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@whirlwindofashes
I know this isn't ninjago guys but I finished this 17 hour painting for my art class and I was proud of it so...enjoy.
I love Egypt fun fact about me. :) [ID: a detailed, realistic painting of the hathor columns at the dendera temple complex in dendera, egypt. /end ID]
can i go (where you go?) | j.v
summary:
“Hey, it’s me.”
After a short beat, you opened the door to look at him, your hair wet around your shoulders, water droplets wetting his shirt you were wearing. Despite the early morning hours, Jace felt a some rush of excitement running through him seeing you standing in his shirt in his bathroom.
“You good?”
“I think I just met your brother,” you said lightly, your cheeks pink.
OR; 5 times Jace’s family meets you (and the one time you meet them)
pairing: jacaerys velaryon x reader
warnings: just incredibly tooth rotting fluff. i’m actually in love with them. in this modern universe, Alicent is married to Rhaenyra’s younger brother Baelon, Rhaenys and Viserys aren’t related, and Addam and Alyn aren’t Corlys’ sons. I think I solved the inbreeding, lol. Also, Harwin and Rhaenyra are happily married <3 (there will probably be more fics in this universe🤭)
word count: 7,2k (HOW)
author’s note: everyone knows i love a good 5 + 1 fic. this was born out of @eldrith and me just coming up with modern au headcanons and modern!jace consuming my thoughts at work. happy happy reading, I hope you're obsessed! <3
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
I Luke
“Jace… Hey, Jace.”
Jace let out a groan, burowing deeper into the cushions, hoping to drown out the voice.
“Jace!”
Someone grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him violently and Jace groaned, his eyes fluttering open just to see his brother peer down at him, his damp hair plastered against his forehead. Jace knew it was entirely too early for him to be awake with the way his body still felt too heavy. He glared at Luke, his annoyance clear as day.
“Luke, what the fuck.”
“Hey, I’ve just come from the gym, the showers in my dorm were blocked off because a pipe burst, can I shower here?”
Jace whined, turning his head to face the pillow, hoping it would smother him. Anything to be unconscious again.
“Couldn’t you just have showered at the gym?”
“I have a class at 10,” Luke replied, as if that answered the question.
It didn’t.
Jace didnt react, hoping that Luke would just leave if he feigned falling back asleep, but Luke grabbed him by the shoulders again.
“Jace.”
“Oh my god, just go use the shower, you’re here already!”
“Thanks, you’re the best!”
The mattress dipped again and footsteps receded before Jace was finally alone again, falling back into a slumber.
Wait, had he been alone?
He could distinctly remember you coming home with him the night before but the bed was empty when Jace reached his hand out looking for you. You must have snuck out in the early hours of the day. Jace would definitely confront you about that as soon as he was awake enough to do it.
Just as he was about to drift back to dream land, a high pitched squeal woke him right up, and he shot up in bed, wide awake.
“Oh my god, I am so so sorry!”
A door slammed, hurried footsteps came towards his bedroom before Luke barged through the door with wild eyes; shutting it behind him.
“There’s a girl in your bathroom!” He said, his voice accusatory as he glared at Jace, with his back against the door. Luke’s cheeks were red, and Jace wasn’t sure if it was the remaining flush from the gym or because he was embarrassed.
Jace only blinked at him, before wiping his palm over his face.
“Fuck.”
Luke frowned at him. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
“She’s not-“ Jace broke off, sighing. “It’s not important.”
He got out of the bed, shooing Luke away from the door and padded towards his bathroom, trying to make sure his younger brother hadn’t completely scared you off. The bathroom was locked and Jace leaned against the doorframe, rapping his knuckles against the door.
“Hey, it’s me.”
After a short beat, you opened the door to look at him, your hair wet around your shoulders, water droplets wetting his shirt you were wearing. Despite the early morning hours, Jace felt a some rush of excitement running through him seeing you standing in his shirt in his bathroom.
“You good?”
“I think I just met your brother,” you said lightly, your cheeks pink.
The corner of Jace’s mouth tugged up and he flexed his hand around your waist, pulling you closer. Luke was lucky he met you so early in the day, your temper still subdued from sleep. Had it happened in the afternoon? Luke would’ve gotten an earful.
“Are you okay? I can make him leave if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“No it’s fine,” you huffed, hiding your face in his shoulders. “I was not prepared to meet him.”
Jace wrapped his arm around your waist, leaning his chin on your head with a grin. “You don’t have to be prepared to meet Luke. You just meet him and go “what a dork”, there’s not much else after that.”
“Yo!” Luke crowed outside. “I heard that!”
“You were supposed to!”
“Can I just take a shower please!!!”
Jace rolled his eyes, his hand dropping down to lace his fingers with yours. “Come on, I’ll make you a coffee.”
He pulled you into the kitchen, turning his coffee machine on, meanwhile hearing Luke flee into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. By the time his younger brother emerged again, his hair towel damp, you and Jace were sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal in hand, your feet in Jace’s lap.
Luke stood in the door way like a deer in headlights as you and Jace looked at him.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” you said lightly; Jace only snorted into his bowl.
“Sorry again… About earlier. I’m Luke,” Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck, but you only waved it off as you introduced yourself. Luke glanced between the two of you, the wheels in his head must be turning a mile a minute. Jace did not look forward to whatever he was going to say.
“So… Are you guys like going steady?”
You pulled a face and Jace only sighed. Of course he chose to be a dick.
“Get out.”
Luke grinned, having expected the reaction. “Kay. Thanks for letting me use your shower,” he called over his shoulder, “Bye Jace, bye shower girl!”
The door fell shut in its hinges and Jace welcomed the silence that followed.
“I should’ve never given him the spare key,” he muttered, but you only pressed your heel into his leg.
“Stop it, he’s sweet.”
“He’s a menace.”
“He’s your little brother,” you laughed, pushing your empty bowl on the coffee table. “He’s supposed to get on your nerves, it’s literally in the job description.”
His bowl soon joined yours on the table as Jace wrapped his hand around your wrist, pulling you into his lap. You grinned at him, tucking his hair behind his ear, as he played with the hem of his shirt you were wearing.
“I like that you feel comfortable enough at my place to take a shower,” he mumbled, nosing along your neck.
“Shut up.”
II Rhaena
“Man, that was way too close,” Addam groaned as they walked into the locker room. Their game against the Stags of Stormlands University had ended with 2:1, which was criminal. It should’ve been at least 3:1 and Jace wasn’t even being arrogant. That one goal they scored against them was pure luck.
“Coach is gonna be on our asses during the next practice,” Alyn said as he tugged off his jersey.
“As if he needs a reason to make us run suicides,” Cregan pointed out and Jace shrugged.
“It wasn’t entirely our fault, though. The audience was crazy today. What happened after half time? There was some commotion in the stands.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it,” Alyn snickered. “Apparently some girl punched Criston square in the face after he made some of his usual comments.”
“What?” Addam asked, his eyebrows risen as Jace only laughed.
“No way. That girl’s my hero.”
“I’m buying her a drink,” Cregan declared. “Do we know who it was?”
Alyn shook his head in no. “Nah, I just overheard some guys talking about it…” he then turned to Jace. “You coming to the bar with us?” Alyn asked. “My treat.”
“I can’t,” Jace replied, but before he could elaborate, Cregan wrapped his arm around his shoulder, squeezing him.
“Lover boy is meeting his girlfriend, he told me all about it.”
Jace’s cheeks tinged pink and he shoved Cregan off, huffing.
“Fuck off.”
“Leave him alone,” Addam said lightly from the bench, untying his shoes. “If I had another choice, I wouldn’t go to the bar with you either.”
“Thank you Addam,” Jace said, giving Alyn and Cregan, who were snickering to themselves, a pointed look. He grabbed a towel and his shower caddy from the locker, turning back to his friends.
“Have fun at the bar. I’ll see you guys around.”
Jace ignored how they made kissy sounds after him, rolling his eyes at them fondly. After taking a quick shower, and getting dressed, he made his way to the spot you had agreed to meet him. He passed a few familiar faces who congratulated him on the win, but he made no attempt to stay in a conversation too long, not wanting to keep you waiting. When he got to the gates of the football field, you were nowhere to be found though. Maybe you were held up by your friends. Jace shot you a text, telling you where he was, then pulling up his family group chat. His parents and Joffrey had gone hiking over the weekend, but his dad had received updates on the game via the uni’s newsletter, both of them sending him well done’s. Luke had watched the game with his friends, and Jace had no doubt he was now at the same bar his team mates were headed to. Jace then pulled up the text chain with you, but his texts to you went unanswered. With a sigh, he opened Find my..? frowning when he saw your icon float over the building that held the student med center.
“What the hell?” he muttered to himself, shoving his phone into his pocket, walking to the student med center in quick strides. The building was dark when he arrived, but the door was unlocked when he pulled on it. Jace stood in the dark for a while, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light, when he heard voices coming from somewhere. Following the sound, he reached the examination room, the voices becoming more distinctive.
“-never punched someone, why has no one ever told me that it hurts so much? He’s the one who should be hurt, not me!”
“You’d be surprised. You can actually break something while punching someone.”
Jace paused in the doorway, watching as you sat on the bed, ice pack in your hand, while another girl was rummaging in the cupboards with her back to him. You looked up when he called your name, and the smile on your face nearly made him forget how worried he was.
“Hey,” you said, “Rhaena, this is my-“
“Jace?”
Of course it was Rhaena. Out of all the student meds, it had to be his cousin tending to you. You glanced between them your eyebrows high.
“You guys know each other?”
“Rhaena is my cousin,” Jace explained, distracted, his focus on your hand. “What happened?”
“Supergirl over here punched Cole in the face.”
“Criston Cole?”
“The one and only.”
Jace sighed, sitting down next to you to lift the ice back from your knuckles, frowning when he found them bloody.
“She’s bleeding!”
Rhaena rolled her eyes, holding up some gauze and disinfectant spray. “Yes, I was looking for the gauze, thanks for reminding me.”
Jace frowned as Rhaena sat on your other side.
“This is probably gonna sting,” she warned you, before spraying disinfectant on your wounds, but you winced anyway. Jace watched as Rhaena patched you up, the frown on his forehead not easing.
“Alright, we’re all done,” Rhaena said, balling up the wrapper. “I want you to keep that ice pack on for twenty minutes, it can reduce the swelling. And maybe try to keep it elevated, and lots of resting!”
“Okay,” Jace said, matter of factly.
Both you and Rhaena looked at him - you looking amused, while Rhaena looked exasperated - and he only shrugged.
“What? You know damn well you’re not gonna do anything she just said,” he argued and you grinned, turning to Rhaena.
“Duly noted, thanks Rhaena.”
“Alright, let’s get out of here,” Rhaena said, throwing the wrappers in the trash before shooeing you and Jace out of the building. As you walked outside, you and Rhaena seemed to be get along like a house on fire as Jace held your purse, and by the time you were standing out front, you had exchanged numbers.
“Hey, so really come by when I’m working, and I’ll treat you for a coffee,” you said while Rhaena locked up.
“Sure, that’ll be nice,” Rhaena replied, packing her keys away. “It was really nice to meet you.”
You beamed at her. “You too!”
His cousin smiled at you before turning to Jace. “I’ll see you Sunday?”
“Yep. Thanks Rhae.”
Jace gave her a hug, and she quickly hugged you as well, before waving in good bye.
“Bye, see you guys!”
“Bye Rhaena!”
Jace pulled you close as you walked, his forehead still creased. You were supposed to go out for dinner, but by now your reservation had probably fallen through, so Jace might as well just cook you dinner at home. He couldn’t help but glance at your hand, which you noticed immediately.
“Jace, I’m fine,” you insisted with a laugh, grabbing his hand to reassure him, but no dice.
“I know Cole is a pain in the ass, but why did you punch him?” he asked, his forehead creased. “You could get in trouble. And on top of that, you got hurt!”
“It’s just bruised knuckles and a little blood, it’ll be healed before you know it,” you promised him. “Besides, Cole had it coming. He was sprouting bullshit about how he should’ve made the team instead of you and was just being a dick.”
Jace froze mid step, and you were dragged back by him, not having expected the sudden stop.
“You were defending my honor?”
You glanced at him, lips quirking in a smile.
“I’ll always defend your honor.”
In that moment, Jace was so overcome with emotion, he thought he might do something stupid like tell you that he loved you, so he just pulled you into a deep kiss. You sighed softly against his lips, before you pulled back, looking at him in surprise.
“What was that for?”
“Can’t a guy thank his knight in shining armor?”
You snickered, lacing your hands with his.
“You can thank me by getting some food in me, I am starving.”
III Joffrey
“It’s nice here.”
The sun was shining, reflecting its rays over the surface of the water. It was rather still today, a stark contrast to the strong waves that usually lapped at the shore of Driftmark. The small coast town was only an half an hour drive from uni and since you had never been here before, Jace had decided to take you for an impromptu trip, armed with a blanket and some snacks, but not much else. The two of you were sat on said blanket, you sitting between his legs, head resting on his chest. Jace wished it could be like this forever.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been to Driftmark,” he said, amused. “My parents used to take us every weekend when we were younger. Luke and I used to fly kites, but his always fell nose first into the sand.”
You laughed, pressing yourself closer into Jace.
“That’s sweet,” you mumbled softly, your voice trailing off. “So how many girls have you taken here?”
Jace rolled his eyes fondly, his finger tracing your arm. If only you knew. He hummed, as if in thought.
“Let’s see, there was that one girl from Lambda Psi, then Jessica from my International Relations class…”
You laughed, squirming in his arms as you smacked his hand away.
“You’re an ass.”
He tightened his hold on you, a grin on his face. “You started it!”
Giggling, you settled back into him and Jace let out a happy sigh, but the moment was quickly interrupted by his phone ringing. He had half a mind to decline the call, but he paused when he saw the caller ID.
“Why is my mum calling me?” Jace said, frowning at his phone before picking up the call. “Hey mum, is everything okay?”
“Jace, thank god,” his mother sighed in relief. The background was noisy, if Jace had to guess, she must be at work. “My meeting is running longer than expected and I won’t be able to make it in time to pick up Joffrey from school, is there any way you could make the drive down here to pick him up?”
Jace glanced at his watch. It was almost 3 in the afternoon and on a good day, it took 25 minutes to get from Driftmark to Joffrey’s school in King’s Landing. But that meant, you’d have to tag along, because there was no way he’d make it in time for Joffrey’s school’s out if he dropped you off beforehand.
“… Mum, can you give me a second?”
His mother paused. “… Sure.”
He muted the call from his side and you had already turned around to face him, your eyebrows furrowed.
“What’s going on?”
“My mum is stuck at work and she asked me to go pick up my brother from school,” Jace started. “I’m not going to make it in time if we’ll make the drive back to Oldtown-”
“Jace, oh my god, it’s fine, let’s go,” you exclaimed, already standing up and collecting all the things you had brought.
Jace stared at you for a second, slack-jawed, before he dipped his head, smiling to himself. He quickly unmuted the phone call while he got to his feet.
“I’ll pick him up mum, it’s not a problem,” he said, while helping you put away the blanket with one hand.
“Thank you, Jace,” his mother said, her tone hesitant, like she was holding back a question, but before she could ask it, another voice called for her. “I’ll call the school and let them know you’re coming,” she said distractedly.
“Okay mum, thanks. Have fun at the meeting!”
Slipping his phone into his pocket, he turned to see you with everything packed.
“Come on, let’s go!” you hurried him, taking his hand to drag him to his car, missing the blinding smile Jace had on his face.
The drive to King’s Landing was quicker than expected, with the streets being free and Jace made it to Joffrey’s school right around 3:30, the cars from several other parents already lined up to enter the pick up zone.
“Are you okay waiting in the car?” Jace asked, turning to you, “I’ll be in and out in no time.”
“Yeah, of course,” you assured him, patting his knee.
Jace couldn’t help but lean over to press a kiss on your cheek, nearly missing his turn to find a temporary parking spot, but the security guard waved him along.
“Keep it moving, son.”
“Isn’t this the pick up zone for school?” Jace asked, unbuckling. “I can park here, right?”
The security guard eyed his license plate, before checking his clipboard. “Don’t see your license plate on my list, you gotta keep it moving.”
“You’re joking.”
The man blinked at him, clearly not joking.
“I only need to go in and grab my brother, it won’t even take five minutes,” Jace argued but the security guard shook his head, unrelenting.
“Can’t make an exception, rules are rules.”
Jace opened his mouth to try to make another argument, but behind him, the cars started to honk their horns at him, parents impatient to pick up their kids. Jace’s ears grew hot but before he could lash out at the security guard, you laid your hand on his arm.
“Jace, I can go get your brother.”
“Are you sure?” Jace asked, frowning. He felt bad for making you go along, ruining the day he had planned. You didn’t sign up for this and he didn’t want to make you go into a school full of kids to pick up his brother.
“Yes, I promise,” you said, a smile on your face as you squeezed his hand and he sighed, nodding.
“Okay.”
He gave you a rough description of the way inside the school and Joffrey’s classroom number, before you got out of the car, as Jace exited the pick up zone, but not without giving the security guard a dirty look. He drove around the block, parking his car next to the curb when his phone rang announcing a facetime from you.
“Hey, is something wrong?” Jace asked as he picked up. The screen was blurry, and you were barely visibly as you stared at something behind the camera
“Hey, no, Joffrey just wanted to make sure I wasn’t lying,” you said, distractedly. “Alright Joffrey.”
The camera panned away from you until Joffrey came into view. His baby brother looked sceptical, clutching the straps of his red backpack, but his frown eased when he saw Jace.
“Hi Jace.”
“Hi Joff,” Jace said, his voice soft. “I know mum was supposed to pick you up, but her meeting ran long so she asked me to get you. I’m waiting in the car, alright? Are you going to be okay walking with my friend?”
Joffrey looked off camera, assumedly at you before turning back to Jace, scrunching his nose. “Mummy said I shouldn’t go with strangers.”
“And she’s right!” Jace quickly interjected, knowing his mother would kill him if he unraveled all the things she had been teaching Joffrey ever since he was old enough to talk. “But this is my friend, right? Not a stranger.”
With a purse on his lips, Joffrey seemed to think his words over before nodding.
“Okay.”
Joffrey waved at him through the camera before looking up.
“Can we go now?”
Jace heard you suppress a laughter as the phone shook. Joffrey didn’t look phased.
“Yes,” you said. “Come on, let’s go.”
You offered your hand to him, before you quickly panned the camera on yourself again. “See you in a bit, Jace.”
The call ended and Jace quietly laughed to himself as he tossed his phone on the passenger seat, driving back towards the school. He didn’t wait long in front of the curb when you and Joffrey came walking out, you carrying his backpack and Joffrey carrying a booster seat.
“Alright, now let’s get your backpack in here-” you said, opening the door to put Joffrey’s backpack on the backseat, then scooching it over to put the booster seat on as well. “And then you go into the booster-”
“Hi Jace!”
Jace turned around, smiling as he watched Joffrey settle into his booster seat comfortably while you fussed over him.
“Hi Joff.”
“Okay, now the seatbelt… Is this too tight?” you asked as you buckled Joffrey in, but he shook his head. You gave him a thumbs up, before shutting the door behind him, climbing back into the passenger’s seat so Jace could pull away from the curb.
“How was school?” Jace asked Joffrey with a quick glance at him through the mirror.
“Good,” Joffrey replied, “We learned about shapes.”
He then fully launched into a retelling of how his classmates thought circles and triangles are the same and Jace meant to give you an apologetic look, but to his surprise, you seemed to be listening intently.
“No way! I bet his mind was blown when you told him about rectangles!”
“He thought I was lying!”
Jace quietly snickered to himself and you grinned at him, as Joffrey continued to babble on in the backseat. Without thinking much, Jace had started the drive back to Oldtown.
“Is it okay if I drop you off at home?” Jace asked, his voice quiet, even though Joffrey was humming a song that sounded vaguely familiar to Jace as he looked out of the window, content after telling you about his school day. “I think I’ll drive back to King’s Landing and spend the night at home.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” you said, smiling at him and Jace’s heart did a stupid flip in his chest. He reached over to squeeze your hand, forgetting about his brother in his backseat for a split second.
“What kind of friends are you?”
His neck grew hot and he almost reflexively pulled his hand back, but you tightened your hold.
“The bestest friends,” you said, turning around to look at him with the most serious expression you could muster. Joffrey pressed his lips together in an attempt to bite back a smile, but a giggle escaped his lips.
“Bestest is not even a word.”
“Well, I made it up because Jace and I are bestest friends.”
“You’re silly,” Joffrey laughed and you gasped, faking affront.
The rest of the drive continued about the same until Jace pulled up in front of your building. Your hand was on the door handle, but you threw a look to the back at Joffrey, clearly reluctant to go.
“Bye Joffrey, it was really nice to meet you,” you told him with a smile.
“Bye!”
Your eyes turned to Jace, who desperately wanted to kiss you, but he wouldn’t, not in front of Joffrey, so he only inclined his head at you, hoping you knew.
“Bye,” you said softly, cheeks pink as you got out of the car, shutting the door behind you.
“Bye!” Joffrey called, waving at you through the window until you disappeared inside your apartment building. His baby brother then turned to him, a smile on his face.
“I like her.”
Pleased, Jace settled back into his seat, putting the car back in drive, his eye on his brother through the mirror.
“Me too, buddy.”
IV Aegon
“I don’t get why you won’t just make it official when you’re obviously so into her.”
“Can we not talk about this?”
The music coming from inside was loud, but Jace wished it was louder so he didn’t have to talk about this. Of course he’d rather officially call you his girlfriend than… Whatever it was he was calling you right now. But it was complicated, the both of you starting out casually, no labels.
That was almost four months ago and things had changed. For him at least.
Cregan kicked his foot, forcing Jace to look at him.
“I’m serious, Jace. You’re insanely into her and she obviously likes you too.”
Jace pretended like hearing that didn’t make him happy, looking around for you.
“Where is she anyway?” Jace asked and Cregan only sighed at the obvious attempt of changing the topic.
“Last I saw, she and her foxy friend were trying to get drinks.”
Jace rolled his eyes, pushed himself up from the chair.
“I’ll go look for her,” he said, taking a few steps before turning back to his friend. “And don’t call Alysanne foxy.”
Cregan’s bellowing laughter made Jace grin, and he only shook his head, opening the patio door to head inside. The air was stuffy and smelt of alcohol, but he was used to it as he squeezed past a kissing couple, craning his head over the crowd to try to spot you somewhere in the crowded house. He usually didn’t like splitting up with you at parties because it was a pain finding each other again. You also had an habit to make so many friends in a short amount of time.
When Jace finally made it to the kitchen, he saw the back of your head and he let out a sigh of relief. His face blanched however, when he saw who you were talking to. Calling out your name, you turned around with a cup in your hand as he walked up to you.
“Jacey!”
His cousin grinned widely at him as Jace joined you and Aegon by the kitchen island, as you slotted yourself against his side. You seemed content, like you were enjoying yourself. Jace took that as a good sign.
“Hi Aegon,” Jace greeted him lightly, before turning to you. “I see you’ve met my cousin.”
“Rhaena‘s brother?” You asked, eyebrows raised.
“You met Rhaena?”
Aegon’s brows were even higher than yours as his eyes flitted between Jace and you curiously, sipping on his drink. Jace already knew this would make it into the cousins’ group chat in a matter of minutes.
“Aegon’s from the other side. Kind of,” Jace answered, pulling a face. “It’s complicated.”
You smiled at him and Aegon’s grin only widened. Jace wished he would disappear the way he always did when their grandpa asked for help in the garage.
“So how did you guys meet?” he asked, voice nonchalant. “You don’t look like a PoliSci student to me.”
“I’m not,” you replied, laughing. “Jace always gets coffee at the coffee shop I work at.”
“Oh, which one do you work at?”
“Blackwood’s, the one on 50th?”
Aegon’s eyes widened and he nodded his head quickly. “Yes, I know that one. Do you think you could give me the recipe for the almond croissants? I’ve tried recreating them so many times and they never turn out like the one’s at the coffee shop.”
“I can ask my friend, if you want me to,” you offered. “It’s her uncle’s coffee shop, he’s gotta have the recipe.”
“Oh and what about the syrups, are those-”
“Alright, this isn’t 20 questions,” Jace interjected, knowing there was no stopping Aegon if he started talking syrups. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Aegon?”
Aegon pressed his lips together in a grin, shaking his head. “Fine, Jace, I’ll leave you guys alone. But only because I know I’ll have other opportunities to ask for recipes.”
Jace narrowed his eyes at his cousin, but he had turned his attention to you.
“Nice talking to you,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you at one of our family events, yeah?”
“Bye Aegon.”
Jace could hear Aegon cackling to himself as he lead you away, his hand on your lower back. He was mortified. Out of everyone at this party, you just had to run into Aegon. To Jace’s luck however, you seemed mostly amused by his erratic cousin.
“I like him,” you said and Jace huffed out a laugh, shaking his head.
“You don’t have to lie. I don’t like him either.”
You snorted, shoving him playfully. “I’m not lying. He’s very outgoing, but I like him.”
Jace pressed closer to you as you made your way out of the pation and you turned your head over your shoulder, glancing at him.
“So is your entire family just enrolled here?”
“Basically, yeah,” Jace sighed, “The only cousin of mine who’s not at this uni is Daeron but apparently he’s transferring next term.”
“Well, I can’t wait to meet all of them.”
Jace let out a laugh, wrapping his arm around you when you finally made it out of the house, Cregan still sitting on the sun chairs, Alysanne next to him as they talked. Jace had wondered where you had left her.
TARGTOWERS 2.0
Aegon [01:21 am]: have y’all met jace’s new gf yet??
Jace left the chat.
Aegon added Jace to the chat.
Jace [02:04 am]: I hate you
Aegon [02:05 am]: <3
V Harwin
“If my husband doesn’t look like that like 25 years down the line, I definitely did something wrong.”
Jace only caught the tail end of the conversation, but knowing you and Alysanne, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what you were talking about. The two of you found the most bizarre things to talk about, it was astounding.
“What are we talking about?” he asked nevertheless, pulling out a chair next to you.
“There was this hot guy at the coffee shop earlier today, trying to find a good restaurant for dinner with his son,” Alysanne explained and you nodded.
“Super hot.”
“Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel special.”
You quirked a grin at him, leaning over to kiss him, your hand on his leg. Eagerly, Jace returned the kiss, deepening it which might be a tad inappropriate for the library, but he didn’t care. He never did when it came to you.
“Eurgh,” Alysanne said, rolling her eyes. Jace paid her no mind, already used to her antics, but you pulled away before it could any less PG13.
“Hi,” you mumbled, licking over over lips and Jace resisted the urge to kiss you again. “Am I seeing you tonight?”
“I might come over a little later than usual,” he said with a sigh, playing with the straps of your top. “Luke said he wanted to meet me for dinner.”
“Can you guys please go to Jace’s?” Alysanne interjected “I’d really love to have one night without hearing you guys have sex.”
“Oh come off it, Aly,” you laughed, swatting at your friend and she snickered. “You’re literally on the other side of the apartment and we barely hang out at our place.”
Alysanne stuck her tongue out at you and you only flipped her off before turning back to Jace.
“So eleven?”
“Yeah, sounds about right,” he said, nodding. “But I’ll text you, yeah?”
You hummed, and Jace pulled your chair closer to his, almost forgetting he had come to the library to study for a test. Next to you, Alysanne was rolling her eyes but he could tell that she was pleased by the way she let her hair fall over the side to give you privacy.
Well, as much privacy there was in a university library.
“How did you find out about this place anyway, dad?” Jace asked, reaching for his beer.
Turned out, Luke didn’t want to get dinner. Their father did. He had a work thing in Driftmark and decided to make it to Oldtown for a quick visit, surprising Jace. His dad felt bad for missing Jace’s first game of the season; he had always made it to Jace’s first game of the season ever since he started playing football when he was 7 years old. It was like an unspoken tradition.
Harwin Strong was a man of tradition and loyalty, and even though Jace had promised him it wasn’t that much of a deal, he had felt guilty either way.
“This nice girl at the coffee shop recommended it to me,” his father said, and Jace nearly spat out his beer all over the table. So it must have been his father you and Alysanne had been talking about earlier in the library. God really loved to play games with him.
“What coffee shop?” He asked as nonchalantly as possible. Maybe it was just a coincidence, right? There were lots of coffee shops in Oldtown.
“Blackwood’s I think? She said this was her boyfriend’s favorite restaurant,” his father explained, glancing over the menu. Jace’s heart stuttered in his chest at the word boyfriend before his father grimaced. “Well, she paused between boy and friend. It seemed like there was more to the story but I didn’t want to pry.”
“How funny,” Luke said, peering over his menu. “This is Jace’s favorite restaurant, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Jace pressed out, glaring at his brother while kicking him in the shins.
“Ow!”
“Boys, please.”
Jace and Luke exchanged dirty looks, before turning their attention back on their menus.
“You know what I don’t understand?” his father started, but Jace interrupted him before he could continue.
“The steak sizes are their thing, no one actually orders the 14 oz steak.”
His father furrowed his eyes at him, confused.
“What? No, I’m going to order the fish,” he said, shaking his head. “What I was trying to say is, what is it with your generation and casual dating?”
Jace’s ears grew hot and Luke howled in laughter, nearly falling off the chair. His father glanced between them.
“Did I miss something?”
“No,” Jace said pointedly in Luke’s direction before turning back to his father. “I’m not saying that casual dating is good, or whatever, but sometimes it’s… Complicated.”
“Complicated?” his father echoed. “Either you love someone or you don’t. When I first met your mother, I knew immediately that she was the one for me. I wasn’t going to waste my time on casually dating her.”
“That sounds really smart,” Luke said, nodding earnestly, but Jace only rolled his eyes. What an idiot. “Sounds like something a lot of people our age should do.”
“How was Econ 101, Luke?” Jace asked, his voice low and Luke narrowed his eyes at him.
“Wimp!”
“Narc!”
“So!” their father said, clearly ignoring their exchange, laying his menu down as he looked at his two eldest sons. “Are there any people in your life I should meet, Jace?”
Jace only sighed, leaning back in his chair while Luke burst out in laughter again.
“Dad, come on.”
+ I
You had been quiet for the most of the drive, which made Jace nervous. You hadn’t been his girlfriend long before his grandpa’s birthday rolled around. Actually, Jace had finally broke down and asked, begged, you to finally go out with him for real the night he got home from dinner with his father and Luke. Something about the way his father spoke about him and his mother just made Jace realize he hated this unlabeled, uncertain situationship he had with you. He wanted something real.
He was scared shitless when it took you a good minute to reply God, it took you long enough!
About a month later, his mother had texted him about the plans for his grandpa’s birthday and he had decided it was about time you met his family. You had met most of them already anyway.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” you suddenly said, eyes darting outside the window.
“What? Why?” Jace said, glancing over at you. He had half a mind to stop the car, but it was less than 2 minutes before he’d be home.
“I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“Babe.”
“What if they don’t like me?”
Despite being one turn away from his house, Jace pulled up to the curb, turning off his car. Uttering your name softly, he reached over to grasp your hand.
“You don’t need to worry, I promise,” he assured you. Your hands were clammy, you must be so much more nervous than he had initially thought, which was endearing, really. “You’ve already met most of them, remember? And they all love you.”
“So far,” you corrected him and he sighed in exasperation, giving you a fond smile.
“You’ve already met the worst person in my family and Aegon still spams our groupchat with pictures from the pastries he’s baking with the recipes you gave him. The rest of my family is harmless compared to him.”
You quirked a smile at him, letting out a deep breath.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Jace hummed, pressing a kiss to your cheek. He squeezed your hand, not letting go as he started his car again. Even when you walked up to the front porch, past all the cars in the drive way, you were still holding onto his hand, like a lifeline in a storm.
It didn’t take long until the heavy wooden door opened, and Luke stood before them, grinning.
“I was wondering when you guys would get here,” he said, turning to his side. “Mum, it’s Jace and his girlfriend!”
“Thanks for that, dummy,” Jace hissed, punching Luke’s arm as he passed him. Luke winced in pain, glowering at his older brother, waving at you with a smile. Jace lead you through the entry hall into the living room when Joffrey came running around the corner, latching himself to your legs as he called out your name.
“Hi Joffrey,” you laughed, ruffling the young boy’s hair. “How are you?”
“So good!”
Your nerves seemed to calm as you chattered away with Joffrey, having dropped Jace’s hand for his brother’s, but Jace didn’t mind. Your feet came to a slow stop however, when you reached the living room.
His mother was fixing up the flowers on the table, beaming when she saw you come in.
“Jace!”
“Hi mum.”
Jace hugged his mother in greeting, before taking your hand. “Mum, this is-”
“Oh, welcome to the family,” his mother said, pulling you into a hug as well, surprising you as you let out a laugh.
“It’s so nice to meet you!” you said shyly, smiling at his mother when she pulled away to look at you.
“And you! I have been waiting for the day Jace finally introduced us! I just knew that he was with a girl when I asked him to pick up Joffrey,” she said, shaking her head fondly. “He was so defensive when I tried to ask for details.”
“Mum,” Jace protested and his mother only waved him off.
“Your father must be wrangling with your cousins in the kitchen… Honey, Jace and his girlfriend are here!”
“I’m coming!”
His father walked into the living room with a strawberry cake in his hand, a smile on his face when his eyes laid on you, before turning to Jace, then back to you, realization dawning on him.
“That’s the boyfriend?”
You flushed, nodding with a laugh.
“Yes.”
His father only shook his head, giving you a brief hug before glancing at his son.
“I taught you better, son.”
“I know dad,” Jace sighed, ducking his head when his father reached out to ruffle his hair.
His mother seemed confused, though it didn’t help when his cousins and Luke tumbled out of the kitchen, bickering. As usual.
“- stop it! You’ll ruin the cake!” Aegon lifted the cake out of Baela’s grasp, his eyes lighting up when he saw you. “Oh, hey! Told you we’d see each other at one point!”
“Supergirl, how’s the hand doing?”
“Supergirl? She’s obviously shower girl.”
“… Do I even want to know?”
His mother glanced around the room, starting to connect the dots.
“Am I the only one who hasn’t met you yet?”
“I haven’t met her yet!”
The rest of his cousins rushed forward to introduce themselves and you nearly sank into a wave of white hair with Joffrey still hanging off your arm. You seemed to be doing well, though, Baela and Helaena laughing as Rhaena recounted the story of how you met and Aemond and Daeron trying to give you tips on how to punch someone without getting injured.
“I like her,” his mother said as she bumped his shoulder.
Jace’s chest warmed, though he shrugged. “You barely know her yet.” Even though he knew his family would like you no matter what, it felt good to hear it spoken.
“She seems to be handling herself well around your cousins and it looks like to me she already won half of them over,” his mother pointed out. “Most importantly, she makes you happy.”
“Wait, you punched Criston Cole? But I like him.”
“Of course you like him, Aegon.”
Your laughter rang out between the bickering, and you turned to catch Jace’s eyes, beaming at him. He smiled, ducking his head. God, he was so in love.
“Yeah.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
author's note: what are we thinking???
melancholy / carlos sainz x reader
pairing: carlos sainz x reader
song: AURORA - Daydreamer
summary: comfy night with carlos
wc: 1.3k
The soft hum of the waves crashing against the shore filled the room, the balcony doors open to let in the cool evening breeze. The sky outside was an inky canvas, dotted with stars as the last traces of the sunset disappeared into the horizon. You sat next to Carlos on the plush couch, your legs tucked beneath you, leaning slightly into his side. The remnants of dinner sat forgotten on the table, the dishes untouched as the two of you soaked in the peacefulness of the night.
Carlos, usually so full of life and energy, seemed unusually quiet tonight. His gaze was distant, fixed on the horizon where the ocean met the night sky. His face, illuminated by the faint glow of the moon, looked serene, but there was something else there too—something heavier. You’d seen it before, this side of him. The side that rarely came out in public but showed itself in these quiet, intimate moments.
The silence between you was comfortable, but thick with unspoken words. You could feel the weight of his thoughts lingering in the air, so you placed a gentle hand on his knee, feeling the warmth of him seep through the fabric of his jeans.
“Penny for your thoughts?” you asked softly, your voice breaking the quiet.
Carlos blinked, his gaze shifting to you. A small, almost wistful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said after a pause, his voice soft and thoughtful. “I guess it’s just… it’s strange how quiet everything feels after a race. You spend the whole weekend in the chaos, the adrenaline, and then suddenly it’s just… gone.”
You nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. Racing was his life—it was in his blood, his passion—but it came with a pressure that few people could truly comprehend. The world saw Carlos Sainz Jr., the fierce competitor, the rising driver in Formula 1, but you had the privilege of seeing Carlos, the man behind the helmet.
“I can’t even imagine what that’s like,” you said softly, resting your head against his shoulder. “The highs and lows of it all.”
Carlos sighed, leaning into you. “It is. I love what I do, but sometimes it feels like there’s always something more expected of me. No matter what, I’m always ‘Carlos Sainz, the driver.’ It’s hard to be anything else.”
You shifted, sitting up slightly so you could look at him properly. The expression on his face was one you had seen a few times before, but never quite like this. In the moonlight, his strong features were softened, but there was a weight in his eyes, a depth of emotion that he didn’t often show. There was something beautiful about it, this mix of strength and vulnerability, and it made your heart ache for him.
“You know,” you said quietly, “there’s so much more to you than just being a driver. You’re this mess of mixed beauty and melancholy, Carlos. I see it in your eyes.”
His gaze snapped to yours, surprise flickering across his face. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, as if your words had caught him off guard. Then, slowly, he reached out, taking your hand in his. His thumb traced soft circles over your skin, grounding you in the moment.
“You always know the right thing to say,” he murmured, his voice carrying the weight of unspoken emotions. His eyes, dark and intense, held yours for what felt like an eternity. And in that gaze, you could see it all—the passion, the exhaustion, the hope, and the doubt. Everything that he carried with him every day, hidden from the world but laid bare for you to see. “Always,” you whispered, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I see you, Carlos. Not just the driver, but the man behind it all. And I love both.”
A soft laugh escaped him, but there was something almost sad in it. “You know, you’re one of the few people who actually sees me like that,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Everyone else… they see the name, the race car, the victories. But with you… I feel like I don’t have to pretend.”
The vulnerability in his voice made your chest tighten. It wasn’t often that Carlos let himself open up like this, but you cherished the moments when he did. These were the moments that reminded you of why you loved him, not just for his charm or his looks, but for the depth of his heart.
“I love you,” you said softly, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. “Not because of what you do, but because of who you are.”
Carlos turned his head slightly, catching your lips with his in a gentle, lingering kiss. When he pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, and for a moment, the only sound was the soft rhythm of your breathing, perfectly in sync.
“I’m the lucky one,” he whispered, his breath warm against your lips. “I don’t deserve you.”
You shook your head, your heart swelling with affection. “You deserve the world, Carlos.”
For a long time, neither of you spoke, simply enjoying the quiet intimacy of the moment. The world outside seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of you, wrapped in each other’s warmth. The peacefulness of the night settled over you like a blanket, and for the first time in what felt like days, Carlos seemed to truly relax.
After a while, you shifted slightly, your head resting comfortably against his chest. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he said, his voice soft but steady.
“Do you ever feel lonely? Even when you’re surrounded by people?”
Carlos hesitated, his fingers stilling against your hand. “Sometimes,” he admitted after a pause. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Being surrounded by so many people, and yet feeling like you’re on your own.”
You nodded, understanding more than you could put into words. “I know,” you said quietly. “Ligtly brushed by melancholy. It’s part of you.” you reached over, your fingers brushing his arm, grounding him in the moment. “I love this side of you.”
Carlos chuckled, his smile tinged with that quiet modesty you adored. “I don’t know about all that,” he said, a hint of self-deprecation in his tone.
You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder. “You don’t have to be perfect with me, Carlos. You’re enough, just as you are.”
