Greatest Hits

The war had been grinding on for eight months, but Ormund Hightower had not slept in four.

Not since the night she disappeared. She had taken Aethan—his son, his blood—and vanished into the darkness like a ghost, like a traitor, like the ungrateful little whore he had always known she could become if he did not keep her close enough.

He had torn the reach apart searching for her. He had sent riders in every direction, had questioned every guard and servant and spy who might have seen something. Nothing. She had simply… gone. As if she had never existed at all. As if the months of marriage, the nights in his bed, the child she had borne him meant nothing. As if he had not shaped her, taught her, owned her.

He had not been the same since. His men whispered about it behind his back. Lord Hightower had grown erratic. Lord Hightower had stopped eating. Lord Hightower's eyes had taken on a wild, feverish light that made even his most seasoned commanders uneasy. He still led them into battle—he was too good a soldier to abandon the war entirely—but his mind was somewhere else. Always somewhere else. Always chasing the ghost of a silver-haired girl who had slipped through his fingers like smoke, taking his son with her.

And now this. The letter had arrived an hour ago, delivered by a rider who had nearly killed his horse getting there. The man had stumbled into camp, half-frozen and wild-eyed, clutching a scroll sealed with the mark of Ormund's own spy network—the network he had deployed across half of Westeros with one purpose and one purpose only: find her.

The tent was crowded with commanders when the rider was ushered in. Ser Brynden stood at Ormund's right hand, as he always did, Ser Gwayne, and half a dozen other knights and lords who had pledged their swords to the Green cause. They had been in the middle of a strategy session, poring over maps and troop movements, planning the next offensive.

Ormund took the scroll without a word. He broke the seal. He read.

His face went pale first. Bone-white, as if all the blood had been drained from his body in a single instant. Then the color rushed back, flooding his cheeks with a dark, dangerous red that spread down his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his tunic. His hands began to tremble, just slightly at first, then violently, the parchment shaking in his grip like a leaf in a storm.

"My lord?" Brynden stepped forward, concern etched into his weathered features. "What news?"

Ormund did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the letter, reading and re-reading the words as if repetition might change them. His lips moved silently, forming syllables that no one else could hear. The trembling in his hands spread to his arms, his shoulders, his entire body.

And then he began to scream.

"CREGAN STARK!"

The sound was not human. It was the roar of a wounded animal, a beast caught in a trap, a man whose last thread of sanity had just snapped like a bowstring pulled too tight. The commanders scrambled backward, knocking over chairs and sending maps flying, but Ormund did not seem to see them. He was already moving, already reaching for the sword that rested against the campaign chest in the corner.

"CREGAN FUCKING STARK! I WILL KILL HIM! I WILL TEAR HIS HEART OUT WITH MY BARE HANDS!"

The first blow took the map table in half. Wood splintered and cracked, and the maps that had been spread across it fluttered to the ground like dying birds. Ormund ripped his sword free and swung again, and this time the blade carved a great, jagged slash through the canvas wall of the tent, letting in a shaft of cold grey daylight.

"MY LORD, PLEASE—" Ser Gwayne started forward, but a wild swing of the sword sent him reeling backward, his hands raised in surrender.

"SHE IS MINE!" Ormund brought the sword down on a chair, and the chair exploded. "SHE HAS ALWAYS BEEN MINE! AND HE—THAT NORTHERN SAVAGE—HE HAS TOUCHED HER! HE HAS PUT HIS HANDS ON WHAT BELONGS TO ME!"

She was there. She had been there for weeks. Living openly in Cregan Stark's tent, sleeping in his bed, wearing his colors, warming his furs like some Northern whore. Everyone in the camp knew. Everyone could hear them—the sounds she made, the way she cried out his name, the way she begged for more. His wife. His Aethan's mother. Screaming for another man like a common camp follower. A public affair, the letter said. A very public affair. As if she wanted everyone to know. As if she wanted him to know.

And the child. His son. Living under Stark's protection, being held by Stark's hands, perhaps already learning to call another man father. The thought made something behind his eyes go red and hot and blinding.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING RIGHT NOW?" He rounded on his commanders, and they shrank back from the madness in his eyes. "RIGHT NOW, WHILE WE STAND HERE DISCUSSING STRATEGY AND SUPPLY LINES? HE IS TOUCHING HER! HE IS INSIDE HER! HE IS MAKING HER MOAN—THOSE MOANS BELONG TO ME!"

He threw the letter aside and grabbed another chair, hurling it against the central support pole with enough force to shatter it into kindling.

"I taught her everything," he snarled, his voice cracking. "Everything she knows about pleasure, everything she knows about her own body—I taught her that. I was the first. I was the only. And now she—she is using what I taught her with HIM—"

He could see it. That was the worst part. He could see it so clearly in his mind, as if he were standing in the corner of Stark's tent watching. Her silver hair spread across Stark's furs. Her body arching beneath another man's hands. Her lips parting on another man's name. The sounds she made, the expressions that crossed her face, the way she clung and gasped and pleaded—all of it, all of it, was his. He had discovered it. He had cultivated it. He had spent months learning every secret her body held, every spot that made her gasp, every rhythm that made her shatter.

And now Stark was reaping the harvest. Stark was enjoying the fruits of Ormund's labor. Stark was touching what Ormund had claimed, had trained, had owned.

The thought made him want to kill someone. Everyone.

"GET ME A MAP!" he bellowed, driving his sword into the floorboards. "A MAP OF THE NORTH! I WANT TO SEE THE FASTEST ROUTE TO WINTERFELL!"

Ser Brynden stepped forward, his old bones creaking, his weathered face set in lines of grim determination. "My lord, you cannot—"

"I CAN AND I WILL!" Ormund rounded on him, and for a terrible moment, the sword came up. But Brynden did not flinch. He stood his ground, steady as an oak, and met his lord's wild gaze without blinking.

"Strike me if you must," Brynden said quietly. "I have served your house for forty years. I served your father, and his father before him. And I will not stand by and watch you destroy yourself."

"Destroy myself? DESTROY MYSELF?" Ormund laughed, and the sound was utterly unhinged. "I am already destroyed! Do you not see that? She destroyed me the moment she spread her legs for another man!"

"Then let her destruction mean something." Brynden's voice was steady, measured, the voice of a man talking a jumper down from a ledge. "Win the war, my lord. Win the war, and you can have everything. Everything."

Ormund's grip on the sword tightened. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you ride north now, you die. You take men into the snow, into Stark territory, and you die. Cregan Stark will put your head on a spike, and your wife will watch, and she will not shed a single tear. Is that what you want? To give him the satisfaction? To give her the satisfaction?"

The words hit Ormund like a physical blow. He staggered, his free hand coming up to press against his temple.

"No," he said, his voice raw. "No. She is mine. She belongs to me."

"Then win the war first." Brynden stepped closer, close enough to lay a hand on Ormund's arm. The touch was gentle, almost paternal. "Win the war, and you win everything. The Iron Throne will owe you a debt that can never be repaid. You can demand Stark's head. You can demand your wife's return. You can have her back in your bed, back where she belongs, and you can make Stark watch while you remind her exactly who she answers to. But only if you win."

The tent was silent. The other commanders held their breath. Somewhere outside, a horse whinnied, and the wind snapped against the torn canvas walls.

Ormund stood perfectly still, his chest heaving, his eyes wild, his sword still clutched in his white-knuckled grip. The letter lay crumpled on the floor at his feet, the words still burning in his mind—words about her, about him, about the sounds she made and the way she cried his name. Stark's name. Not his. Never his, not anymore.

"Stark's head," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "On a spike. Outside my gates."

"Yes," Brynden agreed. "Stark's head on a spike."

"And my wife. Back in my bed. Back where she belongs. In chains if necessary."

Brynden hesitated. "Yes."

"And my son. Back in my house."

"Yes."

Ormund closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the wild, feverish light had not disappeared, but it had banked. Transforming from an inferno into something colder, something infinitely more dangerous.

"Then we win this war," he said. He pulled his sword from the floorboards and slid it back into its sheath with a soft, deadly hiss. "We win this war, and we take King's Landing, and we put Daeron on the throne. And when it is done—when the dragons are dead and the pretender queen is ash and there is no one left to stand against us—I will march north with a full army at my back. And I will tear Winterfell apart stone by stone until I find her."

He turned to face his commanders, and the smile that spread across his face made every man in the tent take an involuntary step backward.

"And when I do," he said, "I am going to make her watch while I kill him. I am going to make her watch every single moment of it. I am going to make her see what happens to men who touch what belongs to me. And then—" He paused, letting the silence stretch, letting them all imagine it. "Then she is coming home. And she is never leaving again.

Cregan Stark was a dead man. He just did not know it yet. Every battle Ormund fought, every victory he won, every strategic decision he made, all of it was in service of that single, burning goal. Win the war. Claim the throne. Take back what was his.

The war would end, and Cregan Stark would die, and Ormund Hightower would have his family back—by any means necessary. By fire and blood, if that was what it took.

He had been patient once before, he could be patient again. He could wait. He could plan. He could let the rage simmer and build and concentrate into something lethal.

--

Every night, the same ritual. Ormund Hightower would sit alone in his tent, a flagon of wine at his elbow, the crumpled spy's letter spread before him on the table, and he would lose his mind all over again.

He tried not to. He tried to focus on strategy, on supply lines, on the thousand logistical details that came with commanding an army. But the moment the silence descended, the moment he was alone with his thoughts, the images would come creeping back. Vivid. Detailed. Unbearable.

Her. With him. Cregan Stark was younger than Ormund. That was the first thing that ate at him, gnawing at his pride like a rat at a corpse. Stark was her age—only a few years older than her, if that. A young man in his prime, not a grizzled lord of forty with grey threading his temples and lines deepening around his eyes. Stark was tall and broad-shouldered and hard-muscled from a lifetime of swinging a greatsword in the Northern wilderness. Stark had a full head of dark hair and a strong jaw and the kind of rugged, wolfish handsomeness that maidens swooned over in the songs.

Ormund had seen him once, years ago, at some tourney or council. He remembered thinking the boy was arrogant. Northern savages, all of them. But now—now he could not stop picturing that arrogance in his bed. In his wife.

He would pour another cup of wine and drink it down in one burning swallow, but the images only grew sharper.

Stark's hands on her hips. Stark's mouth on her throat. Stark's body—younger, harder, stronger—pressing her into the furs. The furs. Northern furs, rough and barbaric, not the fine silk sheets of the Hightower. And she was moaning for him. Making those sounds—those sounds that Ormund had discovered, had cultivated, had taught her to make—for another man.

A younger man.

A man her own age.

"FUCK!"

The goblet flew across the tent and clanged against the central pole, spraying wine across the canvas. Ormund was on his feet, pacing, his hands tearing through his hair.

He was not just any man. That was the second thing. That was what made it so much worse. Cregan Stark was the Lord of Winterfell. The Warden of the North. A Great Lord in his own right, who ruled a territory larger than all the other Kingdoms combined. His titles were ancient and unimpeachable. His bloodline stretched back eight thousand years to the First Men, to the Kings of Winter. The Starks had been royalty when the Hightowers were still lighting signal fires and calling it civilization.

Ormund was a powerful man. He knew that. He was the Lord of Oldtown, the Beacon of the South, the head of one of the oldest and wealthiest houses in the Reach. But he was not a Great House. He was not a Warden. He was a vassal to the Tyrells, technically, however much he might disdain them. He did not have a crown in his history. He did not have the blood of kings.

But Stark did.

She was a princess of the blood. A Targaryen. A dragonrider. And now she was spreading her legs for a man who could call himself her equal—or near enough. A man whose titles could almost match her own. A man who could give her a castle that had stood for thousands of years, a kingdom that bowed to no one, a name that commanded respect across the entire continent.

What could Ormund give her that Stark could not match or exceed?

The thought made him want to kill someone. "HE IS NO BETTER THAN ME!" he roared at the empty tent. "HE IS A SAVAGE IN FURS! HE KNOWS NOTHING OF HER! HE DOES NOT KNOW HER THE WAY I DO!"

But the cruel voice in the back of his mind whispered: He knows her now. He's learning her. Every night, he's learning her.

He hurled the wine flagon against the tent pole, and it shattered, spraying dark red liquid across the maps and the bedroll and the crumpled letter. He picked up a chair and smashed it against the ground. He drove his fist into the tent pole, once, twice, three times, until his knuckles were bloody and the pain cut through the red haze for a few blessed seconds.

"She was MINE!" he screamed at no one. "She was MINE before she was his! She will be MINE after he is dead!"

But the voice whispered: She chose him. She ran from you and chose him.

He staggered to his cot and collapsed onto it, his bloody hand pressed to his face, his breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps. The images would not stop. They never stopped. Every night, the same torture.

Her on her back, her hair fanned out across Stark's furs, her eyes hazy with pleasure. Her legs wrapped around his waist—his young, hard waist, not the softening middle of a man twenty years her senior. Her nails raking down his back. Her lips forming his name. Stark. Cregan. Not Ormund. Never Ormund.

Did she think of him at all? When Stark was inside her, when she was crying out for him, when she was shattering around him—did she remember the man who had taught her what pleasure was? Did she remember her husband?

Or had she forgotten him entirely?

"Ungrateful little WHORE," he snarled, but the word felt hollow. Because she was not a whore, was she? A whore took coin. A whore spread her legs for anyone. She had spread her legs for one man—one other man—and that made it so much worse. That made it a choice. She had chosen Stark. She wanted Stark. She was with Stark not out of duty or desperation but because she preferred him.

Because he was younger. Because he was her age. Because he was a Great Lord, a Warden, a man whose power matched her own.

Because he was not Ormund.

"I GAVE HER EVERYTHING!" The cry was torn from somewhere deep in his chest. "I gave her a home, a name, a son! I protected her! I loved her! And she—she threw it all away for—for a Northern savage who—"

Who could give her a kingdom. Who could give her a castle that made the Hightower look like a merchant's counting house. Who could give her the blood of the First Men, the loyalty of the North, a place at the side of a man who answered to no one but himself.

Ormund had spent his entire life climbing. Clawing his way up the ladder of power, building alliances, accumulating influence. He had married a Targaryen princess—a feat that should have been the crowning achievement of his house. And now she was in another man's bed, and that man outranked him, and there was nothing—nothing—he could do about it except win this damned war and take her back by force.

"I will kill him," he whispered into the darkness. "I will kill him slowly. I will make it last for days. I will make her watch every moment of it. And when he is dead—when she has seen what happens to men who touch what is MINE—she will beg for my forgiveness. She will crawl back to me on her knees. And I will decide whether to give it to her."

He lay back on the cot, staring at the canvas ceiling, his bloody hand cradled against his chest. Outside, the camp was quiet. The sentries walked their posts. The horses stamped in the picket lines. The army slept.

But Ormund Hightower did not sleep. He never slept anymore. He just lay there in the darkness, listening to the sound of his own ragged breathing, and pictured his wife in another man's arms.

Younger. Stronger. Higher-born.

It did not matter. None of it mattered. Because when this war was over, Cregan Stark would be dead, and YN would be back in his bed where she belonged, and he would spend the rest of his life reminding her exactly who owned her.

That was the thought he clung to. That was the thought that got him through the night.

That, and the image of Stark's head on a spike outside the gates of Oldtown, his sightless eyes staring at nothing, his blood dripping down the stone walls.

Your husband had many flaws, just like all men.

A few of them he acknowledged, some he refused to see… He could be arrogant, patronising, sometimes spoiled and cocky. None of those traits made your feelings for Gwayne faint.

Feelings that he sometimes called ‘harboured’ to which you reacted with a blush and turn of your head. You argued that there was nothing secret, certainly not harboured in them, since he knew of them very well.

