“Red,” he said, offering one. “The Pentosi varietal the sommelier recommended. Viserys ordered twenty cases for the cellars.”

“Of course he did.”

Daemon’s mouth twitched. “He’s planning a gala for the autumn. Apparently, Alicent has been nagging him about entertaining more. Networking.” He pronounced the word with a particular disdain, the way another man might say vermin.

You took the wine, mostly because you needed something to do with your hands. “Alicent’s networking is called ‘securing her position.’ She’s smart.”

“She’s a social climber with a spreadsheet and a prayer book.”

“Daemon.”

“What? It’s true. You know it’s true. Even Rhaenyra knows it’s true, and Rhaenyra is pathologically incapable of thinking ill of anyone her father deigns to marry.” He took a long drink of his wine, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “I still don’t know what Viserys was thinking. Otto Hightower’s daughter. It’s like bringing a fox into the henhouse and handing it a napkin.”

You wanted to argue, mostly on principle, but you were too tired. Three days of enforced proximity to Alicent’s brittle smiles and Viserys’ oblivious paternalism and Rhaenyra’s increasingly desperate attempts to play peacemaker had worn you down to a nub.

Rhaenyra was the only one of Daemon’s family you genuinely liked, she was fierce and funny and surprisingly self-aware for a woman who’d been raised to believe she was the center of the universe, but even she had been grating on you today. She’d cornered you at breakfast to ask if everything was “okay” between you and Daemon, her violet eyes too knowing, too sympathetic. You’d deflected, but barely.

It was Daemon’s fault. All of it. If he hadn’t insisted on moving the family back into the Targaryen ancestral pile, if he hadn’t dragged you into his obsessive crusade against Alicent’s influence, if he hadn’t treated your unhappiness like a software glitch that could be patched with shopping and sex and those devastating smiles he deployed like weapons...

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Daemon observed.

“I’m thinking about divorce.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. “The storm’s getting worse. We should go inside.”

“Daemon.”

“The boys are waiting for dinner. Viserys wants to eat at eight, which means Alicent wants to eat at seven-thirty, which means if we’re not in the dining room by...oh, the look on her face.” He grinned, sharp and wicked. “It might almost be worth being late.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Her face goes all pinched, like she’s sucked a lemon. Rhaenyra and I used to have a drinking game around it.”

“Daemon, I want a divorce.”

This time, he did react. A tightening around his jaw, barely perceptible. The way his fingers flexed against his wine glass. But his voice, when he spoke, was perfectly even. “We’re not having this conversation on a balcony in Pentos while our children are inside.”

“We’re not having this conversation anywhere. That’s the problem. You refuse to engage with it. You act like if you ignore it long enough, I’ll forget.”

“Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Forget.” He turned to face you, and there it was again, that flicker of something raw beneath the arrogance, gone so fast you might have imagined it. “Will you forget that you love me? That we have a life together? That we have two sons who adore you and a home and a history and...” He stopped himself, jaw working. “No. You’re right. We’re not doing this here.”

He drained his wine and walked back inside, leaving you alone with the storm.

Dinner was excruciating.

The dining room was all white tablecloths and soft candlelight and sweeping views of the coastline, the storm pressing against the windows. Viserys sat at the head of the table, beaming benevolently at his assembled family as if he’d personally arranged the weather for their entertainment. Alicent was at his right hand, her auburn hair pulled back in an elegant twist, her expression one of careful serenity that you knew from experience masked a constant, low-grade anxiety.

Rhaenyra and her husband Laenor were visiting from their place in Spain, their three boys seated between them in various states of restlessness. And then there was your family: you, Daemon, and the two small boys who were currently attempting to build a fort out of bread rolls.

“Aegon, stop that,” you said quietly, removing the roll from his hand before it could be added to the precarious structure. “We don’t play with food.”

“Uncle Laenor said the Pentosi build forts to keep the sea monsters away,” Aegon protested.

“Did he.”

“It’s true,” Laenor said, his expression perfectly solemn. “Ancient maritime tradition. Very sacred.”

Aegon turned to you with the triumphant expression of a child who had just been validated by an adult, and you made a mental note to have a word with Laenor later. Probably with a heavy object.

“How are you finding the resort?” Alicent asked, her gaze fixed on you with an intensity that suggested she was already composing a report for some internal database. “The spa here is supposed to be excellent. I booked a hot stone massage for tomorrow morning, if you’d care to join.”

“That’s kind of you,” you said, “but I think I’ll pass.”

“Oh, you should go,” Rhaenyra said, leaning forward. “I went yesterday. There’s a sauna and everything. Very relaxing.” She caught your eye and added, with just a hint of emphasis, “Good for stress.”

You smiled tightly. “I’m sure it is.”

Daemon, seated beside you, had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the meal. He’d exchanged a few barbed pleasantries with Alicent, agreed with Viserys about the superiority of Westerosi wine, and otherwise devoted his attention to his plate with the air of a man who was planning something. You knew that look. You’d seen it before board meetings, before confrontations with business rivals, before the night he’d decided to move your family into Dragonstone Manor without consulting you. It was the look of Daemon Targaryen marshaling his forces.

It made you nervous.

“I heard the most interesting thing today,” Alicent said, and something in her tone made the entire table go quiet. “About the Ashford deal.”

Viserys looked up from his lamb. “My dear, perhaps business at the dinner table...”

“It’s just that I understood we weren’t pursuing Ashford anymore. The board voted on it, I thought. And yet I received a rather curious email from our legal team this afternoon suggesting that Daemon had reopened negotiations.” Her smile didn’t waver. “On his own authority.”

Daemon set down his fork very carefully. “The board voted to table the discussion, not to abandon the acquisition entirely. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“There is to anyone who actually understands corporate governance.”

“Daemon,” Viserys said, a warning note in his voice.

But Daemon was already leaning forward, his eyes glittering in the candlelight. “The Ashford portfolio is worth forty million pounds. Their logistics network alone would give us a foothold in three new markets. I wasn’t about to let it slip away because the board is too risk-averse to see past next quarter’s earnings report.”

“The board is risk-averse because we’re still recovering from the Dornish expansion,” Alicent said, her voice cool. “Which you also championed. And which went significantly over budget.”

“It went over budget because we were sabotaged by incompetents you personally recommended for the project.”

“I recommended no one. I suggested a shortlist of candidates, which Viserys approved.”

“After you’d spent three months whispering in his ear about how essential they were.”

“That’s enough,” Viserys said, and for a moment he sounded like the patriarch he was supposed to be, his voice carrying the weight of decades of authority. “We’re not discussing this here. We’re on holiday. There are children present.”

Everyone looked at the children. Aegon had abandoned his bread fort and was now trying to teach Viserys the younger how to balance a spoon on his nose. Neither of them had appeared to notice the adult tension crackling around them.

“I’m just saying,” Alicent said, her tone now one of wounded reasonableness, “that it might be wise to keep the family informed of major business decisions. For the sake of transparency.”

“Transparency,” Daemon repeated. “Rich, coming from someone whose father just happened to acquire a significant stake in the shipping company we use for all our Narrow routes. Purely coincidental, I’m sure.”

Alicent’s face went stone cold. “My father’s investments are his own business.”

“Are they? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks an awful lot like a conflict of interest. Or would, if anyone were looking.”

“Daemon.” This time it was Viserys, his voice heavy with disappointment. “We talked about this. Otto’s investment was vetted by our ethics committee. There’s no conflict.”

“The ethics committee that reports to you. And that you appointed. After Alicent suggested the members.”

The silence that followed was the kind that made you want to crawl under the table. Rhaenyra was studying her wine glass with intense fascination. Laenor had developed a sudden interest in the storm outside. Even the children seemed to sense something was wrong; little Viserys had stopped his spoon-balancing attempts and was looking at his father with wide, uncertain eyes.

You reached for your wine and took a very long drink.

“I think,” you said, into the silence, “that we should perhaps change the subject.”

Alicent’s gaze snapped to you, and for a moment you saw something ugly there: resentment, perhaps, or suspicion. It was no secret that she considered you an extension of Daemon, his ally in whatever Valyrian power struggle was currently consuming the Targaryen family. The fact that you’d spent the last several months trying to extricate yourself from precisely that role was not something you could exactly explain over lamb and roasted vegetables.

“You’re right, of course,” Alicent said, her smile returning like a curtain falling back into place. “I apologize. This was entirely inappropriate dinner conversation.” She touched Viserys’s arm with practiced tenderness. “I’m sorry, darling. I let my concerns get the better of me.”

Viserys patted her hand. “No harm done. Daemon, we’ll discuss the Ashford matter tomorrow. Privately.”

“Can’t wait,” Daemon said, in a tone that suggested he would rather have oral surgery.

The rest of dinner passed in a haze of forced small talk and barely concealed hostility. By the time dessert arrived, some elaborate chocolate confection that you ate without savoring the taste, you had a headache building behind your eyes and a desperate longing to be anywhere else. Alone. Away from Targaryens and their endless, exhausting drama.

You caught Rhaenyra’s eye across the table, and she gave you a small, sympathetic smile. She, at least, understood. She’d grown up in this family. She knew what it was like to be caught in the crossfire.

But even Rhaenyra’s sympathy couldn’t pierce the cold knot of resentment that had settled in your chest. Because this, this dinner, this family, this entire suffocating situation, was exactly why you wanted out. Not because Daemon was a bad man. Not because he didn’t love you, in his way. But because being married to Daemon Targaryen meant being constantly, endlessly embroiled in Targaryen affairs.

The feuds, the power plays, the ancient grudges dressed up as business disagreements. Alicent’s machinations. Viserys’s willful blindness. The way the entire family seemed to orbit around some invisible sun of their own making, pulling everyone else into their gravitational field.

And Daemon, for all his talk of protecting you from it, was the worst of them all. He didn’t just participate in the drama, he was the drama. He generated it, cultivated it, fed on it like some kind of chaos vampire. And now he’d dragged you back to the family estate, back into the heart of the storm, and expected you to just…endure it.

You couldn’t. You wouldn’t.

After dinner, you put the boys to bed in the adjoining room of the suite. Aegon went down with minimal protest, exhausted from a day of swimming and running and terrorizing his cousins with a water pistol. Viserys was fussier, clinging to you with sticky fingers and demanding a third bedtime story, but eventually even he succumbed to sleep, his small face slackening into that angelic expression that always made your heart clench.

You stood in the doorway between the children’s room and the master bedroom, watching them sleep. Aegon had kicked off his blankets already, sprawling across his bed like a starfish. Viserys was curled around the stuffed dragon he refused to sleep without, the one Daemon had bought him when he was born, its silver wings worn soft from years of clutching.

They were the reason you’d stayed this long. The reason you’d tried so hard. Every time you’d been ready to walk out the door, you’d looked at their faces and thought: I can endure a little longer. For them.

But you were starting to wonder if enduring was actually doing them any favors. If growing up in a house with parents who were slowly, silently falling apart was any better than growing up in two houses with parents who were, at least, honest about what they were.

Behind you, the door to the suite opened and closed. You didn’t turn.

“They’re asleep,” you said.

“Good.” Daemon’s voice was quiet, stripped of its usual sardonic edge. “I’m sorry about dinner. Alicent has a talent for getting under my skin.”

You turned then, leaning against the doorframe. He was standing in the middle of the room, his jacket discarded, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal the tattoos that snaked up his forearms, dragons, of course, and something in High Valyrian that he’d gotten in his twenties. His silver-gold hair was disheveled from running his hands through it, a nervous habit he’d never been able to break.

“She gets under your skin because you let her,” you said. “You seek her out. You look for fights.”

“Someone has to. Viserys won’t.”

“It’s not your job to protect your brother from his own wife.”

“It’s not about protecting Viserys. It’s about protecting the family. The company. Everything our forefathers built.” He moved closer, and you caught the scent of his cologne, woody and dark and infuriatingly familiar. “Alicent and her father are parasites. They’ve been trying to sink their hooks into Targaryen holdings for years, and Viserys is too besotted to see it.”

“And what does that have to do with us? With our marriage?”

He stopped. “Everything. You’re part of this family. What affects us affects you.”

“I don’t want to be part of this family.” The words came out harder than you intended, but you didn’t take them back. “That’s the point, Daemon. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching you wage war against your sister-in-law over business deals. I don’t want to raise our sons in the middle of a battlefield. I want a normal life.”

“Normal.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What does that even mean? A house in the suburbs? A nine-to-five job? Bake sales and PTA meetings? That’s not who we are. It’s never been who we are.”

“Maybe it’s who I want to be.”

“No.” He was close now, close enough to touch, his eyes burning into yours with that intensity that had first drawn you to him all those years ago. “You think you want that, but you’d be bored within a month. You’d miss this. You’d miss me.”

“You arrogant...”

“I’m not being arrogant. I’m being honest. You married me knowing exactly who I was. You knew what my family was like. You knew what you were getting into.” His hand came up to cup your face, his thumb brushing across your cheekbone. “You’re just tired. It’s been a long year. Let me take care of you.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me. I need you to listen to me.”

“I am listening.”

“No, you’re not. You’re waiting for me to stop talking so you can tell me why I’m wrong.” You pulled away from his touch, stepping back into the children’s room and pulling the door partially closed behind you. “I’ve been trying to tell you for months. I’m done, Daemon. I want a divorce.”

His expression shifted. The mask slipped, just for a moment, and you saw what lay beneath. Fear. Then it was gone, and he was the Daemon Targaryen everyone saw, the charming rogue, the untouchable prince.

“We’re not discussing this tonight,” he said. “The boys are right there.”

“They’re asleep.”

“I said, we’re not discussing this.” And then, softer, almost a plea: “Not tonight. Please.”

You had never heard Daemon Targaryen say please before. Not like that. Not as if the word had been dragged out of him against his will.

The storm was directly overhead now. Lightning flashed outside the window, bright enough to cast the room in stark white relief, and you started counting instinctively, one, two, and the thunder cracked so loud and so close that the windows rattled in their frames. Two seconds. Right on top of you.

In the children’s room, Viserys whimpered in his sleep. You slipped back inside to soothe him, stroking his silver-blond hair until he settled, your heart pounding from more than just the thunder.

When you returned to the master bedroom, Daemon was standing by the window, watching the storm with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t turn when you approached.

“Do you remember our honeymoon?” he asked quietly. “The villa in Myr. There was a storm like this on the third night. You said you’d never seen lightning so beautiful.”

You remembered. You remembered everything, the way the rain had hammered against the shutters, the way the candles had flickered every time the thunder rolled, the way Daemon had pulled you onto the bed and made love to you until the storm passed and the sky cleared and the stars came out like scattered diamonds. You’d thought, lying in his arms afterward, that you’d never be happier than you were in that moment.

You’d been right.

“That was a long time ago,” you said.

“It was eight years. That’s not so long.”

“It feels like a lifetime.”

He turned then, and the look on his face made your breath catch. He looked older, suddenly. Tired. The weight of all those years pressing down on him, on both of you.

“I know I’m difficult,” he said. “I know I’m not…easy. To be married to. I know I drive you up the wall.” A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“Daemon...”

“Let me finish. Please.” He took a breath. “I know I’ve been…distracted. The situation with Alicent, with the company, it’s consumed more of my attention than it should have. More than you deserved. I can see that now.”

“It’s not just the company. It’s everything. The way you handle things. The way you handle me.”

“I know.”

“You throw money at problems and expect them to go away. You treat my concerns like they’re inconveniences to be managed. You make decisions that affect our entire family without consulting me.” The words were pouring out now, a dam finally breaking. “You moved us to Dragonstone Manor without even asking me. You just...announced it. Like it was a done deal. Like my opinion didn’t matter.”

“I was trying to protect you. All of you. Viserys was already changing, Alicent was already getting her hooks in, and I needed to be closer. I needed to be able to watch what was happening.”

“And what about what I needed? What about what our children needed? Aegon had just started at his school. He had friends. I had a life in London. And you ripped it all away because of your paranoia about your brother’s wife.”

“It wasn’t paranoia. Everything I suspected has turned out to be true.”