He looked down at you, his eyes filled with that familiar warmth but also something deeper—an understanding, perhaps, or an appreciation for the simple moments that didn’t require any racing or proving himself. There was always that hint of melancholy in his gaze, like he had lived a thousand lives in the short time you’d known him.
“You always know how to make me feel better,” he murmured, his voice low as he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.
And in that moment, as you looked up at him, you realized that it was in those quiet moments, when his modesty and vulnerability shone through, that you loved him the most. His eyes, usually so full of intensity on the track, were now soft, open, and filled with something much deeper than words could convey.
“Your eyes,” you said quietly, “they tell me everything. Even the things you try to hide.”
Carlos smiled, his gaze never leaving yours. “That’s because you see me. The real me. You always see me,” he said, his voice filled with gratitude.
“Always,” you whispered back.
You stayed like that for the rest of the night, wrapped in each other’s presence, the world outside feeling a little less lonely because you had each other.
Courtside (Carlitos Alcaraz x Actress!reader)
Request
A/N: Thank you Anon for my first tennis request! I loved writing this! Since Challengers came out around the time I started writing this, I kinda mentioned that Reader gained popularity due to a tennis movie lmaoooo.
I mention a female best friend (because in that situation I would totally bring mine) but I don’t give any hint of a name. Also, idk who in your life helped get you into tennis but for me it was my dad so I kinda hinted at that in like one sentence (it’s like almost unnoticeable so idk why I felt the need to mention this but I did).
Also, yes, I completely made up both of their speeches because I couldn’t be bothered to google them and watch the videos and figure out where to fit in the remarks I wanted to add. I hope it still sounds natural though because I tried to write the way I think they think… Thank you for dealing with my obsessive over-explanations.
Even though writer’s block kinda hit me in the middle of it, I had a really fun time writing this!
(Also, if you couldn’t tell, I love the Spanish language lmaoooo)
EDIT: I mixed things up and I accidentally have Novak thanking 2 sons even tho he has a son and a daughter. Whoops. Deal with it plssss.
Summary: As you become more and more popular, you are given an invitation to the Wimbledon final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic. Maybe the sport has just gained a new avid fan, and maybe Carlos just gets to meet his latest celebrity crush…
Word count: 4,807 (I’m so sorry, IDK how it got this long, bro I thought I was writing a 1k cutesy fic and here I am…)
Trigger Warnings: she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, slight profanity (I curse a lot in my real life and as everything I write is completely self-indulgent, I have to include it in my writing as well), mostly just fluff (please let me know if I missed any)
Disclaimer: This is written purely for fictional purposes and for the sake of writing. No disrespect is intended to the real people portrayed/concerned in this scenario.
Always appreciate comments, likes, and reblogs :)
He could hear the crowd even from inside the main hall. A sort of buzz of discussion that had not yet been interrupted by the announcement of the players. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, shaking out each of his limbs and stretching his neck from side to side. When he reopened his eyes it was almost tunnel vision, just the doors in front of him, the court ahead of that, and a chance to win Wimbledon. He would think of nothing else, of nothing but himself and his game and the tennis ball that would be coming at him. No crowd, no opponent, no mercy…
God, why was it so hard to not sweat in a fancy dress? It was like your body knew you didn’t want to do anything to ruin it and tried extra hard to do just that. This was your first time wearing something that a brand had requested you wear. It wasn’t your (very new) stylist choosing pieces for you, but a brand requesting it of you. Of course it came hand in hand with tickets to one of the most prestigious sports events of the year. Why give you a pretty dress and not have you show it off to everyone? And why not do it in a way to promote your movie?
Your publicist had made sure you knew there was a very likely possibility you would be shown on camera at the stadium, or at the very least that someone would take a picture of you in the stands and it would be posted everywhere. Now that you were gaining a fan base (exponentially since your latest movie) you had to be aware of these kinds of things. Sometimes it was a little tiring, going from only being watched on a screen to knowing that someone was looking at you the second you stepped out the door. Regardless, you persevere, and that was that.
You smoothed down the skirt of your dress as you waited for the players to come onto the court, stretching your neck side to side before turning to the girl sitting next to you. How could you come to an event like this and not bring your best friend? You plucked her drink from her hand and sipped on it.
“Eugh!” It was the most bitter thing you had ever tasted and it took everything within you to tame your reaction to a grimace. “What the hell is in that?”
“None of your business. How am I supposed to enjoy something I have no interest in without a little incentive?” She winked, before plucking the drink right back and chugging the rest of it. You began to laugh just as the umpire spoke up and began to announce the players.
“Please welcome Novak Djokovic!” People hooted and hollered and though you had the urge to join in, you simply clapped politely like those around you.
He was interesting to look at, this tall and lanky person that kind of reminded you of a pixie, mischievous and fun, but dangerous nonetheless. He probably had the straightest back you had ever seen and walked with an easy smile, waving to the crowd that was going absolutely mad to see him.
The energy in the arena was contagious. You could feel the electricity in your bones and your face had already pulled itself into an uncontrollable smile. You began clapping louder, stopping just shy of hooting with the crowd.
It’s funny in sport, how sometimes you just look at someone and you know you support them. Sport is all about people, and you suppose this is a part of the human experience. You don’t really know much about them, maybe a win here or a stat there, but you just look at them and you feel something for that person, and you decide that they deserve your love and support. Well, that’s how you felt when Carlos Alcaraz came onto the court that day with a big smile.
Truly, at this point in your life, you would call yourself an amateur tennis enjoyer. You first began watching to study for the role, but that was only WTA matches. Every once in a while you watched a match that came up on the tv or if your dad had put it on, and you knew about the big three because who didn’t. As you sat there watching them warm up, you resisted the urge to instantly do a wikipedia deep-dive on both tennis and Carlos. He walked with a spring in his step, waving out to the crowd with this big and carefree smile, like he chose to enjoy every moment of his life, regardless of the lows or highs. You were enamoured.
At some point in the movie, one of your co-stars had said that watching tennis was like watching a relationship crash and burn. It was argument after argument, each huff and scream, each slam of the racket against the ball, back and forth. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from the court, your breath stuck in your throat of its own accord in the deafening silence of the grounds. When your breath did leave you, it was these gasping little tremors that fell from your lips before you began cheering for the players. Sitting there, watching it all, soaking in the electricity of not only the players but the crowd, you knew it was an experience you would never forget.
During one of the sit-downs, you turned to your friend and began to gush about everything you had just seen. You could tell that she was stifling laughter at seeing you like this, her wide smile and raised eyebrows a testament to her humour, but you ignored it and continued on. Nothing could ruin your mood right now (except maybe Carlos losing).
When you began a new tangent, she nudged your knee, subtly gesturing upwards with her head. You frowned, tilting your head at her but she did the same gesture again, moving her eyes upwards over and over again until you followed her gaze. And there you were, projected onto this huge screen hanging over the grandstands, turned in your seat to face your friend, sunglasses perched on top of your head, hands still raised in the air from your earlier gesturing. You felt giddy all of a sudden, and you began to laugh, this airy and jovial laugh that made you look rather pretty on the big screen and you waved in the direction of the camera, a sweet smile on your face despite how dizzy you now felt. The crowd whooped and clapped and you could only nod and mouth ‘thank you’, hoping the camera would move on quickly so this burning in your cheeks and the sudden build up of sweat on your chest would calm down.
“Look at you, already a star,” she joked from beside you, giggling as you let your posture wilt once more and quickly brought your sunglasses down over your eyes for some semblance of disguise.
“Shut up,” you mumbled, but you couldn’t help that giddiness again, a little bit of pride straightening your shoulders as you thought that maybe, just maybe, you were a little bit of a movie star now. A wide smile couldn’t be helped.
You knew that if you were exhausted from just watching the match, the players must be barely able to walk. You understood why Carlos’s first reaction after they called the match was to lay down, flat on his back, on the court. You and the rest of the stadium’s occupants rose like a wave building in the ocean. The sound was deafening, everything from clapping to whistling to just plain full-throat screaming filled the stadium. You cheered with everyone else, hooted and hollered with everyone else, clapping until your hands hurt and then some.
“I have to say, it wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be,” you turned to your best friend and flicked her lightly in the arm.
“See?” You stretched the word out in a rather juvenile tone but both of you just laughed. “I can’t believe we got to see that.”
“Yeah, I mean, I joked that you were some type of starlet earlier, but if you’re getting tickets like this then maybe you really are that famous.” You just scoffed at her but it made you smile nonetheless.
“Hey,” from your other side, your manager appeared, still texting on her phone as her lanyard clicked against her necklace. “So, they just offered us an opportunity to meet Carlos after all this if we’re willing to stick around a little longer.” She didn’t look up at you once as she spoke but you paid it no mind, you were used to her obsessive multi-tasking by now and had learnt over time not to take it to heart. It was because she cared that she was always on the phone looking for opportunities for you.
“Um, wow, yes, of course!” You let out a little squeal and clapped your hands together before pressing them to your lips, hiding a big smile. Your best friend just laughed at you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pushing her weight onto you until you shoved back. Your manager had already turned away at this point, typing away on both her phones now, switching her gaze between screens and you just shook your head, before focusing in on the trophy ceremony.
“Please welcome our runner-up for Wimbledon 2023, Novak Djokovic!” You clapped with everyone else, watching as Princess Kate handed him the trophy and they exchanged words. He pressed a hand to his heart, nodding with his words and she smiled and stepped back to let him walk to the mic.
“Check, check, one two three, heh” he smiled and sighed, hefting the trophy slightly higher into his arms. “Well, first a huge congratulations to Carlos. We have seen your amazing talent so many times before, you are already a grand slam winner at such a young age, but today I think was extra special. All your hard work is paying off and I know you will win many more.” He nodded his head in the younger man’s direction as the applause rose, waiting patiently until it subsided to continue his speech. “To your team, also, they are doing an amazing job and you all deserve this amazing achievement.” Again he waited for the applause to subside before tilting his mic slightly so he could look in the direction of his own box. “To my team, I will never stop thanking you for all the hard work you guys put in to get me to places like this. We have worked together for many years and you never fail to push me to do my best. Thank you. “To my family, to my wife, and my two sons…” you could see the tears building in his eyes, could hear the way he choked up before looking down and pressing a hand to his eyes as his face crumpled slightly. You felt your own eyes begin to tear up at the vulnerable display. You chewed on the edge of your thumb, leaning forward in your seat to watch him more closely. “Thank you for everything you do for me and I am so happy that you are here to watch me. I wish I could have won for you…” he stopped again and your frown pulled at your cheeks and made the back of your throat feel slightly clogged. But he wiped his tears and shook his head and then forced a smile on his face as he looked up again. “Thank you to the staff and everyone who made this tournament possible. Whoever invited Carlos’s favourite actress, thank you for trying to distract him for me, but he is too good,” he chuckled. At the side of the court Carlos laughed loudly, dropping his head into his hands and shaking it, but everyone could still see the wide smile he wore and it made the entire crowd chuckle. You smiled brightly, laughing along with everyone else, but you began to wonder who it was. Zendaya was somewhere in the crowd, of course it was her. He was quick to finish his speech after that, thanking a few more people before stepping back to stand near the royals.
“And finally, please welcome your 2023 Wimbledon Champion, Carlos Alcaraz!” The crowd was on their feet again as he stood from his bench and walked to the little stage area they had created. Your hands began to sting from how hard you were clapping and your wide smile kind of hurt your cheeks, but you didn’t stop until your best friend gently pulled at the back of your skirt to get you to sit down again.
He smiled brightly at Princess Kate as he took the trophy from her hands, nodding and almost bowing in thanks. When he walked up to the mic, he lifted the trophy above his head and smiled so brightly the crowd couldn’t help but hoot and holler and cheer with him. He brought it back down into his arms with a little huff and you were sure it must feel ten times as heavy as it actually was after all the energy he had used during the match. He began his speech with a big breath out and a murmur of laughter went through the crowd.
“Firstly, Novak, whoever invited her did a good job because I was very nervous,” he joked, looking in Novak’s direction, and the man bent backward in laughter. “Hahaha, no no, not that nervous but, uh, thank you for coming,” and he reached his arm out to gesture…exactly where you were sitting. You laughed, a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else because the cameras had moved to you, but inside you felt like you were boiling over. Your cheeks were too hot, your ears were burning, you somehow both wanted to hide and sit there and bask in the flattery. His smile, wide and jovial and pure, had been directed at you and all you could do was laugh and shyly look down at your legs hoping your hair would hide your face. You licked your lips because suddenly your mouth was too dry but you were sweating from everywhere else and this very good looking guy had been looking directly at you and had called you his favourite actress and and and- you couldn’t really remember how to breathe anymore.
“Congratulations to you Novak, you and your team have done an amazing job. You are constantly pushing me to-to be better and motivating me so thank you. To my team, thank you for-for everything you are doing for me, that you do for me, I would not be here without you. Gracias por todo.” He looked up to his box and his smile was so big and bright and beautiful that no one could resist feeling a little bit of joy if they looked upon it. “Thank you to my family for always supporting me, for always cheering for me and believing in me, te quiero mucho.” The camera cut between him and his box and you could see the proud smiles his parents wore, tear tracks on their cheeks and glistening eyes that beamed with pride. “Thank you to, uh, the organisers, and-and the sponsors, and everyone who makes this tournament happen. We would not be here without you,” nodding as everyone clapped, “and thank you to all of you, to all the fans who came today, you, uh, you keep us going, and we-we appreciate all of you.” People whooped at that and it took a little longer for the crowd to quiet down. “And… yeah, that’s it! Thank you!” He laughed and stepped away to get pictures, but your heart was still racing.
“Alright, he should just be leaving the balcony so we have a few minutes before he gets here,” the official said to the room, but you were too busy trying not to gaup at Juan Carlos Ferrero as he stood right in front of you with a smile, switching between English and Spanish as he spoke to the physio and your best friend simultaneously. You had had a conversation with him a few minutes prior where it took every inch of your self-control to not gush and ramble and he had been very sweet, but your manager had pulled you away after a few minutes for approval on some social media posts of you at Wimbledon and you didn’t even notice that someone new was entering the room until people began to clap and cheer.
You looked up and there he was, walking into the room with that big smile of his that lit up the room and a spring in his step. He was still holding the trophy but it was tucked under one arm almost carelessly and he was more focused on the people in the room. He hugged each member of his team, speaking in that naturally quick rhythm that the Spanish language carried but sounded so pleasing to the ear. You couldn’t tell what they were saying but they all sounded extremely happy and were smiling so brightly at him that you felt like you were intruding just by being in the same room as them. Juan Carlos clapped him on the back and pulled him into a hug. He whispered something in his ear that had him laughing bright and bubbly and looking around the room but in a way that looked as if he was trying (and failing) to be subtle at it. They pulled away and after handing the trophy off to Juan Carlos, he turned to you. He pushed his hair up and, you were sure you imagined it, but his smile became slightly nervous.
You felt a bit starstruck in the moment, like the first time you had walked on set for your first major movie role and Cillian Murphy had somehow known your name and said hello to you specifically. You licked your lips, took a deep but shuddering breath in, but your hands were still shaking and your eyes weren’t really in focus anymore or maybe they were but they were hyperfocusing on little things and-
And then he was coming toward you. His arms were open, and you couldn’t quite remember the convention of cheek kisses in Spain (was it one on one cheek? Two per cheek? Did they not even do cheek kisses there?) or how you were supposed to place your arms when he finally held you (both arms under his? One above one under? Both above?) or if you smelled ok or how bad your makeup looked up close but then he was right there, smiling down at you because he was deceptively tall, and he wrapped you up in a quick hug that lasted no more than a few seconds and was loose enough for you to pull away if you wished. Would it be dramatic to say this was one of the best hugs of your life? Probably, but at that moment you couldn’t care less.
“Hello,” he said close to your ear and you giggled nervously, wanting to instantly slap your hand to your mouth and tell yourself to shut up for goodness sake.
“Hi!” You were far too loud and you closed your eyes for a moment as he pulled away, clearing your throat and trying to settle yourself before you spoke again. “It’s wonderful to meet you!”
“Awh, thank you, thank you, I’m very happy to meet you as well.” You beamed at that, pressing your hands together in front of you and trying to suppress any sarcastic urges to dismiss the compliment.
“Congratulations on the win, it was an amazing match to watch,” you told him, looking up at him with this small, sincere, smile that made his heart feel all kinds of fuzzy. Being praised by you? Well he could definitely die happy now.
“Thank you so much, I really appreciate it,” he told you, his smile wide again and absolutely infectious.
“I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been watching tennis for the longest time, but even I can see that you put so much effort into your sport and the love you have for it. It’s well deserved.” You shrugged, as if that wasn’t one of the best compliments he could ever receive. Sure, he was always being complimented nowadays, but knowing that people recognised him past his talent, that people acknowledged all the insane amount of work that was put in to even be good enough to make it onto the tour, that’s what stuck with him.
“Ah, I- thank you, thank you very much. And congratulations to you too, for your latest movie, I thought it was amazing.” He gestured towards you before crossing his arms over his chest, and you just dropped your head to the floor as an uncontrollable smile spread your lips. “I think maybe the best tennis movie there is.”
“I- wow. That is high praise coming from you, my gosh!” You began to laugh, pushing some of your hair behind your ear as you gazed up at him. He laughed with you, eyes squinting, and something electric pulsed in the air as you gazed into each other’s eyes for a quick second.
“I am serious! The-the scene where you play the Roland Garros final?” He stepped back and imitated the final hit you made down the line to win, before dropping to your knees and screaming at the top of your lungs. He threw his hands in the air and did a muffled scream as you laughed from the very depths of your stomach, shaking your head as he straightened up again.
“I was actually so proud of that shot! I did it myself and it took forever to even be able to send a ball over the net let alone that precisely!” You giggled, and again he laughed with you. It was quickly becoming your favourite sound.
“I think my favourite thing was the consistency of the dropshot, so smooth,” he imitated the motion with his hand, “right over the net, and barely a bounce. Even I cannot make a dropshot that good most of the time.” Your cheeks began to burn again but you just dismissed what he said with a wave.
“Lies, I’ve seen your dropshots, they are that good, most of the time anyway,” you added cheekily and he just raised an eyebrow at you, feigning anger before laughing even louder than before.
From the eyes of the others in the room, you seemed to be the perfect combination of people. You both liked to laugh, you both seemed to be smiley people, you matched each other’s energy. The conversation seemed to ebb and flow so naturally, and you guys had moved on to talking about the filming process, standing much closer together than before.
“Oh my gosh, so we filmed at the real Philippe-Chatrier but the first two days when we were supposed to film, it rained and rained and rained when we needed sun for the sequence to match up. So we just used the court to practise over and over again. I hadn’t practised on the clay yet- I know, I know, it was stupid - but I cannot tell you how many good socks I have lost to that clay,” you sighed, pouting and shaking your head. He laughed softly, but nodded with you, sighing deeply.
“Yeah, that is one annoying thing about playing on the clay, it gets everywhere. You’ll open your bag in the locker room and it’s just full of clay,” he sighed.
“It was really weird though, playing in an empty stadium,” you thought back to those moments that you now cherished so much, “everything echoes in there, and it feels sci-fi to see all those seats around you.” You shivered exaggeratedly but he only chuckled, shrugging as if to say ‘I’m used to it now’. “I mean, it was weird to play there when the stadium was full too, I genuinely got so nervous when they had all the extras filling up the seats that it took me like ten tries just to not do a double fault.” You looked up at him and he was listening to you so intently and you just kind of… smiled, a sort of wistful smile, and shook your head as if to dispel all the thoughts. “Who am I talking to? You do that for a living, I’m sure you understand.”
“The first few times it is very scary, but you just have to remember why you’re there. You have to focus first on yourself, and then you can start taking energy from the crowd, start enjoying how much they enjoy it, and it becomes less scary.” The way he said it, with his eyes so focused and his face so serious, you almost forgot to breathe.
This was the first time it truly hit you how beautiful he actually was. His eyes, his jawline, even the floof of his hair. Of course you had noticed that he was attractive before, but at that moment he was beautiful.
“Yeah,” you whispered, biting your lip as you smiled at him. He let out a little huff of a chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. He was silent for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone.
“I, uh, I don’t know if you want to or not, but there is this place where you can play giant tennis?” He scratched the back of his neck and laughed bashfully. “Like the ball and the rackets are huge and I went with some friends before the tournament and it is really fun. Would you like to go? With me?”
You stared at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open at the invitation. Your heart was racing! Your palms felt clammy and you couldn’t quite believe this was real and not a dream but it also felt way too real to be a dream. You nodded before you could even try to speak, a quick and (rather embarrassingly) vigorous shake of the head before letting out a breath and smiling.
“Uh, yes, yes of course, that sounds really fun! Um, yeah, oh! I just realised you’re asking for my number,” you sighed, shaking your head as you took the phone he had proffered to you. He just laughed again, smiled as wide as usual, and nodded.
He watched you as you typed in the number and named yourself ‘my favourite actress <3’, chuckling to himself as he stared at it before pocketing his phone once more. By then the others had come to join your conversation, but the entire time you couldn’t help but glance toward Carlos. And of course, he couldn’t resist either.
10 months later
“Y/n! Y/n! Look here!”
“Over here!”
“Y/n! Please look this way!”
The paparazzi had already begun to shout before you had fully stepped out of the car. There were still people on the carpet ahead of you, but some of the photographers near the end had already turned to try and capture pictures of you. You smiled brightly as a hand came out from your side to help you pull the rest of your dress out of the car. ‘Of course he was impatient and got out on the other side,’ you thought, laughing to yourself before turning and gently threading your fingers through his.
You heard the camera shutters increase in volume as more and more people turned to catch pictures of you and your ‘mystery’ date. You heard the murmurs among the paparazzi as they realised who exactly you had brought with you, who had helped you pull the annoyingly long train of your dress out of the car and was now gently kissing your temple before letting you lead the way and soak up the sunshine of your stardom.
The line of fans after the paparazzi were louder in their recognition, some even asking him to come forward and sign autographs for them. He only agreed after you beckoned him forward with a wide smile, kissing his cheek before turning back to the girl right in front of you who seemed near to tears.
Finally, you reached the reporters. They all clamoured for your attention, but were quickly appeased by the appearances of your costars to steal their attention first. You smiled brightly at the first person, a young woman with shiny blonde hair perfectly set into curls.
“Y/n! My first and most important question! When did you and Carlos Alcaraz start dating?!”
Queen Helaena Targaryen
Commission for @DaTeamGreen on twitter
The Black Dread part one
prompt: after word is sent for Dragonseeds to raise up, you shockingly claim The Black Dread. knowing your stance would all but determine the war, both Alicent and Rhaenyra send emissaries to persuade your allegiance through means of marriage. when tragedy strikes, you fly to war. -> in this part - you claim Balerion and emissaries are sent.
pairing: Jacaerys 'Jace' Velaryon x female!Tyrell!reader pairing: Aemond Targaryen x female!Tyrell!reader -> hair color specified reader -> technically Targaryen!reader -> ALL characters aged 18+
fandom masterlist: House of the Dragon
series masterlist: The Black Dread > > > next part, part two: read here
word count: 4.9k+
note: ALL characters are aged up - they are NOT minors
warnings: hair color specified reader but it's paramount to the story. Dance of the Dragons AU, Balerion lives AU - kinda heavy introduction. political manipulation, i guess no Baela, Rhaena or Alys romantic interests, ALL characters are aged 18 or older, Muses aren't in this part much, stolen Olenna Tyrell quote(s), Dylan Thomas quote.
though Balerion is not shown in the shows [HOTD or GOT], these are some of author's personal favorite fan art pieces: this this one, but maybe this color
Considering the climate, environment, elements, and location of each region with no true diverse distinction or transition between seasons, summers varied in each corner of the Seven Kingdoms. Notably, the mainland experienced vastly different summers in comparison to the constantly humid Westerosi islands.
This was expected.
Where the weather endured in King’s Landing is dry and stale - lacking cloud coverage, baking all forms of life under the unforgiving sun - Dorne was ideal: temperate, tropical, the temperature usually consistently comfortable.
Northwest of the continent, off the Westerlands coast in water of Ironman's Bay so dark, secrets remain hidden, summers on the ratified Iron Islands were cold due to the winds blowing from the North. The rocky region wet and slippery from rain; never humid, usually biting.
The Reach boasted pleasant summers; lush and green with fully bloomed gardens, perfectly balmy. The Stormlands lived up to its name and was plagued with frequent storms. These were usually warm rains - opposite the Iron Islands. The Crownland's annually hosted hordes of tourists at their ever popular summer attraction: temperate beaches. And why wouldn't they? The Crownlands's usually kept moderate temperatures and plenty of vast coastline to offer reprieve in the surf.
However, the only exception to sweltering, stereotypical climate that ransacks the Realm is the North - an expansive outlier. You see, in the North, summers are cold but winters are REALLY cold. From Bear Island to White Harbor, the dreary, overcast summer sky reflects on year-round, bright, pristine summer snow, making it glitter and blindingly glow. This results in the curation of a blue-grey filter naturally exclusive in the North.
However, tonight - You weren't ankle-deep in North summer snows. You weren't wheezing in King's Landing. You weren't vacationing in Dorne. You weren't sloshing through the Stormlands.
Tonight, you weren't on the mainland.
Tonight, you were on Dragonstone - ancestral home of your distant, estranged family.
Bullfrogs belted their croaky song, loud and incessant; as if trying to individually greet each twinkling star in the inky sky - the ever faithful audience; intrigued by this reckless and dangerous suicidal showdown you embarked on. Crickets chirped in a soprano choir; dotting around the maze of tide pools - cratered by the same porous, jagged, volcanic rock that defines the unpredictable, natural coastline. Frothing alto waves of dark navy, violent, salty sea brutally crashed against rock - the booming baseline of the frog's and cricket's private duet sang in perfect harmony.
All that was missing was a little red crab with a Jamaican accent encouraging you "kiss the girl".
Night had fallen. The winds were cold as a storm rumbled overhead. Rain fell sideways. Lightning streaked the skies.
You navigated through the dark - a slippery, dangerous feat.
Few windows of the castle gave a subtle, dim light; indicating the residents were more than likely turned in for the night. Still, despite the lack of patrolling guards and other witnesses, you remained in stealth mode. Only fools allowed themselves to feel cocky when their guards go down. When someone allowed their defenses to go down, mistakes are made, capture is imminent, the mission is a failure, and surrender to the enemy's mercy is forced.
Your presence on Dragonstone wasn't for romance - no girls (or boys) for you to kiss. This wasn't a social visit to recreationally mingle with the Velaryon Prince or Targaryen Princess Twins. You're not conducting research curriculum - no time to study flora, fauna, volcanic activity.
To the winged terrors, Dragonstone Island is a recognizable safe haven that promotes healing - the one place these miraculous beasts could relax, ease their defenses; be vulnerable with lowered guards. This sense of safety gives freedom away from the confines of Dragon Riders - simply allowed to be true, authentic, and animalistic.
Currently, a couple dragons sought refuge on the island, nesting, minding their own business; others sought rest, retirement, peaceful isolation. Several took advantage of the heat and loitered around the volcano, the Dragonmont.
They weren't just any dragons, some were rogue, wild; some released after captivity; all unclaimed, riderless. This tempted several persons to rely on arrogant luck and try their hand at harnessing the terrible beasties - but they never returned.
Summer days stretched long, giving limited time to move under the cover of darkness, and the nights progressively shortened each day leading up to the solstice. Your journey was miraculous, having never navigated open water before yet somehow arriving at Dragonstone after setting sail from King's Landing by yourself. Perhaps you had a hidden talent, a subconscious sailor mentality; maybe you were just lucky, or maybe your boiling emotions made you defiantly determined - running on pure spite to stay alive, unharmed, and without capsizing in an effort to complete your mission.
Most of the time, you relied more on logic than emotion, something that helped keep you balanced, grateful, rational. Leading with logic arguably "made" someone intelligent; solution oriented, stubborn, hardheaded, unwilling to compromise (a common foundation when leading with emotion).
Yet logic made you very black and white - no grey area. Logic is cut and dry. Logic is sometimes sophisticated. Logic is also stubborn. Logic abandoned empathy. Logic could be explained. Logic identified applicable reasonings and explanations. Logic is hard to argue against. Logic sustained battles of wit. Logic is sometimes discriminatory. Logic always tells the truth. Logic has limited loopholes.
Logic is fact driven, and when paired with your own rooted moral and religious beliefs, made you subconsciously judgmental.
There's a well-known proverb, quote, "it's not the destination, but the journey." Yet some philosophers think the destination is mundane, anticlimactic, boring, sometimes disappointing and unfulfilling while the journey is much more fulfilling. The journey is what's worth; an adventure, where development inflates, where a story worth telling lies.
Logic is the destination. Leading with emotion is the journey.
Leading with emotion develops thoughtful decisions. Emotions sharpen empathetic abilities. Emotions sometimes changes perspectives, broadens horizons. Emotions allow for differences in opinions. Emotions curates safety. Emotions heightens generosity. Emotions expands willingness to help. Emotions softens situations with compassion. Emotions often strides towards peace. Emotions structures harmony. Emotions accepts all. Emotions could be overwhelming. Emotions don't always have one, single, clear victor.
Leading with emotion makes you easily reactive, being why you made a conscious effort to engage logic; keeping yourself in check.
You often never lost your cool; always having a handle on things, but sometimes, it was a challenge. Emotions demand to be felt, and no matter how hard you train yourself and practice relying on logic, you were still human.
Both leading with logic and emotion made you passionate, sometimes synonymous with stubborn. Either way, you ended up here - on Dragonstone - slinking around in the dead of night as if a criminal on the run, trying to avoid the Rogue Prince's nefarious, outlandishly violent City Watch.
You were dedicated to the truth, hence your willingness to embark on this suicide mission. You know it's out there, becoming desperate to find it; never settling, fed the fuck up of mindless gossip the court whispered and hissed about. Enduring years of scrutiny and unfiltered rudeness made you confident, wanting, and energized to justify your claims, prove self-worth, assign relief, terminate turmoil, tension, and assumption.
Yeah, yeah, yeah - but what truth are you dedicated to? Your family's lineage and heritage, your birthrights, your position in society. Your contributing livelihood. They only thought you a young lady boasting the Tyrell surname - a broodmare to sell off. After Queen Rhaenyra proclaimed herself, you became incessant to prove you were so much more than a pretty fragile rose to be set in a vase.
Truth became your Eighth God; being a dedicated, loyal, trusting, worshipping follower. And the truth was, you're a Targaryen as much as a Tyrell, and by all means, had as much of a right to claim a dragon as any of the rest of them.
You refuse to take detours, cut corners, violate, or cheat to obtain your goal(s); arriving at your desired end result with integrity, completing your mission by barreling through obstacles with laser focus - like a predator stalking prey.
Boots slapped and clicked on wet rock, splashing in puddles, splattering mud up your legs to soak into your breeches. Heavy humidity - thick and muggy air - coated lungs and stuck in nostrils, being suffocatingly stuffy; breathing becoming difficult. You could physically feel the condensation in the air - hair adopting a mind of its own; beaded, clammy skin becoming uncomfortably sticky, palms slick with sweat. You missed the dry heat of the capital.
Dark hood of your cloak hid your vibrant hair; the material swishing, swirling airy fog low to the ground around your creeping form, creating an ominous energy. You half expected a ghost to appear at your flank.
The clanking of the night patrol's armor was heard first, alerting you to a diminishing window; sliding into the mouth of one of the dragon caves in time for the White Cloaks to stalk around the castle's perimeter walkway.
Even with thick rock cocooning your form, the rumbling of the nested dragon's slumber was heard; loose pebbles, dust and other debris showered from the cave ceiling. Despite the heat of the Dragonmont, you heard the slow echo of dripping water.
Your choice to come to Dragonstone, was it a logical decision? Or driven by emotions - fed up with the rumors, sneers, disrespect, critical judgement from everyone in King's Landing? ...yes.
Navigating a dragon lair was dangerous, but navigating a dragon lair with ZERO experience was an anticipated disaster. Surely, you must've lost your mind because no mentally stable person would dare step foot in this cave - let alone scale the depths in search of an ancient beast that could (and possibly wound) treat your charred body as a BBQ appetizer. With a gasp, you slipped on the rocks, hissing when the heels of your palms took the brunt end of impact and slit open; tiny pebbles sticking to your open flesh. You whimpered gently, jagged rocks digging into your knees as you cleared your hands and slowly found your feet.
Even with knowledge of your heritage, you hadn't grown around the scaly Targaryen counterparts like any and every other legitimate offspring. You were long divided from that side of your family, missing out on fascinating Valyrian traditional customs. It made you a slightly bitter.
No dragon egg in your crib. No hours-long practice in the Dragon Pit. No reptilian anatomy studies. No personalized leather saddle embellished with a three-headed dragon. No claim to ancestral privilege or birthright. No unique morality, nor holier than thou complex. No generational beast to inherit.
Skin free from the lingering, invasive, embedded stench of dragon hide.
You used to think learning Ancient Valyrian was a redundant waste of time, education, and resources. You were raised in the ancestral keep in the Reach's capital, Highgarden, under your father, Lord Tyrell, and his beloved wife - the Vanished Princess - which made this secret sleuthing harder to rationalize or explain, given no Targaryen ever lived in Highgarden. Never before were dragons hosted in The Reach, and therefor, a Dragon Pit was never erected.
So, you know how when you're a kid and see something at the store that you really want but your parent says no because you already have too much shit? They might've made their point by saying something, like, "Where do you think you're gonna put all that?"
Well, Highgarden is the toy box and you intend on bringing home one of those enormous stuffed animals won at a carnival / festival.
If anyone knew of this plan, they might've sent you to the medical institute the Citadel in Oldtown operates; involuntarily commit you to the structured research program that studies different mental and physical medical phenomenons.
Truth was, this wasn't even your idea. Your grandmother, who definitely either spent time in one of the Citadel's cells or should, encouraged you. Perhaps that should've been a red flag, but it was too late now, her words echoing in your mind ―
Be a dragon.
The gardens you walked through were in fragrant, full bloom; providing a sweet air to combat the foul words you admitted with your arm looped in your grandmother's. You paced evenly through the overgrown foliage, the bees buzzing to drown your words.
"Perhaps, something is wrong with me," you sulked, "because surely, it cannot be this difficult to find a match. It seems I need to lower my standards, I could not attract a decent man if I were covered in honey and he were a fly."
"Perhaps try covering yourself in shit, then," she advised with a knowing smirk.
"Grandmother."
"Well, it's curious, isn't it?" Celia asked.
"What is?"
"All your life, you've always been more Targaryen than Tyrell; fierce, loyal, impulsive, strong, enduring. Yet now, you return nothing more than a rose wilted from King's Landing's stench, moping about failed relations. Have you ever considered that simple men are incapable of supporting the love and marriage of a dragon?"
"Half blooded does not make me a dragon."
"No, but the spirit, wit, intelligence, spunk, ferocity, cunningness, and determination you display proves it." She paused your stroll, secluded canopy shroud by foliage to provide a moment of privacy.
"Not all would think so," you let your eyes roll.
"Who do you speak of?"
"Those who think I am lying about my own Targaryen parentage, citing the color of my hair as evidence. You would think I'm one of the Queen's sons, the way they whisper."
"Do not listen to busy mouths, sweet child, hair cannot be a sole indication of parentage. I know it's easy to cite, but not all descendants of Valyria have silver locks, and should anyone have anything to say, know they are merely bitter and jealous for your hair is the perfect blend of Tyrell auburn and Targaryen silver. A color that is hard to ignore."
"Yet it's not enough to prove myself to them, Grandmother."
Now Celia sounded determined but angry, "You are every bit Tyrell as you are Targaryen. While you might not appear to their biased eye, there's never been denial that you are made in your mother's fire. Pure blooded or not, you're a dragon, my sweet petal."
"So?"
"Oh, for the love of the Gods - so, be a dragon! Dragons do not fret because men don't blink twice at them, they eat those men! Don't beg for approval; maintain your dignity, instill a new opinion, demand respect! Prove your strength, skill, and capabilities - everything the courts would deliberately overlook. Prove everyone wrong, offer contribution to this war, become a valuable asset who would be foolish to send away. Establish your seat at the table and never let anyone talk down on you again," your grandmother snarled with passion. "There's more than one way to prove you have the blood of the dragon."
"Such as? What would you have me do?"
"I hear rumor there remains a host of unclaimed dragons on Dragonstone. The Queen's son and heir, Prince Jacaerys, has called for dragonseeds to try their hand - they need more dragonriders for their war. Claiming your birthright might be the fastest, easiest way to earn the Realm's approval; doubling as undisputed evidence of who you are."
"What a terrifying thought."
"But what a statement it would make," Celia's lips pulled in a smirk, wrinkles deeper, more prominent on sun-soaked, wrinkled skin. "Tyrells might be flowery, we might sigil a rose - but we are resilient and refuse to wilt; even in the heat of dragon fire. The Realm thinks Tyrells are only pretty faces; pretty flowers meant to be seen and never heard, whose sole purpose is to be left on display. Preconceived as uselessly inexperienced during wartimes; criminally green, pure, innocent - judgement that makes them shockingly unprepared for how deep our thorns prick." Both of Celia's hands grabbed yours, squeezing, advising, "Do not go quietly, my petal, make those who doubted you be haunted by their foolish choice to challenge the wrong woman. Let them seep in humiliation and regret their judgement. Allow your successful conquest to be the biggest 'fuck you' to prejudice, the final nail in any coffin of doubt. Toss your wilted rose of fear aside, petal, embrace the fire that burns in your veins; you are Lady Y/N Tyrell of Highgarden, daughter of The Forgotten Princess, and you will not go gentle into that good night. You will be a dragon."
You were ensuring passage by morning light, intent to deliver yourself to Dragonstone.
Parts of the cave glittered with unharvested gems; a lost collection of rarities nobody dared pursue out of fear of the ancient, terrible Valyrian beasties that dwell in those caves. The walls sweat from combined dragon and volcanic heat, tunnels jagged and uneven; zero holes, cracks, or slits the sun could leak through (if it were up); everything terribly dark. At least there was a scattered pile of preprepared torches to light the way. A permanent odor of limestone and fractioned corpses assaulted your sinuses, dried puddles of blood seeped into rock, the scurrying critters who used dragons as hosts echoed with a twinkling charm - the least menacing reminder that you were not alone.
Claimed dragon chambers varied in size; pitstops along the winding pathways that ended at the largest chamber - a dead end. While other chambers were large enough for sometimes several dragons, this final stop could only be described as a jarring, stomach churning, hauntingly pitched ebony abyss of incalculable depth that played tricks on the mind. An abyss. It was like you were staring Death in the face and anxiety was dredged forth from white hot fear.
With a flickering torch alight in a trembling hand, you slowly stalked down the chiseled causeway that ended several lengths into the expansive, bleak nothingness. Pitch black shadows danced; the air felt electric, seemingly vibrating - alive and judgmental.
The glaring cavern besmirched your family name, hauntingly reminding that your disinheritance resulted in your late dragon bloom. The ebony airy sea identifies and heightens fearful insecurity about your estranged family's rejection, their lack of interest and care for your side of the family stinging; their rejection of familial relationships. The darkness predicted your failure, inability, and humiliation.
The cavern challenged your confidence and determination, your staked ownership and proclaimed lineage; labeling your bravery, beliefs and ambition as arrogant. It sneered about your stupidity, weakness, fear, and anxiety; belittled applied effort and desired goals; questioned your true desires and needs; tested your loyalty.
The cavern rejects any and all attempts before you could even try; unraveling your logic, shunning your emotions; proclaims reactive decisions as immature and lacking control, crowning you as dangerously naïve.
The cavern mocked your desperately pathetic need for station and acceptance; revoking and nullifying public (and private) ladyship, dubbing you unladylike - which, in itself, was insulting to your womanhood. Why do men get all the exciting adventure, but when a woman tries, she's crucified for being irresponsible? Smooth ebony waves reflected your maddening, constant effort and want for acknowledged contributions.