Affection came naturally for Gwayne. Even with the imperfections of his temper and customs of a highborn lord’s firstborn he was true and expressive in his statements. Especially when it was towards his family.

Displays of devotion were nothing shameful to him. Quite the opposite, actually. He was proud of being a Hightower and to that house he owed his life. Still, it wasn’t even close to the glory he felt about being able to share it all with you, his dearest lady wife.

He gained not only your love but also respect with how loyal and caring he could be but that didn't make your own habits any easier to let go of.

You were taught not to show honesty of your emotions. It could be old teaching of septas that more resembled crones and hags than caretakers, but that was all you knew. You viewed that not as weakness but as a vulnerable point that people take advantage of to hurt you.

Not your Gwayne, of course. You were able to understand his genuine nature rather quickly, and he left you with no worries about his intentions. Still, the court of Oldtown wasn’t the simplest one, same about your lord husband’s father and kins.

If they ever were to hate you, which you feared deeply, at least it would not be because of humiliation. Your behavior was always suitable for your position, looks adequate for an occasion and manners… restrained to say the least. It felt safe. A proof of your self-controlled being.

Even if sometimes hiding your face in the crook of your husband’s neck and ignoring the servants that could witness it was all you wanted.

At first Gwayne took that as a part of your serious demeanor. He would have to respect that, he thought, and learn to give you all the space you wanted. Surely he could get used to the behaviour of an old lord who only ever offered his arm to his spouse to present in a more favourable light.

But then he discovered you were fond of his jokes and witty remarks. You laughed and spoke silly things after a cup of wine with him when no one heard. You were far from real seriousness, far from what he knew from his sister and some other ladies.

He tried telling himself that it was all proper, perhaps. Just the way things should be between a man and his wife. He remembered very little of his own parents' marriage but he couldn't imagine his lord father indulging in these sorts of affection that haunted his mind.

But Gods, sometimes he felt like he was going crazy over it.

You loved him as he loved you, he knew it. You showed it with deep care, and said it to him when he asked. It crossed his mind that perhaps you lied just to please him. He wanted you to be able to speak freely, even if the truth wouldn’t be the one he wished to hear. He wanted to know if it was rationality that forced you into this arrangement…

But you never brushed his hands away. Never grimaced in annoyance when they found their way to your lap. You picked them up gently, cupped and squeezed in your own smaller hands. Not once you stepped away when Gwayne wrapped his arm around your shoulders.

Yes, he was much more familiar with reading the manners of a court than other people’s feelings, but gods, he did know how to read his own wife. His wife, who didn’t hate him, even if he used to question that in the beginning. A wife who loved him and battled her own shadows of the past.

Eventually he learned to understand that you simply struggled with such acts and he shouldn't feel too bothered about them. Your behaviour wasn’t aimed to hurt him, after all.

It could be hilarious, actually, seeing how sometimes your calm nature shattered with the feelings that overtook your body. It was like an armada of ships crashing into the shore and even though Gwayne noticed your worries and wished to soothe them, he always failed to hide his smirk. He wasn’t necessarily trying to make you break your calmness and get a reaction from you, but it fed his pride a bit every time he managed to do that unintentionally.

Your behaviour was even more evident in moments when he himself could not hold back from affection. When led either by longing or worry all he could think of was looking all over you, making sure you were in safety and good health. When his arms moved around you subconsciously, without him noticing at first. He didn’t mind anyway, especially when his initiative made you feel a bit more secure about expressing yourself.

It was after he completed an essentially important deal as a representative of Hightowers of Oldtown. The business forced him to leave your home for weeks. You awaited him patiently, exchanging many letters. Yet the words that often appeared too hollow to Gwayne wasn’t enough.

He came back tired but motivated with his palms aching from gripping the reins and the want to caress your skin.

He saw you standing in the yard, waiting like the devoted wife you were. After such a long separation there you were: beautiful like the day he married you. Almost on wobbly feet, he noticed, and clearly a part of you wanted to break and run to him, fall into his arms. Still, you didn’t even budge to move closer. You fooled yourself that you hid your shaking hands behind your back before he had the chance to see. Naive. He did have a good look at you and at least he assured himself you were fine.

Even though your eyes were filled with tears which you kept ignoring, your voice was calm. Emotionless even, some could think. Not Gwayne. He knew that your way of dealing with too many feelings was burying them even deeper inside your chest.

“The children have missed you,” you spoke calmly when he approached.

Gwayne's smile almost fell. It wasn’t an unwanted greeting, no. He missed your children exactly as much, but it was you now in front of him, not them. You must have seen his expression turn faint, more like a grimace now.

Just as the words left you properly, your breath hitched and you raised your hand to cover your mouth.

Before you could turn away to hide your disheveled state Gwayne closed the distance between you and gathered you in his arms. It was like a safe cage that you wouldn’t break out from even if you tried.

The sobs that broke out of your throat were pieces of restraint you forced yourself into. Even if your own behavior, the only one you viewed as appropriate, actually hurt you it was also an anchor. Something familiar in the grim days when your husband's absence howled in the halls of Oldtown.

“Then perhaps I should walk past you, my wife, and go straight to them?” He teased with a voice quiet enough only for you to hear.

Gently he tangled his fingers in your hair, making you exhale deeply. Your head fell to his shoulder and with a sniffing, you finally wrapped your arms around your husband.

Gwayne breathed in your scent, focused on how your hair brushed his face, felt how your skin was against his again, just as it should be. Gods, you were fit to be together. Your moderation and stability with his wit and audacity.

“I fear I was starting to go mad without you, my lady…” he muttered when his lips brushed over your ear.

“I too am very glad you're back,” you admit weakly, swallowing the small whimpers that made you feel dizzy from embarrassment.

You wanted to hide your face again but Gwayne didn’t let you. Slowly, with soft brushes of his hands, he made you pull your head away and look at him. He cupped your cheeks and smiled. It was catty in a way; a look you would hate to see if you didn’t miss him so greatly.

“Can you say it for me, wife?” It sounded like a chaste plea. Perhaps it would be if he hid how much pleasure he had out of it. You almost rolled your eyes, wanting to step away but you found yourself unable to. Gwayne caressed the sides of your face like he was trying to memorize it once again. “Please, would you say it out loud for your husband? If that’s the only thing I need to hear now?”

You nodded slowly.

“I missed you, Gwayne.”

Not speech of a foreign language, just what you used to see as shameful.

It was no longer embarrassing to admit and certainly not embarrassing to feel, and yet the words felt unfamiliar on your tongue. Sharp at first, like something forbidden. Then nicer, and eventually it turned sweet. Almost as lovable as the new expression on your husband’s handsome face.

“I love you…”

“I love you too, husband.”

a/n: more gwayne fanfics are coming!!

Despite his protests and consistent hangovers, Daeron showed up for work every day, and sometimes he'd even show up on time. Maekar often praised him for this new chapter of punctuality, and Daeron let his father believe that he had been overcome by the corporate spirit.

Daeron's reasoning for his newfound punctuality was far simpler and more selfish than Maekar gave him credit for.

Every hour that Daeron spent in his terrible fishbowl office was an hour that he could spend watching you at your little cubicle.

You're a financial analyst, and probably the most efficient person working in your position. When Maekar was still heading the department, he could ask you for a report, and in less than forty-five minutes, you'd have it typed out and on his desk.

Daeron didn't really care about your ability to type up a document in record time, though. He was more interested in your ability to be such a shining light in the office. Your most notable feat, which Daeron thought about often, was when you brought homemade cookies during a particularly rough week for the division. You'd left them in the break room for everybody, and you'd even timidly knocked on the glass of his fishbowl of an office to tell him that they were there.

He'd declined your offer, hoping that his curiosity would pass. He would take it to his grave that after everyone cleared out, he discreetly took the last snickerdoodle from the tray and had savored the taste of it far more than he had thought he would. Sometimes, when he was lying in bed at night, unable to sleep, he’d imagine that you had made them especially for him.

Daeron wasn't stupid, though. He spent forty hours a week doing nothing but watch you go about your day, enough time to know that you'd never bat an eye at him as anything more than a friendly colleague. You're generally well-liked and have no reason to interact with your pathetic excuse of a boss.

At the present moment, all of Darron's pining had led him to this mind-numbing meeting where the only silver lining was that you were seated on the other side of the long table, meaning he could steal glances at you whenever he felt like it. He's not paying attention to anything being said, taking more interest in listening to the soft clacking of your keys.

"The merger will take place in King's Landing," drones the travel manager, "So we'll be sending for a private jet."

Daeron nods absentmindedly while he watches you type away on your laptop. You have a little furrow in your brow from concentration, and he desperately wants to be a person in your life who can smooth it out with the brush of his thumb.

"Daeron, you're confirmed, of course," continues the travel manager, "as well as the two executives who will be accompanying you. There's room for one more person on the trip. Do you have any recommendations?"

Daeron's focus is finally pulled from you at the direct address. The feeling of eyes boring into him sends a shiver down his spine as he considers the question with thinly veiled bewilderment. Decisions are typically made without consulting him. He's really only the head of the department in name.

It's funny how fast the brain can work under pressure to make connections, though.

First, he's acutely aware that the trip to King's Landing will last a week, with plenty of downtime. Next, he remembers the city's scenic views. Finally, he realizes that you are the perfect choice for a recommendation.

In that split second moment, he's conjuring up the vision of the two of you walking hand in hand through the streets of King's Landing, sharing secret laughs over dinner, and returning to Summerhall as something more than distant colleagues.

"It would be beneficial to have a financial analyst with us," is how he chooses to express these feelings, eyes boring into the side of your head.

The travel manager doesn't think much of it, simply writing down something in her little spreadsheet. You, however, are far more caught off guard, your eyes widening just a fraction as you look up from your laptop, finally setting your gaze on Daeron, who has strategically looked away, knowing that he'd sport a blush redder than Dornish wine if he lingered on you for a second longer.

━🔥 ━

You're proud of your career.

You may not have owned a business or been the highest executive at a company, but you have a stable job you enjoy that keeps food on the table. You're lucky enough to have worked for a boss who recognized your hard work.

When Maekar announced that he was stepping down, you had honestly been a little sad. You knew you would miss him, but such is life.

The most you could say about your new boss, Maekar's eldest son Daeron, was that he was nice. He mostly kept to himself in his personal office, struggling to fight his obvious hangovers, but that was to be expected of a twenty-something-year-old member of a disgustingly wealthy family like the Targaryens. The few times you'd interacted with him, he'd been perfectly cordial, though.

However, Daeron had never taken any special interest in your work, which is why you found yourself sitting across from your best friend and distant colleague, Duncan, over coffee, panicking about the recommendation that had suddenly fallen into your lap.

"It makes no sense, Dunk," you say after a sip of your coffee, "What am I supposed to do as an analyst?"

Duncan supplies you with a signature clueless stare, "I wouldn't know… I work in human resources."

"Of course," you laugh dryly, "But it's still unnecessary for me to go. The deal is already made, and I don't need to travel to predict the market. I'm just a wasted plane ticket."

"Maybe you're getting a promotion," Duncan says.

You think it over. A promotion wouldn't have been too out of character with Maekar, but Daeron was so disconnected from the happenings of the office that you were almost certain he wouldn't even begin to consider promoting anyone in the foreseeable future. His personal recommendation just seemed odd.

"Maybe," you say, pouting.

"That's the spirit," Duncan smiles, "Best case scenario, you get a promotion, worst case scenario, you get a free trip to King's Landing."

"Duncan…"

"What?" His eyes are wide, and he's mid-chew of his croissant.

"That might be the smartest thing you've ever said."

━🔥 ━

The day of the trip comes quicker than Daeron thought it would.

Daeron stands on the tarmac with the executives whose names he can't be assed to remember. He cleaned up nicely today, and he'd even picked out a blazer jacket in a powdered version of what he hopes is your favorite color, based on the decorations at your desk. Despite not suffering from a hangover, he's wearing a pair of aviators, which he hopes you'll find flattering.

The two executives, Daeron has taken to calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2 in his head, are having a painfully uninteresting debate about whose watch is more expensive. Although he's standing with them, he's too busy watching the hangar to tell them that his watch is five times more expensive than both of their watches combined. Any minute now, you'll emerge from the building, and he'll have to start his plan to woo you.

Minutes feel like hours due to his eagerness, and by the time you appear, Daeron has stood waiting for you for ten years. In reality, it was only five minutes, but he believes another minute without you there would have driven him mad.

Daeron crosses the tarmac, meeting you halfway with his arm slightly raised, reaching for your bag. He's disappointed when you furrow your eyebrows and awkwardly shake his hand after fixing your face.

"Thank you so much for this opportunity, sir," You say, "I will not let this opportunity go to waste."

"Of course," he says, hoping he concealed his feelings of dejection, "Let's board the plane, then."

You smile and nod at him, taking the lead towards the plane. You've got pep in your step, and watching you does wonders for his mood. He even starts to grin a little, wondering if you'd look even happier in the streets of King's Landing. He decides he'll try to get closer to you during the plane ride instead.

You finally make it to the plane, giving Thing 1 and Thing 2 a cheerful greeting, but they all but ignore you as you walk past them and start up the steps to board the plane. You're seemingly unbothered by it, but the exchange strikes a nerve with Daeron. At first, he was rather indifferent to the pair, but their dismissive attitude towards you makes his blood boil. It's a basic kindness to return a greeting. Thing 1 and Thing 2 only shrug and board the plane as Daeron gives them a look that could kill and follows. He thinks he might hate them, now.

When he finally gets on the plane, you’re already sitting down, having claimed a window seat. He's dejected once again, seeing as you chose the seat by the emergency exit, which is notable because there are no other seats near it. Daeron's mouth forms a thin line, seeing that Thing 1 and Thing 2 already claimed their seats, and it would seem childish for him to demand everyone move around so he can sit next to you. He'll just have to catch you when you land.

Daeron ends up next to Thing 2, who tries to interest him in a discussion about the best designer, their conversation about watches having moved on to bigger and better things.

Daeron lists off a designer bridal company and doesn't elaborate any further when Thing 2 gives him a look. There's no need to reveal that he'd spent time on the website window shopping during the work day, imagining you in one of those one million dollar dresses.

The plane takes off, and within fifteen minutes, Daeron is asleep.

━🔥 ━

You wake up, adrift on a chunk of the plane's wing, in the middle of the ocean. At first, you think you're dreaming, but then cold water splashes over you, shocking your system.

Surprisingly, you're almost completely unharmed from the crash. You can't say the same for the other three, though. There are no traces of them anywhere around you, just the broken up debris of the plane.

You can only assume that they were killed in the crash or drowned. Tears well up in your eyes. You weren't particularly close to any of them, but Marcus and James, despite their flaws, didn't deserve to die, and Daeron…

Well, he had been acting a bit off all day. You could only describe him as enthusiastic when he saw you. When he'd crossed the tarmac and lifted his arm, it was like he couldn't wait to give you a handshake. Duncan must have been right, after all. You must have been considered for a promotion. Maybe he was even going to announce it during the meeting.

You push yourself up to balance on the metal so you can look around. There's not much, and it's pitch black, save for the stars, but you catch sight of a gigantic shadow in the distance.

A mountain.

Land.

You dare to hope and begin paddling towards it. The others might have been dead and gone, but you refused to die out at sea.

You're not sure how you did it or how long you paddled, but you made landfall in the early hours of the morning. You're bone tired, exhausted and sore in a way that you hadn't been since you left Flea Bottom. You feel the sand between your fingers, and you finally let the tears you'd been holding back fall. As far as you knew, you're the sole survivor, completely alone on this island.

You struggle to your feet and stumble across the beach, trying to find your bearings. Your vision is blurry, either from exhaustion or the tears, but in the darkness, you see a dark lump on the white sand. It doesn't move, but part of you wants to believe, so you pick up your trudge across the beach.

