to do the bare minimum in his opinion when it came to caring for a child. (Though in all honesty he wasn’t above not writing it up in any chart making the visit free)
“Come on” he motions with his head to the door as he moves to grab his car keys, leaving for the hospital… again.
──────────_*- 🩻 -*_──────────
“Robby” you stared at Robby, or at least that’s who you guessed was Robby after his head had turned at Jack’s voice, your eyes wide and unsure as you looked around the ER. The car ride had been short and quiet, and when you’d walked inside you’d skipped the waiting room entirely and barged straight into the ER.
“Thought I told you not to come back until your shift…” his voice trailed off as his eyes landed on you. Then glanced back at Jack before landing on your left wrist clutched into your right hand. Keeping it close to your chest, eyes darting around, skittish as if someone would jump up behind the desk. Robby stared at the bruises covering your skin, the bandage on your arm and his gaze turned back to Jack in a questioning expression, brows knitted as his mouth opened and closed. Words dying out on his tongue in a loss of words as his gaze shifted between the two in worry.
“Had a… detour” Well he had been home, just not long. Jack glanced back at you and down at your wrist with a soft look before he switched like the flick of a light into doctor mode, which in all honesty kinda amazed you. “It’s a closed fracture, don’t know if it’s a clean break though”
“Let’s get you two a room” Robby’s words are slow as he speaks, eyes glancing around the ER in search of an empty room. Even if it was still morning it was busier than usual, despite the night shift for once having caught up with almost all of the patients before shift change.
He leads the two of you over to an empty room, leaning against the end of the bed as he watches you sit down. Jack sitting on the stool nearby. The wheels making small protesting noises from being used too much as he moves it closer to you.
“I’ll write you up for an x-ray, it’ll take an hour or two if we’re lucky, could bump you up to first in line” course he would, he noticed how Jack’s eyes would soften as they landed on you. How he’d almost shielded you while walking towards the examination room. With the way Jack's lips curled up in appreciation he took that as his sign to try and get you that x-ray as soon as possible. He gave Jack a nod in momentarily goodbye to go find his own patient again, hopefully the results had come back by now. “We’ll talk later” he left with a last glance at you, closing the door behind him.
The room filled with silence or as much silence as a hospital could have. The walls did a pretty good job in keeping the noise outside, which in all honestly was appreciated. Even the short time you’d been in the middle of the ER had been enough to set you off. Head already feeling overwhelmed by the beeping noises, someone crying and nurses walking all over the place, the white sterile walls and the bright lights.
Jack stared at you, watching as you relaxed when the door closed behind Robby. As the noise got cancelled out for the most part. Good. “You okay?”
“Yeah” you nod stiffly.
“Yeah?” He watches you give another nod making sure you’re actually here in the moment and not in your head before he moves. “Ready to get this stitched then?”
As you let out a shaky nod he grabs a suture kit, prepping it before he carefully removes the bandage around your arm. “This’ll sting a bit” he mumbles as he disinfects it, keeping your arm in place even when you involuntarily shift back. He usually told you every step of what he did, something that had stuck from when you were younger and way more scared then you were now.
“You know” he starts, numbing the area around the cut. “You’ll be 18 soon” he shifts slightly away from you to grab the needle to finally stitch the cut up. “I don’t know fully what plans you have of moving” It wasn’t a secret you planned to move as soon as you could. You’d even talked to him about it before. “But you’ve always got a place with me” He looks up at you now. “If you need it I mean, if you need somewhere to fall back to, my door I always open for you”
Your head ducked at his words. You couldn’t help but to swallow the lump in your throat his words had created. Blinking back tears. You’d always known you could go to him, but this was the first time he’d voiced it. The first time he’d told you that he was there for you. Not that words were ever needed. His actions spoke louder than words ever could have, but it was still nice to hear.
“What if I get kicked out a week after my birthday?”
“Then I’ll be home cooking your favorite food while you put your clothes in your room”
“What if-“
“Kid I promised my wife to look out for you, I don’t intend on breaking it”
“Right, yeah I know that but what if you get tired of me”
“I won’t”
“What if I mess up”
He said your name so softly you almost didn’t hear it as you looked down while he moved to the last stitch. “You could never mess up, and even if you did, I’ll be there to help you fix it, I care about you, you know that right?”
“I know” you bit your lip.
“Then why don’t you believe me?” Jack’s eyes moved up to meet yours as he finished the stitch. He knew why, he saw it in the way you looked at him whenever he did something your parents never had. You’d given him that look when you opened his cupboards and saw your favorite snacks inside. Or when he’d cleaned your favorite glass so you could use it in the morning the day after. Every time he made your favorite food or when he’d guide you inside his house to get stitched up. The way you’d lean into his touch as soon as your body recognized he wasn’t danger. That his hand didn’t reach out to hurt you but to give you a proud pat on the back or a comforting hug when words failed. He knew that it was hard to believe he actually cared. Especially when you’d grown up with your parents telling you how they would have been better off without you.
Jack intended to stay in your life for as long as you needed him, even if he used the excuse of the promise he made for his wife.
He sighed as you remained silent. “Look kid, you’ll need someone, the world doesn’t treat people kindly, least of all someone who’s already been kicked to the curb, I just want you to know if you fall, if it gets dark you can always call me or come back home” he’d always worded it that way. In the way that made it seem like his home was your home. Cause it was ever since that day so long ago when his wife had opened the door to buy cookies.
“You know” he glances at the door at the nurses and doctors running around like bees in a beehive. The image of ten year old you running around the halls of his house as he chased you ran in his head. His wife making your favorite food. A promise she’d made if you let Jack help you with your homework since they both knew you’d been struggling in school. When you’d refused to do the math homework, Jack had picked you up and spun you around in circles until you’d been a giggling mess begging to be let down from being too dizzy. The thought made the corners of his lips move up. “The guest room is still set up for you. It’s close enough to the college you want to go to”
He smiles in amusement at the way your head snapped up to look at him. “You get what I mean right?”
When you nod he looks at you with a look only a parent could. Now all he needed to do was convince you to move out of your parents house before you turned 18. You’d finally be away from the abuse he wanted to shield you from for so long. And he could fulfill what he’d promised his wife without the guilt lingering in his chest every time his eyes lingered on his neighbours house. You’d be safe.
SUMMARY — Maekar throws a feast for Daeron to find himself a wife. His son avoids most women there until he finds one hidden in the gardens. They seem to have something in common – neither of them wants to get married.
REQUEST — (1)
AUTHOR’S NOTE — The request was for Reader to be kinda like Eloise Bridgerton, so I tried my best. The story is set in the normal setting, yet I kept imagining our beloved characters in regency clothes. 🤣 I won't be posting for a few days and I probably won't be very active because my friend comes to visit me! ❤️🔥
WARNINGS — Reader's mum is a widow
WORD COUNT — 3,280
ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.
AN UNEXPECTED BRIDE
Your sister Lysa was elated when your mother read out loud the letter from Summerhall. Prince Maekar was throwing a feast and inviting all the suitable young ladies to join, hoping his eldest son would finally settle down and find himself a wife.
You rolled your eyes when Lysa jumped and clapped her hands.
“Do you know what it means that I was invited? It means the Prince finds me worthy enough,” she pointed out as your mother nodded happily.
“Is not Prince Maekar’s eldest son a hopeless drunk who spends more time at taverns and brothels than at his own castle?” You asked.
Your mother and sister froze at those words, finally paying attention to you and giving you a scolding look. You grinned at them and shrugged.
“Those are only rumours,” Lysa gasped.
“Besides, a husband like that might be a blessing if he is also kind. His wife can do basically anything when he is nowhere to be found,” your mother added.
“If you say so,” you yawned.
“(Y/N)! I would not be so arrogant if I were you because if I do marry the Prince… You will be next,” Lysa chuckled.
“I am not getting married, I said that already,” you insisted. “I am going to be a spinster. You and your drunk husband will pay for my food and dresses.”
“Not if you are mean to me,” Lysa teased.
“Enough of that,” your mother stood up. “(Y/N), you’re going with us for the feast to keep your sister company. Perhaps there will be other kind young men who might change your mind about marriage.”
You groaned and huffed, which made Lysa giggle. You knew there was no point of arguing with your mother about it because she was a stubborn woman.
Daeron hated the idea of the feast and he hated the idea of getting a wife. How could his father be so cruel to ignore the fact he would make a woman married to him miserable?
Maekar’s stern eyes were following Daeron everywhere during the feast. His son had a goblet of wine in his hand but he was barely sipping from it, knowing that appearing drunk would bring his father’s anger on him. So would avoiding all those pretty ladies that were dolled up just for him, approaching him with wide smiles.
“They are like cows led for slaughter,” he mumbled out to his father when Maekar walked up to him.
“Then do not be a slaughterhouse,” his father commented.
Daeron sighed. He didn’t expect his father to understand. He wasn’t plagued with dragon dreams and he saw his son’s alcohol problem as nothing but a spoiled kid’s whim.
“Lady Florent is approaching us. Fucking smile,” Maekar hissed out and Daeron forced the corners of his lips to curve upwards.
Poor Lady Florent. She was wearing a beautiful blue dress and her eyes were sparkling at the sight of the Prince.
“M-my Prince,” she bowed her head. “I am grateful for the invitation,” she blushed.
“You are welcome, my Lady,” Daeron only said and sipped on the wine as Maekar gave him a deadly look. “How… How do you find the feast?”
“Oh, it is splendid,” the young woman nodded. “I hoped for more dancing, though,” she suggested nervously.
Daeron chuckled but he did not offer her a dance, so Lady Florent looked down and eventually walked away. He felt bad for treating her this way but he knew that it was all for her own good in the long run.
“Behave,” Maekar mumbled out through gritted teeth.
“I need fresh air,” Daeron excused himself and put the goblet of wine down before rushing to the doors leading to the gardens.
He took a deep sigh and took a turn to the less busy area behind the bushes. The sounds of the feast were muffled now and he no longer had to fake a smile as he walked ahead.
Then he froze because someone was sitting on a bench he was going to sit on. A young woman in a pretty dress who must have been one of the guests. She was reading a book, so immersed in it that she paid no attention to him.
Daeron clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat.
“Ekhem.”
You looked up, unimpressed. When you realised it was Prince Daeron himself, you only smirked.
“Oh, hello,” you bowed your head a little. “Are you bored of the festivities already, my Prince?”
Daeron was a little surprised. You didn’t even stand up, you weren’t trying to make puppy eyes at him.
“I needed fresh air. What are you doing here, my Lady?” He inquired.
“I am not an enjoyer of such events, I was dragged along with my mother and sister. I found my way to the library and your brother, Prince Aemon, who was hiding there, allowed me to take this book to read,” you explained.
Daeron chuckled. Half of the family was hiding from that feast. His father must have been fuming.
“May I join you?” Daeron asked and you nodded, moving slightly to leave more space on the bench.
The Prince took a seat next to you and glanced at the book you were holding. It was a history of the Free Cities.
“Are you interested in politics?” He asked, a bit confused. He had never met a Lady your age who was into such things. Older women – sure. But not the young ones. Or perhaps he hadn’t been paying enough attention.
“I am, of course,” you shrugged. “Are you?” You raised your eyebrow at him.
“Not really,” Daeron admitted.
“They say you are more interested in wine,” you said, quite bravely. Daeron was taken aback but he only laughed.
“I have my reasons,” he assured you. “You have a rather big mouth, my Lady.”
“Well, I do because I do not have to care about marriage,” you explained.
“Are you married already perhaps?”
“No. I just decided I am going to remain a spinster,” you said and Daeron laughed again.
“You are the most peculiar,” he admitted. “I can imagine the feast full of women who are willing to sell their souls just to marry me must be a dread for you.”
“Oh, I pity them,” you huffed.
“So do I,” Daeron nodded and you furrowed your brows as you looked at him more intensely.
“You do?” You inquired.
“I am not a husband material,” he confessed. Something was telling him that you would understand. “I am not a monster, though. I do not wish to cause any woman distress or be the reason for her misery. It is my father who insists I should take a wife.”
“Why would you be the reason for a woman’s misery, my Prince?” You asked. You were curious because you wanted to know what to warn your sister about.
“As you noticed yourself, I am a drunkard. But I do not drink for pleasure. I drink to stay sane for I am plagued with dragon dreams. Do you know what they are?” He asked but you shook your head. “At night, I dream of dreadful prophecies and they always come true in one way or another.”
“Is alcohol truly the only thing to keep you sane, my Prince?” You asked.
“Perhaps not but I’ve never tried anything else,” he admitted.
“You are too self aware to cause your future wife distress,” you wanted to cheer him up and he tilted his head at your words, curiously. “The worst kind of husband is a man who hurts you but he doesn’t realise that or he does but he does not care. A man like you would be cautious. I do not think your future wife is entirely doomed.”
“Thank you. That actually means a lot to me…” Daeron nodded, blushing slightly. He stood up awkwardly. “I think… I think I should be going back to the feast… My father will be angry that I disappeared.”
“Of course,” you picked up your book already and paid him no more attention.
Daeron nodded his head and walked away, turning his head around a few times to take a few more glimpses of you.
“What do you mean you don’t know her name?!” Daeron raised his voice at his shocked brother Aemon who was cornered by his eldest brother in the library.
“What did I need her name for?” Aemon shrugged.
Daeron sighed. He was feeling hopeless as he ran a hand through his hair.
“I am sorry, I shouldn’t have raised my voice,” he told his brother.
He couldn’t stop thinking of you. At the end of the feast he had come back to the gardens but you hadn’t been there any longer. And when he had gone back to the castle, people had already been leaving and you had been nowhere to be seen.
He had inquired everyone about you before remembering his brother had talked to you. But Aemon didn’t know your name either.
Maekar was not pleased with his son’s behaviour but a sparkle of hope appeared in his heart that perhaps there was still a chance for Daeron to find himself a wife. It would be much easier if he knew who you were, though. Maekar did not trust his son’s instincts and choices. He had a feeling you were a candidate he would not approve of.
Therefore, without telling Daeron about it, Maekar sent out letters to all the guests, inquiring about how everyone was having fun, hoping someone would mention more than one daughter attending. He wanted to find out about you first, so in case you were not someone he wanted as his daughter-in-law, he could tell Daeron to snap out of it and move on.
Out of all the letters that came back, only one stood out. Most people were writing long and boring compliments about the feast, the castle and Prince Daeron. Only one woman wrote that her eldest daughter had found the festivities to be outstanding but her younger one had not been an enjoyer of such events, yet she still had found a reason to be pleased because of a book she had been given to read from Prince Aemon.
It had to be you, Maekar realised as he grabbed the envelope and read your family’s name. He hummed to himself. Not bad, he thought.
But he still didn’t know what you were like.
Your mother was shocked to see Prince Maekar paying her a visit. He said he was nearby on his way to King’s Landing and his horse needed to be fed but she still found it extremely lucky that the Prince chose her place to rest at instead of anyone else’s.
“Welcome to our humble castle, my Prince,” she greeted him.
“It is anything but humble,” Maekar looked around as he sat down on the chair and spread his legs open. “You are widowed, am I right?”
“Oh! Yes, yes… I live here alone with my two daughters,” your mother nodded.
“And the heir…?”
“The King allowed me to live here with my daughters until I die. There is no male heir of my late husband’s family left. After my passing or if I move out, the castle will be given to someone else,” she explained. “Our King is as good as they say indeed.”
“Indeed,” Maekar rolled his eyes. “I have to admit something, my Lady.”
“What is it, my Prince?”
“I am not here by coincidence,” he explained and your mother’s heart picked up its pace. She smiled widely as she hoped he would reveal that his son Daeron wanted to marry your sister Lysa. “Prince Aemon wanted me to visit you on my way to King’s Landing so your daughter could have the book she had found so fascinating,” he explained and reached out towards his servant.
The man opened the bag he was holding and put the book about the Free Cities on the table. Your mother’s jaw dropped.
“Oh! I see… That is… That is very kind of your son,” she whispered.
“Is your daughter here?” Maekar inquired.
“Yes, she is!” Your mother nodded and looked at the maid standing nearby. “Go get (Y/N),” she ordered and the girl walked away in a hurry.
After a while you entered the room and froze at the sight of Prince Maekar. You bowed your head a little as your heart skipped a beat.
Why was he here, you wondered? Was he here to announce your sister was to be wed? You should be happy for her. Yet, when you imagined your sister marrying the Prince who had bothered you in the gardens, you felt an odd sting of jealousy.
“(Y/N), come here, my darling, look. Prince Maekar brought you a gift from Prince Aemon,” your mother beckoned you over and you ran up to the table with widened eyes.
“Oh! That is amazing!” You smiled at Prince Maekar and he nodded.
“My son wanted you to have it,” he said.
“Thank you so much,” you felt the heat in your cheeks and you grabbed the thick book to press it to your chest.
“If (Y/N) was a man, I would send her away to make her a maester,” your mother joked. “She has no interest in marriage and she spends most of her days with the books.”
“Lady Mother!” You scolded her for the joke at your expense.
Maekar furrowed his brows. You were a strange one. You intrigued him.
“Why no interest in marriage?” He asked.
“Oh, I…” You looked at him nervously. “I do not like the idea of belonging to someone,” you answered but the Prince scoffed at that.
“And as a spinster you will not? Living at the mercy of your family? As a Lady Wife you can run the family yourself,” he pointed out.
“That is if I marry a man who respects me and such are a rarity,” you insisted. Your mother widened her eyes.
“(Y/N), that is enough,” she chuckled anxiously.
“No, no, the young Lady has a point,” Maekar agreed. “It is a shame, though, that she insists on being a spinster,” he sighed as he stood up. Your mother stood up, too, as if she was trying to make him stay, convinced that he was leaving already because of your behaviour. “Because my son cannot stop talking about her,” Maekar finished and laid his cold eyes on you.
You swallowed thickly and blinked a few times.
“Excuse me?” Your mother asked. “You… You mean Lysa?”
“No,” Maekar shook his head and looked at her now. “In fact, I cannot recall a single moment of Daeron spending time with Lysa at the feast,” he pointed out. “He cannot stop talking about a young girl from the gardens, however. It is you, is it not, Lady (Y/N)?”
You nodded, hesitantly. Your mother glanced at you, surprised.
“The Prince fell in love with my (Y/N)?!” Your mother asked, her eyes sparkling. You rolled your eyes.
“Love is a strong word, my Lady, but he surely is infatuated,” Maekar laughed.
“Why would he be, my Prince? I told him very plainly about not wanting to get married,” you wondered out loud.
“Well, that makes two of you, does it not?” He chuckled.
Daeron couldn’t understand why his father seemed so happy after coming back from King’s Landing. Only in the evening did he find out the truth.
“I found you a wife and you will marry her no matter what. End of discussion,” Maekar announced and squinted his eyes at his son.
“Father, no!” Daeron protested. “How can you be so cruel to this young woman, whoever she is? And you know perfectly well that I am trying to find the girl from the garden and–”
“I said: end of discussion,” Maekar repeated. “Now, leave.”
“Father!” Daeron whined.
“She will arrive in a fortnight and you will marry her. If I were you, I would start trying to improve myself.”
Daeron left his father’s chambers angrily. Instead of doing what his father suggested, he went to the tavern to get drunk.
On the day his future bride was supposed to arrive at Summerhall, Daeron looked like a mess. He was not drunk yet but last night’s festivities with his friends were still visible on his face. His hair was messy and put behind in a careless manner, there were dark circles under his eyes and a slight stubble on his face.
The worst thing was that he had no idea what to expect. His father kept the identity of his betrothed a secret for some reason. Daeron couldn’t truly prepare a strategy so he just decided to greet his future Lady Wife like this – without lying about himself, without pretending to be someone he was not. No, he wanted to give her the full picture of what a disaster he was. And, perhaps, a chance to run away from him.
When the carriage arrived, he looked down and drew circles in the mud with his shoe.
His father approached the carriage and helped a middle-aged woman to leave it. Daeron glanced at her for a moment but then he looked down again.
“Welcome to Summerhall, my Lady,” Maekar kissed the back of her hand. “Was the journey troublesome for you and your daughters?”
“No, not at all, my Prince,” she shook her head and looked inside the carriage. “Lysa, (Y/N), come out!” She ordered.
Daeron looked up once again, curious about the women. The first one who left the carriage was one of the young Ladies from the feast, one of those with puppy eyes and wide smiles at the sight of him.
Daeron sighed. She was pretty and probably very kind, too. But he truly did not want to marry her.
Then, his heart froze and he got dizzy at the sight of another woman leaving the carriage. Or rather jumping out of it excitedly in a quite unladylike manner.
It was you.
You had a big smile on your face and your eyes searched for him in the courtyard. When you spotted him, you chuckled and ran up to him.
“My Prince!” You greeted him. “I’ve heard you were yearning for me,” you teased him.
Daeron let out a laugh of joy and relief. He glanced at his father and Maekar nodded at him with a kind smile. His son couldn’t believe in how kind and generous his father could sometimes be.
“Indeed, I was,” Daeron admitted. “Are you my bride-to-be?”
“Indeed, I am,” you smiled.
“I thought you planned to remain a spinster?” Daeron raised an eyebrow at you. He suddenly felt bad about looking like a mess. He had to stink like alcohol and he wished he had shaved before.
“Well…” You looked around. “I did like your castle, so…” You chuckled and so did he.
He led you inside the castle as he kept looking at you nervously.
“What is it?” You asked. “Please, do not tell me now that you have changed your mind,” you sighed.
“No, no… It is that… I regret looking like a disaster. If I had known it was you, I would have made myself look more presentable,” he admitted with a blush.
“You are a disaster, though, so I do appreciate the honesty,” you shrugged. “Besides, you will not be a disaster for long because I will not allow it any longer,” you raised an eyebrow at him.
Daeron smiled sheepishly. He had a feeling you would be as stern with him as his father. But perhaps it would be for the better.
reader info / note: yn is a targaryen dragonseed, but her parentage is completely unknown on purpose so you can project however you want the only fixed thing is that you have at least one valyrian feature so silver hair and/or purple eyes, because it needs to be obvious you’ve got targaryen blood everything else is up to you
Summary: In which you come back
SPECIAL THANKS TO 🍞 WHO HELPED ME WITH MY WRITER'S BLOCK
WC:21K
The decision to return was easy. The actual returning was not.
You had imagined, in the hazy golden hours on your island, that flying back to Dragonstone would feel like coming home. That the sight of those familiar black cliffs rising from the sea would fill you with warmth, with relief, with the bone deep comfort of returning to the only place you had ever belonged. But as the morning wore on and the sun climbed higher and the endless blue of the ocean stretched beneath you in every direction, you discovered that your stomach had twisted itself into knots that had nothing to do with hunger.
The flight itself was different now. You had changed in the days you spent on your little island, changed in ways that were still settling into your body like stones finding their place in a stream bed. Your muscles had learned the rhythm of Moonfyre's wings, the way she rose and fell on the currents, the subtle shift of her weight that preceded a bank or a dive. Your hands rested firm but relaxed against her scales, no longer the desperate white knuckled grip of a girl terrified of falling. Your legs settled easily against the warm curve of her neck. Your body moved with hers now instead of merely clinging to her, a harmony you had not expected and still did not fully understand.
You did not know what you would find when you arrived. You did not know if Marta would be furious or relieved, if Valarr would be angry or heartbroken or simply gone, if the villagers would stare at you the way they always had or if they would look at you differently now that you were returning on the back of a dragon. You did not know if you were ready to face any of it. But you had to try. You owed Marta that much. You owed yourself that much.
The sun stood high and white by the time Dragonstone appeared on the horizon. At first it was only a smudge of grey against the blue, a shadow that slowly sharpened into the jagged cliffs and towering peaks you knew so intimately you could have drawn them in your sleep. The Dragonmont rose above it all, its summit lost in its perpetual shroud of mist and smoke, and the castle clung to the mountainside like something ancient and patient, its dark towers reaching toward the sky.
Your heart clenched at the sight. You had never thought of Dragonstone as beautiful before. It was too harsh for beauty, too grey, too full of wind and salt and the constant gnawing cold that seeped into your bones and never quite left. But seeing it now, after days away, you felt something complicated move through your chest. Something that might have been love or might have been grief or might have been both at once. It was your home.
Moonfyre sensed the shift in your mood. She turned her head slightly, one golden eye fixing on you with a questioning look, and you reached forward to pat her scales.
"I'm alright," you said, though the wind tore the words away before they reached your own ears. "Just nervous."
She made a low sound, a rumble that vibrated through her body and into yours, and some of the tension in your shoulders loosened. She was with you. Whatever waited below, however the village and the castle and the people in them reacted to your return, she would be with you. You were not alone anymore. You would never be alone again.
As you drew closer, details began to resolve themselves from the grey expanse of the island. The familiar curve of the eastern cliffs, where you had gathered bitter herbs a thousand times. The village itself, a huddle of stone roofs clustered against the mountainside, looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. The castle above it, its walls dark and imposing, its banners snapping in the constant wind. And the caves, the network of tunnels and chambers that honeycombed the Dragonmont, where you had found a wounded dragon shivering in the darkness and everything you believed about yourself had been proven true.
You had planned to fly directly to those caves. That was the strategy you had worked out in your head during the long hours over the water. Land in the familiar darkness of the eastern tunnels, out of sight, where you could dismount and gather yourself and decide what to do next. You did not want to announce your return to the entire island. Not yet. You needed time to think, to prepare, to figure out what you were going to say to Marta and Valarr and anyone else who asked where you had been.
But plans, as you were learning, had a way of crumbling the moment they touched reality.
Moonfyre flew over the island, her shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the huddled grey roofs of the village below. And the people saw her.
At first, it was only a few faces turning upward. A few hands pointing at the sky. You saw them from above, tiny figures frozen in place, their mouths opening in sounds you could not hear. Then more faces turned, and more, and the pointing hands became waving arms, and the open mouths became screams that drifted up to you on the wind, faint but unmistakable.
Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.
The word spread through the village like fire catching in dry grass. You could see it happening, the ripple of movement as people dropped their baskets and their fishing nets and their tools and ran. Some ran toward the castle, seeking the shelter of its ancient walls. Some ran toward their homes, snatching up children and pulling them inside. Some simply stood frozen, staring up at the sky with faces bleached white by terror, their bodies rigid with disbelief.
The screaming grew louder as Moonfyre flew lower. You could make out individual voices now, high and thin and desperate, crying out to gods and guards and anyone who might save them from the monster blotting out the sun. You saw a woman grab her child and fling herself through a doorway. You saw an old man collapse to his knees, his hands raised in prayer or surrender. You saw a knot of fishermen scrambling to shove their boat back into the water, as if the sea could protect them from a creature that ruled the sky.
"Moonfyre," you said, your voice taut with a worry you were trying very hard not to feel. "Fly higher. Faster. We need to reach the caves."
But Moonfyre did not seem to hear you. She had gone rigid beneath your hands, every muscle in her vast body drawn tight. Her head swept from side to side, her golden eyes darting across the chaos below, and you could feel the change in her through the scales beneath your palms. She was agitated. Disturbed. The screams were reaching her, and they were doing something to her you had not anticipated and did not know how to control.
You had never seen Moonfyre around other people before. You had only ever known her in the cave and on your island, in darkness and in solitude, with no company but yours. You had assumed she would be calm. You had assumed she would follow your lead, that she would trust you to keep her safe. But the screams were waking something in her. You could feel it in the way her muscles bunched and tightened, in the way her breathing grew faster and harsher, in the way a low and threatening growl began to build deep in her chest.
"It's alright," you said, fighting to keep your voice steady even as your heart began to hammer against your ribs. "It's alright, sweet girl. They're scared, that's all. They've never seen a dragon. They don't know you're good. Just keep flying. We're almost there."
The growl deepened. You felt it vibrating through her entire body, a resonant and terrible sound that was nothing like the gentle purring she made when you curled together on the beach. This was a warning. A threat. The sound of a predator who felt cornered, who felt threatened, who was trying to decide between flight and fight.
You tightened your grip on her scales, your mind spinning. This was bad. This was so much worse than you had prepared for. You had been so focused on your own return, on what you would say and do and feel when you saw Marta and Valarr and the village again, that you had not paused to consider how the village would react to seeing a dragon for the first time in seventy years. Of course they were screaming. Of course they were panicking. To them, dragons were monsters from old stories, creatures of fire and blood and ruin. They did not know Moonfyre. They did not know that she was gentle and affectionate and liked to have the ridge behind her eye scratched. They did not know she brought you roasted goats and curled around you while you slept. They saw only the teeth and the claws and the wings that blocked out the sun.
And Moonfyre did not know them. She did not understand that their screams came from fear, not from aggression. She did not grasp that they were running away from her, not toward her. All she knew was noise and motion and a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on her, and every ancient instinct in her body was screaming at her to defend herself.