“That’s not the point!” You were almost shouting now, and you forced yourself to lower your voice, acutely aware of the children sleeping in the next room. “The point is that you didn’t talk to me. You never talk to me. You just…act. You decide what’s best and you do it, and I’m supposed to just fall in line.”

Daemon was silent for a long moment. The storm was moving past, the thunder growing more distant, the lightning flickering further away. Rain drummed steadily against the windows.

“You’re right,” he said finally.

You blinked. “What?”

“You’re right. I should have talked to you. About Dragonstone. About everything.” He ran his hand through his hair again, and this time the gesture seemed less nervous than helpless.

“I’m not asking you to stop being who you are. I’m asking you to include me in it. To treat me like an equal instead of an accessory.”

“I know.” He moved toward you, slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. “I know. And I’ll try. I swear to you, I’ll try.” He stopped in front of you, close enough to touch but not reaching out. “You want to leave Dragonstone? Fine. We’ll leave. We’ll move back to London, or anywhere else you want to go. You want me to step back from the family business? I’ll step back. Viserys can handle his own mess. You want me to stop antagonizing Alicent at every family dinner?” A wry smile. “That one might take some practice. But I’ll try.”

You wanted to believe him. You wanted it so badly it was a physical ache in your chest.

“I’ve already spoken to a lawyer,” you whispered.

Something flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t look away. “I know.”

“You...how?”

“The retainer on the new black card. I’m not an idiot. You think I don’t check the statements?” He shook his head. “I’ve known for months. I’ve just been…hoping you’d change your mind.”

“Daemon…”

“I’m not going to make this easy for you.” His voice was steady but hollow. “I’m not going to sign papers and smile and pretend this is what I want. It’s not. I want you. I want our family. I want to grow old with you and watch our sons become men. I want all of it. Every messy, frustrating, complicated part of it.”

“Then why didn’t you say that? Instead of just...ignoring me and hoping I’d give up?”

“Because I’m a coward.” He laughed shortly. “I was terrified. Terrified that if I actually talked about it, if I actually acknowledged what was happening, it would become real. And I couldn’t bear that.”

Another flash of lightning, further away now. This time you didn’t count the seconds.

“I’m not saying I’ll withdraw the petition,” you said. “I’m not saying everything is fixed. There’s too much damage for one conversation to repair.”

“I know.”

“But I’ll…think about it. About whether there’s something left worth saving.”

His eyes lit up. “That’s all I’m asking.”

The storm was dying now, the thunder reduced to a distant grumble, the rain softening to a gentle patter against the glass. The room felt different than it had an hour ago. As if the lightning had cleared something in the air.

Daemon reached for you, and this time you let him. His arms came around you, pulling you against his chest, and you felt the steady thump of his heart beneath your ear. He was warm and solid and so familiar it made your eyes sting.

“Come to bed,” he murmured against your hair. “We don’t have to sort out everything tonight. Just…come to bed.”

You should have said no. You should have slept in the children’s room, or on the sofa, or anywhere that wasn’t wrapped in Daemon’s arms. But you were tired, and you were sad, and despite everything, you still loved him. You had never stopped loving him. That was the problem.

“Fine,” you said. “But I’m still angry with you.”

“I know. You should be.”

“And I’m still thinking about divorce.”

“I know that too.” He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “Let me try to change your mind.”

The hotel bed was vast and soft, dressed in linen that smelled faintly of lavender. Daemon undressed with his usual careless grace, tossing his clothes onto a chair in a way that would have annoyed you if you hadn’t been so tired. You changed into your nightgown in the bathroom, taking longer than necessary, staring at your reflection in the mirror and trying to decide if you were making a terrible mistake.

Your reflection stared back, offering no answers.

When you emerged, the room was lit only by the intermittent flashes of lightning and a single lamp on Daemon’s side of the bed. He was already under the covers, propped against the pillows, watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite read.

“Get in,” he said. “You’re letting the cold in.”

You climbed into bed beside him, keeping a careful distance between you. The sheets were cool against your skin. Outside, the storm was circling back, the thunder growing louder again, the lightning more frequent.

“Remember how we used to count?” Daemon asked quietly. “Between the lightning and the thunder. When we were first married.”

“I still do it,” you admitted. “I can’t help it. It’s automatic.”

“Me too.” He turned onto his side, facing you. “What do you think? How far away is this one?”

As if on cue, lightning split the sky, illuminating the room in stark white. You counted, one, two, three, and the thunder rolled, a low, grumbling bass note that vibrated through the windows.

“Three seconds,” you said. “About more than half a mile.”

“I think it’s closer. Two seconds at most.”

“You’re wrong.”

“We’ll see.” Another flash, brighter this time. One, two, and the crack was immediate, sharp and loud. Daemon smiled. “Two seconds.”

“That one doesn’t count. It was a different bolt.”

“Lightning moves. It’s getting closer.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You love me anyway.”

You didn’t answer that. You couldn’t. Because he was right, and you both knew it.

The next flash came almost immediately, and this time the thunder followed so fast it was nearly simultaneous, a tremendous crash that made you jump despite yourself. Daemon’s arm came around you, pulling you closer, and you didn’t resist.

“Right on top of us,” he murmured. “The hotel probably has lightning rods.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”

His hand was moving on your back now, slow circles that were probably meant to be soothing but were doing something else entirely. You could feel the heat of him through your nightgown, the familiar geography of his body, the way you fit against him.

“Daemon.”

“Hmm?”

“This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”

“I know.” His lips brushed your forehead. “This doesn’t mean anything. We’re just two people in a bed, waiting out a storm.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

“For now.”

His hand slid lower, tracing the curve of your spine, and you shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. You knew what he was doing. You’d always known. Daemon Targaryen had many weapons in his arsenal, and seduction was one of his favorites.

You should have stopped him. You should have pulled away and reinforced your boundaries and reminded him that nothing was resolved, that you were still furious, that sex wasn’t going to paper over the cracks in your marriage.

But his hand was on your hip now, his thumb pressing into the hollow there with expert precision, and you were tired of fighting. Tired of being angry. Tired of the endless, exhausting distance between what you wanted and what you had.

“Come here,” he said, and it wasn’t a command but a plea, raw and honest in a way Daemon rarely allowed himself to be.

You went.

His mouth found yours in the darkness, and it was like coming home after a long, lonely journey. Familiar and strange all at once, the taste of him, the way his hand cradled the back of your head. You’d kissed him thousands of times, millions, maybe, but this kiss felt different. Desperate. As if he was trying to pour everything he couldn’t say into the press of his lips.

“I love you,” he breathed against your mouth.

“Daemon...”

“Let me finish. Please.” He pulled back just enough to look at you, his violet eyes dark in the dim light. “I know I’ve failed you. I know I’ve been selfish and arrogant and dismissive. I know you have every right to walk out that door and never look back. But I’m asking you, begging you, to give me a chance. Not because of the children. Not because of the family. Because of us. Because what we have is worth fighting for.”

Thunder crashed outside, shaking the windows, but neither of you flinched.

“I’m so tired of fighting,” you whispered.

“Then stop. Stop fighting me. Stop fighting this.” His hand cupped your face, his thumb brushing away a tear you hadn’t realized you’d shed. “Let me take care of you. Let me love you. Let me prove to you that we can be better than we’ve been.”

“And if we can’t? If we try and it’s still not enough?”

“Then I’ll let you go.” The words seemed to cost him a lot. “If we try, really try, and you’re still unhappy, I won’t fight the divorce. I’ll sign whatever you put in front of me. Just please, let's strike a truce for now.”

Part 2: coming soon...

a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to the taglist. Also, I lowkey hate the title of this fic, so if anyone has a better idea, let me know.

The royal box had been an exquisite torture.

All day, you had sat among the lords and ladies of the Reach, the velvet cushion beneath you doing absolutely nothing to comfort the restless ache that had taken root deep in your belly. The sun had beaten down on the tourney grounds, the air thick with the smell of trampled grass and churned earth and the distant roasting meat from the feast-fires, but you had barely noticed any of it. Your attention had been fixed entirely, hopelessly, on the black knight.

Your husband. Every time his black destrier thundered down the lists, every time his black armor caught the sunlight and gleamed like polished obsidian, every time his lance shattered against an opponent's shield in an explosion of splinters, you felt it in the pit of your stomach, a clench, a slow molten roll of heat that had nothing to do with the summer sun. Your fingers gripped the arms of your chair. Your thighs pressed together beneath your gown, shifting against the wetness that had gathered there. Your breath came shallow and quick.

He had unhorsed three men before midday. Three, and each time he rode past the royal box you could have sworn he lingered just a moment longer when his eyes found yours. Blue and brown. The gods had given him one eye the color of a summer sky and the other the rich dark of freshly turned earth, and you were absolutely certain they had done it specifically to ruin you.

You shifted in your seat for the dozenth time, squeezing your thighs together in a vain attempt to relieve the throbbing pressure that had built between them. Lady Webber, seated beside you, leaned over with concern in her broad, honest face.

"Are you quite well, Your Grace? You look rather flushed."

"Perfectly well," you managed, not looking away from the grounds. Valarr was circling his horse at the far end, preparing for another pass. The way he sat in the saddle, the way his thighs gripped the horse's flanks, thick muscle flexing beneath dark steel, the easy confidence in his posture, the way he tucked his helm under his arm and ran a gauntleted hand through his hair, that silver gold streak on the left side catching the light—

"The heat," you added, gripping the arm of your chair until your knuckles went white. "It is only the heat."

But it was not the heat. It was remembering how those thighs felt when they were gripping your hips instead of a saddle. It was knowing exactly what that controlled violence looked like when it was unleashed in your bedchamber, when he was buried deep inside you and that same focused intensity was bent entirely on drawing scream after scream from your lips. It was the way his armor hugged his body and the way you knew every inch of what lay beneath, the lean muscle and warm skin, the trail of dark hair below his navel that you loved to follow with your tongue, the scattering of scars from a lifetime of training, the way his stomach tensed and jumped when you dragged your nails across it. It was knowing exactly what that body could do, the sounds it could wring from you, the positions it could fold you into, the seemingly endless stamina that left you wrecked and trembling and begging for more. And being forced to sit in polite company, smiling and nodding and making idle conversation, while he displayed all that power and grace and leashed violence before half the Reach—

By the time the final tilt was called and the tourney began to wind down for the day, you were fairly vibrating out of your skin. Your smallclothes were soaked through. You had imagined, in vivid and increasingly creative detail, at least seven different ways you wanted him to fuck you—bent over the railing of the royal box, on your knees in the shadow of the stands, on your back in the trampled grass with the roar of the crowd still echoing in your ears—and you had reached the point where you no longer trusted yourself to speak to anyone without your voice cracking.

So when the crowds dispersed and the lords and ladies began drifting, you did not drift with them. You walked straight toward the black and red pennants that marked the Targaryen tents.

His squire was a boy of perhaps five and ten, all gangly limbs and anxious eyes, and he was already struggling with the straps of Valarr's vambraces when you swept through the canvas flap.

You did not break stride. "Out."

The boy's eyes went wide as saucers. "Your Grace, I was just—"

"Now."

He fled. The tent flap barely had time to settle before you turned to face your husband.

Valarr stood in the center of the pavilion, still armored, his helm already discarded on a nearby table. His odd eyes found you immediately, and the corner of his mouth curved into a slow, knowing smile, the smile of a man who knew exactly what he had been doing all day.

"My wife," he said. His voice was slightly hoarse from shouting commands over the din of the lists, and the roughness of it sent a shiver straight down your spine, straight to the aching place between your legs. "You dismissed my squire rather abruptly. Have I done something to offend?"

You crossed the space between you in four strides. The tent was warm, lit by a half-dozen candles that cast dancing shadows across the canvas walls. The air smelled of leather and oiled metal and the faint, clean undertone of his sweat, that particular scent of him that made you want to press your nose to the base of his throat and breathe him in until you were dizzy with it.

"You have been offending me all day," you said, stopping so close that the steel of his cuirass nearly brushed your bodice. Your voice came out low and rough, barely more than a growl. "Parading around on that horse. Riding like that. Looking like that. Do you have any idea what you put me through? Do you have any idea how many times I had to press my thighs together just to keep from moaning aloud in front of half the nobility of the Reach?"

His brows lifted slightly, but the smile did not leave his lips. It deepened, if anything, the corner of his mouth curling in a way that was positively smug. "I was competing in a tourney. It is generally what one does at a tourney."

"You know exactly what you were doing. Every time you rode past the royal box, you looked at me. You knew I was watching."

"Enlighten me," he said, his voice dropping into something darker, more dangerous. "What was I doing?"

You reached up and pressed your palms flat against his breastplate. The metal was warm from the sun and from the heat of his body beneath, and you could feel the faint vibration of his heartbeat through the steel, steady, strong, slightly faster than it should be.

"You were magnificent," you said, your voice dropping to barely a whisper. "Every pass. Every impact. When you unhorsed Lord Ashford's cousin, when that lance hit true and he went flying, I thought I might scream. Do you know what it does to a woman, watching her husband ride full tilt with a lance in his hand, fearless, perfect, everyone in the stands cheering his name? Do you know what it does to me, Valarr, watching you dominate every man who dares ride against you, knowing that same ferocity is going to be focused on me the moment we're alone?"

His mismatched eyes had gone dark, his breath had changed, grown shallower. He did not move. "Tell me."

"It makes me wet," you said, blunt and shameless, your eyes locked on his. "It makes me ache. It makes me want to drag you off that horse by your hair and have my way with you in the dirt in front of everyone. I was ready to climb over the railing and ride you right there in the royal box. In front of Lord Ashford. In front of Lady Webber. In front of the gods and every noble house of the Reach. I would have let them all watch. I was so far gone I would not have cared." His breath caught. Through his breeches, you could see the growing evidence of his arousal, the thick outline of his cock pressing against the fabric.

"You are playing a dangerous game, wife."

"I am not playing." You pressed closer, your breasts flattening against the hard steel of his cuirass, your lips nearly brushing his chin. "I have been sitting in soaked smallclothes for hours, thinking about your cock. Thinking about how it feels when you first push inside me. Thinking about how you stretch me, how you fill me so completely I forget my own name. Thinking about the sounds you make when you're close—that raw, broken groan you try to swallow. I have been thinking about it all day, Valarr. And I am done thinking."

He kissed you. It was deep, hungry and consuming, his mouth slanting over yours with a ferocity that matched everything you had been feeling all day. His tongue swept into your mouth, claiming, demanding, and you moaned into the kiss as his free hand found the small of your back and pulled you hard against him. Your body pressed flush against the unyielding plane of his armored chest, the contrast of cool steel against your heated breasts making your nipples tighten to aching peaks. You gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, his tongue sliding against yours in a rhythm that was pure filthy promise.

You fisted your hands in the collar of his gambeson, pulling him impossibly closer, and he made a sound low in his throat that vibrated through his chest and into yours. You could taste the salt of his sweat, the faint sweetness of the watered wine he must have drunk between tilts, the heat of him. Your body was on fire. Every inch of your skin felt electric, alive, aching. The slick heat between your thighs had grown almost unbearable; you could feel it on your inner thighs, could feel how ready you were for him.

"Help me," you gasped against his mouth, your fingers fumbling with the buckles at his shoulders. "The pauldrons. Get them off. Get everything off. I need to feel your skin. I need your cock inside me before I lose my mind entirely."

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his chest heaving, his lips red and slightly swollen from your kisses. His eyes were blazing with a hunger that made your knees weak.

"Tell me what you want," he said, his voice a rasp that sent heat pooling low in your belly. "Exactly. Tell me every detail, and I will give it to you."

"I want you on your back in this tent." You wrenched one pauldron free and let it drop to the ground with a heavy thud. "I want to feel every inch of you against me without this damned steel in the way." The second pauldron followed. "I want to strip you bare and put my mouth on every part of you. Your throat. Your chest. Your stomach." Your fingers moved to the buckles of his cuirass as you spoke, your voice growing breathier with each word. "I want to take your cock in my mouth and feel you get harder on my tongue. I want to taste you, Valarr. I want to taste your release when you spend down my throat. And then I want you on top of me, driving into me so hard I cannot walk tomorrow. I want to feel you come inside me, hot and deep, filling me up until I can feel it dripping down my thighs. I want you to ruin me, Valarr Targaryen, until neither of us can remember our own names."