The closer you get, the easier it is to make out arms, legs, and the distinct golden-silver of Daeron Targaryen.

You fall to your knees and grab his arm, trying to turn him over. Your hands are frantic as you check his pulse and feel for breathing, and you're elated to find that he's only unconscious. You cry out, bury your face into his shoulder, and wrap your arms around him, crying even harder, but this time in relief.

You pull away, checking him for injuries. It's not until you get to his legs that you begin to falter. His left leg is completely fine, but his right leg sports a gnarly, deep gash from his knee to his ankle. He's lying half in the water, and the saltwater lapping at it makes you wince. Even though he's unconscious, it can't be comfortable.

You stagger to your feet again and crouch down so that you can hook your hands under Daeron's arms. Daeron is heavier than expected, but once again, you're surprised by your strength. It takes a while, but you're able to get him closer to the tree line. You prop him up against a tree and start working to stop the bleeding.

You're proud of the makeshift tourniquet that you’re able to cobble together using a seatbelt from a washed up airplane seat. He's still unconscious, but you hope he's comfortable as you leave him to start collecting firewood.

━🔥 ━

The first thing Daeron feels is heat on one side of his body. He turns his head, and he sees a figure crouched down by a fire. Through his dreamlike haze, he can only make out a silhouette. His mouth feels like sandpaper, and all he can get out is a weak grunt. The figure gasps and scrambles towards him. Hands reach for his cheeks, cradling his face gently and smoothing over his skin.

Daeron's almost disappointed. If it had been you, Daeron would have certainly leaned into your touch, maybe even kissed your palm, but this shadowy figure couldn't have been you. There was no way you'd be so tender with him.

"Oh, you're okay," coos the figure, "You're alright."

Daeron has to assume that he must be dead and in the afterlife, and that this figure is an angel. He clumsily jerks away from the hands on his face.

"Daeron," the figure says again, "Daeron, please."

Daeron is more pissed about the possibility of being dead than anything else. He's in terrible physical pain, but the emotional pain of never getting the chance to woo you is even greater.

"Daeron, please say something," the figure says again.

It's like all of his wires click into place all at once. You were the one tending to the fire. You were the one whose hands were on his face. You were the one urging him to speak.

Daeron summons all of his strength to croak out a single word, "Hurts."

Your face lights up, and Daeron lets his eyes flutter shut.

The next time Daeron opens his eyes, the sun is out. Above him, a structure made from leaves blocks it out. He looks to his side and sees that the fire has been extinguished.

The pain from before is gone, and he feels almost numb, so Daeron pushes himself up onto his hands in an attempt to stand. He doesn't make it very far, though, because before he can put weight on his legs, you're there, pushing himself back against the tree by his shoulders. You sit back on your shins beside him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," You say, gesturing to his leg, "It may be numb, but it's not healed."

Daeron looks down to find an open wound coated in paste. He tries to flex his toes, but no movement occurs. You bite your lip and give him a sympathetic look.

"You're quite lucky, you know. You survived a plane crash with only one injury," You say as he continues to look at his useless leg.

"Are you okay?" Daeron asks, his gaze snapping to you, afraid that you're just putting on a brave face.

You hesitate, but answer, "I'm fine. Just tired."

You offer him a weak smile, and it breaks his heart.

"What about the others?" Daeron asks, suddenly.

You look down at your hands, fiddling with your fingers, "It's just us. They didn't make it."

Daeron wills you to interpret the wobble in his lip as him holding back tears at the loss of Thing 1 and Thing 2, and he's relieved when you lean forward and repeat, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as you wrap your arms around him awkwardly due to the angle.

In reality, he's biting back incredulous laughter at the situation that just landed in his lap. To hell with the other two, Daeron has you all to himself for the foreseeable future. Yes, you two are in the middle of nowhere, and yes, he's indisposed at the moment, but you are here, and life couldn't be better.

Daeron wraps his arms around you and tucks your head under his chin. You fit perfectly against him, like a jigsaw piece, and he doesn't know how he's survived this long without having experienced this. He's acutely aware of everything about you in the moment as your chest rises and falls against his. Your tears wet his neck, and he reaches a hand up to stroke the back of your head.

"It's okay," he soothes, "We have each other."

"Yeah," you sniffle.

You pull away from the extended hug, too soon for Daeron's liking, and sit back on your shins, again. Your eyebrows are furrowed in the way they do when you're trying to figure something out, and then you're on your feet and walking away again.

"You're probably thirsty," You say, coming back with a broken coconut shell filled with water, "I tried to keep you out of the sun, but that can only work for so long."

You hand the water off to him, and he doesn't realize just how thirsty he had been until it's all gone. You take the shell from him and retreat back to the other side of the firepit. You sit down on a log and pick up some long blades of grass, beginning to weave them together.

"How long have we been here?" asks Daeron.

You seem hesitant to answer, "It's been about three days."

You frown, looking back down at your hands.

"I had enough time to collect firewood, food, and water. Then I built shelters for us," You say, starting to tie off a knot, "I was so scared you wouldn't wake up."

Your voice cracks, and if Daeron had been able, he would have closed the distance and held you. Unfortunately, he is unable to and can only offer you a solemn silence as he watches your shoulders shake with tears again. You were so strong, braver than he knows he ever would have been, keeping both of you alive out here.

"I'm sorry, I don't usually cry this much," You mumble, wiping your eyes, "You must think I'm silly."

"Of course not," Daeron says, "I'd be crying, too. I'm just severely dehydrated at the moment."

To his delight, this makes you giggle. Your eyes twinkle, tears still in your eyes, but for a brief second, your smile returns. Daeron would like to live in this moment forever.

"We're going to get off of this island," You say suddenly, "It won't be long."

━🔥 ━

It's been four weeks since you crashed.

You and Daeron have fallen into a sort of routine, and it keeps you sane.

Every morning, you clean and redress Daeron's wound. It's almost completely healed by now, but he's still mostly stationary because of weakness in his leg. In the past few days, you've been helping him hobble short distances to help him regain his strength. After that, you leave him under his shade, which you've since expanded in your boredom, to forage for food. After the first week, you'd made a spear and had brought back fish. Daeron would keep you company while you cooked the fish, asking questions about your life and telling you about his. As the sun dipped, you would begin preparing dinner. Daeron had tried to help a few times, but it always ended in disaster. He bashfully admitted to you once that, having grown up his whole life with maids and butlers, he had never had to do anything like that on his own.

You found it endearing and offered to teach him at least one skill so that he could contribute. You'd honestly been surprised when his face lit up at the thought of being useful. You decided that weaving would be his new hobby, since it didn't require much movement. He'd been eager, even though his first few projects had been terrible. His most helpful contributions had been new coverings for the ever improving canopies that the two of you slept under, and the satchel he had figured out how to make for your foraging. Sometimes, you'd wake up in the middle of the night and find Daeron intensely focused on his latest project.

You had your own personal project going. You'd been able to fashion a few tools during your time on the island, and your favorite was the wittling knife. You'd begun crafting a walking cane for when Daeron recovered enough for him to start walking again. Admittedly, it was crude and ugly, but hopefully, he would be able to look past that and see its functionality.

In moments of boredom, you and Daeron would simply sit together and talk.

"Who do you miss most of all?" You asked once, lying on your back.

"My youngest brother, Aegon," said Daeron, who was in the same position next to you, turned his head so that he could look at you, "How about you?"

"My best friend, Dunk," You said.

Daeron had been quiet for a long time after that.

━🔥 ━

The storm comes at night.

At this point, Daeron can walk short distances on his own, and he uses that limited strength to get to you. He grabs you, shielding you from the brunt of the wind. You grip his arm and duck your head into his chest.

Daeron watches helplessly as all of your hard work blows away. The canopies are uprooted, the firepit gets covered in sand, and the tools that you had worked so hard on scatter and break across the beach.

When the storm finally passes, Daeron reluctantly lets you go. He doesn't care much about the destruction around you, but the frustration that paints your face as you take it all in makes his heart seize. He's not sure what to say, but luckily, you perfectly sum it up with one word.

"Fuck!"

You stare up at the sky and begin to laugh. You look towards Daeron, who is still sitting on the ground and continue to laugh. He begins laughing with you, and that only makes you laugh harder.

"We can rebuild this," You say through your fit, "It's not even the worst thing that happened to either of us this year."

"Yeah…" Daeron's laughter fades, but thankfully, you don't seem to notice.

He knows that the "worst thing" that you're referring to is the plane crash and subsequent stranding, but he's not so sure if he'd classify it that way. Daeron likes being here with you.

For the first time since being here, Daeron's starting to think that he doesn't want to leave the island.

━🔥 ━

The speed at which you and Daeron finish building a new structure is honestly astounding. It was mostly in part because of Daeron's idea to build a single structure instead of two.

"It'll be heavier than the canopies," he had reasoned, "And the nights are getting colder, we can share body heat that way."

He had put his newfound weaving expertise to use. Sometimes you would wake up, and he would be feverishly weaving. You never mentioned it, but his productivity was becoming concerning. Along with the shelter, he had completed a rug for you to work on, multiple sun hats for you, and he had even replaced your satchel, which had blown away in the storm.

Although many items had been blown away in the storm, you were glad that you had the foresight to bury the walking cane that you had started for Daeron. You hope that he'll be able to occupy himself with something other than weaving.

You decide that dinner is the best time to give it to him.

"Daeron," you say, looking up at him over the fire, "I have something for you."

He looks startled when you address him, "For me?"

"Well, who else would I have something for?" You tease.

Daeron playfully scoffs, but he quickly shuts up when you round the fire and sit next to him. You smile at him, but he only stares at you intently. For a brief second, you think he might be leaning towards you, but the moment passes when you bend down behind you and pull out the walking cane.

Daeron looks down at the object in your hand, back up at you, and then back down to the object in your hand. He doesn't react, and you want to crawl into a hole. He doesn't like it. And why would he? Despite all of this time you'd spent on equal ground out here, he was still a member of a very wealthy family.

"This was dumb, I'm sorry," you say, retracting your hands.

Before you can retreat into yourself, however, Daeron grabs your hands, "This may be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

You're taken aback at how there's a slight waiver in his voice, and even more taken aback when he starts to pull you in for a hug. He pulls away and holds you by the shoulders as he searches your face, at a loss for words.

Daeron reaches for the cane, which had been forgotten on your lap, and uses it to tentatively stand up. He makes a lap around the fire with it, absolutely elated. He sits back down next to you, tucking the cane between his legs.

"So, I take it that you like it," You say hopefully.

"It's my most prized possession," He says.

You choose to ignore the fact that he's still wearing a watch that costs over half a million dollars.

━🔥 ━

Daeron is so in love with you, deeply and truly, but you've started getting it into your head that leaving the island is in your best interest.

At first, he humored you. He helped you set your signal fires and write out S.O.S on the beach. He'd spend hours with you, watching the sky for planes, or the ocean for ships. At night, when neither of you could sleep, he'd listen to your speculations about what the two of you had missed in the outside world.

But after the storm, the doubts began. When the day comes that you do spot a ship in the distance, and the two of you board it and are ferried to the mainland, then what? You'll go back to your life, and he'll go back to his. You'll go back to being strangers. He'll have no more excuse to lie next to you at night or to surprise you with new woven treasures.

He can't bear the thought, and that's why he can't let you find out about the ship that he's looking at right now.

With his newfound mobility due to the walking cane you had so graciously made for him, Daeron had taken to going on walks and exploring other parts of the island by himself. On this particular day, his walk had taken him to the other side of the island, where there was another beach. You'd been busy descaling fish when he had left.

At first, the ship is just a speck in the distance, but as it draws closer, Daeron recognizes it for what it is. In fact, he can make out the 'Targaryen Enterprises' dragon logo on the side of the hull, and the distinct red and black that his family painted every asset in.

For a second, Daeron considers starting a fire as a smoke signal, just like you had shown him how to do, but that thought passes, and he finds himself hiding in the treeline, watching the ship move on.

He should feel guilty for not telling you about the ship, but it's what's best. 

He's not keeping you captive. 

He's keeping you safe. 

He's keeping you happy.

Daeron's walk back is anything but peaceful as he tries to work through a flurry of emotions. When he sits down next to you for dinner, he can't stop thinking about just how close the end of all this could have been.

"You're quiet today," you say.

Daeron shakes his head and reaches for your hand, "It's nothing. Don't worry about me."

He's glad that you don't pry, because if you did, he's sure he'd spill everything. He'd always been decent at lying to his family, but your genuineness made it hard for him to be deceptive.

That night, you drift closer to his side than you ever have before, trying to fight off the frigid night air. Daeron is lying on his back, eyeing the canopy above him while you're all but tucked into his side.

He thinks you're asleep until you speak up, "Do you think anyone is searching for us?"

Daeron angles himself so that he's also on his side, facing you, "I'd imagine so."

He schools his face in an effort not to reveal what he already knows.

"They've probably already replaced us at work," You sigh, "And our friends and family must think we're dead."

"There are plenty of people who surely miss you," He soothes.

You don't need to know that he'd miss you most of all.

"Do you really think someone will find us?" You ask,

"They will," Daeron whispers, "We'll be found."

He just hopes you can forgive him for his omission.

Just not for now.

“Is it poison?” she questions Grand Maester Gerardys, her arms crossed on her chest.

He nods. “It seems as so. We believe it is from the wine she drank at supper.”

“Can’t you open a window?!” you yell with a cracking voice.

Silence fills the room after the outburst. Both Rhaenyra and Gerardys glance over. You do the same once you see a smile fall over her face, one she fails to bite back.

The windows are open.

“All of the windows are open, princess,” Gerardys mumbles.

“Yes, I can see that now, thank you.” Your head falls back onto the pillow, allowing your dampened hair to reconnect with your sweaty nape and back. “Will I die tonight, Gerardys?” you question, almost joking.

“No, no, princess,” he says. “Not tonight.”

Your head shoots back up from its resting position. Rhaenyra is already looking at him, any sign of her former coyness erased from her features.

“It seems the poison was mixed with the wine,” he begins. “Therefore, unless the culprit is found, it will be quite difficult to tell whatever was infused in the drink. And given your symptoms, unless somehow magically cured, there is not much I can do.”

“Not much you can do?” Rhaenyra exclaims, her arms now at her side.

Gerardys lowers his voice and steps closer to her. “Not unless you would like me to find a maegi.”

She takes one look over at you. You look full of fear, full of suffering, but most of all—full of regret. “That wont be necessary,” she mutters. “If you’ll let me speak to my sister alone?”

“Of course, your grace.” He leaves the room. Rhaenyra watches him go, not looking back until the door swings back shut.

She makes her way to your bedside so swiftly it was as if she was running. The screech of the chair she pulls to sit on hurts your ears more than any of the conversation you had just been put through. You wish your protector was here instead. He would be able to help you. He would have to help you.

“Tell me,” she commands, already leaning forward, her hands folded in her lap.

You lift your body off the sheets, but they stick to you as you rise. “Tell you what?”

“Don’t play the fool. You know what I’m referring to,”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I don’t, Your Grace.”

She scoffs out a laugh after that. Two of her fingers settle on the bridge of her nose. “Your condition is of your own volition. If you tell me what you drank, it will be easier for me to find a solution.”

You look at her. She isn’t smiling. There’s no hidden agenda beneath her stoic expression, none of the small facial cues you spent your childhood learning to decipher. She truly wants to help you.

And your body feels like it could give out at any moment. No, you want it to give out at any moment. You’re starting to feel nauseous.

You’ll do about anything to stop whatever you did to yourself.

You exhale a heavy breath. “You mustn’t tell anyone what I did.”

Rhaenyra lets herself crack a smile. “Gods, sister, what did you do?”