"Moonfyre, please," you said, leaning forward, pressing your face against the warmth of her scales. "Please, just get us to the caves. I can see them. We're almost there. Just a little farther."
She let out a sound that was half growl and half shriek, a piercing cry that echoed off the cliffs and made the screams from below double in intensity. You saw people throwing themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their arms, waiting for the fire they were certain was coming. But Moonfyre did not breathe fire. She just kept flying, her wings beating harder and faster, her body trembling with the effort of restraint.
The cave entrance appeared ahead of you, a dark slash in the grey face of the Dragonmont. It looked so small from the air, so inconsequential, just a shadow among shadows. But you knew it intimately. You had walked through that opening a thousand times, had trailed your fingers along its rough walls, had felt the temperature shift as you descended from the cold salt wind into the warm and motionless dark of the tunnels. It was your place. Your secret. The place where everything had changed.
Moonfyre dove. The descent was faster than anything you had experienced before. Her wings folded back, her body streamlined, the wind screaming past your ears with a sound like tearing silk. You held on with everything you had, your fingers buried in her scales, your legs clamped around her neck, your face pressed into her spine. The cave entrance rushed up to meet you, growing larger and larger, and for one terrifying instant you were certain she was going to crash into the cliff face, that you were both going to die in a shatter of stone and bone and torn wing membrane.
But at the last possible moment, she spread her wings and slowed. Her body tilted. Her claws reached out and caught the lip of the cave entrance. She landed hard, the impact jarring through your whole body like a physical blow, and then she was inside, folding herself into the darkness of the tunnel with a speed that spoke of desperation. She scrambled deeper, away from the entrance, away from the light, away from the screams that still rang outside.
You slid from her back the moment she stopped moving. Your legs buckled when you hit the stone, and you had to catch yourself against the wall, your heart slamming, your whole body shuddering with the aftermath of adrenaline. The cave was dark and warm and blessedly familiar, the walls rough beneath your palms, the air thick with the smell of sulfur and old rock. You could hear Moonfyre's breathing, harsh and ragged, and you could see her in the dim glow filtering from the entrance. Her pale scales gleamed. Her golden eyes were wild and unfocused.
She was not calm. She was anything but calm. She paced the chamber like a caged thing, her claws scraping against the stone, her tail lashing with a violence that made the air whistle. Her wings were half spread, the membranes quivering, and her head hung low, her jaws parted, that terrible growl still rumbling in her chest. Every few seconds she would whip toward the cave entrance and let out a hiss, a sharp and warning sound that lifted the hair on the back of your neck.
"Moonfyre." You kept your voice low and steady, the same voice you had used when you first found her, wounded and terrified and ready to snap your head off at the neck. "Moonfyre, it's alright now. We're safe. We're in the cave. No one is going to hurt you."
She did not seem to hear you. Her eyes remained fixed on the entrance, her body coiled and ready, braced to strike at anything that came through. The screams from outside were fainter now, muffled by the stone, but you could still hear them. And so could she. Every distant cry made her flinch, made her snarl, made her pace faster and harder.
You approached her slowly, carefully, your hands raised, your movements deliberate and unthreatening. You had done this before. You had done it a hundred times in those early days, when she was still wild and wounded and did not trust the sound of your voice or the smell of your skin. You knew how to move, how to speak, how to make yourself small and harmless. But this was different. This was not a wounded dragon too weak to fight. This was a strong and healthy dragon, terrified and agitated and not understanding what was happening around her.
"It's only noise," you said, taking another step closer. "Just noise, Moonfyre. It can't hurt you. The people out there, they're more afraid of you than you are of them. They've never seen a dragon before. They don't understand. But I understand. I know you. I know you would never hurt anyone."
She swung toward you suddenly, her head whipping around, her golden eyes locking onto your face. And for one suspended, heart stopping moment, you saw something in those eyes that was not affection or recognition or trust. You saw the wildness. The ancient, primal instinct that lived in the marrow of every dragon. The part of her that was not your companion, not your friend, but a predator. A force of nature. A creature of fire and blood and terrible, beautiful power.
Then she blinked. The wildness receded. And she was Moonfyre again, your Moonfyre, the dragon who cuddled with you on the sand and brought you roasted goats and purred like a kitten when you found the right spot behind her jaw.
She made a small, questioning chirp and lowered her head, pressing her snout against your chest. You wrapped your arms around her and held on, your hands stroking her warm scales, your voice a steady and soothing murmur in the darkness.
"I know," you whispered. "I know, sweet girl. That was frightening. That was so frightening. But we're safe now. We're safe. The cave is safe. You've always been safe here."
She chirped again, softer this time, and you felt the tension begin to drain from her body. The growl faded from her chest. Her wings folded slowly back against her sides. She was still agitated, you could feel it in the twitch of her tail and the way her ears kept flicking toward the entrance. But she was calming. She was coming back to herself, and to you.
You stayed like that for a long time. Your arms around her neck. Your face pressed to the warm curve of her scales. Breathing slow and steady until her breathing slowed to match yours. The screams from outside faded into silence, replaced by the distant crash of the sea and the whisper of wind through the tunnels. The cave was warm and dark and quiet. You were together. And that was enough. That had to be enough.
"Those people out there," you said at last, your voice still soft, your hands still moving over her scales in slow and rhythmic strokes, "they've never seen anything like you. They grew up on stories about dragons. Terrible stories. Stories about fire and death and the Dance. They don't know that dragons can be gentle. They don't know that dragons can love. They only know what the old tales told them."
Moonfyre made a low sound, almost sorrowful, and you held her tighter.
"But they're going to learn. They're going to learn that you're not a monster. They're going to learn that you're my friend, my family, my..." You stopped, swallowing against the thickness in your throat. "My everything. And if they can't accept that, if they can't accept you, then we'll leave. We'll go back to our island. Or we'll find another one. Or we'll just keep flying until we find a place where we can be together without anyone screaming and running away. You and me. Just like I promised."
She rumbled, a low and contented sound, and her tail curled around you, drawing you closer against the warmth of her body. You leaned into her, letting that heat seep through your worn cloak and into your cold and weary bones.
—
The morning had been quiet. On Dragonstone, quiet was a rare and fragile gift, one that Baelor had learned to appreciate in the long years since he had inherited the title and the burden that came with it. He had risen early, as he always did, and had spent the first hours of the day bent over the endless correspondence that poured in from every corner of the realm. Letters from King's Landing, letters from the Free Cities, letters from lords and ladies and merchants and anyone else who believed they had a claim on his attention. His quill moved methodically across the parchment, leaving neat lines of black ink in its wake, but his mind was only half engaged with the work. The other half was elsewhere, circling endlessly around the same dark thoughts, the way a tongue keeps returning to a broken tooth.
Valarr had not spoken to him since their argument in the great hall. Not a word. Not a glance. His son had thrown himself into the search for the girl with a desperation that had long since crossed the border into obsession. He spent every waking hour combing the cliffs and the caves and the shoreline, refusing food, refusing rest, refusing to accept the reality that everyone else had already resigned themselves to. The girl was dead. She had fallen from the cliffs in the darkness, or thrown herself from them in despair, or simply slipped and been swept out to sea. The details did not matter. What mattered was that she was gone, and Valarr was destroying himself trying to locate a ghost.
Baelor had tried to be patient. He had given his son space to grieve, time to come to terms with the loss in his own way. But the days kept slipping past, and the king's summons grew sharper with every raven that arrived from the capital, and Valarr was no closer to acceptance than he had been the morning they found her cloak tangled on the rocks. If anything, he was worse now. His eyes had gone hollow, dark pits in a face grown gaunt and grey. His movements were jerky and erratic, the motions of a man who had not slept in a week, who had not eaten in days, who was running on nothing but sorrow and a stubborn, desperate hope that refused to die.
It could not continue. Baelor knew that with the cold certainty that had guided his entire life. Sooner or later, he would have to intervene. He would have to drag his son back from the cliffs, force food and sleep upon him, make him accept the brutal truth of what had happened. He would have to play the villain again. The cold and practical father who valued duty above love. The man who had offered a village girl silver to disappear and had driven her, however unintentionally, to her death.
The thought made his stomach turn, but he forced it down. He had made his choices. He would live with them, and he would carry the weight of her death on his conscience until the day he died. That was what it meant to be a prince. You made the hard decisions so others did not have to. You bore the guilt so they could sleep peacefully. That was the burden he had been born to shoulder, and he would shoulder it, no matter how heavily it pressed down on him.
Jena had joined him for tea, as she often did in the late morning hours. She sat across from him at the small table by the window, her hands wrapped around a cup of chamomile, her dark hair pulled back in a simple braid that trailed over one shoulder. She was a quiet woman, Jena, possessed of a stillness that Baelor had always found deeply comforting. She did not fill the silence with idle chatter the way so many at court seemed compelled to do. She simply sat with him, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of his thoughts.
"You're thinking about him again," she said without looking up from her tea. It was not a question.
Baelor sighed and set down his quill. "I am always thinking about him. He is my son."
"He is our son." Jena's voice remained gentle, but there was a thread of reproach woven through it. "And he is suffering. He has been suffering for days, and you have done nothing but watch him tear himself apart."
"What would you have me do?" Baelor rubbed at his temples, feeling the familiar ache of exhaustion building behind his eyes. "I have tried speaking with him. I have tried reasoning with him. I have tried giving him space and silence. Nothing reaches him. He will not listen to me. He will not even look at me."
"Can you truly blame him?" Jena set down her cup with a soft click, her dark eyes rising to meet his. "You offered that girl coin to leave him. You told her about the betrothal before he had the chance to explain it himself. You..."
"I am aware of what I did." Baelor's voice came out sharper than he intended, and he softened it with deliberate effort. "I am aware. And I would do it again, if circumstances demanded it. It was the correct decision. For him, for the realm, for everyone involved."
Jena was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very quietly, "Was it? For him, I mean. Was it truly the correct decision for him?"
Before Baelor could summon a response, the screaming began.
It started faint and far away, barely audible beneath the constant crash of the waves against the cliffs. Baelor frowned, his head lifting, his hand moving instinctively toward the sword that was not at his hip because he was in his private chambers and had not anticipated needing it. Jena looked up as well, her brow furrowing, her teacup frozen halfway to her lips.
"What is that?" she asked.
Baelor rose and crossed to the window. The screams were growing louder now, more distinct, and he could pick out other sounds tangled among them. Shouts. Running footsteps. The clatter of something heavy falling. His heart began to beat faster, his body responding with the automatic readiness of a man who had fought in battles and knew the particular timbre of panic when he heard it.
"I do not know," he said, throwing open the shutters. "Stay here."
He stepped out onto the balcony, and the noise hit him like a physical force. People were screaming in the village below, their voices carrying up the mountainside in overlapping waves of terror. He could see them running, tiny figures scattering like ants from a disturbed nest. And then Baelor looked up to where they were pointing, and the blood in his veins turned to ice.
A dragon. There was a dragon in the sky above Dragonstone.
For one impossible, suspended moment, his mind refused to process what his eyes were reporting. It was a trick of the light. A peculiar cloud formation. An unusually large bird of a species he had never encountered. It was anything other than what it so clearly, undeniably was. Because dragons were dead. Dragons had been dead for seventy years, since the last of them had withered and perished in the Dragonpit at King's Landing, since the Dance had scoured the skies clean and left behind nothing but ashes and old songs. Dragons were dead, and had been dead for the entirety of his life, and the thing circling above his castle could not possibly be what his eyes insisted it was.
But it was. It was a dragon, pale and shimmering, its scales catching the morning sunlight and scattering it like scattered gemstones. It was smaller than the old books had led him to imagine a dragon of its apparent youth should be, with vast wings that stretched wide, but still bigger then two grown war horses combined. It flew low over the island, its shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the dark walls of the castle itself, and it was beautiful and terrible and utterly, incontrovertibly real.
"Gods," Baelor breathed. The word left his lips as a prayer and a curse and a cry of pure disbelief all at once.
Jena appeared at his side, her face drained of color, her hand gripping the balcony railing with a force that turned her knuckles bone white. She had followed him despite his order to stay inside. Of course she had. Jena had never been the sort of woman who remained where she was told when there was danger to be faced.
"Baelor," she said, and her voice was remarkably steady. Steadier than his own. Jena had always been the calm presence in a crisis. "That is a dragon."
"I know."
"A living dragon. Flying above our castle."
"I know."
"The girl-." Jena's voice fractured on the word."
"I know." Baelor turned from the balcony, his mind already shifting, already abandoning shock in favor of action. "I know."
He strode back into the chamber with quick, decisive steps, the decades of training and experience asserting control. There would be time for disbelief later. There would be time for guilt and regret and the crushing weight of realization later. Right now, there was a dragon on his island and his people were panicking, and he needed to act.
The door burst open before he reached it. A guard stumbled through, his face flushed and shining with sweat, his breath tearing in and out of his chest in ragged gasps.
"My prince," he said, his voice scraped raw. "My prince, there is..."
"A dragon," Baelor finished for him. "I have seen it. Where is it now?"
"The caves, my prince. It was observed entering the eastern tunnels. It..." Ser Raymund stopped and swallowed hard, the scar that bisected his face pulling tight. "It bore a rider, my prince. We saw someone on its back. A figure, small, clinging to its neck. They entered the caves together."
A rider. Baelor's heart, which had been hammering with the cold rhythm of duty and command, gave a single violent stutter. A rider. Someone had mounted that creature. Someone had tamed a dragon that had been dead for seventy years, had climbed onto its back and flown it across the sea and into the tunnels of Dragonstone.
The girl. It had to be the girl. The mad girl with the imaginary dragon that was not imaginary at all.
"Assemble the knights," Baelor ordered, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "And the horses. We ride for the eastern caves at once."
"Yes, my prince."
"No one is to move against the dragon without my direct command. No one attacks it. No one provokes it. No one approaches it without my explicit permission. If it breathes fire, if it assaults anyone, if it so much as looks at one of my men in a manner that suggests hostility..." He paused, his jaw tightening until he could feel the ache in his teeth. "Then we will do what we must. But not before. Not until I give the word. Is that understood?"
"Yes, my prince." Ser Raymund hesitated, and something flickered across his scarred face. Some emotion Baelor could not quite identify. "My prince, there is something else."
"What is it?"
"The young prince. Prince Valarr." Ser Raymund's voice flattened into careful neutrality, the tone of a man delivering news he knew would not be well received. "He was in the village when the dragon was sighted. He saw it. He took a horse from the stables and rode out immediately. Alone. He was observed heading toward the eastern caves."
The ice that had been threading through Baelor's veins since he first stepped onto the balcony crystallized into something sharp and jagged. "Alone," Baelor repeated. The word came out flat and dangerous.
"Yes, my prince. He would not wait. He simply took the horse and rode. By the time anyone thought to restrain him, he was already gone."
Baelor closed his eyes. For one brief moment, he allowed himself to feel the full immensity of the situation. The dragon. The girl. His son riding toward both of them with grief and desperation and gods only knew what else driving his heels into the horse's flanks. Then he opened his eyes again, and his face was hard and set, the face of a man who had made terrible decisions his entire life and would make them again now.
"Then we ride faster," he said. "Get the horses. Get the knights. We leave immediately. And Ser Raymund?"
"My prince?"
"Pray to whatever gods you keep that we are not too late."
—
You had almost managed to calm her down. Almost.
Moonfyre's growling had subsided to a low, uneasy rumble, the kind of sound that still vibrated through your bones and set your teeth on edge but no longer promised immediate violence. Her muscles remained rigid beneath her pale scales, hard as carved stone, but she was no longer coiled to strike. Her tail had stopped its furious lashing and now only twitched occasionally, the spaded tip flicking back and forth with the irritable rhythm of a cat who had been interrupted mid nap and was not pleased about it. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on the cave entrance, watchful and wary, but the wild, panicked edge had receded. She was listening to you now, her great head tilted slightly toward the sound of your voice, her breathing gradually slowing to match the deliberate, steady rhythm you were setting for her. Every few seconds she would huff, a sharp exhale through her nostrils that sent small grey puffs of smoke spiraling toward the distant ceiling, but she was no longer baring her teeth. She was no longer kindling that terrible, deadly glow at the back of her throat.
"That's it," you murmured, your hand moving along the warm scales of her jaw in the rhythm you had learned she preferred. Slow and even, tracing from the sensitive ridge behind her eye down to the corner of her mouth and back again. "That's it, sweet girl. We're safe now. It's only noise out there. Only frightened people making frightened sounds. They can't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. You know that, don't you? You know I would never let anyone hurt you."
She made a small, questioning chirp, a sound so soft and incongruous that it still startled you every time. This creature who could level a village, who could turn stone to slag with a single breath, chirping like a hatchling asking for reassurance. You pressed your forehead against her snout and let the heat of her scales seep into your skin. For just a moment, you closed your eyes.
Then you heard the footsteps. Your eyes snapped open. Moonfyre's head lifted with a sharp, sudden motion, her body going rigid beneath your hands. The growl surged back into her chest before you could draw breath to stop it. Her wings half spread, the pale membranes catching the dim light of the cave and glowing faintly, and you saw the fire kindle once more at the back of her throat. Someone was running, the footsteps frantic and uneven, making no attempt at stealth. Someone who was thinking of nothing but reaching this chamber as fast as humanly possible.
Valarr burst into the cavern. He looked like a corpse given motion. Eyes so red rimmed and shadowed they appeared bruised. Dark circles that looked more like wounds than exhaustion. His hair was a wild snarl, his clothes rumpled and stained with days of wear, and there was a half healed cut across his forehead that had scabbed over but not closed. He looked like he had not slept in days. He looked like he had not eaten in days. He looked like a man who had been running on nothing but grief and stubborn, irrational hope and had burned through both of them down to the dregs.
And he had a sword in his hand. The blade caught the faint light and glittered, and his knuckles were bone white around the hilt, and his mismatched eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression of absolute, primal terror.
"Y/N!" His voice tore on your name. "Y/N, get away from it! Get away!"
Moonfyre roared. The sound hit you like a physical blow, reverberating through the stone and your bones and the very air in your lungs. She lunged forward, placing her body between you and the threat, her vast wings spreading wide enough to brush both walls of the chamber. Her jaws opened, and you saw the fire blooming at the back of her throat.
"STOP!" You threw yourself in front of her, your arms spread wide, your heart beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth. "Moonfyre, stop! Don't!"
Valarr had frozen mid stride. His sword was still raised, his chest heaving, his face a mask of terror and disbelief. He stared at Moonfyre as if the world had cracked open beneath his feet, and you watched the realization strike him like a physical force. She was real. The dragon was real. Everything you had told him, everything you had tried so hard to make him believe, was standing in front of him with teeth like daggers and eyes like molten gold.
"Valarr." Your voice cut through the growling and the pounding of your heart, sharp as a blade. "Drop the sword. Right now. Drop it and kick it away."
He did not move. His eyes stayed fixed on Moonfyre, wide and glassy with shock.
"Valarr!" you shouted. "She thinks you're going to hurt me. She is scared and she is furious and if you do not drop that sword in the next three seconds she will incinerate you where you stand. Do you understand me? Look at her teeth. Look at the fire in her throat. You cannot fight her. You cannot protect me from her. The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that my body is between you and her. So drop. The. Sword."
Something in your voice reached him. He blinked, his eyes finally moving from the dragon to your face, and for a long, suspended moment he simply stared at you as if you were a ghost.
"Y/N," he breathed. "You're alive. We found your cloak on the rocks, there was blood on the stones, I thought..."
"The sword, Valarr!"
He looked down at his hand as if noticing the blade for the first time. Slowly, with the jerky movements of a man in shock, he lowered it to the stone floor. He straightened, his hands raised, and kicked the weapon away into the shadows where it clattered against the wall and lay still.
"I'm not going to hurt her," he said, his voice shaking. He was speaking to Moonfyre now, his eyes fixed somewhere near her feet rather than meeting her gaze. "I would never hurt her. I'm sorry. I thought she was in danger. I thought you had taken her, I thought you were..."
Moonfyre growled again, low and threatening, a sound like boulders grinding together deep underground. You turned back to her and pressed both hands against her snout, forcing her to focus on you.
"Hey," you said, your voice softening. "Hey. Look at me. Look at me, sweet girl. He is not a threat. He is an idiot, but he is not a threat. I need you to stay here while I go talk to him. Can you do that? Can you let me handle the idiot?"
She huffed, a warm blast of air that stirred your hair, and you chose to read it as agreement. You pressed a kiss to her snout and then turned and walked toward Valarr.
He was trembling. His hands were still raised, still shaking, and his eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your chest ache. He looked at you like you were a miracle. Like you were something he had been praying to see and had never expected to find.
You stopped a few feet away from him. Close enough to touch. Not touching. You opened your mouth to say something, though you had no idea what, but before you could form a single syllable he closed the distance and pulled you into his arms.
It was desperate. Crushing. His arms wrapped around you so tightly that you could barely draw breath, one hand fisting in the back of your dress, the other pressed flat against your spine like he was trying to feel your heartbeat through your skin. His face buried itself in your hair, and you felt his tears hot and wet against your neck, felt the way his entire body was shuddering against yours.
"You're alive," he choked out. "You're alive. We searched everywhere, we couldn't find you, I thought you fell, I thought you drowned, I thought you were dead..."
And maybe it was the shock of seeing him. Or the adrenaline still surging through your veins from the flight and the screams and the near disaster of his arrival. Or maybe it was the fact that you had spent days alone on an island with nothing but a dragon for company and you had done a great deal of thinking, a great deal of feeling, a great deal of sitting with your grief and your anger and your hurt. Maybe it was all of those things at once. But instead of melting into his embrace, instead of weeping with relief and telling him everything was forgiven, you felt something hard and hot and furious rise up in your chest.
Your hands, which had been hanging limp at your sides, came up to his chest. And you pushed. It was not a hard push. Just enough to create a few inches of space between you. Just enough to look him in the eye. His arms loosened reluctantly, his hands sliding to your shoulders, and he gazed down at you with those red rimmed, desperate, hopeful eyes, and you felt the anger surge up your throat like bile.
"Don't," you said. Your voice came out rough and scraped raw. "Don't you dare hold me like that. Don't you dare cry on my shoulder as though you are the one who has been wronged."
He flinched. Actually flinched, as if you had struck him across the face. His hands dropped from your shoulders, hovering uncertainly in the air between you. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Y/N," he managed at last, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have believed you. I should have..."
"Oh, you're sorry." The words came out bitter and cutting, sharp edged as broken glass. You stepped back, putting more distance between you, and his hands fell to his sides like dead things. "You're sorry. Well, that fixes everything, doesn't it? the whole time, the entire time, you were looking at me like I was a child telling stories about fairies. And now you're sorry."
"I was wrong." His voice cracked down the middle. "I was so wrong, and I know that now, and I..."
"You know that now." You laughed, and it was an ugly sound, hollow and humorless. "You know that now because you saw her with your own eyes. You know that now because the evidence is standing twenty feet away from you, breathing fire and very nearly ending your life. Tell me, Valarr. If she hadn't come back, if I had stayed on that island forever, would you have gone to your grave believing I was mad? Would you have told your children about the crazy village girl you once humored, the one who thought she had a dragon?"
"No." He shook his head violently, his tangled hair falling into his eyes. "No, I would never. I didn't think you were crazy. I thought you were lonely. I thought you needed something to believe in, and I didn't want to take that away from you. I thought I was being..."
"Kind." You spat the word like poison. "You thought you were being kind. Do you have any idea what that felt like? Do you have any idea what it is like to pour your heart out to someone, to share the most precious thing in your life with them, and to watch them nod and smile and ask polite questions while behind their eyes they are thinking poor thing, she really believes it, how terribly sad?"
Valarr's face crumpled. "That's not what I thought. I never thought..."
"I stood in front of your father," you continued, your voice shaking now, "and he offered me silver to disappear. Silver. Like I was a stain on his floor. Like I was a problem to be solved and discarded. And I refused it. Do you know why I refused it?" You did not wait for him to answer. "Because I believed what we had was worth more than silver. Because I believed you loved me. But you didn't, did you? You pitied me. There is a difference. There is a very great difference."
"That's not true." His voice was hoarse and raw, scraped down to nothing. "That's not. I love you, Y/N. I have loved you since the moment I met you in the market, when you told me I was terrifying in a different way and made me laugh for the first time in weeks. I love the way you talk too much when you're nervous. I love the way you embroider flowers on your cloak even though you think they're ugly. I love the way you care about everything and everyone, the goats and the herbs and the old women in the village and the dragons that everyone else was certain were dead. I love you. Not some sad, broken version of you I invented in my head. You. The real you. The you who is standing in front of me right now, furious and beautiful and so alive it makes my chest ache."
He reached for you then, his hands coming up to cup your face with a gentleness that seemed impossible after the violence of the last few minutes. His thumbs brushed across your cheekbones, catching tears you had not realized you were shedding, and his eyes searched yours with a desperation that made your breath catch.
"I was wrong," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was so wrong about so many things. I should have believed you from the beginning. I should have trusted you when you told me she was real. I should have told you about Kiera the moment I knew how I felt about you instead of hiding it like a coward. I should have done a hundred things differently, and I did none of them, and you got hurt because of it. You got hurt, and you ran, and I thought you died. I thought you died believing I pitied you. I thought you died thinking you meant nothing to me. And I have been living in hell for three days, Y/N. Three days of believing the woman I love was dead at the bottom of the sea, and it was my fault."
His voice broke on the final word, and a tear slipped down his cheek, trailing over his thumb where it rested against your skin.
"Don't," you whispered, but your voice had lost its sharp edge. "Don't you dare cry. You don't get to cry. I am the one who was wronged. I am the one who gets to be angry."
"Then be angry." His thumbs traced the curve of your cheekbones, feather light and trembling. "Be as furious as you need to be. Shout at me. Strike me. Tell me everything I did wrong. I will stand here and accept all of it. I will accept anything you throw at me, as long as you are here to throw it. As long as you are alive."
"I am angry." Your voice wobbled dangerously. "I am so angry, Valarr. I am angry about the dragon, and I am angry about Kiera, and I am angry that you let me find out from your father instead of from you."
"I know." His voice was barely audible now.
"No, you don't know. Not yet. Not until I've said it all." You pulled back from him, your hands still twisted in the front of his tunic, your eyes burning into his. "Do you know how humiliating that was? Standing in that room while your father told me you were promised to someone else as if it was nothing? As if I was nothing? I had to hear it from him, Valarr. From a stranger who looked at me like I was dirt on his boot. Not from you. Not from the man who claimed to love me. You let me walk into that room completely unprepared. You let me be blindsided and humiliated, and you weren't even there to see it."
"I know." His face was ashen. "I know, and I hate myself for it. I should have told you myself. I should have told you the first time I kissed you. The first time I realized I was falling in love with you. But I was a coward. I was so terrified of losing you that I did the one thing guaranteed to make it happen."
"You kept me in the dark." Your fingers twisted tighter in the fabric of his tunic, your knuckles pressing against his chest. "You let me believe there was a future for us. You let me hope and plan and dream, and all the while there was a girl in Tyrosh with your ring on her finger. You were never going to be mine. You were never going to choose me."
"That is not true."
"Isn't it?"
"No." His voice was fierce suddenly, his hands tightening on your face. "It isn't true. I did choose you. I chose you when I told my father I would not marry her. I chose you when I told him I would abdicate. I chose you when I said I would give up the throne, the crown, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to value, if it meant I could be with you. He said yes, Y/N. He said if I found you alive, I could marry you. Not Kiera. Not some political alliance. You."
You stared at him. The words hung in the air between you, heavy and solid and impossible.
"You abdicated?"
"I told him I didn't want it. Any of it. Not if it meant losing you." His eyes burned into yours, fierce and desperate and blazing with a sincerity that made your heart stutter. "He was furious. We shouted at each other for an hour. He told me I was throwing away my future, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to be. And I told him I didn't care. I told him none of it mattered without you. I told him I would rather be a farmer or a fisherman or a beggar on the streets of King's Landing, as long as I had you by my side."
"Valarr." Your voice came out as a whisper. "You cannot simply abdicate. You are the heir's heir. The future of the realm depends on..."
"The future of the realm can hang itself." His voice cracked, but his gaze did not waver. "I don't care about the realm. I care about you. I have spent my entire life doing what was expected of me, being what everyone else wanted me to be, and the only time I have ever felt like myself was when I was with you. You are the only real thing in my life. Everything else is politics and duty and masks."
"That isn't fair." You pulled back further, shaking your head. "You cannot put that on me. You cannot make me responsible for your entire sense of self. That isn't love. That is..."