He stared at you for a long moment, his breathing ragged, his eyes burning. The bulge in his breeches was straining against the fabric now, thick and unmistakable. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

"You," he said, the word barely more than a growl, "are the most infuriating, intoxicating, utterly maddening woman I have ever known."

"Less talking," you breathed, reaching for the final buckles of his cuirass. "More undressing. I want to see what I do to you. I want to see how hard you are for me."

You made quick work of the breastplate, your fingers moving with a speed born of pure, desperate need. The steel plate hit the ground with a clang that echoed through the tent, and then you were pressing yourself against his gambeson, the padded fabric still damp with his sweat, the heat of his body seeping through to meet your own. Your hands slid down his chest, over the hard planes of muscle, down his stomach, lower—

"Gods," you whispered, your forehead dropping to his chest as your palm pressed against the thick ridge of his erection through his breeches. He was hard as iron, hot even through the fabric, and he twitched against your touch. "Do you feel what you do to me? Do you have any idea how much I want you?"

His hands—still gauntleted, curse him—slid down your sides, over your hips, and settled on the curve of your backside. He pulled you flush against him, grinding his hardness against your belly, and there was no hiding what this was doing to him. The thick length of him pressed against you, and you whimpered at the feel of it, at the promise of being filled.

"I have some idea," he murmured against your hair, his voice strained. "I have been half-hard since the first tilt, watching you watch me. Do you know how difficult it is to ride with a cockstand?"

"Then why are you still wearing so many clothes?"

You dropped to your knees. His hands hovered in the air where you had been standing, and he looked down at you with an expression that was equal parts shock and raw, naked want. His cock was at eye level now, straining obscenely against his breeches, and you could see the damp spot where his arousal had already begun to leak through the fabric.

"You are kneeling in front of me." His voice was barely a whisper, rough and desperate. "In a tourney tent. Where anyone could walk in. Where anyone could hear you when I make you scream."

"Then you had better be quick about deciding what comes next." You pulled one greave free and started on the other, your fingers brushing deliberately against the inside of his thigh as you worked. He shuddered. "Though I should warn you—I'm not feeling particularly quiet tonight. And I'm not feeling particularly quick. When you finally put your cock inside me, I intend to take my time."

The second greave came off. You stayed on your knees, your hands resting on his armored thighs, your face tilted up to meet his gaze, your lips parted and your eyes heavy-lidded with want. The candles flickered. The shadows danced. And Valarr Targaryen looked down at you like you were the most terrifying, wonderful thing he had ever seen like he wanted to devour you whole.

"Stand up," he said, his voice rough as gravel.

"Make me."

He reached down and pulled you to your feet in one motion, his hands under your arms, and then his mouth was on yours again and you were being walked backward toward the cot in the corner of the tent. Your back hit the tent pole, and he pressed himself against you, one armored thigh sliding between your legs and grinding against your aching cunt through the layers of your gown. The pressure was maddening, not nearly enough, and the sound you made was absolutely shameless, a desperate, keening moan that would have been heard three tents away if anyone had been listening.

"Yes," you gasped, arching against him, rolling your hips to grind against his thigh. "Yes, please, yes, right there, gods, Valarr—"

He kissed down your throat, his teeth grazing your pulse point, his tongue soothing the sting, and you dug your fingers into his shoulders through the gambeson, your nails biting into the fabric.

"I want you," you said, the words tumbling out of you like a prayer. "I have wanted you since the first tilt. I have wanted you since I woke up this morning wet and aching from dreams of you. I want you all the time, Valarr, every moment of every day. I want your mouth on my breasts. I want your fingers inside me. I want your cock so deep I can feel you in my throat. I want you to fuck me until I cannot remember my own name, until my voice is hoarse from screaming yours, until I am so full of your seed that it takes days to stop feeling it drip out of me—"

He stopped. His mouth stilled against your collarbone. His thigh stopped its maddening pressure between your legs. His hands, which had been sliding down to the small of your back, went still.

"What—"

"My love."

The tone made you freeze. It was tender. Affectionate. Entirely too calm for a man whose cock had been pressed against your belly moments ago, hard and wanting.

You looked up. His eyes were soft now, the hunger banked, replaced by something warm and unbearably fond. And lurking in the corner of his mouth was that quirk, that maddening, insufferable little quirk that meant he was about to say something you did not want to hear.

"I am so very tired."

The words did not register at first. You blinked, your body still humming with unspent desire, your cunt still clenching around nothing, your lips still tingling from his kiss. "What?"

"The armor. You cannot imagine. I have been carrying it all day in this heat. Every muscle in my body aches. My shoulders. My back. My..." He gestured vaguely downward. "...everything."

"I will soothe your muscles. I will soothe every part of you. That is precisely what I am trying to do." You pressed your palm against the hard length of him through his breeches to emphasize your point. He was still rock hard. Still twitching at your touch. "This does not feel like a man who is too tired."

His smile widened. He was enjoying this. You could see it in his eyes, the way the blue one sparkled with mischief and the brown one warmed with suppressed laughter. He was enjoying this entirely too much.

"You are very sweet," he said, and leaned down to press a kiss, soft, chaste, utterly infuriating, to your forehead. Then he gently removed your hand from his erection, his fingers wrapping around your wrist with infuriating tenderness. "But I fear I would be poor company. I can barely keep my eyes open. A man of two and twenty is not so spry as he once was. The spirit is willing, but the flesh..." He heaved a dramatic sigh. "The flesh is very, very tired."

"You are two and twenty. And your flesh is very clearly willing."

"An old two and twenty. The joints begin to protest. It is a terrible thing. The maesters have warned me about overexertion."

"Valarr Targaryen, I swear to every god in the Seven Kingdoms, if you do not put your cock inside me right now—"

"Perhaps tomorrow, my love." He stepped back, "After a proper night's rest. When my strength has returned. Then I will be able to give you the attention you deserve." His voice dropped, his eyes sweeping over your flushed face and heaving chest and the visible stiffness of your nipples through your gown. "Every. Single. Bit. Of it. I will take my time with you. Make you scream until you cannot remember your own name—wasn't that what you wanted? But I will only do it properly when I am not about to collapse from exhaustion."

He was already moving toward the armor stand, where a simple dark tunic and breeches lay waiting. You stood frozen in place, surrounded by the pieces of his discarded armor, your body still humming with unspent desire, your soaked smallclothes clinging to your heated flesh, your lips still tingling from his kiss.

"You cannot be serious."

He pulled the tunic over his head with deliberate, unhurried movements, covering the sweat-damp linen of his gambeson. He turned back to you, looking for all the world like a man without a care, his hair still tousled and that silver streak falling roguishly across his brow. The bulge in his breeches had—through what must have been monumental effort of will—begun to subside.

"I am always serious," he said, utterly failing to keep the mirth from his voice. "I shall send for wine. Something cool, to help with the heat. You look rather flushed, my love. And your breathing is quite... irregular. Have you been sitting in the sun? Perhaps you should lie down. In the cot. Alone. To recover your strength."

Your mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I have not been sitting in the sun. I have been sitting in the royal box watching my husband ride like a god of war and thinking about how much I wanted him to bend me over the railing and—"

"Careful," he said, raising a finger, his expression one of mock concern. "The canvas walls, remember? And I am so very weary I might faint at the details. Think of my delicate constitution."

You picked up the nearest object—a gauntlet—and hurled it at his head.

He caught it. One handed. Without looking away from your face. The man had been trained by knights of the Kingsguard since he could walk, and he caught it like it was a ball tossed by a child. He turned the gauntlet over in his hands, his smile widening into something that was pure, unrepentant mischief.

"Tomorrow, my love," he said, his voice dropping into something lower, something that promised and teased in equal measure. His eyes swept over you, lingering on your parted lips, on the flush that extended down your throat, on the way your hands were still clenched into fists at your sides. "I give you my word. Tomorrow, I will make you forget your own name. Tomorrow, I will have you in every way you described and several you have not yet imagined. Tomorrow, you will be so thoroughly satisfied that you will not be able to look at a tourney field without blushing for the rest of your life."

"Tomorrow," you repeated, your voice flat with disbelief and frustration and—gods help you—reluctant amusement.

"Tomorrow," he confirmed. And then he was at the tent flap, lifting the canvas, pausing just long enough to look back over his shoulder. His eyes raked over you one last time, and there was a flash of heat in them—a glimpse of the hunger he was so carefully restraining, a promise that he was suffering too, that every moment of this tease was costing him as much as it was costing you.

"Dream of me," he said, his voice a low, rough murmur that sent one last shiver down your spine. "Dream of what I'm going to do to you. In detail. I want a full report in the morning." And he winked.

The canvas fell closed behind him. You stood alone in the silence of the tent, surrounded by candlesmoke and the scent of him, your body still aching and your pride still smarting and your heart still racing and your cunt still throbbing with the orgasm he had denied you.

"Tomorrow," you muttered to the empty air, already beginning to smile despite yourself—a slow, predatory smile that promised retribution. "We shall see about tomorrow, my prince. You have made a grave tactical error. You have given me an entire night to plan." And somewhere outside the tent, you could have sworn you heard him laugh.

—

You woke to heat, a deep, liquid heat that was already pooling low in your belly, already drawing your thighs apart with an urgency that bordered on involuntary, already dragging you up from the depths of a dream you couldn't quite remember, a dream full of shadows and steel and a voice murmuring promises against your skin. Your body was responding before your mind could catch up, back arching slightly off the furs, fingers twisting in the linen sheets, a soft, confused sound escaping your lips that was half whimper, half question.

And then you felt it. The slow, deliberate, devastating drag of a tongue through your most intimate folds.

Your eyes flew open with a gasp that tore from somewhere deep in your chest. The world was waking up around you, ordinary and routine and utterly indifferent to the fact that beneath the furs, between your legs, was a head of brown hair with a distinctive streak of silver gold threading back from the temple like a bolt of lightning frozen in time.

"Valarr—" His name came out as a croak, half confusion, half moan, because his tongue had just circled the sensitive bud at the apex of your sex with devastating precision and your hips bucked entirely without your permission, your thighs clamping briefly against his ears before he pressed them back open with firm, unhurried hands. "What—what are you—isn't it—oh gods—"

He did not lift his head. He did not stop. He did not even acknowledge that you had spoken beyond a low, pleased hum that vibrated against your cunt and made your eyes roll back. His tongue flattened and dragged upward through your folds with a languid, unhurried thoroughness that spoke of a man who had all the time in the world and intended to use every single moment of it to reduce you to incoherence. One of his hands was splayed across your lower belly, holding you steady, pinning you to the cot with a casual possession that made your blood sing. The other was hooked under your right thigh, fingers dimpling your flesh, keeping you spread open for his attentions with an implacable gentleness that was somehow more devastating than force.

"Good morrow," he murmured against your cunt, the words shaped directly into your slick, heated flesh, and the vibration of his voice made you gasp and clutch at the furs beneath you.

"Isn't it—" You lost the words entirely as his tongue slipped inside you, just briefly, a teasing thrust that curled upward and made your hips roll in a helpless, seeking rhythm. "Isn't it a jousting day? The—the lists—you should be—you should be preparing—"

He hummed against you, a low sound of consideration, and the vibration coupled with the slow circle his tongue was tracing around your pearl nearly made you forget your own name, let alone your question. "The jousts have been suspended."

Your mind, hazy with pleasure and sleep and the insistent, expert pressure of his mouth, struggled to process this information with anything resembling coherence. "Suspended? Why would they—oh, right there, don't stop, please don't stop—why would they suspend the jousts?"

"The Bright Prince," Valarr said, pausing just long enough to press a hot, open mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh, his stubble rasping against your sensitive skin and leaving a trail of pleasant friction in its wake, "has demanded a trial of seven."

"Who—Aerion?" You propped yourself up on your elbows, looking down at him through the disheveled curtain of your hair. His mismatched eyes gleamed up at you from between your thighs, one the deep blue of sapphires, one the warm brown of aged whisky, both filled with a lazy, predatory satisfaction that made your stomach flip and your cunt clench around nothing. "Aerion demanded a trial of seven? Against whom? Why? What in the seven hells happened while I was asleep?"

Valarr sighed, a warm exhale against your slick, swollen folds that made you shiver from your crown to your toes. "A hedge knight. Ser Duncan the Tall. He struck Aerion to defend a puppeteer girl, and now my dear cousin demands blood and calls it justice." He pressed another kiss to your mound, the tip of his nose nudging against the thatch of curls there. "He has accused the hedge knight of assault and the knight has demanded a trial by combat. Aerion, being Aerion, has escalated it to a trial of seven."

"That's—that's absurd, Aerion is—" You gasped sharply as his tongue dipped back into you, long and slow and curling, cutting off your outrage with a wave of pleasure that made your elbows tremble. "Valarr, I'm trying to—to care about this, it's important, you must let me—"

"I am between your legs," he said, his voice muffled against your cunt, his tongue tracing idle patterns through your folds that made rational thought nearly impossible, "with my tongue inside my wife, and she is asking about my cousin."

"You cannot simply—wake me up like this and expect me not to—to have questions about a trial of seven when—oh, gods—"

He had found your pearl again, circling it with the very tip of his tongue, a feather light touch that somehow managed to be devastating in its precision. Your elbows gave out. You collapsed back against the pillows with a moan that was frankly indecent, one hand flying to his hair, your fingers threading through the brown strands and brushing against that distinctive silver streak that marked him as surely as a banner marked an army. He made a sound of deep, masculine approval against your flesh and redoubled his efforts, his tongue working you with a rhythm that was devastatingly precise, alternating between broad, flat strokes that covered your entire cunt and focused, pointed flicks against your pearl that made sparks dance behind your closed eyelids.

"I am trying," he said between strokes, his voice low and rough with satisfaction, "to apologize for yesterday. For my behavior. For my cruelty."

"You are trying," you managed, your voice breathless and trembling and utterly lacking the sharp edge you wanted it to have, "to distract me from being angry with you. You're trying to lick your way out of the trouble you caused."

He paused, just for a moment, and looked up at you with an expression of mock-innocence that was entirely undermined by the slickness glistening on his lips and chin. "Is it working?"

Your hips were rolling against his mouth now, your body chasing its pleasure without any input from your pride, without any regard for your dignity. "No. Absolutely not. I am still—I am still furious with you—"

He sucked your pearl between his lips, gentle at first and then not, a sudden increase in pressure that bordered on overwhelming, and the sound you made was absolutely humiliating, a keening, desperate cry that you would deny to your dying day.

"You sound furious," he agreed, releasing you with a wet, obscene pop, his voice dripping with satisfaction and something deeper, something hungrier.

"You left me," you gasped, your fingers tightening in his hair, pulling just hard enough to make him hiss. "You left me aching and desperate and so wet I was dripping down my own thighs, and you winked at me like it was a game, like I was a piece on a cyvasse board you'd already captured—"

"It was a game." He dragged his tongue through your folds again, slow and thorough, from your entrance all the way up to your pearl, savoring you like a man savoring the finest vintage. "A very enjoyable game. One I intend to play again."

"For you."

"For both of us." He pressed a kiss to your mound, then another just below your navel, his stubble scraping pleasantly against your skin, leaving a trail of tingling sensation. "I believe the terms of our game included a promise for tomorrow. And tomorrow, my sweet wife, has arrived. I woke before dawn thinking about this. Thinking about you. Thinking about how you looked when I left you—flushed and furious and so gods-damned beautiful I nearly turned around and took you right there on the floor of my tent."

You yanked his hair. Not hard enough to truly hurt, but hard enough to pull his mouth away from where you desperately, desperately wanted it. He looked up at you, his lips glistening with your arousal, his chin wet, his eyes dark and amused and slightly reproachful at being denied his prize.

"I have not forgiven you," you informed him, proud of how steady your voice sounded despite the fact that your thighs were trembling and your cunt was clenching around nothing and every nerve in your body was screaming for him to put his mouth back where it belonged.

