✨cHaOs✨

For two days he tends you with what can only be described as terrible devotion. Brings cool cloths soaked in water scented with mint and lavender, presses them to your forehead and wrists and the fever-hot hollow of your throat. Feeds you broth with patience that would surprise anyone who's only ever seen him breaking things cruelly. Changes your sweat-soaked bedding with efficient hands that never quite cross the line into impropriety but walk right up to it, toe that edge like a man testing how close he can get to a flame before it burns.

The whole time there's this energy coming off him—coiled, predatory, barely restrained. Like a hunting cat that's caught something precious and doesn't quite know whether to guard it or devour it.

In your fever dreams you whisper his name. Just once. Just a breath of sound shaped like Aerion, threadbare with need.

The smile that crosses his face is devastating. It cracks him open from the inside—something soft and terrible blooming in his chest like a wound that feels good, like pain that tastes oh so sweet.

He leans closer, brings your hand to his mouth, presses his lips to your knuckles and then your palm and then the delicate skin of your inner wrist where your pulse flutters against his mouth like a trapped bird. His eyes close and he shudders, a full-body tremor of pleasure so intense it looks almost like pain.

You need him. You need him. You said his name in the dark, in delirium, when your defences were down and the truth came spilling out. And gods, the things that knowledge does to him. The dark and hungry wants this feeds.

A maester suggests bloodletting and Aerion's voice goes fridgid. "Leave. Now." There's murder in his eyes, in the way his hand drops to the knife at his belt. "Touch her and lose that pathetic hand. Question me again and lose more." The maester is smart enough to flee.

His attention is already back on you, noting the flutter of your eyelids, the part of your lips, the way your hand searches blindly for something to hold onto. He gives you his hand and you take it, fingers curling weak around his, and the sound he makes is almost a sigh. "That's it. Hold on to me. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

When you finally surface from the worst of it—groggy and disoriented, throat raw, body aching—he's sitting beside your bed like he hasn't moved once. Watching. His hand is wrapped around yours, thumb stroking over your knuckles with such gentleness.

There are shadows under his feverish eyes that suggest he hasn't slept. His hair is dishevelled, his shirt unlaced at the throat. He looks both wild and helplessly devoted.

"Better?" His voice is soft, dangerous, pleased in a way that makes your stomach drop.

"You stayed."

"Of course I stayed." He brings your hand to his mouth again, lips brushing your pulse point, and his eyes never leave yours. "Look how well I took care of you. How good I was for you." The unspoken continuation hangs in the air between you: See what you could have if you just let him go. See how thoroughly I could worship you if you'd only stop holding me at arm's length.

"Aerion." You try to put iron in your voice but it comes out weak, rough-edged. "This can't—"

"I know." He cuts you off gently, but his grip on your hand tightens until you feel the press of his rings against your bones. "You're his. You'll always be his. But you needed me, didn't you? Not anyone else. Me." His voice drops.. "You said my name. In the fever. You called for me."

If you did, you don't remember it, but you see how he burns with it, the pleasure in the curl of his lovely mouth.

He leans in close enough that you can feel his breath ghosting over your skin. "I would burn this whole castle down before I let you suffer like that again," he whispers, and there's a promise in it, a threat. "Say the word and I'll do it. Say you need me and I'll tear the world apart to give you whatever you want. I'll do terrible things for you, aunt. Beautiful terrible things."

The madness is there—glittering in his eyes like fever-light—but it's focused entirely on you. All that violence, all that cruelty, sharpened to a single purpose: your care, your comfort, your safety, your need.

The thing shifts between one breath and the next, between the verse where you wear Baelor's ring and the verse where you wear Daeron's betrothal promise like a noose. His obsession doesn't really change. The hunger doesn't alter shape. Only the shape of the cage does.

In the world where you're promised to his brother, Aerion has been circling you since the betrothal was announced. Claiming you in small ways: touches that last too long, possessive looks across crowded rooms.

You want him back. That's the dangerous part. You want him. Daeron is brilliant and broken and you'll marry him out of duty, but Aerion is wildfire and you're drawn to him the same way he's drawn to your ice.