"I know what it is." His voice was steady now, steadier than it had been since he entered the cave. "It is love. Messy and desperate and probably unhealthy, and I don't care. I am not asking you to fix me, Y/N. I am not asking you to be my salvation. I am telling you that you showed me what it felt like to be seen, and I am never going to stop being grateful for that, whether you take me back or not."
You stared at him. The anger was still there, hot and hard and stubborn, but it was fading now, slowly and reluctantly, replaced by something else. Something that had been there all along, buried beneath the hurt and the betrayal, waiting to be found again.
A long silence stretched between them. Moonfyre made a soft sound behind you, and you realized you had been standing with your back to her this whole time, trusting her not to attack while your attention was elsewhere. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching with what might have been impatience or might have been curiosity.
"Your father is probably on his way here right now," you said, turning back to Valarr. "With knights. With swords. With orders to kill her if she so much as looks at anyone the wrong way."
"Probably."
"And what are you going to do when he arrives? Stand between her and his men? Fight your own family?"
"If I have to." His voice was quiet but absolutely certain. "I will not let anyone hurt her. I will not let anyone hurt you. Not my father. Not the Kingsguard. Not anyone."
"You're an idiot," you said at last. Your voice came out thick and unsteady.
"I know."
"A complete and utter fool."
"I know."
"You broke my heart, Valarr. You shattered it into a thousand pieces, and I had to fly across the sea on a dragon's back to put it back together. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you did to me?"
His face went pale. "I..."
"I'm not finished." You reached up and pressed two fingers to his lips, silencing him. "You hurt me. And I am still angry. And I am going to be angry for a while, probably. You're going to have to be patient with me. You're going to have to prove to me that you mean what you say. Every day. For a long time. Do you understand?"
He nodded, his lips moving against your fingers.
"And if you ever lie to me again," you continued, "if you ever keep a secret from me again, if you ever look at me with pity instead of trust, I will leave. I will get on my dragon and fly away and I will never come back. I mean that, Valarr. I will not give you a third chance."
"I understand." He said the words against your fingers, his breath warm on your skin. "No more secrets. No more lies. No more pity. Ever. I swear it on my life."
You held his gaze for a long moment, searching his face for any sign of hesitation, any flicker of doubt. You found none.
"Alright," you said quietly, and you lowered your fingers from his lips.
He blinked. "Alright?"
"Alright. I'm willing to try. But you're going to have to earn back my trust. Every day. For a long time. Possibly years."
A sound escaped him, something between a laugh and a sob. "I can do years. I can do decades. I can do the rest of my life."
"It might take that long."
"Then I'll spend the rest of my life earning it." He pressed his forehead against yours, his breath warm on your lips. "Every day. Every moment. I'll prove to you that you made the right choice. I'll prove to you that I'm worthy of the chance you're giving me."
"You'd better," you murmured, and then you pulled him down and kissed him.
It was not a gentle kiss. It was fierce and desperate and full of all the grief and fear and love that had been building between you for days. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you against him with that same crushing desperation, and your hands fisted in his tunic, and you held onto each other like the world was ending and this was the only thing that mattered.
When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, and his hands were still cupping your face, and he was looking at you with an expression of such pure, unguarded joy that it made your heart clench.
"I love you," he said. "I love you, Y/N. I should have said it a thousand times before, and I'll say it a thousand times now to make up for every time I didn't. I love you. I love you. I love you."
Behind you, Moonfyre made a sound. A soft, questioning chirp that was so incongruous with her size. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching. She did not look angry anymore. She did not look threatened. She looked curious, and perhaps slightly disgruntled that your attention was focused on someone other than her.
"It's okay, sweet girl," you said, reaching one hand toward her. "He's with me. He's mine. Just like you're mine. And I know you two got off to a terrible start, but I'm hoping you can learn to tolerate each other. Because I'm not giving up either of you."
Moonfyre huffed, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils, and then she lowered her head back down to rest on her front claws. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on Valarr, still watchful, still wary, but the killing fury had faded. She was willing to give him a chance.
Valarr let out a shaky breath. "Is she going to let me live?"
"For now. But I'd stay on her good side if I were you. She's very protective."
"I noticed." He looked at Moonfyre, then back at you, and a smile spread across his face. The first real smile you had seen from him since he burst into the chamber. It made him look younger, lighter, like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "She's magnificent. Terrifying, but magnificent. Just like her rider."
"Flattery won't save you if she decides she doesn't like you."
Moonfyre blinked at him slowly, her golden eyes unreadable. Then she made a sound, a low rumbling that was not quite a growl and not quite a purr, and closed her eyes, apparently deciding he was not interesting enough to warrant her continued attention.
"I think that went well," Valarr said. "All things considered."
You laughed, and the sound surprised you. Bright and warm and full of a joy you had not felt in days. "She'll come around. She just needs time. Like me."
"Time." Valarr turned back to you, his hand finding yours and lacing your fingers together. "Time, I have. All the time in the world."
You heard them before you saw them, the thunder of hooves on rock, the metallic jangle of tack and armor, the low, urgent murmur of many voices trying to speak quietly and failing utterly. They were outside the cave now, assembling in the narrow ravine that led to the entrance, and the sound of them echoed through the tunnels like water rushing through a gorge, building and building until it reached you in the deep chamber where you stood with Valarr's hand still laced in yours and Moonfyre's warmth still pressed against your back like a living furnace.
Then Baelor's voice cut through the noise, sharp with a fear he was trying very hard to conceal and not quite succeeding.
"Valarr! Valarr, can you hear me? Are you in there?"
Valarr tensed beside you, every muscle going rigid. His hand tightened around yours with a force that would have been painful if you hadn't been so grateful for the anchor of it, and you felt him draw breath to answer, felt the relief flooding through him at the sound of his father's voice. You squeezed his fingers before he could speak.
"Wait," you whispered.
He looked at you, his brow furrowing, the question already forming on his lips. "What is it? He's worried. He thinks I'm dead."
"I know." You pulled your hand free of his, gently, but with purpose and turned to face Moonfyre. She had lifted her head again at the sound of the voices, her golden eyes fixed on the tunnel that led to the entrance with an intensity that made your stomach clench. Her body had gone rigid with that same tension you had worked so hard to calm, every scale and sinew coiled tight as a spring. The growl was not back yet, but you could feel it waiting just beneath the surface, a tremor in her chest that vibrated through the stone floor. "But if you call him in here, he won't come alone. You know he won't. He'll bring his knights. He'll bring their swords. And she just barely accepted you. After hours of work and two near-death experiences. She won't accept a dozen armed men."
Valarr's face shifted as understanding took hold, the relief draining away and leaving something harder in its place. "You're right. You're right, of course." He turned toward the tunnel, squared his shoulders, and raised his voice. "Father! I'm in here. I'm alive and I'm unharmed. But you need to stay where you are. Do not bring the knights inside."
A pause. The kind of pause that stretches out like a held breath. Then Baelor's voice came again, closer this time, he must have dismounted and walked to the very mouth of the cave, close enough that you could hear the edge of an echo. "Valarr, thank the gods. Is the girl with you? Is she safe?"
You stiffened at the word. The girl. Even now, even after everything he couldn't be bothered to use your name. Valarr shot you an apologetic look, the kind that said I know, I'm sorry, he's like this, and called back, "She's here. She's safe. But Father, listen to me carefully. The dragon is also here, and she is very protective. She nearly killed me when I came in carrying a sword, and the only reason I'm still breathing is because Y/N here talked her down. If you bring armed men into this cave, there will be blood, and it will not be hers. Do you understand?"
Another pause. Longer this time. You could almost hear the calculations running behind it, the prince's mind turning over the tactical realities of the situation and finding them wanting. When Baelor spoke again, his voice had shifted the sharp edge of command giving way to something more measured, more careful. The voice of a man who understood that he was not in control of this situation and was intelligent enough to accept it.
"What do you propose?"
Valarr looked at you. You took a breath and stepped forward, your hand finding the warm scales of her shoulder and resting there, drawing courage from the contact.
"Prince Baelor," you called out. Your voice was steadier than you expected it to be, given the circumstances. Given that you were addressing the man who had tried to buy your disappearance with a pouch of silver. "Moonfyre does not like crowds. She does not like humans in general, if I'm being honest. She barely tolerates your son, and it took me the better part of an afternoon to convince her not to turn him into ash. If you want to come inside, you will come alone. No knights. No weapons. No sudden movements. No raised voices. If you can accept those terms, you may enter. If you cannot, then you will wait outside until I decide otherwise."
The silence that followed was so complete you could hear the wind whistling through the ravine outside, the distant cry of seabirds, the soft whisper of Moonfyre's breathing. You imagined Baelor standing at the cave mouth, his scarred face unreadable, his mind turning over the unprecedented reality of being given conditions by a village girl and her dragon. Being given orders. Being told to wait.
Then he said, "Very well. I will come alone. Ser Raymund, you have command until I return. No one follows me inside. No one acts without my direct order. No one so much as draws a blade, no matter what you hear. Is that understood?"
A murmur of assent, reluctant and nervous, the sound of men who did not like what was happening but knew better than to argue with that tone. Then the sound of a sword belt being unbuckled, leather sliding through metal, the distinctive clank of a blade being set down on stone. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing through the tunnel. One man. Alone.
You stroked Moonfyre's jaw, feeling the heat of her beneath your palm, the vibration of that barely-suppressed growl. "He's coming alone, sweet girl. Just one man. No weapons. Just like the other one. Can you be calm for me? Can you trust me one more time?"
She huffed, a warm breath that stirred your hair and smelled faintly of smoke and something older, something that made you think of the heart of a mountain. Her great golden eye fixed on the tunnel entrance, the pupil contracting and expanding as she tracked the sound of footsteps. But she did not growl. She did not kindle the fire at the back of her throat. She simply watched, and waited, and trusted you.
Baelor emerged from the darkness of the tunnel and stopped dead at the edge of the chamber. He looked different than the last time you had seen him, his eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression that stopped the breath in your throat.
Wonder. Pure, unguarded, absolute wonder.
He stared at her the way a scholar might stare at a lost text thought destroyed centuries ago, the way a septon might stare at a miracle he had prayed for but never expected to witness, the way a man who had grown up on stories of dragons and had accepted long ago that they were only stories might stare at proof that the stories had been true all along. The stories had been true, and she was magnificent. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak and had forgotten how. His hands, which had been clenched into fists at his sides, slowly uncurled, the fingers spreading wide in an unconscious gesture of surrender or reverence or both.
Valarr cleared his throat, the sound startling in the quiet. "Father. Are you alright?"
Baelor blinked, visibly shaking himself out of his trance with the effort of a man surfacing from deep water. He looked at Valarr, then at you, then back at Moonfyre. When he spoke, his voice was rough with something that might have been awe, or might have been the beginning of tears.
"She's real. The dragon is real."
"She's real," you confirmed. Your voice came out flatter than you intended, edged with something you didn't bother to disguise. "She has been real this entire time. Her name is Moonfyre. Not that anyone believed me when I told you all." The bitterness crept in despite your best efforts, old and familiar and impossible to fully suppress. "Not that anyone thought I was worth listening to."
Baelor's eyes met yours. He held your gaze for a long moment, and you saw something shift in his expression, a crack in the armor, a crumbling of some internal wall.
"My lady," he said, and the words came out heavy, weighted with something that sounded almost like humility. "It appears that I owe you a great many apologies. And I suspect we all owe you a great deal more than that."
You had not been expecting that. You had been steeling yourself for anger. For demands. For the cold, dismissive authority he had wielded so easily in his hall, the assumption that everything and everyone existed to serve the interests of House Targaryen. You had prepared yourself for a confrontation, for the need to plant your feet and defend Moonfyre and yourself against a man who had already tried to remove you from his son's life, who had looked at you and seen nothing but an obstacle to be cleared. You had not prepared for an apology. You had not prepared for the way his voice caught on the word, or the way his shoulders had dropped, almost imperceptibly, as if setting down a burden he had been carrying for a very long time.
"An apology," you repeated, your voice carefully neutral. Not accepting. Not rejecting. Just waiting.
"Several, in fact." Baelor took a step closer slow and deliberate and stopped when Moonfyre's tail twitched warningly against the stone, a rattle of scales that echoed through the chamber. He raised his hands slightly, palms out, a gesture of peace that looked almost strange on a man like him. A man built for command, not for supplication. "I misjudged you. Profoundly. And my failure to see it—my arrogance, my blindness—very nearly cost my son his life and this family something more precious than I can put into words."
He turned back to Moonfyre, and the wonder returned to his face, softening the hard lines of his scars, making him look younger and older all at once. "A dragon. A living dragon. In the caves of Dragonstone. After seventy years of emptiness and silence." His voice cracked on the final word, splintering like old wood. "Do you understand what this means? Do you understand what you have done?"
You stiffened. The old fear rose up in your chest, sharp and immediate and viscerally familiar, the fear that had been with you since you first decided to return to the island instead of fleeing across the Narrow Sea. The fear of being separated from Moonfyre. The fear of her being taken away locked up in some pit like the dragons of old, turned into a weapon, reduced to a symbol for a house that had forgotten how to love the creatures it claimed to revere. Your hand tightened on her scales, the edges pressing into your palm.
"She is not a thing to be used," you said, and your voice came out sharper than you intended, honed by months of fear and loneliness and desperate love. "She is not a weapon. She is not a political tool. She is not a symbol for your house or a prop for your restoration. She is my friend. My family. The only family I have ever truly had. And I will not—I will not—let anyone take her from me. I don't care who you are. I don't care what throne you sit on. I will burn that throne to ash before I let you use her."
Baelor turned back to you, and something in his expression softened further—not the condescending softness of an adult humoring a child, but something gentler, something almost sorrowful. "No one is going to take her from you, my lady. I give you my word on that, and I do not give my word lightly. I suspect anyone who tried would find themselves facing both a very angry dragon and my son, and I am not eager to lose either of those confrontations. Nor would I wish to."
"He's right." Valarr moved to stand beside you, his hand finding yours again, his fingers interlacing with yours in a grip that was steady and sure. "No one is taking her from you. No one is taking you from here. You're safe. Both of you. I swear it on everything I am."
"Then what did you mean?" You looked at Baelor, your eyes narrowing, the fear still coiled in your chest like a serpent waiting to strike. "What does it mean? What do you think I have done?"
Baelor was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was slower, more deliberate, the voice of a man choosing his words with extreme care and measuring their weight before he let them fall.
"For seventy years, House Targaryen has been without dragons. Our power, our identity, our very reason for existing—it was all tied to them. When the last dragon died, something in us died with it. Something essential. We have been lesser ever since. Diminished. Clinging to a throne through nothing but tradition and politics and the fading memory of a greatness we could no longer claim and could never seem to reclaim." He paused, his eyes moving back to Moonfyre with that same stunned reverence. "You have returned that greatness to us. You found a wounded creature in the dark and you healed her. You showed her love when anyone else would have shown her a saddle, and she loved you in return. You did what none of us could do, what none of us even thought to try. And I suspect that says more about you—about your heart, your character, your worth—than it says about any of us."
You stared at him. The words were so unexpected, so far from what you had braced yourself to hear, that you did not know how to respond. You had prepared for a dozen different versions of this moment, and none of them had looked like this.
He drew a breath and continued, his voice growing steadier even as it grew quieter. "When I offered you coin to leave my son, I told myself I was protecting him. Protecting him from a mistake, from an entanglement beneath his station, from a girl who could bring him nothing but complications. And protecting you as well, or so I told myself, from future heartbreak when the world inevitably tore you apart." He shook his head slowly, the gesture heavy with self recrimination. "I was wrong. Not just about the dragon. About you. About what you are worth. About what you mean to him—and what he means to you." He glanced at Valarr, and something passed between father and son, something complicated and pained and long in the making. "My son abdicated for you. He stood in my hall, in front of my entire court, and told me he would give up everything—his title, his inheritance, his future, his place in this family—for the chance to be with you. And I thought he was being a fool. A romantic fool, throwing his life away for a village girl who had no family and no name and no value beyond what he had imagined in her."
"But she has a dragon," Valarr said quietly. His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it, a blade wrapped in silk. "And now suddenly she has value. Now suddenly she matters. Now suddenly you're standing here apologizing and calling her 'my lady' and speaking of greatness."
"That is not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" Valarr's voice was hard now, the silk falling away. "If she had returned without Moonfyre, if she had come back alone with nothing but the truth, would you still be standing here apologizing? Would you still be calling her 'my lady' and speaking of returning greatness? Or would you be trying to find some other way to remove her?"
The silence that followed was brutal in its honesty. Baelor did not answer immediately, and his failure to do so was an answer in itself, a confession written in hesitation.
Then he said, very quietly, "I would like to think so. I would like to think that seeing you nearly destroy yourself with grief would have been enough. That hearing the truth from you—really hearing it, without my own prejudices in the way—would have been enough. But I cannot say for certain. I cannot stand here and claim a virtue I am not sure I possess. And that uncertainty is a failing I will have to live with. A failing I will have to work to overcome." He turned to you, meeting your eyes directly, and you saw something in his face that you had never expected to see there: vulnerability. "My son is right to be angry with me. And you are right to be angry with me as well. I treated you poorly. I treated you as something disposable, something to be swept aside and forgotten. I did not see you as a person. I did not give you even the basic dignity of using your name. I was wrong, and I am sorry. Truly sorry. Not because you have a dragon. Not because circumstances have changed. But because I failed, and you deserve better than what I gave you."
You looked at him for a long moment. At his scarred face and his windblown hair and the dust on his fine clothes. At the way his hands hung open at his sides, unthreatening, fingers slightly curled as if he were holding onto something invisible. At the way his eyes kept drifting back to Moonfyre not with greed or calculation or the cold assessment of a military asset, but with that same stunned wonder, the wonder of a boy who had grown up on stories of dragons and had never stopped mourning their loss.
"I don't trust you," you said bluntly. The words came out flat and unadorned, a simple statement of fact.
Baelor nodded slowly, accepting it. "I understand. I have given you no reason to trust me, and every reason not to. I would not expect you to forget what happened between us. But I hope—genuinely hope—that in time, I might earn your trust. Earn it the hard way, through actions rather than words. The way my son is earning it." He paused, glancing at Valarr with something that might have been pride or sorrow or both. "He is earning it, I take it? Given that he is still standing here, and the dragon has not eaten him?"
"The dragon came very close to eating him," you said, and despite everything you felt the corner of your mouth twitch, an almost-smile breaking through. "He walked in waving a sword around like an absolute idiot."
"It was a mistake," Valarr muttered, his ears going red. "I already admitted it was a mistake. I panicked. I thought you were dead and I was going to avenge you, and I wasn't thinking clearly."
"You could have died."
"But I didn't." He squeezed your hand, his thumb tracing a circle on your palm. "Because you stopped her. Because she listens to you. Because you're remarkable, and I am the luckiest fool who ever lived, and I am never going to stop being grateful for either of those facts."
Baelor watched this exchange with an expression that was difficult to parse, something between bemusement and approval and a kind of wistfulness, as if he were watching a language being spoken that he had never learned. Then he cleared his throat, the sound deliberate and slightly awkward.
"I realize this is a great deal to ask, given our history and how recently you've been through an ordeal. But I would like to discuss what happens next. With you, with the dragon, with my son. Not here, perhaps—not with half my household guard waiting outside and the entire village in a state of panic and my knees slowly giving out on this stone floor. But soon. When you are ready. When she is ready." He inclined his head toward Moonfyre, who had lowered her head slightly, still watching him with those unblinking golden eyes. "I would like to do this properly, if you'll permit it."
"Not today," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Today I need to stay here with her. She's been through a lot. We both have. She was frightened, and she needs me, and I'm not going to leave her alone in the dark. But soon. I'll come to the castle when she's calm enough to be left, when I know she'll be alright without me for a few hours."
Baelor nodded immediately, no hesitation. "That is more than fair. More than I expected, honestly. Take whatever time you need." He hesitated, something flickering across his face, uncertainty, perhaps, or the effort of a proud man trying to learn humility in real time. Then he added, "For what it is worth, my lady, I am glad you are alive. Genuinely and without qualification. My son has been a ghost without you, a hollow thing going through the motions of living, and it was terrible to witness. I would not have wished that grief on him for anything. And I am... I am sorry that my actions contributed to it."
"Thank you," you said, because it seemed like the thing to say, even if you were not entirely sure you meant it, even if a part of you was still bracing for the other shoe to drop. It was a start, at least. Small and fragile and tentative, but a start.
Baelor turned to go, his footsteps slow and reluctant. But he paused at the edge of the chamber, where the tunnel opened into the darkness, and he looked back at Moonfyre one last time. That wonder crossed his face again, softening the hard edges, erasing the years and the scars and the weight of command until all that remained was a man standing in the presence of something he had believed lost forever.
"A dragon," he murmured, almost to himself, his voice barely above a whisper. "After all these years. After all this silence. A dragon in the caves of Dragonstone." He shook his head slowly, the gesture full of something that looked almost like prayer. "Welcome home, Moonfyre. Welcome home."
And then he was gone, his footsteps fading into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving the three of you alone in the warm glow of the lichen light. Moonfyre let out a long breath and lowered her head to rest on her foreclaws. Valarr pulled you closer, his arm coming around your shoulders. And for the first time in days, in months, in what felt like a lifetime, you allowed yourself to believe that everything might, somehow, be alright.
Then Valarr let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for days. He turned to you, and before you could speak, before you could even think, his arms were around you again. Not desperate this time. Not crushing. Just holding you, his face buried in your hair, his hands spread warm and steady against your back.
"Thank you," he murmured against your temple. "Thank you for that. For hearing him out. For giving him a chance when you had every right to turn him away."
You let yourself lean into him, just slightly, your cheek pressing against the rumpled fabric of his tunic. "I didn't do it for him."
"I know. You did it for me." His arms tightened. "You didn't have to. After everything I did, after everything he did, you could have told us both to go to hell and flown away on your dragon. I wouldn't have blamed you. No one would have blamed you."
"I considered it," you admitted. "When you burst in here waving a sword around like a character from a bad ballad, I very seriously considered it."
He laughed, a soft huff of air against your hair. "I really did make a spectacular first impression on her, didn't I? Charging in with a blade drawn, shouting at the top of my lungs. She's never going to forget that. I'm going to be the idiot with the sword for the rest of her very long life."
"Probably." You pulled back just enough to look up at him, and the expression on his face made your breath catch. He was looking at you with such naked adoration, such desperate, disbelieving gratitude, that it was almost painful to witness. "But she didn't kill you. That's a good sign. She only kills people she really doesn't like."
"Then I'll take it as a compliment." He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing across your cheekbones with that same impossible gentleness. "I meant what I said before. What I told my father. You are the most remarkable person I have ever met. You tamed a dragon with kindness. You came back here even though you were terrified, even though you had no idea what was waiting for you. And you gave me a second chance when I deserved nothing but your contempt."
"You're right," you said, and you felt your lips twitch. "You didn't deserve it. Neither did your father."
"No. We didn't." His voice was utterly sincere. "What you gave us in this cave today is far more than either of us earned. Far more than I ever could have hoped for. And I want you to know that I understand that. I understand how much it cost you to stand there and listen to him. I understand how much it cost you to let me hold you after what I did. And I am not going to forget it. Not ever."
He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead, soft and lingering, like a promise. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth. Each kiss was deliberate, reverent, as if he was trying to communicate through touch what words could not quite capture.
"I love you," he said against your skin. "I know I keep saying it, and I know words aren't enough to fix what I broke. But I'm going to keep saying it anyway. Every day. Until you're sick of hearing it. Until you believe it as completely as I do."
You reached up and covered his hands with your own, holding them against your face. "I believe you. I'm still angry, and I don't trust your father as far as I could throw him, and if you ever lie to me again I will feed you to Moonfyre myself. But I believe you."
"That's all I ask." He kissed you properly then, soft and slow and full of a tenderness that made your chest ache. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright. "More than I deserve. Far more."
You pulled back from Valarr's embrace, though his hand stayed laced with yours, his thumb tracing slow circles across your knuckles. The warmth of the moment still lingered in your chest, but the thought that had been nagging at the edges of your mind since you first saw Dragonstone rising from the sea finally pushed its way to the forefront.
"I need to go to the village." The words came out before you'd fully formed the thought. "I need to see Marta. She probably thinks I'm dead. She probably thinks I fell off the cliffs or got swept out to sea or—"
"Y/N." He caught your hand, his fingers warm and steady, and you stopped, your breath coming too fast. "I know. We'll go. But first—" He glanced at Moonfyre, who had lifted her head and was watching you with those golden eyes, her tail twitching. "You need to tell her where you're going. Otherwise she might follow you, and I don't think the village is ready for that."
He was right. Of course he was right. You turned back to Moonfyre, her scales shimmered in the dim light, pale and beautiful, and her eyes met yours with an intelligence that still took your breath away.
"Hey, sweet girl." You approached her slowly, your hand outstretched, and she lowered her head to press her snout into your palm. The gesture was so familiar now, so automatic, that it made your chest ache. "I have to go. Just for a little while."
She made a sound, a low, questioning rumble, and her tail curled around your legs like she was trying to anchor you in place.
"I know. I know, I don't want to leave you either. But there's someone I need to see. Someone important." You stroked the ridge of her eye, the way she liked, and felt her lean into your touch. Moonfyre blinked at you slowly. Her tail tightened around your legs, just for a moment, and then released. She made another sound, this one lower, more grudging—the dragon equivalent of a sigh.
"I'll come back," you promised. "I'll always come back. You know that, don't you? After everything we've been through, you have to know that."
She huffed, a puff of warm air that stirred your hair and smelled of sulfur and something sweet. Then, slowly, deliberately, she lowered herself back down onto the stone floor, her head coming to rest on her front claws, her eyes still fixed on you. It was surrender. Reluctant, begrudging, but surrender all the same.
"Rest," you told her, pressing a kiss to her snout. "You've had a long day. We both have. Rest, and I'll be back before you know it."
She rumbled, and her eyes slid half-closed. Not quite trusting, not quite relaxed, but willing to let you go. You felt a lump rise in your throat as you pulled away, your hand lingering on her scales until the last possible moment.
Valarr was waiting for you at the entrance to the chamber, his expression soft. "She really does love you."
"I know." You wiped at your eyes with the back of your hand. "I love her too. That's why this is so hard."
"Leaving her?"
"Leaving her alone. She's been alone so much. I don't want her to think I'm abandoning her."
Valarr was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours. "She knows you're coming back. She trusts you. You've proven that to her a hundred times over."
You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. "Let's go. Before I change my mind."
The walk down from the caves was strange. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once. The path was the same one you had walked a thousand times, the rocks worn smooth by your feet, the wild onions growing in the gully, the Dragon's Tooth looming above you like a sentinel. But everything felt different now. The air was sharper. The colors were brighter. You had flown across the sea on a dragon's back. You had slept on a beach under the stars. You had come back to find your world turned inside out, and now you were walking down a path you'd known your whole life, holding hands with a prince, on your way to apologize to the woman who had raised you for disappearing without a word.
"I took care of her," Valarr said quietly, as if he could hear your thoughts. "While you were gone. Marta, I mean."
You looked at him sharply. "What?"
"After we found your cloak. After we thought..." He trailed off, his jaw tightening. "I went to see her. To tell her what had happened. She was—" He paused, searching for the right word. "She was not well. The news hit her hard. She couldn't stop shaking. She kept saying your name, over and over, like she was trying to call you back."
Your throat tightened. "Valarr..."
"I stayed with her. That first night. I didn't know what else to do. She made me tea, even though her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the kettle. We sat in her cottage and we waited. She told me stories about you. About when you were little. About the time you fell in the river chasing butterflies, and she had to pull you out. About the time you tried to adopt a stray cat and it scratched you so badly she thought you'd need stitches. About the way you always talked to the goats like they could understand you." He smiled, a small, sad smile. "She loves you so much, Y/N. It's like watching the sun love the moon. She talked about you like you were the only good thing she'd ever done."
You couldn't speak. Your eyes were burning, and your throat was so tight you could barely breathe.
"I made sure she ate," Valarr continued. "I made sure she had firewood. I sent someone to check on her every day while I was out searching for you. I know it wasn't—I know I couldn't replace you. No one could. But I couldn't just leave her alone. Not when I knew how much you loved her."
"You did all that?" Your voice came out as a whisper.
"Of course I did." He looked at you, his mismatched eyes earnest and steady. "She's your family. That makes her my family too. Or it will, if you'll have me."
You didn't know what to say. You had spent so many hours being angry at him, holding onto your hurt like a shield, and now here he was, telling you he had taken care of your mother while you were gone. He had sat with her in the dark and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. He had done the things you should have been there to do.
"Thank you," you managed. "I don't—thank you."