“I am unwed. Undesired,” you mumble. “I thought it clever to…”

“To what?” Rhaenyra presses, leaning closer.

You sigh and cover your face with your hands. You mutter something so quiet you don’t even hear it in your own ears.

“What did you say?” she asks softly.

“I had a potion brewed.”

Rhaenyra lets out a sharp breath through her nose. “Oh, Gods, sister—“

“You don’t understand! The Realm’s Delight, the most beautiful maiden in all of the Seven Kingdoms—you could have anyone and anything you desire!” you argue. “It isn’t the same for me. Even if it were, I don’t get to choose—”

“I’ve heard enough.” You finally remove your hands from your face, both now sheen with a layer of sweat as is the rest of your body. Rhaenyra is now standing at the edge of your bed, pacing back and forth. “When you had the potion brewed, did the alchemist tell you of any cure?”

“No…” you mumble.

“Well.” Rhaenyra sighs. She gazes over at you, but avoids your own. “I can presume what it is.”

You know what remains unsaid. It is torturous enough for your own sister to know of the humiliation you’ve brought upon yourself. For her, the queen, to be made uncomfortable by the revelation? You get a sudden urge to throw yourself from the highest point of the Red Keep. It would cure all of the emotions swirling in your head.

The writhing starts all over again. The feeling makes you want to crawl out of your own body. In your peripheral, you can see Rhaenyra stop moving. She faces forward to look at you as you thrash around the mattress.

“I know what must be done,” she says. And she leaves the room.

You are left alone in your torture. Now seems about the best time to consider your future. You could jump from the window. It would be quick. You’d be remembered as tragic. Never wed, without children, lonely, jumped from her bedroom window after being poisoned—Rhaenyra would spread the word of poison. She wouldn’t subject the public to the truth.

You suck in a breath as you rise from the bed, dragging your feet to the window. The air fanning on your face makes you hopeful for about fives seconds before the sun finally catches on your skin and shines over the moisture on your skin.

The ache in your body almost certifies that you wouldn’t be able to hoist yourself onto the windowsill without some help.

Maybe your protector would help you. You could say you need more air. He certainly wouldn’t help cure your self-inflicted debilitation—he is too honorable. No—he’s too insistent on protecting your honor to do anything to you.

The door swings open again.

Rhaenyra enters first. You watch her panic once she does not immediately spot you on the bed, then watch her settle once she finds you by the window. There is someone behind her.

The person unveils themself from the shadows.

It is your sworn shield and protector. Ser Gwayne Hightower.

He steps into the room, and it is like your legs turn to water. He notices this, and dashes across the room to wrap his arms around your waist, stabilizing you. Once you are brought back to your feet, you let out a moan. It is almost embarrassing, but you couldn’t care less now.

Gwayne is touching you. Sometimes, the Gods do work in your favor. You slowly look up at him. He is already staring down at you, concerned at your condition, of course—and probably confused as to why you just moaned when he touched you—and you place a hand on his shoulder. Your other arm wraps around his bicep.

“I shall leave you to it.” Rhaenyra is out of the room with a slam of the door before you can look over to acknowledge her. When you look back, Gwayne still has his gaze fixed on you.

The contact you share feels truly breathtaking, perhaps because it is. It does feel quite hard to take in any air. You find your body inching closer to his, desperate for closer proximity. You feel your nipples, hard under your smallclothes, brush against his gambeson. You let your head fall onto his sternum, and it is then that you realize what you are doing, and immediately push away.

You stumble back to the bed, sitting on its edge, and shame washes over you. Gwayne hasn’t moved from his spot by the window. He still stares at you, however.

“My princess.” He steps closer. You hold up a finger as if to tell him to stop, and he does. “I cannot bear to see you in this condition. I only wish to help.”

“Help with what?” you breathe.

He remains silent.

“What exactly did Rhaenyra tell you?” you question.

Silence.

“Tell me. I command it.”

His gaze shifts to the ground. “Her Grace informed me of your condition.”

“You already knew of my condition. What else did she tell you?”

He looks back up at you. “She revealed to me the nature of your condition. What exactly brought it on.”

“Gods,” you mutter under your breath and squeeze your eyes shut. This cannot be real.

“How it can be cured,” he adds.

Your brows tighten. You hope that when you open your eyes again, he will be gone, and this will all have been a figment of your imagination.

When you do so, you find that this is the realest he has ever been. Ser Gwayne of House Hightower, in all his glory. He glistens in the flare of the sun. His hair, usually a light brown, shimmers auburn in the light. It looks similar to his sister’s in a certain light.

You can see the resemblance, him and his father. You would rather not, but it is there. He is certainly more alluring.

“I want to help you.” He takes a single step closer. “I need to help you.”

Your head is cocked to the side, though only out of exhaustion. It feels to heavy to carry yourself.

“When you swore yourself as my protector, I vowed that I would ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. What do you reckon this is?” you scoff out a laugh, feeling the whole situation truly ironic.

“It would not bring me dishonor if nobody discovers it.” His voice is low. He closes the window, then moves to close the other. “In fact, I swore first to protect you from any and all harm. I believe that prevails over bringing me dishonor.” You watch him then as he travels to the door. The lock clicks shut, and the sound of it travels to your core.

Not only is he able, he is willing.

He turns back to you, and you lock eyes. His brows are turned upwards at the corners—it is true, desperate concern etched onto his face. You can only imagine how disheveled you look.

You sigh, but it comes out as more of a moan, and let your head hang low.

Gwayne is across the room in a moment, kneeling down in front of you. He removes the gloves from his hands, settling them on the ground beside him, and then places his hands on your clothed thighs. The contact draws the linens slightly upwards. How you wish he would just slide them all the way up and just kiss your cun—

You close your eyes and draw in a long breath.

“Tell me what you need,” he purrs. Your eyes shoot back open, and his hands move to hold your hips. “I am yours.”

You want to. Gods, who are you kidding? You need to tell him, because he will do it, but you can’t. The words freeze on your tongue. Where do you even start?

But he is knelt before you, almost pathetic in his attempt at a remedy, so eager on helping you.

Why must you tell him?

You grab the cloth at your thighs and curl your fingers enough times until it is bunched up near your crotch. All that prevents him from laying eyes on your bare cunt is closed legs. You let them spread, gruelingly slow, pushing Gwayne’s hands from your hips in the process.

He does not look away from your face. “Tell me. Please,” he whimpers, letting his fingers graze the sides of your thighs.

You stammer, and squirm once more. “I need you to touch me,” you declare.

Gwayne nods once. “As you wish.”

And he hoists your legs over his shoulders and his face inches closer and closer to your core until his lips latch onto your clit. And finally, for once since drinking the stupid wine, you feel bliss. You’ve never felt something like this before.

It surges through your body and your entire body twitches violently. Gwayne lifts his arms up and grips your hips back again, using the hold to tug your cunt farther into his mouth. He eats you like a man starved.

You did not realize of the noises you were making until you nearly screamed, letting your head fall back. Your hands snake into his hair, pulling his head closer to your core.

He releases your clit from his lips. “Tastes so good—my princess—” his words fan over your damp slit, and he leans down to lick a thick stripe from bottom to top, collecting your arousal into onto his tongue. He swallows it with a loud gulp.

Your breath catches in your throat.

Gwayne continues his assault on your clit, sucking down hard. Your hips roll toward the allure of his lips. You are panting and gasping, hand bunching up his hair into your fist.

Heat flows through your entire body. It is a mix of the feeling you felt upon drinking that curséd wine and something incredible. True, pure ecstasy. You feel the blood of the dragon in you now. You understand it.

An unfamiliar ache begins to tighten in your lower stomach as he persists in lapping at your cunt. Nothing in your life has ever felt so good. You wonder if this is the true effect of the wine, or if it is just because it is your first time—you cannot really think about anything else. His tongue flattens and rolls against your clit and you choke on a moan.

Your muscles tense, your toes curl, and your heels dig into his back. His tongue presses and prods against you and he can feel it coming, the way your thighs tighten around him and shake and spasm.

Shudders wrack your body as you cum. He does not stop even when you do, even when your moans crescendo, his tongue still relentlessly ravishes your cunt even after you fall back onto the bed.

Finally, he lets go of your core with a wet pop.

It is then that you realize the burn has subsided. Relief washes over you momentarily.

But it returns as quickly as it went away. It flows through your body and you feel desperate for him once again.

He crawls up your body, caging you in between his arms, searching for something beneath your fucked-out expression.

“It isn’t enough—” you declare, your breath labored.

“What do you require?” Gwayne rasps, using a hand to brush your hair off of your forehead. His touch wavers in concern when he realizes the scorch of your skin.

“I need—” you paw at his clothed cock. “Your—”

“My what?” he pants.

“I need you inside,” you mutter.

Without a word, he begins shedding his garments. You were simply too dazed to admire it. Perhaps if there is a next time—Gods you hope there is a next time—you’ll get to do exactly that.

He is crawling back over you in an instant, his body bare. You run your hands up his chest, dragging the ball of your hand over his sternum. His cock hits your pelvis.

Your smallclothes, practically wet at this point, Gwayne lifts slightly at your waist. “Would you like me to take this off?” he asks.

You nod lazily.

He shimmies the linen up your body. “Sit up for a moment, sweet girl,” he instructs, and you obey.

They are finally, finally off, discarded somewhere across the room, and it feels much better being exposed than you expected it to be. There is no insecurity when you are with him. He just wants to help.

He grabs a pillow from off the head of the bed, lifting your hips up with a swift sleight of hand and shoving it under. “For your comfort,” he clarifies.

His hand comes up to cradle your cheek, his elbow resting beside your shoulder, as his other hand reaches down to grip his cock.

You look into his eyes, trying to search for anything past pure devotion and adoration for what he sees before him, and failing. Your lips falter as they reach up to lock with his. He meets you halfway.

Your hand tangles in his hair, pressing his head down harder onto your wet lips. The kiss is unpracticed and messy. Has he done this before? With anyone else, you mean. You should ask once you finish.

Gwayne enters you in a slow thrust, inhaling the noise you make into his mouth. His hand, the one that was cradling your cheek, finds itself on the nape of your neck.

His lips depart from your own, and he presses his forehead against yours, looking down to watch his cock sink into your cunt. He withdraws and sinks in once more, just to see it again. And again. And again. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the torturous drag of his length into you.

Your lips are parted, throat singing moans so frequent you’d think you were performing for him. You know you are being too loud. It feels impossible to be anything but.

Those gorgeous blue eyes of his find their way back to yours. "Oh—fuck, look at you," he praises, no longer needing the arm that guided his cock into you to guide his cock into you, so he raises it up to your mouth.

His thumb glides over your teeth, and then pushes past them. You wrap a hand around his wrist and suck on the digit. Up and down, up and down, as if it were his cock. He almost freezes inside of you.

Your hand slides up his, grabbing his pointer and middle-finger, swapping his thumb out for them. You do the same to them, bobbing your head up and down, moaning around them, and Gwayne fucking whimpers.

He resumes his movements. His cock throbs, your walls wrapping around him, sucking him in like you were made for him—or more so he was made for you, because he was. He is your man. He will be your man until the day he dies.

His fingers leave your mouth, and your saliva connects to the pads of them. He takes them into his own mouth momentarily.

Your fingers dig into his shoulders, pulling his body down to connect to yours. His hand snakes between you, gripping your hardened nipple, earning a gasp from you.

“I’m yours, my princess,” he murmurs, drunk-like. “I’m yours.” And he presses his lips all down your neck, the trail all wet and sloppy.

You’re clenching around him, body spasming from under his caging hold. You feel close to a similar sort of climax that you felt only once before, just then when his head was between your legs. With each slap of his skin against yours, you are screaming. He mutters things, most you can’t quite catch, but they’re all something like that’s it, sweet girl, and let it out, my princess.

He uses his forearm to rise from the skin-to-skin contact you had forced him into. His fingers, desperate yet nimble, work themselves to the small of your back. The contact releases your skin from the suction of the pillowcase, and he lifts your hips up more with his arm now wrapped around them.

His pace quickens. You glance down, and nearly sob at the sight of him disappearing inside you.

“Gwayne?” you look back up at him. Again, he is already staring back at you, ready and willing to fulfill your every need.

“Yes, my princess?” he heaves.

“Kiss me.”

As you wish, is he would have said, if it weren’t for him immediately giving in to your wish. He kisses like he is eating you. Messy. His spit somehow finds itself all around your mouth. You don't notice that you do the same to him.

Your orgasm slams into you. It is a violent punch that knocks the wind out of you—you think you see the Stranger reaching out to you—then you feel Gwayne slow his movements and a thick liquid coat your insides. You babble incomprehensible speech as you ride it out.

“Fuck—” you hear him mutter, and pull out quickly. He runs a finger up your slit, not considering the fact that you were still beyond sensitive—you jerk back at his touch, still trying to catch your breath.

It was like all air was running from you. It probably was. You violently pushed it back out with every small inhale of it.

You finally come to, and realize he has been repeating the words fuck, fuck, fuck, since he pulled out.

“What’s wrong?” you raise a hand to hold his cheek, bringing his attention back to you.

“You don’t—” he pauses. And he sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. “I wasn’t supposed to cum inside.”

You’re still confused. “What’s the problem?”

“That is how you get pregnant.” He lets out one last heavy sigh and then falls onto his back beside you.

You turn onto your side, resting your head on one of the arms he lies beneath your shoulder, and bringing a hand up to place it on his chest. His is still rising and falling as rapidly as yours is.

Your fingers trace your name onto his chest. He is none-the-wiser, but you still smirk at the action. Your man.

“Will you ask the maesters to brew me moon tea?” you mumble.

He brings his other hand to hold yours. “As you wish.”

You chuckle breathily.

“Are you—are you cured?” he says, playing with your fingers.

“I suppose so.” You sigh. The need for him no longer thrums through you in the way that it did before.

Now you want him in a different way. A normal, human, potionless way. The way you wanted him before you drank that wine—you thought it would make you seductive enough for him. It certainly worked, you assume.

“Isn’t that strange?”

Your sister, Katherine, looked away from what she was doing to look at you instead. You were playing thoughtfully with your hair, with an almost troubled expression on your face.

“What is strange?” she asked.

“Mother and her decisions.”

Katherine shrugged. The way your mother raised you should no longer surprise you.

“Why does she impose something on all her daughters, except for me?”

“I don’t know… maybe you’re secretly her favorite,” she replied, although it was clear she didn’t really mean it.

You shook your head, now taking a book in your hand, even though you didn't really intend to read it.

“I don’t understand,” you sighed. “You didn't want to marry the Duke of Leicester, and that's perfectly understandable, but she didn't leave you a choice. Jane didn't want to marry Lord Guildford, but she didn't give her a choice. And I tell her I want to marry Lord Stanley, but she won't allow it!”

“Indeed…”

“I’m the only one who wants to marry a Lord, but I’m also the only one Mother won’t allow to marry!”

Katherine nodded compassionately. She thought to herself that you were lucky your mother wasn't forcing you to marry someone.

“Yet Stanley isn’t a bad person. He doesn’t cause her any problems, they seem to get along well overall…”

There was a silence before you exchanged a glance. Shivers ran through your body, making you shake your head to regain your composure.

“I prefer not to imagine the existence of this situation,” you say with disgust.

“Me neither. But your lover seems to be smitten with her,” she pointed out with a grimace on her face.

“Don’t even mention it…” you sighed, putting the book back in its place. “I’m starting to lose hope…”

Katherine remained silent, before an idea crossed her mind.

“There’s Jane’s coronation banquet tonight. Perhaps this is the moment!” she said enthusiastically.

“Oh, but you’re right! I should be the most beautiful! Well… just after Jane, of course.”