Your neediness with him isn't just genuine, it's also weaponized, honed to a killing edge. You know exactly what it does to him when you reach for him first, when you let vulnerability crack through the iron.

It happens late one night when Daeron is lost in his cups, and you're alone, restless, aching for something you shouldn't want. You find Aerion in his chambers.

"Lady Wolf." There's dark amusement in how he shapes the words when you enter. "Does my dear brother know you're here?"

"Daeron is occupied with greater things than me." You close the door behind you and watch the intensity with which his attention snaps to you. "I find I'm not."

He's on his feet immediately, crossing to you with predatory grace, all coiled muscle and intent. "Careful. That's a dangerous thing to say to me."

"I know." You hold his gaze, let him see the want you usually keep locked down behind iron and ice. "I need you, Aerion."

The sound he makes is almost a growl, almost a sigh of pleasure, caught somewhere between triumph and hatred. His hands find your hips and grip bruising-tight, pulling you flush against him hard enough that you can feel every inch of him—the lean muscle, the barely restrained violence, the hard evidence of exactly how much he wants you.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me when you say that?" His voice is rough, scraped raw. "What it costs me not to—"

"Yes." You slide your hands up his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath your palms, feeling the way his breath catches. "That's why I said it."

"Wicked girl." But he sounds pleased about it. He captures your mouth in a kiss that's all heat and hunger, almost violent, and you kiss him back just as fiercely, just as desperately. All teeth and tongue and the taste of something burning between you.

When he pulls away you're both breathing hard, both trembling with want. "You're going to unmake me."

"Good," you breathe against his mouth, and his control shatters like glass.

He backs you against the wall—not gentle, not careful—and his hands are everywhere, ripping. Tangling in your hair, gripping your jaw, sliding down your throat to feel your pulse jumping against his palm. "You're supposed to marry my brother," he rasps, mouth hot and greedy against your throat. "Be a good little wife and give him heirs and forget about this. Forget about me."

"I could never forget about you." Your head tips back, offering your throat, and you feel his teeth scrape over your pulse point in something that's almost a bite, almost a claim. "You won't let me."

"No," he agrees, and there's something savage in his voice, something possessive and dark. "I won't. I'll haunt you every day of your marriage. I'll be the shadow in every corner, the ghost in every hallway, the one claiming your marriage bed, the thought you can't shake. When he touches you, you'll think of me. When you're in his bed, feeling him fumbling his way through trying to give you pleasure, you'll wish it was mine."

His fingers find the laces of your gown and start working them loose with practiced efficiency. You should stop this, should remember duty and honour and all the things that are supposed to matter more than want. But his mouth is on your throat and his hands are on your skin and you can't bring yourself to care about anything except the dark fire consuming you both.

"Aerion." Your voice is breathless, needy, deliberately so because you know what it does to him. "I need—"

"I know what you need." He's got your bodice open now, hands sliding over bare skin with possessive certainty. "I've always known. You need someone who isn't afraid of you. Someone who looks at your iron and ice and craves both. Someone who can match you."

"Yes." You arch into his touch and his breath hitches.. "Gods, yes."

He takes his time with you, hands and mouth mapping every inch of skin he uncovers, lips and teeth and tongue painting claims that will fade by morning but linger in memory. The whole time there's this edge to him, this darkness, like he's trying to brand himself into your bones.

Making sure that even when duty pulls you apart you'll remember this—remember him, remember the way he worships you.

"Say you're mine," he demands, fingers digging into your hips hard enough to bruise, hard enough to leave marks that will last for days. "Even if it's a lie. Even if you'll never admit it in daylight. Say it now, say it here where it's just us and the dark."

"I'm yours." The words come out on a gasp and you feel him shudder against you, feel the way his control creaks. "Gods help me, I'm yours."

Later, much later, when you're sprawled across his bed, skin fever-hot and marked with the evidence of his need for you, slick and filled, he props himself up on one elbow and traces idle patterns across your ribs, your hip, the curve of your breast, the dip of your thighs.

"We could leave," he says quietly, and there's something raw in his voice that makes you look at him. "Tonight. I could take you across the Narrow Sea. We marry in the old way, blood and fire, the way the Conqueror married his sisters. Make you mine before gods and men so thoroughly that no one could ever question it."