"You don't have to thank me." He squeezed your hand. "Just don't disappear again. I don't think either of us could survive it a second time."
You walked the rest of the way in silence. The village appeared below you, huddled against the mountainside, its grey roofs and narrow streets looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. There were people moving around down there, going about their business, but the atmosphere was different. Tense. You could see clusters of villagers gathered in the square, talking in low voices, their heads bent together. You could see guards on the outskirts, more than usual, their armor glinting in the afternoon sun. Word of the dragon had spread. Everyone was on edge.
You didn't care about any of them. Your eyes were fixed on the cottage at the edge of the village, the smallest and shabbiest of them all, with its worn wooden door and its overgrown herb garden and its chimney that always smoked when the wind blew from the east. Home. It was still standing. It was still there.
You let go of Valarr's hand and started walking faster. Your legs were tired, your body aching from the flight and the confrontation and the long, emotional day, but you didn't care. You broke into a jog, then a run, your boots slapping against the packed earth of the path, your heart pounding in your chest. The cottage grew closer and closer, and you could see the light burning in the window, could see the thin wisp of smoke curling from the chimney. She was home. She was home, and you were almost there.
You burst through the door without knocking.
Marta was sitting at the table, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her grey hair escaping from its braid in wisps that the wind had tugged free. She looked up when the door slammed open, and her sharp old eyes went wide with shock.
For a moment, no one moved. No one spoke. The only sound was the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls outside. Then Marta set down her cup with a clatter and rose to her feet.
"You stupid girl."
Her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry and sleepless nights, and there were tears streaming down her weathered cheeks. She crossed the room in three quick strides, faster than you had ever seen her move, and then her arms were around you, pulling you against her with a strength that belied her age. She smelled of woodsmoke and chamomile and the sharp, herbal scent of the poultices she made for the villagers. She smelled like home.
"You stupid, reckless, foolish girl," she said, her voice muffled against your hair. "You gave me a heart attack. A heart attack, do you hear me? At my age, that's practically a death sentence. I've been worried sick for days. Days! I thought you were dead. I thought you'd fallen off the cliffs. I thought I'd lost you."
"I'm sorry." The words came out choked, barely audible. You were crying now, tears streaming down your face, soaking into the rough fabric of Marta's shawl. "I'm sorry, Marta. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to leave. I just—"
"And then I hear you're alive." Marta pulled back just enough to look at your face, her hands cupping your cheeks, her thumbs brushing away your tears with a gentleness that made your chest ache. "Do you know how I found out? Not from you. Not from a message. I heard the screaming. The whole village was screaming, and I went outside, and there was a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. Flying over my house. And I thought—I thought, that's her. That's my girl. She's gone and done something impossible again."
"I was going to tell you. I was coming to tell you right now."
"A dragon." Marta shook her head slowly, her eyes still wide with disbelief. "All those times you told me about Moonfyre. All those times I nodded and smiled and thought you had an imaginary friend. And she was real. She was real the whole time."
"She was real." Your voice cracked. "I tried to tell you. I tried to tell everyone. But no one believed me."
"I know." Marta's face crumpled, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "I know, child. And I'm sorry. I should have believed you. You've never been a liar. You've never been one for tall tales. I should have known you were telling the truth."
You couldn't speak. You just held onto her, your face pressed into her shoulder, your body shaking with sobs you hadn't realized you'd been holding back. All the fear and the grief and the loneliness of the past days came pouring out of you, and Marta held you through it, her gnarled hands rubbing slow circles on your back, her voice a low, soothing murmur in your ear.
"Shh," she said. "Shh, child. I've got you. You're home now. You're home."
"I left without telling you." The words came out muffled against her shawl. "I just went to the cave, and I was so sad, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Moonfyre was there, and she took me away, and I didn't even think—I didn't even say goodbye—"
"You came back." Marta's voice was firm. "That's what matters. You came back."
"I was so scared you'd hate me."
"Hate you?" Marta pulled back again, her hands still cupping your face, her eyes fierce despite the tears. "Y/N, I could never hate you. You're my daughter. Not by blood, maybe, but in every way that counts. I raised you from a squalling infant. I taught you to walk, to talk, to gather herbs and milk goats and stand up for yourself. I have loved you every day of your life, and I will love you every day of mine. Nothing you could do would ever change that. Do you understand?"
You nodded, your throat too tight to speak.
"Good." Marta released your face and pulled you into another hug, this one gentler, longer. "Now. You said you flew on a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. You could have fallen. You could have slipped right off her back and fallen into the sea. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"She wouldn't let me fall." You pulled back, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. "She's careful with me. She's never let me get hurt."
"Never let you—" Marta shook her head, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaping her. "Only you, child. Only you would tame a dragon and then talk about her like she's a particularly large horse."
"She's not a horse. She's much smarter than a horse."
"I'm glad you're home, child. I'm glad you're safe. And I'm glad you brought the prince. Even if he does hover."
"I don't hover," Valarr protested weakly.
"You hover," Marta and you said in unison, and then you looked at each other and laughed. It was a watery, unsteady laugh, but it was real, and it felt like the first real laugh you'd had in days.
"Come here, Prince." Marta beckoned him over, and when he was close enough, she reached up and patted his cheek with her gnarled hand. "You took care of her mother while she was gone. That's not nothing. I don't know what you did to upset her before she left, and I'm sure you deserved it, but you've earned a second chance in my book. Don't waste it."
"I won't." Valarr's voice was quiet but steady. "I swear it."
She was already moving toward the hearth, her gnarled hands reaching for the kettle. "Sit down. Both of you. I'm making tea, and then you're going to tell me everything. Every single thing. Starting from the beginning."
You sat at Marta's table with a cup of tea warming your hands, the familiar smell of chamomile and honey filling your lungs, and for the first time in days you felt something close to safe. The fire crackled in the hearth, Marta was bustling around the kitchen muttering about how thin you'd gotten, and Valarr was sitting across from you, his chair tilted back against the wall, his mismatched eyes watching you with a quiet intensity that made your stomach flutter.
But the warmth of the tea couldn't mask the fact that you were absolutely disgusting.
You'd been wearing the same clothes for three days. Your dress was stiff with dried seawater and dragon sweat and probably a dozen other things you didn't want to think about. Your hair was a wild, tangled nest, matted with salt and sand and the faint, lingering smell of Moonfyre's sulfurous breath. There was dirt under your fingernails, a scrape on your elbow you didn't remember getting, and what might have been goat grease smeared across your collar. You looked, in short, like you'd been dragged backward through the Dragonmont and then set on fire.
"I need a bath," you announced, setting down your cup. "Marta, is the washtub still—"
"In the back, where it always is." Marta didn't look up from the pot she was stirring. "There's water heating over the fire. I put it on as soon as I heard the screaming start. Figured if you were alive, you'd need it."
You blinked. "You put water on to heat before you even knew I was coming back?"
"I hoped you were coming back." Marta's voice was gruff, but you caught the tremor in it. "I've been heating water every day. Just in case."
Your throat tightened, and you had to look away. "I'll go wash up, then."
You rose from the table, your legs still shaky, your body aching in places you hadn't known existed. Flying was hard work. Flying while terrified was even harder. You'd been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for so long that the exhaustion had become background noise, something you'd learned to ignore. But now, in the warmth of Marta's kitchen, with the fire crackling and the tea settling in your stomach, it was catching up to you.
At the door to the back room, you paused and turned. Valarr was still sitting at the table, still watching you. He looked as tired as you felt, his hollow cheeks and dark circled eyes a testament to the days he'd spent searching for you. His tunic was rumpled beyond saving, his hair was a wild mess, and there was a smear of dirt across his forehead where he'd wiped his brow at some point.
"You should go home," you said. "Get some rest. Wash up. Your mother's probably waiting for you."
Valarr didn't move. "I'm not leaving."
"Valarr, I'm just taking a bath. I'll be fine."
"I'm not leaving," he repeated, and there was something in his voice that hadn't been there before. Something harder. Something that sounded almost like steel.
You frowned. "What are you talking about?"
He rose from his chair, crossing the room to stand in front of you. Up close, you could see the exhaustion in his face, the red rims around his mismatched eyes, the way his jaw was set with a determination that seemed almost out of place in Marta's cozy kitchen.
"You're the first dragonrider in seventy years," he said quietly. "Do you understand what that means? Not for House Targaryen, not for the realm. For you. For your safety."
"I have a dragon. I think my safety is pretty well handled."
"Your dragon is in the caves. You're here." He stepped closer, his voice dropping even lower. "The whole island saw you fly in. The whole island knows what you are now. Word is going to spread—it's probably already spreading. Merchants in the harbor, fishermen heading out to sea, ravens flying to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms. By tomorrow, everyone is going to know that a girl from Dragonstone tamed a living dragon."
"Valarr—"
"And most people will be awed. Most people will be grateful. But some people won't." His hand found yours, his fingers lacing through your cold ones. "Some people will see you as a threat. Some people will see you as a weapon to be stolen. And some people are just stupid enough to think that if they get rid of you, the dragon will be up for grabs."
You stared at him. "You think someone in the village is going to attack me while I'm taking a bath?"
"I think I'm not taking any chances." His grip on your hand tightened. "I spent three days thinking you were dead, Y/N. Three days of believing I'd lost you forever. I'm not going to let something happen to you now because I was too careless to stand guard while you washed your hair."
"That's ridiculous."
"Maybe. I don't care."
"You can't just stand outside the door while I bathe. That's—" You felt your cheeks flush. "That's not appropriate."
"Then I'll wait in the front room. With Marta." He tilted his head, his eyes searching your face. "But I'm not leaving this cottage tonight. Not unless you really want me to. And even then, I'd probably just camp outside the door."
You wanted to argue. You wanted to tell him he was being absurd, that you'd survived a dragon and a flight across the sea and a confrontation with his father, and you could certainly survive a bath without a prince hovering nearby. But there was something in his expression a tightness around his eyes, a tension in his jaw that made you stop. He wasn't just being protective. He was scared. Genuinely, deeply scared. Three days of thinking you were dead had done something to him, carved a wound that hadn't started to heal until he'd burst into that cave and seen you alive.
"Fine," you said, and his shoulders sagged with visible relief. "But you're not allowed to loom. Marta doesn't like looming."
"I don't loom."
"You definitely loom."
"I have never loomed in my life."
"You're looming right now."
Marta's voice cut through from the kitchen. "He's looming. I can feel it from here."
"You're standing like a guardsman outside a treasury," you told him, and despite everything, you felt the corner of your mouth twitch upward. "Relax. I'm just getting clean."
His expression softened, the hard edges smoothing away. "Go take your bath. I'll be here when you're done."
You nodded, pulling your hand free from his, and slipped into the back room. The washtub was there, just as Marta had promised, already filled with steaming water. A bar of rough soap sat on the edge, and a clean towel was draped over a stool nearby. You peeled off your filthy clothes, wincing at the soreness in your muscles, and lowered yourself into the water.
It was glorious. The heat seeped into your aching body, loosening the knots in your shoulders and the tension in your spine. You closed your eyes and let yourself sink deeper, the water rising up to your chin, and for a long moment you just breathed. The steam filled your lungs, warm and clean, chasing away the last traces of salt and smoke.
You could hear Valarr's voice from the other room, low and steady, and Marta's answering chuckle. You couldn't make out the words, but the tone was companionable, familiar. Like they'd been doing this for years instead of days. You thought about what he'd said, that he'd taken care of her while you were gone, that he'd sat with her and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. You thought about the way he'd looked at you when he said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like taking care of your family was just something he did.
You thought about a lot of things. And when you finally emerged from the bath, clean and warm and wrapped in Marta's towel, you found Valarr exactly where he'd promised to be. Sitting at the table, a cup of tea in his hands, not looming. Waiting.
"Better?" he asked.
"Better," you said, and you meant it.
Later that night Valarr had settled into a chair by the door, his sword propped against the wall within easy reach, his long legs stretched out before him. He'd insisted on taking the first watch, even though Marta had told him repeatedly that no one in the village was going to attack her home.
"Old habits," he'd said, and Marta had snorted and told him he wasn't old enough to have habits.
Now the fire had burned down to embers, and the cottage was quiet except for Marta's soft snoring from the back room and the distant whisper of the sea. You were curled on your pallet, wrapped in the same worn blanket you'd used since childhood, your body heavy with exhaustion. Valarr's silhouette was just visible in the dim orange glow, his head tipped back against the wall, his breathing slow and even. You thought he might have fallen asleep sitting up, and the thought made something warm bloom in your chest.
You were just drifting off, your mind going soft and hazy at the edges, when the screaming started.
It was distant at first, muffled by the cottage walls, but it grew quickly voices raised in panic, the sound of doors slamming, a woman's high-pitched shriek cutting through the night. You were on your feet before you were fully awake, your heart hammering, your hand reaching instinctively for a weapon that wasn't there. Valarr was already up, his sword in his hand, his body positioned between you and the door.
"What is that?" you breathed.
"Stay here." His voice was sharp, alert. "I'll check—"
But you were already moving, because you knew. You didn't know how you knew, but you did. There was a feeling in your chest, a pull, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire. It was the same feeling you'd had in the cave, when Moonfyre had come back to you. The same feeling you'd had on the island, when she'd returned with a goat and dropped it at your feet. A thread of connection, invisible but unbreakable, tugging at the space behind your ribs.
You threw open the door and ran outside.
The village was in chaos. People were spilling out of their homes in various states of undress, clutching children and makeshift weapons, a broom, a fishing gaff, a cast iron pan. Some were running toward the source of the commotion, others away from it. Lanterns bobbed in the darkness like fireflies, their flickering light casting wild shadows across the cobblestones. And in the center of it all, in the narrow lane between Marta's cottage and the baker's house, was Moonfyre.
She was enormous in the confined space, her pale scales reflecting the lantern light and scattering it like jewels. Her wings were folded tight against her body, her head low to the ground, her tail curled around her haunches. She wasn't growling. She wasn't snarling. She was just... there. Crouched in the lane like a cat that had decided to nap in an inconvenient doorway, her golden eyes scanning the crowd with an expression that was more wary than aggressive.
But the villagers didn't know that. They saw teeth. They saw claws. They saw fire flickering at the back of her throat, because of course she was nervous, of course she was agitated, there were people everywhere and they were screaming and waving things at her, and she didn't understand.
"It's the dragon!"
"She's come to burn us!"
"Get the children inside!"
"Someone get a spear!"
"No!" You threw yourself between Moonfyre and the crowd, your arms spread wide, your voice cutting through the chaos with a force that surprised even you. "Stop! Everyone stop! She's not going to hurt you!"
The crowd faltered. Faces turned toward you, faces you recognized, faces you'd known your whole life. Old Tom the fisherman, his gaff still raised. The baker's wife, clutching her rolling pin. The blacksmith, bare chested and holding a hammer. Neighbors. People who had known you since you were a child, who had called you the Silver Lark and humored your stories about dragons.
"Y/N?" The baker's wife lowered her rolling pin, her round face pale with shock. "Y/N, is that you? We thought you were dead!"
"I'm not dead." You kept your arms spread, your voice steady even though your heart was pounding. "I'm fine. She's not going to hurt anyone. She's just—she's scared, and she doesn't like crowds, and she came looking for me. That's all. She came looking for me."
Moonfyre made a sound behind you a low, plaintive chirp that was so at odds with her size that several villagers actually flinched backward. You turned to look at her, and she was watching you with those golden eyes, her head low, her tail twitching nervously. She looked... anxious. Not aggressive. Not threatening. Just anxious. Like a child who had woken from a nightmare and gone looking for their mother.
"Oh, sweet girl," you murmured, and you stepped toward her, your hand outstretched. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the cave."
She chirped again and pushed her snout into your palm, her warm scales pressing against your skin. You felt the tension in her, the fine tremor running through her body, and you understood. She had been alone. She had been alone, and she hadn't wanted to be, and so she had come to find you. It didn't matter that she'd been fine sleeping alone in the caves for months before you'd ridden her. Something had changed. The bond between you had deepened, solidified, become something more than it was before. She didn't want to be apart from you. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.
"It's alright," you said softly, stroking her snout. "It's alright. I'm here. You found me."
Behind you, the villagers were still frozen, still watching with wide eyes and white knuckles. You turned to face them, one hand still pressed against Moonfyre's scales.
"She's not a monster," you said, and your voice carried in the night air. "She's my friend. She's not here to attack you. She's here because she wanted to be near me."
"Near you?" Old Tom's voice was incredulous. "That thing is the size of my boat!"
"She's not a thing. Her name is Moonfyre." You looked at him steadily. "And she's going to sleep outside my house tonight, and she's not going to bother anyone. Is that going to be a problem?"
A long silence. The villagers exchanged glances, fear and uncertainty warring on their faces. But no one raised their weapon. No one shouted. No one lunged forward to attack.
Finally, the baker's wife let out a long breath and tucked her rolling pin under her arm. "Well, if she eats my chickens, you're paying for them."
A startled laugh escaped you. "I will. I promise."
Slowly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse. Some people went back to their homes, casting nervous glances over their shoulders. Others lingered at a safe distance, watching with a mixture of terror and fascination. But the immediate danger was over. No one was screaming anymore. No one was threatening violence. Moonfyre had stopped trembling, her breathing evening out as she pressed closer to you.
"Alright, sweet girl," you murmured, stroking her scales. "If you're going to stay, you need to settle down. Can you do that? Can you lie down and be quiet?"
She made a soft, rumbling sound and, very slowly, lowered herself onto the ground beside Marta's cottage. There wasn't much space the lane was narrow, and she was far too large for it but she managed to curl herself into a crescent shape, her tail wrapping around the side of the house, her head coming to rest near the front door. Her wing spread slightly, creating a sheltered space against the cottage wall, and she looked up at you with an expression that was almost hopeful.
"You want me to sleep out here with you," you said. It wasn't a question.
She blinked at you slowly, and her tail twitched, and you knew that was exactly what she wanted. She had flown across the island to find you. She had braved the screaming and the lanterns and the crowd of strangers. And all she wanted was to curl up beside you and feel you close, to know that you were safe and near and not going anywhere.
"Alright," you said, and you pressed a kiss to her snout. "Alright. Give me a minute."
You slipped back inside the cottage. Marta was standing in the doorway, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her expression caught somewhere between terror and wonder. Valarr was right behind her, his sword still in his hand, his face pale.
"She came looking for me," you said, and you couldn't quite keep the amazement from your voice. "She didn't want to be alone."
"I gathered that." Marta shook her head slowly. "Only you, child. Only you would have a dragon showing up at your doorstep like a stray cat."
"She's not a cat."
"No, cats are smaller and less likely to set the roof on fire." But her voice was warm, and there was something almost like pride in her eyes. "Go on, then. If she needs you, she needs you."
You turned to Valarr. He was still holding his sword, still tense, but the panic had faded from his face. He was looking at you with an expression you couldn't quite read.
"She's anxious," you said. "Something's changed. I don't know what, but she doesn't want to be alone. She wants me nearby. I have to stay with her."
"I know." He sheathed his sword and stepped toward you. "I'm coming with you."
"Valarr—"
"I told you. I'm not leaving you tonight." His voice was quiet but firm. "If that means sleeping outside under a dragon's wing, then that's what I'm doing."
"She might not let you. She barely tolerates you."
"Then I'll ask her nicely."
You stared at him for a moment, at his tired eyes and his set jaw and the stubborn determination in every line of his body. Then you shook your head, a reluctant smile tugging at your lips. "You're ridiculous."
"I've been told."
You went back outside, Valarr following close behind. Moonfyre's head came up when she saw him, a low rumble starting in her chest, but you pressed your hand against her scales before it could grow into a growl.
"He's with me," you told her. "He's staying. I know you don't like him much, but I do. So you need to be nice. Can you do that? Can you let him stay?"
Moonfyre looked at Valarr for a long moment. Her golden eyes were unblinking, assessing. Valarr stood very still, his hands at his sides, his posture open and unthreatening. He didn't reach for his sword. He didn't flinch. He just waited.
Then, slowly, Moonfyre let out a huff and lowered her head back to the ground. Her wing lifted, just slightly, creating a space against the cottage wall. An invitation. Or at least, not a refusal.
"I think that's a yes," Valarr said quietly.
"I think it's a 'fine, but I'm watching you.'"
"That too."
For a long moment, you just sat there, your back against the wall, Moonfyre's wing sheltering you, Valarr warm and solid at your side. Above you, the stars were scattered across the sky like seeds of light. The village was quiet again, the panic faded, the only sound the distant crash of waves and the slow, steady rhythm of Moonfyre's breathing.
"She came all the way here," you said quietly. "She flew across the island because she didn't want to sleep alone."
"She loves you." Valarr's voice was soft. "You saved her life. You're her person."
"I think... I think something changed. When I rode her. When we flew together." You paused, trying to find the right words. "Before, she was fine being apart from me. She'd stay in the cave and I'd go home and we'd see each other the next day. But now..." You looked at Moonfyre, at her golden eyes reflecting the starlight. "Now she doesn't want to be apart. Like the bond got stronger. Like she needs to know I'm close."
"That makes sense." Valarr shifted beside you, his arm brushing yours. "The old stories say that when a dragon bonds with a rider, it's for life. It's not just friendship. Like a bonding of the soul. Something that changes both of you. I read that when dragonriding women gave birth their dragons also screamed and roared in pain along with them."
You turned your head to look at him. "You read about dragons?"
"I read about a lot of things. Especially recently." A small smile flickered across his tired face. "I am a Targaryen, reading about dragons is a requirement."
Something warm bloomed in your chest, and you leaned into him, letting your head rest against his shoulder. He was solid and warm and steady, and he smelled of woodsmoke and leather and something clean that you couldn't name. His arm came up to wrap around you, pulling you closer, and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head.
"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll be here. She'll be here. Nothing's going to happen."
And for the first time in days, you let yourself relax completely. Moonfyre's wing was warm above you, her breathing a steady rhythm beneath the sound of the waves. Valarr's arm was around you, his heartbeat steady against your ear. You were safe. You were loved. You were home.
—
To His Grace, King Daeron II Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm,
Father,
I write to you with news that I scarcely know how to put into words, though I have rehearsed this letter a dozen times in my head and discarded each version as inadequate. Perhaps the simplest way is best: a dragon has returned to House Targaryen.
Not a skull. Not an egg turned to stone. A living dragon, pale as sea foam with a purple undertone that catches the light like dusk on the water. She is young and she is healthy and whole and utterly, breathtakingly real. I have seen her with my own eyes. I have stood in the same chamber as her and felt the heat of her breath. This is not a rumor, not a peasant's fancy, not a clever mummer's trick. This is truth.
She was found in the eastern caves of the Dragonmont, where she had hidden herself away after sustaining a wing injury. How she came to be there—whether she hatched from some long-dormant egg or migrated from some place beyond our knowledge—I cannot say. What matters is that she was found, and healed, and claimed.
And here, Father, is where the story becomes something stranger than any maester's account.
She was found by a girl. A village girl, no older than sixteen, a bastard of Dragonstone with no family name and no prospects beyond the goats she tended for the old woman who raised her, she bears our look, though which of our kin planted that seed, I cannot say and she does not know. She came to me when I first arrived on the island, seeking an audience at the petitions. She told me there was a dragon in the caves. She told me she had been feeding it, healing it, that it had let her touch its scales and sleep beside its warmth.
I did not believe her.
I will sit with that shame for the rest of my life, Father. I looked at this girl—earnest and hopeful and wearing a cloak that was more patches than original fabric—and I saw only what I expected to see. A lonely child with an imaginary friend. A bastard reaching for something to make herself feel special. I humored her. I smiled, and I nodded, and I told her she could keep her dragon as a gift from the crown, because I thought I was being kind. I thought I was being generous to a girl who was not quite right in the head.
She was telling the truth. All of it. Every word.
Her name is Y/N. She lives with an old healer woman named Marta who took her in as an infant and she saved a dragon's life through nothing more than stubbornness and kindness, because she could not walk away from something that was hurting, even when it tried to bite her head off.
I know what you must be thinking. A common girl. A bastard. This is not how dragons are supposed to return to us. They are supposed to be claimed by princes and princesses, by trueborn children of our line, by people who will use them to restore our house to its former glory.
But the dragon chose her, Father. The bond between them is as real as any in the old histories. Perhaps more so. She did not claim the dragon through blood or fire or conquest. She claimed it through love.
I am not so foolish as to think this will not complicate things. A dragon bonded to a common girl, a bastard with no name and no title, is not what any of us would have chosen. There will be those who say she cannot be trusted with such power. There will be those who say the dragon should be taken from her, by force if necessary, and bonded to someone more suitable.
I am writing to tell you, as plainly as I can, that I will not allow that to happen.
Not only because it would be wrong—though it would be. Not only because the dragon would likely kill anyone who tried—though she would. But because I have seen this girl, and I have spoken with her, and I believe with all my heart that she is the best thing that could have happened to this dragon and to our house. She does not want power. She does not want gold or titles or lands. She is more noble than half the lords I have met at court, and she has nothing to her name but a worn cloak and a dragon who loves her.
My son has fallen in love with her.
I did not encourage it. At first, I did everything in my power to discourage it. I reminded him of his betrothal to Kiera of Tyrosh. I told him, in terms that left no room for ambiguity, that a prince of the blood could not throw away his future for a village girl with an imaginary dragon.
The dragon, as it turns out, was not imaginary.
Valarr has made his choice, Father, and I have made mine. I have given my consent for him to marry her. I know this is not what we planned. I know the alliance with Tyrosh was carefully negotiated, and Kiera's family will be insulted, and there will be political consequences that I will spend the next several years managing. But I am asking you—as your son, as your heir, as the man who has spent his entire life doing what was expected of him—to trust me on this.
A dragon is worth more then any coin or fleet the tyroshi can give us.
And her children will be Targaryens.Do you see it, Father? The path forward? Valarr's children— trueborn children, born of his marriage to this girl—will carry our name and our blood and, if the gods are good, the bond with this dragon. A dragon who will, in time, produce more dragons. Eggs, perhaps, if the old stories are true and dragons can shift their sex as need requires. Or perhaps there are more out there, hidden in the caves of the Dragonmont, waiting to be found. But even if Moonfyre is the only one, she is a start. She is hope. She is the first living proof in Seventy years that our house is not finished, that the fire has not gone out, that the blood of Old Valyria still carries its ancient power.
I will write to the Archon of Tyrosh myself. I will explain the situation and offer what recompense I can. Perhaps we can salvage the alliance by betrothing Kiera to Matarys instead—he is younger than Valarr, true, but not by so many years that the match would be unseemly. He is charming and handsome and will make a good husband to someone, even if that someone was originally promised to his brother. It is not a perfect solution, but it is something. A branch to catch us before we fall entirely.
I know you will have questions. I know you will have concerns. I will answer them all when I return to King's Landing, which I expect will be sooner than originally planned now that the situation here has grown so complicated. But for now, Father, I am asking you to sit with this news and consider it carefully before you respond. The dragon has chosen her rider. The rider has chosen my son. And I have chosen to stand with them, however messy and inconvenient that choice may be.
🕷️ Synopsis: Pittsburg gets their very own superhero who tends to favor a certain ER when dropping off injured civilians. What the Pitt staff doesn't know is that one of their day-shift residents has a night-shift of their own.
🕷️ Headcannons Pt. 1 Pt. 2
🕷️ Incorrect Quotes Pt. 1
One Shots . . .
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🕸️ Talk Me Off the Ledge (3.8k)
As the night melts into day, you have the chance to show up early to work for once. That is until the sight of Jack Abbot, who's a little too close to the edge, makes you stop and try to get him to back away.
🕸️ Nobody But Him (7.8k)
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🕸️ I've Been Incorrectly Labeled (5.6k)
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🕸️ Stay With Me, Kid (10.2k)
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🕸️ Cheaters Never Prosper (Unless You're Jack Abbot) (4.8k)
The hero knows way too much about first aid to be a regular citizen. Knowing this, the Pitt staff starts a bet: the hero works in some capacity at an ER. Some even go further to bet that they work at the Pitt. Knowing what he knows, Jack joins in on the latter.
🕸️ How to Find Someone Before They Break (9.9k)
Super senses can be a bitch. Noises are too loud, fabrics are too scratchy, and the never-ending feeling that something bad is going to happen gets overstimulating pretty quickly. And yet, you know exactly where everyone is during a shift; a special talent that actually comes in handy more than you'd realize.
🕸️ Hi, My Name Is . . . And You Don't Remember Me coming soon
Everything went downhill too fast, and the next morning, you're left with nothing. No job, no boyfriend, no . . . identity. It all leaves a hole in your chest that you're desperate to fill back up. But you find yourself questioning if them forgetting is better for everyone.