"So you've said." He tried to lower his head again, but you tightened your grip, keeping him in place. A flash of something dangerous crossed his features, annoyance, yes, but also interest. He liked this. He liked you fighting back. It was, after all, why he had married you.

"You teased me," you said, and now your voice was steadier, fueled by the righteous indignation that had kept you awake half the night. "You worked me up until I was practically begging—until I was saying please and Valarr and I need you—until I would have done anything, anything you asked, just to feel you inside me. And then you patted my head like a well-behaved hound and sent me to bed alone, aching and empty and so frustrated I thought I might scream."

"I kissed your forehead."

"Worse." You glared down at him, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the fact that you were still flushed and panting and spread open beneath him, your slickness still visible on his face, your nipples peaked and visible through the thin linen of your shift. "It was a forehead kiss. The forehead kiss of a man who knows exactly what he's doing and is enjoying it far, far too much." You leaned up slightly, your grip still tight in his hair. "Do you have any idea how long I lay awake last night after you left me? Do you have any idea what I did, alone in your tent, thinking about you?"

His smile widened, slow and wolfish. "Tell me."

"Hours." You released his hair, letting your hand trail down the side of his face, tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the proud cheekbones, the slightly too full lips that were still wet with you. "Hours, Valarr. Thinking about what I was going to do to you today. Planning. Scheming. Touching myself in the dark while I imagined all the ways I would make you pay for your cruelty."

His eyes darkened further, the pupils swallowing the irises. "You touched yourself."

"I did. Twice. It wasn't enough." You let your hand drop back to the furs. "Nothing I did to myself was enough. That's what you did to me. You ruined me for my own fingers, and then you left me alone."

"Planning and scheming," he murmured, pressing a kiss to your hip bone that was almost reverent. "And touching yourself in the dark. That sounds very industrious. What did you decide? What punishment have you devised for your wicked husband?"

"I decided you need to suffer the way I suffered." You watched his face carefully, saw the flicker of interest, of anticipation. "I decided I would make you want me so badly you couldn't think straight, and then I would deny you. I decided I would tie you to this cot and touch myself in front of you and let you watch, and watch, and watch, and never once let you inside me. I decided I would make you beg the way you made me beg."

He was very still now, his breath warm against your hip, his eyes fixed on your face with an intensity that made your heart race. "That would be a cruel punishment indeed."

"You taught me cruelty. You should be proud."

"I am." He nipped at the sensitive skin just above your hip bone, hard enough to make you jump and gasp. "I am so very proud. My wife, a quick study in vengeance." His tongue soothed the sting of his teeth. "But I notice you are not tying me to the cot. You are not touching yourself. You are not denying me anything. You are lying here, spread open, wet and wanting, letting me taste you."

You smiled. It was not a sweet smile. "Where is your armor?" you asked.

Valarr blinked. The question was so incongruous, so utterly unrelated to the situation at hand, his face still wet with you, your thighs still spread, his cock visibly straining against his smallclothes, that for a moment he simply stared at you.

"What?"

"Your armor. The black plate. The gauntlets. The gorget. All of it. Where is it?"

"In the tourney tent, I imagine." He spoke slowly, warily, as if you were a strange beast that might bite him. "My squire would have cleaned and laid it out for inspection, as he does every morning before a day of—" He stopped. His eyes narrowed with suspicion and something that might have been dawning comprehension. "Why?"

You released his hair and sat up slowly, pushing yourself back against the pillows, drawing your knees together with a deliberate, pointed movement that made his eyes flick down to your thighs with undisguised regret. You looked at him with an expression you had been perfecting since last night, sweet on the surface, sharp beneath, like honey hiding a blade.

"Take me there."

"To the tourney tent?" His voice had gone very careful, very controlled.

"To the tourney tent. Where your armor is. Where your squire has laid it out so carefully."

His brows drew together, a furrow appearing between them. "You want me to stop—" he glanced meaningfully at your thighs, at the evidence of his attentions still glistening on your skin, at the obvious, aching hard on tenting his smallclothes— "this, and walk across the tourney grounds in full view of half the realm, to my tent, because you want to see my armor?"

"I want you to put it on."

The words hung in the air between you like a challenge, like a thrown gauntlet.

Something flickered in his eyes. "You want me to put on my armor."

"Not all of it." You let your voice drop into something lower, something darker, something that made his pupils dilate and his breath catch almost imperceptibly. "Just enough. Just the pieces I want."

He was silent for a long moment, studying your face, reading the intention there. Then he sat back on his heels, still kneeling between your legs, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The gesture was casual, almost lazy, but his eyes had gone very dark.

"You want me to fuck you in my armor." It was not a question.

"I want you to finish what you started yesterday." You sat up fully, drawing your knees together, letting the shift fall down over your thighs, letting him see that you were still in control of this situation despite the fact that your thighs were still slick and your heart was still racing and your cunt was still aching with the emptiness he had left. "You were in your armor yesterday. Every time I looked at you—on the field, in the tent, standing over me with your gauntlets dripping water—you were in your armor. Every fantasy I had last night, alone in this bed with my fingers between my legs, you were wearing your armor. I imagined the sound you would make when you walked toward me. I imagined the cold of the metal against my bare skin. I imagined you taking me in your armor, still sweating from the tourney, still smelling of leather and victory." She paused, watching his face, watching the way his jaw had tightened and his hands had curled into fists against his thighs. "And then you took it off piece by piece and left me standing in the wreckage of it while you walked away in a plain linen tunic like a common hedge knight."

"Like a hedge knight." His voice was flat, but there was an edge to it now, a sharpening.

"A hedge knight would have stayed and finished what he started. A hedge knight would have put his mouth to better use. A hedge knight would have fucked me until I couldn't walk straight instead of patting me on the head and sending me to bed." You raised an eyebrow at him, letting the challenge hang in the air. "So yes. I want you in your armor. I want to feel the steel against my bare skin. I want to hear it creak and clank while you move inside me. I want to remember exactly who I married—the prince who rides like a god of war and fucks like one too, not the man who is too tired and too smug and too busy playing games to bed his wife properly." You tilted your head, letting your gaze drift pointedly to the obvious bulge in his smallclothes. "Unless, of course, you are still tired. Unless yesterday's exertions were too much for you. In which case, I am sure there is a cot somewhere you can nap on while I find other, more satisfying ways to amuse myself at this trial of seven."

The threat landed exactly as intended.

His jaw tightened until you could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin. His hands flexed against his thighs, the knuckles whitening. His breath came faster, his chest rising and falling beneath the thin linen of his tunic. And when he spoke, his voice was a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to vibrate in the very air between you, a sound that sent a shiver straight to your core and made your nipples tighten to aching points.

"Get dressed."

You smiled. Sweetly. Innocently. The smile of a woman who had just won the first tilt of the day and was already planning the second.

"As my prince commands," you murmured, and swung your legs over the side of the cot with deliberate, unhurried grace.

He caught your wrist before you could stand. The movement was so fast you barely saw it—one moment he was kneeling on the bed, the next he was pressed against your back, his chest against your spine, his mouth at your ear, his fingers wrapped around your wrist like a manacle of warm, living steel. You could feel every inch of him through the thin linen of his tunic, the hard planes of his chest, the ridged muscles of his abdomen, and pressing insistently against the curve of your lower back, the hot, rigid length of his cock, still trapped in his smallclothes, still achingly hard.

"You are going to regret this," he murmured, his lips brushing the sensitive shell of your ear, his breath warm and uneven, his voice a promise and a threat and a prayer all tangled together. "When I get you in that tent, surrounded by my armor, with no one to hear you scream and nowhere to run and nothing between us but steel and need—you are going to regret every single moment of bratty defiance you have given me this morning. Every sharp word. Every wicked look. Every time you pulled my hair and stopped my tongue and denied me what is mine."

His free hand slid around your waist, palm flat against your belly, fingers splayed wide, pulling you back against him so you could feel exactly how hard he was, exactly how much he wanted you.

"I am going to bend you over my shield," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than a shout, "and fuck you until you cannot remember your own name. I am going to take you against the armor stand and let the whole camp hear you scream. I am going to put you on your knees in the middle of my war gear and use that clever mouth until tears are running down your cheeks and you are begging me—begging me, the way you made me beg with your eyes yesterday—to let you come. And I am not going to let you. Not until you have apologized. Not until you have taken back every insolent word. Not until you have admitted, out loud, that you are mine and that no one else—no hedge knight, no high lord, no god on earth or in the heavens—could ever satisfy you the way I do."

His teeth grazed your earlobe, a sharp, bright spark of sensation that made you gasp and arch against him involuntarily.

"Do you understand me?"

You turned your head just enough to meet his eyes. Blue and brown. Burning with a fire that matched your own. The dragon's eyes, you thought, and felt a thrill of something that was half fear and half desperate, aching want.

"Prove it," you said, your voice steady despite the trembling in your thighs. "Put on the armor. Show me the prince I married. And then maybe—maybe—I'll let you have what you want."

You pulled your wrist free with a sharp twist, stood, and began to dress with hands that only trembled a little. Behind you, you heard him exhale, a long, slow breath, the breath of a man steadying himself for battle.

—

Valarr walked a half-step behind you the entire way, close enough that the heat radiating from his body seeped through the thin fabric of your gown like a fever you couldn't shake, close enough that when you passed through a narrow gap between two pavilions his hand found the curve of your backside and squeezed hard enough to make you stumble mid stride, his fingers digging into the soft flesh with proprietary confidence before delivering a sharp, stinging slap that echoed in the confined space. You shot him a glare over your shoulder, heat flooding your cheeks. He smiled back, utterly unrepentant, his eyes glittering with dark promise and the kind of smug satisfaction that made you want to slap him and kiss him in equal measure.

The camp churned with the news of the trial of seven like a kicked anthill. Everywhere you looked, men and women clustered in tight knots, speaking in low, urgent voices that hummed with equal parts dread and morbid fascination. You caught fragments as you passed, snippets of conversation that floated past your ears barely registered—"Aerion Brightflame," spoken with the particular revulsion reserved for mad dogs, and "the hedge knight, seven feet if he's an inch, and the Reachmen have flocked to his banner," and "who in the Seven Hells will stand for the accuser against a prince of the blood?"—but the words washed over you like water over stone. Your focus had narrowed to a single point, a lodestone pulling you inexorably forward: the black and red pennants of the Targaryen tourney tent, snapping and twisting in the morning breeze ahead, their fabric tongues of dragonfire against the pale blue sky.

His squire was waiting outside, a gangly boy of perhaps fifteen with anxious eyes that darted about like startled sparrows and a perpetually worried expression etched into the soft planes of a face still waiting for its first proper shave. He straightened so abruptly when he saw you both approaching that he nearly tripped over his own feet, relief flickering across his features like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.

"Your Grace—"

"Leave us," Valarr said, not breaking stride, not sparing the boy so much as a glance. "Stand guard. No one enters this tent. Not the hand himself. Not the High Septon. Not the Stranger incarnate. Do you understand?"

The boy's eyes went very wide, the whites showing all around the dark irises. He swallowed audibly, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing. "Yes, my prince. No one. Absolutely no one. I will guard the tent with my life. I swear it on my mother's—"

"See that you do."

Valarr held the tent flap open for you, the heavy canvas lifted high on his forearm, and you stepped inside, the cooler shadows of the interior washing over your flushed skin like a balm.

The space within was exactly as you remembered it from yesterday, you walked to the center of the tent, the trampled grass soft beneath your slippers, and turned to face him with deliberate slowness, letting him see the curve of your smile, the arch of your brow.

"Well, my prince," you said, your voice pitched light and teasing, a silk-wrapped needle, "shall we begin?"

He was already reaching for the gambeson draped over the stand, the padded linen garment rustling as he lifted it. "You wanted to put me in my armor. Put me in my armor. Every piece. Every buckle. Every strap."

"I want you to tell me," you said, stepping close enough that the hem of your gown brushed against his boots, taking the padded garment from his hands with deliberate slowness, your fingers dragging across his knuckles, "what you're going to do to me. Every detail. Every moment. While I dress you piece by piece."

His eyes darkened, the pupils swallowing the violet and the black alike. "You want a story?"

"I want a promise." You shook out the gambeson, holding it open for him. "I want to hear exactly what's waiting for me. Consider it... motivation to survive the day."

He slid his arms into the padded sleeves, and you stepped behind him to help guide the garment over the broad expanse of his shoulders, your fingers brushing the bare, warm skin of his arms, the corded muscle that flexed beneath your touch like a living thing. The gambeson was still cool from the night air, but beneath it, his skin was furnace-hot, radiating warmth through the padded linen. You moved around to his front and began to lace the garment closed, starting at his sternum and working your way down with excruciating slowness, your knuckles pressing against his chest with every pass of the cord, feeling the steady, accelerating thunder of his heartbeat beneath your touch.

"When I have you," he began, his voice dropping to that low, rough register that vibrated in your bones, "the first thing I am going to do is put you on your knees."

You sank down before him, not in obedience but to reach for the sabatons, kneeling at his feet to fasten the articulated steel shoes around his boots. The position was not lost on him; you watched his hands flex at his sides, the tendons standing out against the skin, watched his jaw tighten as he looked down at you kneeling before him with your hair spilling over your shoulders and your face level with his hips. "On my knees," you repeated, your voice soft and feigned innocent. "And then?"

"And then I am going to watch you take my cock out of my breeches. Slowly. No rushing, no tearing at the laces like you're unwrapping a gift. I want to see your hands on me—both hands, your fingers wrapping around my length, your thumbs tracing the ridge of the head. I want to see your face when you first feel how hard I am for you, how much I've been aching for you since I opened my eyes this morning." His voice dropped to something barely above a growl. "I've been half-hard since I woke up thinking about the sounds you made last night. Since I tasted you on my tongue. Gods, I can still taste you—salt and sweet and something I can't name but can't forget. It's been driving me mad all morning."

You fastened the second sabaton, your fingers steady despite the molten heat building low in your belly, spreading outward like wine spilled on silk. You reached for the first greave, the shaped steel plate cool against your palms. "Go on," you said, and your voice emerged steadier than you felt. "Tell me more."

"Then I'm going to put my hand in your hair—" he reached down and suited the gesture to the word, his fingers threading through the hair at your crown, tightening just enough to tilt your head back, to force your gaze up to meet his, "—and guide your mouth to me. And you are going to take me as deep as you can, until your lips meet the base of my shaft and your nose presses against my belly. I want to feel the back of your throat. I want to feel you swallow around me. I want to see tears in your eyes—not from pain, but from the effort, from wanting to take all of me, from being so full of me you can barely breathe." He paused while you buckled the first greave around his shin, your fingers working the leather straps through the buckles, pulling them snug against the padded linen beneath. "But I'm not going to let you finish me that way. Not today."

"No?" You looked up at him through your lashes, your hands pausing on the second greave.

"No." The word was a growl that seemed to originate somewhere deep in his chest, rumbling through the air between you. "Today, I want to be inside you when I spend. I want to feel you come around my cock, feel you clench and pulse and cry out my name so loudly that the whole Red Keep knows who you belong to. I want to fill you up until it drips down your thighs, the way you said you wanted yesterday, the way you whispered in my ear when you thought you were being scandalous. Every word you said to me yesterday—I remember all of it. Every filthy, beautiful, desperate word. And I intend to make every single one of them come true before the sun sets."

You rose, your body humming with anticipation like a plucked harp string, and reached for the cuirass. The black steel was cool and heavy against your palms as you lifted it from the table, the three-headed dragon crest seeming to watch you with knowing ruby eyes. You pressed the breastplate into place against his chest, and he held it there while you moved around behind him to begin fastening the side buckles. His eyes tracked you in the polished reflection of the armor, never leaving your face as your fingers worked methodically down his sides, pulling each strap through its buckle, testing each fastening with a sharp tug.

"Then I'm going to bend you over the armor stand," he said, his voice a low, dark rumble that vibrated through the steel beneath your hands, through your fingertips, into the marrow of your bones. "And I'm going to push your skirts up around your waist—slowly, so I can watch the fabric slide up the backs of your thighs, so I can see the curve of your arse inch by inch before I bare you completely. And I'm going to take you from behind, standing up, with my armor still on. You'll feel the cold steel of my cuirass against your back, hard and unyielding. You'll feel the chill of my greaves against your calves. You'll smell the metal and the leather mixed with the scent of us. But inside you, I'll be hot. Hot and hard and so deep you'll feel me in your throat, in your chest, in the very core of you."