To the naked eye, the cavern appeared uninhabited, assuming the habitat was abandoned. The silence was eery; air buzzing with alarm, deceiving humans that attempted to see through the waves of darkness.
To a "true" Targaryen, this was just a sheet of camouflage the fire breathers wield for their privacy.
No wonder the Red Sowing was so... Bloody and devastating.
A growl was heard, something gravely and deep, intimidating and impressive. You frozen, eyes wide as if it would give you night vision, torch flickering, hands starting to shake. Then you saw prominent movement, lungs stalling and heart hammering. Slowly, a large, scaly, stained snout emerged at a sail's pace.
The more the beast stepped into your sight, your mind could only scream one thing - was coming face to face with a dragon logical or emotional? Because whether logical or emotional, this was a dumb fucking idea there was no turning back from.
So, you steeled yourself in position, dewy sweat lining your forehead to soak your hairline.
112 years After Conquest, dragons flew to war at the behest of the Targaryen family over Rhaenyra and her half-brother's claim to Aegon the Conqueror's Iron Throne. Sister-wife, Queen Visenya, rode Vhagar - said to have been the smallest dragon with bronze hide, yet, as rumor had it, still large enough that a horse could ride down her gullet. Sister-wife, Queen Rhaenys, rode Meraxes - who was larger; big enough to swallow horses whole with silver scales and golden eyes.
Then, The Conqueror, King Aegon Targaryen I, rode Balerion - the fiercest and largest, who’s wingspan could shadow entire towns, swords-long teeth assisting his ability to swallow mammoths whole, and who’s scales, wings, and fire were pitch black. Balerion was called the Black Dread and was so powerful, he could melt steel, stone, and fuse sand into glass. He never lost a battle - against human or dragon.
Balerion was also the dragon responsible for the Burning of Harrenhal, largest castle in Westeros.
In the year 2 BC, Aegon began his Conquest and engaged King Harren Hoare the Black in his keep, Harrenhal, who refused the Conqueror and was met with Balerion’s flames. In fire so hot, it melts stone like candles, the entire House Hoare was extinguished when Harren and his sons perished in the largest tower - later named Kingspyre Tower - though it’s said they haunt the Wailing Tower.
Since then, of Aegon's Three Dragons, only Meraxes boasted a single rider, but to be fair, in 10 AC, during the First Dornish War, allegedly, both Queen Rhaenys and Meraxes met their demise. Vhagar knew Prince Baelon Targaryen, Lady Laena Velaryon, and Prince Aemond as riders. Balerion knew Maegor the Cruel, Princess Aerea, and King Viserys, who, in the year 94, retired The Black Dread - thinking the beast was nearing his end. The dragon outlived every single rider.
In the year 129, Viserys died and The Black Dread stared you in the eye; curating a vibrating rumble deep within his chest that made the darkness dance. It'd been decades since anyone dared face this terrible beastie, thinking he wasn't long for this world; the pair of you curious about the other, no moves made yet.
There was no backing down, there was no turning away. This is what you wanted, for Aegon the Conqueror's mount to see you as you are - worthy of your of blood. You refused to be told you did not deserve your lineage, the Targaryen name, you would not endure disrespect any longer! You would earn your place in this Godsforsaken family, earn station in this Godsforsaken world, or die trying...
That night, Balerion took to the skies again, doing several laps in the air, soaring over King's Landing to let the residents of the Realm know - he flew again.
Your father's family hailed from The Reach, specifically Highgarden; colorful, temperate, lush, bountiful, and abundant. Your family oversaw 75% of the country's sole wheat, barley, grain, and corn production, even germinating the country's most grand gardens - which decorated a rather generous estate.
Despite the vast, open lands, there had never been need for a dragonpit before, so, when you landed your mount, he was left exposed on the outskirts of the Keep. Considering he was the largest thing, you know, ever, Balerion seemed content out there - so, you didn't worry.
It was strange, however, to see anyone without white hair on dragonback. Even stranger to the Realm to learn of your accomplishment; adding fuel to several fires.
The Green King Aegon asked lazily, a hand waving in the air, "Who?"
His mother, Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower, reminded, "She is of Targaryen seed on her mother's side, but was raised under the Tyrells. She sits to inherit all of The Reach, she will be Lady of Highgarden - "
"Until," Grand Maester Orwyle interjected softly, "her young brother, the Young Lord Tyrell, comes of age."
Aegon waved their words off, complaining, "Yes, yes, but why do we caaaaare about some red headed bitch?"
See, where the Targaryens had trademark white locks, the Lannisters had golden strands. The Starks had deep umber brunette color hair, and while both the Tully's and Tyrell's erred more on the reddish side, the Tully's had darker overtones, like an auburn, and the Tyrell's had lighter, coppery-amber waves. North of the Wall, they say "kissed by fire".
"Because Lady Tyrell has laid successful claim to The Black Dread! To Balerion!" Alicent snapped, quickly adding the snarky punctuation, "Your Grace."
"Well, we have Vhagar - "
"With respect, Your Grace, Balerion could give a singular chomp to any living dragon as Vhagar did Arrax and it would prove fatal," Otto Hightower, the King's grandfather and Hand, quickly stepped in to save his daughter from losing her temper.
"Well, she doesn't even speak High Valyrian," Aegon scoffed, rolling his eyes; lip curled, slouched in his chair.
"Neither do you," Aemond quipped in his Father's Tongue.
Otto continued loudly to prevent Aegon's response, "With The Black Dread now officially out of retirement and in play, the only choice we have is risk facing him in open battle, or..." His eyes shifted to Alicent, pausing, sighing and revealing, "Send an emissary to negotiate terms of an alliance."
"Meaning...?" Aegon drawled.
"Meaning a marriage pact, Your Grace," Otto supplied sternly.
"With respect?" Larys Strong spoke up, "But the Crown is lacking in their eligible bachelors for such terms."
"Or perhaps, what of someone outside the family? Marry two strong allies of the Crowns? Alliances henceforth might not have to include Targaryen marriages," Jason Lannister threw in quickly, but every Small Council member denied him just as swift.
It was reminded, "There's Prince Daeron."
"Lady Tyrell is actually the same age as Prince Aemond, I do not think she is looking for a husband so many years younger than her."
"Didn't Prince Aemond already secure the Baratheons through a marriage alliance?"
"Technically," Otto agreed slowly, "but given the circumstances and turning of tides, Lord Borros can be treated with in other ways should we need to offer Aemond for Lady Tyrell's willing support."
"Rhaenyra will send terms, as well," Alicent reminded. "Lady Tyrell is Prince Jacaerys' age, she might consider breaking his engagement, too."
The Small Council continued their plotting. Prince Aemond remained silent. Nobody so much as threw him a glance.
When the Black Queen Rhaenyra was informed of your heroics and your identity was questioned, her uncle-husband, Daemon, informed, "Daughter of the Forgotten Princess."
And Rhaenys affirmed, "My sister's daughter... Do not mistake her lineage for guaranteed alliance; her mother and I are long estranged, she's lived in The Reach her whole life - she does not know us. Nor owes us any loyalty."
"Perhaps she could be persuaded," Corlys wondered. "The Lady Tyrell is unwed, is she not?"
"As far as accounts go, yes," his wife reported.
"Perhaps a marriage alliance?" Corlys glanced around the table.
"To whom would you propose?" Queen Rhaenyra asked, all sat around the Painted Table.
"If I may be so bold...?"
"Please."
"Given your marriage to Daemon and his daughter's are shared with our own daughter, Laena... Is there truly need for a marriage pact between the children?"
Rhaenyra cocked her head, "You mean to... Disengage my son from his intended, and engage him again...? Like a pawn in chess? My son, Heir to the Iron Throne, married to Lady Tyrell?"
"Why do you sound displeased by the prospect, Your Grace?" Corlys wondered. "I hear the Lady Tyrell is most beautiful, and we need the Tyrell's wealth like we need their dragon, Balerion. If used properly, he can melt castles alone, Your Grace; burn towns, extinguish entire bloodlines, torch this country, melt the bloody Wall. No living dragon rivals him in size, in ferocity, in age nor experience. He's been at rest for decades now... Something tells me there's a reason he's come out of his nest."
"An omen," Rhaenyra agreed, straightening her spine.
"Precisely - the portents are cast, Your Grace."
"Lord Corlys makes a point," Daemon chimed in, "if by marriage, we secure The Reach and take back the Iron Throne with little to no carnage. Should the Greens fight, not even Vhagar could stand against Balerion."
"Prince Jacaerys is a handsome match to offer," another lord agreed, "which should help sway Lady Tyrell to our side."
"Which also frees both Lady Baela and Rhaena for other pacts - if need be."
"But if we have had this thought, I promise so has Alicent," Rhaenyra stood from the table, staring at the triangle of King's Landing, Dragonstone, and Highgarden. "Who would they offer? Who do they have, unwed, unpromised?"
"Well," Rhaenys stood to meet her Queen, "if we had the thought of a marriage alliance, and the thought to break off one engagement in favor of another, who is to say the Greens would not consider the same?"
It was quiet, a shiver shooting down the Queen's spine. "Vhagar and Balerion are familiar with one another," she grit her teeth, "and Aemond is the False King's brother. He's an attractive match, too."
"I think it's worth making the Tyrell's an offer," Corlys sat back in his seat. "They will receive us both and decide their allegiance - just as the Baratheons did, just as the rest of the Realm has or must do as well."
"Let it be done - if Prince Jacaerys agrees," Rhaenyra nodded, looking to her son - wanting his consent and participation in his own fate. Jace proudly lifted his chin and puffed his chest, nodding while nobody noted the looks of near relief on Lady Baela and Rhaena's faces. In a moment, they had been engaged to Jace and Luke without their thought, input, nor consent. In another moment, they were single young women with the tantalizing prospect to marry outside the family.
"I consider Her Grace's offer an honor."
> > > next part, part two: read here
requesting rules and masterlist
HOTD masterlist
The Black Dread masterlist
i'm already writing it, but, poll for the end ―
who should Reader choose?
Bachelor Number One: Aemond
Bachelor Number Two: Jace
or Bachelor Number Three: Fuck Men - choose nobody, it's not Reader's war!
iv. another man's pain
pairing. aemond targaryen x fem!reader
synopsis. a visit to dorne goes awry as an unexpected visitor arrives, tensions between in-laws come to ahead at last.
chapter warnings. no use of y/n, brother-in-law!aemond, stark!reader, infidelity, purity culture, lady stark is having a brat summer ( sunbathing and arguing with her situationship ), male infertility, canon-accurate misogyny, mentions of pregnancy + marital s/a + war crimes + death, a little angst, a little fluff, a little smut ( unprotected piv, breast/nipple play, oral- f receiving, aemond is the verbal consent king ) please kindly notify me of any warning i may have missed.
word count. 19.4k (for my pwp girlies: they fuck at the end, i swear 😭)
hyde’s input. this chapter is extremely yap-centric, i'm so sorry. i could not get these bitches to shut the fuck up. please ignore any typos, i've driven myself mad re-reading this over and over :(
another man's series. feast. comfort. pleasure. pain. legacy. ( coming september )
read on ao3.
The heat in Dorne is sticky.
Stifling, overwhelming, heavy. Upon inhale, it slides through the nose, yet, in exhale, it weighs heavy on the chest. It leaves one panting like a dog, with sweat that soaks through linen, and a longing for the forgiving breeze that sweeps its way through the Red Keep. Already, you await the day the carriage arrives to shuttle you off on your journey back to the capital, if only to move an inch without leaving a river of your own perspiration behind.
Six days and five nights into your moon-long stay in the southern lands of sand and your trunk remains fairly untouched, filled to the brim with clothes too heavy to face the heat. Helaena promises it’ll pass, that soon you will acclimatise and find yourself basking in the kiss of sunlight upon your skin. “Until then,” she’d assured you, a gentle squeeze at your hand across the vanity’s table. “You’re more than welcome to make use of my old dresses. With my body in recovery and two children in need of my care, I no longer make up the same shape I once did.”
At first, the proposal was to host you in Sunspear. A written invitation, extended by none other than Prince Qoren himself, hand delivered to you by one of the King’s squires as you shared a morning under the shade of the godswoods alongside the Dowager Queen. The pair of you had read over it in tandem, a silence overtaking, before you promptly announced your need for rest, scrambling the letter as close as possible to your chest as you raced off to the safety of your quarters. By evening, your husband had been informed, his own mother encouraging him to accept the invitation.
“It will serve the girl well,” she’d insisted, clutching at the arms of her chair within the hall of the small council, meeting long over and naught but the mother and son occupying the tension filled room. “There’s been little joy for her here as of late. The burdens of politics have begun to take toll on her, for certain. It will serve your wife well to take a much needed break.”
“The only burden politics brings her is the difficult decision of which gown to wear to dinner with Lord Up-Himself and his Lady wife of House Prissy-Cunt. Meanwhile, it is I, her husband, who bears the true difficulties of the crown!” Woe is he, the king who never wanted to be, trapped eternally in a life of decadence and obedience, a war raised in his name, and half a bloodline destroyed in his wake. Otto Hightower had warned his daughter, before the dragons had truly begun to dance, of how Aegon’s self-inflicted victimhood would one day be his downfall. With every passing day, the King’s mother sees this destruction growing closer. “My wife is of no use to me building sandcastles down South. She needs to make me an heir, not run off to take care of my sister’s.”
“A visit to Dorne may prove to be more fruitful than you believe, Aegon.”
And, so, it was settled. Three moons after the birth of Prince Qoren and Helaena’s second child — a moon-eyed boy, with his father’s raven locks and his mother’s smile, awarded the name of Jaehaerys — you would depart the city gates, with a small travelling band of knights upon saddles and a carriage large enough to sleep two, yourself and your dearest lady-in-waiting.
Only days before your arrival, however, tragedy struck. An assassin of the Free Cities, infiltrated within the walls of the Martell’s seat of power, made an attempt on Princess Helaena’s life. A half-failure, the assassin claimed a life but mistook a sleeping maid for the dragon girl. The premises were vacated, with Prince Qoren demanding his family find shelter someplace safe, someplace private.
Three leagues to the west, buried away from curious eyes and beached by the waves of the Summer Sea, the Water Gardens sit. With a decadent, lavish palace leading out into a garden of rare beauty where palm trees stand taller than dragons, and water lilies float upon crystal-clear ponds, and rose buds burst into perfect bloom. Raised in honour of his darling wife, it is a vision of Prince Qoren’s that stands not yet completed, the beginning structures of what will one day be a private sanctuary to the dornish royals, a home to grow their own in, far away from the intruding eyes of court and capital.
As a child, you begged your mother to visit the beach.
The request came no more than a day after Cregan had returned from a voyage to the Iron Islands, the first of many politically motivated visits he’d make with your father before his passing. You had been young at the time, no larger than a child of seven years, and so full of wide-eyed belief and childlike wonder that it wasn’t difficult for your older brother to enchant you with stories of sand made of specs of gold, and crystal blue waters warm enough to melt away centuries of snow, and a horizon that knows no limit, stretching onward into an eternity of undiscovered lands, where not even the fiercest of dragons dared venture towards. You’d decided, then and there, that you would be the one to go discover such lands, man your own ship and set off along the perfect waters.
This dream would die, of course, many moons later, as you boarded your first ship and a great fear of it took grip of you.
Your mother hadn’t the heart to tell you the truth of the matter. Of how the beach Cregan had visited had been naught but a warsight, sand made of the dust of bones ground down by time, and water so violent it sweeps away anyone fool enough to dip their feet in, and the sea-creatures dwelling at the bottom of it, with more tentacles than eyes, and more teeth to ever dare count. She instead nodded, brushed the hair out of your eyes and promised you, one day, she would take you to the beach.
It isn’t quite what you expect it to be.
Toes buried in the sand, eyes watching as the tide rolls in only to roll back out. Unforgiving heat burning away at your corneas, the subtle blush of salt in the air. The constant rise and fall of waves collapsing into one another, the overwhelming loneliness that settles in as you realise it is only you here, no sight of your mother, her bones now long gone and buried beneath the walls of Winterfell alongside your father.
The dream of a child is wasted on the pitiful adult.
“Typically, people choose to bathe in the sea, not stare at it from the shore,” a voice calls on you from behind.
Across the beach, the prince strides, kicking up a storm of sand in his wake. A whole four days have come and gone since his arrival upon dragon’s back and, still, he has made no accommodations to his attire, the ever-present shades of Targaryen black and Hightower green sitting snug along his limbs. Without a doubt, the clothing of his house is out of place in this garden of blooming colour, yet the thought of him wearing anything but his leathers would be wrong. It wouldn’t be Aemond.
“I find I much prefer the view from here,” you remark, letting your eyes wander as far down as the length of his torso before you’re forcing them to look onward, back to the constant flow of the water. Something magnetic seems to tug at your soul, willing your feet to shuffle two steps closer to his incoming figure, drawn to close the space between. You dig your heels in the sand and will no further movement from yourself. “This is the first time I’ve stood upon a beach like this. It is… not what I’d expected. I feel no siren’s call towards the sea, no desire to soak myself within its merciless waters, no matter how tranquil and forgiving it may seem.”
The sun hovers low on the horizon, a hair’s breadth away from sinking beneath the line that separates sky from sea and taking with it what remains of the day, plundering the world into the darkness of night. There is a part of you that knows you should find your way back out of the alcove, through the rocky tunnel that feeds straight from the Martell’s summer home out onto the sandy beach, the call for supper soon encroaching on you and demanding your presence.
But if to know is to care, then perhaps you are not so aware of what mannerly duties are expected of you, for you harbour no desire to attempt any movement that even dares remove you from the one-eyed prince’s presence. For too long, you’ve waited to be in it.
“Surely you cannot truly claim to prefer standing here, if you do not yet know what it means to let the sea wash over you,” it’s hard to resist temptation, your eyes cast upon him once more. The same well-kept hair, the same brown patch covering his tarnished eye, the same ever-present pout upon his perfectly bowed lips — his time at Dragonstone has changed little of him. You wonder if he notices the changes in you. The lonely spark in your eyes, the threat of an incoming frown line, the sorrow that has rained down over your once positive mind, dampening you into nothing but a mirror of duty, set to obey the status quo laid out by the queens who came before you. “Declaring favour without so much as attempting another option, is that not so similar to settling?”
“You fail to consider that perhaps I am afraid to take the plunge,” an answer you fire with far too much haste, a chord struck within you, a conspiratorial mind that digs for deeper meaning than what the prince offers at base level. “Treading into sea from land is no safer than flinging one’s self off the sails of any ship. I am the queen, after all. I cannot be so reckless as to risk getting caught within waves and ripped beneath the surface by unforeseen currents. I have no desires to meet the Drowned God. Not all of us may rely on the luxury of deserting upon a dragon's back at the first spark of danger.”
Silence settles in between you like fog.
There is a call to anger that brews deep within you, one that has endured far too many moons of being trampled down under the weight of your own exhaustion, freed alas by the crashing of waves and the heat of the sun.
In the days following the prince’s departure from court, you’d grieved. First had come the sadness, nights spent weeping into the smell of your own sheets, arms curled around your own self as you bathed away whatever lingering touch of his remained on you. Tears gave way to desperation. You picked up a quill, put ink to paper, wrote out the words he’d not given you the time to say, only to falter when the time came to send it off to Dragonstone and, instead, choose to burn it in the flames of your chambers’ hearth.
For a moment, watching how the fire ate up your fragile pleadings for answers from the prince, you’d felt that first flicker of anger. A warm, inviting temptress, blooming in the guts of your body, whispering riddles in your ear of how the prince had no right to play you for a fool, to plunder you both down into the pits of seduction, only to disappear in the night, leaving you stranded with no way back.
As quickly as the feeling arose, you shut it out, choosing instead the easier, more acceptable approach: you denied his very existence. When his name was mentioned at the dinner table, you ducked your head down, kept your focus on stabbing at the next piece of food with your fork. When dragons flew above the skies, weaving through the towers of the Keep, you refused to glance up. With time, it all grew easier, new duties thrust upon you as you and Aegon embarked on your first royal progress throughout the Westerlands, and less hours spent trapped within the walls of the very home in which he’d fled from you. It became as though the Prince had never even existed, much less the complications that came along with him.
Yet now, standing face to face once more, that temptress has returned, an iron fist of anger clasped around your heart.
The prince dares to call your name, gently, as though he’s yet to feel the burn of your glare piercing through his skull.
“Eight moons since you left court and not once have you returned,” your tone has more bite than even you are used to. Words that possess fangs, sinking deep into the prince and drawing blood with one foul swoop. He, of course, doesn’t show this, face as stoic as it's ever been. That singular eye, however, can’t hide the truth, widening slightly and wavering in its powerful stare as your ire rips a wound right through him. “When your dragon flew overhead, I thought this was it, at last you were here to see me. That perhaps you had caught wind of my travels and were no longer capable of denying yourself the need to come to me. Yet four times the sun has risen and you have made no effort to seek me out, you barely glance my way as we break bread at the same table, and you cut through corners to avoid crossing paths with me throughout the palace walls. Now you call upon me, after all this time, with the intention of… What? Sharing false small talk? What a fool you must take me for.”
“My departure was nothing personal, you should not take such offence,” whether he intended it or not, his answer almost seems to goad you, tossing more oil into an already raging fire. The condescension, the thoughtlessness, the implications of his words, dismissing the rightful irritation his actions have brought upon you and denouncing them as naught more than the silly fancies of a self-obsessed mind. It reminds you of Aegon, demeaning you without sparing it so much as a second thought. “I had no other choice but to leave.”
It hits you like a bucket of ice water, tossed upon the raging anger, not enough to scare it away yet enough to tamper it down, have it willing to at least listen to what possible reasons the prince may have had, and condemn him from there onwards. So, you enquire, “why?”
“What grows— Grew between us was dangerous. Deadly. It was not safe within the Keep, knowing our paths would keep crossing and feelings would complica-”
“Then you shut them out!” A step you take forward, the stomp of your foot kicking sand upon your ankles. You wish to invade his space, get him uncomfortable with the tangible closeness of your bodies, united upon common ground and beneath turbulent skies, yet with little remains of the interest you once possessed for the one-eyed prince, diluted by his abandonment in court. “Whatever those feelings are, you push them down until they no longer make noise within you, and you try to feel something else, for someone else, and you move along.” Much to your chagrin, the prince is turning his back on you, literally this time, twisting on both feet and seemingly attempting to flee the field of fire. You can not grace him with such sanctuary, hand darting out and catching a steady grasp on his forearm. “You do not simply take off at dawn’s first light!”
“Do you not think I have tried?” Aemond turns too quickly for you to process, stumbling backwards only to remain caught by his own hands, blunt nails pinching into the skin of your wrists as he presses them tight against his chest, his face so close to your own, you could commence counting his every eyelash. The sound of his voice, a musical combination of exasperation and desperation, holds priority over your attention. “For moons I would keep my distance, keep myself at bay. Only to lay it all to waste, time and time again, at the first sign of you needing me. No one has ever-” The prince pulls in a deep breath, a subtle shake of his head as he lets it free. His eye slips shut, only to reopen and stare upon you once more with a false promise of calm. “I have tried to lay this to rest, do not rob me of this fact. But, you see, it is hard to make a scar out of a wound you keep reopening.”
“You speak as though it were not you who made the first cut!” Try as he might, his peaceful tone of voice can not sway you to relax, your frustration doubling as the words burst out of you, hand fighting its way out of his hold and jabbing a finger at his solid chest. “Or was it not you who welcomed himself into my bed? Was it not you who offered to be my tutor? Was it not you who held me close, only to keep your distance and act as though nothing happened for weeks to come afterwards? But at least then you were still present in court. I mean, you could not even grace me with goodbye. Would it truly be so bad, Aemond, to feel something? So bad that you had to cross sea and mountain just to escape it?”
“When that something is for my brother’s wife, yes.”
“Oh, as though he cares!”
“He does! He would! What is it that you do not understand, Lady Stark?” It is fortunate no others are present to witness the way you and the prince stand so close, nose to nose, chests heaving every breath as though they may be your last, voices raising louder with each exclaim you throw each other's way. “Aegon would have my head on a spike if he knew the thoughts of you it conjures.”
“That is not true. I would not allow him,” both of you know it is a meaningless mutter. You have no control over Aegon, you never have. That doesn’t stop you from denying truths, an attempt at filling both your minds with fallacies of a future. “We could find a way. We have to at least try rid ourselves of the troubles he causes-”
“What would you have me do, woman? Kill my own brother?”
“You are hardly the one to play outrage at the thought of killing your own kin,” you don’t mean to say it. You know this because, the moment you do, your stomach drops and there’s the fear that you may in fact spill your guts up any second now. A mind both stubborn and still ruled by an anger conceived in sadness, you give yourself no choice but to push onward with your cruelty, no chance to apologise or take it all back, and do the one thing you’ve wanted to do since the prince first strolled into the halls of the Martell home: throw yourself at his feet and beg he never leave again. “What is it the smallfolk call you? Ah, yes, Prince Aemond the Kinslayer.”
For a moment, time ceases to be and the world no longer moves.
The waves do not crash, the birds do not sing, the air does not reach your lungs. A background that fades to grey, until all that is in focus is Aemond and the disbelief you strike within him. It’s a gentle progression, like ink staining paper, the way his teeth grind under a clenched jaw, and the way his nose flares almost defensively as though he’s trying to make himself appear as big as possible, and the way his eye moves through shock to anger to nothing. Two steps back, a pause, followed by another step back the moment your feet dare move an inch closer. A deep breath followed by a huff of anger, before at last he speaks again and the world falls back into view, full focus, full motion.
“My sister sent me to fetch you,” over the horizon, the sun is nearly gone and, with it, it’s warmth. You feel a chill run down your spine, a first since you arrived in Dorne. “She awaits you in the nursery.”
The prince has already turned and began to stride back from whence he came before you can even put thought to word, feet frozen in the sand as the rift between you opens wider.
Aemond disappears.
An act he is growing familiar with, a complete removal in the middle of the night, flying off on his war beast. And while you do your best to avoid glancing at the empty seats around the breakfast table, and feign disinterest at the mention of his name as it is spoken, you come to learn it is not Dragonstone he has fled towards, and it is not a journey he made alone.
In the fallout of the attempt on Helaena’s life, Sunspear had remained desolate. Men and women armed with metal and spears the only souls to move within the home, with rat catchers and maids welcomed on every third day of the week to maintain the home's upkeep. Even those who inhabit the city had retreated to the mountains, homes abandoned in fears and whispers of another Dornish war on the horizon, a new enemy yet to be unmasked.
It is Qoren Martell that decides enough is enough. Mounted upon his trusted steed, backed by a flock of his most trusted advisors and fiercest swordsmen, and with the protection of a dragonlord patrolling from the skies, he returned at last to the seat of his house. A letter reached Helaena’s hands, a reassurance of her husband and her brother’s safe arrival, followed by a promise to ensure the safety of both her and her children, a husband's devotion to bringing punishment to whomever orchestrated such a cowardly attack.
You receive your own letter, too. Penned by Aegon, the parchment informs you of his own travels, accompanied by his mother, to the riverlands. A show of good faith, he calls it, an attempt to mend what fragile loyalty remains after Aemond’s fire-filled rampage. You can’t imagine it is so easily fixed, with their lands scorched beyond use and half the riverlords struck down dead amidst their support towards Rhaenyra’s claim. Before you can dwell too long on the ghosts of recent history, Aegon closes off his writings with a request. Perhaps, it is a demand.
I believe we are overdue a talk, wife. Upon your return from Dorne, I do hope that you will find time to at last discuss the shadow that looms over our union. In the meantime, enjoy what remains of your stay with my sister, I am sure your company during this frightening time is much appreciated. I hear my brother has at last flown from his nest on Dragonstone. Perhaps he has more interest than I give him credit for in keeping this family safe.
You have yet to respond.
Trust this: it is not from a lack of trying. You have sat before parchment, quill clasped in hand, more times you can recall, and attempted to construct an appropriate reply. The first carried a stench of guilt, an involuntary admittance to something the king has yet to even accuse you of. The second, third, and fourth edition had been a stream of consciousness, in which nothing made sense and the letters all crashed into one another, written with shaky hands. The truth of the matter is that you’re not entirely sure what is expected of you, what kind of reply is desired.
On one hand, you could assume his words are a warning. A scarlet letter, branding itself upon your skin. He may know of Aemond’s presence and, with it, the possible scenarios that may play out between you two, meaning he knows of what has already transpired between his wife and brother. On the other hand, Aegon’s request could be about something as simple as the need to both agree on a redesign of tapestries within the throne room. Meaning it could be nothing of importance, nor danger, nor threat.
It does not make your hand sit any steadier as you make yet another attempt at conjuring your response.
“The Triarchy?” Helaena’s voice will never fail to soothe an unnamed ailment within you, so soft and welcoming you hardly believe she was raised in the same home as someone as brash as your husband.
“Hmm,” or as him. He returned this morning, at an hour one would hardly call appropriate, the screech of a dragon flying overhead your wake-up call, half falling out of your bed in shock. “It seems they’ve come to claim more than they were offered. Apparently the events at the Gullet were more bloody than they were promised, and now the Stepstones are not a good enough reward to compensate for the nameless men they lost. One must wonder how they did not expect the presence of dragons in a feud between dragonlords.”
The Targaryen siblings sit at the opposite end of the communal balcony from you, a crystal table adorned with golds and bronzes between them and two cups of wine — Helena’s remains untouched, Aemond has reached for his thrice. The view ahead is one of tranquil beauty, where children are playing in the fountains, leaves are rustling in the wind, and a sleeping she-dragon is sighted over the stretch of the Gardens’ walls. You almost wish to tell them to take their chatter of warfare and betrayals elsewhere.
You opt, instead, to continue staring down at the page in front of you, no more than three words cursed out in ink.
My King husband.
“My husband has not returned,” Helaena remarks on what you’d silently noted. Not only his absence, but the entirety of the fleet of Dornishmen who departed by his side, too.
“He remains at the seat of his house, sister. The people of Dorne need to know their so-called prince has not abandoned the city to savages,” in the corner of your eye, you see him, sat with his back perfectly straight and his hair impeccably done, one arm outstretched upon the table in front of him, the other plucking a grape off a vine and delivering it past his pouting lips. The image of him, relaxed and confident, angers you more than it would typically, your wound still unlicked from the incident down at the beach. “In the meantime, I am to fly to the Stepstones and remind them of the dangers of making enemies with a dragon. Should these pirates dare not retreat, then myself and the Lord Martell will begin talking war strategies, deliver an attack so brutal, they’ve neither the will nor the ability to strike back.” Let the history books know that you do not mean to laugh. It simply escapes you, too quickly heard by the siblings before you can even dare hide it. “Am I amusing you, Lady Stark?”
Four eyes, focused solely on you. Six, truly, if you factor in the cupbearer who’s feigning minding her own business, the watering-can she hovers over a bush of nearby roses long ago emptied and free of any liquid. Helaena’s stare is one of curiosity, a million unspoken questions flashing behind them as she bares witness to the tense atmosphere between you and the prince. Aemond’s own gaze is a challenge, a novel of unfinished business, the sour tone with which your last interaction ended still very much present, even if he tries to hide it behind a snide smile.
“Apologies, good-brother, I do not mean offence,” it is tempting to cast your eyes down onto the still blank page before you, will yourself to continue on with your task at hand — giving response to the Targaryen man who you truly owe it to by marriage — but that would mean breaking the intense stare that exists between you and Aemond. That would mean defeat. “Please, continue as you were. Do not let me distract you.”
It seems he too has no desire to forfeit in this war of eyes. There’s a brief squeak that plays as he slides his chair back, the arm that rests upon the table now bent at the elbow and serving as support to his weight as his frame leans closer in your direction. The smile on his lips only grows, rousing a deeper shade of unease in you. “If you’ve something to add, I insist. You are the queen after all, are you not? Who better to comment on the wars that ravage our lands than you, a lady who has never tasted blood.”
It strikes you, hot as fire, strong as iron.
You know in which way he means it, that you’ve never drawn blood from another, never pressed blade into flesh, never drained the life out of a man’s eyes. True intentions don’t stop you from being thrust back into that room, on that night. The sound of rain crashing down on the city, the stench of the two men in your chambers, the taste of your own blood on your tongue. Fighting, screaming, crying. Pleading for your life, running through the halls of the Keep for someplace safe to hide, someplace the rats couldn’t find you.
“Very well, if you insist,” you manage, as you always do, to shove the memory behind, lock it back in the cage of Unwanted Trinkets. May it play out only in your sleeping mind, where no one can witness the weakness it casts over you. Besides, there are more pressing matters at hand currently, such as matching wits with the Crown Prince. “If you cut the head off the serpent, ten more will grow in its place.”
“Sister, your patterns of speech seem to have influenced Aegon’s lady wife,” Helaena meets his words with a gentle smile, one that doesn’t quite match the glazed over look in her eyes. “Speak plainly.”
“Apologies, I believed your skills were at a level to understand such a simple riddle.” A frown bends, momentarily, at the skin of the prince’s forehead, as the cupbearer chokes back a snort of laughter. You would be lying if you said it doesn’t bring a sick kind of satisfaction, even if it’s immediately followed by a guilty kind of remorse, echoes of your true self, one who would never wish to place the handsome prince within such a public humiliation. “You are rushing into another war, after what will perhaps go down as the bloodiest one our lifetime will ever know. Have you considered that threatening them with the very cause of their ire is only bound to guarantee more backlash? Yes, there is a certain chance that you and Vhaghar will strike fear as you fly above. Maybe you will even burn a few pirates to make a point. But for every one you kill, countless more will take their place. Your viciousness will unite their armies.”
“Then how exactly do you suggest I answer those who would have my family killed? To those who would see our lands ravaged, and our women raped, and our men slain? Should we perhaps host a feast in their honour, open the gates to King’s Landing, lay down our swords and-”
“Give them what they want.”
“My sister’s head?”
“Repentance, apology. Tell them of your failings to protect them at the Gullet, mourn their losses. Mention how fortunate they were that at least the Lys fleet had not been sent into a bloody rampage,” you speak as though you have no reason to waiver in your idea. It is a testament to the years you’ve endured within the Keep, catching the tail-ends of conversations amidst the Council, and attempting to soothe Aegon’s insecurity driven rants of his lacking position among all those who would advise him. It had been your own duty, as his wife, to hold your tongue and speak no part of your mind, serving as nothing but a vessel of agreement to his own warped ideals on how his kingdom should be run. But Aegon is not here and the prince truly had insisted you speak. “Once you’ve made yourself the remorseful council, you must hire an assassin. There are plenty of them within the Free Cities. Whispers sing of tensions brewing amongst Tyrosh and Myr, the wives of their fallen men claim Sharako Lohar led them to their deaths. A Tyroshi killing a Myrish holds more threat to their cause than the great Prince Aemond Targaryen mounted upon his dragon. It will divide them, long enough for you to rinse your hands and let the infighting begin. They’ll be too busy killing one another to unite forces against you.”
Echoes of the children’s laughter fills the air. Glancing through the marble railing, you spy a few raven haired babes — cousins to Helaena’s own — scuttle around in the waters, splashing any who dares step in their line of sight. It carries a certain innocence, one you fear the day they lose.
The creak of leather, a crack of palm striking palm. Aemond sits further back in his chair, smirking as he lets his clapping come to a slow stop. “My my, with such advice, I do wonder why my brother has you here, instead of seated at his council.”
His words do not strike you as earnest, a syrupy kind of distaste laced throughout them. You meet him with a reinforced amicability, doe eyes and sweet mouth. “The King believes it is of more priority that I be here.”
“How curious,” what you wouldn’t give to wipe that smug look off of his face. “Surely not because of Helaena’s attack. That happened days after you already set off.”
“You speak the truth, good-brother. The ravens upon Dragonstone must truly be put to work for you to be so clued in on my royal plans.” Let it be his turn, you think, to wear the consequence of his own embarrassment upon his face, a rosy tint creeping over the tips of his ears and a hitch in his otherwise calm breathing. “If you must know, the King sent me here to visit my niece and nephew. He believes time with your sister’s children will serve me well. An old folk tale has the maester convinced there is correlation between the presence of children and a woman’s fertility,” you seem to strike a chord within him, for the composure cracks a second time, long enough to let a chortle break through. “Am I amusing you, Prince Aemond?”
It feels good to throw back his own words in his face. So good, in fact, you feel a throb between your legs, a warmth buried only beneath a thin layer of pale cotton. Helaena at last takes a hold of her wine, swallowing down two heavy cups. There is trouble upon her face, one that almost makes you regret the conflict that plays out between her brother and you. As though she senses your eyes on her, she meets your gaze and shakes her head slowly, mouthing a series of words you can’t decipher.
“Apologies, Lady Stark,” Aemond, none the wiser, steals you back over to his side of the table, a fresh layer of amusement painted over his features. “I just find it curious that my brother sends you here, yet there is no sight of him. Forgive me if I am wrong, but don't both the man and woman have to be fertile if they wish to conceive a child?”
For a moment, there is only panic.
Panic that he knows of the private dwellings between yourself and the maester. Panic that he’s read through the lines, with that sharp mind of his, and joined the dots on why your marriage to Aegon is yet to prove fruitful. Panic that he knows of the conspiracies you yourself have yet to even pose against the King, the questions of his fertility disputed only between you, the maester, and your reflection.
You can not let him steal your leverage, not when it is one you’ve clutched so dearly against your chest, all in anticipation for the right moment to present it to Aegon.
The fear must not be too loud, too noticeable, and so you right yourself, reassure yourself that his words are no more the product of a sharp tongue aiming to cut, not of a mind meaning to threaten.
Gathering your paper and your ink, you rise from your seat at your own table and give the Targaryen pair a curt nod, dismissing yourself before you may linger too long on the true intentions of Aemond’s questioning of the King’s fertility.
“The Crown commands my King husband to deal with more pressing matters. It is a burden you should feel lucky you will never bare, Prince Aemond.”
Days pass with little of note.
The monotonous routine you’ve carved within the Water Gardens brings far more joy than the one you live, day in and day out, within the Keep. You do not tire of it so easily, and instead find beauty in the tranquillity, and comfort in the quiet rustling of the household. Qoren and his men remain absent, and the skeleton crew of guards that stay behind keep mostly to themselves, polite yet brief greetings exchanged when paths cross within the walls. Vhagar and her rider also hang nearby, a threat large enough you almost think the need for guards unnecessary. The Martell women keep close quarters, mothers and grandmothers who watch over their blooming children, indulging in their cups and sharing tales from their marital lives the women of the court would no doubt turn their noses up at. They have no shame, and it is frequent they encourage you and Helaena to do the same.
“We are the true keepers of power in our houses. We are the ones who give life through our cunts.”
You have yet to convince yourself this isn’t all part of a dream. A paradise, hidden amidst deserts of sand, where women claim the power of the land, and there is no reason to live if not to graze on freshly picked fruit and sleep the day away under the shades of palm trees. For some reason or another, you find yourself thinking of your good-mother, Alicent, and how deeply she deserves a life like this, free to rest alongside her darling daughter, away from the stresses of the courts, her temperamental sons, and her oligarch father.
The babe in your arms lets out a gentle coo.
At last he’s fallen asleep, no more tears running down his cheeks nor snot bubbling out of his nose. Wiped clean, tear free, he nestles easily into the arms of his aunt, comfort so aplenty his eyes threaten to fall into sleep with every blink he takes, those striking lilac eyes stubborn in their endeavour to look upon you a little longer.
You’d found him crying in his cot as you entered the nursery and had been quick to aid his poor wet-nurse, teats exposed and struggling to get the protesting child to drink. She, too, herself wore fallen tears, a great relief coming over her face as you gently took the babe out of her arms and insisted she go rest. Not a moment too soon, she departed out the room, leaving you alone with your nephew.