Summary: You’ve been Lena’s nanny for years. Now, with both of her parents gone, you and Pope Cody have been doing your combined best to take care of her. And yet, as much as you both love her, it’s not enough. Social services has already been sniffing around, and it won’t be long before she’s going to be taken into foster care.
But when Smurf tells you that married couples have a better chance of adoption… well, she’s right. And whatever scheme she may be planning doesn’t matter as long as Lena is safe.
Besides, it’s just paper. Right?
Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of drug use, Gun use, Alcohol use, Violence, Smut!!, It's Animal Kingdom so buckle up its kind of got everything, Angst (lots and lots of angst), Married-to-lovers trope, Pope yearns A LOT, Spoilers!! (The timeline follows season 3ish), Craig has his own house and never moved into Baz’s, Mental illness (it's Pope), Smurf is manipulative of course, Brief mention of a traumatic childbirth, Please let me know if I forgot anything!!
Author's Note: We did it! The giant Pope Cody fic is here! Special thanks to our queen and bestie @flowersforbucky for proofreading as always! I honestly loved writing this one so much that I'm gonna miss it now that it's posted but hoo boy am I excited for you guys to read it! Please please let me know what you think!
-
“Are you sure about this?”
“Not really, no.”
Craig Cody runs both hands through his hair. Rests his elbows back on his knees. Stares at the pool, rather than at you.
You stare at the pool, too. You think, if you keep looking hard enough, you might see the stars twinkling on the surface of the water, despite the soothing blue lights shining beneath.
“Then why are you doing it?”
“For Lena.”
-
“What the hell are you talking about, Smurf?” Pope Cody’s voice is a low growl, but there’s shock behind the suspicion in his eyes.
You can’t hear anything through the thick glass wall, but you can see Smurf enunciate the words when she says “hand the phone to her”.
Her eyes are locked on you, something almost chillingly sure in her gaze. You’d wondered, when she’d demanded that Pope bring you with him to visit her, what she could possibly have been planning. Whatever it is, it’s Smurf, so you know it can’t be good. And with the way Pope has gone pale, something like shock cracking through his usually stoic demeanor, your fear seems to have been confirmed.
Pope doesn’t look at you when he passes the phone over. The plastic is cool on your ear.
“Married couples have a better chance at adoption.”
You look at her. She doesn’t even blink. You know what she means, and you do your fucking best to keep your eyes from trailing over to the man beside you.
Still, you find yourself echoing Pope’s words.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about keeping Lena out of the system. Both of her parents are gone. Pope may be taking care of her, but with his record? Social services is going to be coming by any day now, baby.”
You swallow, and grit your teeth as you search for a comeback. For any kind of answer or solution that isn’t…
“One day at the courthouse, one little party to make it look real, and Lena is safe.” Smurf’s words sound tinny through the phone. The rest doesn’t need to be said. Can’t be said, because every phone call is recorded. No foster care. No fighting the courts. Adoption.
Adoption because you’re married.
“Okay.” Your voice doesn’t sound like your own, but it sounds…firm. The decision isn’t hard, though it probably should be.
Just a piece of paper. That’s all. It’s just a piece of paper, and you can protect Lena from the foster system.
Pope does look at you now, but you don’t break your gaze from Smurf’s. Still, you can almost feel the surprise on his face. The intensity of his stare on the side of your head.
Smurf nods, smiling in that pleased, shark-like way she has when she gets her way.
And, quietly, this time to yourself, you repeat the word.
“Okay.”
-
“You’re gonna give up your whole life for the kid you nanny for?”
“Your niece.”
“Your whole life.”
“It’s not my whole life. It’s just…paper.”
Craig stares at you. You stare at the pool.
“You’re gonna be raising her. With Pope.”
“I don’t know if you remember, but I kind of have been raising her.” It’s not like Baz has been there for fucking anything but dropping off a paycheck with an extra couple hundred bucks and an apology for being gone a few more days than promised.
Pope was there. For ice cream at the beach. To help you out on nights you were exhausted and couldn’t get a hold of Baz. To sit with you on the couch. Always so quiet, but…there. A comforting presence amidst the chaos of caring for and worrying about a little girl that isn’t even yours.
Pope was there, and he’ll be there now. You have no doubt about that.
-
The ride back is dead silent.
So silent, in fact, that you nearly jump out of your skin with surprise when Pope speaks.
“You don’t have to do this.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, or his hands off of the wheel.
“I know.” You kind of do have to. Smurf has a pretty uncanny ability to get her way, and it was more than obvious that this is what she wants you to do.
But even despite that, it’s for Lena. Lena who you all-but raised. Who you love. You would adopt her in a heartbeat, and you know Pope would too.
His hands grip the wheel a little tighter. You see a muscle jump in his jaw. “If you don’t want to-“
“I want to.” You interrupt, finally turning to him. “It’s Lena. If you think for one second that I’m going to let her get lost in the fucking foster system, you’re insane.”
“Smurf-“
“I don’t care about that. She’s right. This will work. Because right now, you paying me to help you take care of her isn’t exactly working. And if adoption is the way you wanna go, then that’s what we have to do.”
Pope doesn’t speak. He just nods, and stares at the road.
-
“This is different. This is… this is forever. This is like, building up a college fund-“
“Can’t be too hard, with your lifestyle-“
“Stop joking. I’m not kidding.”
You look at him, now. “I’m not kidding. She gets a cut. Every job, Lena gets a cut.”
“You really want to do this. Legally raise a kid that isn’t yours with fucking Pope.”
“I want her to be safe.” You finally snap, pulling your legs out of the pool so fast that you think it might splash him a little. “Why the fuck don’t you get that? Why doesn’t anyone else seem to care about this fucking kid?”
“Why do you care about her so much that you’re going to throw away your life?!”
“What life? I’m already wrapped up in this shit, and Smurf said-“
“You can’t trust Smurf.”
“She likes me. I’m not a threat to her. She has no reason to lie.”
“She always has a reason to lie.”
“Not about this. She wants Lena to be safe just as much as we do.”
Craig runs his hands through his hair again. Mumbles something about you being insane.
“I’ve watched this kid grow up. I love her.”
“More than yourself?”
“I mean…yeah.” Isn’t that what love is? You don’t think you know any other kind. “It’ll be the same as it always was. I’ll just have a rock on my finger, right?”
“This is legit marriage. And adoption. This is like, piles and piles of paperwork and shit. Plus, it’s gonna be a whole lot of lying.”
“Oh yeah, I’m really not used to lying. Where would I even start?”
Craig snorts into his beer, and you take the laughter as a win.
-
It’s a small ceremony. Just you and the Codys, save for Smuf for…obvious reasons.
There are no wide grins. No giddy family members. No flower girls or teary vows. The minister is monotone when he marries you, and Pope’s intense eyes don’t leave your face for a second.
It isn’t that you don’t like Pope. In fact, you get along with him better than anyone else in the family, save for maybe Craig, and that friendship still shocks the hell out of you sometimes. You aren’t sure when you started actually becoming friends with Craig Cody, but somewhere between him constantly hitting on you when you first started watching Lena and you rejecting his offer of drugs almost every damn night, you started actually getting along. There’s something about him that’s real, and maybe a little (or a lot) lost, and for some reason it seems to make you more patient with him than most.
But Pope. You’ve always gotten along with Pope really fucking well.
Since you started watching Lena, before he went to prison and before her parents died, you and Pope just seemed to…well, harmonize. You wash the sponges in the way he seems to like. You can sit with him in silence, and even get him to talk about things if it feels like the right time. Hell, you’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder when sitting together on Baz’s couch, and woken to him in the exact same position, like he was afraid that any movement might disturb you.
So maybe this won’t be so bad. It’s for Lena. To keep her out of the system. To keep her with the people who love her.
You expect your hand to shake a little when you exchange rings, but it’s surprisingly steady. Pope is still looking at you.
When it’s time to kiss the bride - Christ, the bride. You’re really fucking doing this - his hand comes up to your cheek, thumb brushing absently over your skin as he gives you a questioning look that is so sweet you almost laugh out loud because you’ve seen this man come home with bruised knuckles and bloodstains on his shirt. You nod, and he nods back as he ducks down and presses his lips to yours.
It’s a simple, gentle kiss - he doesn’t slam you against the wall and devour you or anything - and yet you feel a zing shoot down your spine and to your toes at the mere touch of his lips against yours. The sensation is so shocking, so good, that when he pulls away you almost reach up to pull him back to you just to see if you can feel it again.
You don’t, of course. You just meet his eyes, and try to smile.
And then you’re married. Just like that. One kiss. A couple signatures. And you’re just…married.
-
Andrew Cody has a terrible secret.
He is deeply, desperately, overwhelmingly in love with his wife.
Wife. Wife. Wife. You’re his fucking wife now. If it were any other circumstance, he might call this a dream come true. If he could just call you that for real, without the knowledge that you’re only married to protect Lena, he would be the happiest man in the fucking world.
And yet, as you all arrive back at the house and he watches that ring glimmer on your finger, remembers how your lips felt against his own even for just that one too-brief moment, he wonders if it would be fucked up to…pretend. Like he did in prison, when he kept a photo of you on the wall of his bunk and told his cellmates that the beautiful woman in the picture was his wife.
That was fucked up of him. He knows that. He knew that. But how would anyone have been able to check? He had gone to prison to protect his brother. He was serving a sentence that could potentially last much longer than three years. He was alone, and he was in love, and when someone asked him to explain the picture it just…happened. The fantasy he’d kept tucked safely away in the back of his mind had spilled past his lips, and talking about you had helped get him through the horror and monotony of those three years. In prison, you were his wife. The warm and sweet smile he would come home to, one day.
You’d visited him, too. You hadn’t taken Lena, but you’d come. Just a few times, always against Smurf’s wishes, but you’d checked on him. And he had wished with every part of his fucking being that you had come because he wasn’t just your friend, he wasn’t just Lena’s uncle, but because you cared about him. Because you missed him as much as he missed you. And he missed you and your lovely eyes and your gorgeous smile every. Fucking. Day.
This is for Lena. You’re both here for Lena.
And yes, he is almost positive that Smurf has an ulterior motive. That she knows exactly how Pope feels about you and that she’s going to use this to control him or even you, somehow. She’ll see this arrangement as her ‘giving’ you to him, as horrible as it may be. He’ll owe her for it.
But Lena will be safe. You’ll be safe. He can make sure of that.
And you won’t ever know how often he thinks about tilting your head back and sliding his lips over yours. About the noises he daydreams of hearing you make as his hands move over your body. Those hands have caused so much damage and pain for so long, but when they touch you they won’t be weapons. They’ll be as gentle as he can possibly make them as they slide over every perfect inch of soft skin he can reach.
And if he could just fall asleep watching a movie on the couch with you wrapped safely in his arms, with the smell of your perfume in his nose and the feeling of your steady breathing against his chest, he would truly be the happiest man in the world. You came close, once. When he sat with you for a while after Lena went to bed and he watched you fight yawn after yawn as you watched some random TV show together. Your head had finally thunked against his shoulder, and he had been too afraid to breathe lest he wake you and you stop touching him for even a second.
He had allowed himself to turn his nose into the top of your head. Had allowed himself one deep inhale.
He’d chased that memory for weeks, had felt so fucked up as he groaned your name into his pillow and imagined burying his nose into your hair and catching that scent of perfume and shampoo as you writhed beneath him. In those moments, alone in the dark of his empty house, his imagination would replace his own hand with you. His own labored breaths with the sound of your voice, breathing his name and begging for more as he made you feel so fucking good you would never be able to think of anyone else.
And then he would see you again the next day. He’d buy you and Lena ice cream and melt a little at the sight of your smile. He’d feel ashamed of the thoughts he had just the night before as his eyes lingered on the way your mouth wrapped around that little plastic spoon and he would nearly have to excuse himself and leave mid-conversation before he broke and slammed you into a picnic table to lick the mint chocolate chip from your lips himself.
And now you’re his fucking wife. You’re going to be living with him. Raising Lena with him. How the fuck is he supposed to keep himself together? How is he supposed to keep himself in check to be good for you?
And yet, despite how insane and wrong it might be, he’ll take this. He will wear the title of your husband, fake as it may be, like a badge of fucking honor that he will never deserve. He’ll think about kissing you, and touching you, and hold himself back from doing either of those things every single day of his life.
But he will be your husband. You’ll be his wife.
And maybe, secretly, horribly, he’ll pretend.
-
The after party, unlike the ceremony, is not small.
It’s loud. Chaotic. Takes over the entire backyard of the Cody house and makes you feel like you want to cave in on yourself. You don’t mind parties. You know Pope doesn’t like them. Even now, he’s sitting in the corner and nursing a beer, eyes still locked on you as you take a shot with Craig and do your absolute best to follow the plan. This party isn’t about having fun, at least not for you and Pope. It’s about optics. It’s about making it clear that you are now a complete, unarguable member of the Cody family.
For what might be the hundredth time tonight, your eyes drift to Pope’s. His remain locked on yours. You take a deep breath, and take another shot.
You aren’t drunk when he approaches you, but you are buzzed enough to be giggling at one of Deran’s jokes.
And then his voice is by your ear, low and soft. When his arm slides around your waist, tugs you back against him, you almost wonder if this is supposed to be part of the plan.
“You okay?” He asks, lips brushing the shell of your ear and voice so low you know you’re the only one who can hear him.
“And finally,” Craig shouts, raising another shot into the air and immediately drawing the attention of the group of people around you, “here comes the blushing groom!”
The room is suddenly filled with loud, drunken cheers. You tilt your head back, relaxing against Pope and leaning up to brush your lips over his jaw. You don’t imagine the way his arm tightens around you at the movement, but you plaster a wide grin on your face as you murmur back to him, “do you think we did enough? Can we leave?” Leave isn’t a very fitting word - the two of you are staying here tonight, but you’ll take anything that gets you away from the strangers and the chaos.
Pope smiles, and it doesn’t look entirely fake.
In a second, he’s reaching down and hooking his free arm behind your knees, lifting you against him and beginning to make his way into the back room without a word. Your own laugh is genuine, and you’re followed by cheers and whoops and some very suggestive noises as you disappear down the hallway.
-
“Are you…okay?” He keeps asking you that. You still don’t know how to answer.
Your head tilts toward his, one eyebrow raised.
“I’m in a sham marriage to ensure that a little girl I love doesn’t get forgotten by the system. I’ve had less weird days.”
“I mean…with me? Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”
“Would you? If I asked?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds uncomfortable.”
“I’ve slept in worse places.” Right. Prison. Shit.
“I didn’t know you even slept.”
He ignores your joke, your awkward attempt at deflection, and asks again. “Do you want me to move?”
“I…no.” You don’t. It surprises you how much you don’t.
You roll onto your side, tuck an arm beneath your head, and meet his stare. You’re both fully clothed, lying atop the covers of a large bed in a guest room, and you’re pretty sure that everyone at the party thinks you’re going at each other like bunny rabbits.
It’s quiet in here. It’s comfortable. Being around Pope Cody is always so comfortable. You genuinely don’t get why people are always so unnerved by him. He’s quiet, sure. Dangerous, maybe. But he has a presence that, at least to you, is calming and warm in a way you’ve never felt with anyone else before.
“Do you think this was a bad idea?”
He frowns. Furrows his brow. He rolls on his side to face you, too, and you see his hand twitch, just barely, like he might reach up and touch you.
“No. It was for Lena.” He pauses, brow crinkling again. “Do you regret it?”
“No.” For some reason, with the way the moonlight is hitting his face and alighting on the worried expression in his eyes, you can’t help but reach up, your new ring catching in the low light of the bedroom as you brush your fingers over his cheek. The gesture feels too intimate for your current arrangement. More than a little confusing. And yet, Pope blows out a shuddered breath, and leans into your touch.
After a moment, he returns the gesture, his own calloused fingers brushing the hair from your face, even as his eyes remain locked on yours.
You’re not sure how it happens, not sure who moves first, but in what feels like the span of a second and a thousand years all at the same time, his forehead is resting against your own, large hand still cradling your cheek and warm breath whispering over your lips on every barely-there exhale.
“Pope…” you murmur, and he leans helplessly closer.
“Andrew.” He murmurs back, noses bumping, brown eyes fluttering closed. “My name is Andrew.”
“Andrew.” You repeat, and you’ve hardly ever used his real name. Only hours ago, you said it in your ‘vows’, and even then it felt foreign on your tongue.
And then he kisses you.
It’s slow, careful like he’s worried he might break you with any too-sudden movements, and still it makes your heart hammer in your chest and drop to your stomach. He kisses you so slowly, so deeply, that you lose all track of time and thought. His hands are on your face, cradling you against him like you’re a delicate piece of glass that he may shatter at any moment if he holds it too tightly, and yet he kisses you like he’s dying. Like every movement of your lips against his is something he’s never even allowed himself to want, but now that he has it he’s going to cherish every fucking moment.
You stop thinking. You stop regretting. Stop worrying. You just let yourself…feel.
Your fingers curl in his hair as the kiss deepens, as he rolls atop you until you’re pressed between his body and the sheets and it feels so good you think you might pass out.
“Andrew.” You whisper again, the name nearly swallowed by his lips, and he groans so deeply at the sound that you can feel it in your fucking toes.
Your fingers fly up to the buttons of his shirt, desperation for more coursing through your veins like liquid fire. His own skate reverently up your thigh, pulling your simple white dress up with them, and he breaks away from you just long enough to duck his face down into the hollow of your throat.
“Tell me to stop.” He half whispers, and the sound of his voice alone pulls a whimper from your throat that has him groaning again as he rocks his hips against yours, hand slamming up to the headboard behind your head like he’s trying to keep himself still above you. “If we…I don’t think I can hold back.”
“Don’t.” You breathe, and this is stupid. This is a bad idea. “Don’t stop. Don’t hold back.”
He pauses, like he’s trying to collect himself.
If he is, he fails at it.
His mouth crushes against yours, and you give up on undoing his shirt and simply yank it apart, hearing buttons scatter as he reaches up to help you pull it off of him. He grabs the back of your thigh, all-but manhandling you beneath him in one swift movement as he pushes the hem of your dress up over your thighs and presses your body between the mattress and his own.
You reach up, trying to help him unclasp the back of the dress, and he makes a low noise in the back of his throat as he catches your wrists in one hand and slams them back against the pillows above you.
“I’ll do it.”
You meet his eyes, and they’re fucking burning. Dark and starved in a way that should probably make your survival instincts explode with some kind of trepidation. They don’t. Instead, your breath catches in your throat, and you nod.
His hand releases your wrists, sliding around your back until he’s pulling you up with him and you’re straddling his lap, nearly shaking with something between anticipation and restraint as he unbuttons your dress and slides it over your shoulders with a shaky exhale.
And then he’s kissing you again. Kissing your neck, your shoulder, your collarbone, only pulling back far enough to slide the garment up and over your head before his mouth is on yours once more, and your hands are tugging him out of his pants, and his own hand tangles in your hair as he lowers you onto your back.
He’s usually so…awkward, so quiet and still that his movements in this moment shock you to your fucking core. He moves atop you like he was born to, traces over your jaw with his tongue like he’s desperate for the taste of you. He just spent three years in prison, and you’re not sure what kind of human connection he’s had since then, but he still takes the time to slide his hand down your stomach and work you apart until every breath you draw is a sharp and desperate gasp into his mouth. Still crawls down your body and drags his blunt teeth up the inside of your thigh without ever once breaking eye contact like it’s a form of fucking worship.
The distant sound of the party still raging down the hall vanishes, taking every ounce of anxiety with it as he makes you fall apart once. Twice. Drags himself back up you and pulls your hand away from where it’s covering your mouth in a weak attempt to keep you from screaming his name.
“Don’t. Let me hear you.” He growls against your ear, and when he pushes inside of you for the first time you make a noise that has him snapping his hips forward so roughly that your nails might dig into his back hard enough to draw blood.
His groan vibrates through your entire body, but he still reaches up to brush the hair from your face, angling your head back to kiss you again even as he murmurs, “sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve got you.”
You forget everything that isn’t him as Andrew Cody pulls you apart piece by piece with his lips and tongue and words. Words spoken so softly against your skin that you would barely be able to hear them if he hadn’t made himself the center of your fucking universe tonight. If you could even dream of focusing on anything other than his mouth against your skin, his soft praise as you move with him, his growled expletives as your nails drag down over his back, his whisper of your name in your ear as he takes you like you are every vice ever created and he is ready to drown himself in the addiction.
And when it’s over, after you’ve nearly sobbed his name until you forgot your own and he bit down on your collarbone and pressed your joined hands into the pillow beside your head with a groan that ingrained itself into your very bones, you can’t remember how to pull yourself back to earth.
“That…” you try, and fail, “I’m…woah.”
Pope huffs a soft laugh against your neck, and pulls you into his arms until he’s on his back and your head is resting against his chest.
“Your legs are shaking.” He observes, sounding a little too proud of himself in that quiet way he has, as his fingers skate through your messy hair.
“Shut up.” You try, and he laughs again. The sound of it is so reserved, so soft and warm, that it makes you hum as you nuzzle your nose into his chest.
You’re asleep within minutes. Exhausted, sweaty, and more content than you can remember being in a very long time.
-
You wake before him.
You have no idea what time it is, but you know it must be early. Early enough, at least, for you to be the first one up. Everyone still hanging around after the party will likely sleep until the afternoon, but Pope usually wakes at dawn. And yet, now, his chest is rising and falling in a slow and steady rhythm beneath your ear.
You’ve never seen him sleep before.
You’re about to pull back to look at him, to drink in whatever expression may be on his face, when something else catches your attention.
There, on his bare stomach, your hands are joined together. Your wedding ring blinks up at you, and his own simple band rests just above it.
Married. You’re married. For Lena.
What happens if the two of you start something, and it doesn’t work out? All that kid has lost, all of the drama and horror she’s endured in her young life, and she would just be…abandoned again.
Shit.
You shift your head, just barely, and feel Pope stir. Light sleeper, then. Makes sense.
His fingers curl a little more tightly around yours, like he doesn’t even notice that he’s doing it, and you feel a soft breath against the top of your head as he realizes that you’re awake, too.
For a moment, he’s silent. It isn’t uncomfortable, just his usual version of quiet.
“Do you want to…borrow clothes?” He finally asks, lips brushing against the top of your head, and you almost laugh. Because this is how Andrew Cody works. He isn’t exactly one to wax poetic, even after a night like last night. He just takes care of you, like he always tries to take care of everyone, in his silent and sweet way.
His hand skates up over your bare back, the touch warm and reverent, and you allow yourself to lie with him for a moment. To enjoy this.
“I don’t think I can pull off one of those buttoned up shirts.” You joke, resting your chin against his chest and blinking sleepily up at him. Something in his brown eyes goes very, very soft as he looks down at you, and a part of you melts at the sight.
“I have t-shirts.”
You do laugh, now. “I know. Just kidding.”
“Do you…like the shirts?”
“I do, yeah.” You slide your fingers over his stomach, wrap your arms around him like he’s an oversized teddy-bear, and he responds with a hum as he pulls you closer to him.
And, despite your decision, despite the fact that you need to cut this off before it really starts, every muscle in your body relaxes as his lips find yours. As he kisses you so slowly, so languidly, so sweetly that you lose all track of time and space.
He feels so good, and this feels so right that it would scare you even if it weren’t for Lena. If it weren’t for all of the other fucking factors pulling you apart.
“I think…” his lips are on your neck, and his fingers are sliding up the inside of your bare thigh, and you can’t think. “We…shit, we shouldn’t do this.,” you reach down to stop his hand, and he acquiesces immediately, pulling back to look down at you with those lovely brown eyes.
“Are you okay?”
You nod. Swallow. “I don’t… if we start something, and it doesn’t work, Lena will get hurt. She’ll feel abandoned again.”
He pauses, and reaches up to smooth your hair back again, like he’s just trying to…touch you. Somehow. Any way he can. “You think it won’t work?”
“I…no.” You admit, almost instinctively turning your face into his palm. “But we can’t know for sure. I don’t want to risk it. Not right now.”
He frowns, thumb brushing your cheek, and nods. “Okay.”
And God help you, you lean up to kiss him again.
He makes a soft noise, somewhere between desperation and torture, and the feeling of his body pressing helplessly against yours makes any thoughts of responsibility fly out the damn window.
And when you pull back, and feel his fingers tighten in your hair and his breath ghost over your lips, it is very very hard to convince yourself that this is the right decision.
-
Pope Cody isn’t sure if he’s living in heaven or hell.
Heaven. Surely. Most of the time, he’s absolutely convinced it’s heaven. Because you’re with him all the time. He gets to hear your laugh. See your smile. Feel your presence every single day. He gets to sit with you on the couch with Lena, and watch the two of you as you help her color or do a puzzle or something equally…peaceful. It’s peaceful, this life. Sure, there are still the jobs. There’s still the guilt. But he gets to come home to you and Lena and he gets to smell your perfume on his pillow and watch your relaxed expression as you sleep beside him.
And sometimes, it’s hell. Because he wants more so selfishly that it feels like a fucking sickness. Maybe it was better before. Before he knew what you tasted like. What you felt like, moving beneath him and with him and moaning his name into his ear like the most beautiful music he’s ever heard. He knows what it feels like to wake up with you, naked in his arms, soft skin against his own and contentment like nothing he’s ever known swelling in his chest.
And he can’t have that again. Because you’re right. He loves you so, so much, but you’re right. If anything were to happen, Lena would be hurt by it. He’ll never stop loving you - he knows that more than he knows how to breathe - but something could happen. His life is chaos. Dangerous. He never knows what horror might come his way next.
But he can have you now, like this, and sometimes he can pretend. He can keep up appearances with you. Get to slide his fingers between yours and feel the ring on your finger when you meet with Lena’s teachers. Murmur something in your ear at one of the parties at Smurf’s house and feel you smile in response.
And he wants to kiss you. When you’re laughing at dinner, he wants to stand up from the table and stalk over to you and press his mouth to yours. He wants to make his way into the bathroom when you’re showering, and stand beneath the water with you until the sounds of your pleasure echo off of the tile. He wants to nuzzle his nose into your hair and inhale the scent of your shampoo when you sit on the couch with him. He wants to pull you into his arms in the mornings and whisper how much he loves you as you wake up. He wants you more, and it’s selfish and shitty because what he has now is already more than he could ever fucking deserve.
So he suffers, and is simultaneously the happiest he has ever fucking been. And he endures, and he loves you.
-
Your first fight happens on a Tuesday.
“She doesn’t need a therapist.” Pope says, in that low and intense way he always has, as he stands over the sink and meticulously scrubs the dishes.
Your eyes snap up, and you have to stop the incredulous laugh that nearly bursts from you at his statement. “Yes, she fucking does.”
“She’s fine.” He looks at you. Drops his eyes to the ring on your finger. Looks back up at your face. “She’s got us.”
He looks at the ring a lot. Like when the two of you take Lena for ice cream on the beach, and he wordlessly hands you a cup of your favorite flavor. Or when he makes Lena’s lunch for school in the morning, meticulously laying out the cheese on top of the ham on top of the lettuce like he’s performing some kind of surgery while you get so wrapped up in conversation with him that you don’t even notice that he’s made you one too until he’s handing you a little brown paper bag.
You curl your fingers a little, and do your best to keep your eyes from trailing down to your hand. To keep from looking at the gold band on his own.
“She needs more than just us.”
“What does that mean?” He’s still scrubbing the same plate.
“Her parents are gone, Pope. She lost them both in a year. And now she’s being raised by her nanny and a fucking bank robber and-“
Pope freezes, and turns to you, and the look in his eyes shuts you right the hell up.
“A what?”
You should probably take it back. Or at the very least, backtrack a little, but you’ve been married a month and social workers are already showing up to talk to you both and the adoption process is going fucking nowhere and you’re honestly sick and fucking tired of pretending to be more in the dark than you are.
“Come on, of course I know what you do. I’m not stupid. Or blind. Or fucking deaf.” And Craig has always been very stupidly candid with you about being stressed about a job or being pushed around by Baz and Pope and even Jay. “But that’s not the point. The point is that Lena-“
“How much do you know.” He doesn’t say it like a question, he says it like a command, and that pisses you off a little more than you want to admit.
“Enough, but not everything. I don’t want to know everything.”
He moves to the other side of the counter, eyes darker than you’ve ever seen them as he repeats the question. “How much do you know?”
You don’t back down. “Not. Everything.” You grit out, pushing back from your chair to plant your hands on the counter and stare him down. “I don’t need to. I know you rob places. I watch the news. I don’t need to know anything else.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be the reason anyone gets hurt.” You snap, frustrated. “I don’t need to know anything that could endanger any one of you if the wrong people ask. Keep me in the fucking dark. But if you’re gonna be so damn secretive maybe stop mentioning jobs and banks and carrying fucking guns around the fucking nanny.”