Your breath caught in your chest like a trapped bird. Your fingers fumbled on the last buckle, the leather slipping through your grasp before you caught it again, and you heard him exhale, not quite a laugh, but something darkly satisfied, something that said he knew exactly what his words were doing to you.

"Then," he continued, relentless, merciless, "when I've had my fill of watching myself disappear inside you from behind, I'm going to carry you to the cot and put you on your back. And I'm going to take off my gauntlets so I can feel your skin with my bare hands. I'm going to hold you down, one hand between your breasts, pinning you to the mattress. And I'm going to fuck you slowly. So slowly you'll feel every inch of me, every ridge, every pulse. So slowly you'll beg me to go faster. And I won't. Not until you apologize for every bratty, insolent, maddening thing you said to me this morning."

You finished the last buckle of the cuirass with hands that trembled ever so slightly—you knew he could see it, could feel it in the minute vibrations transmitted through the steel—and reached for the gorget. The throat armor was shaped to cradle his neck, to protect the vulnerable hollow where his pulse beat visibly beneath the skin. "Apologize?" you managed, your voice emerging breathier than you intended, a half-octave higher than your usual register. "For what, precisely?"

"For pulling my hair when you knew it would drive me to distraction. For denying me what we both wanted because you were enjoying the game too much to end it. For threatening to find satisfaction elsewhere." His eyes burned into yours, twin flames of violet and shadow, and his voice dropped to something barely above a whisper, something that was somehow more commanding than any shout could be. "You are going to say 'I am yours, Valarr, and no one else's. My body is yours. My pleasure is yours. Everything I am is yours.' And then, and only then, will I let you come. Not a moment before. No matter how much you plead."

You swallowed hard. Your throat was dry as parchment left in the sun. "And if I refuse? If I'm stubborn and willful and refuse to give you the satisfaction?"

His smile was slow and wolfish and altogether dangerous, the kind of smile that would have made a lesser woman run for the hills. "Then I'll keep going until you don't. I can do this all day, sweetheart. I can bring you to the edge again and again and again until you forget your own name, until you forget why you were resisting in the first place, until the only word left in your vocabulary is 'please.' And then I'll make you wait a little longer, just because I can."

The gorget was in place, the final buckle secured beneath his left ear. Only the gauntlets remained on the table, and the helm—a sculpted thing of black steel with a dragon crest sweeping back from the crown like frozen fire. You reached for the gauntlets, the articulated steel fingers clicking softly against each other, but he caught your wrists in his bare hands before you could lift them.

"Leave them," he said, his voice rough as stone dragged over gravel. "I want to feel you. I've been waiting all morning to feel you."

And then his mouth was on yours. The kiss was a conquest and surrender woven together into a single act. His hands slid into your hair, tilting your head back to expose the vulnerable column of your throat before his mouth descended. His tongue swept into your mouth with a hunger that bordered on violence, tasting of the wine he'd drunk before you arrived, tasting of want and need and barely leashed desperation. The steel of his cuirass pressed cold and unyielding against your breasts through the thin fabric of your gown, and the contrast of sensations, cold metal against your front, hot mouth against your lips, hard steel against your soft flesh, soft tongue sliding against yours, made your head spin like you'd drunk an entire flagon of the Arbor gold on the table.

You kissed him back with everything you had, with every ounce of frustration and desire and desperate wanting that had been building since yesterday, since this morning, since the moment you'd first laid eyes on him. Your hands fisted in the fabric of his gambeson where it showed above the cuirass, pulling him closer, closer, until the steel was pressed so tight against you that you could feel the steel imprinting on your skin through your dress.

"Gods," you gasped against his mouth, pulling back just far enough to drag air into your burning lungs, "I want you. I want you now. Right now."

"Then have me."

He walked you backward with the steady, unstoppable momentum of a tide, his armored body a wall of heat and steel pushing against your softness, until your spine hit the armor stand. The wooden frame rattled violently, a pauldron clattering to the trampled grass with a dull thud, a vambrace following it a moment later, and then his hands were on your hips, the heat of his bare palms searing through your gown, lifting you onto the edge of the campaign table with effortless strength. Your skirts bunched around your thighs, the fabric rucking up past your knees, past midthigh, until the cool morning air kissed skin that was already flushed and feverish. His armored body pressed between your legs, the steel of his cuirass shockingly cold against the heated, sensitive skin of your inner thighs, and you wrapped your legs around his waist with a desperation that surprised you, pulling him closer, the ridges of the armor pressing into your soft flesh in ways that would leave marks, and you didn't care, you didn't care at all.

"Tell me you want this," he said, his voice ragged, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath coming in harsh pants that mingled with your own. "Tell me you want me. I need to hear you say it. I need to know this isn't just—I need to know you want this as much as I do."

"I want you," you breathed, the words spilling out of you like water from a cracked dam, unstoppable and honest and raw. "I want you all the time, every moment of every day, until it drives me to distraction. I am yours, Valarr Targaryen. I am yours and no one else's, now and always, today and tomorrow and every day after. My body is yours. My pleasure is yours. Everything I am is yours."

He kissed you again, harder, more desperately, the careful control he'd maintained all morning finally snapping like an overwound harp string. One hand left your hip and you felt him fumbling between your bodies, working at the laces of his breeches with urgent, unsteady fingers, and then he was free, and you felt the hot, hard length of him pressing against your inner thigh, leaving a trail of slick moisture against your skin.

The first press of him against your entrance made you gasp into his mouth. You were still slick from his attentions this morning, your body still aching and empty from the interrupted promise of the night before, still desperate and ready despite—or perhaps because of—everything. And when he pushed inside you—one long, slow, relentless thrust that filled you completely, that stretched you in ways that walked the perfect line between pleasure and exquisite ache—you cried out so loudly you were certain the entire camp must have heard, certain the squire outside the tent must be blushing to the roots of his hair, certain the news would spread through the tourney grounds faster than word of the trial itself.

"Yes," you sobbed, your head falling back, your nails digging into the back of his neck hard enough to leave crescents in his skin, your inner muscles clenching around the sudden, overwhelming fullness of him. "Yes, yes, yes—"

He took you with a ferocity that drove the breath from your lungs in sharp, punched-out cries, each thrust hitting deep enough to make your vision blur at the edges. His bare hands gripped your hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh hard enough to bruise, pulling you onto him with every driving thrust, meeting your body with his own in a rhythm that was more storm than song. The armor stand rattled and creaked beneath you with the force of his movements, the remaining pieces of armor clanking against each other like discordant bells, and you had to brace one hand behind you on the table to keep from being driven backward onto the scattered steel.

The sound of it was utterly obscene, and you were past caring. The clank of steel against steel. The creak of leather straps straining. The wet, rhythmic slide of your bodies joining and parting and joining again. The raw, desperate, animal sounds tearing from your throat with every thrust, moans and gasps and half-formed words that might have been his name or might have been prayers. You wrapped your legs tighter around his waist, your ankles locking behind the small of his back, and the slight shift in angle made him hit a spot deep inside you that sent white lightning arcing up your spine, that made you scream, that made your inner muscles flutter and clench around him in involuntary spasm.

"That's it," he growled against your ear, his voice dark with satisfaction and unspent hunger. "Let them hear you. Let the whole camp hear who you belong to. Let the gods hear. I don't care. I want everyone to know."

"Valarr—Valarr—I'm going to—I'm so close, I'm going to—"

"Come for me." The command was a growl, a plea, a demand all at once. "Now. I want to feel you."

The command shattered what little control you had left. Your orgasm crashed over you like a wave in a storm, white-hot and blinding, starting somewhere deep in your core and radiating outward in pulses of pure, incandescent pleasure. You screamed his name so loudly your voice cracked and broke on the second syllable, your head thrown back, your spine arching, your body convulsing around him in rhythmic, milking pulses that drew a guttural groan from somewhere deep in his chest. The world went white at the edges, then gray, then nothing at all for a suspended moment of pure, perfect oblivion.

He followed you over the edge moments later, burying himself to the hilt inside you with a final, deep thrust, his face buried in the curve of your neck, his breath hot and ragged against your sweat-damp skin, his body shuddering with the force of his release. You felt him pulse inside you—once, twice, three times, four—felt the hot, flooding spill of his seed filling you, felt it begin to drip down your thighs even before he pulled out, a slow, warm trickle that traced paths down your trembling skin.

For a long moment, neither of you moved. The tent was filled with the sound of ragged, desperate breathing, yours, his, indistinguishable from each other, two sets of lungs working in tandem. The armor stand creaked beneath you with a final, settling groan. The fallen pauldron gleamed on the grass, its polished surface now smudged with fingerprints. Somewhere in the distance, a crier was calling something about the trial of seven, his voice high and thin and utterly irrelevant, a fly buzzing at the edge of a world that had shrunk to the space between your bodies.

Valarr lifted his head from your shoulder slowly, as if it weighed more than his helm, and looked at you with those eyes still hazy with the remnants of pleasure, still dark with hunger despite everything you'd just done, still burning with something that looked terrifyingly like devotion and his lips were kiss-swollen, and there was a mark on his neck where your nails had raked across the skin, and he was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.

"I believe," he said, his voice hoarse and scraped-raw, the words emerging between still-labored breaths, "that I owed you a proper apology. For my behavior. For my presumption. For everything."

You laughed, a breathless, exhausted, utterly satisfied sound that bubbled up from somewhere deep in your chest and emerged as something between a giggle and a sigh. The movement made him shift inside you, still half-hard, and you gasped at the oversensitive friction. "Accepted," you managed, your own voice barely more than a whisper. "Though I should warn you—if that's how you apologize, I may need to find reasons to be cross with you more often."

—

Outside the tent, the squire stood at rigid attention, his spine so straight it was on the verge of snapping, his face the color of curdled milk, his eyes fixed on the distant treeline with the desperate intensity of a man who was trying very, very hard to be somewhere else entirely. His name was Edric, he was fifteen years old, he had been in Prince Valarr's service for exactly eight months, and he was fairly certain that nothing in his life had prepared him for this.

He had heard everything. Everything. The first moan had been bad enough, a high, breathy sound that had made his ears turn pink and his gaze drop to his boots. The second moan had been worse, drawn out and trembling, followed by a rhythmic creaking that could only be the armor stand, the armor stand, gods preserve him, the very armor stand he had polished that morning, taking a structural battering it had never been designed to withstand. And then there had been words. Words. The princess had said things—things he was fairly certain he should not repeat even under threat of torture—and the prince had responded in a voice so low and rough and possessive that Edric had actually taken three involuntary steps away from the tent flap.

Now there was screaming. Not the bad kind of screaming but the kind of screaming that made his entire body flush with heat and his throat go dry and his brain very pointedly refuse to form coherent thoughts.

He was going to die. He was going to die of embarrassment right here, outside his prince's tent, and the maesters would have to invent an entirely new category of death to explain what had happened to him.

Maybe I should have become a septon, he thought miserably. Septons don't have to stand outside tents listening to—

A particularly sharp cry rang out from within, followed by the unmistakable sound of something wooden and structural creaking in rhythmic protest. Edric squeezed his eyes shut and began mentally reciting the names of all seven aspects of the Seven. Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Crone, Stranger—

The Stranger, he felt, was particularly appropriate. He was fairly certain he was about to die of embarrassment.

"VALARR—yes—right THERE—"

Edric opened his eyes and fixed them on a cloud that was drifting lazily across the morning sky. That was a nice cloud. Clouds were safe. Clouds did not make sounds that would haunt his dreams for the rest of his natural life.

He was so focused on the cloud—and on mentally reciting every prayer he knew, and on wondering whether it was possible to un-hear something through sheer force of will—that he did not notice the approach of the man until a shadow fell across him and a voice spoke from approximately two feet away.

"Where is my son's armor?"

Edric jumped approximately three feet into the air and spun around with a strangled yelp that he would deny to his dying day.

Prince Baelor Breakspear stood before him.

"Y-y-your Grace." Edric's voice cracked on every syllable, pitching upward like a boy of twelve instead of a squire of fifteen. "Prince Valarr's armor is—ah—it is—it is inside the tent. Yes. Inside. The tent. Where the armor is."

Baelor's eyes, the same deep blue as his son's left eye, narrowed slightly. "Are you quite well, lad? You look rather flushed."

"I am perfectly well, Your Grace. Perfectly. It is only the—the heat. The morning heat. Very hot this morning. Unusually hot. I was just—standing here. Guarding. As one does."

Baelor studied him for a long, uncomfortable moment, then seemed to decide that squires were simply peculiar creatures and not worth further investigation. "Good. I have need of the armor before—"

His hand was already reaching for the tent flap and Edric's soul departed his body.

"Your Grace, wait—"

Baelor stopped, his fingers an inch from the canvas. He had heard something.

A sound. A distinctly human sound. "Oh, Valarr—" The voice from within was high and breathy and unmistakably feminine, stretched taut with something between ecstasy and desperation. "Right THERE—don't stop—gods, don't you DARE stop—"

Baelor Breakspear's hand froze in midair. His fingers curled inward, retreating from the canvas as though it had suddenly burst into flame.

Edric wanted to die. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole. He wanted to be anywhere else in the Seven Kingdoms—the Wall, the deserts of Dorne, the smoking ruins of Valyria itself—anywhere but standing next to his prince's father while said prince was audibly, enthusiastically, thoroughly fucking his wife twenty feet away.

"I—Your Grace, I am under—under very strict orders—" Edric's voice was barely a whisper, his face now achieving a shade of crimson that would have impressed a painter. "No one is to enter the tent. Not anyone. Not for any reason. Those were—those were Prince Valarr's exact words. His very exact words. He was quite specific."

Another sound from within, a rhythmic creaking, the unmistakable clank of steel against something wooden, a low, rough, guttural male groan that was absolutely, undeniably, catastrophically Prince Valarr's voice.

Baelor stood frozen outside his son's tent with his mouth slightly open and his cheeks slowly, inexorably turning the color of a summer rose.

"Valarr! VALARR—I'm—I'm going to—I'm—"

A scream. Female. Ecstatic. Utterly, comprehensively unmistakable. It was the kind of scream that left nothing to the imagination—the kind of scream that painted a very detailed picture of exactly what was happening inside that tent, a picture that Edric desperately, desperately did not want to be seeing in his mind's eye.

And then, as if the scream had not been damning enough:

"VALARR! YES! YES, RIGHT THERE—FILL ME UP—DON'T STOP—"

The silence that followed was deafening.

Baelor Breakspear stared at the tent flap as though it had personally insulted his entire bloodline. His hand, still raised, slowly lowered to his side. His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment—opening, closing, opening again—like a fish that had been unexpectedly yanked from the water and was still trying to process its new reality.

"I..." He cleared his throat. "I... see."

"The armor," Edric whispered miserably, staring at the ground as though it might offer him salvation, "is... occupied, Your Grace."

Baelor's voice, when he finally found it, was remarkably steady for a man who had just been forced to confront the fact that his son was, at present, engaged in activities that would make a Dornish courtesan blush. "Occupied."

"Very occupied."

"Yes—like that—exactly like that—oh, gods, I can feel you so deep—"

"Extremely occupied," Edric amended, his voice barely audible. "Thoroughly occupied. Could not be more occupied if they tried."

A long, agonizing pause. From within the tent came the unmistakable sound of bodies shifting, the creak of the cot—the cot, gods, they had moved to the cot—and a low, breathy laugh that was definitely the princess.

"Well," Baelor said, and his voice had acquired a slightly strangled quality, as though someone had their hands wrapped around his throat, "it is... it is good that they are... that the marriage is... that they are clearly very..." He paused, searching for a word that would not make this situation worse. "...compatible.""

"Harder—HARDER—I want to feel you for DAYS—"

Baelor closed his eyes. He drew a long, slow breath through his nose. He opened his eyes again and looked at the sky as though beseeching the Seven themselves for intervention.