The offer is genuine. You can see it in his eyes, in the way his hand trembles slightly as it maps your skin. He'd do it—would throw away his name, his inheritance, his future, everything—for this one chance to keep you.

"You know I can't." Your hand comes up to cup his face, thumb stroking over his sharp cheekbone, and he turns into the touch like he's starving for it.

"Can't," he repeats, tasting the word. "Or won't?"

"Both." You hold his gaze. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to."

"Then give me this," he says roughly. "I'll have you in the dark even if I can never have you in the light. I'll fill you with my seed, give you what that drunken idiot never will. Let me be the terrible thing you need."

You should say no. Should re-establish boundaries, remember duty, think about consequences. Instead you pull him down into another kiss, deeper this time, and let yourself burn with him.

Because the truth is that your neediness might be weaponized but it's also real. You need someone who looks at you like you're worth burning the world for, worth doing terrible things for, worth damnation.

And in whatever world you manage to keep him—whether through old Valyrian vows spoken in secret, or some darker turn of fate—your neediness becomes the thing he hoards. You are the jewel in the dragon's hoard, and every moment you reach for him, every whispered confession of need, is a treasure he locks away in the vault of his chest.

He's more dangerous for it, more cruel to anyone who isn't you.

You wake in the middle of the night, restless and aching in that way that means you need him close, and you don't even have to speak. Just reach for him in the dark and he's there—immediately, always—gathering you into his arms with a possessiveness that should frighten you but feels like safety instead.

"What do you need?" His voice is rough with sleep but alert, always alert when it comes to you. His hand is already sliding over your hip, your waist, mapping you in the darkness to find what's wrong.

"Just you." It's always just him. "I need you close."

The sound he makes is almost a purr, satisfied and dark and deeply pleased. He pulls you against his chest, arranges you exactly how you like, one hand stroking through your hair while the other splays possessive over your stomach. "I'm here. Always for you. You never have to ask."

But you do ask, because you've learned what it does to him. How his eyes go dark and glazed all at once when you admit you need him. How he preens under your neediness like a cat in sunshine, soaking it up, storing it away to sustain him through whatever violence chews at him sometimes.

When/if you get pregnant—gods, when you're pregnant with his child—your neediness becomes something almost sacred to him. Every ache, every discomfort, every moment of vulnerability is a gift you're giving him: the gift of being needed, of being necessary, of being the one you turn to when your body is doing impossible things.

You find him in his study and you don't say anything, just stand in the doorway with one hand pressed to your lower back, and he knows. Sets down whatever he was doing—doesn't matter if it's correspondence, treaties, plans for war—and crosses to you immediately.

"Come here." Not a request. Never a request with you. He guides you to the couch, settles you against him with your back to his chest, and his hands find the ache in your spine with unerring precision. "Better?"

"Yes." You let your head fall back against his shoulder, let yourself be weak in ways you'd never allow anyone else to see. "Don't stop."

"Never." His mouth finds your temple. "I'll do this for hours if you need it. Days. However long you want me."

Your neediness has made him indulgent in ways that would shock anyone who knows him. He brings you ridiculous things—your favourite foods at odd hours, furs from the north because you mentioned once that you missed the cold, books on obscure subjects you expressed passing interest in. Hoards your preferences the way a dragon hoards gold, remembers every casual comment, every soft admission of want.

"You said you liked cloudberries," he says one afternoon, presenting you with a basket of them. "I had them brought from beyond the Wall."

The journey alone would have cost a small fortune. Would have required planning, resources. You look at the berries and then at him, at the barely concealed pride in his expression, the way he's watching you for your reaction like that matters more than anything.

"You're ridiculous," you tell him, but you're smiling, and when you reach for one he looks so pleased with himself it makes your chest tight.

"You needed them," he says simply, like that explains everything. Like your wants and needs are law, like he'd move mountains or burn cities to satisfy them. "That's enough."

When someone interrupts you—a servant, a courtier, gods help them a family member—the violence in Aerion goes from banked coals to wildfire in a heartbeat.

You're curled in his lap in the solar, exhausted from a difficult day, finally relaxing into his touch, and some fool has the audacity to knock on the door. To push it open without waiting for permission.