“You’re not the nanny anymore.” His eyes drop to the ring again, before they dart back up to your face.
“And what am I then? Because the adoption process isn’t exactly going our way.” You lean closer, and you can feel your own eyes burning into his. “Safe and okay are two very different things, Pope. She’s neither of those right now. And shockingly, the ex-con marrying the former nanny isn’t tossing us to the top of the Good Future Parent list.”
To your surprise, Pope’s eyes drop to your mouth. And yet, his voice is still a furious rasp when he speaks again.
“Andrew.”
You blink. His gaze does not falter.
“My name is Andrew.”
For a moment, you can’t remember why you’re mad. All you can think about is the way he murmured that on your wedding night, the way his fingers tangled in your hair and he pressed his body against yours until you were moaning that name. Until you forgot every name that wasn’t Andrew.
“She needs therapy.” You try again, but the intensity of his gaze on your mouth feels like a kiss all on its own and you can’t remember how to breathe right.
“She doesn’t.”
“She will be taken away from us.” Your palm slaps against the counter. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look away from you.
He just frowns, and his eyebrows do that little twitchy thing, before his gaze flickers back up to your eyes.
“It didn’t work for me.”
“But it might for her.” You try, meeting his eyes. Fuck, he’s beautiful. “Andrew, we can love her, but we can’t help her. Not like that. It’s not enough.”
He stays quiet. He moves back to the sink, and starts scrubbing the dish again.
You move over from behind the counter, and catch his arm.
“Stop that.” Your voice is firm, and he doesn’t look up again. “Please.”
His eyes finally rise to yours, and he goes very still.
“Fight with me.” Your voice is too soft for this argument, but you don’t care. “I need you to fight with me. You have opinions. I do too. Stop scrubbing the paint off of that thing, and argue.”
His eyes drop to your mouth again, before they move back up to your own.
“I don’t want to get angry.”
“You’re already angry.” You don’t break his gaze.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” You’ve never been more confident of anything in your life.
He sets the plate down, moves forward, and cages you in against the counter so quickly that you gasp. The air shifts, and his eyes are so dark that you wonder if you should be afraid. Better yet, if there’s something wrong with you because you don’t feel afraid.
“I don’t want to lose Lena.” When did the air in here get so thin? Why can’t you draw breath right? His nose ducks down, moving slowly up over your throat until he’s face to face with you again, gaze burning into yours. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.” You swallow. “You won’t. She just needs-“
His hand is at the small of your back, forehead against yours and an intensity in his eyes that is so heavy it makes your knees wobble.
“She needs help.”
“She’ll think something is wrong with her.” He presses even closer, like he’s not aware that he’s doing it, and you can’t tell if he’s frustrated or seeking comfort. If this is how he gets frustrated with you, you aren’t sure if this or any argument is going to get very far.
“Did you think something was wrong with you?”
His lips are almost brushing your own. His hand slides up beneath your shirt, feeling the skin of your back. He doesn’t answer for a long, tense moment. Your skin burns beneath his touch and it feels way, way too good.
“There’s a lot wrong with me.”
You want him so badly it hurts. “This isn’t what I meant by fighting.”
“I can’t fight with you.” His lips brush yours for the briefest of seconds as his nose skates over your cheek. As his fingers curl against your back. “I want to. I’m trying. I can’t…”
You can’t remember how to breathe right for the life of you. Your hand moves up as if of its own accord, and your fingers slide through his hair. This is the closest you’ve been to each other since your wedding night. Sure, you sleep in the same bed, but he’s usually in bed after you and awake before you. He doesn’t linger. You wonder now if he’s been doing that on purpose. If this is what he’s been trying to avoid. If he was really so close to snapping that all it took was high emotions and you coming into his space for five fucking seconds.
The thought makes you shiver, and hand moves up over your back again, like he senses the silent question and his touch is the answer. His lips find the hollow of your throat. Just one soft, simple kiss, but it makes you feel like you’re on fucking fire.
“I…” you start, seconds away from pulling him back and slamming your mouth to his, when a soft voice makes you jump out of your skin.
“Can I watch TV?”
Pope releases you, stepping back, and you wonder how flushed your face must be as you look down to see Lena standing in the doorway, holding a stuffed bunny.
You blink, and try to focus on anything but the absence of Pope’s hands on your skin.
“Nightmares again?” You ask, and she nods.
And just like that, it’s over, and you spend the next hour sitting with Lena and watching cartoons as Pope returns to the dishes, gaze like a physical touch against your back.
And, not for the first time, you wonder how the fuck you’re going to manage this marriage.
-
Lena is gone.
And you kept it together. You kept it all together. You didn’t cry or scream or even try to fight with Pope after the social workers took her away. When she went into the system and you just had to sit there, helpless, and watch her get into that car.
And you showed up, when Pope went down to the office and made a scene. You all-but dragged him out of there, followed closely by security guards, and let him wrap his arms around you in the parking lot as you both shook with grief and worry and pain. You buried your face in his shoulder, and promised you would get her back. You both would. You’ll figure it out, because you love her, and you’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure she knows how much you do.
And then Smurf, fucking fresh-out-of-prison Smurf, actually got her back. And it all went to shit.
“Why…” you pause, eyes scanning the room. The movers. The pink. She doesn’t even like pink. Why is there so much pink? “Why is it…here?”
“It’s just for now.” Smurf answers, flippant. “You just got her taken away. Andrew is an ex-convict. The courts will be a lot more lenient if she stays with me for a while.”
You feel cold. You fight the urge to fidget with your ring.
“But we’re…” married. You and Pope got married. That was supposed to help. She told you that.
She doesn’t even look up from where she’s folding yet another small pile of pink clothes. “You know, it would probably be best for you two to stay here, too. To keep her comfortable.”
Oh.
Oh fuck, you’re an idiot.
And then Lena is dropped off, and she’s miserable, and she wants to go home. Not home with you and Pope. Not home to the house. Home to her foster family, and her new sister.
And it all hits you like a fucking brick to the face.
This. This whole life is not safe for her. She has the opportunity to thrive, and grow, and live in a world where she will never be a pawn in someone else’s schemes. As much as you love her, as much as Pope loves her, this world is never going to be safe or healthy for her.
She’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna break your fucking heart, but she’s gonna be okay.
So you find Pope, and you fight your tears back, and you both take her back to her foster house. You take her home.
The car ride back to Smurf’s is silent.
It takes six minutes for you to break.
“Pull over.”
He does.
You lurch out of the truck, wondering if you’re going to be sick, and nearly stumble off of the side of a cliff before he catches you.
And he holds you too tightly. Tries to murmur something too sweet against your hair as the tears try to fight their way free. His arms feel too good around you. His touch is too comforting. You want to melt into him, and you can’t.
“This was all so fucking stupid.” You breathe, ragged and pained, and he holds you closer.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” You whirl on him, try to shove him back, and he lifts you and spins you back towards the car and away from the cliff before he lets you go. “This whole fucking thing was just…we were just…” breathe. You can’t breathe right. “She tricked us. Don’t you get it? She fucking made me a Cody so she can control you through Lena and she can control me somehow and this is all so fucked up, Pope-“
“Andrew.”
You pause, momentarily distracted despite your horror and anger. “Why do you do that?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Why do you correct me when we’re fighting? Or…” Memories of your wedding night rip through you, threatening to overwhelm you even more. You push them back so quickly it nearly gives you whiplash.
He doesn’t answer again, and you glare so hard you think your eyes might actually be burning.
“It makes me feel better, when you say it. I don’t like it when you’re upset with me.”
“Why the fuck aren’t you upset?”
“I am.” His head ducks, and tilts to the side a little as he looks at you with that familiar intensity. And then, quieter, he repeats, “I am.”
You pause at the pain in his voice. Feel your heart constrict so hard it hurts.
“It didn’t work.” You finally say, agony and grief ripping through you like your soul has been tossed into a fucking wood chipper. “It didn’t work, and I’m… I’m not going to be a fucking pawn in whatever game Smurf is playing.”
“I won’t let you.” Pope says, fingers flexing like he might move towards you. “I won’t let her hurt you.”
“She already has. All of this shit is…it’s too…” you sniffle, to your humiliation, and run a hand through your hair. “It’s over. It didn’t work. This is done. It needs to be done.” Because you’re all that’s left, and she is going to use you to hurt him now, and you can’t let that happen.
It needs to be done.
-
You show up, of all places, at Craig Cody’s place with a duffel under your arm and tears in your eyes.
“Oh shit.” He has a bottle of tequila in his hand. He’s shirtless, and there are people inside.
“I’m…interrupting.” You mumble, suddenly feeling oddly small. Oddly pathetic. But that’s why you’re here, because he has never made you feel that way. Never spoken down to you, never shown you anything but respect despite his ridiculous lifestyle and poor decision making skills. Even when you were just the nanny, and he hit on you so much it was borderline ridiculous, there was something about him that was…good. Lost, of course, but good.
You turn to go.
“Nuh uh. Hey, c’mere.” He spins you, and suddenly crushes you to him so tightly that your noise of surprise is muffled by his chest.
“You smell like sweat.” You mumble, miserable, and he laughs so hard that you shake in his dumb gigantic arms.
“Just got back from the water.” His hand comes up to the back of your head, an odd brotherly touch that makes you actually start to fucking cry. He holds you tighter, smushing you even more against him, and drops his chin against the top of your hair.
“Want me to beat Pope’s ass?”
You shake your head.
“Want some coke?”
You puff an irritated breath, and he laughs again.
“Okay, okay.” He pats your back, and pulls back a little. “How ‘bout a shot?”
You take the bottle from his hand, and take a swig.
“There ya go.” You sputter a little, and he pats your back. “C’mon. You stayin’ here for a bit?”
You nod, and take another swig from the bottle.
“You’re lucky I’ve got a guest room.” Craig ruffles your hair, and you frown as he takes the bottle back from you. “My couch is uncomfortable as fuck.”
“Well, better than - wait, what are you - hey!”
He crouches, grabs you, and tosses you over his shoulder, duffel bag and all, and as he walks back into his house with a shouted announcement of his ‘new roommate’, you decide that maybe the Codys aren’t all bad.
-
“Ow. Ow. Ow.” You mumble, curled into a chair in the corner of Craig’s kitchen with your head in your hands.
“Pope’s freakin’ out, by the way.”
“Thank you. You’re really helping.” You cross your arms on the counter, and bury your face in them, muffling your next words. “How’re you not hungover?”
“I’m hungover as shit.” You hear the fridge open, and hear the frown in Craig’s voice as he examines whatever is inside. “We should get something delivered.”
“We should burn this place to the ground. Might be the only way to get it clean.”
“You sound like your husband.”
“Don’t call him that.”
You don’t lift your head, but you feel Craig lean against the other side of the counter. He chuckles, and ruffles your hair until you groan and try to squirm away. “Damn, I knew you didn’t party, but a few shots of tequila took you out.”
“Shut up.” It was more than a few. Actually, you vaguely remember him holding your hair back in the front yard at some point.
He ruffles your hair again, presumably just to mess with you, and you swat him away.
“Gotta go to Smurf’s in a few.” He finally says, popping open a beer as you peek an eye open to glare at him. “Want me to tell Pope that you’re here?”
You frown, and shake your head.
He frowns back. “He’s freaking out.”
“Why? Lena’s gone. Doesn’t matter.”
“You know you’re being a dick, right?”
“Rude.”
“And you know he’s like, obsessed with you.”
Your heart twists, and you narrow your eyes. “He’s not.”
He puffs a laugh, and takes a swig of his beer. “Sure, sure.” He pats your cheek until you look up at him, eyes squinted and head pounding.
“Damn, you still look hot hungover.” He says, grinning, and you glare harder. “Shoulda got to you first. You wouldn’t have gone for me, though. You’re fuckin’ perfect for Pope.”
“M’not-“
“Go back to bed. Sleep all day. Not like you’ve got anything to do if you’re gonna be in hiding.” Craig cuts you off, already moving to the door to pull his boots on.
“You’re a tool.” You grouch, settling your aching head back into your arms.
“You came to me.” He retorts, and you groan again as you hear the door shut behind him.
-
You don’t talk to Pope Cody for two months.
You don’t take the ring off.
Deran gives you a job at the bar, and you’re good at it. You work too hard, too much, just to shut your brain off for as long as humanly possible before you have to go home and think about Lena. About Pope.
Weirdly enough, living with Craig isn’t too bad. Sure, you have to deal with the parties, have to clean up beer bottles in the mornings and kick him awake sometimes as his phone blows up with calls from his brothers.
But even when he’s fucked up, even when he’s acting like an asshole, he’s always there for you. Sometimes he sits and watches TV with you, rather than going out. Sometimes you manage to drag him to the grocery store, or even get him to clean the house as he grumbles about how ridiculous and uptight you are.
One day, he comes home, and doesn’t joke. Doesn’t comment about you being a neat-freak (you’re not, but you’re not about to let him leave dishes in the sink for a fucking month), and sits on the coffee table across from where you lay on the couch.
You raise your eyebrows, having just flopped down onto the cushions, still in your work uniform and aching with exhaustion.
“You gotta go over there.” His voice is serious, and his eyes are doing that crazy intense thing. Kind of like Pope, but different. You’ve always blamed the drugs, but now you wonder if it’s a familial trait.
“To Smurf’s?” You frown. “Why?”
“He’s fuckin’ losing it, that’s why.” Craig doesn’t snap at you, but the tone of his voice is sharp enough to catch your attention. “All he ever does is sit in front of the TV or stand in the yard and break shit. It’s fucking creepy.”
“You always call him creepy.” And yet, your resolve is already cracking. Shit.
“I don’t get this. You married him. You get along great. Like, better than I’ve ever seen him get along with anyone. He’s obsessed with you. You fucked on your wedding night, but you tell me you haven’t done anything since and with all that damn staring I believe you- hey!”
You swat at him, eyes wide with horror. “How the fuck did you know that?”
“Jesus, chill. You hit me a lot, you know that?”
“Craig!”
“Dude, my room was right next door to that guest room. I was trying to hook up too, but the sound of my brother getting off is kind of a boner killer.”
“That and the pounds of coke.” You grouch, still trying and failing to hide your mortification.
“That’s never been a problem. I’m built different.”
“You’re the fucking worst. Seriously, I’m gonna-“
“Smurf’s got him fighting.”
And there it goes. The last bit of hesitation. Your eyes snap upwards, concern curling in your stomach.
“What?”
“Yeah. Boxing matches and shit.” Craig looks genuinely earnest. “He’s fucked up, dude. Something’s not right. He’s got this look in his eyes like…like he doesn’t give a shit what happens to him.”
That’s all it takes.
You’re out the door in five minutes.
-
When you find him, he’s sitting in the yard, staring at the moon.
You don’t think he even notices your approach as you make your way around the pool, but when you get closer, he turns to look up at you so slowly that you wonder if he’s been aware of your presence since you pulled into the driveway.
His eyes are dark. His face is bruised and cut and you can’t hold back a sharp breath at the sight. Fuck. He looks like he got put through a fucking meat grinder.
“Holy shit.” You whisper, crouching down beside him. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t tear his eyes away from you. Doesn’t even blink.
“Are you real?” His voice a whisper of gravel, and he’s looking at you like you’re an angel that fell from heaven and landed in the grass before him. Like he’s living up to his nickname and fucking worshipping you.
You nearly burst into tears. You feel something crack in your chest. Something deeper and more vital than your heart.
You reach out, and brush your fingers over a healing cut below his eye. And then, like a woman possessed, you move until you’re straddling his lap, knees on either side of his hips, and press your forehead against his.
“I’m real.” You whisper back, fingers sliding into his hair. “I’m real, Andrew.”
His breath rattles in his lungs. His hand shakes as it comes up to move over your back, pulling you closer to him when you don’t vanish with a gentle, aching desperation.
His head drops down to your shoulder, and he turns to bury his face in your neck. Your fingers continue to skate through his soft curls, and the sob that rips its way from his throat makes that final piece of your soul shatter like broken glass.
You hold each other like that for some time, silent tears streaming down your cheeks as Pope holds you like you could disappear any moment.
“Don’t leave again.” He finally whispers, and you hold him a little tighter.
“I won’t.” You murmur. “Not tonight.”
“Don’t leave ever. Please. Please, I’ll…I’ll do anything. Stay. Stay with me.” He crushes you to him almost too tightly, now, and your heart breaks.
“Andrew...” You whisper, but whatever you may have said is quickly cut off by his mouth as he kisses you. Hard. Desperate. Rough.
And you kiss him back.
The moment you do, he makes a noise that sounds almost pained, one large hand moving up to tangle in your hair as your breath stops in your throat. He shifts beneath you, lowering you until your back hits the grass as he slides his body atop yours and holds you to him like a mere inch of distance might kill him.
This is a bad idea. He’s clearly out of his mind. You’re both hurting too much.
And yet, it feels so fucking good you can’t think straight. Like this, this is everything you’ve been missing for all these weeks. You want to drown yourself in it. You want him to make it all better. You want to make it all better for him.
But you can’t. Even as you catch his lip between your teeth, arch your back beneath him, and hear him almost whimper as he presses you down against the grass, you can’t do this. Not now. Not like this.
You pull back, and he nearly sobs as he pushes you back down. As he uses his grip on your hair to pull your head back so he can trace his tongue over your jaw.
“P-Pope-“ you try, and he shakes his head, nuzzling closer and rocking his hips against yours.
“Don’t. Don’t make me stop. Please.” His voice is low. Desperate. “Let me touch you. I-I’ll make it better. I’ll fix everything. Everything. Just stay with me.”
Everything in you screams to keep going. To never stop chasing this feeling. He senses your hesitation, and kisses you again like he knows that your brain is short-circuiting and he’s just too desperate to care. Like he can convince you if he just keeps trying.
“Stop…” You whisper, squeezing your eyes shut as his hand moves down your side, up beneath your shirt, trailing sparks behind the touch that make you bite back a whimper.
He hears it, and he doesn’t stop.
“You want me. I know you do. I know you. I can…I can fix this. Please. Please, let me fix this.”
Your body betrays you, back arching a little beneath him again, and he makes a soft noise of approval as his fingers begin to work the button of your jeans.
This isn’t right. He’s out of his fucking mind right now. This isn’t right.
“Pope.” You try again, hand reaching down to catch his wrist as his fingers begin to skate beneath your waistband.
“Call me Andrew. Say my name.” He pleads, breath warm and ragged against your ear, and it takes every ounce of strength in your heart to pull at his wrist as his fingers slide lower. Lower.
“Stop.” You try again, and when he pulls back to kiss you, you turn your head away. “Pope. Stop.”
Finally, he freezes. His hand pauses, and you can feel his entire body shake with restraint and hunger above you. “Don’t make me.” One last, desperate plea.
“Stop.” You say again, and he moves back with a subtle, heartbroken little nod.
You re-button your jeans, and push yourself away as he pulls back a little more. He’s breathless. His eyes are still dark as they look over you, still pained and lacking clarity, and you nearly start to cry at the horrified tone of his voice when he asks his next question.
“Did I hurt you?”
No. God, no. You’re about to fall apart with how badly you want him. With how hard it is to keep from flinging yourself into his embrace again. But he’s asking, because he’s so out of it that he doesn’t know. And you’re fucked up for letting it get this far.
“I have to go.” You whisper, pulling yourself upright on shaky feet. “I’m sorry. I…I have to go.”
He doesn’t reach for you. He doesn’t follow. He just watches you as you walk to the gate, and you feel his gaze linger like the soft prickle of frost until he’s out of sight.
And even then, when you get home, you still feel it. And you cry.
-
You’re shutting down the bar when he comes in.
“We’re closed.” You say, barely bothering to raise your gaze as the stranger pushes himself through the door, and you’re a little surprised to be met with silence. No drunken apologies or insistence that they’ll ‘jus’ be here f’r one.”
You look up.
The man before you is smiling. And it isn’t a good smile.
“Cody.” He says, like a predatory growl, and you freeze as he moves closer. Even with a foot of bar between you, the way his gaze is raking over your body feels like a physical touch. “Right? You’re Pope’s wife.”
You don’t back up. Remind yourself not to show weakness. “…Yeah. I am.”
On paper, yeah. But you’ve been in and around this family long enough to know that the title holds a certain amount of power. Pope Cody’s wife. A member of the Cody family. Maybe the confirmation will make this asshole-
“Good.” He says, and snatches your wrist faster than you can form your next thought. He yanks you half over the bar, grabs the back of your head, and slams you onto it.
You’re out cold the moment your head makes contact with the wooden surface, and you don’t even have a quarter of a second to realize that you are absolutely fucked.
-
Your head is pounding. You taste blood. There’s warmth trickling down from your temple.
You’re on the ground, cold concrete pressed against your swollen cheek. Not good. Not good not good not good.
Somewhat shakily, you try to push yourself up, and a booted foot meets the small of your back to slam you back down hard enough that it pulls a sharp yelp from your throat.
“The fucking Codys…” the man grumbles, and you hear the pop of a beer bottle cap above you. Great. You just did inventory. Though that should probably be the least of your concerns right now. “They fucked me over, ya know? Met Pope in prison, he says when we get out we’ll do jobs, and then nothing. Not a fuckin’ word. He just comes home to his pretty wife and family and leaves me on the streets like a fuckin’ dog.”
You try to sit up again. The boot meets your back again. Your head screams with pain, and you have to fight the urge to curl in on yourself like a wounded animal.
“Gotta leave a message, sweetheart. You know how it is.”
Your focus is still swimming. Think. Think think think.
“Knew you’d be pretty, too. He talked about ya all the time. Gonna feel bad messing up that sweet face, though.”
You start to drag yourself up for a third time, but the man grabs your hair and yanks you quickly to your feet. It hurts. Everything hurts already, and you know that’s not a good sign. That it’s gonna hurt a lot more when the adrenaline wears off.
He slams you back against the bar, and his hand wraps around your throat until you can’t breathe.
He’s still holding your hair, hard enough that your eyes sting with tears of pain, and you can see a thousand horrible plans forming in his eyes as he looks you up and down. Your fingers scramble uselessly at the ones locked around your neck, and you blindly reach out to feel around the bar beside you with your free hand as your vision starts to swim with black spots.
“Thinkin’ I break those fingers first, sugar.” You can smell the whiskey and beer on his breath, a rancid mix that would probably make you choke if you weren’t already suffocating. You grit your teeth. You can feel consciousness slipping away, and you have maybe seconds before you pass out again from lack of oxygen. God knows how you’ll wake up after that. “Then we work down to that pretty little-“
Your fingers close around something metal, and you don’t think before you slam it hard into his neck.
He stumbles backward, hand flying up to where a fork now protrudes from his jugular, and you have never seen a man die before.
You don’t move. You watch every second. The way he falls to the ground. The way he convulses. The way his eyes begin to fog over and he stops trying to tug the fork out of his neck, body going limp before you.
You sink to the floor.
You can’t look away. For too long, you just stare at him. Watch the shaky rise and fall of his chest come to a shuddered halt as blood begins to pool beneath his body. So much blood. Too much blood. There’s no way a human body can have that much blood, is there?
Shock is cold and numbing. You can’t feel your fingertips. You can’t think. You don’t think you’re breathing, either.
He definitely isn’t breathing. He’s dead. You killed him.
Oh, fuck.
-
You should call the police. You should call Deran, the owner of the damn bar. Maybe Craig.
You don’t. You don’t even think to.
You call your husband.
He answers on the first ring. He’s on a job. They all are. You know better than to call any of them when they’re on a job.
The river of blood is spreading, and you kick away before it can reach your sneakers, until your back is pressed against the bottom part of the bar.
“Hey.” He sounds a little breathless. You hear a furious shout, and he mumbles a curse. “I’ll call you back in-“
“A-Andrew I…” Words. Words. You have to remember how to say words. “I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean to-“
“What happened?” Pope’s voice is low. Gentle. Your ears are ringing.
“I-I don’t…I’m at the bar. I…he…” you shouldn’t say anything over the phone, right? You know that much. You can’t confess to killing someone over the phone. Oh God, you killed someone.
“Are you safe?”
No. Yes. You nod, before you realize that he can’t actually see you. “I think so.” You can’t stop staring at the body. You might be sick.
“I’ll be there.” Silence. A muffled argument. The slamming of a car door. And then, softer. “Don’t move, okay?”
You nod again.
It might take five minutes. It might take an hour. You haven’t moved. You’re not sure if you’ve even blinked. The phone is still pressed to you ear. You don’t remember when he hung up.
But Andrew Cody is suddenly crouching before you, hands painfully gentle as he reaches up to guide your hand and the phone gripped in it down into your lap. His jaw is tight, dark eyes more intense than you’ve ever seen them as he tilts your head to inspect what must be a nasty wound on your forehead. One side of your face hurts. You probably have a black eye, and your cheek feels warm with what is very likely blood.
“The body.” You whisper, eyes still locked on man on the ground, and this time he turns your face towards his own.
“Don’t look at that. Look at me.” Gentle. Soft. His voice can be so, so soft. He’s wearing what looks like a security guard uniform, with a heavy jacket and boots and backwards ballcap. It’s probably not appropriate right now to think that he looks unfairly good like this, and you wonder what they were robbing before you called him. You almost ask, still in too much shock to remember that you told him you don’t want to know.
But when you look at his face, and feel the way his thumb is brushing featherlight over your cheek, you almost reel back at the rage in his expression. It isn’t directed at you, but it’s burning so deeply that you can’t make yourself look away. His hands are gentle on you, yes, but everything else about him is screaming danger.
Oh. That’s why people are so fucking scared of him, huh? You’ve never seen it before. Never really understood it until now. Still, you couldn’t be less afraid of him if you tried.
You feel really cold, and really numb in a way that scares you, and you don’t think you ever want him to stop touching you.
When you inhale, he nods, like he’s acknowledging that you’re doing a good job, and brushes his fingers through your bloody hair as you wince.
“Where else did he hurt you?” He asks, and you feel those fingers curl a little against the back of your head. His eyes fall down to your neck, which aches and burns in a way that tells you that you probably have angry red marks from the man’s fingers around your throat.
Slammed to the floor. Boot on your back. Fork in his neck. So much blood. Fuck fuck fuck fuck-
“Hey, hey. Look at me.” And you do, and you swallow.
Your shaky fingers come up to your throat. Neck. Fork in neck. Dead body and you’re the one that killed him.
“Can you stand?”
You nod again, and he lifts you to your feet, pulling you to him. He smells like gunpowder and bleach, and you press your nose into his shoulder and try to inhale the scent that you know better. The one that is soft and a little spicy and very much him.
He presses gently on the back of your head. “Here?”
You shake your head.
Lower, to your back. This time, you jump a little in his arms.
He nods, gentle and careful, and turns you to lift your shirt and inspect the wound.
You can’t see him, but you hear his breath get a little harsher. A little more shallow.
“Is it bad?” You ask, quiet and hoarse, and you feel him pull your shirt back down before he turns you and pulls you into his chest again. He’s breathing too shallowly. He’s holding you too tightly. He’s trying to keep himself calm, and it isn’t working.
“There’s a boot print. On your back.” He murmurs, and you wince at the memory of that boot kicking you back down.
You reach up, and slide your hands over his back, tucking your face into the crook of his neck, soothing him even as you seek comfort from him.
For a while, he holds you. Careful. Tight. Like if he loosens his grip even the smallest bit, something might rip you away.
Finally, he takes a deep breath, and presses his lips to the side of your head. Still gentle. Still soft.
“I’m gonna call Craig, okay? He’s gonna take you home, and then I’m gonna…take care of this.” The words are murmured into your hair, and you wince. Tense.
“No.” You feel so…weak. You fucking hate it, but you can’t think straight and the idea of Pope leaving you or even letting you go in this moment makes you feel fucking sick. “Don’t. Don’t go. Not right now.”
He goes impossibly more still, before he pulls back to trace his fingers over your bruised cheek, eyes searching yours with an intensity that makes your toes curl despite the situation.
“Okay.” His head tilts a little, in the direction of the back room. “Go in the back. Sit down.”
And you do.
You hear a few noises in the front room, the low sound of Pope’s voice on the phone, something being pulled from a storage closet, and then he’s crouching before you on the couch, fingers reaching up to brush over your neck once again before he pauses, like it just occurred to him that you might not want to be touched.
“Is this…okay?”
You nod. It hurts to speak, so you don’t bother to try. You don’t need to, with him. You never have.
He tilts your head to the side, fingers tightening imperceptibly on your chin as he sees the bruises once again, and for a moment you both just sit there in silence, staring at each other.