"Right," he said, to no one in particular. "Right. Well. I suppose... I suppose I shall find armor elsewhere. Ser Humfrey Hardyng may have something suitable. He is roughly my same proportions. Give or take. Or perhaps Lord Ashford keeps spares in the armory. For... for emergencies." He paused.

"VALARR, I'M GOING TO COME AGAIN—"

Baelor turned on his heel with the rigid, mechanical dignity of a man who had decided that the only way to survive this encounter was to pretend it had never happened. His movements were stiff, precise, the movements of a soldier retreating in good order from a battle that could not be won.

"I shall go now," he announced to the world at large. He took three long strides toward the main thoroughfare of the camp.

"Your Grace!" Edric called after him, his voice cracking with desperation. "Shall I—should I—do you want me to tell Prince Valarr that you came looking for him? When he is—when he is finished with his—with the armor?"

Baelor did not break stride. He did not slow down. He did not look back. If anything, he appeared to walk faster.

"You may tell my son," he said, his voice carrying back over his shoulder with a strained composure that was honestly quite heroic under the circumstances, "that I wish him joy of his morning. That I am pleased—very pleased—that his marriage is so... vigorous. That I am profoundly, deeply, inexpressibly glad that I did not walk into that tent. And that if either of them ever—ever—speaks of this in my presence, I shall deny it happened until my dying breath."

He paused, just for a moment, and added in a tone of immense, bone-deep exhaustion: "The Seven give me strength."

And then Prince Baelor Breakspear, the finest knight of the realm, disappeared around the corner of a supply tent with the speed of a man who had suddenly remembered an urgent appointment on the other side of the known world.

Edric stood alone, staring at the spot where his prince's father had been, listening to the sounds still emerging from within the tent—a rhythmic thumping now, another rising moan, and something that sounded distressingly like the cot beginning to splinter—and wondered if it was physically possible to die of embarrassment.

It was, he concluded, probably not possible. Which meant he would have to live with this memory for the rest of his natural life.

"Oh—oh—VALARR—"

dividers by @cafekitsune, banner idea based on @bowtiepasta 's "over my dead body", megumi based on sombr

── .✮

robert franklin knew he shouldn’t have picked you up after you shift at the furniture store, especially because kat had basically forbade him from hanging out with you but that was before.

before he called for a break he felt they so desperately needed.

“bobby?” he heard your sweet voice and felt you run a hand through his hair which brought him back from his thoughts. “que te pasa? did something happen with kat? she asked to leave early today.” (what’s wrong?)

he had not been able to think straight for the last two days — of course he couldn’t, not when you had told them you were going to move to new york for a possible acting job in a few months, not when you can possibly forget all about him.

he should have never listened to kat who had begged and begged him to help you film that stupid auditioning tape.

he smiled and shook his head, all while nervously tapping his finger onto the counter. “i actually wanted to talk to you about th-“

clark had placed a big box of lamps onto the counter so it blocked bobby’s view of you, “you think you can put these downstairs before you go?”

“pues ya me quiero ir, pero ya que.” you sighed and grabbed two of the lamps. (well i wanted to leave but since you asked.)

he had looked at bobby with a look because he knew of the situation bobby, kat and you were in — the three of you constantly going to him for his secrecy and some advice, to which the three of you never seemed to listen to anyways.

“if you love kat, you will listen to her and stop seeing that girl.” he recalled giving bobby the advice to leave you alone after hearing an argument between kat and him.

another time he could think of was when you had asked if they seemed happy together. “well they were until you came along.” and when he saw you practically frown he cleared his throat. “no offense, it’s just they’ve been arguing about you.”

you didn’t like being the reason of them having problems so when you started thinking about auditioning for a show in new york, clark encouraged it. “go for it, there’s nothing grand about this town anyways.”

clark didn’t really want to see you go, he had actually grown to like you very much — you were his best saleswoman.

way better than him anyways.

he had grown to like you but he knew you at some point would move onto something new, you had constantly told them you were never in a place for too long — you didn’t have family, not much of a friend person and you lived in an apartment close to the store so he naturally fell into a fatherly figure role for you.

then he recalled back to when kat was going on about why he just had to hire you. “because you told me you needed another girl around here, i could barely afford to pay you or bobby for helping me with my commercials but i did you a favor.”

and when he accidentally let your plans slip to kat she was overjoyed. “bobby can help her and she can finally leave!” she did a little jump and high fived him. “good work clark!”

“that’s not what i was try-“ she ran off before he could finish so he groaned and dropped himself onto a chair. “i’m getting too old for this shit.”

── .✮

kathrine taylor had been suspicious of bobby possibly cheating on her just a few months after you arrived into town.

“she’s just a friend kat, our friend.” he had placed a quick kiss on her forehead. “you have nothing to worry about.”

but she saw the way his eyes would linger on you when he thought she wasn’t looking, the lingering touches or the random visits he would do to the furniture store.

“brought you guys some lunch!” he would say kissing her on the cheek and going straight for you afterwards. “and for you i brought you a champurrada with a pan dulce!” (sweet bread)

“it’s champurrado…” you laughed as you corrected him and took the drink from him. “you didn’t have to, the shop is almost all the way across town bobby.”

while you guys were chatting, kat sighed looking down at her strawberry smoothie.

yeah he won’t be allowed around you anymore after today.

so finally when you announced that you were wanted for a live audition in new york, kat was over the moon — whereas bobby knew you would do great over there and they would definitely want you but he couldn’t seem to cheer up, he knew you’d forget all about him.

“well what can you do, she will be missed.” kat sighed and quickly changed the subject. “now that you’re almost finished with your film class, maybe we can go to th-“

“we need to breakup, i mean more of a break.”

kat knew it had everything to do with you even though he didn’t want to admit it but she trusted you to not go behind her back.

then there was bobby who was hugging a crying kat, already planning how he can get through to you and become more than friends.

── .✮

for the past month, bobby couldn’t get you out of his head and found himself seeking you out more, you had slowly been letting him after finding out kat and him were officially over.

you had been organizing the furniture when bobby took a seat on a recliner and pulled you onto his lap. “so where’s clark?”

he was glad when you finally let him touch you more, it only took an accidental slip up of him telling you that he had liked you — he was able to hold your hand as you guys walked. slide down his hand onto the small of your back whenever the two of you were standing next to each other. pulling you into his lap even if there were millions of other chairs around.

you shrugged as his thumb hooked itself to the waistband of your shorts. “trying to fix his marriage supposedly, told me to watch over the store and close up.”

weeks later when clark finally returned again, he was pacing around putting things in a bag like tools and extra clothes.

he tried to quickly explain he was leaving for a few weeks but he didn’t want to say where. “look i’ll be back and when i’m back…” clark went on as grabbed papers and a pen, almost out of breath. “i need you, bobby and kat to have made up with whatever the hell you guys have got going on because i’ll be needing you three for some research.”

── .✮

during the second month, bobby was now getting the cold shoulder from you — he stood behind you as you talked to a customer who was totally hitting on you, he tried wrapping his arm around you but you swatted his hand away.

“dejame and please just leave the store, i got it on my own.” you quietly mumbled out and moved away from him. (leave me alone)

he had invited you over to his house for dinner about two weeks ago and it was going well, way too well.

“f-fuuck. shit, baby you feel so good right now…” he moaned as he felt your gummy walls tighten around his cock each time he’d slam back into you and just before he almost finished, there was a hard knock on the door.

the both of you chose to ignore it but then another knock but harder.

he stopped his movements, leaving you to groan and tried to keep him from stopping.

“bobby! open up, i want my things back!”

he’s been telling kat for weeks now to come get her stuff and of course she chooses now to get it.

you sat up and wrapped the sheets around you. “que cosas quiere?” (what things does she want?)

his spanish was not great so he didn’t know what you had said but he noticed the hint of anger in your voice. “what?”

just before you could answer there was another knock. “for fuck-sake kat! hold on!”

he of course had her things already packed in a box, it wasn’t like he had her stuff around but you didn’t see it that way.

you had packed your overnight bag back up and as much as he pleaded with you to stay the night, you were ready to go.

“c’mon believe me baby, i only want you…”

you shook your head no. “whatever this was it’s over, i’ll be leaving to new york whenever we finish doing whatever it is that clark wants us to do when he returns.”

he quickly ran to the door and got on his knees in front of you. “please don’t say that, i lo-“

“bobby enough! you still have your ex-girlfriend’s things here, you can’t even ask me properly to be your girlfriend…”

which led you to now.

it was closing time and you were in the office organizing papers when you saw bobby had came back with a bouquet of flowers, so once you finished you grabbed your bag and began heading to the door — he was still waiting outside, when suddenly he started swatting the flowers around and his other free hand as well.

you laughed once you saw a small moth flying around him and the petals were beginning to fall off the flowers.

when he was done, you finally walked out and began locking the door to the furniture store. “is the coast clear?” you asked with a giggle.

“i’m glad you think this is funny, i had a whole apology speech ready to go when this stupid moth began attacking me.” he groaned looking down at the now ruined bouquet. “even wanted to ask you out…”

he was such an idiot.

you smiled as you helped him remove some petals off his hair. “pobrecito.” (poor thing.)

he frowned and extended his arms out to you. “yeah pobrecito me.”

you rolled your eyes and gave in, hugging him a little too tightly but he didn’t seem to care.

── .✮

it wasn’t long before you guys were in the backseat of your car, the moment you sank down onto him, you were rolling your hips and he threw his head back onto the headrest.

“holy fuck, you’re so...fucking good.” he found it hard to come up with the right words as you picked up the pace, rolling your hips and doing an occasional circle. “please s-slow down, im going to cum and i haven’t even started with you y-yet.”

you moaned softly as you dug your nails into his shoulders. “you’re so big bobby..”

“hold on, s-slow down.” and just before you could pickup the pace again he brought down one of his hands to your thigh, stopping you from moving and another to your face to force you to look at him. “te amo..” (i love you)

he saw the way your pupils were blown out and you let out a broken whine. “yo tambien te amo.” (i love you too)

he sloppily jerked himself up into you a few times before flipping you onto your back and making sure he was now the one to ruin you.

by the time you were done, it was almost pitch black in the parking lot but the both of you noticed a small light in the furniture store.

“hm. you forgot to turn off a light.” bobby pointed out before drinking out of his water bottle and passing it to you.

“huh. thought i turned them all off, that’ll be tomorrow’s problem.”

✮

finally when the both of you were tucked into bed and his arm was draped around you, you were almost asleep but could still hear him softly talking.

“after doing this research thing with clark, i’ll come with you to new york and help you settle down, maybe i can even stay there with you for awhile…”

you nodded. “maybe, i’ll skip out on the recall and stay here with you.”

“not going to let you miss that audition baby.” he hugged you tighter and kissed the side of your head. “if anything maybe i’ll pickup another film class over there so i can be with you…”

he went on about different plans you guys could work out in new york and when he knew you were sleeping, he kissed the side of your head once again and listed his last plan. “i want to love you till the end of my life.”

little did he know was that in a few days that was the only plan he would actually be able to complete…

©𝟒𝐤𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞. all rights reserved. please do not; duplicate, reupload or claim my work as your own.

get you @magicalmatcha Summary: Toph wasn't religious but everyday she woke up grateful that some higher power decided to atone for her blindness by making her the best earth bender. And giving her the best girlfriend. Not that she'd say it out loud. Warnings: None Special Tag: None

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heavy metal @ruya4four (X) Summary: toph uses her metalbending to prove that you can’t hide a single secret (or craving) from her. Warnings: None Special Tag: None

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BEYOND SIGHT! @tophluvr (X) Summary: None Warnings: None Special Tag: ft zuko

exercise!! @mellowzoe (X) Summary: compared to your hunk of a really pretty girlfriend—you really were pretty out of shape. one lap around her metalbending academy gets you almost passing out. it's something that you genuinely wanted to work on. and so, toph beifong’s solution? Warnings: None Special Tag: None

Arranged marriages weren’t just what the name implied, arranged. They were strategies used to win other houses over. One could say they were some sort of currency, one the great lords and houses often used. They’d throw around names and children. Deals were made, marriages were set. And the children in question were left in despair. 

Your father did not wish such things upon his lovely daughter. And so he tried his absolute best to postpone this horrendous arrangement for you.

He’d lasted five summers. 

Five long summers before your fifth nameday arrived. Before house Targaryen had come to visit and offer congratulations.

House Targaryen had suffered a setback in alliances and forces after a rather dramatic display of treachery and treason by the Greens– who had attempted to usurp Rhaenyra’s throne. And while most of the lords agreed with Team Black and had sworn themselves to Rhaenyra, other lords hadn’t. Which left the royal family with less allies than preferred. 

It wasn’t until young prince Jacaerys had shyly shuffled your way to hand you a swan’s feather with a dark red ribbon bound to a small pink carnation –one which he definitely plucked from the outer gardens– that your father and his mother, Queen Rhaenyra had shared a knowing glance. 

Thus marrying the heirs to two great kingdoms seemed like a splendid idea. 

It was not. 

KINGS LANDING, fourteen summers ago

You and Jacaerys were informed of your betrothal during your first visit to Kings Landing, the two of you merely six summers old. It was safe to say that both you and the prince were quite unhappy with this arrangement. 

Rhaenyra, who carried a sleeping Lucerys on her hip, found it hilarious to see the both of you try your hardest not to turn your– albeit forced– smiles into a grimace. 

You curtsied, bowing your head politely before speaking. ‘’Good morrow Prince Jacaerys, I am very pleased to meet you. I look forward to spending this summer together.’’

The young prince raised his brow before bowing stiffly and kissing your hand. Then he responded. ‘’Good morrow Princess, I welcome you to the Red Keep.’’

The two of you shared an intense moment of eye contact before swiftly turning away from one another with upturned noses and crossed arms. 

Rhaenyra forced herself not to laugh as she softly slapped Jacaerys on the back and murmured a quick ‘’be polite Jace.’’

That summer was spent in an unheard of and un-ladylike manner. Oh, if the maesters from your lessons had seen you… you were certain you were to be scolded once you’d arrived home. 

Jacaerys was unbearable to be around. He believed you couldn’t fight as he did because you were a girl. So you decided to fight him, while using only your fists. 

You’d won.

He thought you were boring because you’d asked him to play a fierce knight while you played the dragon princess. He angrily told you only lame girls played pretend, and that you could never be a dragon princess– he was heir to the house of the dragon after all. 

He had later begged the ladies-in-waiting and maesters not to tell you that he made them play pretend with him too. 

KINGS LANDING, ten summers ago

‘’Oh princess! Please come down from there!’’ exclaimed your lady-in-waiting. 

‘’I cannot’’ you growled. 

You were stuck in a tree. The Velaryon prince–your self proclaimed sworn enemy, had dared you to climb it.

It was supposed to be a race. A duel to find out which one of you was faster, more agile. But the nasty prince had massively screwed you over. 

After you’d unceremoniously ripped off the outer layers of your ballgown and dumped them on a soddy patch of grass, you’d readied yourself for the battle of a lifetime. At least, to the two of you it was– or so you had thought. 

In truth, Jacaerys faked the start, making you believe he'd simply tripped. 

Jacaerys knew very well not to climb the massive tree located just beside the palace, his mother had warned him many, many times. The tree was old, and the twigs could only handle so much weight.

The once strong twigs held on greatly when you used them as support on the way up, but when you’d tried climbing back down after finding out about the betrayal of the prince, they’d failed you. 

This left you stuck in the highest top of the tree, with no way back down. 

When you heard Jacaerys’ boisterous laugh, you nearly jumped down from the top of the tree in the hopes to crush him. When you had peered down to look at him, you’d found that he had brought along his younger brother Lucerys to laugh at you.  

Little Lucerys–bless his heart, called out to you in a concerned manner. Then, he tilted his head up towards his brother.  

‘’Jace, are you certain she will be alright?’’ 

Luke did not have to wait long for an answer. Because even though his big brother never properly answered his question, your face– eyes wide, brows furrowed and cheeks as red as tomatoes, spoke bookworks. You were pissed, and would do anything to take revenge. 

It was that day that Prince Lucerys Velaryon, heir to Driftmark and future Lord of the Tides decided that you were one of the bravest people to roam this earth, much to Jace’s dismay. 