Of both of Helaena’s children, you’ve yet to spend much time with him. Moons old, he clings closely to his mother and his wet-nurse. His father too, when he sits present. He is a sweet boy, quick to smile at the simplest of things. The dark of his hair clashes against the blonde of his sister’s, and yet they both make up the perfect mix of their parents. The pair of them are everything your good-sister deserves.
Sinking into a rocking chair, you let the babe snuggle himself against your chest, the picture of innocence held safely in your hands. You peel one away from cradling him, too tempted to ignore your desire to run your pointer finger over the gentle slope of his button nose. The boy’s eyes slip shut a few moments, and you nearly believe you’ve succeeded, until they spring back open and he stretches a stubby arm out to capture your finger in his mighty claps, his entire fist covering no more than one of your knuckles. All the while, he’s smiling up at you, speaking in a language of coos you’ll never understand.
It doesn’t stop you from giggling, enamoured by his very existence as you let your feet begin to rock the seat ever so softly.
“You are a natural,” the prince’s voice is an intrusion that nearly leaves you jumping out of your bones. Dressed in his riding leathers, armed with his swords, he is every piece of the Aemond you have always known. And, yet, somehow he feels distant, different, changed. For a moment, you nearly convince yourself there is a longing in his eye, only to quickly remind yourself of the fraction that stands between you, a rift that remains divided, much as it may pain you. “I imagine you must be desperate for motherhood.”
“I must,” you agree, because that is what is expected of you. Then you recall you are far from the Keep, and it’s master of whispers, and circle of spies, free to speak upon a doubt you’ve never shared. It isn’t hard to convince yourself it holds no meaning that it is him you choose to share it with, he is merely the fool unlucky enough to have presented you with the opportunity to talk. “Must I? In truth, it scares me.”
A weight lifts off your shoulders, the deep breath that follows easier to achieve than ever before. A lady should only ever dream of motherhood, not cower from it. Yet, you find no judgement in the prince, only silence, the kind that implores you to continue speaking your mind.
“This fear, it is not for myself, but for any child I may have. Aegon, he is… a difficult man but I often wonder how much that crown upon his head is to blame. I ask myself, would he have turned out different, were he not groomed to sit upon that cursed throne? I do not want to bring a child into a world where it is no more than a chess-piece. To live a life where its only purpose is to fulfil the role of heir and wait around for its father to either die or grow so weak he must renounce his crown,” like river to sea, the fear flows out of you, spilling itself down your entire being, a cold chill striking at your heart. The boy in your arms tightens his hold upon your finger and attempts to pull it towards his gaping mouth. You try to picture the conqueror’s crown — your husband’s crow — upon its head, and grow fearsome at the image of it encased around the babe’s neck, his tiny face turned black and blue under the choke it holds him in. A blink of the eye and the babe is all rosy cheeks and golden skin once more, smiling with success as he suckles at the tip of your finger. “And that is only the curse of the eldest. I do not even wish to begin thinking of what would come to be of any other child I birthed, the spare to the Iron Throne, the hatred they’d cast my way for not having birthed them first. I do not want it, any of it. I do not want my children to experience the same childhood as Aegon and you-”
You feel more than you hear the way Aemond flinches at your choice of words. Where days ago you thrived in poking metaphorical needles at his frayed edges, now you wish you could swallow the words back in and erase them from existence. Dead and buried lays the anger that had so consumed you, the ghost it leaves behind wearing the name of acceptance.
The prince had claimed no other choice but to leave the Keep and, your own agreement to the side, you believed him.
“It was not so bad,” his voice comes out in that breathy tone you’ve come to know over the years, a feat he cannot help when emotion wells too high within him and clogs up the space in his throat. He moves in search of where you sit, a repeated clink ringing as the hilt of his sword meets the buckle on his green, leather jerkin with every step he takes. “There were good moments. A few with our father, most with our mother.” When Aemond at last stands before you, that singular eye glances down at how you never falter in your rocking of the child. The babe takes interest in him, too, sacrificing the grip on your finger to stretch out in search of some piece of the prince. “Your children will not know a childhood of my kind. They will be loved, nurtured, protected.”
“You speak as though it is a law, not simply a hope,” you say, a furrow brandishing itself across your brows as your eyes flick up to meet his face, momentarily, before quickly glancing back down to where the prince lays his hand out for his nephew to take, a delighted laugh shaking out of Helaena’s boy. “How can you be so certain?”
With his free hand, the prince bridges the gap between you, the warmth of his palm finding rest upon the side of your face, robbing you of any sight but his well-angled, sharply-defined features. “Because they will have you as a mother, Lady Stark,” it is barely a whisper, yet the heartbreak laced within it leaves behind a hole in your chest, vacant and bleeding. The pad of his thumb smooths over your cheek slowly, as though it moves at a will not controlled by the prince, pure instinct commanding it to comfort, to soothe. It would be easy, you think, to slip your eyes shut and sink into a fantasy where this is your life. A babe in your arms, Aemond at your side, that fluttery feeling in your chest swelling so large, it threatens to explode out of you. But the prince clears his throat and you are back in the real world, your nephew in your arms, your good-brother standing too close. “You must allow me to apolo-”
“Brother!” At the intrusion of Helaena’s voice, both of you jump back, his hand ripped from your cheek and the babe’s grip gone from his fingers. Your good-sister seems none the wiser to the scene played out before her, an earnest joy upon her face and her daughter’s legs dangling from where she sits propped on her mother’s hips. “I did not think I’d find you here.”
It feels like an accusation, an imaginaged query that bites and snarls at your mind, threatening to strike you if you do not lay all your sins at her feet. Reminiscent of Aegon’s ominous letter, paranoia makes home once more within your bones.
The prince, on the other hand, appears as composed as ever. A memory plays on in your mind. His chamber walls, his taste fresh on your tongue, his mother stood across the room. Even then, inches away from being caught, he’d not even broken a sweat.
“I came only to announce my leave,” words you loathe to hear. “Your husband and I have some matters to converse, arranging a meeting with the Triarchy being one of many.”
Helaena seems relit by a flame of excitement as she shuffles over to a nearby table, rifling through the many papers strewn across it, scribbles of figures and etchings of jumbled words stained on them. The parchment she settles on seems to be the only one folded over neatly, not a single wrinkle to be found as she holds it out towards her brother. “Please, see that this reaches my husband!”
He can only nod in agreement, slender fingers plucking the parchment from her own before tucking it safely within an inner-pocket of his jerkin. Though his back is facing you and his attention remains on his dear sister, the words that follow out his mouth feel as though they’re meant for your ears only. “I will return in five days.”
Your eyes seem to linger on the door long after he’s walked out of it, Helaena talking away in your ear while a desire to sleep what remains of the day away takes root within you.
The prince turns out to be a liar.
Five agonising days come and go, each more tortuous than the last. The hours seem to crawl, slower than Helaena’s newborn, and the greatest curse known to woman befalls you, a stain of red between your thighs and an agonising pain stabbing at your abdomen. At the very least, you try to console yourself, it falls here, under sun and sand, and not in the stone cold walls of the Keep. You won’t have to face Aegon’s snide comments as you announce the repeated failing of your couplings, just this once.
A sixth day dawns, and no sign of a prince nor a dragon shadows over you. A fact you pretend not to notice, a promise of disinterest upon your face as Helaena comments on her brother’s absence seven days after his departure.
On the eighth day, a letter arrives, your name branded upon it. It carries word from your brother. One part heartbreak, the other part intent on mending it. The death of your Septa, taken in her sleep as peacefully as many may only dream of, and the birth of a new Stark. His only daughter, seven years her brother’s junior and, yet, already the apple of his eye. Cregan writes of how the instant he held her in his arms, he was brought back to the first time he’d held you as a babe, all squirming limbs and sniffling tears, and thought there was no better name for such a child than your own, in honour of her Queen aunt.
The news makes your heart ache, a longing for a home that no longer exists — at least not in the way you remember it — that crashes over you and spills out of you, tears staining your cheeks as you lay restless in your bed, the ceiling above blurred by your own sorrow. You should be there, in Winterfell, warmed by furs and surrounded by family. True family, not the disfigured image of it the Targaryen house tries to uphold.
Were your father alive, you would be where the wolves belong. In the north, wife to a Karstark, or a Mormont, or any other house that bears its sigil and bends the knee to the Warden of the North. You no doubt would be happy, whether there be love in your marriage or not, with a handful of children to occupy your time and your childhood home no more than a few days ride away at all times. Perhaps you would live an entire life never casting sight upon the King, or the Crown Prince. They’d be only names in a history book, royalty out of reach. Would life have been easier this way?
A door slams.
A fact you’d dare not take note of, were it not for the late hour, the outside world already enveloped by darkness hours before. You rise slowly from the mattress, the sheets pool around the naked skin of your waist. Sitting patiently, you await another disturbance to the quiet, pray for something familiar, like the gentle pitter patter of mischievous children running down halls, or Helaena’s voice calling out your name, awaiting entrance to your chambers. It wouldn’t be the first of her midnight visits, a comfort you’ve both come to seek in each other when the night is dark, and the palace is silent, and no greater time exists to exchange laughter like the young girls you’d both wished to have been, free of duty, free of pressure, free to live.
But there’s no calling of your name this evening, and so you settle with the silence that remains. With no sleep on the horizon, and no sign of Helaena’s company, you decide you must at least try to induce your own rest. Covering your naked skin with a dress that lays discarded at your bedside, you inch your way over to the unlit hearth and work at starting up a fire. When a spark lights and the crimson flames begin to dance among themselves, you secure a pot of water over it. Your mother always swore there was nothing that could not be fixed with the sacred remedy of her herbal tea, not even insomnia. And though you’ve not quite her mother’s touch, you’d sat by her side plenty a times as a child to give the recipe a try.
Another bang rings out.
Your heart seems to still, as do your hands. With only a blink of the eye, your head fills with visions of a massacre. An intruder, who’s sat idly by and waited until now, when only women, children and a handful of guards inhabit the home, to enact their butchering. Perhaps it is an opportunistic attack, a nameless nobody, with no real idea who sits inside the lavish walls of the Gardens, stumbling across the residency and deciding to try their luck at breaching the unguarded walls. The more horrors you envision, the louder the voice in your head grows as it commands you to move, take action. At odds with your own self, your body seems to move on account of some other force, rushing over to the chamber’s vanity. Searching for something to do harm with, you find it in the shape of a letter opener. Thin, delicate yet razor sharp, a silver knife you clutch within your palm.
The chamber door creaks as you open it, much to your dismay. You pause, awaiting a terrible discovery from someone, faceless among the shadows of darkness. There is only silence, again, until another noise plays out.
The sound is human, you have no doubt, a sharp inhale or a pained hiss between clenched teeth. Your fingers curl tighter around your weapon of choice. The sound repeats and plays out longer than the last. Your eyes flicker to a door. A little down the hall from your own, it sits ajar, a light within it bleeds out into the darkness. Another hiss sings out into the night through the crack between the door and its frame.
You steal your breath, tread only on the tips of your feet. Inch closer, and closer, and closer to the door. With your free hand grasping at the handle, the other gripping even tighter at the envelope opener, you pull the door open and raise your weapon, preparing to at last strike the danger, the threat, the intruder, the… “Aemond?”
The prince stands across the room, his back facing you. A looking glass before him, the image he reflects within it is fickle, forever morphing under the flickering light of several low burning candles. If not for the signature starlight silver tresses, he’d be scarcely recognisable.
“My apologies,” at the sound of his familiar voice, you feel your shoulders slouch and your nails retract out of the skin of your palm as the grip on your weapon loosens, your hand lowering back down to your side. There is no intruder, no attacker, no danger. There is only Aemond, a man who only steals away any fear of harm you may possess. Perhaps that is why it is easy to let yourself give into the temptation to inch closer into the chamber, even if he gives you no leave to do so. The two steps you take announce themselves with an echo. “I did not mean to wake you.”
“It has been nine days,” it is a pathetic proclamation made in desperation, yet it is spoken all the same, a tremble in your voice that matches the one in your chest.
The prince makes no move to face you, his focus stuck on the mirror in front of him. You squint your eyes, and try to make sense of the image he paints in his reflection, but it is a useless action. What you do manage to see is the lack of a leather strap fastened around the back of his head. The eyepatch sits disregarded by his feet, as though ripped off with haste.
“I had duties to attend in King’s Landing,” his hands ball into fists as your stomach twists with knots. The movement calls upon your attention and only then do you notice it, the stain of blood upon his fingers. “My mother requested my presence.”
It is unnerving to picture him in the Keep, the threat of Aegon’s letter still weighing heavy on your mind. Had the two ran into each other, crossed paths within a hall? Is that why blood now drips from between his knuckles onto the cold floor below? Impossible, you try to reason with your own mind, for surely Aegon would not let him walk away with his life if he knew of your betrayal. But perhaps it is the King who met a certain fate and the blood on the prince’s skin belongs to him. Aemond has always been more skilled in battle, after all. The remnants of dinner turn in your stomach as bile swells up the canal of your throat, an acidic burn that makes a nest for itself at the back of your mouth.
“Are you hurt?” Another hiss slips past his teeth as you question his state, as if the gods mean to rob him of any right to deny it.
“The hour is late, Lady Stark,” the fist squeezes tighter by his side, a second drop of blood splashing to the floor. You step closer and search for a better view, the face in the mirror still obscured. “Return to your chambers.”
“Aemond,” you give a silent prayer, inching closer, eyes stuck on the width of his leather-clad back. The stench of dragon still reeks off them. He must have just arrived. You reach a hand out, so close to touching him, yet far enough that you feel no reprieve of feeling the man you’ve long now missed. “My prince, something brings you pain. Let me help you-”
“Do not come any closer.”
“You cannot expect me to rest, knowing you are injured!”
“It is for your own good,” the mirror gives away his frown and how it shadows over the rest of his face, a mass of darkness haloed by burning light. Were the timing more suited, you’d take note of how angelic the image is, one of pure divinity, a man so infused with beauty, the Gods grant you no grace to gaze upon him. A third drop of blood hits the floor, though this one does not fall from his hand. “This is not a sight suitable for a lady.”
“Gods be good! Aemond, be quiet,” you say, louder than you intended. In a fear of waking anybody else, you clear your throat and compose your nerves. “You do not get to decide what sights are suitable for me. I do.”
By some miracle, the prince puts no effort into halting you from twisting him around to face you. At the curl of your fingers around his forearm, he’s already turning into your touch, feet smudging the red blood across the floor as they move to point towards you. Once your eyes dance up the length of him, scanning for the first sign of a bleeding wound, and settle upon his face, you come to realise what reaction he expects of you.
A disgusted grimace, or a terrified scream, or a heartless laugh. Whatever it is the prince sits awaiting, he does not receive it. You do not even flinch as you take in the sight of his left eye, no leather to hide it, no sapphire that fills it. An empty socket, marred by scar tissue, a bleeding gash reopened atop his eyebrow. A river made of pain and the essence of his life, that flows down the length of his face and drips off the razor sharp edge of his jaw.
“I warned you,” the prince speaks with false pride, one you do not fail to see right through, even as his intact eye stares you down in a challenge, daring you to give him the disgust he thinks he deserves.
“Come,” you plead instead, hand slipping down to grip at his wrist. “Let me see you in a better light.”
He gives no fight against you as you begin to lead him away from the looking glass, grip tightening and pulling further away as you watch him attempt to grasp at the sapphire sphere he leaves behind. As the two of you slip through the chamber doorway, out into the dark hall, your sweating palm loses its hold on the leather. The prince’s hand catches yours, denying it retrieval back down to your side, an effortless lacing of fingers that serves only to make your journey all that easier, pulling him along behind you, hand in hand, to your chambers.
“Sit,” a poor attempt at commanding, finger pointing over at the chair that lives in front of your vanity. The prince makes no move towards it, hand gripping firmly at your own as you go to move away, eyeing the steaming pot atop your hearth. “Sit.”
He listens, at last, and you are free to move onwards with your goals, lighting a few more candles within the chambers before dashing over to collect the warmed water. By the vanity, the prince sits, head tipped to the ground, those blonde locks curtaining him out of sight as you make your way over. Delicate with each movement, you rest the boiled pot atop the dresser and grab at the first piece of fabric you can find. Your own smallclothes, freshly washed and folded only hours ago.
The slosh of water within the pot as you submerge the fabric seems to snap him out of his daze, regaining his voice if only to speak words you’ve already grown tired of hearing.“This fuss is not necess-”
“Hush now,” the stubborn voice within you can not allow him to finish his sentence. Busy hands ring the soaked smallclothes. Most droplets of water rain back into the pot, while a few dance their own paths down your forearms. “What happened?”
“I insist, Lady Stark.”
“As do I,” cloth meets skin at last, a gentle swipe over the length of the prince’s jaw. Briefly, you feel the weight of the prince’s stare upon you, only for it to return to the floor the instant you try to catch it with your eyes.
You drag the linen over his skin a second time, inching a little further up. There’s a horrible tug at your heart as you smell that metallic haze blood carries. The pain only grows more intense as you watch how quickly harsh red makes home for itself in soft linen, a stain that promises to remain forever engraved.
In new light, the brightness that envelops your chambers, you’re given a better view of the damage he occults beneath that eyepatch. Some may call it a warrior's mark, a sacrifice given in exchange for the glory of claiming the last of the Conquerors’ dragons, but all you see is a blade that ripped out a child’s eye.
You do not feel disgust, not even an ounce. The gouge is a gruesome sight, that no one can deny, yet you feel oddly drawn to it. It is as though you at last see Prince Aemond, instead of the One-Eyed Prince that so fearsomely struts his way through the realm. Vulnerable, naked, whole, beautiful. Never have you felt so drawn to reach for him, draw him closer.
“It appears worse than it truly is,” at last the prince answers. “It is a flight wound. The air over Dorne is riddled with sand, it must have tore at some of the scarring.”
“Does it happen often?” You inch a little closer, till his knee bumps against your leg, and tell yourself it’s to get a better view, keep your hand more steady as it swipes further up his face, washing away at the blood upon it.
“Not so much, anymore,” you dunk the makeshift rag back into the water, the bile burning harsher at your throat as you watch how the crimson hue washes out into the clear of the bowl. You ring it out, soak it once more, only to ring it out again before you deliver it back to his face, the pathway of blood diminished to naught but the reopened skin of his brow. “Long flights are always unpredictable. Some I fair just fine, others I dismount to find my sapphire causes me pain, the skin beneath dried by the cold sky.”
The prince grimaces as you drag the smallclothes over the tear in his face, yet he dismisses your apology, reassures you that he is fine. You pretend you believe him, even if the frown remains indented upon his forehead as you finish cleaning the wound.
With the promise of being gentle, and a hand pressed against your own heart as you vouch for your skills with the needle and your experience at dressing your brother’s wounds, the prince agrees to let you thread his skin shut. You’re quick to heat a needle under flame, and even quicker to hastily rip a loose thread off one of the untouched gowns in your trunk, returning to the vanity with the speed of a dragon’s wings.
As if hearing your thoughts, a rumbled screech echoes out into the night, just past the gates of the Martell home. You’ve half the mind to think it is Vhagar voicing her rider’s pain on behalf of him, as he sits quiet while you pierce the needle into him at last.
“It is unfair,” you mutter, much before you can stop yourself, as you thread a second loop, watching how the skin reunites with skin once more. “What happened to you, Aemond.”
“It made me the man I am today,” Rehearsed, empty of feeling, you wonder how used to those words the man has grown. Does he truly believe himself? “I am better for it.”
“I’m sorry,” a third loop, and then a fourth. The dark thread stands out against the pale of his flesh, you’re almost certain it will be visible even with the cover of his eyepatch. “For what I said to you on the beach. I was unnecessarily cruel.”
“You owe no apology, most certainly not to me,” a pained hiss flies out of him as you stab a little too harshly, a hand grips around the back of your thigh, as if to stabilise your shaking limbs. It carries the opposite effect, the tremble creeping up to reach your fingertips, the needle threatening to fall under your own nerves. Still, the prince does not verbalise his pain, never tells you to stop. The hand upon your clothed thigh squeezes a single pulse, a quiet command to continue stitching his brow. “You spoke only the truth, I have slayed my own kin,” his voice infects the room with an emotionless air, a murder stated as simply as a fact bringing a chill down your spine. You loop a fifth and final stitch. “It is I who owe you an apology. I should not have taken advantage of you that evening, in my chambers. Nor on the boat, nor your own chambers before that. Neither of us were acting in our right minds.”
“Take advantage of me? You speak such nonsense,” you do not like the way his eye returns to looking past you, nor the emptiness in his voice. “Do you ever… Regret it?” You ask, before you realise you are not quite ready for his answer, nor willing to have what remains of the illusion between you shattered. You cannot bear to be just another warm body to a second Targaryen man, and so you scramble to redirect the question. “Storm’s End, I mean.”
“No.” Heavy, powerful, punctuated. Aemond does not hesitate, even for a moment, to negate it. Still, his gaze will not meet your own. “Given the chance, I’d do it all the very same.”
“I do not believe you,” you speak, only after silence tries to creep its way back between you. The emptiness of your palm calls for the heat of his skin. You ball your hand into a fist, resist the urge to let it find rest upon the scarred side of his face. “You are not so heartless.”
“You do not know me as well as you think, Lady Stark.”
“That is of no cause of my own. I am here, idle and waiting, wishing to know more of you,” denial is futile, your hand makes its own way onto his face, forcing his focus back onto you. "You are not the heartless monster of some bedtime story, Aemond,” you can only pray to the Seven he can hear how much you mean it. The thumb that rests against his cheek moves absent-midedly, a soothing rhythm against the soft of his skin. “No matter how much you may try to play the part, you feel. There’s no inch of you that scares me, it is fruitless to even try. I may not know you, but I see you. All of you. Man, myth, and heart.”
The wood that burns in the hearth cracks.
The birds outside the window flap their wings.
The dragon by the gates screeches.
But no sound follows from the prince.
There is only his eye, set on you and unblinking, frozen with a quiet that unnerves you. For an instant, you fear you’ve angered him. Struck a chord, made him feel weak. Played so far into your fantasies that you have cast a false identity onto him and, now, he means only to show just how wrong you are, just how little you truly see of him.
He rises out of the seat as slow as the sun does over the horizon, long limbs that stretch to stand tall and stable, and threaten to cast a shadow over even the largest of men. Your hand slips from his cheek and you take a cautious step back, an apology on the tip of your tongue.
An apology you don’t get to speak, as the prince envelops your lips with his own.
Startled, you cry out against his mouth, and it is enough to send him stumbling his own step back, eye wide with shock and his chest heaving with deep breaths.
“Lady Stark,” he starts, only a whisper of that earlier false confidence remains. “I am sor-”
“Shut up,” you don’t let him finish. Can’t let him finish, surging towards him and dragging his mouth to meet your own once more.
It is everything a younger version of yourself had thought a kiss would be.
Hands that seek the warmth of skin, lips that move with the grace of water. The two of you melt into each other, a burning desire that’s been left too long unattended at last burst into raging fires.
His arms wrap around your waist, as easily as yours grapple at his shoulders, frantic in their aim to pull him closer. His lips are soft, pink rosebuds that mean no harm as they attempt to consume you whole, his tongue a viper, striking hot venom with each lave it delivers.
There is no time for thinking. Of the dangers, and the possibilities, and the downright wrongness of your actions. Of the courts, and the spiders, and the King. Of the blood ties, and the marital vows, and the eyes of the Seven looking down. There is only Aemond, strong, and sweet, and present, pressed against you and, still, begging for less distance as he stumbles forward into you, your own feet making new space for him as you shuffle idly backwards.
Lungs that scream for air, lips that struggle to part. You make the first move, a hand on his cheek as you turn your face. His lips chase your own through the darkness of closed eyes, delivering a pleading of three pecks upon them before, at last, he gives you respite.
For a moment, there is only the repeated intake of air and heart beats that run off with the wind, forever to be lost to the wild.
“Being near you, all these days,” there’s an edge to his voice, a rasp he whispers over and stumbles on. The press of his forehead into your own, as mouths rest inches apart, lips that brush against one another as the prince continues to speak. “Watching you sweat under the sun, and care for the children,” the hands upon your body grab at the thin fabric of your dress, balling it into fists that squeeze and tug at orange cotton. “And move in these pathetic excuses for dresses,” he speaks with the desperation you feel, a warmth stirring in your loins as Aemond — consciously or not — slowly inches the hem of the dress further up your calf. “You do not understand the torment it has brought me to keep myself at bay.”
As though having spoken all he deems necessary, the prince’s kiss returns to you. For only a moment, it lingers on your lips before his focus redirects itself elsewhere and he’s chasing a pathway only he can see down the side of your jaw, his lips running off with his own kisses.
“Yet you instead chose to spend all that time at my neck,” you somehow find the ability to think, even as he melts your mind like a dragon’s breath melts armour, one clear swoop and you are at his mercy, hand tangled amidst the hair at the back of his head and holding him secure in his place against you.
Aemond smirks against your skin, trailing kisses over the expanse of your throat and dragging his lips up to the shell of your ear, the perfect excuse to whisper into it how, “some would say I am more at your neck now than I have ever been, Lady Stark.”
There is a collision between where his mouth lies and where his hands wander that leads to a peaceful departure of his kisses, a far more pressing matter at hand: undressing you. The prince seems to do so without giving it much thought, only for the gravity of his action to strike him, ice cold water and melted iron, as he takes in the sight of you, bare as the day you were brought into the world.
It does not matter that he lacks an eye, for the one he possesses carries the weight of a thousand men’s stares. A slow, agonising pause falls over his frantic need, as the prince falls into a trance, tracing over what feels to be every bump and every blemish that marks and shapes your body.
Never have you felt so exposed, not even the harrowing events of your bedding ceremony dare compare. You mean to find modesty, fruitless as it may seem, crossing one leg over the other while your arms do the same over your breasts. He can’t let that be, his own hands shooting out to gently grasp at your wrists and tug at them. Like the prince let you guide him to your chambers, you let him bare you to his eyes once more as your hands fall back to your side.
The intense stare continues, as does the silence, but, alas, he puts his skin to yours once more, a single finger that dances over the expanse of your clavicle, a teasing waltz that dips slowly between the valley of your breasts only to rise again. It takes interest in your left breast, skimming over the swell of it and, as it reaches the nipple, a second finger joins the cause. Together, they clamp round the soft flesh, a gentle pinch that pulls at an invisible string connected to your cunt, the start of an itch that demands to be scratched.
“This is wrong,” Aemond whispers, as if the words are not even meant to reach your ears.
“So wrong,” you can’t help but echo back. There is a shake in your breath you don’t expect.
“I should not be touching you,” yet he makes no attempt to stop touching you, feet inching closer and his forehead resting against your own. “Only hours ago, I broke bread at the same table as your husband.”
The weight of his gaze lands on your lips. You await the reunion of his mouth and your own, but it never comes. Instead, his head dips down and the very same lips he uses to scowl delicately envelope the peak of your right breast. His mouth is warm, his tongue is curious, and his teeth give a gentle nibble to your right breast, in tandem with the pinch of his fingers on your left breast.
“Aemond,” a futile plea of his name. Your body calls to him, the way it only does for the prince, a subconscious squeeze of your thighs bringing a sweet drop of relief in the desert of desire.
He forces himself off of you, a sign of desperation between his kiss-swollen lips, pink, and plump, and shining with the wet of his own mouth, a perfect match to the residue of saliva he has stained upon your breast.
“Tell me to leave,” he demands, yet makes no attempt to flee as your hand clasps at the top buckle of his jerkin, nor as you undone it and move down to the second buckle. “Before I lose any modicum of composure I still possess.”
You do no such thing.
You do not even speak.
Both eyes glued to his one, you inch your way backwards blindly, until your legs hit the edge of the bed. You let yourself fall back, unable to hold back a giggle as the mattress bounces you several times. The prince still stands a foot away, top buckles undone and the two that remain strain against the heaving of each breath that enters his chest.
“You stare too much, Prince One-Eye,” an unexplored part of you seems to take the reigns, a version of you that teases, and mocks, and feels no shame as you bend your legs at the knee, plant your feet flat against the bed, and slowly let your thighs part, baring your naked centre in a quiet offering. “Do you never tire of observing instead of participating?”
His footsteps echo, a slow approach towards the bed. He makes no sound, yet his face speaks a thousand words of longing, hunger, lust, all framed in a tightly bound brow, a pointed nose, sharply carved cheekbones, and lips that hover apart, drifting further from one another to make way for a rosy tongue that wets the lower lip. Like treacle slips down the tree or honey drips from its comb, the prince sinks slowly to his knees at the edge of the bed.
The image of a man at prayer, so buried in his worship that the caps of his knees bruise a pretty purple, made into a sin by the tugging at ankles, and the grabbing of naked thighs, and the hoisting of a single leg over a shoulder. He turns his face, closes his eye, and delivers a whisper of a kiss against the lower calf that rests upon him. It is a slow advance down into the well of madness, both the journey his lips make along your skin and the longing that it awakens in you, a heat that rises, and rises, and rises between your legs, melting away into a wetness of sin that dribbles its own path out the eye of your cunt and down the swell of your rump.
“Aemond,” it has become something more of a plea than a name. A call for something, anything, so long as it soothes your ache and laves your burning skin back to health, back to sanity. The prince protests with a tight squeeze around the meat of your thighs, his mouth paused above your knee. The eye reopens, blinks at you twice, before it shuts once more and he continues his descent down the length of you, growing closer to the apex of your legs with each fleeting kiss.
When he strikes, he strikes hot. Like dragon’s breath, the prince’s mouth melts you beneath its kiss, open-mouthed upon the slickened lips of your cunt. Another kiss follows close behind as the prince continues a short journey higher, lips enveloping the hardened pearl that rests atop your centre. The leg on his shoulders jerks inwards, delivering a harsh kick of your heel against his back, yet Aemond barely seems to notice, too lost in the feast he sets himself between your legs.
He delves into you with reckless abandon, open mouth and curious tongue. They are a fearsome pair, who move over the length of your cunt with the grace of any great waltz. Lips pull the tongue in, and explore the pleasures of suckling at your pearl like a babe does its mothers teat. They descend further in their dance, twisting and twirling, parted lips and dipping tongue. You are rendered speechless, unable to speak much other than his Valyrian name and a cacophony of wanton moans, and shivered gasps, and back-arching whines, your head thrown back and your eyes feeling the need to shut. You cannot let the sight escape you, too far and too dark does the memory of the night in your chambers now live, more of a picture book than a motion play-by-play of the ways in which the prince had ravaged you between your thighs, the original sin of kin-by-law, kin by king.
You’re barreling towards your own undoing, mouth barely finding time to breathe between each coo, and whimper, and cry it gifts the prince in honour of his efforts. Where he calls, you seem to follow, hips moving on their own accord to meet the breaching of his tongue between the warmth of your walls. He welcomes the movement, a groan of approval and the reopening of his eye, if only to stare at you intensely before returning his focus to what matters: delving in between your thighs.
“Ah,” he nods at your pitiful proclaim, and you swear you feel him draw out each letter of his own name upon your skin, branding you with his tongue and forsaking you to a life you already lead where the dragon prince is the only man to master the skill of pleasing you, of bringing you to a peak so thrilling it is hot white, burning, and blinding, and, unfortunately, fleeting, a beauty the gods gift you only a moment in time with, rather than the eternity you long for.
With your good-brother’s tongue burrowed as deep as it may reach within your cunt, and his hands grasping your flailing legs tightly by the thigh, and his nose swiping back and forth at your pearl as your hips bend and rise to meet the strokes of his mouth, you at last take a tumble off the mountain of desire, rolling directly into a river of your own peak that stains the prince’s mouth. He answers it with open lips and delighted grunts, a gentleman who dares not leave a single drop of his prize go to waste.
It takes you time to regain your composure, and even longer to regain your breath, mind floating out your own head and drifting somewhere among the clouds, leaving the puddle of limbs that becomes your body. The prince, however, takes no pause, no break, no reprieve, the lips you stain with your own pleasure travelling a new path up the slope of your gut, the dip of your belly-button, the valley sloped by your heaving breast, the clavicle that shakes under the beat of a racing heart, the length of your neck that begs to be turned purple and blue by possessive lips, all the way to your ringing ears.
“Tell me you want this,” his command is but a whisper beneath the rush of your own heartbeat, so quiet you fear you mishear him. As if to reassure that your ears do not deceive you, he repeats the very same words, louder.
You nod, wordlessly, though your mind lies leagues away from rationality and you’ve little to no idea what the prince means by this. All you know is that if Aemond is willing to give, you are happy to take, no matter the nature of his gift.
No clothes live between you any longer, the prince undressed in your moments of delirium, leaving you both bare bod against bare bod, warm to touch and eager to explore and be explored, conquer and be conquered. The leg that sat upon his shoulder now clings onto it only by the ankle, the knee of it bent and sitting firmly between both your chests. The stretch of the angle brings a sweet pain to the back of your thigh, the muscle pulled taught like a bow ready to be released and shoot an arrow out into the night.
There is something hard, heavy, and warm that rests against your lower stomach, and it takes you glancing down to notice the familiar length of his cock, pink-tipped and spilling a tease of what seed lives within it against your skin, a liquid that shines under the flickering candlelight. The fire in the hearth has already lost its flame, yet you feel no chill while laying naked against the night. Though you’ve no doubt anybody feels a chill in the dornish air this evening, you prefer to credit this phenomenon to the blanket of muscle that hovers over you, four limbs, two hands and one eye that warms you beneath its stare, greater than any sun or hearth may dare.
“Tell me. Say it,” he grows desperate in his words, a hand slipping up between your bodies to grasp at your face and pull you back down to earth, eyes on him and mind back in the safety of your own head. When he catches you looking at him, at last, he seems incapable of stopping himself, bringing his mouth down against your own, a desperate parting of lips and the curious exploration of a tongue eager to taste yourself from upon his lips. Your essence tastes sweeter than you imagined, yet simultaneously more tart. Like a raspberry, freshly picked, you needn’t wonder why he feasted upon you with such delight. “Tell me I am not taking that which you are not willing to give.”
It’s not clear who out of the two of you moves, but the action gives way to friction between you, a buzz of pleasure that shoots down both your spines as you grind, body to body, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.
You realise then what he’s asking of you, the tension that has lay, building stronger and fortifying its defences over the course of an unspoken number of years, from the first moment you lay eyes on him and the night you married his own brother under his own watchful eye, to the nights of pleasantries exchange at feasts and indiscretions exchanged thrice in the privacy of each other’s company, all leading to this, right now, both of you as bare as the Mother delivered you into this world and desperate to let the fever of lust at last break between you.
So you nod your head, and quickly realise that’s not enough.
“A man cannot take what is already his,” the prince between your thighs seems to approve of your words, the hand upon your face reaching down to grasp at the length of his manhood as he aligns his hips with your own, before dragging the tip of himself between the mouth of your cunt, all the way up against the hardened nub that lives above it. “Aemond, I want this. I want you.”
“Yeah?” He croons against your mouth, tongue dipping down to brush against your own, lips parted as a single breath of air passes back and forth between you.
You nod your head for a third time this evening, curl an arm around his neck as you pull his mouth fully against your own, losing yourselves once more in a kiss of tangled limbs and racing hearts, neither mind thinking of the risks that lay on the road ahead. There are no vows that bind you by law, no customs that dictate how you should interact with each other. There are only two bodies, bare upon a bed, losing themselves in one another.
His lips are the first to drift away, while your own continue to press against the sharp line of his jaw. The weight of his forehead presses into your own, the heat of his breath warms your ear, and the tips of his fingers drag over your thigh as he takes hold of his cock once more.
“Then it is decided,” he mutters, half distracted, it seems, as the mushroomed tip of his prick at last breaches the opening of your weeping slit. “I’m going to defile you, Lady Stark.”
The first thrust is shallow. You welcome him with a delighted gasp and a tight grasp at his blonde locks. It’s not long after that he gives a second push and, lastly, a third, till the base of his cock kisses against your soaked lower lips and his stones rest against the swell of your arse.
With Aegon, the process of your couplings is ritualistic. Him, drunk out of his wits, you staring blankly at some blurry horizon. You’d cried at the beginning, till war had come and taking your husband between your legs was no longer the scariest threat that loomed in the shadows. There is always that initial pain that fades into mute pleasure, teasing you with the thought of enjoyment, only for it to be snatched away all too soon as your husband spends his seed and takes his leave, a sardonic voice that calls over his shoulder, “let’s hope you make yourself useful and spare us the need of repeating this come the next moon.”
There is a pain now, as the walls of your cunt spread and mould themselves tightly around the shape of another man’s cock, yet it doesn’t deter you. It awakens you, makes you crave a greater dose of the toe-curling pain as the prince stills himself, fully sheathed within you, mouth dancing across the skin of your neck, the length of your jaw, the dip of your clavicle. He’s everywhere upon you, a blanket of Aemond, and still it is not enough.
The prince grasps at your ankle, yielding it down from the pedestal it took upon his shoulder. In an act of pure instinct, you choose not to lay it rest on the bed but, instead, find yourself hooking it over the slender frame of his waist. You fight back a wanton whine as it drives him closer to you, deeper in you. He takes it as his command to move at last.
It starts off slow. A testing of waters, a low burning ember. His hips retreat from your own, only to undulate back down against you, smooth as a hot blade cuts through butter. Your body reacts with ease, legs begging to spread further than they can dare go, a display of how willing it is to offer you, whole and hole, to the prince. It makes it easy to drag your mind away from your husband, and the many misdeeds of your marital bed, and the anger that begs to be called upon when you think of the years you’ve spent being bowed and broken-in by a man who knows no pleasure but his own.
You find yourself turning Aemond’s face away from your neck and up to your parted lips, need to connect with every part of him that you can as your other hand lays splayed across his muscled back, delighting as it tightens and loosens beneath your fingertips, a pattern that only doubles in speed with each passing moment, a testament to the prince finding his footing, setting a pace with which to ruck himself into your opening.
The room fills with whispers of moans, cries of each other’s names, and the squelch of his manhood spearing into you. Over, and over, and over again, till your toes curl in on themselves, and your back arches off the bed, and his mouth trails wonders down the expanse of your neck down to the valley of your chest once more, that warm mouth claiming ownerships of one of your breasts and the other is engulfed by his hand.
“Gods,” you cry out, a blasphemous act amid this display of naked sin upon the goose-feather mattress.
“No, no gods,” the prince answers, voice ragged and breath hot against skin that shines with his spit and your sweat. “Just you and me.”
The leg thrown over his waist clutches tighter, holds him close. Some part of you fears it has all been an illusion — the visit to Dorne, the return of the prince, the thrill of at last tasting the sting of his cock slipping between your lips — and that soon you will waken with a gasp to find yourself back in the Queen’s apartments at the Red Keep.
The only gasp you give is one born of pure pleasure, the gentle grind of his pelvis against the hardened pearl between your legs. It sets off butterflies that flutter in your gut and fly from there, ripples of pleasure down your thighs, and up your spine, and through your chest.
He kisses your name against your skin, as his hands clamp down tighter and his hips fuck into you harder, faster, more desperate and out of rhythm with themselves as the moments drag on, and on, and on, a force that’s driving you both closer to the edge of pleasure and certain to throw you off it, down into the pits of blinding ecstasy.
“Aemond,” it is a warning, one you needn’t even speak, one you would not be able to put into words if you even tried. And try you do. “I’m- Ah! I can’t-”
“I know,” the prince cuts you off and, despite his ability to speak without his own vocalised enjoyment interrupting him, he is in no better state than you are, hair sticking to his sweated skin, and eye struggling to keep itself open, and hips stuttering with every few trusts they give, as though he’s actively fighting off the inevitable release his body begs of him. “I know, I know.”
A hiss blown out into the night, through gritted teeth and followed by a pathetic noise that crawls itself out the prince, the growing intensity in his grip upon your thighs, your hips, any part of you he dares touch becomes a reflection of your walls tightening around the swell of his cock and the lips kiss the base of him, praying that he never dare leave.