And maybe…maybe it’s because you’re alive. Maybe it’s because you just fucking killed a man. Maybe it’s because you haven’t seen him in over a month. Maybe it’s because you miss Lena and you miss him but…
But you pull him up with a hand fisted in the front of his t-shirt, and you kiss him like you’re fucking drowning.
He makes a soft, surprised noise against your lips, but he kisses you back. He kisses you back like he’s fucking drowning, too. Like he missed you just as much as you missed him.
His hands slide up to your cheeks, so gentle it almost hurts more than your wounds, and you drag him down with you onto the couch. He comes like he’s magnetized to you, lays you back beneath him like you’re made of glass and every millimeter of his skin against yours is heaven on fucking earth.
He braces himself atop you, pulling back to meet your eyes, and you grab his face in your hands and drag his mouth back to yours and it is incredible. He feels incredible and you missed him so much you finally feel like you’re breathing again.
He parts your lips with his own, groans as tongue sweeps into your mouth like the taste of you is a drug, and you arch against him as he presses you down into the couch, the feeling of his own need quickly making itself evident against your thigh. This. This this this. The feeling of his control cracking, of his desperation to touch you making him walk the line between gentle and rough until every touch sends sparks through your body, this is what you need. What you missed. This is making it all better.
You whimper, and he kisses you harder, and you are on fucking fire as his teeth catch your bottom lip, hand sliding up to your cheek as you begin fumbling with his belt and he rocks his hips against yours and-
And then his calloused fingers press a little too hard against your bruised cheek, and you jump as pain shoots down your spine, and he pulls back like you just burned him.
“No. No no no-“ you start, out of your mind with lust and the desperate need to forget. Just for a minute. When he’s kissing you, when he’s against you, you feel so much better when all you’ve felt is emptiness and pain for months.
Let me forget. Let me forget please don’t make me think about what just happened and Lena and how much I missed you please please please just-
“Stop.” He rasps, breath ragged as his hand slides beneath your head, cradling it as his nose brushes over your cheek. He’s shaking with restraint, and you’re sure that if you can just get his damn belt off he’ll cave but his free hand comes down to catch your wrists and you almost fucking cry. “You’re hurt.” And then, softer, closer to your ear and dripping with guilt and regret, “you’re hurt.”
“I don’t care.” And you don’t. And it’s a little scary how much you don’t care. You just want him. You haven’t even seen him in weeks, since that night in the backyard, and you feel like everything might be better if he just keeps touching you.
You reach up to scrape your fingers through his hair, and his forehead drops against yours, his hold tightening on your hip.
“I can’t.” His voice is a low rasp, nose bumping against your own as his eyes fall closed like the mere feeling of you touching him may be all that he needs.
“Please, Andrew.”
He grips you tighter, and leans back down.
And then the door to the bar slams open, loudly enough that the sound echoes into the back room, and he pulls away like he’s just fallen back to earth.
You almost protest, but then Deran and Craig are pushing their way into the back, and Craig is crouching before you.
“Oh, fuck. You look like shit.”
You laugh, and then, to your horror, you start to cry.
“Fuck. Fuck, okay. I’ve gotcha.” He pulls your face into his shoulder, like he might hide your ridiculous weeping, and turns his head to look at Pope. “You didn’t do any of this, right?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The level of danger in the other man’s voice nearly sends a chill down your spine.
“Chill, just checking.” Your head is pushed back again, surprisingly gently, and Deran hisses as he takes in the sight of you.
“Christ.” And then he’s beside you, touching the wound on your head. “She might need to go to Tijuana or some shit.”
“That’s for bullet wounds.” Pope snaps, eyes still on yours and body angled towards you like he might shove the two other men away at any moment. “She needs a few stitches. I’ve got her.”
“You’ve gotta take care of the…“
Body. The body. The body you made because you stabbed that guy in the neck and he-
“Take her home. I’ll be there soon.”
Craig nods, beginning to pull you to your feet. “Okay, c’mon. We can watch that dumb reality show you like. Just-“ he starts, and Pope stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Take her home.” He says, and the implication would make you frown if you weren’t still in shock. “Not to your place.”
Craig looks at you. You look at him. You look at Pope.
You turn back to Craig, and nod.
He steps back, and Pope moves forward to press his lips against your forehead, pulling back to tilt your chin up and look you in the eyes.
“I’ll be there soon. Is that okay?”
Always, always asking if you’re okay. Always checking on you. Always putting you first.
“Yeah.”
And when he leaves, and Craig takes you home, you feel his loss like a phantom limb.
-
Pope is gone for hours.
Craig fusses over your head for all three of those fucking hours.
“Fucking-ow!” You hiss, as he pulls the needle through your skin again, instinctively trying to shove him back for maybe the fiftieth time.
“Sorry. Shit, I usually have this done to me. Hang on.”
You sputter as he spills a shot of tequila over the wound again, and shove him some more.
“Knock it off. I’m disinfecting.”
“I don’t think that’s how that works.”
“Will you relax?”
“You’re definitely not doing it right.”
“Well it’s not every fuckin’ day I have to stitch up my best friend’s open forehead wound while she sits on my brother’s couch with a fucking boot print on her back.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t seen weirder shit.”
He stops, and crouches in front of you, one hand still holding the needle while the other rests on your shoulder.
“That’s it. C’mon, look at me for a sec.”
You do, and you’re still trying to glare, but with your puffy, red-rimmed
eyes and bruised face, you know it doesn’t hold much weight.
“You saved your own life tonight. You know that?”
“I killed someone.” Your voice sounds too small.
“He was gonna kill you. Probably worse.” Craig doesn’t get…intense, often. The way he’s looking at you now only proves just how dire the situation was tonight, and you have to grit your teeth to keep from shaking. He squeezes your shoulder, and offers you a small smile.
“You make a hell of a Cody, ya know that?”
Ugh. You might start crying again.
You hug him instead, stitches be damned, and he barely has time to maneuver the needle so it doesn’t rip your forehead apart before he’s hugging you right back.
“And,” he adds, one large hand rubbing soothingly over your bruised back, “if Pope doesn’t kill everyone that guy’s ever known, I will. No one’s gonna hurt you again. Promise.”
You laugh, as fucked up as it is, and you feel a whole lot better.
-
You’re leaning against Craig’s shoulder on the couch, aching all over and trying to lose yourself in the conversation, when Pope Cody comes through the door and sits down in front of you faster than you can even register that he’s home.
There’s blood on his face. Dirt on his hands.
“Are you okay?” His voice is quiet, fingers skating through your hair in that wonderfully familiar way as he inspects your wound.
“No.” There’s no need to lie. He’ll see right through it, anyway.
“Okay.” He traces a gentle, calloused touch over your cheek. Down to your neck, where the barely there pressure on the bruises on your throat make you flinch, less from pain than from memory.
Craig leaves with one more gentle ruffle of your hair, and then you’re alone. You let Pope touch you, let him move his eyes and fingertips over every single wound on your face and body. Watch the rage build in his eyes again as he takes in the state of you.
“I should have done your stitches. Craig never ties them right.” He pulls back, earnest like his next words might matter to you. “This is gonna scar.”
“I think I’m in love with you.”
What a truly fucked up thing for you to say right now. You just killed a guy. Pope just hid the body for you. He’s your fake husband and you’ve barely spoken in months.
He pauses, and pulls back to look at you. And then he looks at your head, like he’s inspecting the wound again.
“Stop. I’m not concussed. I mean, I don’t think I am.” You frown, and reach up to catch his hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said-“
“I love you.” He interrupts, and curls his fingers around yours. “I love you so much I can’t think. I can’t sleep without you. I can’t breathe right. You…” his eyes are intense, locked onto yours, but he’s fighting for the words. “You’re everything to me. You have been since I met you.”
That catches your attention. You blink at him, opening your mouth to try to find something to say, but he keeps going.
“I would die for you. I would kill for you. Sometimes I want you to ask me to kill for you, just so I can show you how much…” your eyes widen, and he frowns. “I won’t, though. But I…I would.”
“I think the way you measure love is a little fucked up.”
His lips quirk, like he’s fighting a smile. “I’m fucked up.”
“Yeah, you are.” You concede, and offer him a smile of your own. “But I love you.”
His smile falls, but his thumb is still doing that sweet thing where it brushes over your cheek. “I’ve killed people before.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to kill that guy tonight. I was hoping he wasn’t dead yet, so that I could kill him.”
“You’re not gonna scare me off, Pope.”
“Andrew.”
“Andrew.” You smile, and he leans forward to rest his forehead against yours. “You’re not gonna scare me off, Andrew.”
This time, when he kisses you, he doesn’t stop.
-
EPILOGUE - SOME TIME LATER
“I’ve literally never seen a baby look so pissed off all the time.” Craig’s hand drops to Pope’s shoulder, giving him a friendly little shake. “Congrats, dude. Definitely yours.”
“I think that’s just his poop face.” You cock your head down at the baby in question. “And his hungry face. And his…happy face.”
Pope makes a quiet noise, and moves forward to lift the dour-faced child into his arms. There’s something about watching him, scarred face and gigantic muscles and all, hold such a small bundle with so much fondness that it still makes you grin every time.
“You’ve gotta bounce him a little.” He says, in his rough and quiet voice, before doing exactly that, and then…
A quiet, cooing giggle. A tiny hand reaching up to grab at his father’s nose. And finally, brightest of all, Pope Cody grinning from ear to fucking ear.
“See, he smiles.” Pope reaches up to catch the baby’s hand, tiny fingers wrapping around his pointer, and you think your heart might explode.
“You look fucking scary like that, dude.”
“Oh, shut up.” You catch Pope’s chin, and pull him down for a quick kiss. He’s still smiling, and you smile back, and Craig groans. “He hasn’t slept in like, three days. He’s out of his mind. It makes him more smiley than usual.”
“I’ve slept.” He mumbles, turning back to the baby.
“You have not. You keep waking me up with your fingers on my pulse. Or standing over his crib.”
“The birth was traumatic.”
“The birth was three months ago.”
He grunts, and the baby coos, and he smiles again.
All jokes aside, he’s been doing that a lot lately.
And, a month or two back, when Lena’s now-parents let the two of you come over to the house to show her her new cousin, she had seen that smile, looked up, and smiled right back.
“What?” Pope had asked, looking down at the little girl the two of you had come together to raise so long ago. The little girl who also smiles more openly, now. Who giggles and comes to life more easily and is so excited to show the two of you her drawings from school and the new swing in the backyard.
“You guys don’t look sad anymore.” She said, simply, and you had burst into fucking tears, hormonal and happy and sleep-deprived as you were, and Pope had laughed out loud as he’d pulled you into his arms, sandwiching your baby between the two of you.
Now, you stand beside him by the pool, heart swelling in your chest again as you watch him smile, and he leans over to press his lips to the side of your head.
“We should renew our vows.” He hums, and you laugh.
“You really wanna throw another party?”
He smiles again, and kisses your cheek. “No. I want to marry you again. The right way.”
He’s said the same thing a few times, now. When you got pregnant, when you were pregnant, complaining about your swollen ankles and aching back, when you were lying in the hospital bed and half awake after the birth, when you were both half awake again holding your crying two week old on the couch…
And now, you finally answer.
“Ask me.”
He smiles again. The baby slaps fitfully at his cheek.
“Will you marry me?”
You grin right back at him, and lean up to press your lips to his.
Fandom: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Pairing/Characters: Lyonel Baratheon x reader, Aerion and Maekar make an appearance
Word count: ~2600
Includes: Fluff, Shy!reader, Targaryen!reader, Bookworm!reader, Lyonel being a sweetheart, Maekar is bad at feelings.
Warnings: Unwanted touching and groping, violence, beatings, Aerion is his own warning, implied child abuse, pregnancy
Other: Here it is, part 2! I really hope I did the first part justice, so many of you seemed to have liked it!
Also, I have gotten a crazy amount of new followers in the last week, so I'm planning for something special for the weekend, as well as maybe starting a tag list, and opening some sort of request line if you'd be interested.
Lyonel swore he would never hurt you. That he would never let anyone hurt you. But when a man strikes you, you see just how far your husband is willing to go to protect you.
Part 1 Part 2 (you are here)
My AKOT7K Masterlist Lyonel's Masterlist
You sigh as you glance wistfully towards the large doors of the hall, as the feast goes on around you. It is the start of spring, and Lyonel felt it appropriate to celebrate, but he doesn’t need much of a reason to throw one. You do not feel unsafe, knowing your husband and the guards are close by, yet you still stick to the sides of the hall, not the loud centre that your husband frequents. You know he knows where you are, even when he holds court in the middle, laughing and cheering. You long for your books and the silence of the library. At least the wine is good.
Suddenly, a pair of arms appears around your waist, and you stiffen. They are not familiar, safe, not Lyonel’s arms. The drunken man blunders, his hand rising to your breast to give it a squeeze.
“Let go of me.” You try to pull yourself away, pushing against his chest with force.
“You’re a pretty one.” His breath reeks of ale, and you resist a gag as you dig your elbow into his chest, trying to force him away. He catches your wrist in his hand, nails digging into your skin as he grunts in pain.
“Do not touch me.” You demand, firmer, even if terror is rising in your chest as you wince when his hold tightens.
“I’m sure we will have fun if you just calm down.” He tugs you closer, but you resist, muscles taunt as you try and wrench your wrist free.
“Let me go. My husband-“
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Fuck, you’re a sweet thing, smell so good.” You shudder as he presses his face to your neck.
“Let. Go.” You’ve reached your limit. You raise your leg and slam your heel onto his toes with force. The man howls as his hold drops from you, and you scamper away. Your relieved breath hitches as a slap echoes through the hall, and everyone freezes.
You stagger back, tears rising to your eyes as the pain flares, and your hand rises to your now throbbing cheek. Lyonel is by your side in a heartbeat, arms winding around your waist, steadying you.
“My dove.” He breathes, soft and gentle, despite the turmoil of emotions inside of him. Worry, guilt, panic. But mostly rage. Towards the drunken fool and himself, for not being there to stop him. His fingers gently move yours away to inspect your cheek, giving it a brush with his fingers. You wince, a tear running down your hurt cheek. He watches you wipe it away with a sniffle, and that reveals the handprint around your wrist. A cold calmness settles into his chest. Lyonel presses a gentle kiss to your uninjured cheek before he gestures for your personal guard. Ser Freman steps in, gently guiding you backwards.
The man has finally realized who you are and what he has done. He has fallen deathly pale, the wine in his veins burned away by the fear.
“M-My Lord, I didn’t mean to.-” The man is bumbling, desperate for something, anything to save him. But even the gods cannot help him now.
Lyonel grasps him by his collar, hauling him up so they are face to face.
“You just accidentally grabbed my wife? And when she told you to stop, you struck her.” It is a terrifying thing when a man who is quick to smile turns serious. And the people watching have never seen their Lord be so terrifying in their lives. There is no grin on his face, not a twinkle in his eye. His voice is cold and hard as he stares the man down.
”You struck my wife.” Lyonel’s rage is building, rising to a tidal wave, and his voice, for the first time, betrays his anger.
It’s shaking now, coarse as rage grasps it.
“You fucking struck. My. Wife.” The laugh he is so famous for burst out as the first hit crashes, the man’s nose breaking with a sickening crack. Lyonel has never felt such rage in his life. Everything fades away, and all he can see is the man. Everything else is muddled, but the noise of flesh meeting flesh makes dark satisfaction rise in his chest. The hall watches in a mixture of shock and horror as his punches rain down on the man, one after another.
You cannot see what is happening. Ser Freman blocks your view, standing steadfast in front of you, hands gently on your elbows.
“Do not look, my lady.” He instructs gently, and you can’t, but you can still hear. The hits landing, Lyonel’s low growls, and the thundering of your own heart. It seems to go on forever.
“He’s going to kill him.” The whispers of horror from the crowd around reach your ears, and you stiffen. You see Lyonel’s guards move closer, speaking in hushed tones, trying to sway him away.
But it’s like he cannot even hear them, doesn’t notice they are there. His eyes are focused on the man, now lying unconscious on the stone floor. One of his oldest, most trusted guards dares to try and pull him back, but Lyonel shoves the hand away.
“You must let me step in.” Your words are calm, even if your emotions are in turmoil as you stare Ser Freman down.
“I-I cannot, My Lady.”
“He will kill that man. I won’t let it happen. Not because of m-me.” Your voice drops, now shaking slightly. Ser Freman hesitates as you push past him. He doesn’t stop you, but doesn’t release his hold on your elbow either.
Ser Freman pushes people out of your way as you step in, taking a deep breath. You try to keep your eyes on your husband instead of the bloodied man. Kneeling by Lyonel’s side, you lay one hand on his shoulder as he pulls back his fist for another strike. He freezes, eyes visiting you before they return to the pummeled man, and his face flares with anger again. His muscles tense, shaking as he holds himself back. You set your other hand on his chest, pushing gently. When that proves ineffective, you brace both hands against him and try again, with more strength.
“Lyonel, you’ll kill him.” You plead softly, just for his ears to hear. He shifts back, only slightly, hands still clenched into fists. No other force in the world would be able to move him.
“He hit you.” Raising his gaze, he growls, deeper as he sees the mark that had risen on your cheek. The imprints of the man’s hand are clearly visible, and his anger roars again.
“He fucking hit you!”
You do not flinch nor back away from him, not anymore. You’ve seen him angry in many situations, although not as furious, but you know you are safe by his side, even now. But you do not want him to have the stain of a murderer on his soul, not because of you.
“Let- Let the guards deal with him. Please.” His anger wanes as he sees you, pleading, eyes filled with tears.
Lyonel allows himself to fall back, and the guards are quick to all but lift him to his feet. Ser Freman grasps your hand and helps you up, too. He steps back with a bow, but not before setting your hand on your husband’s forearm. Lyonel’s eyes are still burning, jaw firmly set as his men haul up the man. His face is smeared with blood, but you turn your head away as he groans. At least he is alive, still. Your hand tightens on Lyonel, and he turns his attention to you.
Your presence has a steadying effect, and his rage cools. Lyonel sucks in another deep breath as he lifts his hand to cup your cheek, but stops himself before he does. His knuckles are red and swollen, both hands speckled with splatters of blood. Judging by the way your eyes flit around in his face, blood has ended up there as well.
“Perhaps a bath?” The suggestion is gentle, but he can see from the look in your eyes that it is more akin to a plea.
“Of course, my dove. I am sure the feast is over and done now.” He tucks his hands hidden under his cape, nodding to your guard.
“Ser Freman will see you to our chambers. I am sure you are tired. A healer will come and see you there.” You are exhausted, the sting in your cheek having dropped into a throbbing ache that has heat building under your skin. Your husband presses his lips to yours, gentle and soft, before he strides out of the room, leaving behind a stunned silence.
After his bath, before he joins you, Lyonel writes a letter. Short and concise.* He sends it along with a messenger before making his way to your shared chambers, the acrid smell of herbs greets him at the door. You are already asleep, and he brushes his lips on your temple before settling down for the night, too.
*****
Nearly three weeks have passed, and you have almost forgotten the whole ordeal. Lyonel has been more affectionate (if possible) and has been by your side like a thistle. Only, this thistle is loud and stops you from enjoying your reading time.
Shock washes over you when you hear guards announcing the arrival of the Targaryens’. A small riding party soon canters inside the fortress of Storm’s End. The banners are proudly flying the sigil of your birth house, and you soon recognize your father at the head of the party. You glance at your husband in question, but he just gives you an infuriating grin, and you turn around with a huff.
Aerion abandons his horse, leaving the stable boys scampering to lead it into the stables, and strides to you with open arms.
“My dear sister!” He scoops you into his arms with a grin, ignoring Lyonel’s bow as he spins you around.
“You look different.” Aerion inspects you with a raised brow, eyes sliding along your figure. And it’s true. Dressed in the warm shades of orange, yellow, and gold of the Baratheon house, a circlet of intertwined antlers resting on your head, the contrast between you and Aerion, in Targaryen black and red, is stark.
“I look like a Baratheon.” You correct, and Lyonel’s heart warms, affection flooding his chest. You say it with such ease, such pride, one he thought may be impossible at the start of your marriage.
Your father strides closer, and you accept the awkward hug he gives you.
“Now, where’s this cretin that laid his hands on you?” Aerion’s eyes are glittering, a manic glow of something you are not sure you want to identify. You glance, wide-eyed, at Lyonel, who shrugs.
“H-He’s in the dungeons.” You mutter, shifting on your feet.
“Ser Baratheon wrote to us of the unfortunate situation, wishing that more could be done. Striking a Dragon is treason, and we are here to ensure justice is met.” Your father’s voice is even as he studies you steadily.
“I am not a dragon, not anymore.” You try to disagree, but to your surprise, he shakes his head.
“You are born a dragon, you will always be a dragon.” Aerion groans.
“Enough talking. I am sure you will not want to watch, sister, but I am eager to get started.” Aerion is almost giddy as he tucks his hands behind his back.
“I will take you,” Lyonel announces before he turns to you. “My dove, you could escort your father to his chambers to rest?” He ends his sentence with a wink, and you sigh**.
“Fuck rest.” Maekar mumbles but still follows you as Lyonel escorts Aerion towards the dungeons.
You walk in silence along the halls of Storm’s Edge, servants and guards bowing and curtsying as you pass.
“You’re happy here?” Maekar asks suddenly, and you look at him over your shoulder.
“I am. Lyonel is a good husband.” You assure him, and he nods stiffly.
You’ve reached the cloister overlooking the courtyard, and you settle side by side, watching the people bustle about. The silence stretches, almost to the side of uncomfortableness, before you speak again.
“I wrote to Uncle Baelor yesterday.” Maekar’s head turns in your direction, but you do not look at him, not yet. You’d written to your brothers plenty, and sent polite updates on your life to him as well, but never to your uncle.
“I had to, in an official sense.” You mutter, cheeks heating. It feels bizarre, talking about this with him.
“The healers are sure that I am with child.” Maekar stares, not sure how to react. Then, he hesitantly lays his hand on yours as it rests on the railing. “Congratulations.” His voice is low, and his manner even, but he feels proud. He doesn’t know how to show it, but he is. You gift him a smile, turning to face the courtyard again.
You stand there in silence until Lyonel and Aerion find you there. Your brother smells undoubtedly of blood, and there is a smear on his cheek, but he is cheerful as he embraces you.
“Ser Baratheon told me the news, sister dear! The dragons persist.” You roll your eyes.
“Our baby might grow to be a stag, like their father.” And you’d be so proud if he did, but Aerion is testy about such things, and you keep some of your thoughts to yourself.
“They will be a dragon, I know it.” His tone is colored with barely hidden disdain, but neither you nor Lyonel pays him any mind.
“The maids have prepared baths for you if you wish to relax before we dine.” Lyonel gives a short bow, stiff in his shoulders. He doesn’t particularly like either of the men, but they are royal princes, your family. And he’s not stupid. Aerion is not to be trifled with. The boy might be young, but from what he witnessed down in the dungeons, he was just as dangerous as any other Targaryen, if not more.
The two dragons leave, and the two stags remain, watching over the courtyard in silence.
“Is he alive?” You ask softly, and Lyonel nods.
“He is.” He can see the question in your eyes, but shakes his head.
“No.”
“But-“
“I promised the prince I wouldn’t tell you. The scab’s headed to the Night’s Watch the next time the recruiters come past.” Lyonel’s tone is final, but the gentleness in his gaze convinces you that you don’t even want to know. At least the man is in good enough condition to be useful to the Night’s Watch. (He’s not. He’s dead. But Lyonel won’t tell you. He knows you would just blame yourself. But he could not let the man live, not after what he did to you.)
Lyonel draws you to his side tightly, pressing a kiss to your temple, his hand sliding along your stomach.
“I love you, my dove. And our little growing fawn.” You smile, squeezing his hand as it rests on your abdomen.
“I love you too.”
*I imagine the letter went something along the lines of: “Hey yo, an idiot touched my wife. Send the most twisted bastard you have. With respect, L. B.”
**As it is implied in the show, Maekar physically disciplines his children, but I think he was softer with Reader, with her being a woman, and I headcannon her to look a lot like her mother, who Maekar loved, in his own way. I see the fear of her husband striking her stemming from stories and experiences of the women in the court. I don’t think Lyonel would leave her alone with Maekar if he had been the sole cause of her fears.
Fic Summary: The owner of The 107th wants you to be his girl whether you like it or not.
Part 41 | Series Masterlist | Part 43
Chapter Word Count: Over 3.8k
Chapter Summary: You and Bucky take a trip down memory lane.
Chapter Warnings: Kissing, mention of death, mention of violence, referenced oral sex and dirty talk, flashbacks, stalking, inner turmoil, possessive behavior, world building, feels, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?), more warnings to come.
A/N: More Hold You Tight and thank you for sticking with me! Bucky edit by the beautiful @nixakimbo . ❤️ Beta read by the lovely @mumbles411 , but any and all mistakes are my own. Dividers by the talented @firefly-in-darkness . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
Bucky kept your hand in his as he drove, thumb moving in small circles. The emotional aftermath from the cemetery settled over you, making your body sink more into the seat. That combined with how passionate he was the night before and sparring with Natasha, you were more exhausted than you realized. But you didn’t complain. In the grand scheme of things, it was on the lighter side of what you experienced.
You glanced out the window when Bucky made a turn. He wasn’t headed in the direction of the penthouse at all. “I thought you said we were going home,” you said.
“Thought we’d take a stroll down memory lane first,” he said.
Your throat tightened after a few more turns, taking in the familiar street as he slowed to a stop. Your old apartment building looked brighter than you remembered. The day you moved in, you were so optimistic and thrilled to finally have your own place. Laughter echoed in your mind, memories from when your friends visited. A small apartment with bright touches that you did your best to make it a home.
It was yours.
Looking at the building now, you pictured Bucky on your couch that fateful night.
“Keep moving your hips if you want, but don't scream again… There’s time for that later.”
“I didn't mean to startle you, but I couldn't wait any longer to see you.”
“It’s time for you to get the love life and man you deserve.”
“The club may have been the first place I saw you, but this is where you saw me the first time,” he said, squeezing your hand gently.
He had been a king selecting a peasant to make his queen. You foolishly thought you were stubborn enough to win the fight because he didn’t pursue you the right way. At the end of the day, you let him place the metaphorical crown on your head.
“I still haven’t been back since…”
Clark.
“Do you even want to be with Bucky or are you just afraid of him? Or is it because he’s rich? You think he’ll spoil you if you spread your legs for him?”
“He doesn't deserve you. He isn't good for you, but I am. Just let me help you.”
“Look what you made me do.”
Your heart seized, but you kept your breathing even. Clark couldn’t hurt you again. He wouldn’t hurt Lois again either. She was free.
But your freedom was limited.
Bucky urged you to look at him. “Do you remember when I dropped you off after you met my friends and I helped remove your shoes?”
Unexpected heat flooded you. “I remember,” you whispered.
It was impossible to forget how your heart pounded when he sank to his knees and touched you like he wasn’t worthy. How he kissed your mound through your clothes. He hadn’t even kissed your mouth at that point.
“It scares you how much your body wants mine, doesn’t it?”
“Look at me like you love me. Please.”
“You know, I’ll sleep a lot easier once you’re in my bed.”
“I hated leaving you that night,” he admitted, leaning across the seat to kiss your lips. “Maybe if I had brought you home sooner…”
Darkness and guilt clouded his eyes. “Bucky?”
“No,” he said, his jaw clenching. “I’m not bringing him up today.”
You knew he meant Clark, and you didn’t want to think about him either. “You did save me,” you reminded him. “The night with the shoes, I remember you took a picture of me before you left,” you said, steering the conversation away from a topic neither of you wanted to dwell on.
A smile touched his lips. “I feel your love when I look at it,” he whispered, his eyes lighting up when he took out his phone. “Remember the photos Addison took of us before the winery?”
Your breath caught when he swiped through them. The pictures shocked you before because they didn’t catch any of your fear or uncertainty and seeing them shocked you all over again. The two of you looked like a loving, happy couple. And your friends were absolutely thrilled that you had someone like him by your side.
“I’ll treat her like a queen. My girl deserves nothing less than that.”
“I still need to frame these,” he sighed, closing out the album. “I need to fill our home with photos of us.”
He’d probably have an entire room with photos of just you if he could.
“Is the photo of us kissing your screensaver?” you asked.
It shouldn’t have surprised you.
“Of course, it is.” He snuck a quick glance at the building. “You still haven’t closed that chapter in our story.”
You sighed. You did need to go through your boxes still and you owed it to yourself to go into the apartment for closure. Today wouldn’t be that day.
“I will,” you promised.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you more good memories there in the end,” he said sincerely.
You studied him. He always believed your apartment was temporary, a stepping stone to end up with him. It didn’t mean he wanted the place you once called your home tainted. You didn’t deserve that, especially since you didn’t do anything wrong.