Katherine nodded before getting up, walking towards your wardrobe. You then did the same with determination. You had to look stunning tonight so that Stan would finally look at you differently. You were already wondering what you could possibly do if he didn't at least give you an admiring glance.

All the dresses in your possession were then tried on, wanting absolutely to find the one that suited you best and therefore the most beautiful one. It took you a long time to agree, so long that when you had finally decided which one would be the right one, it was already time for you to prepare for the banquet.

“I have to get ready too! See you later!” she said before quickly leaving your room to go to hers.

You then put on the dress, checking again in the mirror that everything was perfect. You smiled and nodded, telling yourself that it was impossible for the man of your dreams not to be impressed by your dress.

But you couldn't go to the banquet like that! You also needed jewelry and a splendid hairstyle. So you headed to your jewelry box to accessorize your outfit with pretty pearls around your neck and lovely diamonds in your ears. A few rings, and there you have it!

You then sighed, playing with your hair, thinking about how to style it. It took you longer than you thought it would, as you were really indecisive. You didn't want the hairstyle to ruin everything and therefore, as a result, Lord Stanley not falingl madly in love with you.

You paced back and forth in your room, thinking intensely. And finally, after a while, you stopped and picked up several hairpins. With tremendous concentration, you created the most beautiful bun you knew for your hair type.

Now you were ready to go and seduce Lord Stanley! And if the plan ultimately didn't work... then maybe your feelings will never be reciprocated and everything was doomed to failure.

No! You couldn't think that way! You had to be (or at least appear to be) confident for the Lord to be interested in you. If you were defeatist and withdrawn, he probably wouldn't find you interesting and radiant enough. You had to look like a strong woman, afraid of nothing. That way, Stan would be impressed by your beauty and attitude.

So it was a while after the banquet had started that you arrived. You slipped through everyone until you found your loved one. He was with your sisters, Katherine and Margaret. You took a deep breath as you watched him from afar, putting as much confidence as possible on your face.

One foot after the other, you walked towards Stan. Your back was straight, your eyes fixed on your goal. So, this was the big day, your feelings were finally going to be reciprocated, and you could announce to your mother that you were going to marry Lord Stanley.

When you were closer, his eyes were in your direction. And then, a smile formed on his lips. Stars immediately lit up in your eyes. Finally! He was starting to recognize your true worth! Perhaps you should wave to him? Would you look silly if you did that? Would he fall for you even more if you did that?

There was no time for that; you felt yourself being led to your sisters. Your gaze showed you that it was your mother. Your brain stopped working when you realized you hadn't been the target of the smile.

You were lost in thought, wondering what you could do to make him see you for who you truly were. Were you doomed? You didn't have time to really think about it because your mother's words pulled you out of your thoughts.

“What? But I’m not going to bed now, I just got here!” you exclaimed.

So you spent the night with your head in the pillow. You were truly despairing now. Perhaps so, Stan was far too attracted to your mother to even give you a smile.

So… you should probably give up and find a new love? No! That would be betraying Stan! But, at the same time, he didn't seem interested in you... This subject made you want to tear your hair out.

You continued for a while longer to lament the situation, how Stan would never love you. Would a man ever love you? The fact that your sister Jane was imprisoned didn't help the situation; now you were even sadder. Mary is the Queen? Now you were wondering what the purpose of living in this world was.

Life wasn't the best right now. In fact, it was probably the worst period of your life. You didn't know what to do, feeling useless to your older sister. She was going to be executed, beheaded, and there was nothing you could do.

You felt even more useless as the day arrived. Jane was about to be executed, being brought before everyone, with Guildford on a pyre ready to be lit. You were already praying that the afterlife would be good to her, trying not to cry. No matter what god existed, hadn't he been cruel enough to you? Could he, just once, make you happy?

But soon everything changed when a swarm of Ethians appeared, allowing Jane to break free. A battle ensued immediately afterwards, with Jane heading straight for the pyre where her husband lay. Your heart stopped beating in your chest for a very short moment, before you got up to go and help your sister in some way or another.

But in the end, carried away by the adrenaline of the situation you had put yourself in without thinking, it was someone else you saved.

“Lord Stanley!” you exclaimed, abruptly moving him aside.

You squealed as you felt the edge of a blade create a gash on your arm, partially tearing a sleeve of your dress. Stan turned towards you, pushing back the enemy before grabbing you. And then, his eyes met yours. If it were possible, Careless Whisper would be playing in the background.

“You saved me, my lady,” he said, his voice filled with genuine emotion.

“Well… I think the armor protected you well, but—”

“You’re hurt! Damn them!”

“I’m fine, the wound only stings a little,” you said, nodding.

Stan helped you to your feet as Guildford was freed, assuming his horse form to ride off with Jane. Once the couple was safe and sound, there was a certain relief for you. At least they were both going to be alright.

This was not the case for you and your family, who remained at the castle under Mary's tyrannical rule. Life was still bad, the only positive point was that Jane was no longer under threat from the Queen for the time being.

As you walked through the castle corridors, you heard quick footsteps behind you, and your name being called. You stopped and turned around, then saw Stan.

“Lady Grey…” he said, stopping in front of you.

You gasped as a bouquet appeared before your eyes, Stan holding it almost too tightly in his hands.

“Are you sure I’m the right person you were looking for?”

“Absolutely.”

You thanked him then, delicately taking the bouquet in your hands, smiling slightly as you observed the various flowers. You gasped again as you felt yourself tipping over.

“Whoa! Take it easy!” you said, smiling nervously.

“My lady. I’d like to know more about you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. In… many ways,” he replied before getting you back on your feet, a flirtatious look on his face.

You blinked several times, surprised by his sudden change of heart about you. He had gone from indifferent to passionately interested in you.

“Well… how about we start with a walk?” you suggested as you began to walk away.

Stan nodded as he followed you immediately, glancing at you from time to time as you walked side by side. After admiring your bouquet for a moment, you looked up at him.

“Why… so much effort for me, so suddenly?” you asked, almost bewildered.

“The way you stepped between me and that attacker…” he said, before letting out a sigh of emotion. “It was magnificent.”

“Not the dress I wore to the banquet?”

“Huh? I don’t remember,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

You let out a barely audible snicker before looking straight ahead, nodding your head.

“I could talk to you for hours. I hope you're not in a hurry to skip any steps?”

Stan took a deep breath, seemingly analyzing the situation. A strange grimace appeared on his face before he shook his head.

“Absolutely not,” he finally replied, although his answer did not sound very convincing.

“Great!”

Stan smiled slightly as you wrapped your arm around his, pressing the bouquet close to your chest.

Love was not an easy thing, and marriages were even less so. After all, many marriages were not born of love but of a necessary alliance between two families, sometimes even necessary for the country.

Often, people didn't question the reason for two people's marriage. It was always clear whether the couple loved each other or if only duty mattered. But as for Stan and you… nobody really knew what to think. Some were sure that you were just an arranged marriage, and others that it was a marriage of a very strange love. Perhaps you were truly a pure contradiction to each other, where Stan could make a field of sunflowers bloom, while you were a melancholic lullaby.

The stories said it was a marriage full of real feelings, and that you were just an odd couple. Stan liked to say that he had no problem seducing you, although it was information that no one wanted to believe. Many Lords had tried, but none had succeeded. So how could Stan have seduced you in the blink of an eye?

And surprisingly, he wasn't lying! The memories were more impressive in his head than in yours, though. You remembered how ridiculously confident he was. He'd overdone it, like the other Lords, but something about Stan made it endearing.

You had to be at the wedding to see that even you could be as soft as a marshmallow in the sun. Jumping into Stan's arms, really? Not that he had complained, the night that followed had been fascinating.

Despite the discussions some people may have when they first meet the couple, Stan loved going out with his wife. Can you imagine how cool it is to say that you are his wife?

Stan liked having your attention, even if that attention was just a light caress in his hair. It meant you acknowledged his presence. For example, today, on this magnificent and sunny afternoon, you absolutely had to write to the King. But no way! He didn't know what you had to say to the King, but he knew that his dramatic story with the local peasant girl was far more important!

“Wait, I’ll be done soon…” you grumbled.

“Of course.”

He then dragged a chair, making you look up for a moment, before sitting down. He rested his elbows on your desk, then placed his chin in the palm of his hands. And without saying a word, he observed you without looking away once.

“What are you doing?” you finally asked, sounding somewhat annoyed.

“I’m waiting,” he replied with a smile.

“Well, don’t wait like that! You’re distracting me!”

“Oh, really?” he asked in a smooth voice, leaning forward slightly, his eyebrows raised.

You sighed and patted his head, making him content for at least five minutes. Well, just long enough for you to finish writing your letter and seal it.

“Finally! I think it’s time to go for a walk in the gardens!” he said, getting up. “I’ll bring the sweets!” he added, murmuring like a child plotting something mischievous.

“It’s hot outside…” you sighed. “Wouldn’t you rather lie down in bed?”

“It depends,” he replied after a silence. “Hmm… something tells me you just want to talk… let’s go to the gardens instead!” he concluded, leaving the office.

“Stanley!”

You sighed as you left with the mail in your hands, then entrusted it to the knight to take to the aviary.

“Don’t make me run!” you exclaimed when you saw him further down the corridor.

Stan turned around and stopped, waiting patiently for you. When you finally reached him, he took your hand and kissed it tenderly.

“Go, darling. I’ll be right there with you!” he said before walking off quickly.

You watched him walk away before shaking your head, whether in despair or affection, it wasn't clear. You walked towards the garden, finally sitting down on one of the benches. You were quite enjoying the calm of the birdsong, the smell of the flowers. And… the brioche?

“Let’s share,” he said, sitting down next to you. “I got us a blueberry brioche!”

“I’m allergic…”

“I know, that’s why I got blueberry brioches without blueberries…” he said tenderly, a genuinely proud look on his face.

“So… just brioche?” you pointed out, blasé.

“Shhh…” Stan murmured, slowly bringing the brioche to your mouth.

“Idiot,” you said, taking the brioche from his hands.

“Now those are some teeth,” he said, before winking. “What a lioness!” he added with a little roar.

You rolled your eyes as you nibbled on the blueberry brioche without blueberries that Stan refused to simply call brioche, feeling his insistent gaze on you again.

“Can you stop staring at me every time you want me to look at you?” you sighed, turning your head toward him.

“Why would I stop? It works every time!”

As you nibbled on that fabulous brioche, Stan took the time to tell you his story and his argument with a peasant girl he'd met that morning. Honestly! How dare this simple girl say that he was preventing the plants he was passing from getting sun?

“Don’t you find that unacceptable?” he asked you.

“Well… you were preventing his plants from growing, in a way…”

Stan let out a gasp of shock, pulling back his face, which wore an outraged expression. But he quickly shook his head, always forgiving you very easily.

“Darling… let’s think about escaping tonight… the nights are long and warm… the setting sun offers a beautiful spectacle,” he finally said, giving you a smile.

“Mh… all right.”

Stan had a delighted expression on his face, looking like he was bouncing with excitement at the thought of spending the night under the stars with you tonight.

So it was that very evening on a high hill, towards which you had traveled on a single horse because you look magnificent when you ride behind it, according to Stan. You still suspect that he only likes it because you're holding his abs in the process.

It was a pleasant time you spent there on that hill, lying in the grass side by side watching the magnificent sunset. It was silent, as you moved closer to him until your head was on his shoulder, his hand then playing with your hair.

“What a magnificent view…” you finally broke the silence.

“Yes… breathtaking,” he confirmed, his eyes now fixed on you.

Your hand rested on his stomach, which you patted lightly.

“Stop staring at me… I don’t need to look at you to enjoy the moments we spend together…”

“Wow… now I… I feel terribly ugly compared to this sunset,” he said, looking away.

Hearing the sad tone in his voice, you rolled your eyes. You were sure he was exaggerating.

“Come on, don’t pretend.”

“No, I… I’m really affected negatively.”

You then began to look at him, even doubting him for a few seconds. He wasn’t really sad about it, was he? Before you could think, a smile appeared on his face again as he pulled you over him. His lips blew raspberries against your neck, making you first groan and then snicker.

“Stop!” you sneered, and then he pushed you away. “You are magnificent too. I don’t need to look at you every second of my life to know that,” you continued before tenderly kissing his lips.

Even free kicks bend like the ball is scared of disappointing him. First-time finishes look pre-planned. Through balls cut past defensive lines like an arrow. 

His passing is even better because he does not pass unless he has decided, mathematically, that you deserve the ball. And when he does, it lands exactly where he meant it to. Commentators are always like, “That is frightening precision,” and the camera cuts to Dex looking completely dead behind the eyes.

So no, he does not just kick a football. He selects a target and executes.

The weirdest part to most people, is that Dex doesn’t even celebrate his goals.

Not because he is humble. But because what is he celebrating for?

It’s his job.

He scores, turns around, and walks back to the halfway line like he just filed paperwork. Everyone else is screaming. The stadium is shaking. His teammates are chasing him, trying to jump on his back and get him to celebrate, and Dex is just standing there, blank-faced, waiting for the match to restart.

Commentators hate it. Fans are obsessed with it. The club media team wants to die.

Because how are they supposed to market this man?

“Here is our star striker, Benjamin Poindexter. He has scored twenty-six goals this season and smiles once every three months.”

The club is exhausted.

They have tried everything: Media coaching, charity shoots with children, behind-the-scenes videos where he is supposed to seem approachable. It never works. He stands there and says the most mundane things in the most unsettling tone anyone has ever heard.

What is the club supposed to say?

“Our striker is a psychopath but at least he scores goals????”

C’mon.

And then the press conference incident happens.

Some journalist asks, “Dex, do you think people overstate your finishing ability because the team is built around giving you so many chances?”

And Dex just stares.

He should’ve said something flattering about his team and his manager, something like, “credit to the lads” or “our coaching staff is wonderful”

But no. Flat-faced, he says, “No. I think if your job is watching football and that’s what you saw, you should be embarrassed.”

The whole room goes silent.

It’s not even the rudest thing a footballer has ever said, because footballers say insane things all the time. It’s because Dex says it like he’s already decided where the journalist would be buried after he kills him.

So the club panics and assigns him to you.

You, the PR manager everyone loves. You, who can charm the press, calm agents down, make a scandal sound like a “miscommunication,” and somehow convince angry sponsors that Dex is “passionate” and “misunderstood” and “just very committed to the game.”

And Dex needs you. Badly.

After your first meeting, you start by printing off a list of safe answers: 

“We take every game as it comes.”

“The boys worked hard.”

“I’m grateful for the support.”

“The manager has a plan and we trust it.”

“I don’t listen to outside noise.”

You even add notes:

Smile here.

Mention the team.

Do not stare for more than three seconds.

Do not correct the journalist unless I say you can.

Dex takes it way too seriously.

He practices in the mirror after training, still in his club tracksuit, hair damp from the shower, face empty, saying, “I’m proud of the boys,” like the boys are being held hostage off-camera.

Then the next press conference happens.

Reporter says, “Dex, how do you feel the team handled the pressure today?”

Dex leans into the microphone, dead-eyed and emotionless.  “The boys worked hard.”

And you think, okay. Fine. He’s trying.

Reporter: “You scored twice today. Do you feel like you’re in the best form of your career?”

Dex glances at you, and you give him a tiny nod.

“We take every game as it comes.”

Okay. Robotic, but it’s okay, I guess.

Reporter: “There’s a lot of talk about the title race. Do you listen to outside noise?”

Dex pauses, as if trying to remember the sheet of paper you gave him. “I don’t listen to outside noise.”

See, technically, he’s doing it right. The answers are safe and no one can accuse him of being rude.

But he’s saying it like an assassin reading an insulting birthday card. 

Then a journalist asks, “You seem calmer with the media lately. Has something changed?”