You feel your peak hovering right over you, as if you need only stretch out your hand and grasp at it. Instead you grasp at his hair, fingers curling around the tresses and tugging them at the roots. The moan that follows the prince is one of approval. As the world around you melts away under warmth, and light, and sweat, you stumble at last and crash straight into a blinding pleasure, a cry of ecstasy infused with his name.
“Don’t leave,” you beg, and he listens.
He takes his own leap, no warning, mouth at your ear, hands on your thighs, cock in your cunt. The pair of you are a mess of panting breaths, and ill-delivered kisses upon sweaty skin, and fluids that stain you in each other’s lust. Together you stay for what feels like an eternity, limbs entwined and air shared between you, until the prince rolls off of you and lets himself crash, back first, against the mattress. Coolness kisses at the sweat that lines your body, the wetness in your thighs one you’d usually find uncomfortable, yet you welcome it now, even as a trail of his seed slips out your slit.
This is treason, of the highest order. The Queen and the Prince, bare for the world to see, bodies sated and shaking in the aftershocks of coupling as they lay side by side, one bed that holds two hearts. His seed has stained your insides, an act that threatens you both, yet neither of you care to speak of it.
Because right now, you are not the Queen, nor is Aemond the Prince.
It is just him, and you.
No gods, no duty, no family, no honour.
Just you and me, his words echo in your mind.
“It was an accident,” he whispers. You shift on your side, all at once, elbow digging into the bed as you scan your eyes over the length of his body, waiting for him to inflict more pain, waiting for him to scramble away from you in a hurry, redress himself and walk out the door, fleeing on his mount and plundering you into another drought of pretending his is not the company you long for. But his voice starts up once more, and the prince does no such thing. “What I did to Lucerys. I think.” Under a sigh of relief, your shoulders sag and the exhaustion that alluded you hours ago creeps up on your bones, forcing you to surrender yourself against the prince, laying your head to rest upon his shoulder, your arm across his beating chest, and your legs entwining with his once more.
“I did not give the command…” The prince continues to speak, barely acknowledging you with his eyes as his own arm secures itself over you, dragging you closer, as if there’s any space left between you to be crossed. “It was Vhagar who struck. I do not know what I set out to do that night when I took to the skies in pursuit of my nephew. Perhaps I meant only to scare him. Maybe I truly wanted to strike him at that moment, and Vhagar was merely my vessel to do harm.”
You watch the apple of his throat bob as the prince swallows back words you will never hear. Despite your curious nature, you find yourself at peace with this, no part of you wishing to learn of things he wishes to not share, events he can barely recall without a shake making nest within his voice.
“I do not know the full answer, if I regret it or not,” comfort in your silence, Aemond finds it in himself to continue recounting, letting his mind spill to the floor and his mouth collect it as coherently as it can. “All I know is that repentance is not my path to take, my role in history has already been written. Kinslayer, that is to be my legacy. What kind of man can outrun such a thing as legacy?”
You, you wish to say.
But fear you would not even believe yourself. The maesters gather in Oldtown already, putting quill to paper and weaving tales from the dragon war into the history books, binding rumours, and facts, and treason, and falsehoods into its pages. History favours the victor, that much is known, yet you wonder what the books will read and what the songs will sing of Aemond Targaryen and the acts he committed, from the lead up to the Dance, to the recapturing of King’s Landing. A trail of blood taints the path he walked, but is it any more than your husband’s? Or Ser Criston Cole’s? Or your good-mother, the instigator of Aegon’s coronation and accused usurping?
Perhaps the trails of blood all lead back to one man, Viserys Targaryen, dead and gone before the dragons took the sky, and fire and blood became not just the words of House Targaryen but the death of it.
“Promise me, Aemond,” the candlelight has burnt out, the room encased in the darkness of the moonlight, a pale blue hue that blankets over the shapes and shadows of the chambers.
“Anything,” his voice is gentle yet firm all at once, soothing in its own assurance of the word it speaks.
“Leave before morning dawns,” you feel the hand that had begun trailing patterns over the naked skin of your back freeze, unexpectant to your request. You, too, can hardly believe it. Moons you had spent in court, wishing and hoping for a moment of his company, if only to scream in his face and lament your own lonesome days in the Keep. Now, you have him bare beneath you and it is more terrifying than you ever dared consider. “I do not wish to be burdened with the memory of how it feels to lay by your side all through the night, nor do I wish to know the sweetness of your face being the first view that greets my waking eyes.”
You glance up at him, head lifting off his shoulder to fully gaze upon his naked face for one last time this evening, wishing he could understand how much you truly mean it. He gives you no response and so you take upon yourself to end the conversation, a gentle kiss delivered against the scarred tissue of his cheek, one last gaze at the part of himself he’s haunted by.
As you feel your eyes slip shut, head back upon the safety of the prince’s shoulder, it is unclear what rings louder in your ear: the beat of his heart or the final cry of his dragon gives from outside the walls.
You wake at dawn’s first light.
It creeps in through a crack between curtains, the gentle breeze of early morning air billowing them further apart with each passing moment. Disorienting, for half a moment you’ve forgotten where you are, eyes blurred by sleep that scan over a room that holds no familiarity to your apartments in the Keep.
The bowl of water upon the vanity reminds you of where you are, and everything that transpired hours before.
A stifled yawn, a stretch of limbs. You reach a hand up to wipe the sleep out of your eyes, but on its journey it gets caught against something else. It is soft, and warm, and wrapped tightly around you. The image of the prince, head nestled against the naked skin of your chest, sleeping soundly as the world passes by and daytime steps forth into the sky.
He has broken his promise, yet you cannot even fool yourself into feeling angered.
Not when the sight is one of beauty, a rare peacefulness on his ever-weary face. He looks his age, a man no more than a couple years past his second decade. You brush your hand over his messed hair, trail over the freshly made stitches that live temporarily above his brow, and sigh in utter defeat.
Not a day will come where you will not wake and long for this sight.
And not a day will come again where you will see it.
The moon has almost completed its cycle once more, and your return to the Keep crawls closer by the day. You will soon trade your time of respite and warmth with duty and court, by your husband’s side once more. And far, far away from the one-eyed prince.
A longing to watch the sun’s light rise over the horizon calls you away from the prince, and the bed, and the chambers. You leave him there, sleeping peacefully as he tangles himself amidst your sheets, and slip out the door with no more than your wits and the very same dress Aemond had pulled off of you during the night.
You make your way quietly through the halls, your bare feet padding carefully over the floor, careful to attract no wandering guard or waken any curious child. Solitude is a virtue you have so little of, and so you want to reach for it while it sits in front of you. You almost believe you’ve achieved it, stepping out onto the communal balcony that overlooks the gardens and stares right out to the rolling tide of the Summer Sea.
Until, for a second time in so few hours, you find yourself faced with the back of a Targaryen.
“Helaena,” you call out to her gently, apologising with a smile as the hand you lay on her arm causes her to flinch. “I wasn’t expecting for anyone else to be awake at this hour. Are you well?”
You both stand before the marble bannister of the balcony, shoulder to shoulder, and as her face turns to you, you find a shell of the girl you’ve come to know.
Eyes rimmed with red, and wide with panic, and brimmed with unfallen tears. Her hair is a mess, and not in the usual careless fashion that it seems to live in, but dishevelled, distressed, as though pulled at and tugged on. She’s pale. Pale as the days she lived in King’s Landing, hiding from the world with her critters and her bugs, before she travelled south and found the joy of sunlight warming one’s skin.
The sight of her is most unnerving.
“I used to wish for a sister,” her voice is hollow, like the rest of her, emptied of its joy. “I had Rhaenyra by blood, but she was gone by the time I reached an age where those things matter. All I had was my brothers, each one equal parts awful and wonderful in his own way.”
“I, too, knew only brothers growing up,” you hope the worry she’s birthed within you goes unnoticed as you smile her way, appeasing the strange conversation she sparks up and praying it does not head in the direction that you fear it may: Aemond. “I used to force Cregan to sit at my feet and let me paint his lips and cheeks with rouge, and braid his hair. I think he began to wish a sister for us both, if only to take my affections off of him!”
Your laughter is met only with more troubled looks from Helaena.
“Then you should understand why I am so grateful to have you now, as my sister. Not by blood, but law, but a sister all the same,” you nod in agreement to her words, place your hand upon the one she rests against the bannister and deliver a comforting squeeze to it. “Then you should understand that I worry about you.”
Ice runs through your veins, in place of blood. You begin to fear the worst, images of Helaena knocking at your door and you replying in only sounds of pleasure. Of her twisting the handle and finding the sight of you in bed with her brother, her other brother instead of the one you’re bound to by law.
You swallow back a ball of anxious energy that lodges up your breathing pipes.
“Helaena, sister, you do not seem yourself,” you keep your voice hushed, hoping she’ll do the same if she dares speak of the events transpired between you and Aemond. You were wrong to be so reckless, to think you were safe to step where you like because you sit far from the Red Keep. Nowhere is safe enough, nowhere will ever be safe enough. “What worries you so deeply?”
“I see him,” she hisses the words, like she cannot bring herself to speak any louder, forcing it out of herself in a breath. “In my dreams. It frightens me.”
“Who?” You pray for her to tell, try to think what defence you could possibly have for yourself and the prince under the accusation of her mind’s eye, a gift you’ve heard much of and seen little, the curse of the Targaryen dreamers.
“You’re there, too, in a bed soaked by tears, and sweat, and blood,” the more she speaks, the more the fear rises within you. The fear feels bigger than yourself, bigger than the affairs between you and Aemond. “He is there, at your bedside, a hand on your shoulder. He means no harm, but death is his nature, he cannot help it. He’s there to take you.”
“Who, Helaena? You must tell me!” You wipe away the single tear the streaks down her face and cup at her face with both hands, a gentle comfort that seems mute against her fear stricken features.
“The Stranger.”
+ extra hyde !
we're finally getting into the meat of the plot, beyond these two horn-dogs trying to bang in a world that hates to see a bad bitch thrive. from here on out, expect more drama, and mystery, and death (but who's?).
i really hope the length of the chapters makes up for the slow, once a month, roll out. the series' masterlist has been edited, with 2 new chapters added to the timeline.
a quick apology to anyone who may have felt the smut is a little lacklustre in this chapter. i tried to write a much wilder, kinkier, mouthier version of the scene and, in all honesty, it did not feel true to the context under which they at last wind up smashing. writing smut and using medieval language is surprinsingly hard (no pun intended), so this is honestly a journey we're all going on together (aka me trying to navigate not being able to use the typical language of modern sex scenes).
thank you for reading, see you next month!
Losing Dogs
Neither you or Aegon wanted to get married. Neither you or Aegon wanted to marry each other. But at some point, you figured you should make the most of what you had, and so you offer your husband a deal he cannot refuse.
Aegon Targaryen x Reader | 6k+ | cw: fem!reader, wife!reader, arranged marriage/loveless marriage, smut (piv, virginity loss, rough/loveless sex) DD:DNE, alcoholism, violence, suicide/suicidal thoughts & ideation, mentions of domestic/child abuse, death, pregnancy/miscarriage, aegon's mommy issues, insecurities, angst, typos, etc.
A/N: ... i had something to say about this fic but i forgot... maybe ill remember later???? edit: i did not remember. i thought of mitski while entitling this so go play i bet on losing dogs ig?
Tagging: @pinksirensong @aralezinspace @deniixlovezelda @azperja @sloanexx @risefallrise
You don't know what you have until it's gone.
Aegon only truly understood what this meant the day he was married and he was forbidden to drink a drop of alcohol.
As if it wasn't painful enough that he was going to be married to a complete stranger from some house he's never fucking heard of, he was erratic and uneasy the whole day because of the withdrawal. He loathes the preparation, the ceremony, the fucking pageantry of it all.
He thinks it was worse that you seemed to be so chipper the entire time. You smiled with a halo, skin shining with the light. You also seemingly did no wrong, judging by the praises you received from his mother and grandfather. But, who was he kidding, of course they fucking loved you, they chose you to be his prison keeper.
You did not press him once, not when you were preparing for the ceremony, not when you were at the feast, not even after the Queen encouraged you to dance.
Anyone with eyes could see from how he slumped on his chair during dinner that Aegon would rather die than circle around the room to this grating noise echoing in the chamber.
The band begins to play another song and another round of dancing ensues.
He stares at the food on the table. Oh, to be a suckling pig.
The relief that coursed through him when he could finally leave was enough to knock him out. Except, he really wanted, no, needed a drink.
He crashes on his bed, belly down, and reaches for the cabinet door on his bedside table. He feels for his bottle, hand knocking into the corners of the compartment, but he sits up when he finds nothing.
He growls in frustration upon realizing this was definitely his mother's doing. Thief!
"I managed a cup."
Aegon struggles to look over his shoulder from his position. He rolls on his back as you walk to the side of the bed.
He stares at you. You offer a glass holding burgundy liquid. Your voice is soft and kind as you explain, "your mother would suspect me if I took a whole bottle."
Aegon pushes himself up and sits on the edge of the bed, facing you. He gulps at the wine you were offering.
Sure, he may not be the brightest, but anyone could tell this scene was the epitome of ulterior motives. Aegon leans on his thighs, "why are you doing this?"
You stare a moment. You clutch the cup in both hands and examine it. Again, your voice is gentle, "you are clearly in torment. It hurts my heart."
His eye twitches.
I see. It seems you were a fucking saint.
Aegon rips the glass out of your hands, some of the wine spills over. He downs the contents in one go, then chucks the glass across the room once he finished.
He looks back at you, glaring with watery eyes. He was exhausted, he was angry, and he wanted you to know it. But you don't flinch at the sound of the glass breaking. You didn't flinch at all when he showed aggression. Why didn't you flinch?
You press your lips and sigh. You step towards him and reach out.
He nervously straightens up and tilts his head back as you approach. His breath hitches when your warm hand touches his cheek. He blinks rapidly.
"It's been a long day. Would you like me to help you change?"
Again, his eye twitches.
And then he realizes what you mean.
Ah. So, this is what you wanted?
He releases a breath, eyes lowering. Your face falls into a slight frown.
He thinks about it for a moment. I mean, sex was sex and he was game. It didn't matter how he performed, his completion was all that mattered, really. And you were pretty enough, albeit irritatingly good.
When you stroke his hair, Aegon pulls at your skirts, causing you to squeak and topple, hands flying to his shoulders for support. Your faces are inches apart. He pulls you down until you have no other choice than to sit on his lap.
You can smell the remnants of the wine he just drank on his breath. Aegon brings his face closer to yours, and you let out a soft 'hmp'. You mutter, "I gather you don't want to change, but want to get out of your clothes."
He narrows his eyes as you shift on his lap and undo the buttons by his chest. He mutters dumbly, "this is what you wanted."
With knit brows, you retort, "I've not yet told you what I wanted." You shift on his lap again as you peel his top off. Amidst it, he asks, "what do you want?"
You grunt after ridding him of his top. You fold it in your arms then set it aside on the bed. You turn back to him. Aegon's breath hitches when you fondle with strings of his undershirt. He watches your lips as you mumble, "I want you to give me a ride on your dragon."
He furrows his brows. But that's what he just said.
You stand, only to lift your skirt and take your place back on his lap. This time, you straddle him.
Aegon gulps, hands coming to your hips like a magnet. He feels you grind on him; shaky breaths leave his lips in response. His hands scratch up your back and a moan escapes him when your nails trace his collarbones.
"Allow me one trip on Sunfyre, and in return, I'll be your magic lamp," you whisper, taking one of his hands, bringing it to the side of your ribs, "you may rub me where you like-"
His heart skips when you kiss his cheek.
"-and I will grant you all your wishes."
Aegon ticks.
The next moment, he pushes you down on the bed. He doesn't bother getting either of you naked, nor does he prepare you at all in fact. Thankfully, you were already wet.
You don't have the opportunity to ask him to be gentle, to explain you were a bride after all, and it was your wedding night.
Aegon grips your skirts as he fucks you like he means to prove a point. He snaps his hips roughly into you to assert dominance, to exemplify control. Sure, you offered yourself to him, but he was the one doing the work, and you were the one beneath him.
In truth, the pace he set gave you more pain rather than pleasure. And with how pent up he was, the rough tempo he set burnt him out way too quickly before it could make any of you feel good. And when he begins to lag, you start to feel good.
You notice this change and rub your nose against his. He recoils, unused to affection when fucking. It snaps him back into an aggressive trance.
You yelp. Aegon convinced himself it was a sound of bliss.
You kiss his jaw and work your way to his ear, hoping to calm him down. He tenses at the feel of your tongue on his lobe. It stokes flames in his belly and makes him involuntarily roll his hips slower to focus on the attention you're giving. In return, his pace is just enough for him to hit that spot that makes you throw your head back.
Aegon is startled by the scratchy groan that leaves your throat. He finds himself lifting his head to spectate, but you pull him into you by the nape and groan, "like that. Please- gods - that feels good."
His brows tense and he rolls his hips again, finding the same reaction.
You wrap your arms and legs around him, uncaring of how hot and sweaty you were getting. In the heat of the moment, you reach for his lips, needing them, needing something to wrap your own on.
Aegon kisses you. He kisses you with a strange twinge in his chest. He kisses you until he has to pull away and reposition himself to catch his building climax.
In a second, he's back to his fuck-loving self, only self-serving and lustful. As he gazes upon your writhing body, catching the beads of sweat on your skin, the concentration on your face, and the way you chant his name as you part your legs for him, he's overcome by another spirit. To watch you break, to watch you coil and collapse around him felt just as urgent as his need to come.
And so Aegon rubs your clit and forces you to peak first; you do it so well he curses loudly and comes after.
He lays on top of you for a moment, the overwhelming need to be held ripples through his body. He recalls how his whores shoo him away after he's done fucking them though. Before you can cradle him in your arms, he rolls off you.
You close your legs and and watch him strip himself and sequentially change. You watch him get back in bed and bring himself underneath the covers. He goes to sleep.
He fucking goes to sleep.
You feel hollow after this, but tell yourself it's nothing personal. You repeat this as you, yourself, get up and change, sequentially sleeping too. Or at least you try. You have fight the urge to cry for hours before you do.
The next morning, you bring up dragon riding to Aegon, and disappointed as you are, you are unsurprised to find that he was unwilling to give you such a thing.
It was a plain thing you were asking for, you explain. And it's exactly why he doesn't want to do it. It's clearly some trick, something to trap him, something he's going to regret. It was probably some ploy orchestrated by his mother.
Oh gods, he thinks, it's worse. It's a bonding experience so you can make him into your puppet. Fuck. No.
So, he does what he does best, and makes an excuse, "I don't feel like riding today. I'm still exhausted from the festivities."
You purse your lips and nod, "that's understandable. Would you like for me to get you something?"
Wait. You weren't going to argue about him not keeping his end of the deal?
You seem to catch this, considering your response and the way you take his hand. You place his palm on your chest. He can feel your pulse quicken as you mutter, "I am your magic lamp, husband. I wish to please you. I will prove this until you trust me enough to grant me a ride on dragonback."
He narrows his eyes, "you would grant me wishes, all in return for a ride on Sunfyre?"
You smile softly at him, "in return for respite, yes."
He doesn't trust your smile.
"I want to visit the Grey Cliffs. I have for a years now. I went there once as a child and long to go again."
"Why?" he knits his brows at your explanation, "what's there?"
You lower his hand and rub his skin, "respite, my prince."
Aegon pulls his hand away.
Very well. If that is what you want, then he will wear your wishes dry until you find it no longer worth the trouble.
Aegon wishes on his lamp everyday, and his wife sequentially plays entertainer, jester, servant, and slave.
He makes you bring a bottle of wine with you everywhere, and pour him a cup when he wishes. He loathes how you seem unbothered by it. He loathes how you don't even correct a visiting Lord who mistakes you for a cupbearer and simply serve him some wine. The Lord is mortified when he realizes you are his wife, a fucking princess. Aegon hates how you tell the man you were unbothered because you spent your whole life being a cupbearer to your father anyway.
He makes you do trivial tasks as well, sometimes tasks meant for more than one person at a time, and yet you still manage to do them, annoyingly better than the maids. When he demanded you cook him a full course meal, you did so all by yourself, and had the servants looking at you like you were some goddess.
He ripped a hole in his clothes then made you mend it. You covered the hole so seamlessly that he poked a bigger one right in front of you. And even then you don't give him the satisfaction of getting angry. You tell him you will embroider something on top of the hole and he storms off. He overhears you telling the servants, who applaud your level-headedness, that you were used to angry men, because your father was just the same.
You use each of these moments to somehow tell him you were the perfect wife and he had to oblige your stupid request at some point.
But then he found your flaw.
Aegon asked you to play the harpsichord for him, and you told him you did not know how. The woman who knew all did not know something? He would then proceed to hang this over your head. When he asked you for food, he'd tell you how much better it'd taste if he had entertainment. If he asked you to do something physically taxing for him, he's say that he wouldn't have asked you to do it, had you known how to play his 'favorite' instrument. He would use this as the reason why he could never bring you to Grey Cliffs.
It was all fun and games, but then you had to snitch, hadn't you?
"What are you doing to that poor girl!" Queen Alicent barked, making his ears ring.
Aegon groans from where he lies in bed. His mother rips the blankets off him, making him wake in a sour mood.
"She is your wife!" Alicent yells, "not your slave! Fine, you wish her to do tasks for you, tasks for your betterment. But to insult her standing by treating her like a maid is beneath a prince, Aegon!"
Aegon feels his throat tighten at the sight of his angry mother's face, "she is my wife," he growls, "I do with her as I please."
She strikes his cheek.
Aegon's head whips to the side. He doesn't have the energy to look back at her.
"You will no longer parade her as a cupbearer. I will have it decreed you are not ever served a drop of wine if you don't."
Alicent leaves after this. Aegon's anger explodes when the door closes.
He screams and rips at his hair. He kicks furniture around and eventually drops to the floor, exhausted, furious, and hurt. This was all your fault.
He screams again and claws the tears on his face. He slowly exhales through tight lips. His cheek is hot with saltwater. Who was he joking, this was all him.
This was all Aegon's doing.
His breathing is impeded by snot. He walks over to his window and stares at the ground below. If he jumps head first, not even the best maester in Westeros could fix him.
Before he can lean on the ledge, he is paralyzed in his spot by the sound of the door opening.
"I did not know she would be angry with you," you say.
Aegon looks back.
You see his red eyes and wet skin. He is a mirror to your younger self. You feel sick to your stomach. You try to explain, "I only asked if she could find a harpsichord teacher. I did not realize she would take offense in wanting to learn to play for you."
Aegon's heart aches at your naïve response. You were a stupid, perfect wife, and he, a stupid, petulant husband.
"I'm better off dead," he mumbles, looking back out the window. The call of the fall felt inviting, "want to push me, wife?"
You don't respond.
Aegon looks back at you, and suddenly you're only inches away. He tries to evade you, but you manage to catch his hand.
"We could jump together."
"What?"
Your face is blank. You part your lips, and for a moment, your eyes seem desperate, but then it's gone. You sigh, "dying is quite lonely," looking down, "I could keep you company."
Aegon stares at you. Tears stream down his face. "You're mad," he sniffles, yanking his hand away.
He walks over to his bed and collapses on it. He wraps himself in a blanket and feels sorry for himself, and angry at you for suggesting such a thing. Even now you want to be perfect by dying with him?
"I am," you mutter.
Aegon watches as you walk over to him. You sit on the floor beside his bed and look at your hands as you rub them.
"I cannot play the harpsichord, because my father does not like noise," you explain, "I was not allowed to make a sound or else I would be punished."
Aegon covers his head with a blanket but keeps his face visible, "he beat you, didn't he?"
You look at him, eyes melancholy, but still, he is the only one crying, "he beat everyone."
Aegon does not respond.
"I can sing though."
His brow raises, "how can you sing?"
"I would practice whenever he was gone, and sing for my mother in secret. It made her happy... happy enough."
He knew there was more to this confession, but he was too tired to ask about it, too tired to shed more tears.
"Would you like me to sing for you?"
"No."
"..."
"..."
"Would you like me to hold you?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
You stand from where you sat and get on the edge of the bed. Aegon watches as you slowly lie beside him. You bring an arm over him and pull him close. Aegon closes his eyes as you bring him into your chest.
You hold him until he falls asleep. Later that night, he asks you to hold him again. He also asks you to sing to him.
Aegon nestles his face in the crook of your neck. He wraps his arms around your torso, digging his fingers between your flesh and the bed. Your hushed voice reverberates in the bedroom, the song you sing is haunting and soothing. The vibrations from your chest lull him to sleep. You feel wetness pool by your clavicle but you make no note of it.
Aegon asks you to hold him the next morning after breaking fast. He asks you to stay with him in bed and to sing to him some more. When you have to leave his side, he asks to join you and waits until he can have you in his arms again.
Aegon becomes your shadow, and follows you around, under the promise of getting to share in your embrace. As you read and review letters or ledgers, your seat becomes Aegon's lap. He sleeps against you while you work without a fuss, cheek pressed against your back, arms fastened around your waist.
Sometimes, he notices the line that forms between your brows while you read and at some point, asks about it. You explain what causes it, and he is unmoved, as he is uninterested in politics that stress you. But when you read out to him, he finds comfort in your voice and asks you to read some. He falls asleep to your calm droning of circumstances he could not care less about. He groans and groggily awakens when you stop. He mumbles against your skin that you continue, pleadingly so.
When you had to leave the Keep for business, Aegon insisted that he joined you. When you brushed his cheek and explained to him why he could not go and that you would not be long, Aegon pushed you away and stormed off. You left without him anyway, and the treachery he felt was so great, he realized then how he could no longer go day to day without you. What was there to do, if you were not there?
And so Aegon desperately rubs his magic lamp and wishes upon you.
He wishes that you never leave without him again once you return.
He wishes that you promise to no longer make plans without him.
He traps you beneath him on your shared bed and wishes to be inside you. He kisses you and wishes to see you completely bared to him.
Aegon's mind is dizzy as he gazes upon the glory of your skin. He kisses your thighs, your hips, your breast, your lips.
Aegon wishes to surrender to you. He wishes that you undress him. He wishes to pull you on his body like a blanket. He wishes to see you take control. He wishes to see you cast your eyes upon him and lay your weight on his body.
He wishes to see you use him, to take what you need from him, to pleasure yourself, and to make him yours. He squeezes your thighs desperately when you moan out his name. This was much more maddening that what he imagined it would be.
He wishes to feel you come undone around him. He wishes he could forever feel the pleasure he did when he comes right after you do.
He wishes to hold you after. And when he holds you, when you lay on his chest and kiss him there, he wishes to never leave this moment ever again. He wishes to sing to you like you've sung to him.
"What are your plans tomorrow," Aegon asks as he draws nothings on your back.
You lift your head from his chest. He looks at you. You smile, "whatever you wish them to be."
He rubs your back and smiles, "I wish to take you to the Grey Cliffs."
Your expression drops, "what?"
He raises a brow at your reaction. You shift on your place. You straddle him again.
He looks up at you, noticing the line between your brows. He rubs your thighs, "you've granted me all my wishes. It's time I grant you yours." He shifts on his elbows and sits himself up, "it's time you meet my mount and-"
"We don't have to," you cut him off, placing your hands on his shoulders.
Aegon examines your expression. He listens to you sigh.
"I'd like to keep you-- wish to keep you..." you correct yourself, pushing him back down.
He looks up at you, feeling your hands rake up his body.
"...just like this," you finish, eyes solemn, lips curving into a soft smile, "I've not felt a thing like this in my entire life."
Aegon takes one of your hands and places it on his cheek. He whispers it like a secret, "neither have I."
You lean down to kiss him, "I wish to keep like this."
He kisses you back.
He is blindsided by how his wishes came to bite him in the arse. It's all crashing down on him. Suddenly, he wishes he didn't actually do any of those things with you.
He most of all wishes he heard you wrong. He wishes you didn't repeat yourself when he stupidly said, "what?"
"I'm with child," you speak slower, less excited yet excited still.
Aegon wishes you didn't look so excited. He wishes he fucking pulled out, but gods, you felt so good-- you feel so good around him, he felt so good inside you.
He realized the next moment, it couldn't be helped. You were going to have to bear his spawn at one point or another. He wishes you didn't have to. He wishes his seed wouldn't take completely. He wishes you don't take it to term. He wishes he won't have to be a father. Fuck.
He realizes he's been too quiet and you were waiting for a response from him. Your face began to twist. Your smile fades.
"Congratulations," Aegon musters. He feels like he swallowed a metal ball. His eyes wander to your belly. He mumbles mindlessly, "I suppose."
Your face falls.
Aegon looks back at you. Your face is devoid of any semblance of the glow it normally holds. You look sick. You feel sick.
"I see," you say, unintentionally allowing him to hear your voice break. Aegon's brows furrow at it.
He shakes his head, "you will be a great mother," he chuckles dryly, "you mother me so well."
You offer him a smile, but Aegon can see how disconnected it was from your eyes. You say, "thank you."
When you leave him after this, he wishes he hadn't said a word. He wishes he just left it at congratulations. He wishes he just pretended like the idea of having a child didn't mortify him and make him sick to his stomach. He wishes he wasn't so ill-suited to be a father.
Ageon no longer wishes for anything after this.
He no longer wishes to hold you, though he so badly wanted to. He no longer wishes to hear you sing, nor does he wish to hear you read to him. He no longer wishes to be around you, though his body urged him to follow you around like the lost soul he was.
He wishes he didn't wonder what you were doing at every moment of the day. He so desperately wishes to rid you from his mind completely that he drowns himself in his first and only true love, alcohol.
Fuck. He wishes he hadn't taken this route to his room. He wishes you hadn't taken this route to wherever it was you were going. He wishes he just turned around and fled like the coward he was, because then, you wouldn't have spoken to him.
"Husband," you curtsey.
Aegon stiffens and uncomfortably avoids your eyes.
You catch it, feeling your chest tighten painfully. You clear your throat and take a deep breath to steel yourself, "I thought you should know that I will be travelling."
Aegon looks at you.
"I have a ship ready and I'll be visiting the Grey Cliffs. Do not wait up for me."
His face falls. He opens his mouth, but doesn't have an opportunity to speak.
"I thought you should also know that I am no longer carrying."
His eyes widen.
"It's not an uncommon occurrence the first few months," you say simply, "I suppose the gods do not wish me to be a mother."
Aegon feels like a murderer. He wants to say something, to apologize, to comfort you, but he can't. He's too taken aback to do a single thing.
He turns into stone when you take his hand. You step forward and place his palm on your chest. Your heart is slow as you speak, "you won't have to worry about anything anymore, Aegon. Today is the end of our shared torment."
Aegon's stomach drops when you kiss him.
His eyes are glassy. You pull away before he can kiss you back. He wants to hold you, but the sadness in your eyes reminds him he is undeserving. You kiss his wrist, "goodbye, my love. I love you."
His heart thumps as you walk away.
Aegon is manic. He basks in the mess he's made and feels crushed by it all.
He finally acts after wasting so much time feeling sorry for himself. You were long out of his sight by the time he started running. This is why he headed to the dragonpit and got on Sunfyre.
"WAIT!" he screams, just as your boat leaves the dock.
Aegon watches as you run to the edge of the boat. He lands Sunfyre and runs as far to the edge of the docks as he could.
"Aegon-"
"Take me with you!" he pleads, "let me be the one to take you to where you must go!"
You look back. The ship stops. The crew brings down a boat and on it, you are rowed back to the dock.
He crushes you in his arms once he reaches you.
"Aegon," you mutter.
"Forgive me," he shudders, "I... I wish you let me do this for you."
"Aegon," your voice croaks. You push him away, "go home."
His heart drops. He breaks away to look at you. Your words feel like a stab at his thorax. It was presumptuous of him to assume you'd want him back, but it doesn't kill him inside any less.
"I've come to realize this is a trip I must go on myself," you mutter.
He shakes his head, "no. Please." He motions an arm out to his mount, "one wish. That I grant you one wish before you throw me away forever is... is--"
Your throat constricts at his words. Tears rush down your eyes, "I'm not throwing you away--"
"Please," he squeezes both your hands in his, "please, let me do this for you."
The flight to the Grey Cliffs is quiet, save for the whoosh of winds and the roars of the golden dragon you both rode. You always imagined it would be freeing, but only now did you know how it freeing it truly felt to fly. You knew now you'd forever chase the euphoric crush of air against your skin.
Aegon, who sat behind you, looks at your form as you outstretch your arms and close your eyes. Your body presses against him, and in this moment, he is unable to hold back from wrapping an arm around you and sparing a kiss on your shoulder. You are snapped out of your trance because of this.
The Grey Cliffs are dark and gloomy when you get there. Aegon realizes when you land that it got its name from the weather conditions.
He helps you down and surveys the area, trying to make out which part of this drear land was so special to you that you wished to go here.
You catch his expression and squeeze his hand.
Aegon turns to you.
You give a solemn look, "the view is better on the edge."
Aegon strokes Sunfyre's cheek, commanding him to stay before you lead him by the hand to the edge of the cliff. Once you get there, he feels queasy looking down at the crashing waves far beneath him. In contrast, you seem comforted by the view. His brows furrow at the deep breath you give out.
When you look at him, his stomach feels it, the comfort you felt upon witnessing the violent waves. Whatever it was that compelled you to this place was the same force that compelled him to kiss you.
He reaches out for your cheek, his other hand coming to you back. He pulls you close. His heart twinges when you stop him from kissing you.
"Aegon-"
"Forgive me," he cuts, "I beg."
You gawk at him. He brushes your hair which was wildly flinging with the breeze.
"You must know by now that I am craven. I lack the spine and the wit to be of any use to you."
Your eyes water. Your lips quiver.
"I would be a hopeless father, worse than my own, no doubt."
"Aegon," you babble as sobs overtake you.
Aegon, himself, succumbs to tears. He wipes the ones streaming down your face before taking a breath, "but you made me feel a love I do not deserve."
You swallow a heavy lump in your throat.
"I love you," he confesses.
"No," you pierce his heart. You shake your head in disagreement, "Aegon, this is a mistake. Bringing you here was a mistake."
"No!" he blurts louder than needed, "this was a choice," he looks down, "I choose to rip my insides out for you to devour. I am miserable, much more in the heat of your hate, but most of all without you."
His downturned eyes land on your face when you grab his wrists. You croak, "I do not hate you."
Aegon is not relieved by the admission, but he chooses to believe you mean it. He smiles softly, "good."
"But I do hate this life I live."
He clenches his jaw. Of course you do.
"You saved me," you press a hand on his cheek, taking your turn to wipe his tears, "even if for a moment."
"I made you miserable."
You chuckle. The sound makes his heart skip.
"You filled my life with purpose," you smile softly, "even when you did not mean to."
Aegon knits his brows deeply and takes your hands. He brings them to his lips and kisses them.
"But accidents happen. You must remember that accidents happen all the time."
Aegon shakes his head, "this is not an accident. Believe me when I say I chose to do this, I- ... I choose to love you."
You sob and turn to your feet.
"Please... believe me."
You sniffle and nod, slowly looking up at him, "I believe you."
You lunge into his arms and seal him into a tight hug. He hugs you back like it's his only way of surviving.
A crack of thunder startles Sunfyre. He becomes restless and steals away Aegon's attention, panicked that he might flee and leave them here.
He pulls away and takes a step towards her. He holds your hand, urging you to follow, "we should go before it rains."
You hug him from behind and press your face into his back, "thank you for taking me on Sunfyre."
"It was a long time coming."
"I've always wondered what it would be like to fly. And now that I know how peaceful it is, I'm ready to fly one last time."
He turns to you as you slowly come to his side. You hold his hand. He looks at you as you turn to Sunfyre. He promises, "I will take you on dragonback as many times as you wish."
You smile, but your eyes are fixed on his dragon. You release his hand and wrap your arms around yourself, "he is beautiful. You must never tire looking at him."
Aegon gazes upon Sunfyre. He takes in his golden scales and has newfound appreciation.
You take a step back.
"He is. To be honest, it's been long since I, myself, took him out of the pit. He must enjoy this day as much as you do."
"Aegon, you must understand that what I have to say has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me."
Aegon turns to you. He watches you tighten your arms around yourself. You must be cold. He rubs your shoulders.
You shake your head and turn him back to his dragon, "look at Sunfyre."
He knits his brows, "I'm looking."
"For so long," you release him, "I've wanted to fly free, to find my peace here in the cliffs. This was before I even met you." You point at the golden dragon, "I choose to love you too, but accidents happen, like if Sunfyre were to fly away, and you were to be left here alone."
Aegon stares at his ride for a moment as you lower your hand. He tries to makes sense of your words, but he cannot for the life of him understand.
He sighs, "what accident? Why do you keep-"
Aegon is flooded by confusion when he turns and finds you nowhere behind him. A split second later, he lets a horrified scream and the fear that claws into him makes his knees buckle. He crumbles to the ground and crawls to the edge of the cliff. He screams so loud that Sunfyre roars back and comes towards him.
Aegon watches as the red seafoam bubbles at the foot of the cliff. He watches as the crimson waves slowly slosh back into its original tint.
Rain begins to pour, and his tears taste no longer salty.
Was this the flying you ached for? Was this the relief you sought?
When he returns to King's Landing, dripping wet, he breaks down in front of his mother, weeping as he clutched his skirts.
Queen Alicent is obviously disturbed. She instructs her servants to get his son a change of clothes and some towels. She looks down at him, "what's happened? What's wrong, Aegon?"
"An accident-" he barely manages to say, "there's been an accident."
"An accident?!"
Aegon's mind goes blank. A bitter taste
You don't know what you have until it's gone.
Plagued by you
r.q: requesting this please, alicent's daughter x jacaerys… and an angry confession.. "I burn for you." type ❤️😭 like he wants to her to come with him and be team black.
c.w: Otto doesn't go to Dragonstone you do; alicents daughter!reader, minor angst, dialogue heavy, reader “hates” jacaerys, hints of rhaelicent, not proofread
w.c: 1.6k (finally a shorter jace fic…)
a.n: anthony bridgerton ass confession lmaoo, hope you all enjoy :3
part two part three
You were currently pacing back and forth in the room rhaenyra allowed you to stay in on Dragonstone. You had come to see her, to ask her to declare for Aegon. She had obviously argued back and forth with you, up until nightfall where she said she would retreat for the night and the two of you could finish this tomorrow in the morning before you flew back in the morning. You argued that you would leave right then but only to find out that it had begun to storm so heavily. Realizing you would not be able to travel anywhere in this weather you reluctantly agreed and here you were.
In truth you did not want to come here. You had begged your mother to send someone else to anyone else but she was instant it be you.
“Mother, why not send grandsire? He will be a much better negotiator than me.” she fiddles with your cloak, a far away look on her face before she moves to cup your face.
“Rhaenyra certainly likes you more than she likes him. She will treat you kindly.”
“She will say no mother you know this.”
She lets out a trembled sigh and grips your face tightly in her hands and presses her forehead against yours “If not for his sake you must try, for me. For my sake I do not wish for this to go to. To see her harmed.”
You've always known your mother has a very complicated relationship with rhaenyra if you can even call it that. She hated her, or at least that's what it seemed to be.
She turns and grabs your bag before giving you a knowing look.
“And I know you also have some unresolved things, do not deny it. I can recognize that look on your face. You must let these things go. Lest you end up like me.”
You feel sick at the idea of Him. You hate jacaerys velaryon. Him and his stupid pride, his stupid face. His stupid everything. You have never hated anyone the way you hate him. You never understood how much a person could hate someone seemingly as much as your mother seemed to hate rhaenyra. The way she seemed to be all she could talk and even think about, going on endless rants to the point you felt you knew more about rhaenyra than your own mother. Until you met him. Now though you understood her completely, when you were no more than six jacaerys became the target of your anger.