“I had more good times there than bad,” you said honestly. It was wonderful while it lasted. “And we can make new memories.”
He nodded and pulled away from the building. You didn’t look back. Not because it hurt to do so, but because you wanted to look forward. It was tiring to drag your feet through the mud stubbornly just to prove you had control of your life. How were you living if you were constantly battling?
It didn’t feel like a battle so much today. His words at the headstone stayed with you. He was going to try for you. He was going to love you the way you wanted and needed him to.
You had to believe that.
“Where are we going?” you asked when you noticed that he once again wasn’t headed toward the penthouse.
“The trip isn’t over,” he said, coming to a stop again and nodding across the street.
You gasped when you looked out the window and spotted Marc in front of his bookstore, carefully changing the small sign outside the door. He looked well. You smiled before you could stop yourself. It was such a relief to see him.
“You met Bucky Barnes?”
“You’re too sweet to get mixed up in any of that.”
“Surprised to see him?” he asked, his voice a little too calm.
At least he was keeping his jealousy in check.
“A bit,” you admitted, squeezing his hand to ground him.
“I did assure you that he was perfectly fine,” he reminded you.
“You did,” you agreed. But you also saw what he did to John, so you couldn’t help but wonder if anything had happened to Marc. The latter didn’t insult you, but still. “I just haven’t seen him since you found me at his shop.”
Your eyes misted over before you blinked. Turn the Page used to be one of your comfort spots and you weren’t sure if it ever would be again. Would Marc even want you to set foot in his place? Would you find little spots like that again where you could lose yourself for hours and feel a sense of peace?
“You practically dared me to find you that day.” He smirked when you huffed but didn’t disagree. “And I did.”
“I think you were testing me because you wanted me to find you. You want me more than you want to admit.”
“I care more than anyone else.”
“I’m the most dangerous man in the city, but you're safe with me.”
“Maybe we can get more books for your library soon,” he mused when you stayed quiet.
Your library. The one place Bucky promised to never venture into without your permission. That was your true sanctuary if you needed to ever separate yourself from him.
“Maybe,” you whispered, watching Marc go back inside and silently wishing him well.
Bucky didn’t pull away from the curb immediately, both of you exhaling slowly. First your apartment building, and now this. You weren’t sure if the knot in your chest was grief or nostalgia. What you did know was that you were letting go of something before his lips brushed your knuckles.
“Ready?” he murmured.
You nodded before the car moved again.
The city passed by in a blur. Bucky remained quiet as he drove, not rushing to get to his next destination. You imagined him driving out of the city, the two of you on an open road. No buildings, no shadows looming over you.
It was funny because days ago you wouldn’t have imagined him on that path with you.
Your brows furrowed when he stopped by the flower shop. It was a welcoming place thanks to Mrs. Crandle and the atmosphere she created. It was a place where you spent hours coaxing beauty out of stems and built arrangements that made strangers smile. You made a difference to people in small ways.
And Mrs. Crandle wanted you to be happy.
“Don’t be too apprehensive, dear. It’s okay to let someone in.”
Your mind for some reason drifted to your parents and how they never supported your career choice. Your heart ached because they never believed in you. Bucky did wholeheartedly.
“You know, I think I know now why you wanted to become a florist. You’re surrounded by warmth and brightness and you get to watch things bloom and grow and thrive because you never had that.”
“You create beautiful things here,” he said, turning your hand over to kiss your palm. “My hands destroy while yours build something warm. Comforting.”
“I try to,” you said softly.
Now you had the chance to make small and big differences. You could continue to thrive as a florist while giving back to others. It brought you a sense of peace that you had the opportunity to spread light from the darkness of your situation.
“Steve’s girl loved the tulips,” he said happily.
You did your best not to shiver when you recalled Steve stepping into the shop the day of your first “date” with Bucky. He was just as intimidating as his best friend and sounded just as in love when he mentioned getting the tulips. You thought something was off and you blamed it on feeling paranoid about the break in. You had good reason to feel suspicious.
“Your partner must feel very lucky to have you.”
“Good luck on your date.”
“And you had him buy stargazer lilies,” you mumbled.
It was your first of many ways to show that he would always have eyes on you. To be his girl meant someone would always be watching. He’d always find a way to get to you.
He kissed your palm again. “It would’ve been too much if I stopped in the shop that day.”
You nodded. Everything about the man had been too much, he was all-consuming. He also wanted to love and give with his entire being.
“You say your hands destroy, and they have, but you’ve built me warm and beautiful things, too. The library. The garden,” you pointed out with a faint smile. “I’d like to think your mom would be proud of those thoughtful things.”
His mouth parted and his eyes sparkled, like he hadn’t expected the compliment. You thought he was going to kiss you when he reached across the seat, but he wrapped you up in a tight embrace instead. You closed your eyes when he buried his face in your neck. He held you tight, not loosening his grip for a second.
“You smiled even when you didn’t think anyone was in your corner,” he said against your skin.
Your eyes remained shut. Your friends were always in your corner, even when they were busy with lives of their own. Bucky ensured his men would be on your side as well, though Curtis and Ray seemed to care without any of his influence dictating them. Steve did, too.
“I’m proud of you, Kotyonok. For everything you’ve survived, everything you’ve done, and everything you do.” He pulled back just enough to look into your eyes. “I’ll keep being proud of you no matter what.”
You nodded, your throat too tight to form a reply.
He pressed his lips to your forehead before settling back in his seat. You stared at the shop until it was out of sight. You’d be back there in your element soon enough. It would be good for you.
“Why the stroll down memory lane?” you finally asked after a few minutes.
He didn’t answer right away. Was this a way of processing grief or distracting himself from it? Was he merely appreciating the alone time with you in the car without Curtis or Ray?
“Because it’s important to remember where we started,” he said, releasing your hand so he could place his on your thigh. “Helps us appreciate where we are now.”
You opened your mouth to respond, but he chuckled as he passed an alley.
“Steve used to get in fights there before he grew into his body. I lost count how many times I had to save his scrawny ass.”
You smiled softly. “It’s nice that he had you to back him up.”
“I swear, he started half of those fights on purpose just to see if I’d step in,” he muttered affectionately.
You tried not to laugh. It was hard to believe that Steve was once a small guy. As dangerous as they were, there was also something somewhat pure in their friendship.
“I can’t say my friends have ever been in a fight.” You tilted your head. “Unless you count the time Dana threw a drink in a girl’s face after she called her a skank.”
Bucky’s laughter grew. “She didn’t.”
“Yes, she did. The girl’s boyfriend hit on her and instead of getting mad at him, she blamed Dana.” You giggled and shook your head. “The best part was Dana didn’t even use her own drink. She took hers and threw it in her face because she didn’t want to waste the one she paid for.”
The normalcy of the conversation was endearing to you. It was the kind of thing you pictured when you thought of what love looked like. It was little moments just like this, not just the huge declarations of love.
His nose scrunched up. “Birds of a feather,” he said, glancing at you. “Our first date, you said the only reason you didn’t toss the wine on me was because it was delicious and it would have been a waste.”
You snorted. You did say that. “And you said your mom would’ve loved me.”
You felt bad mentioning that when it went silent again, but the air in the car didn’t feel heavy. If anything, it felt lighter, like it was okay to talk about her today. He didn’t have to live in the pain and neither did you.
“She did,” he whispered, his gaze flickering to the bracelet. “She does.”
You looked out the window when he stopped again, your eyes wide. You were back at the Red Room, a place elegant and full of secrets, just like the circle Bucky spun with precision. But at the end of the day, it was Natasha’s domain.
Who would’ve thought she would become an ally of sorts?
“You went here the first time you demanded time away from me,” he said, pride in his voice. “And I could hardly stay away.”
“I promised her the day to herself, but that day is up and I have to see that she’s okay. I just need to see her with my own eyes.”
“I missed you.”
“Thank you for letting me hold you.”
You swallowed hard. It was the first night you and Bucky slept in a bed together. It was the beginning of something you hadn’t wanted to accept.
“It was also here that you told me the truth,” you said, placing your hand over his.
By saving Winifred on the street years ago, you gave her more time. You didn’t do it to be a hero. You didn’t know it would put you on Bucky’s radar later.
“You know, one of the last things she said to me was that she hoped I found my other half one day. To love her completely, hold her tight, and never let her go. I only wish she was alive so she could see us together.”
“I told you that traditional dating never worked for me. Seeing you in my club, it all made sense as to why.”
“Don’t you see now why I’m so desperate to keep you close? To keep you safe? Had I looked into it then, we could’ve met and been together this whole time.”
“I owed you that and more,” he said, sighing as he leaned back in his seat. “And now we’re giving Addison and Brady a day here that they’ll never forget.”
It was truly a way to entwine your worlds.
“One more stop,” he whispered.
You snuck glances at him, wondering where the last stop was.
It wasn’t long until you saw the sign for the 107th.
He stopped across the street, something serene crossing his features.
“This was my mom’s place and keeping it alive is almost like keeping a part of her alive,” he stated, ducking his head for a moment. “Even if she wouldn’t approve of some of my… activities.”
You trembled. Violence lived between the spaces of the neon lights. It was a legacy framed as luxury with bloodstains that never truly washed away. John, Clark, and even Zemo spilled blood there.
How many others?
“This is where I saw you the first time,” he said, rubbing your thigh like he had to keep touching you. “This is where my past and future touched.”
Your heart almost stopped when you looked at him.
He looked back at you like you were his entire world.
He fell for you when he spotted you in the VIP section with your friends, lamenting about wanting love. His men cared for you when he took you around the club and his office. Natasha and Bucky comforted you after Clark.
Jesus, the first time Bucky went down on you was at his desk.
“You deserve to shine, and I want to destroy everything that dims your light.”
“Is my love a cage? Or is it the thing that can set you free?”
“Not God, Kotyonok. Just me.”
You had to look away when the heat of that moment flooded you. You gave him a piece of yourself that night while still feeling powerful. You continued to give him parts, even when you weren’t trying. The puzzle was almost complete. There was only one thing left to give him.
Your heart.
“You were my new beginning,” he whispered, cupping your cheek. “You became my everything.”
You didn’t speak. You didn’t have to. The silence spoke volumes.
His lips brushed yours tenderly, both of you sighing. “Let’s go home.”
You both settled back in your seats. “Are Ray and Curtis following us?”
“Yes.” He smirked a little. “I’m sure the detours are driving Ray crazy since we’re stopping and not getting out.”
“Those men deserve a raise,” you muttered.
“They do,” he agreed. “They really do.”
The penthouse was quiet once you got there, the city still humming softly beyond the glass. Bucky didn’t turn on any lights after he set his keys down. He grabbed a thick blanket from the living room and led you straight to the balcony. You didn’t get a chance to protest when he helped you sit and wrapped the blanket around you both.
The air felt cool, but his body warmed yours under the fabric.
He urged you to lean again and pressed a kiss to your temple.
“This is where we had our first date,” he whispered.
“In my line of work, everyone wants something from me. Money, power, favors. It’s hard to trust people. But not you.”
“I like who you are, doll. You’re loyal and caring and real. The kind of person I want and need.”
“You’re good for me and you may not believe I’m good for you, but I am. We’re right for each other. And aren’t you tired of being lonely? I know I am.”
“I can’t wait to take you out again,” he said, resting his head against yours. “Today was nostalgic… healing.”
You let the words settle between you briefly.
“There’s nowhere else you want to go to honor your mom?” you asked.
Almost every place he stopped had to do with the two of you.
“I thought about stopping at the hospital where we both saw her,” he replied, swallowing hard. “But I think she’d be happy that I’m not letting myself sit in sadness today.”
Your heart clenched. It didn’t matter how long she was gone. The pain would never fully fade. He was allowed to feel sadness.
“And I think she’d be happy that I’m spending the day with you,” he added quietly. “Not grieving her, but… living the life she hoped I’d have.”
His arm tightened around you under the blanket.
“Let’s sit here a little longer,” he suggested, turning just enough to look at you, his eyes soft. “Then we can have pizza and watch a movie?”
His thumb brushed along your jaw. You weren’t looking into the eyes of a club owner or mobster at that moment. There was something too vulnerable to be dangerous.
It was love.
“Okay,” you whispered.
His mouth found yours. It was a gentle kiss at first before he angled your head back and deepened it. Your fingers curled in his shirt when he groaned low in his throat. His heart beat wildly in his chest, you could feel it, but he broke the kiss before the heat consumed you.
He ran a hand through his hair and took a steadying breath. “Tomorrow, we truly move forward.”
“Move forward?” you repeated, your heart still pounding.
“Yes. No more going in circles. We don’t forget the past, but we don’t let us rule the future.” He looked out at the skyline and you could see the hopeful smile on his face. “I’m going to put a ring on your finger very soon, Kotyonok.”
“That sounds like a promise,” you breathed.
His smile widened. “It is.”
You followed his gaze as his thumb found your ring finger, brushing the bare skin. The city was his kingdom and he intended to share it with you. There was no escaping that.
And he meant what he said.
He was going to put a ring on your finger very soon.
How about that trip down memory lane? And an engagement? How? When?!
synopsys: In which your husbands dragon knows something you don't
au where the dragons are alive
tw; ooc dragon ig
wordcount: 3.3k
requested by @ntcc2605
The morning light filtered through the gauze curtains of your chambers, painting the room in shades of gold and rose. You stretched languidly beneath the silk sheets, a smile already forming on your lips before you even opened your eyes. The other side of the bed was empty, but the indent in the pillow beside you was still warm, and you could hear the soft sounds of someone moving about the adjoining sitting room.
"Valarr?" you called out, your voice still thick with sleep.
A moment later, your husband appeared in the doorway, already dressed in a loose tunic and riding leathers. His brown hair, with that bright streak of silver-gold running through it was slightly disheveled, as though he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. His mismatched eyes lit up the moment they found you, and the smile that spread across his face made your heart flutter in a way that three moons of marriage had done nothing to diminish.
"You're awake," he said, crossing the room in three long strides and sitting on the edge of the bed. He leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then your lips. "I was trying to let you sleep."
"Mmm." You looped your arms around his neck, keeping him close. "And where were you going, all dressed up like that?"
The slight shift in his expression told you everything you needed to know. You'd been married long enough now to recognize that particular look, the one that meant he wanted something, something he suspected you wouldn't like, and was trying to figure out the best way to ask for it.
"Aerrix needs exercise," he said carefully. "I thought I'd take her out for a flight before breakfast."
You stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Valarr caught it. Of course he caught it. He caught everything where you were concerned, had done since the very beginning.
You remembered those stolen nights before your marriage with perfect clarity, the way he'd find you in dark corridors during feasts, pulling you into alcoves and empty chambers just to have a moment alone with you. The way he'd climb down from his dragon and run to you the moment he landed, unable to bear even the few minutes it took to stable the beast properly. The way he'd whisper promises of forever against your skin in the moonlight.
Valarr Targaryen, the Young Prince, and absolutely, completely, hopelessly in love with you. And you with him.
But there was one part of him you couldn't quite love, no matter how hard you tried.
Aerrix.
You'd never met the dragon, thank the Seven. You'd seen her from a distance, of course a massive creature of black and white, scales seeming to shift between the two colors depending on how the light hit her. She was larger than most of the other dragons, and louder, and from what you'd heard, meaner. The dragon keepers gave her a wide berth. The other dragon riders kept their own mounts carefully separated from her during flights. And everyone, everyone, knew that Aerrix tolerated exactly one person in the entire world, Valarr.
"Don't make that face," Valarr said now, his thumb gently stroking your cheek. "It's too early for that face."
"I don't know what face you're talking about."
"You're making your 'my husband is going to suggest something dreadful' face." He grinned, that boyish grin that had probably convinced you to do approximately seventeen thousand things you never would have done otherwise. "I haven't even suggested anything yet."
"You were about to."
"I was considering suggesting something." He kissed your nose again. "There's a difference."
You sighed, but you were still smiling despite yourself. "What is it, Valarr?"
He was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was softer than before. "I want you to meet her."
Your heart stopped. Actually stopped, right there in your chest, for what felt like several very long seconds.
"Valarr—"
"I know." He held up a hand, cutting off the protest he could see building in your expression. "I know you're frightened of her. I know you've avoided the dragonpit entirely since we married. I know you flinch every time someone mentions her name." His eyes were earnest, pleading. "But she's part of me, my love. The largest part of me, some would say. And I want—" He paused, searching for the right words. "I want you to see that part of me. I want to share it with you. I want..." He trailed off, looking almost shy for a moment. "I want to take you flying someday. Both of you. My two favorite beings in all the world."
You stared at him.
"Flying," you repeated flatly.
"On Aerrix."
"On your volatile, aggressive, people-eating dragon."
"She doesn't eat people."
"She ate a whole sheep in one bite last night . I heard the keepers talking about it."
"She's a dragon. Dragons eat sheep. That's not the same as eating people."
You sat up in bed, pulling the sheets with you, and fixed him with your most formidable look. "Valarr Targaryen. I love you. I have loved you since before I knew what love was. I climbed out of windows to meet you in the dark. I lied to my own mother for you. I married you knowing that being your wife would mean a lifetime of people staring at me and whispering." You took a breath. "But I will not go anywhere near your dragon."
Valarr's face fell, and something in your chest twisted painfully. He looked so disappointed—not angry, never angry with you, just sad in that quiet way that made you want to give him absolutely anything he asked for.
"I understand," he said quietly, and he meant it. That was the worst part. He always understood. "I won't push you."
He kissed your forehead again and stood, and you watched him walk toward the door with his shoulders just slightly slumped, and you felt like the worst wife in the entire Seven Kingdoms.
"Valarr."
He turned.
You took a deep breath. "I'll... think about it."
The thinking about it lasted approximately three days, during which Valarr was so pathetically hopeful and so carefully restrained in his hopefulness that you wanted to both kiss him and strangle him in equal measure.
He didn't bring it up again, not once. But he'd look at you across the dinner table with those eyes, and you could see the question hovering there, unasked. He'd come back from flying Aerrix and describe the clouds to you, the way the world looked from above, the feeling of freedom, and you could hear the longing in his voice, not for you to share the experience, necessarily, but for you to understand it. To understand him.
On the fourth day, you gave in.
"Take me to her," you said, the words tumbling out before you could lose your nerve.
Valarr had been in the middle of drinking his morning tea. He choked.
"Take you—now? You mean it?"
"I mean it. Before I change my mind."
He was on his feet in an instant, pulling you up with him, his excitement so palpable it was almost contagious. "You won't regret this. I promise you won't regret this. She's going to love you. I know she will."
"That's what I'm afraid of," you muttered, but you let him lead you out of the chambers and toward the dragonpit.
The dragonpit loomed before you, a massive structure of stone and iron that seemed to swallow the light. You could hear them before you could see them, the rumbling, the occasional shriek, the heavy sounds of massive bodies shifting against stone. Your steps slowed.
Valarr's hand tightened around yours. "I'm right here. Nothing is going to hurt you."
"You can't promise that."
"I can. Aerrix won't hurt you. I won't let her." He stopped walking, turning to face you fully. "Do you trust me?"
You looked at him, at this man who had married you in front of the Seven and all the realm, who looked at you like you were the most precious thing in his world.
"Yes," you said. "I trust you."
He kissed you once, quick and fierce, and then he was leading you forward again, into the dragonpit.
The interior was dim and hot, lit by torches and the faint glow of dragon fire from deeper within. Valarr led you past several dens, each containing a dragon of varying size and color. They watched you pass with those unblinking eyes, and you pressed closer to your husband, your heart pounding.
And then you reached Aerrix's den.
She was magnificent.
That was the first thought that crossed your mind as you stood at the entrance, staring at the massive creature sprawled across the rocky ground. She was easily three times the size of the other dragons you'd passed, her black and white scales gleaming in the torchlight like polished gems. Her horns curved back from her head in elegant spirals, and even in sleep, her sides rose and fell with a rhythm that seemed to shake the very ground beneath your feet.
She was also absolutely terrifying.
"Seven help me," you whispered.
Valarr squeezed your hand. "Stay here. Let me approach her first."
He walked forward, his footsteps echoing in the cavern, and you watched as Aerrix stirred. Her head lifted, those massive golden eyes opening and fixing on her rider with unmistakable affection. She made a sound, a rumbling, crooning noise, and Valarr laughed, pressing his forehead against her snout.
"Good morning to you too," he said softly. "I've brought someone to meet you. Someone very important to me."
He glanced back at you, gesturing you forward.
Your feet wouldn't move.
"It's all right," he called. "Come slowly. Let her see you."
You forced yourself to take a step. Then another. Aerrix's head swung toward you, those golden eyes fixing on your small figure with an intensity that made your blood run cold. You could feel her breath now, warm and smelling faintly of smoke, ruffling your hair and your skirts.
This is it, you thought hysterically. This is how I die. Eaten by my husband's dragon. Mother will be so disappointed.
You were close enough now to see the texture of her scales, the way they overlapped like armor. Her nostrils flared, and you felt her inhale a great rush of air that pulled at your clothes and hair. She was smelling you. Learning you.
And then, impossibly, she made a sound.
It was low and rumbling, like thunder in the distance, but softer somehow. Warmer. It vibrated through the stone beneath your feet and up through your body, settling somewhere in your chest.
"What..." you breathed.
Valarr's jaw had dropped. "She's... purring. She's actually purring." His voice was full of wonder. "She's never—no one—she doesn't even let the keepers near her. And she's purring."
Aerrix's massive head shifted closer, her golden eyes soft now, warm. She made the sound again, louder this time, and then she did something that made Valarr choke on air.
She nudged your hand with her snout.
Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, you lifted your hand and placed it on her warm scales. The purring grew louder, vibrating through your palm and up your arm, and Aerrix's eyes half-closed in what could only be described as contentment.
"She likes me," you said, stunned. "Your terrifying, volatile, people eating dragon likes me."
"She loves you," Valarr corrected, his voice thick with emotion. "Look at her. She's absolutely besotted."
And indeed, Aerrix was now trying to maneuver her massive head into your space, clearly seeking more attention. You laughed and scratched behind her horn, and she made a sound of pure dragon bliss.
"Well," you said, looking at your husband's dumbfounded expression. "I suppose I have to fly with you now."
Valarr's face split into a grin so wide it was almost silly. "Tomorrow? First thing in the morning?"
"First thing," you agreed.
The next morning dawned clear and bright, and you made your way to the dragonpit with Valarr's hand firmly clasped in yours.
Aerrix was waiting.
She lifted her head the moment you appeared, that familiar purring sound rumbling through the air. Her golden eyes fixed on you, and she made a noise that was almost like a greeting.
"See?" Valarr said, squeezing your hand. "She's happy to see you."
"She's happy to see me because she wants me to pet her."
"That too." Valarr grinned and led you forward, toward the dragon's side. "Now, the trick is to mount quickly and smoothly. I'll go first, then help you up behind me. Just hold onto my waist and don't look down."
You nodded, your heart pounding. Aerrix watched you with those golden eyes, and for a moment you could have sworn she looked... pleased.
Valarr climbed up onto the dragon's wing with practiced ease and reaching down for you. "Come on, love. Up you go."
You took his hand, put your foot in the stirrup he indicated, and—
Aerrix moved.
It was a small movement, barely a shift of her weight, but it was enough to make you lose your balance and stumble back. Valarr caught you before you could fall, but when you tried again, the same thing happened. Aerrix shifted just enough to make mounting impossible.
"What in the seven hells?" Valarr muttered, leaning down to look at his dragon. "Aerrix. Stop that."
The dragon looked up at him with an expression that was almost apologetic, but when you reached for the saddle again, she moved once more, not aggressively, not dangerously, but with clear intent to prevent you from getting on her back.
"I don't understand," Valarr said, genuinely confused now. "She loves you. She purrs for you. Why won't she let you mount?"
You tried again. And again. And again. Each time, Aerrix would shift or sway or simply lower herself to the ground, making it impossible for you to climb into the saddle. She wasn't angry about it—she kept purring that same rumbling purr, kept looking at you with those warm golden eyes—but she was absolutely, completely, and totally refusing to let you ride her.
"This has never happened," Valarr said, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "Dragons don't—they don't do this. They don't disobey their riders, even less refuse to take flight."
"Maybe she's changed her mind," you suggested, trying not to feel hurt.
"No." Valarr shook his head firmly. "That's not it. Look at her—she's still purring. She's still happy. She just... doesn't want you on her back."
Aerrix rumbled in what sounded like agreement, and you could have sworn there was something knowing in her golden gaze.
Days passed. Then weeks.
Every attempt to mount Aerrix ended the same way, gentle but firm refusal. The dragon would purr and nuzzle and follow you everywhere, but the moment you tried to get on her back, she would shift away. It was baffling. It was unprecedented. Dragon keepers were consulted. Other riders offered theories. Nothing explained it.
Valarr grew increasingly frustrated. You grew increasingly tired.
Because you were tired. Constantly tired. You'd fall asleep in the middle of conversations, nod off during meals, barely have the energy to get out of bed in the mornings. You were also vaguely nauseous at odd times of day, and certain smells that had never bothered you before now made your stomach turn.
You didn't think much of it, at first. But when you nearly fell asleep standing up during a formal dinner with Valarr's parents, your husband took one look at you and carried you bodily to the maester's chambers.
"Something's wrong," he said firmly. "I want the maester to look at you."
The maester asked you questions—about your appetite, your sleep, your monthly cycles—and you answered them, increasingly confused by the direction of his inquiries. He felt your belly, checked your pulse, and asked a few more questions.
Then he smiled.
"Well, my lady," he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners, "I believe I have an explanation for your symptoms."
"What is it?" Valarr asked, his arm tightening protectively around your shoulders.
The maester's smile widened. "Congratulations, my prince. You're going to be a father."
The room went absolutely silent.
You felt the words wash over you, not quite making sense at first. Father. Going to be a father. That meant—
You looked down at your belly, still flat beneath your gown, and felt something shift inside you.
"A baby," you whispered.
"A baby." Valarr's voice was strange, thick with emotion. You looked up at him and found his eyes bright, his face working through about seventeen different expressions before settling on one. He was smiling. He was absolutely, radiantly, incandescently smiling. "We're having a baby."
And then he was kissing you, laughing against your mouth, lifting you off the ground and spinning you in a circle while the maester watched with tolerant amusement.
The explanation for Aerrix's behavior came later that evening, when you and Valarr went to the dragonpit to share your news.
Aerrix was waiting, as she always was, her massive head lifting the moment you appeared. She made her usual purring sound, rumbling and warm, and you walked toward her without fear. You placed your hand on her snout, feeling the warmth of her scales.
"She knew," you said, looking at her golden eyes. "Didn't you? You knew before any of us."
Aerrix blinked slowly. Then, very deliberately, she lifted her head and looked directly at Valarr with an expression that could only be described as smug. If dragons could smirk, she would be smirking. She let out a little rumble that sounded suspiciously like dragon laughter.
Valarr gaped. "Are you laughing at me?"
Aerrix made the sound again, louder this time, and you could have sworn she was absolutely delighted with herself.
"She's been laughing at me for weeks," Valarr realized, his mouth hanging open. "Every time I tried to figure out why she wouldn't let you mount, every time I asked the keepers, every time I pulled out those books, she was sitting there, knowing exactly why, and just watching me struggle."
You burst out laughing. "Oh, that's perfect."
"I've been losing my mind for weeks!" Valarr threw his hands up. "I consulted the dragonkeepers! I read three books on dragon behavior! I asked my father! I asked my grandfather!"
Aerrix made a sound like a dragon snort, and you could have sworn she rolled her eyes.
"She's been protecting the baby," you said, still giggling. "That's all. She felt the new life and decided we needed guarding."
Valarr crossed his arms, staring at his dragon. "You could have told me."
Aerrix blinked at him.
"Somehow," you said, "I don't think she feels bad about it."
"She doesn't." Valarr sighed, but he was fighting a smile. "She absolutely does not. Look at her. She's preening."
Aerrix was indeed preening, her head held high, her scales practically gleaming with self-satisfaction. She nudged your belly gently with her snout and made a soft cooing sound.
"She's talking to the baby now," Valarr said flatly.
"She's bonding."
"She's showing off."
You scratched behind Aerrix's horn, and she purred loudly. "You have to admit, she was pretty clever about it."
Valarr came to stand beside you, wrapping an arm around your waist. "Oh, she's clever. She's also never going to let me forget that she knew before I did."
"Probably not," you agreed.
"Never," Aerrix seemed to rumble.
Valarr looked at his dragon, then at you, then at your belly. A smile finally broke through. "So. After the baby comes. Flying together?"
You looked at Aerrix, who was now gently resting her massive head against your side, still purring like a contented cat.
"Yes," you said. "After the baby comes. We'll fly together."
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