Dex looks directly at you. Directly. In front of everyone. And says, “I’ve been taught to behave.”

You facepalm so hard you nearly concuss yourself.

The journalists start typing like wolves.

Dex looks pleased because he thinks he nailed it.

So after that, you stop trusting the list and start practicing with him properly, in person. You sit across from him with your notebook while he sits there like a cat being taught not to scratch the scratching post.

“No, Dex. Less… murder-y.”

He tries again.

“No. I— why does that sound like more of a threat? Can you say it normally?”

He blinks. “That was normal.”

“It’s not.”

He tries again.

You teach him where to pause, when to smile, how long eye contact can last before it becomes a problem. How to say “credit to the team” without making it sound like the team owes him money.

You even physically stop him from answering “what went wrong in the first half?” with “our midfield kept making bad fucking decisions.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. But he cannot say that into six microphones.

After a while, Dex gets obsessed with you because you’re nice to him.

You’re not even fake-nice or club-mandated nice. You talk to him like he’s a person. Like his brain is strange, yes, but not broken beyond understanding.

One day, a reporter asks about his parents.

Dex freezes, because he has never been briefed on this yet. What the hell was he supposed to say?

Before Dex can answer, your voice cuts in, sweet as sugar.

“You don’t have to answer that.”

Oh?

You even smile at the reporter, “We’re keeping questions focused on the match today, thank you.”

You didn’t even flinch. You just stepped in front of the question like it was nothing.

So Dex fixates on you.

How could he not?

He watches your mouth when you explain things. He copies your tone. He stands perfectly still when you fix his collar before interviews.

You chuckle, “Relax.”

And his body listens to your command. 

It becomes a problem. Especially when that stupid midfielder asks you out.

And he’s not even a good midfielder! Why the club even signed him is beyond Dex’s understanding.

Like, that’s the part that really makes Dex feel insane. The guy kills every counterattack by taking one extra touch. He sees a perfect run and passes backwards. He overhits simple balls. He cannot cross to save his life. Last game, he sent one so badly behind Dex that Dex had to stop in the box, turn around, and look at him like he was deciding whether murder was worth the red card.

That guy gets to go out with you?

Well. You keep saying it’s not a date. You say it’s just friendly drinks because you work with all of them and you are friends with all of them.

But Dex thinks you’re amazing. And he knows his teammate thinks that too, that creep. He knows he has a crush on you.

Ugh.

Dex feels sick.

So he follows you. Secretly, obviously. He tells himself it’s for safety reasons, which is fascinating because you are literally just sitting in a bar, laughing politely over a mojito, while Dex stands across the street in a hoodie, glaring through the window like a widowed mafia wife.

And then the midfielder kisses you goodnight. Not sweetly, and not in the way Dex has imagined kissing you, careful and shaking and half-ruined by wanting you so badly.

The idiot leans in like he’s earned it, and you push back almost immediately, startled and uncomfortable, because you thought this was friendly. You thought saying “not a date” had been clear enough.

And Dex remembers it forever.

Next match, he simply refuses to pass to him.

The midfielder makes run after run. Dex sees every single one. Of course he does. Dex sees everything. Dex could spot a gap in a backline during a thunderstorm with one eye closed. He could make that midfielder look brilliant if he wanted to.

He doesn’t want to.

The midfielder points. Dex ignores him.

The midfielder shouts. Dex turns the other way.

The midfielder is wide open in the box, practically begging for the easiest assist of Dex’s life, and Dex takes the shot from a worse angle and scores anyway.

The commentators call it confidence. The pundits call it hunger. The fans call it ice in his veins.

By the time the transfer window opens, Dex walks into the manager’s office and says, “He doesn’t fit the system,” talking about the midfielder, of course. 

And what are they going to do? Upset the league’s most accurate finisher? Their star striker? The man who scored four goals in two games this week and made every single keeper look stupid?

Bye bye, stupid midfielder. Sold to a second-tier club for pennies. 

Anyway.

With the only competition removed Dex starts making his moves.

He brings you coffee with your order memorised. He asks if you have eaten, like, every twenty minutes. He starts giving better interviews only when you are in the room, because he’s not really speaking to the press anymore.

He’s performing being good for you.

Then, after one press conference where he actually sounds almost charming, the club management praises him for finally learning how to handle the media.

Dex barely reacts.

He just waits until you are walking beside him in the corridor, away from the cameras and staff, then leans close enough that his shoulder touches yours.

“Did I do good?”

Oh. My. God. 

Pathetic star striker. Six-foot-something nightmare of a man who can ruin an entire back line’s confidence forever, make world-class defenders second-guess every step, send keepers home questioning their career choices, and he’s still standing in front of his PR manager with those hazel eyes because if you don’t tell him he did good, he might actually die.

And he looks so earnest about it!! So hungry for it!! 

It’s as if  all the goals, all the chants, all the headlines mean nothing compared to you looking up at him and saying, “Yes, Dex. You did so well.”

His face changes. His shoulders drop. His eyes flick to your lips and stay there.

And sure, maybe you should step back.

No. Actually. Obviously, you should step back. He’s the club’s star striker. You are his PR manager. This is a bad idea. A terrible idea. A “you should know better” idea.

But then he says, almost embarrassed, “I like when you say it.”

And that’s it. You kiss him first, and you feel him freeze under your hands, all that frightening control going useless the second your mouth touches his.

Then he kisses you back like he has been waiting through every practice interview, every press conference, every time you fixed his collar and told him to breathe.

It’s not casual. It’s not smooth. It’s very Dex.

So of course it feels a little insane.

His hand finds your waist carefully at first. And then you make this tiny sound against his mouth, and when you don’t pull away, he presses harder, and suddenly the league’s most clinical finisher is backing you against the corridor wall like this is the only target he has ever been afraid to miss.

You whisper between kisses, “This is a bad idea.”

Dex kisses the edge of your jaw. “Yeah?”

“We work together,” you point out 

He kisses you again, slower this time. “And that’s bad?” He asks, genuinely confused. 

“It is,” you breathe, even though your hands are already in his hair. “Starting a relationship in the workplace is always bad.”

Dex pulls back just enough to look at you.

His mouth is wet, eyes are dark. He almost laughs in your face. “What are they gonna do, fire me?”

No, actually, they won’t.

Dex knows how valuable he is.

What are they going to do? Sack the man carrying them through a title race? Bench the striker who treats goalkeepers like training cones? Fine him for kissing the PR manager when he is the only reason half their sponsors are still smiling?

Ha! Of course not!

They are going to sigh and panic and schedule another meeting with HR. And Dex is going to score anyway.

So when he drags you into the empty locker room after the next match, you know you should really stop him.

You don’t.

Because he scored twice and still came off the pitch looking for you before anyone else. Because he stood under the floodlights with the whole stadium chanting his name and didn’t smile once until he saw you waiting near the tunnel.

The second the door shuts behind you, he is on you.

His hands are at your waist, your back, your hips, like he is trying to convince himself you’re real. He kisses you against the lockers with all that bottled-up focus, metal rattling behind you. 

You tell him, “You were brilliant today.”

And Dex makes this ruined sound against your mouth.

You say it again, because now you know exactly what it does to him. “So good, Dex.”

His head drops to your shoulder as you both desperately and frantically take every piece of clothing off.

The lockers rattle again.

And yes, this is reckless. Yes, anyone could walk in. Yes, later you will have to fix your lipstick in the mirror while Dex stands behind you looking smug and so completely in love and the club owner has to pretend like he doesn’t know what’s going on. 

But in the moment, all you can think about is him pressing you against cold metal, kissing you like winning meant nothing until he got to come back here and be with you.

Then the next week, he scores again.

And for once, he doesn’t just walk back to the halfway line.

For once, Dex celebrates.

The stadium goes wild. His teammates barely know what to do when Dex scores, turns, and points straight at you.

Like what else would he celebrate for?

The goal is his job.

You are the reward.

—end. 

Note: Yes yes, I know I will eventually do a pro baseball Dex AU because that is literally his sport, but I have no idea how baseball works. I do know football, though. Also it’s the World Cup, so this is topical!!! Leave me alone 🫠🫠🫠I also lowkey am thinking about turning this into like my full-length Bucky football au fic. Thoughts?

This is also inspired by this variant cover of the upcoming Daredevil #4 by Geoff Shaw:

You stopped and listened, the sound came again, so full of pain and angry despair that it made you flinch. 

For a moment, you considered turning around and running. You didn’t. You couldn’t. 

Your mind screamed at you in agony, calling you a fool, that whatever had happened here had nothing to do with you, that the only sensible thing to do was to vanish before anything worse happened.  

You had never been good at sensible. 

You stepped from the path and pushed through the undergrowth. The forest slowly darkened around you as the last remnants of daylight vanished behind thick clouds, but the direction you had chosen was right – the groaning grew louder.

A shape emerged between the trees.

A horse.

Dead.

Saddle half-torn loose, some pieces of armor scattered just next to it and several paces farther on – a man, sprawled against the roots of an ancient oak, one arm hanging uselessly at his side, face streaked with mud.

Your breath caught.

Not a bandit.

A knight, or rather what remained of one.

You stopped dead in your tracks. Men in armor brought trouble. Noblemen brought even more. 

For all their faults, thieves and bandits understood the sacred rule: do not bite the hand that heals you. They knew what it was to go hungry, to bleed, to depend on the mercy of another. Noblemen rarely did.

They moved through the world as though it had been laid at their feet for their use alone. Gratitude flowed upward, never down. Kindness was expected, service demanded, and debts forgotten even before blood had dried on a bandage.

You had learned that lesson young, and life had seen fit to repeat it often. 

Yet as you watched, the man’s head shifted weakly and you heard a strained breath escape him.

Not dead, not yet at least. You cursed at your foolishness as you moved closer.

The man's hair, damp with rain, stuck to his forehead, and even the mix of dirt and blood couldn’t completely hide the fine features of his handsome face. 

The embroidery on his green doublet, the remnants of his armour, every single thing about this man screamed he was someone important, someone dangerous and surely someone far above the concerns of a village healer living alone on the edge of nowhere.

You leaned in and put your palm on his forehead. Burning hot. 

His eyes opened. Blue of the morning sky and still sharp despite the pain. A shaky hand reached for you.

"Water," he rasped before his eyes rolled back, and his body slumped back against the tree.

You stared at him, at the blood seeping through his doublet, at the straight line of his nose, the sharp eyebrows.

The sensible choice would have been to leave him. 

Instead, with a muttered curse and a prayer to every god willing to listen, you set down your basket and knelt beside the unconscious stranger.

You fetched the flask hanging from your waistband and slid one hand behind his neck.

"Easy."

His head lolled heavily against your palm and his eyes opened again, unfocused and glassy with pain.

You tipped the flask carefully.

He swallowed once, coughed, then drank again, greedily.

"Not too much," you warned, pulling it away.

His brow furrowed, whether at your words or simply from the effort of staying conscious, you couldn't tell.

For a long moment he simply stared at you. He looked confused, trying to place where he was, who you were, perhaps even remember his own name.

You set the flask aside and turned your attention to the armor.

The breastplate was dented along one side and mud had worked itself into every buckle and strap. You had to get it off but it was clear it was not going to be an easy task. 

"What are you doing?" he managed as you started to pull at the straps.

"Saving your life."

Your fingers worked at the leather fastenings, the knight frowned and his hand moved weakly toward yours.

You slapped it away.

"Stop that."

A surprised blink and then, despite the blood loss and obvious pain, something almost resembling offense crossed his face.

"I can't carry you," you said with a slight scoff. "And you can't walk carrying half a forge on your shoulders."

The final buckle came loose, the breastplate shifted and he groaned in pain as you moved his body to ease it away from him. 

You kept going – the pauldrons, the vambraces, all went off. He didn’t protest anymore, and piece by piece, all the steel fell away.

You looked at the man revealed beneath it – wiry but well built, pale and far younger than he had first appeared.

The doublet was stained dark with blood. The wound would need cleaning, stitching, perhaps, but none of that could happen in the middle of the forest.

"We need to move."

His eyes closed briefly and when they opened again, they were sharper and more aware.

"I can’t."

"You want to live, you will."

The look he gave you suggested he was unused to being argued with.

You rose to your feet and dusted off your skirts, his gaze followed you.

You offered your hand and after a moment's hesitation, he took it.

You braced your feet.

"Ready?"

"No."

"Good."

You pulled, he cried out as he put all his remaining strength in holding on to you and pushing himself upright. For a second his knees buckled and you already thought he would fall back on the ground, but somehow he managed to keep standing. 

"Seven, help me," he muttered through clenched teeth.

You quickly stepped closer, draped his good arm over your shoulders and wrapped your own around his waist.

The weight that settled against you was considerable. 

"Gods," you breathed, looking with remorse at your basket on the ground. There was no way you could lean down to fetch it without letting the man drop back into the mud. 

The two of you stood there for a moment, swaying slightly.

“Move,” you ordered. 

There was a pause but then he shifted his weight forward.

One step. It was shaky and painful, the movement drew a sharp hiss from him but it was a step.

"Good boy," you gave him an encouraging smile. 

His jaw clenched but another step followed.

Consciousness returned slowly and in fragments.

First was the feeling of warmth, then the sound of crackling fire, next came the scent of dried herbs.

Pain. A dull, throbbing ache spread through his ribs, shoulder, and side. 

Gwayne frowned, his eyelids felt heavy but he forced them open.

A low wooden ceiling, smoke-darkened beams, a small window.

Memories run scattered through his still somewhat foggy brain. 

The battle. The screams. The pain. 

The fire. The rain. The forest. 

A woman.

Beautiful, large eyes looking at him with open annoyance.

He was alive.

The realization came with a fresh pulse of pain and a ragged gasp.

The door opened and you stepped inside carrying a wooden bowl filled with steaming water.

"Look who's decided to rejoin the living," you smiled seeing the young man awake and set the bowl down.

The blanket shifted as he moved, attempting to sit up, and he instantly froze and looked down, realising there was nothing between him and the blanket. Completely, absolutely nothing.  

His eyes widened.

"What in the..." his voice sounded hoarse but it still was pleasantly soft.  

He looked pointedly at the blanket, then back at you.

You blinked.

"What happened to my clothes?" The accusation in his voice was hard to miss.

You folded your arms.

"They're drying."

A beat of  silence passed.

Gwayne's face grew steadily warmer as the implications arranged themselves in his mind and the speed with which the young man’s cheeks all over to his ears turned brightly red made you chuckle. 

"You removed them."

"You were unconscious."

"You removed all of them."

You stared.

He stared back.

Finally you let out a long, disbelieving breath. "Seven preserve me."

"What?"

"You wake up in one piece after nearly dying in the middle of nowhere and that's your first concern?"

His jaw tightened.

"You undressed me."

"I saved your life."

"You undressed me."

"I stitched your wounds!”

The man looked genuinely mortified and offended. You looked genuinely ready to throw something at him.

His mouth opened, closed, then opened again but nothing emerged. 

"Not even a thank you," your frustration spilled out before you could stop it. "Not one."

Gwayne blinked.

"I carried you out of the woods, spent half the night cleaning blood off you, used almost every bandage and pain soothing herb I had and unless you've discovered some miraculous method of treating wounds through a doublet, yes, I removed your clothes."

The room fell quiet.

Gwayne found himself staring at a knot in the wooden wall, and his ears felt suspiciously warm.

"You stitched my wounds?"

"That is generally how healing works when someone has a hole in his side."

Gwayne shut his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face, the movement pulled painfully and he hissed.

The concern drove away the annoyance from your features so quickly that it caught him off guard. You immediately stepped forward.

"Don't. You'll tear the stitches."

Your gaze dropped to the bandages wrapped around his torso.

"Try sitting up slowly."

Gwayne eyed you suspiciously.