Due to his torment of your twin brother aemond you quickly began to hate him. You would spend all your free time thinking of him and how to get back at him. The two of you always bickered and argued, when you would look over at him he was always already glaring at you.
You were more than relieved he and his family were leaving after the incident at driftmark, but there was a part of you that when your days dragged on you began to miss him. Tormenting him of course there was no way you actually wished to spend time with him, there was no way…. Definitely not.
You haven't seen him during your time here. You would think he would be in the room where you were negotiating but he was nowhere to be seen. You did not want to ask about him, though the question has been on the tip of your tongue.
Suddenly there was some aggressive knocking on your door and you froze, turning towards it holding your breath. “Who is it?” there's no answer but you know exactly who it is and hesitant for a moment contemplating if you should even let him in. You end up swiftly making your way towards the door and opening it just a bit, planning on telling him to just go away but before you can say anything he's pushing his way into the room storming past you with an angry look on his way. You lean against the door to support yourself as you feel lightheaded just looking at him.
“You are an absolutely ridiculous woman.” you do not speak, unable to, only able to watch as he runs his hand through his curls and paces in the room just as you had been. “Do you only wish to torment me?”
“I am here for my brother-” “You should not have come.” there's a venom in his voice and he does not even look at you. You find yourself growing more annoyed at him. “I do not care what you think. I would be gone by now if your mother had not been so stubborn-” he turns to look at you and makes his way to stand right in front of you, barely any space between the two of you. “Jacaerys…” “you do not want your brother to sit the throne.” it was true, as much as you tolerated your brother, the thought of him sitting on the throne disgusted you. He would not be a good king, “you know not of what i believe.” “I know this is true, you shouldn't lie to me.”
“You act as if you know me.”
He scoffs, turning his head away from you for a moment before looking you dead in the eyes, so close you can feel his breath on your face. “I don't know you? I know that you hate the summer because you get too hot in your long dresses, i know you love whenever the chefs make cake and you would sneak into the kitchen to grab a slice, i know you despise your mothers perfume because it hurts your nose but you could never tell her such a thing because it brings her comfort,” he pauses for a moment moving somehow even closer to you, pressing his forehead against yours and closing his eyes, “i know when you are lying you scrunch up your nose,” he moves his head to your neck and takes a deep breath of your scent before lifting his head back up and his forehead is against yours once more. “And worst of all I know you desire me as I do you.”
You shake your head as you suppress a whimper from your neck, “no,,,” “you will not deny it. You will not deny something I know to be true with every bone in my body with every drop of blood in my body.”
With a long silence between you, neither of you saying a word he pushes away from you and goes back to standing where he was, that angry look back on his face. “You must go.” you look outside and notice that the storm has since stopped, your brain is currently running a mile a minute barely able to think. “I shall head back to the keep-” “that is not far enough!”
He grips his head in frustration as he begins to pace once more, “you could travel to dorne, to essos to bravos and it would not be far enough to free me from this torment you have put me through, For the thoughts of you that plague my mind to cease to exist. Even after I pass I am sure when I am faded to nothing but bones and ashes the picture of you will be laced where my heart should be.”
He quickly moves back over to you and cups your face once more bringing himself so explicitly close to you he should be kissing you. The way you two are pressed against each other is more intimate than a kiss, more romantic than any confession. You lose yourself in the heat of the moment, unable to control yourself for a while. You want to kiss him, you want him to kiss you. Before you regain the small sense of control you have to push him away from you shaking your head. “I must go home, my mother-” “Stay here. Stay with me.” He stares into you a way nobody else ever has, like he's truly trying to see you and not the facade you put on for everyone else. “My mind, body and soul yearns and burns for you uncontrollably and now that you stand in front of me I cannot take it.” He takes your hand and presses it against his heart where you can feel it being erratically as yours was as well. “Tell me you do not want me and I shall turn my back and allow you to leave. But do not beg me to watch you as I fear my heart cannot take it.”
He takes another step closer to you and does not break eye contact with you. “Tell me you do not desire me and tell me at once my love, my heart please you must.”
You shake your head as tears begin to form in your eyes, “I cannot.” “then stay.” you angle your head and kiss him, praying that through your actions he can too understand that you indeed burn for him the way he burns for you. You decide in the moment to say fuck it. Fuck your mother, fuck your brother, fuck the crown and screw everyone and everything else that is not him because you hate him so much that he has fully consumed every part of you like a parasite. Yet you have done the same to him.
Muña | one shot
Summary : Marrying your bastard nephew to mend fences between your families wasn't exactly what you had planned. But when you realise that Jace has grown into a strong and handsome man, you might be ready to rethink your plans.
Rating : Explicit, 18+ MDNI
Pairing : Jacaerys Velaryon x Aunt!Reader (Reader is Alicent and Visery’s daughter. She’s one year younger than Aegon)
TW : p in v sex, mommy kink, sub!Jace (kinda), Dom!Reader (but they both switch tbh), inappropriate use of the word muña, oral (f receiving), afab reader, incest, unprotected sex, not proofread
Words count : 8064
AN : hi everyone!! I’ve been very busy lately so I haven't had time to update BUT I’ve been working a bit on various fics. Sorry to all my Aemond girlies but today it’s time for some Jace x reader. It’s a fic I’ve written for my gf who’s turning into a Jace girlie 🤭 It's full of indecency and inappropriate things.
Also English is not my first language, so sorry for the grammar mistakes !!
Enjoy 🖤
The gardens had become your refuge over the past few days. Under the shade of the trees, on the soft grass, you had found a peaceful haven away from the excitement caused by the arrival of your half-sister and her herd of bastards. The Red Keep made you feel suffocated. And seeing your mother pacing back and forth, running left and right, didn't help. You had to calm her down. You had to keep an eye on your older brother, making sure he didn't slip away into the maze of Flea Bottom for the umpteenth time. You had to hold your family together, and you were tired.
You almost envied Daeron, in Old Town, away from the hustle and bustle of the court.
At least no one would think of looking for you where you were now. And you could enjoy a moment's respite, poring over the thick book you had borrowed from Aemond's library. Had he known that you had entered his room without warning, had he known that you had dared to disturb the perfect tidiness of his precious bookshelves, he would probably have threatened to feed you to Vhagar. But what he didn't know couldn't hurt him. Besides, you could perhaps find a way to pay him back later.
For now, you just needed to be left alone.
You stretched out, arms reaching for the sky. The sun's rays crept through the leaves, their warmth leaving a pleasant sensation on your face. Summer was back and you were delighted. The gentle breeze that ruffled the corners of your book and occasionally lifted the silver curls around your face gave you a sense of freedom. You deftly kicked off your shoes and lay back for a moment, your eyes closed.
Footsteps echoed on the cobbled floor, and you sighed in annoyance. You didn't have to open your eyes to see who it was. You recognised his footsteps. So, you kept your eyes closed. With any luck, he would continue his way and leave you alone to find someone else to annoy.
"Hey, my favourite little sister," Aegon exclaimed as he landed heavily beside you, his body brushing against yours. You opened one eye to acknowledge him, then closed it again, your arms crossed behind your head. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye on me?" he insisted when he saw you weren't answering him. "You know, make sure I don't run off or end up drunk somewhere…Stuff like that. Which our mother probably asked you to do."
A smile tugged at the corner of your lips. It was true that Aegon was terribly annoying. But of all your siblings, Aegon was still your favourite.
You resigned yourself to rolling onto your stomach, your chin resting on your hands and your head tilted sideways to face him. "My dear brother," you replied sarcastically. "Unable to occupy yourself, as usual." He rolled his eyes before reaching out to remove a leaf that had gotten caught in your hair. He subtly ran his fingers through one of your curls, his touch as light as a feather. "And why have you decided to come and disturb my moment of peace, tell me?"
He blew the leaf away and you watched as it flew away on the breeze. Your big brother's eyes shone with mischief. "Why would I need a specific reason to spend time with my favourite sister?" he added, and it was your turn to roll your eyes. He moved to lie next to you, his body practically pressed against yours.
If you moved a few centimetres, your elbows would touch his.
You'd always been inseparable, and the habit had stuck over time, even when the teenage years had driven you apart. But in those moments, you were like two children again, ready to run away from Septa lessons to get into mischief in the castle.
“Because you always have a reason for everything,” you replied, and he looked at you with a fake hurt look that was greatly exaggerated. With Aegon it was easy. It had always been easy. He wasn't as serious as Aemond, he wasn't as strange as Helena, and he wasn't as far away as Daeron.
"I just wanted to make sure my little sister was all ready to meet her betrothed tonight." He paused. "And also, that she hadn't suddenly decided to become a pious woman and follow the path of the Seven." His voice lowered. You poked him in the ribs. "See? I'm a caring big brother. I care about you."
"Shut up, Aegon," you replied. He laughed. Then he rolled onto his back, arms crossed behind his head, one leg bent, and he closed his eyes. The golden rays caught in his long lashes made him look like an angel.
Everything he wasn't.
'Well?' He added. “Excited to see Jacaerys Strong?”
You sat cross-legged. The bracelets on your wrists clinkled. Aegon knew how much the idea horrified you. You had no desire to marry Jace, to sacrifice your freedom for your half-sister's bastard eldest son. You had no desire to leave the Red Keep, to follow him to Dragonstone and spend your life bearing him children. It was your mother and Rhaenyra's idea, of course.
The union of the eldest daughter of one and the eldest son of the other, as a way of repairing the rift that has grown between your families over time.
As if you were destined to mend fences, to undo the mistakes of your own parents.
It wasn't that you hated Jace. But he was your older sister's son, a bastard who had pretensions he shouldn't have precisely because he was a bastard. He was the model son, the perfect son, the prodigy son, the one who always did everything right. It irritated you. He irritated you with his brown curls and his awkward posture.
It wasn't fair that your father showered him with praise when he could barely remember your own name.
You stood up, smoothing the folds of your red dress to make yourself more presentable, and you caught your brother's eyes on your body, his eyes riveted on the thin fabric that revealed your delicate shapes. God, you loved to play with that. You knew how to get men wrapped around your finger with your sweet, innocent air, and Aegon was the first victim. You approached him and held out your arm to help him up, which he accepted by pulling himself to his feet heavily. After putting your shoes back on, you bent down to pick up the thick book in your arms. If you lost it, you could be sure that Aemond would be angry with you. And that was a risk you didn't want to take.
"Perhaps you're right, lēkia. I'd better go and make myself more presentable for my betrothed. I wouldn't wish to disgrace our family." And with that you turned back, your hair swirling in the air behind you as Aegon watched you go with a small smile on his face.
You knew how much Aegon hated being ignored, and even more so when it came from his little sister. You knew that he would return with his tail between his legs and a pleading look on his face. Between his constant whining and his dirty jokes, he gave you little respite, but it was a game that had developed between you; a game that, deep down, you enjoyed.
He was so predictable.
“If I had known you liked strong men, I would have dyed my hair,” you heard him shout from behind you. Aegon wasn't the least bit shy. You shook your head, your silver locks bouncing.
"Get lost, you moron," you replied without even turning around.
The meal in honour of your betrothal promised to be exciting.
***
As soon as he saw you, your nephew rose to pull the chair beside him in a gallant gesture, and you found yourself watching him. Really watching him. His long, broad fingers on the back of the chair. His dark locks falling around his face. His precise features; his straight nose and deep eyes and square jaw. You hadn't realised how much your nephew had changed. He'd grown up too, and he was now a good head taller than you.
He had become a strong man, indeed.
But you refused to admit that Jacaerys Strong had become quite pleasant to look at.
"Princess," he said, pushing the chair back for you to sit down. Fingers brushed the skin of your partly bare shoulders. The touch had lasted a fraction of a second, enough to make you wonder if it had been a figment of your imagination.
"Lord Strong," you replied in greeting. If the words hurt him, Jace didn't show it. Always the perfect son. What would it take to push him over the edge? To crack the shell he'd built around himself? To shatter the image of the gentleman?
To your right, Aegon was already seated. He was holding a glass of wine between his fingers while Aemond seemed to be lecturing him about something you couldn't understand. The exchange between you and Jace had obviously not escaped his notice, and the corner of his mouth had already curled into a smirk. You knew what it meant.
His silence was full of implications, louder than any words.
Your mother had lectured him before dinner, warned him to behave because that was what was expected of him, and she was counting on you to make him obey.
But your older brother didn't say anything. He simply raised his glass in your direction, his lips forming a word that you couldn't read. You weren't sure if you were relieved or disappointed.
You looked at your nephew. He had donned a gambison in the colours of the Velaryons, and you couldn't help but smile at the irony of the situation.
After all, a bastard in blue was still a bastard.
"Enjoying King's Landing?" you asked your betrothed, in an attempt to start a conversation. His attention turned to you, his eyes widening slightly in surprise.
“It's quite different from what I remember,” he replied, his voice a little lower than usual, his warm eyes meeting yours. “But of course it all depends on the company you are with."
You hesitated, suddenly unsure.
You hated what the sound of his voice did to you. You hated the way his eyes suddenly made you feel vulnerable.
Fuck.
“It all depends on the company, indeed. And do you find yourself in good company tonight, nephew?" You gave him a defiant look, as if to judge his reaction.
As if to unveil what he held within himself.
“I'm not quite sure. Should I?” He paused, one eyebrow raised. He had taken the bait. “What would yousay?”
His eyes sparkled with something you couldn't quite put your finger on. It wasn't the malice you usually found in Aegon's eyes when he wanted to tease you. It wasn't the gleam that animated his mind when he came up with a new plan for you to cover.
"I would say I'm in pretty strong company," you replied as you took your cup, a satisfied smile tugging at the corner of your lips that you hid behind the glass.
You were cruel, giving him no respite, you knew. But you admired his composure. He hadn't cracked yet.
You knew men who were less patient.
Jace leaned towards you. A slight tilt of the head, just to make sure you were the only one to hear him. As if he wanted to share a secret with you. “Careful, Aunt,” he began, his voice suddenly quieter than before. It was almost a whisper. “I might begin to think you enjoy my company.”
You know I don't, you wanted to reply, but Jace had already straightened up as if nothing had happened, his head turned away from you. Out of the corner of your eye you saw Baela give him a questioning look, and an unfamiliar sensation stirred in the pit of your stomach.
An unpleasant heat.
A hint of irritation.
You were annoyed, and you didn't know why.
“Look how handsome your betrothed has made himself for you,” Aegon sneered as he reached for the decanter and leaned in close to your ear. “A true Velaryon, isn't he?” He huffed.
You wanted to slap him on the thigh, make him swallow his mockery.
“If you think he's so handsome, I can happily leave him to you,” you replied, and Aegon's eyes widened. You saw him take a sip of wine, and something deep inside you told you he probably wasn't opposed to the idea. His usual mischievous smile was hidden behind the wine glass, but there was no mistaking his eyes.
Aegon had that tendency to give himself away, and you could read him like an open book.
The meal proved to be as boring as you had imagined. Small talk exchanged over fake smiles. An illusory moment in which everything seemed to be going well for one evening.
You weren't fooled, and you knew it was all a facade. You knew your family well enough to understand that the slightest spark could set things alight. You knew your brothers well enough to realise that all it would take was a simple glance between them to liven up an evening they found dull.
You just hoped they wouldn't cause too much trouble tonight.
To your left, Jace was still deep in conversation with Baela. They had that kind of complicity that made your blood boil inside; a shared laugh that sounded in your ear like the squeaky music you hated. You frowned. It was you, his betrothed. It was you, not Baela, and you didn't understand why that statement was suddenly so important.
After all, you despised this union. You hated Jace. You had no desire to promise him the rest of your life.
Jace was a bastard, and you deserved better.
So why did the sight of him touching Baela's hand cause a twinge of jealousy in your body?
His fingers brushed over hers absently. A light touch on her knuckles.
And all you felt was fire.
And then. Then, your fingers slipped under the wooden table.
You knew you were playing with fire. And you knew that if anyone paid too much attention to what you were doing, they would see that you weren't exactly behaving like the perfect Princess Targaryen you were supposed to be.
But you didn't care.
You let your fingers wander, running along the outside of Jace's thigh before moving up to settle in the hollow that connected his thigh to his hip. With a faint touch, your fingertips brushed the inside of his thigh, and then lower, tracing small circles through the fabric that was already beginning to tighten.
Jace almost choked.
He spat out the contents of his glass, his dark gaze fixed on you. Everyone had fallen silent, their heads turned towards him. Rhaenyra's eyebrows were furrowed in concern.
And you hadn't removed your hand.
An innocent smile lit up your face, your eyes sparkling with mischief. You wondered if Aegon could read you. If he could see that look on your face, so similar to his own. That distinctive feature you shared.
Deciding to play with your prey a little longer, you put on your best fake concerned face, pretending to be worried about his health.
"Are you all right, Jacaerys?" you asked, your voice a little higher than usual as your nails dug into the fabric of his breeches. Not to hurt him, of course. Just enough to wake a certain part of him, just enough to remind him that you were his betrothed.
He cleared his throat and coughed again.
“I swallowed wrong,” he replied.
Your fingers crept a little higher, trying to explore his upper thigh, where you knew your nephew would be sensitive. You didn't want to be rational tonight, you wanted to let the fire take over and consume you.
You wanted to let the sleeping dragon within you awaken.
The taste of the forbidden was divine, and the heat spreading through your lower belly was too delicious to stop now.
"Be careful, mandianna. We're not married yet." you said. We're not married yet and look where I've got my fingers. You kept your thoughts to yourself. "I wouldn't want to find myself a widow already," you replied in High Valyrian, amused, and Jace looked at you with his big brown eyes, somewhere between anger and excitement, embarrassment and curiosity.
Under the table, out of sight, your hand brushed the stretched fabric where you could read the confirmation of what he was feeling, the manifestation of his desire.
He was hard.
Perfect.
It was you who provoked this.
He responded to your touch.
You felt a familiar breath on the back of your neck and realised Aegon was leaning against you again. He was pretending to serve you some of the vegetables that had just been brought in for the starter, taking the opportunity to whisper in your ear as he did so well. "Try to be more discreet, little sister," he chuckled softly, his voice nothing more than a whisper to make sure no one heard you. Discreetly, he nodded to where your hand still rested on your nephew's thigh. He tilted his head. "Rhaenyra is right in front of us. Do you think she can see what you're doing to her son under the table?"
He put on his best disinterested face. As if the words exchanged between you were nothing more than banalities.
As if he weren't commenting on the indecent deeds you were doing under the table, unworthy of a girl of your rank.
"Shut up, Aegon," you replied, trying to keep a straight face. You didn't want him drawing any more of your family's attention to you, especially when you hadn't finished playing.
Your big brother gave you a knowing wink, as if to promise you that your secret was safe with him.
And you decided to continue entertaining yourself with the new game you'd invented.
You were bold, and you decided that if Jace didn't already know it, he would find out soon enough.
***
It wasn't that Jace was disappointed with his betrothal. You were divine, and the dress you wore made you so regal that he couldn't keep his attention anywhere but on your body, on your cleavage so gracefully offered to his gaze.
It was precisely why he had turned to Baela, why he had tried to distract himself with their conversation, why he had desperately tried to find something else to hold on to.
Because you were making him lose his footing. And that was a feeling he hated.
No, Jace did not regret his betrothal. You were everything a man could want; you were beautiful, you were regal, you were clever, and above all, you were a Targaryen. A princess. The king's daughter.
The only problem was you were distant and elusive.
Jace remembered your pretensions and mockeries from his childhood. He remembered the little brat you were, following in your older brother's footsteps. He remembered a little girl with a strong temper, who knew what she wanted. He remembered the pranks, not just the ones he'd taken part in, like the Pink Dread, but the ones that had turned against him because of you and Aegon, too.
It was clear that the little girl you had once been, taller than him, with long silver curls and an air of self-assurance far too confident for her young age, had grown into a beautiful young woman.
And that was something Jace hadn't considered.
He couldn't concentrate on his conversation with Baela, not when your fingers were digging through the linen of his breeches into the flesh of his thigh, as if to remind him to whom he had been promised.
Your fingers, slender, light, burning against his inner thigh.
He clenched his jaw.
All around him, the words and faces of the guests mingled in a swirl of sound and colour. Fuck.
Fuck.
His breeches were really becoming too tight.
You'd dared to do that. You'd dared to slip your fingers under the table, in front of everyone, and Jace didn't know whether to admire your audacity or wrap his fingers around your wrist and force you to take them off.
Suddenly he felt hot, a familiar warmth spreading between his loins.
He wasn't sure he could get up, not with his member pulsing between his thighs.
Fuck. You weren't supposed to make him feel like this. He wasn't supposed to feel such a desire for you when you weren't officially married.
This dinner was about officially declaring your betrothal, not consummating a union not yet pronounced.
He was trying to calm down. He tried to ground himself back into reality. Perhaps by staring intently at the contents of his plate he could ignore the sensation of your fingers rising dangerously high; the desperate need to finally have your fingers wrapped around his manhood.
His knees slammed into the table in a sudden movement.
Your fingers had just brushed the bulge that had formed between his thighs.
And he needed more, infinitely more.
You couldn't have the cruelty to arouse such lust in him and then leave him like that. He would never forgive you.
"Stop that," he growled in your direction, low enough for no one else to hear.
But you still had that damn innocent smile, that damn audacity to act as if nothing had happened.
"I don't know what you're talking about, mandianna." Nephew. The sound of the High Valyrian rolling off your tongue sent a wave of heat between his legs. Seven hells, you were going to be the death of him.
He wanted more.
He needed more.
More of your fingers around him, more of your tongue against his length, more of that innocent look on your face as you knelt before him, more of your tight cunt.
Jace was on the verge of losing it. You'd made him a slave to his own desire. You had closed your claws around him and he knew there was no turning back now.
“If you play with fire too much, you might get burned, muña," Jace retorted, leaning towards you, and he felt the imperceptible movement of your hand twitching at the threat. Aunt.
Despite his dwindling strength, King Viserys tried to make a speech about family, betrothal, and a whole host of other undoubtedly honourable values, but neither you nor Jace paid any attention. You were caught up in your own game.
Then Jace stood up, forcing you to remove your hand.
You could see he was uncomfortable, for you knew where to look, for you knew what you had done.
You knew he had a painful erection between his thighs, and it was all because of you.
But you could only admire your nephew's composure.
“To my uncles, Prince Aegon and Prince Aemond. I have fond memories of our shared childhood.” His glass between his fingers, he raised it in the direction of his uncles, then turned to you. "And to my sweet and beautiful bride-to-be, who I'm sure will never cease to surprise me with her daring and surprising side. May our marriage be filled with joy and satisfaction".
The toasts continued, as did the meal. The servants had brought the rest of the dishes consisting of steaming meat and tasty garnishes. It was almost too joyous, almost too happy to be real. As if there was a threat lurking somewhere in the corner.
But Jace still had to teach you a lesson.
The music started, the sound of instruments filling the room. Jace apologised to Baela and walked over to his aunt. His other aunt. Your sister.
And you felt the anger return; the same inner turmoil as before.
Jace had held out his hand to Helaena and led her to dance a little further away. You immediately exchanged a questioning look with your brother, who had also stared at Jace in disbelief as he had walked away on your little sister's arm.
"So?" Aegon began. "It seems your betrothed didn't appreciate your little game?" You glared at him, but he just scoffed. "If he changes his mind... You know I like it."
You wondered if you could do the same. You wondered if you could ask Aegon to dance and if Jace would feel the same bubbling inside him, the same jealousy coursing through his veins.
You hated that feeling.
You shouldn't feel that kind of emotion, especially not for him.
You obviously didn't see it, too focused on your own annoyance, but Jace kept glancing in your direction, as if to make sure you saw him.
He wanted to make you jealous. He wanted to fuel the feeling he'd identified in you. He wanted to catch you at your own game. And one thing was certain, Jace hadn't played all his cards yet.
Your cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
After a moment that seemed an eternity, your betrothed returned to sit beside you, Helena going back to her own seat. You were less and less able to hide your annoyance, and no doubt Jace noticed, for he leaned towards you, a satisfied look on his face. "Your sister is very sweet," he murmured. He knew very well that this simple phrase would be enough to send you over the edge.
You liked attention. You liked compliments. You liked to be praised.
You said nothing back. But Aegon had his trademark grin, the one that stretched his lips when he had a devious plan, and he was already getting up on the pretext of serving Baela some wine so he could whisper in his nephew's ear. "I know my little sister can be particularly demanding.” He paused. “And difficult to tame. So if you ever need any advice... Or demonstrations…"
Jace was fuming, but he knew he had to keep his cool. It was Aegon, typical Aegon, to push his buttons, to succeed in making him suddenly unsure of himself, to make his mind confused. His fingers closed around his cup, his jaw clenched, and it took all his self-control not to throw the contents in his uncle's face.
He didn't even look at Aegon, who had returned to his seat with a triumphant smile.
But you felt something under the table. Something slipped between the folds of your dress, along your skin, discreetly, lightly, a delicious touch against your skin that made you want more.
Your eyes widened.
Jace.
Jace the perfect son. Jace the model son.
Jace slipping his fingers under your dress, touching the skin of your thigh, rising dangerously high where you could already feel the wetness forming in the crease between your thighs.
This was the moment he snapped, you knew it. You hadn't heard your brother's words, you had only seen him lean towards your betrothed, but you knew he must have struck a chord with Jacaerys Velaryon. That he had probably touched his weak spot.
Or perhaps you were just getting your comeuppance. After teasing him, after making him hard and desperate.
Jace moved his hand, tracing the space where your skin was soft and tender, all the way up your thigh, with a slow, gentle touch. His hand moved further towards the centre of you, where you were sensitive, and he brushed against your crotch. He didn't even need to apply any pressure with his fingertips to tell that you were wet.
Your hips automatically moved towards his hand in search of more contact, causing you to wiggle in your chair. All you wanted to do was grab his wrist, force him to slide his fingers under the fabric separating you, force him to touch you right here. But you were still at dinner and the game was becoming far too dangerous.
"I told you to be careful," Jace whispered as he withdrew his fingers and resumed his serious gaze, his fingers fidgeting on the wood of the table. “Two can play at this game.”
And then perhaps the Seven heard you. Perhaps they were offering you a way out. To be honest, you weren't sure if it was a miracle or a curse. For Aemond had risen, and he had done what he did best; he had made a mocking and provocative speech to his nephews.
Everything happened quickly. Jace and Luke leapt to their feet to answer the provocation, Aemond and Aegon were ready to fight back, and even Baela and Rhaena were prepared to defend their family. You had no time to move, no time to react, for dinner was already over, and so was your little game of cat and mouse with Jace.
This was your way out, you knew it. You were tired of sitting around a table listening to boring speeches. And the entertainment that had consisted of sliding your fingers under the table to push Jacaerys Strong over the edge had now turned against you.
"I shall rest," you warned your mother, who was deep in conversation with Rhaenyra, her features wrinkled with worry. "Tonight's events have left me somewhat tired. And I think a night's rest would do me a world of good." She nodded, stroking your hair, and you knew instinctively what she was thinking. Always the perfect daughter.
And as you passed through the heavy door of the dining room, you hurried off in a direction that was not that of your room.
Oh, but if she knew.
***
Thankfully, the corridor was deserted. You didn't have the slightest desire to run into a guard who would ask you where you were going or escort you to your room for security reasons.
Your steps were as discreet as possible on the stone floor, like those of a small mouse. You moved quickly, stealthily, almost on tiptoe.
Only the crackle of the fire broke the heavy silence between the cold walls, where the dancing shadows of the flames distorted.
You slowed your pace. You had a doubt. You weren't sure which door was the one you were looking for.
And then suddenly, as you reached the end of the corridor, you felt a hand grab your wrist and pull you against the wall, away from prying eyes. A strong grip, as if it didn't want to let you vanish again.
Jace was holding you between the wall and his own body. Despite the darkness, you could see his eyes shining in the candlelight, fueled by a devouring hunger you didn't know he possessed. He stared at you for a moment. His eyes in yours. A tension hung between you, burning, ready to consume you both, and you were completely willing.
Gently yet firmly he turned your body. Your chest against the cold wall, your back against his warm chest, and you pulled your hips back to provoke him. You wouldn't succumb so easily, not to Jacaerys.
He pressed himself against you, moving his pelvis forward so you could feel his hard member against the top of your buttocks.
"Do you feel what you're doing to me?" Another thrust of his hips. "Can you feel the effect you're having on me?" He pressed harder against you. Through the layers of fabric between you, you could almost feel him throb. Gods, he seemed big. "Teasing me all evening... Such a tease, aren't you?"
If it wasn't the consequence of your own actions.
You stifled a moan with your arm so as not to attract any patrolling guards. What you were doing was dangerous. At any moment you could be caught. At any moment you could be in big trouble.
But you couldn't stop now. Not when the best was yet to come.
You moved again, seeking more contact, seeking to make Jace harder and more painful than he already was, and you turned your head to challenge him. "What if it's you who's just too weak?"
You felt his hoarse breath against the back of your neck, at the base of your hair. He seemed to be hesitating, thinking. About what he was going to do to you, about what he was going to do to make sure you were responsible for your actions. Again he turned you so that you had your back to the wall, facing him, and you recognised the gleam of desire in his eyes.
Towering over you, he lowered his gaze to you, your faces inches apart. For a moment he let his eyes devour you, wandering from your eyes to your lips, from your lips to your breasts, visible through the fabric of your dress. He wanted to keep this image printed behind his eyelids; your half-open lips, your pleading gaze, like that of a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
You looked ravishing.
"Tell me to stop," Jace murmured. And you knew it was the sensible thing to do, you knew it was better to stop everything now, while it was still possible to turn back. For you weren't married yet.
But you had no desire to be responsible.
His fingers curled around a lock of your hair and tucked it behind your ear, waiting for your answer before continuing.
"What if I don't want you to stop?" you replied, your eyes locked with his. He felt your hand against his cheek as you detailed his face, tracing his well-sculpted cheeks, and he longed for more contact, his face seeking the warmth of your palm.
You put your arms around his neck to draw him closer, to close the distance between your lips, to feel his warmth against your body.
To quench this desire, this need that was becoming uncontrollable.
And your lips met in a feverish, urgent kiss. He pressed you further against the wall, his fingers running down your sides, brushing against the breasts he so craved.
He found your hips and his fingers worked frantically up the bottom of your dress in a crumpled ball of fabric to reach your core. "Look at how wet you are." His fingers brushed your folds through your undergarments. "All of this just for teasing me." He pressed one hand against the wall, still leaning against you, but not giving you what you wanted: his hand had stopped, and you tried to wiggle your hips to force him to continue, to force him to give you what you wanted.
Deep down, you loved the way he was losing control.
You loved that side of Jace you didn't know.
So you grabbed his wrist, guiding his fingers under the last barrier that separated his skin from yours.
The sensation was delicious.
The touch of his warm fingers against your folds sent a wave of heat from your lower belly through your entire body. You didn't want him to stop. "Here." You breathed against his lips. "This is where muña needs you." Aunt. He tensed beneath you, and you wondered if it was the ambiguity of the family tie, uttered in High Valyrian, that had such an effect on him.
You let your lips brush against his.
He collected your wetness on his fingers, exploring the slit between your folds up to your little pearl. You were soaking wet. And you desperately needed him inside you.
His fingers slid down to your opening where he applied a little pressure with the tip of his index finger without ever penetrating you.
"I know," he murmured, drawing small circles before abandoning your opening to return to your bud. "But I can't give you what you want now."
You whimpered under his cruelty, against his lips.
You could see through his game.
He wanted to make you beg, but you weren't the kind to beg. You were the one with the power and you were going to show him.
"We shouldn't stay here," you muttered, rubbing yourself against your nephew's hand. "If someone catches us..."
Jace nodded his head in agreement, withdrawing his fingers glistening with your juice, which you guided to his own lips, spreading the stickiness against his lips.
"If you're a good boy, I'll let you taste me."
And with that, he pulled you into his room.
***
Lying on the bed where you'd pushed him, Jace watched as you removed your dress, his prominent erection stretching the fabric of his breeches. The dress fell to the floor, forming a red puddle that you stepped over, one foot after the other.
Your nephew couldn't look away from your hypnotic figure, but his eyes inevitably wandered back to your breasts. You'd seen him glancing at your cleavage all evening, you could tell he wanted to run his fingers over your soft flesh, his lips over your nipples, and now that you were completely naked in front of him, you could see the unmistakable desire in his eyes.
You walked up to him. He clenched his jaw when he saw you. You, and the perfection of your shape, your little pointed nipples, the tantalising path that led from your chest to the space between your thighs where he knew you were soaked for him.
The flat of your hand pressed against his chest, forcing him to lie down between the pillows. He complied, never breaking the eye contact between the two of you, and you took your place on top of him, your legs on either side of his body. His husky breath escaped through his parted lips, lightly caressing your face.
You were naked, he was still dressed, and you had infinite power over him.
You lowered your hips against his covered crotch, the essence of your desire staining the linen of his breeches as your hips began to move slowly.
You leaned down and traced his jaw with the tip of your lips, planting kisses along his throat. Underneath you, his member twitched. Mimicking what he'd done earlier, you let your fingers rest on the painful bulge between his legs and whispered, "I know." You applied a little more pressure, drawing a moan from between his lips. "I know it's painful. But I can't give you what you want right now."
Jace growled. He wanted to turn you over, slam you against the mattress, pound into you and make you swallow your insolence. But he wanted to see how far you were willing to go. He wanted to see you keep control for a while longer.
You deftly undid his breeches to make it easier for your hand to slip through. You found his hard member, warm and heavy between your fingers.
It was a new sensation. As a model princess, you'd never ventured into this territory, saving your maidenhood for your future husband.
But Jace was your future husband.
You closed your fingers around him, your thumb collecting the sticky beads that had already formed at the tip of his cock and spreading it along his length.
"First I want to come on your tongue," your lips articulated against the skin of his throat as the hand that was in his breeches moved up his torso to close around his jaw, your thumb caressing his lower lip to emphasise your words. "Will you let me?" you added. In response, he let the tip of his tongue slip between his lips, touching the pad of your finger. "Let me show you," he whispered.
And indeed, Jace worked devotedly between your thighs, his tongue tracing the length of your slit, drinking in your essence as it flowed from your entrance like a delicious nectar. His tongue tickled your little knob, his thumbs spreading your folds to gain access to the treasure he coveted.
One of his fingers found your hole clenching around nothing, tracing small circles against it to force you to voice what you wanted. "Do you need me here?" he whispered against your flesh, the vibration of his deep voice sending shivers through your core. Your hands buried themselves in the dark mass of his hair and you moved your hips against his face, urging him to maintain the contact of his mouth against you. "Use your words, muña," he added, despite his nose being buried between your folds.
When you gave him the answer he was waiting for, he let a finger enter you in a delicious stretch. You held back a moan, your fingers digging deeper into his hair, not caring if you were hurting him or not. He continued to explore your cunt with his tongue, like a thirsty man, like a devoted man.
You wouldn't last long, your release close.
Jace then added a second finger. The sensation of his fingers inside you, against that rough spot, combined with that of his tongue between your folds, against your pearl, was simply divine.
"Go on," Jace started, but you immediately cut him off. "Shut up." You didn't want him to speak. You wanted him to continue with his damn tongue, with his broad fingers inside you. You didn't want him to stop. "I am... I am close."
And your climax washed over your entire body like a wave of warmth. Your legs closed around your nephew's face.
It was probably one of the best sensations you'd ever experienced.
Still between your legs, his fingers gripping your thighs, Jace collected your arousal on his tongue, sending shivers of overstimulation down your spine, and your whole body shuddering in a brutal spasm. You straightened up, knees still bent, your hand returning to your nephew's hair to guide him over you, his face close to yours. You stroked his cheek gently, as if to let him know he was a good boy, and your thumb picked up the sticky fluid that was smeared all over the bottom of his face.
You were both out of breath. You from the intense release you'd felt, he from the dedication he'd shown.
A smirk formed at the corner of your lips, and you pressed your thumb between his lips to ensure he didn't waste anything. Jace tilted his face close to yours. "You taste divine," he breathed, turning your cheeks red. "But now I need to be inside you."
His fingers slipped between your thighs, where your centre was pulsing, still far too sensitive from the ministrations he had given you.
"You can give me another, can't you?" He asked, and you nodded, so sore.
After he undressed, Jace pushed on your shoulders to make you lie down, but you skilfully changed positions, taking him by surprise.
You were unwilling to give him the power he wanted, not yet.
Straddling him, you moved your hips to rub your crotch against his erect manhood, spreading your wetness along his length. Beneath you, his torso rose and fell rapidly, and the grunts he let out conveyed his need for more. So your hand sought his hard member, guiding it to your entrance without letting it penetrate you. "So?" you asked playfully. "Do you think you've been a good boy ? Do you think you deserve to be inside me?" You wanted to make him beg, and Jace could see right through you. "To be the first?" you added, lowering your voice slightly, as if you were telling him a secret.
But he wasn't sure he could hold out much longer.
So he capitulated, giving you the defeat you'd been waiting for.
"Yes." he breathed. "Please." Your victorious smile stretched your lips and you guided him further against you, pressing his erection against your opening. Fuck. He was massive.
He was about to breathe a sigh of relief, ready to feel your velvet walls tighten around him, but you blocked his hip movement.
It wasn't enough.
"Please who?" you asked, your fingers moving back and forth around his manhood. He glared at you. You were gloating. "Please, muña," he finally begged, and you gave him what he wanted.
You lowered your hips to let him slide into you in a long thrust that stretched you around him. He was indeedmassive, and the new sensation of having him inside you was a delicious mix of dull pain and burning pleasure. You stood still for a moment to adjust to his presence inside you, your core throbbing around him. The initial pinch gradually dissipated, replaced by a pleasant sensation that sent a wave of warmth through your body.
And then he began to thrust in and out, pushing up to sink into you. "Fuck...fuck, you're tight," Jace growled. Your loose hair cascaded down either side of your face, tickling his cheeks, and he caught it in a messy bun to hold it behind your head.
You could feel the same pleasure as before building up in your lower abdomen.
Gods, you could feel him so intensely. So deeply too. Bouncing rhythmically against that particular part of you.
You buried your head in his neck, his woody scent filling your nostrils.
It was primal. Animal, between the two of you. All that mattered was the here and now. Your body against his, the sweat beading between you, the moans filling the room.
Jace tugged at your hair, causing you to throw your head back, freeing access to your chest, and he straightened up into a sitting position, his member still deep inside you, to find your breast. He buried his face in it and your hand instinctively found the back of his head to stroke his hair. Jace's lips traced a trail of kisses down the valley between your breasts, following the curve of your flesh before closing around your nipple, which he sucked gently. One of his arms wrapped around you to hold you tight against him, his other hand resting on the breast he wasn't devouring.
You stayed like that for a while, your legs on either side of him, his mouth seeking solace in your breasts, the divine sensation of being full, with him inside you, in the softness of the night, the flames rocking your lovemaking.
One of Jace's arms finally found your back and in one swift movement he reversed position. He desperately needed more, sensing that he wouldn't last long.
He pinned you beneath him, against the mattress, your legs immediately closing around him and the pace quickened. His thrusts became more messy, more sloppy because of your two combined essences. "You're mine, now" he grunted, and you shivered. His index and middle fingers wandered between your folds, caressing the spot where you were joined before moving to the pearl hidden at the top of your slit. "Am I?" you replied teasingly. You could feel him throbbing inside you. "Then be a good boy now and give muña your seed."
That was the spark that ignited the fire. Jace quickened the rhythm of his hips, his fingers still buried between your folds, his movements erratic. With each of his thrusts, you felt his member hitting that sensitive spot against your spongy inner walls. You tensed and for the second time that evening, your release flooded your entire body. You were followed by your nephew as Jace spilled into you, his seed painting white ropes against your womb.
He lay still inside you for a moment, his cock softening as you both caught your breath, your hands in his dark curls, his head at the nape of your neck.