The look on Aerion's face could freeze blood.

"Get. Out." His voice is quiet, deadly, and you feel the way his whole body has gone tense beneath you, coiled like a snake about to strike. "Before I remove your eyes for presuming to disturb her."

"My prince, I—"

"OUT." The word cracks like a whip and you hear the scramble of feet, the door slamming. Aerion's hand is still gentle where it rests on your hip, still careful, but you can feel the violence thrumming under his skin.

"You can't threaten to mutilate everyone who interrupts us," you bumble, though there's no real censure in it.

"Can't I?" He's already relaxing again, tension bleeding out now that the threat is gone, now that it's just the two of you again. "You were finally resting. They dared—"

"I know." You turn your face into his throat, press a kiss there, press the flat of your tongue to his pulse to and feel him shudder. "I know. Thank you."

The 'thank you' does something to him. You feel it in the way his arms tighten, the way his breath catches.

"Always," he promises, and you know he means it. Know that he would kill for you without hesitation, would burn the world if it meant keeping you safe and comfortable and his. "Anything you need. Anything at all."

Your sexual neediness drives him absolutely insane in the best and worst ways. When you come to him hungry, wanting, when you touch him first with clear intent, it makes something restless in him still, focus.

It happens one afternoon when he's training in the yard, and you appear at the edge watching him. He knows that look in your eyes—has learned to read every shade of want in your expression—and his training partner barely escapes with his life when Aerion dismisses him with a snarled command.

"Inside. Now." His voice is rough, lethal, and you can see the barely leashed violence in the way he moves toward you. Not violence aimed at you, but at his own control, at the need to have you immediately.

You don't make it to the bedchamber. He backs you into the first empty corridor, hand already sliding up your thigh, mouth hot and hungry on your throat. "You can't look at me like that in public," he growls against your skin. "Can't come to me needing this where everyone can see."

"Why not?" You arch into his touch deliberately, watch his eyes go black with want. "I need you. Should I pretend otherwise?"

The sound he makes is feral.

His hands go everywhere—greedy, possessive, worshipful. He touches you like he's trying to memorise you, like he can't believe he's allowed this, and has to steal as much of it as possible before you suddenly change your mind.

"Tell me what you need," he demands, and there's something almost desperate in it. "Tell me exactly how to fuck you and I'll give it to you."

When you whisper what you want in his ear—explicit, shameless, bite me, mark me, take me from behind, fill me up, knowing it will destroy him—he actually shudders. Pins you harder against the wall and takes your mouth in a kiss that leaves you both bruised.

"Here?" His voice is wrecked. "You want me to take you here where anyone could walk past? Where they could hear me claiming you?"

"Yes." You bite his lower lip. "I need you now, Aerion. I can't wait."

The words are barely out of your mouth before he's turning you around, shoving you against the wall, a laugh catching in your throat at his desperation, the way his teeth sink into your shoulder.

Later, when you're both dishevelled and sated and he's still holding you like he can't bear to let go, he presses his forehead to yours and just breathes.

"You have no idea," he says roughly. "What it does to me when you want me like that. When you need me."

"I think I have some idea." You stroke your fingers through his hair, platinum strands tangled from your hands. "You get this look. Like you'd burn the world down if I asked."

"I would." No hesitation. "I absolutely would. Your need is—" He breaks off, searching for words. "It's everything. It's the only thing that's ever made me feel like I'm real."

Sometimes you wake in the middle of the night wanting him, and you don't even have to speak. Just touch him—hand sliding over his chest, his stomach, lower, gripping him in your hand—and he's awake instantly, rolling to cover you with a hunger that never seems to diminish.

"Again?" But there's no complaint in it, only dark pleasure, only sheer satisfaction at being needed, being claimed. "Greedy thing."

"Your fault," you breathe, arching into him. "You make me this way."

"Good." He's already moving, already giving you exactly what you need. "Be greedy. Take everything you want from me. I'm yours and your mine."

The truth is: it's not patience, not really, it's greed. He's greedy for every moment you need him, hoards them like treasure, stores them up against the lean times. Your vulnerability is precious to him, your desire for him the foundation on which he's built his entire world.