"Why?"

"Because if you're going to continue being difficult, I'd at least like you to be conscious for it."

It had been on the third day that the young man finally revealed his name.

To his credit, there had been no grand announcement, no expectation that the world should stop and marvel at it.

The truth had surfaced gradually, piece by piece, through idle conversation and half-answered questions until, with visible reluctance, he admitted that he was Ser Gwayne Hightower. 

You cursed inwardly. 

A Hightower. As if sheltering a wounded knight beneath your roof was not enough trouble to tempt fate. Of course he had to be a nobleman as well. Of course he had to belong to one of the most powerful houses in the realm, a house with its hands buried up to the elbows in the bloodiest war of the century. 

Just your luck.

You dragged a half-dead stranger out of the forest and somehow ended up with a piece of the realm's troubles sleeping in your bed.

The days that followed settled into a rhythm neither of you acknowledged aloud – each morning began with fresh bandages and a new argument.

Gwayne healed quickly, much faster than you had expected. The fever broke after three days and by the end of the week, he could cross the room without needing to lean on walls or furniture. He stubbornly refused your hand whenever you offered it to him. 

He had tried to ask you questions about the course of the war. You cut him off before he could speak them out. 

"No discussions about kings, queens, claimants, dragons, battles, or whichever noble lord is currently trying to kill whichever noble lord."

A faint frown appeared between his brows.

"I merely wished to know..."

“I said, no,” you tied off the fresh bandage with perhaps a little more force than necessary.

Gwayne studied you for a moment.

"I'm too poor to have the luxury of caring who sits on the Iron Throne," you finally said and turned to face him. "When lords quarrel, villages burn. While princes decide who is entitled to crowns, common folk bury their sons. Armies take grain, horses trample fields, and healers like me spend their days stitching together whatever is left behind."

You folded your arms.

"I heal whoever comes through that door. Farmer. Merchant. Shepherd. Drunkard. When I picked you up in the woods, I didn’t ask for your title.”

Your gaze drifted briefly to the fresh bandages wrapped around his torso.

"I have no desire to be part of noble quarrels," you said at last, more quietly. "I don't want favors. I don't want rewards. I certainly don't want enemies."

A muscle shifted in Gwayne's jaw as it slowly hit him, the reason for that distinct feeling that learning his name had somehow lowered your opinion of him. 

"You think knowing my name places you in danger."

"I know it does."

The certainty in your voice surprised him.

"When you leave this place, Ser Gwayne, I sincerely hope you forget the path that brought you here."

His expression tightened.

"You saved my life."

"Exactly."

You pointed at him.

"And if, after all that, the thanks I receive is having soldiers, rivals, debt collectors, spies, or ambitious noblemen showing up at my door asking questions, then I hope every old and new god in the Seven Kingdoms curses you for the rest of your days."

For a heartbeat, Gwayne simply stared, his blue eyes met yours and something softer flickered there, something unusually sincere.

"I give you my word. No one will hear of this place from me," the solemn certainty in his voice surprised you, and for reasons you could not entirely explain, you found yourself believing him.

A week later, Gwayne Hightower discovered that recovering from a near-death injury was considerably easier than earning your approval.

Gwayne had spent most of his life knowing exactly what was expected of him.

He was a knight. A Hightower. A soldier. The son of a powerful house.

There had always been a place for him in the world, a purpose that fit as naturally as a sword hilt in his hand until he woke up in your hut and discovered that in your world he had none of all that. Even more - he was entirely useless.

The realization did not come all at once.

At first, there was the wound. No man could be expected to work while half stitched together and burning with fever but the fever broke and the strength returned.

The days passed.

You rose before dawn every morning. 

By the time he woke, water had already been fetched, the fire lit, herbs sorted, breakfast prepared.

Then the rest of the day began: children with split open knees, farmers with swollen joints, old women seeking remedies for aching backs, broken bones, cuts, fever.

You treated them all.

Then there was laundry, cooking, cleaning, mending, collecting herbs, brewing potions, the work never seemed to end, and somehow everything that needed doing simply found its way into your hands.

For the first time in his life, Gwayne found himself uncertain of where he belonged within it all. Worse still, he discovered that he wanted to belong. 

Every morning he woke to the scent of porridge or fresh bread and the soft sounds of a household already awake around him. 

It was a small life by the standards of lords and castles, a simple one, hard, undoubtedly, and demanding in ways he had never seen before, yet there was something about it that drew him in.

Perhaps it was the honesty of it, the quiet purpose woven into every task, or perhaps it was simply you.

Whatever the reason, Gwayne found himself wanting, more and more, to be a part of this strange little world fate had thrown him into.

It took him a while before he braved to offer help, but it seemed the least he could do.

A mistake.

A terrible mistake.

The first task you entrusted him with was watching the bread.

It sounded almost insultingly simple – sit by the oven, keep an eye on it, take it out when it was done.

A few distracted thoughts later, smoke began pouring from the oven and by the time he realized something was wrong and dragged the loaf out, it had transformed into a charred black brick that could scarcely be called bread anymore. 

Your face when you discovered it haunted him for days. 

The bowls proved even less cooperative. The task was to wash and dry them. 

How could anyone wash dozens of fragile things every day without breaking them?

As the third one hit the floor, Gwayne stopped and sat down with his head in his hands. 

Not that he had more luck with the wood.  You had found him standing in front of the chopping block and watching the axe stuck in the log after his first swing with absolutely no idea how to get the stubborn tool out of it. 

The truth was humiliating.

He was a knight and yet you were more capable than him in almost every practical matter that kept a household alive.

At first he found that realization uncomfortable, then impossible to stop thinking about. 

He started to watch you. Not intentionally, at least, not at first.

His gaze simply found you. Again and again. 

There was confidence in everything you did – competence earned through years of doing.

There was no one else in your life. No servants. No household staff. No family helping. Just you and yet somehow you managed it all.

And for the first time in his life, Gwayne found himself wondering if fate had dropped him into the world with nothing but his own hands, would he have managed half as well as you?

He wasn’t certain, and it made him feel both shame and admiration.  

The realization arrived gradually like the dawn creeping across a room.

No single moment or dramatic revelation, just a growing certainty.

He liked your sharp tongue, the way you refused to be intimidated by him, the way you argued with him without hesitation or the way your eyes flashed whenever he said something particularly foolish.

Gods.

Especially that.

You were infuriating and somehow he found himself looking forward to every argument.

He liked hearing your voice, just simply being near you and seeing you smile. At some point, without noticing when or how, you had become the first thing he looked for when he woke and the last thing he thought about before sleep and once he acknowledged that, the rest became impossible to deny. 

Your handsome knightly patient was getting better with every passing day and somehow it made you inexplicably sad. 

Patients came and went. Some stayed for an afternoon, some for a few days. They arrived carrying pain, fear, and uncertainty and departed as soon as their bodies allowed it.

That was how it was meant to be.

Yet lately, whenever you looked at Gwayne, you found yourself wishing his recovery would slow.

Not stop, just... slow.

The wound along his side had nearly closed, the bruising had faded. He moved easily now, no longer wincing every time he stood, soon there would be nothing left keeping him here.

The thought sat heavily in your chest whenever you allowed yourself to think about it for too long, but even if you tried not to allow it, your attention kept drifting toward him.  

The truth was, he was not at all what you had expected.

When you had learned who he was, you had imagined the worst – a proud nobleman, demanding and entitled, the sort who believed the world existed for his convenience only.

Instead, fate had delivered you a knight who burned bread, shattered bowls, and spent half an hour contemplating a log because he did not know how to chop it.

The memory still made you laugh and there was one thing you couldn’t deny – his efforts had been genuine, even after repeated failures, especially after repeated failures, he still never acted as though any task was beneath him.

Despite all his attempts to appear composed, he still blushed every time you changed his bandages.

A grown man and a knight, reduced to awkward silence and burning cheeks whenever you untied the laces of his shirt.

You glanced up from sewing the torn sleeve of his doublet.

Lost in thought Gwayne was staring into the fire again. He looked so out of place when he did that. 

He looked lonely.

You had spent most of your life alone, you were used to it, and yet for a brief, foolish moment, you found yourself imagining what would happen if he stayed.

The thought lasted all of three seconds but it was enough for you to accidentally drive the needle into your thumb.

Then common sense returned with the pain.

“Ouch,” you hissed.

He would never stay and even if he wanted to, he shouldn't. 

Gwayne belonged to castles and armies and great stone cities, to duties and responsibilities, to a world you could scarcely imagine.

You lived in a forgotten hut at the edge of a forest.

Your lives were not even supposed to touch. 

Carefully, you brushed your fingers over the healed skin on Gwayne’s side one last time.

The gash was gone, the skin had knitted together cleanly and what remained would also fade with time.

You didn’t even notice Gwayne had gone suspiciously still beneath your touch.

"Well," you leaned back. "Congratulations. You are healed."

You both glanced down at the discarded bandage in your hands.

"There is no need for another one," you said more quietly. 

You knew exactly what that meant. He could finally leave. 

You placed the bandages aside and pushed yourself off the bed as a hand closed around your wrist.

Your eyes dropped to the place where his fingers touched your skin. 

Gwayne immediately looked as though he regretted every decision that had led him to this moment.

Color flooded his face.

Gods.

You had never seen a man blush so thoroughly.

The redness reached all the way to his ears.

For a heartbeat he simply stared at your joined hands.

Then he released a breath.

Opened his mouth.

Closed it again.

You waited.

Gwayne looked like a man preparing to charge a dragon.

You blinked.

"I … I…,” he stammered. 

“What?"

A flash of horror crossed his face.

"Gwayne."

His gaze found yours again.

"Come… come with me," he finally managed.

You stared, certain you had misunderstood.

"What?"

His grip tightened slightly before immediately loosening again.

As though he feared frightening you away.

"When I leave."

The words came slowly now.

Carefully.

"I want you to come with me."

For a moment, you simply looked at him, at the handsome knight sitting on your bed with an earnest terror in his eyes.

A soft, disbelieving laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

"Gwayne."

"I know how it sounds."

"Do you?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

That, at least, was honest.

Neither of you moved but neither of you looked away.

Gwayne still held your wrist lightly. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he loosened his grip and turned your hand in his.

His gaze dropped to your fingers as he lifted your hand toward his mouth.

The touch of his lips against your knuckles was feather-light.

You could have pulled away.

You knew that.

You should have.

Instead, your hand remained where it was.

Gwayne kissed your knuckles first, one after another, slowly, eyes shut close, savouring every touch of his lips against your skin. 

When he finally looked up at you again, something had changed.

The uncertainty in his gaze remained, but now there was something else alongside it.

Wonder.

As though he could scarcely believe you were still there, that you hadn’t pulled your hand away.

Slowly, giving you every opportunity to stop him, he leaned closer. 

"Gwayne..."

His gaze flickered briefly to your mouth then back to your eyes. You held your breath but didn’t move away.

Carefully, tentatively his lips brushed yours. So lightly, so briefly that at first you almost wondered whether it had happened at all, even so your heart stumbled painfully in your chest. 

Gwayne’s eyes fluttered shut and he leaned in once more. His hand cupped your cheek and you could feel the slight tremor in his fingers as though he could scarcely believe he was allowed to touch you.

You felt him smile faintly against your lips, a small, disbelieving thing, as if he had spent so long hoping for this moment that now he didn't quite trust it to be real.

Without thinking, your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. 

It drew a soft breath from him, something between a soft moan and a whimper.

The sound sent warmth flooding through you.

Gwayne's hand, still resting against your cheek, slipped into your hair, his fingers threading through the strands before settling at the nape of your neck. The touch was careful, almost protective, yet there was nothing uncertain about it anymore.

The kiss deepened, his lips moved against yours with impossible tenderness but you could feel the quickened beat of his heart beneath your palm on his chest. 

When you finally broke apart, it was only because breathing had become necessary.

"Gods," he murmured.

"What?"

A smile appeared. It was slow but bright enough to transform his entire face.

"I was certain you were going to throw something at me."

Despite yourself, you laughed.

Gwayne drew back with the unmistakable look of a man gathering the courage to say something that mattered.

His lips parted.

You already knew what was coming.

A promise, a plan, something sensible and reassuring.

You did not want any of it. You didn’t want promises that were impossible to keep. You wanted this moment, this beautiful fleeting moment between now and then, where everything was possible and nothing was spoken out loud. 

Before he could say anything, you lifted a finger and pressed it gently against his lips.

"Hush."

He blinked.

"Don't."

There was confusion in his gaze, you ignored it.

Slowly, you guided him backward. He let you. The mattress dipped beneath his weight.

His gaze never left your face.

You crawled on top of him, straddling his hips. His heartbeat picked up beneath your palm. Fast. Much too fast for a knight.

You smiled.

"Don't speak," you murmured.

His throat bobbed.

"Just feel. No promises. Just this one night."

Your fingers drifted absentmindedly across taut planes of his abdomen tracing the familiar lines of the body you had spent weeks tending back to health.

Beneath your touch, every muscle seemed to go still.

You leaned in and pressed your lips to the scar on his side. Gwayne's breath caught audibly, head tipping back with a soft gasp. 

The sound emboldened you. You kissed the line of the scar again, letting your tongue trace its length. His hips twitched beneath you and a low, broken sound left his throat.

“Gods…” he breathed, fingers flexing against the sheets as if he didn’t know whether to reach for you or hold himself back.

“Schhhh, my knight,” you whispered.

You took your time exploring him with your hands and mouth, every scar, every ridge of muscle, every place your fingers had once brushed as you tended his wounds, you worshiped them now with your lips and tongue – the hollow of his throat, the sharp line of his collarbone, the sensitive spot just beneath his ribs that made his breath hitch sharply.

Gwayne’s head pressed back into the pillow, eyes half-lidded. You loved the soft, helpless sounds that spilled from his lips with every touch, all the quiet gasps and shaky moans. His hands finally rose to your waist, gripping lightly, reverently, as though you were something sacred he was terrified of breaking.

“Don’t…,” he managed, voice wrecked. “I… I can’t…” 

You silenced him with a deep kiss, swallowing his words as you rocked your hips slowly down against his. His fingers dug into your waist, then loosened again, trembling with the effort.

“It’s my choice,” you said firmly. “You’re mine for this one night. Unless you tell me you don’t want it.”

Gwayne swallowed hard but didn’t say anything. 

“I take it for a yes,” you smiled and started to pull your dress over your head.

You let your fingers trail the hem of his breeches. 

The moment you pulled him out, your noble knight almost stopped breathing. He was beautiful, hard and flushed, a vein running along the underside from base to the flushed tip. 

You wrapped your hand around him slowly, stroking once from base to tip with a feather-light touch and Gwayne’s chest started to rise and fell rapidly, his hands fisting the sheets. 

You stroked him a few more times, gliding your thumb over the sensitive head, drawing  beautiful broken whimpers from him. 

His hands settled lightly on your thighs, fingers trembling. He didn’t guide or rush you. He simply held on, as if touching you was the only thing keeping him from shattering.

You shifted higher on your knees, Gwayne’s gaze snapped back to yours, pupils blown wide.

“Are you sure?” he rasped. You silenced him by sinking down onto him, slowly, unhurriedly, savoring every inch. Gwayne’s head fell back with a broken moan, hands clutching at your thighs.

You stayed still for a moment, savoring the way he pulsed inside you, then you began to move. Slow rolls of your hips, rising and sinking down on him again and again. 

You loved every desperate sound your movements drew from him: the soft, needy moans, the sharp gasps and pleas he couldn’t seem to stop. 

Your proud, noble knight was completely unraveling beneath your touch. The flush on his cheeks, the way his eyes fluttered half-shut with every roll of your hips, the broken sounds he couldn’t hold back… you loved it. You loved it more than you could ever admit.