You winced as he withdrew from your still sensitive core, his now cold seed flowing between your thighs. Jace dropped down beside you, satisfied. Then you turned to him. You grabbed his wrist one last time and guided his fingers to your centre, where your folds were smeared with the remnants of your lovemaking.
"Look how much you've left inside me," you whispered into his ear, making Jace collect his own seed on his fingertips and push it back into you. "I'm going to keep it all inside me, would you like that, sweet boy?" you whispered again.
And Jace pulled you against him to kiss you, his member stirring between his thighs, against you. It was true that he'd given you the upper hand this time. But he was ready to show you what he could do. You snuggled up against his chest, tucking your head under his chin.
"Perhaps…We should bring the wedding date forward."
And he smiled.
Lavender Haze
Oscar Piastri x insomniac!reader
Masterlist / Tangerine Pt 1 / Pt 1.5 / Pt 2
Summary: Oscar can’t sleep. The two of you try to find a solution. // A continuation of Tangerine
Word Count: 4.7k
a/n: well. I wrote smut. I reserve the right to delete this later if I decide it’s bad. but here you go! more tangerine verse!
Warnings: insomnia, sexual content (smut)
18+! minors do not interact! thank you
It’s a Tuesday, and Oscar hasn’t slept in nearly 48 hours. You know this because you’ve been with him for most of those 48 hours, and you also haven’t slept. That’s not that abnormal for you, but you’re unsure of how Oscar’s functioning.
He’s just finished up a meeting, and you’re wrapping up the last of your duties for the day. There’s a knock on your office door, and Lando pokes his head in with a worried look on his face.
“Hi,” he says. “Cute office. Um. I think maybe Oscar could use a ride home.”
“I’m fine,” your boyfriend calls from the hallway,
You raise your brows. Lando sighs and kicks the door open all the way. Oscar is standing behind him, leaning against the wall. His hair is fluffy and disheveled. His hands are tucked into the sleeves of his hoodie. There are dark circles under his eyes. You wince.
“Thanks, babe,” Oscar says in response to the look on your face.
“Mate, you haven’t slept in two days, of course you look like shit,” Lando teases.
“You don’t look like shit,” you say, and Oscar forces a smile. “You just look exhausted.”
He was supposed to sleep on the flight back from Brazil to England. You’d stayed awake on the plane, unable to get your brain to shut off. Between the crazy schedule of the triple header, the changes in time zones, and his overall stress, Oscar had the same problem. Then, when the two of you got to his apartment, it had been impossible for him to sleep. His internal clock is all fucked up.
“I am exhausted,” he admits, rubbing at his eyes blearily. “Dunno how you do this all the time.”
He walks into your office, eyes darting around to all the corners. There are plants on the windowsill, a photo of you and Oscar in Tokyo pinned up on the corkboard. He smiles as he sits down in the chair across from your desk. Then he reaches and grabs the unopened Red Bull off your desk.
“Osc,” you scold, as Lando makes a noise of horror. “That’s the last thing you need right now.”
“I feel like a zombie,” he says.
“Right, and zombies can’t drive, so,” Lando says, pulling a set of keys from his pocket.
Oscar’s keys. You know Lando’s right when he hands them to you over Oscar’s head, and Oscar tries to grab them, but he’s about ten seconds behind. It’s like his brain is buffering with an insane amount of lag. Your heart aches for him.
“Okay,” you say, closing the laptop. “I think Lando’s right. I think we should get you home.”
“I’m fine,” he says, again.
He goes to say something else but gets caught up in a yawn. You reach out and take the Red Bull from his hand. He sighs. You turn to Lando.
“I’ve got him,” you tell his teammate.
“Thanks,” Lando says, and then he disappears into the hallway.
You lead Oscar out of the office shortly after that. He asks to make a stop in the break room for coffee, and you refuse. At work, the two of you are pretty hands off with each other, trying to keep things professional. But this time you grab his wrist lightly and lead him out to the parking lot. You decide to take your car and leave his here- there’s no way you trust yourself driving his car.
Oscar is quiet on the way to his apartment. He sits in the passenger seat- an odd occurrence for him. He takes your free hand in his and knits your fingers together. You brush your thumb over his skin soothingly. Normally he’d be mentioning things on the road, or pestering you about your driving, but he doesn’t. You’re a bit worried, really.
You don’t push him on it until you’re in the elevator up to his place. “You’re quiet. You okay?”
He frowns. “I’m just… this is what you feel like. Constantly.”
You sigh, your shoulders dropping. He squeezes your hand. You nudge your shoulder against his.
“Not always,” you remind him. “I slept really well for a couple weeks there. And Friday night.”
“I was really hoping that sound machine would work,” he says with a huff.
“I know,” you murmur.
The elevator doors open for his floor, and he follows you to his flat and into the entryway. If you didn’t already know, you’d be able to tell how tired he is from the way he leaves his things haphazardly in the hallway. He kicks off his shoes in front of the door, drops his backpack on the floor next to them, and tosses his jacket further down the hall. When you turn and give him a look, eyebrows raised, he covers a yawn with his hand.
“You should eat dinner,” you suggest. You reach to brush your thumb against his flushed cheek. “Why don’t you hop in the shower and I’ll start making us something.”
Oscar sighs, takes a couple unsteady steps towards you. He holds his arms out as he leans, trusting you to catch him. You do, your accompanying laugh muffled into his shoulder. He wraps his arms around you and lets out a long groan.
“Or we could just go to bed,” he says, voice scratchy.
“No, you need dinner,” you insist. “And a shower.”
“What, do I stink?”
“No comment.”
Oscar laughs and pulls away. He holds you at arm’s length. “Okay. Shower, dinner, bed?”
You nod.
“What are the chances tonight?” He asks.
You sigh and shrug. “Maybe a 7?”
“Not bad,” he says. “We can work with 7.”
He’d started asking you that question shortly after you first made it official. What are the chances you can fall asleep tonight? Higher numbers are better. A one means an all nighter, likely too wound up to even sit in bed with him. A 5 means you might doze on and off, likely after he’s already fallen asleep. A ten is laying down and passing out when your head hits the pillow. None of the nights so far have been a ten.
He wanders off to go take a shower, and you head to the kitchen to raid the cupboards. You still have your own apartment, but when Oscar’s here, you stay with him pretty often. You go to the races, but often fly out on different days than him due to promo events, so the two of you take your time together when you can get it.
Luckily, he’s had groceries delivered, so there’s plenty for you to work with. You cook some pasta and heat up some garlic bread, knowing if you get him to eat anything it’ll have to be quick. Plus, warm and comforting will be good, too. You hear the shower shut off just as you’re draining the pasta. You have it all plated by the time he makes it out to the kitchen, wearing a loose pair of sweatpants and a hoodie.
He walks over and steps up behind you. He wraps his arms around your waist and presses his face to your shoulder blade, letting out a deep sigh. You laugh and reach behind you, running your fingers through his damp hair. He makes a soft, satisfied little noise.
“Food, then sleep,” you promise.
He nods and pulls away, taking the plates to the table with him. The two of you eat quietly, his foot bumping against yours. He sits with his cheek resting on his fist, slouched over the table.
“Thanks for dinner,” he mumbles. “Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
You laugh and nudge him lightly with your elbow. “I know.”
After dinner, he convinces you to leave the dishes for tomorrow. He takes you by the hand and drags you to the bathroom, where you brush your teeth together. You do your skincare routines together, and then he drags you to bed. You change into pajamas while he lays down, already burying himself beneath the covers.
You fall into your normal routine. You sit down with a book and a little reading lamp, turning off the overhead lights and the lamp next to the bed. You lean against the headboard while he lays down, his head on the pillow, one arm wrapped around your thigh. You run your fingers through his hair absentmindedly as you read, waiting for him to fall asleep, waiting for yourself to feel drowsy.
Neither of those things happen.
You look down after two chapters. Usually Oscar’s fast asleep by now. His eyes are closed, but he keeps shifting, and his fingers are drawing patterns on the bare skin of your thigh. You brush your thumb against his cheek, and he groans.
“Can’t sleep,” he says, opening his eyes and looking up at you.
You pout down at him. “D’you want me to turn the light off? I can go in the living room if you think that’d help.”
“No, the last thing I need is for you to not be here,” he says. “Just can’t get my brain to slow down.”
You hum, frowning deeper. You pinch his cheek lightly, then smooth your thumb over the spot. He crawls closer, nudging his head against your hip and letting out a deep sigh. Then he unwinds his arms from around your leg and stretches.
“It’s no use” he says, rubbing his face harshly. “I’ve developed insomnia by osmosis.”
You laugh, rubbing his back lightly. His cheek is squished against your leg, one eye closed. The other one is staring at you. You run your fingers through the hair on the back of his head and sigh.
“I don’t think that’s how it works, babe,” you say. “Come on, there’s gotta be something that’ll help. Let’s run through all the remedies, yeah?”
You drag him back out to the kitchen and start with chamomile tea. You turn on some calming music in the background, like a lullaby but for a grown man. He drinks the tea on the couch, and you sit next to him, running your fingers through his hair. It’s the best way you know to calm him. His eyelids don’t seem to grow heavy, though, so after a while you move on to the next one- warm milk and honey.
“If it’s all drinks I’m just gonna have to pee,” he says grumpily.
He’s leaning on your shoulder in the kitchen, like he can’t hold himself up. You know the feeling- your body gets heavy and tired but your mind doesn’t. So you hold onto him and will the milk to work. Of course, it doesn’t, and then you’re back to square one.
You find some lavender essential oils, buried in the bottom of your work bag. One of the reasons you hesitate to admit you have insomnia, to even call it that, is because of things like this. Everyone tries to offer you their foolproof home remedy, like you haven’t already tried all of them. But Oscar doesn’t have full fledged, capital I Insomnia, he’s just got a messed up sleep schedule, so maybe it’ll help. You tug the neck of his shirt down to rub it on his chest, and then you add some to his wrists too.
“Smells nice,” he says, softly. He blinks. “There’s lavender in your shampoo, isn’t there? Smells familiar.”
You blink right back at him. “Yeah. There is.”
It shouldn't be surprising that he recognizes the smell of your shampoo, but somehow it is. It’s endearing, sweet to think about.
The lavender doesn’t seem to help, so you move on. He’s already tried a warm shower, so that’s checked off the list, and he’s eaten warm food too. You pull him back to the bedroom and direct him back onto the bed. He lays on his stomach, which is what you were going to have him do anyways, but you make a little noise and tell him to sit up. You sit down on the bed next to him and shove at his hoodie.
“How about a massage?” You suggest.
It doesn’t take him long to take his shirt off after that suggestion. Oscar has Kim to help him stretch and loosen up during the race weekends, so you’ve never really suggested this. You wonder why you haven’t as he lays down and sighs happily. His toned back is spread out on the bed in front of you, the tan line painting a stark difference on his skin. You want to trace the outline of every muscle, but you refrain, even as he puts his hands above his head and you watch the way his arms flex. You grab some lotion, throw your leg over his hip so you’re straddling his upper thighs, and get to work.
You’re happy to have the chance to drag your hands along every inch of his skin, and it does seem to be working. That is, if the soft sighs and groans he’s letting out mean anything, or the way he begins to melt into the bed. You rub his shoulders and see the tension drain from his upper body. You press your hands into his lower spine and feel his muscles soften underneath your hands. His breaths even out and slow down.
You lean over and press a kiss to the back of his neck and whisper, “s’it working?”
He sighs, and when he speaks his voice is low and raspy. “It’s not not working, but…”
You frown. “But?”
He pulls one hand down from over his head and reaches for your hand. He tilts his hips up and brings your hand down to press against his bulge, and you gasp. He’s hard, probably almost uncomfortably so. You cup him in your hand and listen to the strained sigh he lets out.
“I was trying not to,” he says, “because I was actually starting to get sleepy. But your hands feel so nice, and I could feel you moving, and-“ you interrupt him with a soft squeeze of your hand, and he groans loudly. “Fuck, baby.”
“I can help with that, you know,” you say, pressing a kiss to his temple. “I’d be happy to. Thrilled, even. Who knows, maybe it’ll help you sleep.”
He muffles his laugh into the pillow underneath his head. When you tug at his sweatpants and slip your hand past the waistband, he groans out a “Please?”
He rolls over under you when you tell him to. You settle yourself back on his upper thighs, letting your eyes roam over his exposed chest. His eyes are half lidded- from drowsiness or arousal, you’re not sure. You run your hands up his sides smoothly. He lets out a whine.
“Please,” he sighs again.
“What do you want, baby?” You ask, pressing your thumbs into the jut of his hips.
He sighs and snuggles down into the bed. He’s laying on top of the fluffy down comforter, and he seems to sink into it. He blinks up at you and props his arm behind his head.
“I want you to be wearing less clothes,” he says, voice heavy with exhaustion. “And then I want you to ride me.”
Heat rolls down your spine. There’s something about sleepy Oscar that makes him loose lipped and eager to tell you exactly what it is he wants. You grin down at him as you fiddle with the hem of your t-shirt.
“Please,” he says again. His brows furrow into a tiny v, and his face looks strained.
You start to tug his shorts down. He sighs happily, props the other arm behind his head, too. He’s already leaking precum when he finally slips free of the confines of his clothing. You reach out, run a light fingertip up the hard line of him. He shudders underneath your touch. You lean down to press a kiss to the tip, and he yelps.
“M’not gonna last,” he says, voice already raw. “Just want you.”
It doesn’t take long, then, for you to do as he asked- lose your clothes and get on top of him. He reaches down when you straddle his waist and slips his hand between your legs, groaning when he feels how wet you are. Normally, he’d insist on giving you at least one orgasm before he even thought about getting to this point, but you know he’s exhausted and you’re aching for him already. You take his cock in your hand and guide it to your center, and his breath catches in his chest when you start to sink down on him.
You know almost immediately he’s right- he won’t last. You can feel him twitch as he bottoms out, and you watch the way his abs clench beneath you. You let out a soft moan at the feeling. His eyes are screwed shut, mouth dropped open. You could stay right here and stare at him for ages.
“Fuck, baby,” he gasps, already panting. “So good.”
When you start to move your hips, he starts to fall apart. His hands fall to hold onto your waist, thumbs pressing into your rib cage. You draw moans and groans out of him,echo them back to him, and practically drool at the way he arches his back and neck and rolls his head against the pillow. Everything feels so intense, like it’s all turned up a notch. You think he’s feeling it too. It’s the lack of sleep, you think, absently. You should pull all nighters together more often. You’ll tell him later.
Right now, you lean over to kiss him. His tongue is in your mouth almost immediately, messy and uncoordinated but hot nonetheless. You have your hands planted on either side of his head, and he starts to meet your hips with thrusts of his own. His hand slips between your legs again, thumb pressing at your clit, and you know you’re a goner. From the way he’s squirming underneath you, he is too.
You fall apart on top of him, your orgasm washing over you in sweet, warm waves, and you collapse into his chest when you feel him follow closely behind you, his hips bucking up against yours. He wraps his arms around you and holds you close. You rest your head on his heaving chest and breathe him in.
Minutes later, when you try to pull away, he wraps his arms tighter and groans. You laugh.
“Osc, I can’t stay here forever, I’m not that flexible,” you mumble. “And we should get cleaned up.”
He lets go, albeit reluctantly. When you pull away and off of him, he lets out a soft whine. You head to the bathroom, clean yourself up quickly and head back to the bedroom with a washcloth.
He’s laid out on the bed, eyes closed. “M’not asleep yet,” he mumbles. “But almost.”
You’re gentle when you clean him up, even more gentle when you tug the blankets out from under him so you can tuck both of you in. You decide clothes can be forgotten about, and you press yourself against his side. He sighs happily, wraps his arm around you, and promptly falls asleep. For once, in a strange turn of events, you follow behind him without much of a delay.
You wake up the next day in the early afternoon. You’re thankful today is a day off, meant to be a break from the insane schedule you’ve held for the last three weeks. Oscar’s off too, so even though you’re awake, you snuggle closer to him and close your eyes while you wait for him to wake up. You drift in and out of sleep, drowsy half dreams dancing behind your eyelids. It’s the kind of sleep you normally hate, but after sleeping for nearly eleven hours the night before, it’s alright.
Finally, you feel Oscar start to stir, and you know he’s fully woken up when his hand slides down your bare side, his palm landing on your hip. He sighs happily and squeezes at your skin.
“We should sleep like this more often,” he says cheekily, voice still rough with sleep.
You laugh, turning your head to look at him. His eyes are still closed. “You wanted to fall asleep inside me last night,” you say teasingly. “This seemed mild in comparison.”
“Yeah, we should revisit that sometime,” he says, pinching your hip just to hear you let out a squeak. Then he rolls towards you and wraps you up in his arms. “Good morning, love.”
“Afternoon, actually,” you mutter against his skin.
“Yeah, yeah, we needed it,” he says. “Did you sleep?”
You nod. “Passed out right after you, woke up just a little while ago.”
“Wow,” he says, in that signature tone of his. “Impressive.”
The two of you crawl out of bed eventually, heading for the shower together. He’d suggested it once in a hotel room to save time, insisting that you could both stay in bed longer if you consolidated and showered together. You’d nearly been late, but it’s become a habit since. He helps you rinse the conditioner from your hair, and you do the same for him. When you get out and wrap yourselves up in towels, he presses his nose to your hair and breathes in.
“No wonder I sleep so well when you’re here,” he says. “You’re a walking sleep remedy.”
“The lavender didn’t work on you,” you remind him.
He shrugs, dragging a towel through his wet hair. “Maybe it’s just you, then.”
You spend what’s left of the day with him, having a late lunch and then heading off for a walk in a nearby park. It’s chilly, but not unbearably so, and he holds your hand the whole way. As the sun begins to set, you head home, have a light dinner, and settle in to watch a movie. Before it’s even a quarter of the way done, Oscar starts to yawn. By the halfway point, he’s nodding off, his head on your shoulder.
You pause it. “Osc, babe, time for bed, yeah?”
He nods sleepily and curls further into you. You’re amazed by it, honestly. You don’t understand how he can be this tired already. You drag him off the couch and to the bathroom, where you both brush your teeth. Then he takes your hand and pulls you to the bed.
You know before you even lay down that you won’t be able to sleep. But you humor him anyways, because you know he falls asleep easier when you’re there. You curl up in bed with him, careful not to tangle yourself up in his limbs too much. It’ll make it easier to slip away when he falls asleep. He closes his eyes, and you run your hands through his hair and watch him fall asleep.
This is the kind of nice thing about having insomnia- you get a free pass on watching your boyfriend sleep. There’s something so endearing about it- the way any of his stress melts from his face, the soft rise and fall of his chest. His cheeks are slightly flushed, and you pull the blankets back just a little, sensing he must be warm. His hair is getting long, and it’s begun to fall in his face, so you smooth it off his forehead.
You do try to go to sleep, laying there with your eyes closed, counting sheep. But it doesn’t work, and you get antsy, your whole body buzzing with energy. So you slip out of bed as quietly as you can, leaving him behind with a soft kiss to his forehead. It almost makes you feel guilty, even though you know he understands.
You close the bedroom door and head for the living room. You put the tv on, leaving the volume low. You have specific shows that you watch when you can’t sleep. It’s not that they help, but more so that you’re watching other shows with Oscar, and you don’t want to watch without him.
You half watch the tv and half scroll on your phone. You have to be careful when you’re up this late with nothing to do- social media sucks you in, and it can be a dark spiral. You and Oscar aren’t public, in the sense that the public hasn’t figured out who you are. But they have seen pictures of Oscar with a mystery girl, and they don’t seem to like you very much. You avoid twitter at all costs.
Eventually, you get bored with your phone and reach for your book. You turn on the little lamp on the side table and start to read. Around 1am, the words begin to blur on the page. You close your eyes for just a moment, wondering if you might be able to fall asleep, telling yourself if you start to feel drowsy you’ll go back to bed. But as soon as your eyes are closed, your thoughts begin to race. You sigh and head for the kitchen.
In Oscar’s fridge, there’s a supply of tangerine Red Bulls. You’re pretty sure he got them for free, because they have Max and Checo’s faces all over them, but you’re not going to complain about it. You reach for a can and spin it in your hands, looking for the permanent marker.
Oscar understands the whole energy drink thing a bit more now, but he still worries. He’s taken to leaving you notes on the cans, because he knows you’re often reaching for them in the dead of night, when he’s asleep and unable to help quiet your mind. This one says: U SO PRETTY <3 in messy scrawl. You think Lando’s been helping him come up with them. Or Logan. You’re not sure. You smile, snap a quick picture of it, and head back to the couch. Then you settle back in for more reading.
At 2:13 am, you hear a noise from the hallway. Oscar appears in the doorway to the living room a few moments later, rubbing at his eye socket with his knuckles. His hair is in a state of complete disarray, one of the ankles of his sweatpants hiked up much farther on his calf than the other. He covers a yawn with his other hand.
“Hi, sleepyhead,” you say, softly. “It’s the middle of the night, what’re you doing up?”
He shrugs as he stumbles his way to the couch. “Woke up. Reached for you. Went, huh, not here. Came to find you.”
You laugh at his stilted sentences, and the sleep still coating his voice. He grimaces when he spots the can of Red Bull, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, he collapses onto the couch, and in the process, onto you. He lays his head on your chest and wraps his arms around you, sighing happily.
“Better,” he says. “Can I stay for a little bit?”
You laugh and kiss the top of his head. “You can stay as long as you want.”
“Mm. How ‘bout forever?” He mumbles. Before you can reply, he speaks up again. “Will you read to me?”
“Yeah,” you answer, unable to wipe the silly grin off your face. “We can go to bed if you want. Just didn’t want to wake you up.”
He shakes his head and burrows closer. “S’okay. M’comfy here. And this way you have the TV.”
So you pull a blanket off the back of the couch, lay it over him, and wrap one arm around him. You try not to think too hard about the way he meets you halfway without you ever having to ask. You open the book with one hand and trace patterns on his back with the other. You read out loud, listening to the little laughs he lets out at the dialogue.
He falls asleep before you’re through a single chapter. When you realize he’s dozed off, you lay the book on his back and listen to the soft sounds of his breathing, feel the weight of him against you and the soft puffs of air that slip over his lips. You trace the shell of his ear, the line of his jaw. You close your eyes, knowing that between the insomnia and the caffeine, you probably won’t fall asleep. But for once, your mind doesn’t begin to race. You just bask in the warmth of him, and the comfort of knowing that even in the dead of night, you’re not alone.
a/n: thanks for reading! I missed tangerine!oscar tbh
taglist : @4-mula1 @celestialams @struggling-with-delia @lovekt @i-wish-this-was-me @forzalando @iloveyou3000morgan @ggaslyp1
♡ Nice Guys Finish Last; Art Donaldson x Reader ♡
nsfw! (18+) cw: soft dom!art donaldson, sub!reader, afab/fem reader, porn w/ a little plot, penetrative sex, unsafe sex/pullout method, slight edging (reader!receiving), equal desperation, praise, general filth, art is a softie until he's not
wc: 4.2 k
*does not include challengers spoilers!*
prev. art donaldson fic : <3 here <3
It was currently 11 PM in the state of New York, and Art Donaldson was in your hotel room.
-
Earlier today, you had competed in a long singles tennis tournament for a cash prize, and had beat every other girl in the bracket. You walked away from it with five-hundred more dollars in your pocket than you had walked in with, and a smug grin on your glossy lips.
Art Donaldson had competed in a similar tournament at the same venue, except it involved doubles teams playing against one another. He had played with his typical partner, Patrick Zweig, and they, too, had beat everyone in their bracket.
Tomorrow, they would be playing against one another to determine the ultimate winner.
You had watched them play, and they had watched you play too.
After the venue had shut down for the night, you had begun to wander back to your hotel a few blocks away and coincidentally bumped into the two boys heading back to the same building.
You three talked--or rather, they had buttered you up with compliments as you all went up the elevator, and suddenly you were in their hotel room drinking cheap beer from cold metal cans.
They both flirted relentlessly with you for about an hour or two, before Patrick had called it a night (and had given up on trying to woo you) and told you and Art that he was going to sleep.
Art had given you a look and nodded towards their room's door with a small smile, silently suggesting something. Thirty seconds later the both of you were standing alone in the hotel hallway. He chatted you up and praised your tennis-playing for about ten more minutes, his blue eyes staring into yours with an earnest desire to hold your attention. You had laughed and flushed with a nervous heat while he sang your praises, and then a bout of silence came over the two of you. He looked down to his shoes, letting out a soft chuckle, and then back up to your eyes.. and then down to your lips. The buzz of the fluorescent lights above made the silence seem more tense than it already was.
After tossing the reality of this interaction around in your head, you had realized that his kind, sensitive, charming persona was effectively rendering you weak in the knees..
"You're really pretty, by the way.. i don't know if i've said that yet, but you are," he had spoken in the hallway, leaning his shoulder against the wall as a lock of his strawberry-blonde curls hung in the center of his forehead.
And that was it.
Five minutes later he was in your hotel room.
-
The both of you kicked your shoes off in the doorway, and then moved to sit on the edge of your hotel room bed. Your chest and hands felt strangely hot as the young, talented tennis player sat there next to you. After a few moments of shared bashful glances, you started to notice things about him that you hadn't before.
Sometimes when he smiled, only one corner of his lips would lift up. When that happened, it looked more like he was smirking than he was smiling, which made him seem either disingenuous or disinterested -- even though it seemed that neither of those things were true.
He smelled like generic aftershave, faint sweat, and warm skin, which was a pleasant contrast to the smell of the hotel room. While the hotel was clean, it was also old, which made the permeating scent of the carpet akin to something like the stale basement of a childhood home.
He fidgeted subtly with his hands, staring into your eyes before averting them to look around at your luggage and tennis bag on the floor.
"So.. you said you're going to Stanford this fall, right?" you say, leaning back on your palms.
"Yeah, yeah," he nods, turning his head to look back to you again with a sheepish smile, “and you’re going to Harvard?”
“Mhm,” you hum, smiling back at him, “is Patrick going with you?”
He laughs a little, his brows furrowing, “Patrick? Hell no.”
You shake your head, “why not?”
“Patrick isn’t the college type. He wants to go pro immediately.”
“Ohh.. right, i forgot he mentioned that.”
“Yeah,” Art shrugs, still giving you a soft look as he shifts a little in his spot on the end of the mattress.
“I think you’re better off at Stanford without him,” you tease slightly, a playful smirk on your face.
He smiles wider, “Why?”
“I think he’d just get you into trouble,” you chuckle.
Art laughs again, a tiny bit harder than he did before, and you’re not sure if it’s because he genuinely likes your playfulness or if it’s because he’s a little nervous.
"You don't think I can cause trouble?" he asks with a small smile.
You shake your head after letting a soft giggle bubble up and out of your chest in response.
"Nah, not really."
"Why's that?"
"You're just so.. so nice."
He scoffs lightly and gently rolls his eyes, reaching up to tuck some of his messy hair behind one of his ears. He chews a little on the inside of his cheek.
"What?" you laugh.
"Everyone me and Patrick meet thinks he's this cool 'bad-boy' and I'm just this.. meek little 'nice guy'," he chuckles, matching your body language now by also leaning back on his palms.
Your smile falters slightly when he does this, but only because now the sleeve of his gray tee shirt was brushing against your bare shoulder, and your faces were a short distance apart. If you tried, you could probably just lean in and kiss him..
"It's not a bad thing to be a nice guy," you smirk, continuing your guys' little back-and-forth.
"Yeah, but there's, like, connotations behind that idea of a guy."
"What 'connotations'?"
He lets out a stiff chuckle, averting his eyes down to his legs before he returns your eye contact once again as he speaks, "I don't know.. that I'm 'shy', or that i 'cant be assertive'.."
You smile, feeling another wave of warmth creep over your stomach just from the way he was looking at you. His eyes were soft but steadily looking into yours, and each second felt like three years.
"So you're saying that those assumptions aren't true?" you tease gently, subtly moving to lean your shoulder against his. He noticed this immediately.
"God!" he laughs, slightly offended but still playing along, "do they seem true?"
"No," you say a bit softer with a smile, your eyes unintentionally drifting down to his pink lips. He noticed this too.
"Okay, good," he leans in a little more, your lips only a handful of inches apart now ".. 'cause they're definitely not."
"Really?" you chuckle, still teasing him.
He nods, "Really, really."
You could feel your heart beating rapidly in your ribcage, and then you started to wonder if he could hear it. Your lips part, little breaths being let out as you lean in an extra two inches. He smirks, and then you feel him move his right hand off of the bed and over your thigh. Its gentle and almost hesitant; giving you the opportunity to say 'no' if you wanted to.. but you didn't. you definitely didn't want to say no.
Your breathing hitches a little and your thighs shift slightly to capture his fingers between your limbs, and he looks steadily into your eyes as his digits squeeze your flesh softly.
"I'm not that shy," he murmurs lowly.
And then his lips are on yours, hot and hungry and eager to please. Your brows furrow as you kiss him back with equal ferocity, and his other hand moves to gently cup your cheek.
His tongue lathes over your bottom lip, and you open your mouth wider so that he can slide it in and taste you better. He groans softly against your smooth, parted lips, his hand between your thighs sliding up to press his palm against your clothed heat. A shaky, barely audible moan escapes your lips as this happens, and he swallows it down as he kisses you harder.
Art's hands then move to slide under your athletic tank top, and he pulls away with lidded eyes to mumble lowly and warmly against your jaw, "can I take this off?"
You nod feverishly, breathing heavily, as you lift your arms above your head while he pulls your shirt up and over. He tosses it aside once it's off like it's trash to him, and then he's diving back in to kiss and suck and nip at your neck. You're sure that he'll leave marks, but you can't find the strength or willpower to deny how hot it would be to look in the mirror later and see all of the little red blotches that his pretty mouth left behind. A few soft "ahh"s and "oh"s slip from your parted lips as his tongue flicks over your pulse point like its a clit, and you can feel your cunt clench around nothing. Without further warning, both of his hands slide up to grope your breasts over your sports bra, and your back arches instantly.
"I want to see more of you," Art whispers against your neck, one of his hands moving back to gently grope your thigh right under the hem of your shorts, while his other starts to hook one of his fingers under the elastic band of your bra.
"Yeah, yes," you mumble and nod, your eyes fluttering shut as you feel his silky tongue lap gently over the sensitive spot on your lower neck again.
He pulls back, his lips shiny with his own saliva, and he lets out a small huff of air as he stands up from the bed and shifts to stand in front of where you're trembling on the edge of it.
Your eyes meet his, and you now fully realize that his whole "nice guy" thing was a facade.. or maybe it was just a protective cloak he put on until he got comfortable..
Regardless, he looked different now as he stood in front of you, breathing heavily as his gaze drank in the sight of your body. He takes a step closer, his knees touching the end of the bed as his legs stood steadily between yours. He looks down, shifting his left knee to push your legs farther apart, and you have to bite down on your bottom lip to stifle a whine.
Not a moment later, he's reaching down to pull your tight sports bra over your head. It drops from his grasp onto the floor, his breathing hitches as he looks down at your exposed chest, and then his hands are moving to roughly knead and squeeze at your soft flesh underneath his palms. You shudder and bite your lip. He thumbs your nipples.
His eyes move back up to return your gaze, and he leans down and starts to crawl on top of you, his body gently coaxing yours to lay back flat over the patterned comforter. You don't need a verbal cue from him to know what he wants and what his goal is; his body did all the talking -- just like it did when he played tennis.
"Fuck," he breathes out, his erection straining against the inside of his boxers as it presses against your bare abdomen. A lift of your hips is all the indication he needs from you to tell him that you're as desperate for this as he is right now, and so he gingerly begins to slide one of his hands down the front of your shorts. His touch dips under the waistband, and then before you can process the sensation, you realize that he's moving down into your panties too. One thing that you are painfully aware of, though, is the fact that he never tries to break eye contact while he does all this..
"Ahh.." you moan, your brows pinching up as you feel his warm fingertips brush over your throbbing, sensitive nub. He was hardly touching you, but it was enough to get the fire roaring in your guts. It was more than enough. He knew all the right ways to touch you.. and all the right spots to squeeze and caress.. which seemed crazy considering you two had never spoken to one another until about three or so hours ago.
He smiles gently, his eyes now moving to gaze down at your lips. The pads of Art's fingers begin to play with your clit, rubbing soft and incessant circles over the ball of nerves as you start to squirm on the bed. His head leans back down to kiss your neck and your hands shakily grab onto his shoulders. A laugh escapes him, coating your flesh in a bath of warm air, while he feels your nails dig into him. Even over the fabric of his cotton tee shirt he can feel this, and he winces slightly before the sting of your grip dissolves into pleasure and he starts to moan along with you.
A few more minutes of this go on, and the band in your stomach is stretched more and more until it feels like it's about to snap, and then-
"I really want to fuck you right now," Art murmurs against your skin, his fingers coming to a pause as he pulls his face from the crook of your neck to look down into your dazed eyes.
You blink a few times, feeling the numbing pressure in your pussy start to fade as he unintentionally edges you.
"yes, please.. I want you to.." you softly whimper, your hands reaching up to needily tug at his shirt.
"I don't have a condom," he whispers breathlessly, shaking his head softly as his gaze falls onto your lips now.
"I.." you pause, taking a second to breathe as you attempt to think over the predicament you're now in, "uhm.. I- well, I don't really care.. as long as you pull out.."
It's almost as if just the idea of him being able to be inside of you-- skin to skin; raw--sets him off, because the moment the words leave your mouth, he's letting out soft breathy moans and grinding his clothed pelvis against your thigh. You can feel him throbbing through the fabric, and now you're certain you can't wait much longer. Neither can he.
Your hands pull on his shirt again, forcing his face back down close to yours, "I want you inside of me.."
A groan and a grunt later, he's scrambling to pull his shirt off, and then his shorts, and then his strong calloused hands are gently tugging yours down as well. Art doesn't want to waste time on the act of undressing. Sure, he liked being tender and going slow most times, but this occasion was different. The more that he felt himself leaking into his underwear, the more he needed to feel your silky cunt grip around his cock. Maybe if he got your number after all this, he could go slow next time, but not now. Not when he's like this and you're like that.
When your panties are pulled down with your shorts, Art lets out a groan as he sees the fabric connecting with your delicate flesh via a glistening string of arousal from your heat.
"Jesus Christ," he huffs, his tongue moving to dip out over his bottom lip involuntarily. He pushes your shorts and panties down the rest of the way, and you urgently kick them off onto the room's carpet.
After he moves back up, one of his hands reaches down once again to your cunt. His fingers gently brush over your slicked-up folds, causing your body to jolt and shudder as you struggle to remain quiet. In the next instant, you feel his touch leave your body and you watch in awe as he brings his digits up to his lips and sucks your juices off of them. He rolls your wetness around over his tongue and his eyes roll back a little. He can't help it -- you just taste so fuckin' good.
"Art," you whisper, your voice dissolving into a soft whine, "c'mon.. just- I want you to-"
You're cut off when the man hovering over your form moves his fingers from his mouth and down to yours, effectively shutting you up.
"Suck," he whispers.
You do as you're told instantly, parting your lips to engulf his middle and ring finger in wet heat; your drool pools over his fingertips as your tongue swirls around them and tastes the mix of his saliva and the remnants of your arousal.
He watches with bated breath as you do this, his eyes never leaving your face, and he cant stop himself from pushing his hard, clothed dick against your bare cunt. Your eyes flutter. A string of whimpers echo out into the room from your chest, and you can feel more of your wetness slide down from your entrance.
Art keeps his fingers in your mouth as he uses his other hand to pull his hard-on out of his black boxer briefs, groaning as he taps your clit with the tip of it a few times. Each time his leaking cockhead touches your sensitive parts, your hips buck up. He didn't think it was physically possible to get as turned on as he was right then.
He shifts his pelvis back so that he can slide his dick over your sticky body, not pushing in quite yet, but just teasing your greedy hole. The feeling of your heady moans around his fingers cause them to vibrate, and he leans down close to your face on instinct.
Your breath catches in your throat. Your eyes blink open and you whimper as he uses his digits to gently force your lips to part so that he can shove his tongue past them. Art licks at the inside of your mouth, groaning while he subtly removes his fingers and brings them down to your clit once more. He slots your bundle of nerves between his index and middle finger, sliding them up and down to effectively stroke over your most sensitive area as you feel his cock prodding at your hole.
While his tongue laps over yours, his mouth eagerly swallowing the obscenely loud moans you're letting out as your climax approaches once again, he begins to slide his tip into you. Your eyes instantly open wide before your face scrunches up in pleasure and your hands desperately paw at his shoulders.
He slides in another inch.
And another.
And then two more.
And then he bottoms out completely, filling you wholly with his twitching length as he pulls his face back from your lips to gasp softly.
You look up at him as his brows furrow, and you wriggle underneath him as he lets out a soft growl.
"You're so tight.. shit, you feel so good," he murmurs lowly, his eyes on yours as he starts to slide himself slowly back out before thrusting back in. You can feel him hit your cervix. You'd let him bruise it if he wanted to.
And he wants to.
"Fuck me harder," you moan softly.
"Yeah?" he smirks, breathing heavily.
"Yeah."
He leans up so that his back is straight, and he gazes down at you while he slides his hands under your form to gingerly cup your lower back.. and then he's pounding into you without further warning.
Your back arches up from his hold, and every thrust of his thick cock into your cunt is sending explosions of numbing heat throughout your lower half.
Each movement of his hips results in a lewd squelch as his pelvis slaps into the underside of your ass, and every movement sends you closer and closer to the edge. He's groaning and moaning above you, watching your every move as you squirm around and take him properly. You want to be good for him; he can tell.
Whimpers and needy whines are forced out of you as he fucks you with abandon into the mattress, and your mind is forced back into reality once you feel his hands move from your back to your sensitive tits.
"Are you gonna cum? You're squeezing down on me," he breathes out, a loud groan cutting his words off as he tips his head back. His thrusts grow sloppier, "oh god, oh fff-u-uck.."
"Ye-- Uhh- Ahh-!" you hoarsely and brokenly moan out, unable to fully give him an answer. Your hands fist the cool sheets under you as your legs start to involuntarily squeeze together with the onslaught of your impending orgasm.
Art brings his head back up to look down at you, and he shakes his head, sliding his hands down from your breasts to your legs to lift them up and spread them apart gently but forcefully.
"Keep them spread.. I know you're close," he says softly to you, "I promise I'll let you come.. just keep being good for me.. I'm almost there.."
Once his words fill your fuzzy head, you can't help but let out an obscenely loud---borderline-pornographic---moan as your thighs shake in his hold. His cock slams into you faster, but with less and less precision. He bites his lip before his jaw slacks and he lets out an equally loud moan to accompany your filthy noises.
"You're so fucking pretty... you're so-- you feel so damn good," he babbles gruffly, his touch digging into your legs as his hips rashly thrust his throbbing length in and out of your sopping pussy.
You nod, unsure of what to say or how to even respond in the state that your body is in. You're somehow limp and tense at the same time, your body shivering as your back arches up again.
"I-- I'm gonna--!" you gasp out in a shaky whimper.
He moans at your words, fucking you deeper and messier, before he leans down over you and you can feel his broad toned chest press against yours.
"Say it.." he breathes out against your ear in a soft groan.
You moan, shuddering under him as your cunt starts to rhythmically tighten around him.
"I'm gonna cum," you whine, nearly sobbing.
"Fuck," he groans, "yeah? Say it again for me."
"I'm gonna cummm-!"
"You wanna cum on my cock?"
You nod helplessly, your arms wrapped around his flushed upper back as his cock slides in and out of you; his tip constantly brushing up against that special spot in your velvety walls hidden just a couple inches inside.
"Yess-s-!" you moan, your body absolutely writhing on the bed under his heavy form.
"Okay.. alright," he breathes out hotly into your neck, "go on and cum for me."
Before you can process what's going on, your body is overwhelmed with an overpowering heat as the last thing you distinctly feel is one of Art's hands moving down your lower abdomen to then rub circles over your swollen bud with his thumb. And that's all it takes -- You’re thrown over the edge.