In the end, ser Harwin Strong was the one who saved you from your newly acquainted nemesis, the ever so massive, Lord Tree of the Gardens of the Red Keep. 

Then, when no one paid attention to them he gave the young prince a good clout in the ear, for this was not the way proper knights or princes treated young ladies. 

The first night of Autumn, merely a day after you and your father had left Westerosi soil, the palace awoke from screams coming from Prince Jacaerys’ bedroom. Various bugs and insects had found their way into his bed, along with a note decorated with sloppy handwriting. 

‘’Prince Jacaerys,

This summer, I have made many friends here in Kings Landing. They have long wished to meet my betrothed and so I have taken the honor of bringing my friends to you, my dear prince. 

Have you met Ser Caterpillar of the Leaves yet? He was so very eager to meet you. But you see, he has a very soft voice, so he wished to be somewhere you’d hear him well, the same applies to Lord Samuel Snail of the Earth Kingdom, he spoke fondly of–’’

Jacaerys stopped reading after that, for he was too busy dragging all of the pillowcases and blankets in his room to the Dragonpit, all to be burned by Vermax. 

Luke could be found walking closely behind, giggling quietly to himself. 

NAEDIA, five summers ago

‘’My sweet girl, please. Let us leave now. We cannot keep the prince waiting any longer!’’ cried your father. 

He’d been begging you since sunrise to leave your room. You’d refused. You were ten and fifteen now, an awkward age for both boys and girls. 

Your face no longer possessed the baby soft skin it once had, but was partially covered in small, angry red pimples. Your body had grown taller, but not yet quite big enough to fit properly into the gowns that had been prepared long before this day.  

Your hair, once so shiny and ready to comply, was sticking up in every direction. You refused to show yourself to Queen Rhaenyra while looking this disheveled, or Gods forbid– to Jacaerys! Not because you valued his opinion, absolutely not! 

You knew that if the young prince was to see you in this state he’d pick on every insecurity you have ever known, and then some. 

When the boat arrived at the shores of the Crownlands once again, you took a deep breath as a poor attempt to settle your nerves. 

Your father had stepped off the boat with an elegance only kings carry while you hid behind the mast. You could see Jacaerys and his uncle Aegon inspect the boat– looking for you. 

Jace and Luke were supposed to come and accompany both you and your father to the Red Keep, but the younger boy had fallen ill– and so Aegon, son to the traitor queen consort had come along in his stead. 

You’d desperately wished Helaena had come instead. Helaena was always kind to you. She spoke softly and in riddles, you liked her. You’ve spent many a night in her chambers, begging her to give you fun riddles to unravel– unaware of their true meanings. 

The greens were disliked by many but surprisingly so, many agreed that the blame lay with the former hand of the king, Otto Hightower—followed by his daughter Alicent. The children were much too young to have been responsible, they had received the chance to swear themselves to Rhaenyra– or to follow their grandsire and queen mother to exile. 

Jacaerys’ hands were neatly folded behind his back, but his expression was devious. You saw Jacaerys’ shoulders slump slightly after being unable to lay his eyes upon you. Rats! Was he that eager to take you down? You were actively thinking about climbing the mast of the ship to escape when your father called for you. Then, after a heated internal debate on whether to jump off the boat or to heed your fathers’ call, you’d decided on the latter.

The birds crowed, the waves of the sea lapped  at the shore and the merchants street was bustling. You could smell the salt in the air, the fresh fish from the market and-

Splat.

Tomatoes. The disgusting mix of harbour air mixed with the sourness of the nearly rotten tomatoes engulfed your senses. Your brain vaguely aware of the presence of the red, wet and slimy insides of the tomato on your shoulderblade. It’s juices slowly soaking into the soft fabric of your gown. But what you were truly focused on is the Velaryon meathead staring straight at you. 

His arms, no longer hidden behind his back, hung idly. He sported a shit-eating grin, matching with Aegon–though Aegon's resembled a grimace more than a grin. Jacaerys tilts his head, pondering your next move. 

You inspected him. And wondered how such a thing was possible. For him to be able to look so effortlessly beautiful. His hair– which looked soft and styled– longer compared to the last time you’ve seen him. His hair, once pin straight, had started to develop the slightest curl around the edges. Tis not by much, but it was noticeable, or it was to you, at least. 

It was entirely unfair. While you have been out worrying about the state of your skin, your hair, your body, he was standing there handsome as ever– effortlessly so. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, dark brown with the slightest hint of a beautiful purple, undeniable proof of his Valyrian heritage. 

A true prince of the realm. 

And you were going to kill him. You’d feed him to Vermax himself if needed. His status did not matter, you would get your revenge is what you’d sworn back then. No matter the cost.

NAEDIA, present day

A sharp inhale interrupted the cacophony of noise in the room. Your ladies-in-waiting had taken up the duty of making you look presentable for your travels to Kings Landing. This included a peculiar braided hairstyle, which apparently meant having your hair sharply tugged.

You’re twenty summers old now. Red and patchy skin healed, hair grown long once again, and your body finally able to fill out all your ballgowns properly. But most of all, you have matured, mentally.

If the same can be told of your betrothed you cannot say. 

He has always run a bit behind when it comes to mental development, if you may say so yourself. Another tug at your scalp makes you groan in annoyance. ‘’Are we ready yet?’’ you complain.

‘’Almost, my Princess. Apologies if it is uncomfortable this way, this hairdo looks magnificent on you.’’ Selina, your lady-in-waiting compliments. 

You smile softly at her through the mirror. The woman has been with you since your birth, she has seen you through ups and downs. Seen you excel in studies, and has seen you cry over countless silly matters–many of which involved your betrothed, much to your dismay and her amusement. 

But most importantly, she has seen you grow up. Both you and Jacaerys. And though she knows the two of you will never admit otherwise, she believes you two to be a fine match. 

Far away, across the dark waters of the Narrow Sea, Jacaerys is going through an awfully similar fate. 

‘’Ow!’’ he exclaims. ‘’Must you use this many pins?’’

‘’Yes my prince’’, retaliates his lord-in-waiting before explaining further, ‘’In order to keep your cape in place, you must make use of pins like these. It is of utmost importance that you do so.’’

The man receives an eye-roll as thanks. 

The doors open and the knight guarding his chambers announces the presence of the person on the other side.

‘’My Prince, the Queen and your brother Prince Lucerys.’’ 

Rhaenyra smiles with pride the moment she lays her eyes upon her oldest son. He gently smiles back, dark purple irises softening slightly as he opens his arms for a hug. His mother smells like dragon, she’s been spending a lot of time with her beloved mount in her free time. 

He remembers how his mother loathed the smell during her pregnancy. She used to make him change from his riding clothes into his sleepwear before entering her chambers– believing it to be the only clothes not tainted by the outside. 

But now the dragon queen stood tall, reeking of dragon. The smell overwhelming for many, but a sign of comfort to those who belong to the House of the Dragon. 

The sweet moment was interrupted by bickering coming from the halls. High voices grow louder every step. The three turned towards the door, curious to see who it was that dared disturb them. 

The footsteps sped up and in came Princess Helaena, Aegon and Aemond, together with little Viserys and Aegon– the two had been favouring their white haired aunt and uncles as of late. 

‘’Jacaerys!’’ Aegon beamed. ‘’Don’t you look all Princely today. I am certain your betrothed will be able to look at you without rage for once!.’’

Smack!

Aemond, in a poor attempt at correcting his older brother’s behaviour, had smacked him on the back. All the while stifling his own laughter at Jacaerys' mistreatment– along with the others still present in the room. 

–

You took a deep breath when your ladies-in-waiting practically hauled you from the ship towards the carriage. 

You were certain bruises were to bloom where their hands had grabbed you– but nothing would compare to the sting you’d feel when you were to meet Jacaerys and he’d insult you once more, you were certain of it. 

You had not yet managed to straighten your gown when a small figure bounded straight at you– an even smaller one wobbling behind it. Stumbling upon impact you giggled at the young boys. 

Over the past few years, little Viserys and Aegon had come to see you as an older sister, an extension of Jacaerys if you will. The little boys only ever saw you when you were taking a walk around the premises with your betrothed–arranged by your parents of course–but the young boys knew no better. After all, why would you keep each other company so often if you disliked one another? To them the two of you were extensions of one another. When one was found, the other would follow close by.

Lucerys had laughed at the sentiments of the boys, until Jacaerys reminded him the same fate would befall him soon. Though the young boy reassured his brother that wouldn’t be the case– as he swore that he would never insult and tease his future wife to the point she’d refuse to look him in the eyes. Jacaerys’ eyes dimmed slightly after hearing those words.

‘’I missed you!’’ exclaimed Viserys. Then he said your name with so much adoration you nearly melted on the spot. 

‘’Welcome back sweet girl’’ said Rhaenyra as she approached you happily. Behind her trailed her two oldest sons, one being visibly more excited regarding your arrival than the other. 

After a few horrendous seconds Lucerys opened his mouth, but before any sound was able to escape his throat Jacaerys spoke first. 

‘’We welcome you back, Princess.’’ and for just a moment, you thought his voice did not contain the disdain it had held for years, alas, you did not allow yourself to believe such a thing was possible. 

Rhaenyra urged the family inside, but before you and Jacaerys were able to take a step forward you were stopped by none other than your own parents. 

It was then that you and your beloved prince shared a frightened glance at one another. A feeling of dread creeping up both of your spines. It seemed that for once, the infamous troublemakers of the Red Keep were feeling something unanimously – even if only for a moment. 

‘’The flowers are beautiful this season, won’t you give your betrothed a tour of the gardens?’’ the queen proposed. You anxiously gazed towards your father, who seemed to be using up all his energy in avoiding your eyes and nodding along with the queen's words. 

‘’Mother! We have several fortnights to enjoy the beauty of nature surrounding us, must we do this now?’’ Jacaerys lamented. You hastily nodded along with the prince, begging the Gods old and new to spare the two of you for just a few moments more. 

But upon seeing the stern looks on your parents’ faces you doubt the Gods were listening. 

Rhaenyra seemed undeterred in her decision to play the part of ultimate matchmaker between you and Jacaerys– for the good of the realm of course, no other reason is what she’d tell herself and anyone who dared ask. 

The two of you understood now. If you did not spend time together until at least supper, you would simply not be allowed to enter the castle walls. 

Begrudgingly, Jacaerys turned towards you to extend his hand to you. ‘’If it pleases you My Lady, we shall head towards the gardens. The roses look especially beautiful this time of year.’’ a charming gesture, had he not been speaking through gritted teeth. 

To you it was abundantly clear that Jacaerys had not yet learned how to tolerate you. His attitude still very much resembling his younger self.

In truth, Jacaerys had a revelation several moons ago. After you had unceremoniously declared that you’d rather rest your lips upon a snail than to ever let them rest upon his? Odd as it might be, the dragon prince had found it oddly endearing. 

In fact, the prince had long passed the toleration part. He had long moved on towards more… mature feelings. But he’d rather face dragon fire a thousand times than ever admit such atrocities out loud. 

‘’Very well,’’ you reply while taking your hand out of his. His hands have grown calloused, you notice. The texture strange but not unwelcome against yours. 

 ‘’Though I must admit I prefer the sight of carnations.’’ you grumble slightly. You hastily prepare your gown for the walk to the gardens. It is not far, but your legs have not yet gotten used to walking such a distance in your new shoes, adorned by a higher heel and decorations that do nothing other than weaken your ankles. 

The Velaryon boy takes notice of your uneasiness and holds out his arm for you to hold. ‘’If it pleases you My Lady. You may rest your weight onto me.’’ He makes a desperate attempt at meeting your gaze, purple eyes gone soft and brows slightly furrowed– whether it is in concern or impatience, you dare not speculate. 

Either way, he is met with a stern glare and a sneer from you ‘’I am aware you might believe otherwise, but I am perfectly capable of walking, My Prince.’’ 

His shoulders drop ever so slightly. You pretend you do not notice. 

The walk towards the garden is silent. You know not what you prefer. Though you dislike bickering with him, this eerie silence feels unbearable. 

In a desperate attempt you turn back to face him. Though unfortunate as it seems, both you and Jacaerys had similar ideas. 

‘’How is Vermax faring these days–’’ ‘’Have you been well?--’’

Another devastating moment of silence, though it was broken much quicker than the last. The moment you and the prince had made eye-contact the two of you had burst into giggles. 

Unexpectedly, the afternoon passed rather quickly. And so did the many afternoons which would pass afterwards. You and Jacaerys had found common ground, irritation towards your parents, towards your future duties as heirs and so forth. 

Though the conversations had turned towards issues known to you both, there was one topic your hearts seemed content to dance around. Your betrothal was widely known as hated by all parties involved, and yet the past fortnights had nearly made it seem as if those summers had been but vague stories, exaggerated by the smallfolk. 

Jacaerys had felt this sentiment very strongly. So much so, that upon the second to last day of your stay in the Red Keep, he eventually dared broach the topic. Your families had joined one another in the courtyard, deeming the outside air perfect for one last day together. 

‘’We shall make a fine king and queen when the time is upon us.’’ Jacaerys spoke softly. 

You tilt your head slightly at him. Desperately scanning his eyes for any lies that may be told. ‘’Do you truly believe that, My Prince?’’ a whisper so soft Jacaerys would not have heard it, had he stood just a bit further away from you. 

‘’But of course I do! You shall make the most beautiful queen Westeros has ever seen.’’ he exclaims. 

Your heart skips a beat. Not lightly or fluttering, as many describe it should feel. It is rather heavy, an almost sinking feeling. Bile rises up in your throat. 

‘’What else?’’ you ask him. He cocks his head questioningly. ‘’What do you mean, My Lady?’’

You can swear on the Gods old and new you are able to hear the exact moment your heart stops beating. Will that truly be your fate? After everything, you’ll end up being no more than a king's puppet. To have to sit idly, wearing a crown people do not believe you have earned– to have highborn Lords and Ladies look at you like you do not exist beside your duties to ensure the king’s heirs.    

You muster up the courage to speak once more. ‘’Is beauty all that matters to you, My Prince?’’

You look into the eyes you’d been secretly seeking comfort from. The dark purple swirling through his brown pupils. Eyes of which you have longed to look at you as softly as they do towards his family. Only now you find no softness. His brows are furrowed, in confusion or anger you dare not speculate. 

It is only a moment before Jacaerys opens his mouth once more, and yet it feels like an eternity. 

‘’What else is there?’’ 

A gasp emits from the side of the courtyard. It is Baela who now stares at Jacaerys with wide eyes, not willing to believe the atrocity that has just left the young prince’s mouth. 

You softly shake your head at your betrothed and step back in disbelief. Unable or unwilling to believe the boy you grew up with possessed such a shallow heart and mind.  

Your father and Rhaenyra share a disappointed glance. All that planning had seemingly been for nothing. 

The marriage would still be arranged of course. Your parents had only hoped it would end in one filled with love rather than one solely based on duties. 

‘’What would you have wanted him to say then, my sweet girl.’’ questioned your father. The two of you were now on your way to your beloved kingdom once again, the carriage towards the harbor rocky as ever. 

You sigh deeply before answering. ‘’I do not wish to be stuck in a marriage with a man who does not see past my appearance, father. I long for someone who understands me. Who understands my wants, needs, hopes and dreams. Why is it I who must be trapped in a kingdom of which I do not know nearly as well as my own, while my husband dares not breathe in my direction even though I am squeezing out his heirs!’’ 

Your father quiets down at this and frowns. This was what he had been avoiding, he had sworn to himself to not let such a horrendous fate befall his beloved daughter, and yet it had seemed he had failed after all. 

You feel the blood rushing to your head, a faint pounding slowly making its way from the back of your skull towards the crown of your head. The carriage seems rockier somehow– you know not if it is caused by the horrendous headache taking over your body or if the horsemen have somehow chosen a worse path to ride through. 

‘’What else is there? Truly Jace could you be more daft!’’ Baela exclaims. The white haired girl has been staring at the prince with nothing more than thinly veiled disgust ever since you’d left the courtyard.