His hips started to buck up to meet you, sharp needy thrusts that almost knocked the air out of your lungs. You stemmed your feet against the bed and rode him harder, faster, grinding down, chasing your pleasure shamelessly.

Gwayne’s back arched clean off the bed with a strangled moan, one hand flying up to clutch at your waist as he kept moving against you.

“Good boy,” you moaned, leaning down and capturing his mouth in a messy kiss. 

The praise hit him like a spark to dry tinder. Gwayne whimpered into your mouth, the sound raw and needy, his tongue sliding against yours in urgent sloppy strokes. 

His fingers dug into your waist as he flipped you over like you weighed nothing. 

“Say it again,” he gasped, voice wrecked and pleading, hips slamming against yours in almost desperate rhythm. “Please…, I need to hear it.”

You moaned beneath him, nails raking down his back, as the new angle sent sparks of pleasure shooting through every nerve.

“My good boy,” you breathed against his lips. “My perfect knight.”

“Fuck me harder, knight!” you moaned and a low, broken groan rumbled from Gwayne’s chest, his hips stuttered, rhythm faltering before he managed to get the hold of it and started  driving into you with deeper, more powerful thrusts. 

It didn’t take long, a broken sob of pleasure tore from you as you shattered, back arching against the bed. He kept fucking you through it, arms wrapped around you, holding you close. The tenderness never left him even as moments after he came, gasping, shuddering, groaning hoarsely against your neck.

The night passed in quiet whispers and lingering touches. Neither of you spoke much, there seemed little point.

Words belonged to tomorrow, tonight belonged only to the two of you.

Gwayne held you as though he feared the dawn, you rested against him, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear.

At some point during the night, when sleep still felt far away, Gwayne pressed his face into your hair.

"I never want to let you go."

The honesty of it was both beautiful and unbearable.

For a moment, you closed your eyes. Gods help you.

It would have been so easy to pretend, to let yourself believe impossible things, that the war did not exist, that he could stay or that you could follow.

Instead, you reached up and brushed your fingers through his hair.

"This was my parting gift, Gwayne."

You felt him go still and the silence that followed hurt more than any argument could have.

His arms tightened around you again.

"You could come with me."

"And go where?"

He did not reply.

You shook your head.

"You belong to your world and I belong to mine."

His breathing grew uneven, but he didn’t say anything. 

Morning arrived far too quickly, by sunrise you slipped out of bed. 

“It’s time,” you whispered. He didn’t answer.

A moment later Gwayne stood fully dressed beside the door, his sword at his hip.

The sight felt wrong.

Neither of you seemed able to find the right words, but in the end, it was you who broke the silence.

"You should go."

Gwayne looked at you, eyes moving over your face.

He took a step toward you, then stopped and nodded once. A small, broken gesture before turning and walking out the door.

You remained where you were, arms folded tightly across your chest. 

The path disappeared between the trees a short distance from the hut. 

Gwayne reached it and stopped.

Your heart betrayed you immediately.

For one terrible second, hope surged through your chest.

He turned around.

Even from there, you could see the question in his eyes.

Come with me.

Stay.

Choose differently.

Slowly, you shook your head.

No.

His eyes closed briefly, then he turned and continued down the path.

You watched until the trees swallowed him completely, only then did you allow yourself to sit down.

You did not see the tears that finally slipped down Gwayne's face once he was safely hidden by the forest.

And he never saw yours.

Years passed. The realm endured.

A fragile peace settled across the land, uncertain and imperfect, yet peace nonetheless.

Life continued.

The little hut remained where it had always been, tucked against the edge of the forest, the herb garden had grown larger, the roof needed repairing twice.

The ache had softened with time and become something quieter, a fond memory tucked carefully away, a story belonging to another life.

The afternoon sun was warm against your skin as you sat outside sorting herbs into neat bundles.

Your hands moved automatically, the work was familiar enough that your mind could drift elsewhere – toward a broad-shouldered knight with kind eyes and a talent for burning bread.

You paused, a stem of lavender still between your fingers as you couldn't shake a feeling of being watched.

Slowly, you lifted your head, the forest stood silent. Nothing there. You shook your head at your own foolishness yet looked up again. 

A movement caught your eye. A figure was standing at the edge of the woods, far enough away that another person might not have recognized him.

You did. Immediately.

Not because he looked unchanged, time had touched him, as it touched everyone, yet you would have known him anywhere.

A soft smile appeared on your lips before you could stop it. 

The figure remained motionless for a heartbeat longer, as though he needed a moment to convince himself you were real.

“Daeron. Daeron Targaryen.” Your head shot up when you heard his name and you got up to get a better look at the man who was stood at the registration desk.

“Um-“ you realized after you’d started to talk that you didn't actually know the man’s name. But you recognized him from a photo on Daeron’s apartment. It was from one of his younger brother’s graduations if the cap and gown was anything to go off of. “Mr. Targaryen?”

Maekar turned, looked at you, giving you a once over and then settling on your face. Clearly trying to figure out why you were speaking to him. He really didn’t recognize you.

“wrong person.” He grunted and stood at the door waiting to be badged in.

“I’m a friend of Daeron’s.” You attempt but the dry shoulder raising laugh that the beared man let out told you that he wasn’t convinced.

Did he not have friends? You had to sit with that thought as you took a seat again and kept waiting. When he said he was lonely you assumed he meant romantically and sexually…not just generally lonely.

Your foot tapped, consistently enough that people in the waiting room had started to glance at your bouncing knee. You were just hoping he’d text you, call you, something. You just wanted to know he was alright.

“Ma’ma?” You assumed they were calling for somebody else but when you glanced up, lip chewed between your teeth, and saw that broad stern looking man standing in the doorway. “He’s asking for you…” you grabbed your bag before he could even mumble the rest of his remark “…I’m assuming at least.”

You ducked under the man’s arm as it held the door open and walked swiftly down the hall searing for his name on a door.

“room 7,” his father informed you taking his time going back into the room.

“fuck-“ your forehead knots when you see Daeron laid in the hospital bed. His arm elevated with a soft cast on it and he had a decent cut on his head that they done a couple of stitches on.

“Daeron, are you okay?” You felt guilty instantly. He’d been on the phone with you, been on his way to come see you.

Daeron, as you would find out, was concussed. In and out of sleep and apparently waiting surgery on his arm to reset the bone.

Maekar took a seat in the corner of the room. He wasn’t going to fuss over his son when he was asleep. It wouldn’t do anything to help him.

“Was mumbling a womens name…not many are hanging around I’m assuming it’s you.”

“it’s me.” You responded shortly. Stood beside to bed and rubbing his uninjured hand.

Maekar glanced at his phone, opened his banking app and sighed. Closing his eyes and pinching his nose. He supported all six of his children financially. Daeron was the oldest, but his endeavors were far cheaper that Aerion’s or Aemons for that matter so he rarely actually discussed limits or spending with Daeron. There recently, had been more charges, ones that weren’t rent, bars, food delivery. He was going out, ordering cabs….and sending money to somebody with the same name that his delirious boy had been muttering earlier.

Ah, he sees now.

“how often does he see you?” Maekar asked, scrolling on his screen seeing how often your name popped up.

“I-“ you glanced backs at his father: “just depends on our schedules.” You paused and looked back at Daeron. “As much as we can I guess.” That was true. You’d see him more if you could.

Maekar left it at that. Watching as you fluttered about his eldest waiting for him to wake up. The meds must be lightening because soon he was making little groaning noises.

“hey…I’m right here.” You bent and kissed his cheek.

When he finally opened his eyes, and blinked a few times to clear his vision, you saw a calmed expression in his face. It made you feel warm that just your face brought him some comfort when he was in pain.

“It came out of nowhere-I’m sorry-“

“don’t apologize,” you warned quickly smiling big now. “It’s not your fault.” You promised him. He was smiling too, he always smiled when you reassured him or praised him for something. He just craved getting positive attention.

His smile faded, promptly, when maekar came into his line of vision.

“you should go.” He let go of your hand.

“what?” It was hard for you to even process what he was wanting because it felt so out of the blue. “No, I’m not going to leave you here.” You argued with a short laugh, thinking he was just being odd because of the medicine.

“I’m serious…”

“Daeron.” Maekar’s voice warned. He had one of those serious deep heavy voices and you imagined he had been very good at giving lectures to his children back in the day.

“leave.” His voice was shaking a bit, eyes swinging between both of you and you frowned. Stunned. Not understanding what the issue was. Not understanding that he was ashamed of what he was doing with you… paying a women to sleep with him….to be his friend? He was worried if you were in the room with his father that the man would peice it together. Which, of course, he had.

Just before your feet backed you up from the hospital bed Maekars hand raised to rest in your shoulder, keeping you close to the side of the bed.

“I was just leaving.” He informed Daeron. Eyebrow raised and mouth firm in a straight line. “Don’t make your friend go. She’s been waiting to make sure you were okay.” Maekar’s hand relaxed now that he didn't anticipate you backing away.

“they have your insurance at registration.” Maekar left no room for Daeron’s own insecurity or worries to pipe back up. He was growing very tired of watching that boy constantly put his foot in his mouth.

You did not say anything for a while, even after his father left the room and closed the door. You were trying to heal your wounded pride.

“I shouldn’t have come.” You eventually said though you did not pull your hand away when he reached back for your hand.

“Nono, I just-I don’t want him to know about,” you saw him trying to search for the right word. The least offensive word. “This situation.” He settled on when his brain literally ached.

“I said I was a friend.”

“That’s hardly believable.” Daeron laughed, clipped with wince.

“what?” You squeezed his hand. “Are all your friends hideously ugly?” He liked that you had humor, that you could deploy it when things got to close tk the truth.

“yes, beast, all of them.” He played along. He scooted over slightly so you could sit on the side of the bed.

“And you are? What their ugly leader?” You smirked, cheek resting on his elbow as he rolled his eyes.

“I prefer disastrously deformed dictator…but ugly leader works.” You laugh. Fully, enough that it makes the railing on the side of the bed rattle a bit.

Gods. Why was he so charming when he was like this? Confident and playful and immersed in the conversation!

“I’m glad you are okay…” you said after a long beat where only the machines beep and your combined breathing filled the room. “I was scared.” You admitted. Eyes flicking up to his light ones.

You were laid on his good arm, so he wrapped it up behind your shoulders and his thumb gently trailed up and down your jaw to soothe you.

“They say drunks always make it out unscathed.” You grimaced. “Muscles all relaxed and mind unfocused.”

“Were you drunk?” You asked, almost regretting the question.

“a bit…I always am when I see you.” That made you hide against his chest. The last thing you needed was for him to see your eyes water.

“because of me?” You asked against the paper gown he wore.

“no…never because if you. It’s me, I promise you darling.” He brushed your hair back. “Seriously.” And you believe him because there was no tilt of joking in his voice.

You nod, wrapping your arms around his stomach and remain there.

When you wake up in the morning it’s extremely disorienting. Mostly because you had no idea you had even fallen asleep. The only reason you don’t jump out of your own sink is because you can heard Daeron’s breathing. Feel the weight of his hand against your head and the heat coming off his stomach warming your face. Both of you had fallen asleep without realizing it…your first sleepover and it was in a bloody hospital room. Gods! Insanity.

“how are you feeling?” You asked, voice still waking up, shifting your face up to look at him. He was very much sleep and you savored getting to look at him, study him, without his eyes doing the same thing to you.

“you’re so bloody handsome.” You sigh and adjust back into the position you’d been sleeping in. Wrapping your arm back over his waist using his stomach like a pillow. Though your arm brushed against something firmer than the blankets and you flushed right away when you realized. He was hard.

Of all the times for Daeron to be erect, now was when his body chose? Of course. As much we you grumbled about the concept in your head you all were desperately curious. You’d seen him soft…a few times now but you were so fucking intrigued.

You knew it was wrong, knew it was crossing a line but you just couldn’t help yourself so you gently pushed his blanket down and dragged his paper gown up until it caught over his dick.

“wake up.” A eagerness and hunger in your voice which made it sound deeper. “Daeron- you pinched his side. “Wake up right now.” Wake up so I can suck your cock. That’s what you wanted to say but you controlled yourself slight!

He groaned, attempted to raise his other arm but quickly remembered it was broken when the pain shot through him. “Fuck!” It distracted him for a moment from noticing his erection, or the fact that his entire cock was out and you were practically salivating over it.

“Seven fucks-Jesus I’m sorry doll.” He groaned kicking his legs to try and get the blankets back up.

“let me take care of it-you.” You suggested to quickly. “Please-“

Don’t beg. Fuck please don’t beg. You didn’t need to beg. That’s all he could think. He should the one fucking begging. Three dates where you two went home together and everytime you’d attempted to get him hard. Each time he couldn’t deliver. He knew it was disappointing and pathetic and now he was hard here in the hospital when honestly he was to concussed and broken to fuck you how he wanted to!

“please-“

“yes…fuck. Please.” He cut you off. Hand gently rubbing at your back as you curled up a bit in the space beside him and leaned over his lap.

Your hand gripped him first. Hard at the base. Testing almost. Wanting to make sure this stiffness was real. It was. You could feel his pulse when your fingers pressed against the swollen veins. He watches as you spit down over his tip so your hand isn’t fully dry when you start stroking him up and down. He notices that you are breathing heavier. That your eyes are blinking fast. That your making those gorgeous little moaning noises.

You were enjoying just touching him.

“S-shit doll.” He glances at the door to make sure they aren’t visible from the little window cut into it. They aren’t. When your head bows lower and your tongue darts out to lick the little bit of pre cum at your hand milks out of his tip he decides that even if you guys were visible that he wouldn’t care.

He couldn’t care about anything other than the fact that you just moaned from tasting him. That your eyes hooded and soft had looked up at him while your smiled and savored his cum on your tongue.

“You’ll have to swallow it all….a-anything I give you.” His voice jumped when your lips opened and you took his thick flushed tip into your mouth fully. You suck for a long moment. Tongue swirling around the ring that seperated his tip from his shaft and you pull back kissing his slit innocently as you nod.

“I know…I don’t want to cause a mess.”

“gods-“ he hisses when you give him the most beautiful smirk. It makes him dizzy. It could be the concussion but he was pretty fucking certain it was you!

That feeling in the back of his neck came back when your lips parted and dragged against him as your head began to bob in earnest. Yup, it was you. He was certain.

“you taste so good.” The compliment came out garbled because you weren’t actually letting his cock come out of your mouth. You couldn’t get enough pushing your head down further and groaning when your nose brushed against the coarse hairs at the base. Eyes watering when his tip pushed st the back of your throat and you wiggled your tongue against anything you could reach as you gaged and finally had to pull back to catch your breath!

“you look so pretty doing that…” Daeron moaned, his thumb swiping along your lips to clean the dripping spit off. “I need to cum doll…I wanna cum.” He babbled. You could hear another whimpered “need to.” Just after you bent back over to finish blowing him.

His hand tightened on your hair when he started to get close. You looked up, eyes wet and lips thin from him filling your mouth and throat compeltly. “Cum” you slured, the vibrations from your throat rattled against his cock and you felt his twitch once, buck his hips, twitch again, and then felt the warm thick liquid squirt down your throat.

He swore and gripped your hair harder than he intended. Scared that you were going to leave, going to pull back and not say against him. You didn’t you gladly swallowed everything down. Pulling back and licking his cock clean fully. You kiss at his length and rubbed his balls soothingly until he was soft against his stomach.

“You’ve been holding out on me.” You giggle sitting up on your knees and wiping your swollen lips with the back of your hand.

“not purposely.” He was breathless. “Trust me doll, not intentionally!” He was smiling and warm in the face and both of you couldn’t help but laughing when a nurse came in a bit later and remarked on how he seemed a lot better off this morning than he had last night.