"Fuck! OH MY GOD, OH--!" you cry out, your nails digging into his back as he fucks you through your climax.
He groans harshly and loudly against your warm skin before his hips stutter with the feeling of your hole pulsing around him. He keeps his digit rubbing incessant, soft circles over your clit to prolong your orgasm as he forces himself to pull out with a gasp.
His balls draw up and he reaches down quickly with his other hand to stroke over his length just as he feels his release start to rise up.
As you moan tremblingly and bask in your afterglow, you try to catch your breath as you shakily push yourself up onto your elbows just in time to watch Art squirt out a thick load over your torso. Rope after rope of sticky white fluid drips and gushes from his cock and between his fingers as he jerks himself off; shuddering deeply over you and letting out little "fuck"s and "oh my god"s and "yes"s.
After a few more shaky moments tick by, his thumb comes to a halt over your clit as he watches the last drops of his cum fall onto your stomach.
He breathes heavily, biting his lip as he watches your body shake. He loves the way his cum looks on your beautiful body.. it's like liquid pearl splattered all over you. He takes several mental pictures of the scene in front of him before he collapses on top of you with a soft grin.
You chuckle breathily, wrapping your arms around him as your warm bodies stick together in the aftermath, and he presses two soft kisses to your neck. One of your hands slides up from between his shoulder blades to run some of your fingers through his messy curls. He shivers and sighs, sliding his hands under your body to hold you closer to him.
A small period of comfortable silence is held between you two as you both work to catch your breaths, before Art is the one to break the quiet with a soft murmur into your shoulder.
"So.. can I get your number?"
"After round two," you whisper with a smile.
"Deal."
note; this is for everyone who voted for soft dom!art donaldson in that poll + the anons in my inbox asking for this sort of dynamic w/ art <3 much much much love !
divider credit: @benkeibear <3
back to you ☆ cs55
genre: fluff, oldmoney!reader, strangers to lovers
word count: 3.1k
Fixated from the moment he first saw you, Carlos stays missing someone whom he never even properly met. But that all seems to change one night when you unexpectedly show up to a business dinner.
req!... i'm such a liar lmaooo (iykyk). hope you enjoy, my lil anons :) hope this heals some of the heartbreak we all endured today !!(*bashes head against keyboard*)
It almost seemed like you had something up your sleeve, a tactic to retrieve all of his attention away from the camera shoved right in front of him - media duties.
“Hello guys, just wanted to come on here to say that I think we gave it all we could during today’s race but there is definitely always room for improvement…” Blah, blah, blah.
He can’t quite figure out what he’s saying because his brown eyes are attached to the pretty girl walking right in front of him. Not behind him, trying to catch up. Not besides him, begging for a photo. Nope, right in front of him as if you could care less that you have one of the most popular drivers to ever exist almost chasing after you.
He could hear you mumbling about God knows what to the girl walking besides you. The Spaniard feels like a total creep when it comes to him becoming more alert to possibly catch your name. As you were saying? The media team manager stares back expectantly once Carlos blanks out. Though it wasn’t that unusual.
The 29 year old flickers his gaze back to the camera and then back to where you were, only except, you’re gone. Out of sight and his heart stops for a nanosecond.
“Onto the next week. Vamos.”
-
“So then, you have your upcoming shoot for the new fireproofs, testing, stimulator - if we have time, interview at…”
Carlos tunes out as he blinks at the never ending list as if it were just another Monday. Charles nods attentively, though he also looks far too uninterested. They were exhausted.
“And dinner tonight to meet our new sponsors.”
“Another one?” Charles asks, a slight crack in voice as he tries to pretend he wasn’t at all annoyed. “We just had one last night.”
Maria musters up a stern look. “Yes, again. They’re a lovely family, so we want to impress them with two well-behaved drivers.” The Ferrari boys swallow their laughter as they nod their heads. Got it.
It takes all of Carlos’ remaining willpower to get ready for dinner that night. On the way to the small Italian restaurant, he second guesses even showing up. He could fake a fever. A sore throat. Shaking his head, he curses as he steps out of his custom Ferrari.
“Oh good, I thought it was just going to be me,” Charles jokes as soon as he spots the Spaniard. Carlos chuckles before greeting the team. About 10 minutes go by before the Monegasque grows impatient as a child. I could have finished watching my movie.
“Shut up,” Fred murmurs before abruptly standing up from his seat. “Ah! È così bello rivedere finalmente te e la tua famiglia!” Choking on his champagne, Charles scrunches his nose before flying up and introducing himself. Carlos bites back a smile as he follows his lead.
And there he sees you, standing elegantly with a silk dress that looks as soft as your skin. You’re smiling sweetly at everyone, stepping in to not just shake their hands, but also go in for a small hug. Your mother and father repeat the same action, though they later focus all of their attention on Fred and Maria.
The Monegasque kicks his teammate’s shin. Carlos winces as he shoots fiery daggers. “We hit the jackpot.”
“What?”
Charles' shoulders drop theatrically. “Are you kidding me? Are we looking at the same girl right now or are you just blind?”
But he did see you, and he never quite forgot about you since that day. He could feel the tips of his ear burn bright red as you made your way over to him and his teammate. Charles, so nice to meet you, the green eyed boy beams before going in for a hug. You smile from ear to ear.
“Nice to meet you, too! I must admit; I’m a little starstruck right now.” Charles blushes fast as he stutters his way around such a compliment, even if he’s received thousands of the same one before. “Ah, this is Carlos.”
“Hello,” he feels himself saying. “Carlos, nice to meet you.” As soon as you look up at him, his breath hitches and fears you might feel his sweaty palms flourishing against your soft ones. And if you do, you choose to ignore it as you share a small smile, the kind you share when you see someone after 15 years.
The kind that seems forced.
“Ditto.”
With one last glance, you excuse yourself before making your way over to where your parents and Fred chatter about upcoming plans. Carlos blinks. “Wow. No hug,” Charles points out. “That’s weird. She was basically giving them out for free.”
“Be quiet.”
The remainder of the night you kept to yourself, occasionally inputting your own opinion with a polite smile drawn onto your fruit punch lips. Very well mannered, Fred would approve as you would bow your head with shyness. Carlos quirked a brow of curiosity.
He wondered what he might’ve done wrong. Had he been too forward? Cold? Often, his parents would claim he could be like that sometimes, so maybe? He wasn’t clinging onto the fact that he was the only one who didn’t receive a warm greeting from you, but he was left with questions.
“E tu, tesoro?”
“What about me?” you repeat, hair fanning along your face like a shiny curtain. Maria chuckles. How do you feel about being a part of this new chapter? You think about it for a second before settling with the safest answer. “Very proud, there’s nothing better than tying links with such a superior team.” Fred roars with genuine laughter as he pats your father’s shoulder. Smart girl.
“Why fine jewelry?”
“Pardon?”
The inquiry was directed towards your parents - who would clearly have the answer - but his eyes were trained on you, leaving you to fend for yourself. Lips part slowly as you connect with Carlos’ intense attention. “I’m curious, that’s all. I’m delighted we have you as our sponsors, but I was just wondering what made you dive into the business? Must be hard.”
Squinting your eyes, you click your tongue. It’s in our blood, your father’s voice cuts your train of thought. It’s what we do, what we love. But his warm gaze sticks to you like hot glue. You clear your throat before returning to your wide smile.
“I think it’s safe to say that diamonds are beautiful. They are scarily so crystal clear that for a moment one might search for a trace of color. And then they do come in other colors, so it’s really no problem,” you say, soft chuckles circling the table. “But I believe it’s also safe to say that we don’t often think about how they got here, shining around many ring fingers.” Your mother approves as she shows her mind-blowing diamond cut.
“Miners are the answer. They work hard - get their hands dirty - because they know that while it may not be easy to find such precious things…” His eyes roam your lips before dancing back up to your orbs. “It’s very well worth it.” Taking a sip from your glass of wine, you raise a brow. “That’s why.”
-
“It doesn’t even feel that tough to wear these pieces,” Charles squeaks as he slips on a white gold bracelet around his wrist. “They’re breathtaking.”
Clapping, you squeal at his words. For a moment, Carlos thinks about punching his teammate for getting to see your good side. They’re great, thank you again. You just tip your head towards him to confirm you heard, and slide away. Carlos sighs.
“This is ridiculous. She can’t even look at me.” The Spaniard bites his cheek. “Do you think she hates me?”
“For doing what?” Charles asks, face pinched with confusion. Carlos huffs, arms flying up.
“I have no idea!”
“Well…I don’t think so, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?”
“No.” He groans. “Can you picture how awkward that would be? There’s no way.”
“Suit yourself.”
-
Pouting, the brown eyed boy zigzags his way into the studio, mentally preparing himself for hours of blinding lights. “Buongiorno, Carlos!” Spotting your father with his arms wrapped around his wife, he walks over with a tired smile. How are you guys? “We’re fine, son, thank you for asking. Tell me, are you excited for this weekend?” He instantly stands up straighter.
“I am. The Tifosi are always great to be around. Gets hectic, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I can imagine. My wife and daughter are always amped up when it’s finally Monza’s turn.” He hums, almost as if he’s reminiscing. “Tell you, my baby would beg for us to take her to cheer on her favorite drivers. It’s kind of a full circle moment so don’t mind if my wife gets emotional.”
“Stop,” your mother sniffles as she shares a grimace. Told you, your father mouths. Carlos laughs.
“I completely get it, it must mean a lot to all three of you. Maybe that’s what makes this partnership work all the more.” Your fathers winks, large fingers wagging over at the Spaniard. Working over time. I respect it.
“I see why my daughter likes you.”
Carlos halts. “Sorry?”
The older man pants, seeming comedically defeated. “Are you kidding me? She adores you! You've been her favorite driver since you joined Formula 1.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Her love towards the sport had a huge impact on us to join as sponsors, but to be fair, we probably still would have done it. Like I said, it holds a special place in our hearts.”
“Buongiorno,” your soft voice echoes, skipping happily to greet the Ferrari team. Everyone’s energy quickly picks up as you flow with such easiness, skirt wrapping around your waist, making you seem like the only flower in an empty garden. Talk to you in a bit, you cheer as you make your way up to your parents. You stop dead in your tracks as soon as you spot the grumpy brunette. Like always, he can physically see you create a wall around yourself, keeping you from him. He felt like the Beast drooling over the rose inside the glass. “Good morning, Carlos. Logo looks good,” you hum, dark red pedicure pointing at your last name printed onto his fireproof. “Can’t wait to see how it looks on Charles.”
His jaw ticks. “Why don’t I call him then?”
“That would be lovely.”
He’s jealous. Of course he fucking is. He might have found out your whole act is a facade but that didn’t stop him from feeling this way. He could have been your favorite at one point, but what about now? It sure as hell didn’t seem like it.
“She wants to see you.”
The Monegasque furrows his brows. Who? But as soon as he notices his teammates' sour face, he registers the reason for his bad mood. “Stop pouting. You look like you just sucked on a lemon.” Carlos shoots a deadpan expression. “This has gone too far. It’s obviously bothering you.”
“What? You nagging?”
“Okay, ouch.” The green eyed boy takes a small step towards the Spaniard. “You don’t like it that she’s ignoring you because you like her.”
Carlos jumps off the couch. “I do not!” Charles hums.
“Oh shit, good, then I could ask her out.” He beams. “I wouldn’t want things to get weird between us.” Carlos' heart almost jumps out of his chest as he grows nauseous at the thought of you saying yes. He continues. “I’m telling you; I have a good feeling.” The brown eyed boy clenches his jaw. “It’s like this - I could see myself marrying her, having a baby heiress-”
“Okay fine, I like her!” He pants. “She drives me so fucking crazy. Whether she looks my way or not, she makes my head spin. Ever since I saw her at the Canada GP, she’s been imprinted into my brain like a lecture I’ve been told over and over, time and time again. It makes me sick that she seems to almost get sad when she’s around me. The way she can never look at me the way I’ve always looked at her. And I’m…” He looks down at his race boots. “I’m too afraid of ruining something that I don’t even have a chance at.”
The Monegasque pats him on the shoulder, lips stretched out into a teasing smirk. “Now, was it that hard to admit your feelings?”
-
It was that hard to admit his feelings. He thought about it for the first time since he met you. Confess everything that’s been locked away deep inside of him; claim his feeling like some kind of gold medal. But then he saw you radiating pure perfection and he would turn the other way. You hated him, he’s sure.
“Alright Carlos, push, now push.”
He could taste it - sweet victory that he badly craved. If he played his cards right then he could get second place, which was pretty good in comparison to past results.
The Spaniard tries to not feel too upset about coming in third and waves up at the Tifosi who let out blood curdling screams. Pride rushes through his veins as he walks onto the podium, he didn’t even mind all the attention. Especially the kind you were gifting him with.
The way you smile so big that your perfect teeth shine up at him, eyes crinkling like a love letter. Cheekbones slightly pink from cheering so loud but also from the bright sun. He swore he was on some kind of drug.
Making his way back into the motorhome after all the interviews, he bumps into you and your parents. “Like it?” he asks as he displays his trophy.
“Definitely,” your father beams. “You deserve it, son, enjoy it.” After a few more affirmations, he and your mother walk away. Brown orbs find your own.
“Have fun?” He tries to ease his deep voice, to appear more outgoing, to not scare you away. And yet, you nod, looking down.
“He’s right. You totally deserve it.” And for what seems like the first time, you bless him with your warm stare. “Felicidades, Carlos.” Pink paints his cheeks. You speak Spanish? Your eyes grow wide as you feverishly shake your head. “I-I- I don’t, but I’ve picked up on a few things here and there…”
“From me.” He tilts his head. “You actually pay attention to me.”
You can’t help stutter like a broken record. “Of course-e, I ha-ave ears.” You show them off like a weak justification. “See?” you squeak. Playing with the hem of your dress - that had him swallowing a string of moans the moment you walked into the garage that morning - you slowly started backing away. “I should go now…” You point towards the sliding doors. “See you later?”
But he knew there would be no later. Fuck, this was the most you’ve spoken to him since, well, ever. He wouldn’t let that slip away so easily. Even if his heart got bruised along the way.
“Did I do something for you to hate me?”
Your brows narrow like a little kid. “You think I hate you?”
“It’s okay if you do, I suppose, but I’m just lost as to where that happened? Did I-”
“I don’t hate you,” you softly speak up, eyes shut in disbelief that you’ve made him feel that way. You blink back at him. “I promise you, you’ve done nothing wrong.” Okay, he confirms.
“Why can’t you talk to me then like you do with everybody else? Why can’t you even spare me a passing glance?”
His voice sounds desperate now, he knows it, but he was desperate. Now you were embarrassed that he continues to bring up more and more of your poor behavior - but it was never intentional. You twirl a strand of your hair before releasing it.
“You intimidate me.”
The Spaniard squeezed his fist around the trophy. For a moment, he thought he would dent the steel. Your stomach drops at the sight and he feels guilty for proving you right. He lets out a shaky breath.
“I’m not a bad guy, y’know? I’m sure it may seem like it, but…” He licks his lips. “I’m not.”
Doe eyes flutter like butterfly wings. “I believe you, Carlos.”
“Good. Now, would you please tell me why you always escape when I’m around?” You softly curse as you pinch your hand for a second.
“I wasn’t lying; you do intimidate me. But not in the way you might think.” Like an angel, you make your way closer. “You’re my favorite driver, you know that?” The Spaniard’s brown eyes grow wide. You laugh. “Ever since you-”
“Joined Formula 1.”
Your jaw drops. “My father ratted me out?” Panicking, you pace the room back and forth. You could only look at him for a couple of seconds before planting your stare at anywhere else that isn’t him. “I told him not to say anything! Oh God.” You let out a maniatic chuckle. “I swear it’s just a tiny crush, it’s not even that deep - I’ll get over it!”
Now it’s his turn to geek out. “You have a crush on me?” Crap, you groan, biting down on your nail. He didn’t mention that part, did he? Brown strands of hair shake back and forth as you sigh.
“Forget I said anything, I am so sorry for making things awkward-”
“I’ve seen you before.” What? The 29 year old winces. “At the Canada GP. You were walking with a friend.” Synthia, you whisper to yourself. “I was being filmed for feedback on the race and you were about 5 steps in front of me.” You counted? “I said about - and for months, you were all I could think about. You sort of stuck to me like a nostalgic scent. I don’t know why I felt the need to talk to you, I mean, it’s never happened to me before. I looked away for a second and you were gone.” He shares a lopsided smile. “Then I saw you again.”
“And I blocked you out.” You bite your lip. “Shit, Carlos…I had no idea you felt this way.” He shrugs.
“It’s my fault. I never told you.” Still, you try to reason but he only brushes you off. “It’s not your fault.”
“But it is,” you whimper. “I acted like a complete snob and belittled you.” Your heart breaks at the image. “And you’re telling me it’s been mutual all along?”
“Looks like it. This is good though.” How? The brunette winks as he pulls you in. “Because now we do know and I can take you out sometime?” You quirk a brow.
“It works just like that?”
He hums, comfortable with the two trophies pressed up against him. “Only if you want it to be like that.” You can practically hear your crazy heartbeat with the way he’s looking down at you - as if he’s just discovered a previously nonexisting star. With soft hands pressed onto his suit, your eyes twinkle.
“Just like that, then.”
michelle || leo valdez x fem!reader songfic
a/n: #2 in songfic series! song: michelle- sir chloe
t/w: alcohol, cursing, substance abuse, mention of vomitting, super smutty and super nsfw
word count: 1.2k
You swayed back and forth to the boom boom boom beat of the music, sipping the raw, bitter alcohol. Travis’s party was just what you needed: shots, random boys you didn’t care about to grind on and distract yourself with, getting blackout drunk, and basically anything to make you get your mind off of him.
Just thinking about his name made you want to vomit. You were reminded of walking in on him with that other, terrible, Nemesis girl, the half-assed breakup, never getting closure, and endless nights of sobbing and feeling sorry for yourself. Two weeks later, and his words were fresh in your mind like a fresh cut he had just re-opened yesterday. You drank more, feeling dizzy, praying the alcohol would numb your brain.
Weiterlesen
ANY CONNOR STOLL SMUT I BEG OF U
thank you for your patience, i will do my best!! this is gonna be she/her reader x he/him connor
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"Connor, I swear to the gods."
The sweatpants and t-shirt I'd laid on the bed had vanished. Since I didn't move them, no one else was in the apartment and I could hear giggling coming from the living room, I made a safe assumption.
Towel wrapped tight around me and hair dripping on the back of my neck, I stomped into the living room. Connor was sat on the sofa, TV remote in hand and pretending really hard that he was watching the news.
"Give them back, Stoll, or I will rain hellfire upon you."
"I don't know what you mean." Somehow, he managed to get through a sentence despite the supressed laughter pulling at the corners of his mouth.
I rolled my eyes fondly. "You know this is stupid, right? This isn't a smart prank, you've literally just stolen my clothes like a boy pulling a girl's braids."
Connor grinned up at me. "They do it to get attention, why do you think I'm doing it?"
Attention, huh?
Okay, I'll give him attention.
Very slightly, I loosened my grip on my towel. "You know you have my attention, baby." I fixed my eyes firmly on his and swayed my hips a little as I walked closer. "But you seemed so concentrated on the news just a moment ago. Are you sure I have your attention?"
Connor set the remote down and I allowed him to pull me into his lap. "Oh, I'm very sure, doll."
"Then focus-" I dropped the towel, now naked, straddling his thighs. "-on me."
I surged forward and pressed my lips to his. Connor's hands fluttered over my bare skin, settling themselves just above my ass. I felt him relax under me and smiled slightly at how easy it was to melt him into a puddle.
Trailing my fingers up his chest and neck, they came to rest in his hair and I felt his ribcage shudder. I smoothed my lips across his cheek and down to his jawline, pressing myself against him.
His breath caught in his throat as I grazed my teeth just under his ear and his head lolled back.
Perfect.
Very carefully, not stopping my actions, I felt around for my stolen clothes. Dipping into the crease between two cushions, I felt the familiar material of my sweatpants and the seam of my t-shirt.
A kiss to the neck, one to the cheek, one to the lips and all of a sudden I moved away, almost jumping off his lap. For a second, his dazed eyes didn't even seem to register I was gone until I was at the doorway, clutching my hard won spoils to my chest.
"Sorry darling, I knew you weren't going to give up without a fight." I winked at him. "And I always fight dirty."
Connor just looked at me for a moment. His hands rested on his lap. His fingers brushed the small damp patch I'd left on his sweatpants and he looked up at me, eyes puppy-dog big and whimpered desperately.
I cocked my head to the side. "If you want to make it up to me..."
I'd barely finished my sentence before Connor was bounding across the room and sweeping me up bridal-style. I laughed as he buried his face into my neck and walked to the bedroom, miraculously not bumping me into anything.
Always so careful when like this, he placed me down on the edge of the bed and kneeled down in front of me, hands twitching but firmly on his lap.
With one finger, I traced a line up from his collarbones to his lips. "Everything off, baby."
Without a moment's hesitation, Connor stood and stripped, sweatpants, sweater and underwear landing somewhere in the room behind him. He was instantly back on his knees.
"Good boy, honey." He ducked his head a little, embarrassed by how much he enjoyed the praise but beaming nonetheless. "Now, how are you going to make up for your little prank earlier, hm?"
I was patient, waiting for him to remember what words were. He swallowed. "Can I eat you out, please?"
My heart skipped and the bottom of my stomach swooped at the boldness and if I wasn't wet before, I certainly was now.
Slowly, tantalisingly, I parted my knees, spreading my legs until they were either side of Connor. "Yes, you can, well done for asking."
His hands grabbed my thighs and he pushed forward, tongue darting out. I sighed as he licked the wetness from my inner thighs, kitten-licking over my pussy. He lapped at me as if starving and I thrilled at the idea that my little stunt had gotten him so worked up.
His tongue swept over my clit and I jolted as if electricity had passed through every nerve. There was the smallest pause as Connor registered this, then he focused his attention on my clit. My legs closed around his head involuntarily and I fell back, breathing heavily.
Lips closed around my clit and sucked ever so slightly. I let out a strangled gasp, back arching and fingers tangling in Connor's hair. I felt one hand slip from my leg and up to meet his mouth, a single finger slowly inching its way inside me.
Without removing his mouth, Connor curled his finger. My hips jerked and my fingers tightened in his hair. "M-More."
No hesitation, Connor withdrew his finger and slammed two into me, starting up a hard rhythm that had my legs clenching around him and my breath stuttering. He was so sorry about stealing my clothes, so sorry, he'll make it up to me.
I felt a coiling in my lower stomach, curling tighter and tighter until Connor curled his fingers just right and the feeling snapped. The sensation rippled through me, tensing and relaxing every muscle, Connor's fingers still inside as he eased me through my orgasm.
Gently, he removed his fingers and sat back into his kneeling position, panting slightly. I leaned up on my elbows, casting my eyes over him- he looked pink and pleased with himself, ruffled hair and shiny mouth evidence of his achievement.
"Did I do okay?"
I grinned, chest still heaving. "Yeah, baby, you did real good." After a moment, I sat up properly to look down at him. His cock sat hard and red in his lap, though his hands were by his side, not touching until I told him to. "Aw, did my boy get hard from eating me out?"
His face flushed more than it already was but he didn't back down. "I love eating you out, gets me so turned on, c-can I touch myself, please, I've been so good, I made you come, can I touch myself?"
"You want to touch yourself, baby? You sure you don't want to fuck me?"
His eyes widened and he hastened to correct himself. "N-no, I want to fuck you, can I fuck you? Please?"
I slid back on the bed and beckoned for him to follow. I gave a light laugh as he clambered up onto the bed and hovered over me.
"Can I kiss you?"
My heart melted. "Of course, sweet boy."
He captured my lips in a soft kiss, gentle and loving. He tasted like me and I went a little giddy at the possession that coursed through me at that. We broke away and I nudged him towards the top drawer of the bedside cabinet. "Condom, hun."
I laughed again at the speed at which he pulled on the condom and returned to me, kissing me breathlessly. "Can I...?"
I nodded and he buried his face in my neck, one hand reaching down to grasp his cock, guiding it into my pussy slowly and relishing the feeling.
He slid in up to the hilt and let out the most delicious whimper against my skin. For a moment he was still, breaths shuddering.
Suddenly he pulled almost all the way out and slammed back in again, knocking the air out of me. He set a punishing pace and I dug my nails into his shoulders at the delightful oversensitivity.
"'m not gon-gonna last-" He pushed out through gritted teeth.
"Don't worry about that, baby, you can come, you want to come, right?" My lips were pressed against his ear as I lowered my voice to a sultry smooth tone. "Come for me, honey, you did so well eating me out, I love your tongue, your filthy fingers, you did such a good job, you wanna come, huh?"
His voice was high and broken. "Yes, fuck, yes, I wanna come, please please please let me come-"
I clenched my walls around him and his hips stuttered hard against mine. He muffled his sounds in the crook of my neck as he came, tiny thrusts milking his orgasm as he spilled into the condom.
For a minute we lay there, quiet and tired. I enjoyed the feeling of him inside me, warm and heavy and feeling so wonderfully full.
Eventually, he pulled away, both of us wincing slightly at the oversensitivity. He pulled the condom off and threw it in the bin before collapsing back beside me. Connor curled around me, slightly sticky with sweat. Damn, I was going to need another shower.
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it was fun to write a more dominant reader, i hope you enjoyed! thank you for requesting!
Kiss Me Tired - Percy Jackson x Female Reader
Summary: you can't sleep so go to find your best friend - Percy
Words: 1.9k
warnings: none
Y/N’s POV
I find myself tossing and turning, the sheets tangling around my restless limbs, as elusive sleep evades me once again. The Apollo cabin is quiet, the soft hum of night almost suffocating in its stillness. Moonbeams trickle through the window, casting gentle patterns of the wooden floors.
Grateful for being on the bottom bunk tonight, I slide from under the covers with practiced ease. The gentle thud as my feet meet the floor barely makes a sound, but each step feels amplified in the silence of the sleeping cabin. Slipping on a pair of shoes without lacing them up, I make my way to the door, my heart pounding louder than the muted thuds of my footsteps. The door creaks slightly as I ease it open, wincing at the noise before exhaling a relieved breath as it swings shut behind me.
Staying close to the comforting cover of shadows, I weave my way through the lingering clusters of campers, their hushed conversations mixing with the rustling of leaves in the night breeze. The children of Nemesis and Nyx, silhouetted against the faint glow of the campfire, seem engrossed in their own whispered discussions, oblivious to my presence as I navigate the edges of their gathering.
I skirt the edges of the Poseidon Cabin, a refuge I’ve often visited, and slip inside, grateful for the cover of darkness. The familiar scent of saltwater and adventure lingers in the air. The cabin is eerily quiet, echoing with the absence of Percy—the solitary presence that usually defines it.
My steps echo softly against the wooden floor as I venture further in. The moonlight filters through the windows, causing elongated shadows that dance across the cabin’s interior. Percy’s empty bed confirms his absence, leaving the cabin strangely deserted.
Curiosity propels me deeper into the cabin, my gaze landing on the backdoor open, leading to the pontoons. The moon’s silvery trail illuminates the pathway to the water’s edge, inviting and ethereal. The realisation settles in—Percy, the sole child of Poseidon, often seeks solace by the lake, where the water sings the tales of his father’s realm.
The sight before me steal a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding. Percy sits there, silhouetted against the shimmering reflection of the moon on the water, a portrait of quiet strength and contemplation. His unruly hair catches glimmers of moonlight, creating an otherworldly halo around him.
As I draw nearer, the tranquility that envelopes him seems almost tangible. The lake mirrors the night sky, stars dancing on its surface, and Percy, the living embodiment of that serene beauty, captures my attention entirely.
He turns at the faint rustle of my approach, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his pretty lips. His sea-green eyes, illuminated by the moon’s gentle glow, hold a depth that echoes the mysteries of the ocean. It’s mesmerising, the way he seems both a part of the night and a beacon within it.
Percy’s messy black hair catches the moonlight in a way that makes it seem like constellations have woven themselves into the strands, each unruly wave a testament to the untamed spirit he embodies. His lightly tanned skin, kissed by the sun’s rays and caressed by the gentle breeze, holds a warmth that feels inviting even in the cool night air.
As I settle next to him, a comfortable ease settles between us. Percy shifts slightly, adjusting his position, and I follow suit, instinctively resting my head on his shoulder. It feels oddly natural, as if this silent language of unspoken understanding has been written int he stars all along. The coolness of the night dissipates against the warmth of his presence. His shoulder, solid and reassuring beneath my head, carries the weigh of both the wards burdens and its beauty.
His sea-green eyes, s deep and enigmatic, gaze out into the horizon, the mysteries of the universe reflecting in their depths. The seven expression on his face speaks volumes, as if he’s a silent guardian, watching over the secrets of the night. The gentle breeze whispers secrets to the night, and I feels Percy’s arm, strong and comforting, wrap around my waist, pulling me a fraction closer to him. It’s a gesture of silent understanding, an unspoken invitation to share the weight of ur silent night-time musings.
“Why can’t you sleep, Mouse?” Percy’s voice, soft and inquisitive, breaks the tranquil silence with my stupid nickname he made for me. His concern is palpable, yet I hesitate to divulge the true reason behind my sexlessness, my heart pounding against the confession I’m afraid to voice.
I shift slightly, trying to evade the truth, the words catching in my throat as I struggle to articulate the turmoil within, “Just… thoughts, I guess. You know how it is.”
But it’s a hollow response, a mere veil covering the truth that simmers beneath the surface. The mere thought of Percy and Annabeth together as a couple, a union so celebrated and cherished among demigods, twists a knot in my stomach, a painful reminder of my unspoken feelings for him.
The fear of vulnerability and the ache of unrequited affection hold me captive in a silence that feels suffocating. I can’t bring myself to admit the ache his closeness evokes, the ache that surges every time I see them together, facing the world as a pair that everyone wants to see. The perfect couple.
A grumble of protest escapes my lips, as I know he sees through my lie as he stays silent, a frustrated sound that I can’t seem to contain. I turn my face, burying it in the comforting crook of his neck, hoping to hide the turmoil that threatens to spill over. His chest rumbles with a soft laughter, a sound that’s both comforting and teasing, pulling me out of my momentary retreat.
Before I realise it, his finger hooks gently under my chin, lifting my face to meet to gaze. The concern etched into his expression melts away any remaining resistance, coaxing me to open up even as my heart clenches with the vulnerability of it all.
“Hey,” He murmurs softly, his sea-green eyes searching mine, an unspoken invitation tp share whatever weighs on my mind.
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat refusing to dissipate. The urge to confess tugs at my heartstrings, a silent plea to unburden the ache that gnaws at me. But the words romain elusive, trapped behind a barrier of fear and insecurity.
My heart hammers against my chest as his thumb traces a gentle path across my cheek, leaving a trail of warmth that seeps into the cracks of my guarded emotions. I meet his gaze, sea-green eyes holding mine in a silent conversation that speaks volumes.
I feel myself drawn to him, my eyes inadvertently tracing the curve of his lips. The soft moonlight casts an ethereal glow on his features, highlighting the contours of his face in a way that feels almost surreal.
As my gaze lingers on his lips, a surge of emotions—longing, fear, and a yearning for something more—swirl within me. Self-control wavers as my heart takes over, propelled by an undeniable urge to bridge the gap between us.
Without warning, without calculation, I lean forward, closing the space between us. My lips meet his in a moment that feels both suspended in time and yet over too soon. It’s a soft, tentative touch, a leap of faith and vulnerability woven into the tender connection.
For a heartbeat, the world stills around us, the air crackling with the unspoken truth of our shared emotions. The warmth of his lips against mine like a revelation, a stolen moment that lingers as a testament to the unspoken desires I’ve kept hidden. But, just as quickly as it happens, the weight of the moment hits me, the reality crashing down like a tidal wave. I pull away, breathless and wide-eyed, my heart thundering in my chest, uncertainty clouding my thoughts.
“Perce… Fuck, I’m sorry, I-“
Before I can finish my stammered apology, the words tumbling out in a jumble of regret and confusion, Percy’s gentle touch silences my anxious ramblings. He leans in, cutting off my faltering speech with a soft yet determined press of his lips against mine. It’s a kiss that carries a subtle urgency, a reassurance woven into the tender connection that leaves me breathless and wide-eyed.
His lips, warm and inviting, mould against mine in a way that feels both familiar and utterly new. There’s a tenderness to his touch, a silent promise of understanding and acceptance that sends a shiver down my spine. His kiss tastes like the promise of untold stories, of shared secrets whispered in the stillness of the night.
My heart leaps in my chest, responding to his gentle yet confident touch. I reciprocate, tentatively at first, before letting myself be swept away by the overwhelming rush of emotions. My hands, initially hovering uncertainly in the space between us, find their place, one resting against his chest and the other timidly finds its way to his cheek, relishing the warmth and softness of his skin.
His hands, strong yet tender, find their place at the small of my back, pulling me closer in an embrace that feels both reassuring and exhilarating. The closeness of our bodies, the shared warmth between us, creates a cocoon of intimacy that blurs the boundaries of friendship and something more.
The moment lingers, suspended in a haze of shared emotions, before Percy breaks the kiss, his breath mingling with mine as he gently pulls me onto his lap. My knees rest on either side of his hips, a sudden rush of adrenaline mingling with the warmth of our closeness. Then, he guides me down, our bodies molding together in a dance of longing and unspoken desires. His hands, firm yet gentle, cup my face, his thumbs brushing against my cheeks as he leans in for another kiss.
This time, there's a hunger in his touch, a raw passion that ignites between us. Our lips meet again in a union fuelled by the unspoken confessions of our hearts. It's a kiss that speaks volumes, a dance of lips and tongues that express the emotions we've kept buried for so long. His fervour is matched by mine as I respond eagerly, the longing I've harboured finally finding an outlet in this shared intimacy. The taste of his kiss is electrifying, a rush of emotions that consumes every inch of my being.
My hands find their place on his shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, drawing him closer in a silent plea for more. Our bodies meld together, the heat of our closeness building an unspoken intensity that blurs the lines between friendship and an uncharted territory of passion.
In the soft moonlight, our embrace becomes a symphony of desire and longing, each movement a testament to the unspoken connection we've discovered. And as we lose ourselves in this intoxicating moment, the boundaries of what we were and what we might become blur in the heat of our shared passion.
“Come on sweetheart,” Percy finally pulls away, “You can sleep here tonight.”
Percy Jackson Universe Masterlist - To be added TAG LIST - updated 21st Dec 2023
“notice me” pt2
luke castellan x aphrodite!reader | pt1
content/trigger warnings: fem!reader, SMUTT, p in v, virgin!luke, unprotected sex, rough sex, bold!reader
it’s been a week since that day and you haven’t spoken to luke at all. if he didn’t know any better, he’d say you were ignoring him
you were. but this was all part of your twisted game. he made you wait for months, now it’s his time to wait. you wanted him to feel how you felt, maybe then you’ll give into your desires
you’d pretend not to see him, or be busy with studying or teaching your younger half-siblings. luke grew more and more impatient by the minute. he knew that you had always been a master at playing with peoples feelings, being aphrodite’s daughter and all, but this was going too far. he didn't understand why you were ignoring him when it was you who wanted his attention in the first place
every time he saw that you were free, you would leave. you wouldn’t even shoot him your flirty smile like you always did, all you did was spare him a simple glance
he felt like he was going insane, he’s never had to fight for your attention. it just came naturally. how you’d bat your eyelashes at him while complimenting his fighting style, or how you’d place your hand on his bicep as you spoke to him
he never thought he’d be the one doing the chasing. so, finally, after what felt like an eternity of being ignored, luke had had enough. he walked up to your dining table, interrupting your conversation with your half-sister, drew. “hey, can we talk?” he spoke, voice low and almost sounding desperate
“sure” you agree, watching as he bites the inside of his cheek. “in private” he mutters out, eyes boring into your own. you nod, following him to the storage shed just outside his cabin.
you enter the small, dark shed, feeling luke’s intense gaze on you. it feels almost like it's burning holes into your skin, like he's trying to see right through you. he leaned on the wall, crossing his arms under his chest, his muscles subconsciously flexing showing just how toned his muscles actually are
luke took a deep breath before speaking, his voice low and serious. "so, why’ve you been ignoring me all week?" his eyes searched yours, looking for any sign of an explanation. you remained composed, not wanting to give away the game you were playing. "my world doesn’t revolve around you, castellan” you said with a playful smile
luke clicked his tongue, clearly frustrated. "dont play games with me, you know exactly what I'm talking about” he took a step closer to you, eyes locked on yours “answer my question”
you felt your heart pound in your chest as luke steadily closed the distance between you. his presence was inescapable, and the tension between you was palpable. you felt yourself getting needier by the second. the way your pussy throbbed at just his words had you weak
you looked at him through hooded eyes, a playful smile still tugging at your lips. “you wanna know that bad, huh?” you said, putting your hands to his toned chest. “you drive me insane” he whispered, lust practically pouring out of his body
“i know” you chuckled softly. luke just looks at you, his expression unreadable. leaning in, he finally kisses you. the kiss is sudden and fierce, his lips pressing against yours with a hunger that you haven't seen in him before. you wrap your arms around luke’s neck, pulling him closer to you. the kiss becomes more desperate as he pushes you against the wall, it was more urgent, as if neither of you could get enough of the other
his hands are quick to find their way under your shirt, groping your breast over your bra. he was desperate to get the fabric off of you, desperate to feel you
he takes his own shirt off, you following suit. you giggle as his fingers fumble on the clip of your bra, fingers stumbling against each other as he blindly tries to take it off. you help him, of course.
his mouth quickly latches on to one of your perky nipples, groaning with a sense of satisfaction while his fingers pinch the other, making you squirm under his touch
your fingers pull and scratch on his scalp, a feeling he’s seeming to enjoy to the fullest, given the way he’s moaning against your skin. your free hand undoes his belt, efficiently pulling his pants down under his hips. a voice in the back of his head wanted to ask you if you’ve done this before, but he was too fucking horny to wanna do anything else in that moment
he’s panting, face flushed as he pull don’t your shorts along with your panties, biting his lip to prevent the whine he was gonna let out once he saw the mess you’ve made on your panties. he hasn’t even done much, talk about an ego boost
he’s snapped out from his thought when he feels your cold manicured fingers wrap around his length giving it a few strokes. the tip of his dick flushed a bright reddish pink, feeling the veins throb in your hand at the newly found sensation
“first time?” you tease, knowing full well that it was. “i’ll be gentle, promise” he replied smugly, raising on of your legs to his hip, tip aligning with your entrance. the moment he pushes the tip in, you both gasp. he’s much bigger than you expected, and you’re much tighter than he expected
“fuck” he panted out “s’tight”. your nails dug crescent moons on his shoulders as he sunk the rest of his length into your throbbing cunt. he’s quick to pull out and slam back into you, making you shamelessly moan out his name and your eyes rolling back
he might not have done this before, but he knows how sex works. he promised he’d be gentle, but luke castellan isn’t know for keeping promises, is he? and after you made him wait a whole week, you more than deserve a little punishment
so he’s thrusting up into you, giving you little to no time to adjust to his cock. and you’re so loud about it too. so he puts his middle and index finger into your mouth. “suck” is the only thing he says before your cheeks hollow out and your tongue wraps around his fingers. he can feel the vibrations of your moans through his arms and it’s coursing straight to his dick, making it throb inside of you
“good girl” he mutters into your neck, making you tighten impossibly tighter around his dick. a few more thrust and your cumming on his cock. he doesn’t let you come down from your high, his thrust maintain the same quick and rough pace they had before, making you whine against his fingers at the overstimulation
tears pooling in your eyes as he’s kissing your forehead. “you’re doing s’good f’me baby” he’d grunt out “im gonna fuckin’ ruin you”
© MINARINNN 2024 - please do not plagiarize or upload my content on any social media platform.