‘’I meant no harm! The words just came out poorly’’ came Jacaerys’ poor defense. The young prince had been sulking the moment he felt your hands slip out of his. 

‘’You should write a book’’ interrupted Aemond, located on the end of the couch he shared with Baela. ‘’How to offend women in five syllables or less.’’ 

Lucerys, who’d been in the middle of an intense game of chess with Jacaerys, snorted loudly. As much as the young prince quarreled with his uncle, he couldn’t help but agree. His brother had been foolish.

He always was, when it came to you. 

‘’I did not mean for it to come out that way!’’ Jacaerys yelled. ‘’Of course I see her as more than her title. She’s so… ugh, and she always does this thing that, you know?  So I just.. Don’t you see?’’

Aemond merely scoffed and stood up ‘’What in the hells are you talking about Jace?’’

 I never meant for her to think I do not see her beyond our duties.’’ he’d whispered the last part of the sentence, only now realising he’d messed up indefinitely. 

His family shared concerned glances with one another. Of course they knew the boy cared more for you than he’d ever admit out loud, but to see him openly express such things was new. Before anyone could open their mouths in a desperate attempt at comforting their kin, the doors slammed open. 

In the doorway stood not a knight wearing the familiar white cloak, but a knight  wearing a blue one. Blue, like the official banners of your house. On his chest rested a small emblem, the one declaring him your knight. The one sworn to you– sworn to protect you. A knight who fought for the very same banners who were supposed to be on their way back home. 

Baela and Lucerys stood up in concern. If your sworn knight was here, and not with you, something must have gone wrong– horribly wrong. 

The look on the knight's face was empty. A certain mix of rage and grief swirled around in his eyes. He stood for a moment before declaring something. Something that nearly caused the Crown Prince’s heart to stop beating entirely. 

‘’The Royal carriage was attacked. The king has passed– his injuries were much too grave.’’

Jacaerys found his throat dry, too dry to speak. And yet he mustered up the energy– the courage to do so.

‘’And what of the princess?‘’ 

‘’No body was found, My Prince. We suspect she’s been taken.’’

I am so, so sorry for the delay omg. I wish I had a better excuse, but school is just kicking my ass bro. hopefully this'll make up for it somehow? in preparation for s3, a sort of happy jace fic.

Hell, you had even gained a thing for Sokka for a while, and not once had you ever thought of Aang as a romantic interest, despite his many 'advances'.

You saw it then, in the way he would seek you out, always hanging around you, asking for your advice on waterbending, even though Katara was right there, the one person who actually knew combat waterbending, unlike you, who could only heal.

So you did your best to push him toward Katara, trying to free yourself from the burden of his feelings.

It had worked.

And how you regretted it.

Because the man who stood before you now, grinning ear to ear at the sight of your arrival, was someone you no longer recognized.

After the war had ended, you returned home to the Northern Water Tribe, where you were praised for your contributions in the war.

Which is why you had taken to teaching the younger female generations the beauty of water, passing down your learnings from Katara and Aang.

The elders had not been too pleased at your notion, but they didn't stop you either, reminding themselves of what Katara had changed within the misogynistic hierarchy of the tribe.

You spent those years teaching, learning, advising, not having much contact with your friends other than the letters you all exchanged.

Katara and Sokka would visit now and then, but the Southern Water Tribe girl stopped once her free time was redirected to developing Republic City. Sokka continued to visit with Suki, mostly to pay respect to a certain moon spirit.

You weren't in touch with Zuko, never having gotten too close with him. And Aang would send you letters more often than you had expected. But even those reduced over the years, only showing up on birthdays.

So now, nine years later, you finally decided to give a visit when you received an invitation from Aang, planning a reunion on the occasion that Republic City was an year old and flourishing.

You had agreed, because you wished to see your only actual friend you had made on your journey.

Toph.

The blind bandit had formed an unusual bond with you, mostly built around constant jokes and taunts towards the rest of the group.

So when you saw Toph upon arriving, you hadn't expected Aang to be standing there beside her with the others, towering over everyone else in his newly acquired form.

You couldn't even think straight as Aang and Katara led everyone to the inn all of you could stay in during your time there. After settling your stuff into your rooms, Aang had taken to showing all of you around.

You heard him for everything he had to say, paying more attention to him than you ever had. Your eyes hadn't left him once, watching him light up every time he spoke, waving his hands around animatedly towards all directions.

Fuck. His hands.

Asking what you would do with them was a stupid question, because what wouldn't you do?

You'd have them pressed to your tits all the time. Those warm hands that have mastered every element to the point of second nature, swirling wind, bending the earth, doing everything imaginable with ease.

How trained he would be with those hands. Maybe he would put his learnings to good use on your pussy, mimicking the elegant motion of his fingers over your clit as he kept you stuffed to the hilt, hopefully using his other hand to clamp your mouth shut.

Maybe he'd even let you take his fingers in your mouth, sucking and drooling around them to divert your attention from the fullness of his cock.

Your thoughts didn't let up even as night fell, by which you had completely soaked through the fabric of your underwear. The group had split up to retire for the night, holding a proper get together party at Katara's home the next evening.

The time before the party had been given to everyone for sight seeing, but you could barely make it out of bed, the previous night spent restless as a certain airbender plagued your mind, making your reach for your pussy for most of it.

What's worse is that you had to keep your moans to the lowest, too scared that Toph might sense you out from wherever her room was in the inn.

You never truly understood the extent of her power, you didn't even know if something like this would even be possible for Toph to sense, but you sure as hell didn't want to take any chances.

Before the get together, you had sat in front of the mirror to gather your thoughts. You had chosen to wear a henley much like what Toph had worn the day before, while beneath it you had put on a rather bold choice.

You had first seen Suki wear a miniskirt during her visit with Sokka at the Northern Water Tribe. Her choice of clothing was something you had questioned, trying to understand why she would wear swimwear while visiting such a cold place.

She had only sighed, explaining to you the growing trends of fashion in the newly developing city.

On her next visit, she had brought you your own.

You never wore it before, given the weather, but you had packed it, figuring the warmer weather of the city would make the skirt more bearable.

Arriving at Katara's home was hell, because not only had Aang opened the door on your arrival, he was bare from the waist up as he did so.

The blood had rushed straight to your cunt, trying not to blatantly look at his abdomen, or the hard planes of his chest.

"Wow, did your clothes run away?" You joked, craning your neck to look him in the eyes, not daring to avert your gaze elsewhere.

"I spilled my drink on it." Aang huffs, pouting a little which only made things worse on your end, wanting to bite his cheeks that puffed out a little.

"You didn't think to Air bend and dry it?" You ask, trying to remain composed even as your breath hitched, walking through the door as you stood close to him.

"That doesn't remove wine stains. Katara threw it in the wash." He answered, walking beside you as he led you to the stairs.

"You're drinking?" Your voice came out shocked.

"I was going to, but then Sokka bumped into me." He sulks yet again.

"I thought...Air Nomads do not drink."

"Well...I don't. But everyone has been asking me to try it once, so I agreed to do it today."

"Looks like I came on time." You tease, trying to meets his eyes but failing when he gave you the cutest smile ever.

You both had made your way upstairs, and you were very aware of just how short your skirt was. You wondered if Aang had looked at your ass as you walked in front of him, or had he diverted his gaze out of respect.

Either option had you pressing your thighs together, not daring to turn your head to see where his eyes lingered.

"Hey! You wore it!" Suki's voice had greeted you the moment you entered the room beside Aang.

She was talking about your skirt.

"Yeah. I have no where else to wear this." You had answered with a smile, looking a the spacious room, a low table in the center with food already set on it.

"It looks great!" Katara compliments you, to which you smile.

"Thanks!"

"Yeah, cute outfit!" Aang chimed in from behind you, making you turn to face him.

"...Thanks Aang." You had tried to keep it in, but your heart had practically leapt out of your chest as his voice.

"You're late!" Toph greeted you in her own manner, making you turn back around and roll your eyes at her.

"Oh! I am so sorry, ma'am."

"You just rolled your eyes, didn't you?" She commented, taking a chug of whatever was in her cup.

"Yep. Proudly too." You retorted with a grin walking towards the group.

Toph had taken one of the shorter ends of the table, sprawling comfortably in her spot while Suki, Sokka, and Katara settled along one of the longer sides. 

Across from them sat Zuko with an empty place beside him, which you claimed easily, folding your legs beneath you once you sat down.

And a part of you had hoped Aang would occupy the space that had been left empty on your other side, but you should have known better as you watched him take the opposing end of where Toph sat...right beside Katara.

Well, Zuko was technically also seated beside him, but it barely mattered when you watched Katara subtly close the distance between herself and Aang.

No one would have noticed it unless they had been observing closely.

Which you were.

You watched the two as the conversations picked up again around you, watching how Aang too scooched a little closer to Katara each time she said something.

It made you nauseous.

You had done this. You had practically thrown him into her arms all those years ago, and the karma of it had come to bite you in the ass.

It only made things worse that all you could think about in that situation was how gorgeous his abs were.

You could already imagine how nice they would feel against your cunt, rubbing mindlessly on them as those sinful hands of his would keep you pressed to him, grabbing the flesh of your hips to move you even faster, letting you cum on his skin. 

You watched as Aang finally took his first sip of whatever alcohol Sokka had poured for him, observing as he gagged at the taste of it, leading him to have a coughing fit.

While the others chuckled at his antics, Katara reached over to rub slow circles against his back, trying to ease him through the coughing fit.

It made you sick.

The sight of her hands against his bare skin. The ease with which he leaned into her touch, comfortable enough to accept it without thought.

And it only got worse when he turned slightly toward her while thanking her softly.

"Are you alright, Aang?" you asked, hoping to interrupt whatever quiet little moment had begun forming between them.

Aang looked over at you immediately, a sheepish smile pulling onto his face.

"Y-yeah. Just need a m-minute," he managed, his voice still rough from coughing as he tried to steady his breathing.

You simply nodded, masking your satisfaction beneath a look of concern when Aang motioned for Katara to stop, quietly insisting he was alright now. Reluctantly, she pulled her hand away and settled back into her place beside him.

It was around 10 minutes later when the effects of whatever amount of alcohol had managed to bypass Aang's throat had started to take effect.

A warm flush spread slowly across his skin, staining not only his cheeks but trailing down the length of his neck and across his chest in soft patches of pink.

You tried not to stare at him.

Without the excuse of him talking animatedly or moving around the room, admiring him so openly would have been far too obvious.

But, the sight of his lightweight body unable to withstand a shot of alcohol had you squirming in your seat, knowing your pussy was actively soaking your panties as the conversations continued. 

Aang had long since stopped participating in the conversation, now hunched over the table with his face buried into his folded arms while the others continued talking around him. 

Every few minutes, Zuko would slide another glass of water toward him, insisting it would help flush the alcohol out of his system.

Aang only mumbled that he was fine, though his words slurred slightly when he complained that he had not expected to feel so "floosy" after a single sip.

You on the other hand, were burning. Your pussy was desperately clenching around nothing, dripping on the flimsy fabric, as you now regretted wearing the skirt.

Aang's drowsy posture had given you something entirely new to admire. The broad slope of his shoulders, the defined muscles shifting faintly beneath his skin whenever he adjusted against the table, the elegant curve of his back disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants.

It took everything in you not to stare openly.

Your thoughts drifted embarrassingly fast, fixating on the sight of his back and imagining what it would feel like beneath your hands.

You fantasized how desperately your nails would claw at his back as he pushed his cock into you, fucking your fervently.

Or maybe he'd let you rest your legs over his shoulders as he ate you out, driving his tongue into you which will make your heels dig into his back, only pushing him closer. 

Maybe he would even make you squirt? He was quiet talented at waterbe—

Your thoughts came to an abrupt halt the moment Aang pushed himself upright, mumbling something about needing to use the restroom before slowly making his way out of the room.

You lifted your wine glass toward your lips, eyes instinctively following him until he disappeared down the hallway, turning left once he stepped out.

Only then did you take another sip, absentmindedly humming in agreement to whatever Toph had just said.

Your attention was divided between the room and Aang. And the heat between your thighs had become unbearable to the point you had to take care of it. 

A few minutes later, you finished the last of your wine and set the empty glass aside before excusing yourself as well, adjusting your skirt once you rose to your feet.

You followed the same path Aang had taken earlier, slower with your steps this time, though upon reaching the hallway you quickly realized the restroom was empty.

You only shrugged to yourself before slipping inside anyway, locking the door behind you and closing the seat before sitting down, hiking your skirt up around your waist.

You spread your legs wide enough to let your hand slip inside, sliding your panties to the side to bury two fingers deep.

You were so slick and hot, it was almost pathetic. 

Your fingers did absolutely nothing in comparison to the fantasies you'd built of Aang doing this to you.

Leaning back, you began pumping your fingers, but the ridiculous amount of wetness made it difficult to find any real friction against your pussy. 

It was frustrating, yet amusing; you had drenched yourself to the extent that you could barely feel your own fingers rubbing against you.

Nonetheless, the need to have your cunt filled was somewhat satisfied, letting your fingers curl pathetically against the spot you probed for a quick, desperate orgasm.

The pressure built relentlessly, and with it, your voice. You bit your lip hard, trying to suppress the sounds, but the rising heat was too much; a few desperate whimpers slipped past your teeth despite your best efforts.

It was only when you heard two giggling whispers close by that you froze. 

You slapped a hand over your mouth, eyes widening in a flash of panic as you forced your body to go still.

Judging by the voice, one of them was definitely Suki.

Had she and Sokka slipped away for some privacy?

You sat up straighter immediately, halting every movement as you listened more carefully.

"Oh come on! Isn't it time already? You've liked each other longer than Sokka and I have even been together."

"That doesn't mean we're compatible! You've seen him...he's always busy being the Avatar..."

Katara.

You nearly stopped breathing.

Carefully, you stood up and adjusted your skirt, suddenly far more aware of every tiny sound you made while crossing the bathroom floor. Your hand remained clamped tightly over your mouth as you moved closer to the door, pressing your ear lightly against the wood to hear them better.

"So? He's never going to stop being the Avatar! Does that mean you'll wait until he's on his deathbed?"

"No...I just don't want to become a burden. He already has so many responsibilities, I don't want to add myself to them."

"Katara! You've kissed, for Spirits' sake! And...didn't you have that one night..."

"Shh! Suki, Aang is still out here..."

"Sorry," Suki whispered, lowering her voice even further. "But didn't you?"

You could hear Katara hesitate before she answered.

"Yes...we did do that..."

You froze.

Nausea twisted violently in your stomach at the thought of Katara and Aang together like that, tangled together somewhere inside this very house.

"Then why aren't you two together yet? Did he just use you? Because I can absolutely beat some sense into him."

"No! Spirits, no." Katara sounded horrified by the suggestion. 

"It's my fault. I asked him not to talk about it again...to just put it behind us."

"Why?!"

"I panicked!" she admitted. 

"I really do love Aang, but afterward I just...felt cheap. I couldn't believe we had done something like that before even talking about our feelings properly."

Slowly, you pulled away from the door.

Your hand slipped from your mouth while something sharp and terrible settled into place inside your mind all at once, so sudden it almost felt divine.

That was it.

Your chance.

"What did Aang say?" Suki asked after a moment.

"He agreed," Katara murmured. "Although...now that I think about it, he did seem a little hurt by it."

"Oh Katara, I am so mad at you—"

"Shh!" Katara cut her off quickly. "We've already been gone too long, and we still need to pick up the food from the kitchen." 

Katara quickly hushed her again, dragging Suki away before her voice could rise any further.

Their conversation had given you everything you needed to know.

It seemed you had been terribly wrong about whatever existed between them.

They did not belong to each other, and that meant you could still do something about it.

You waited another few minutes before leaving the bathroom, taking the time to clean yourself up while listening carefully for the sound of their footsteps returning from the kitchen. 

Only once the hallway had gone quiet again did you finally unlock the door and slip outside.

You did not particularly care that your little trip to the bathroom had left you unsatisfied.

Because in the end, it had not been pointless.

As long as there was still a chance for you to have Aang, you could live with the ache between your thighs.

You quietly made your way back toward the room where everyone had gathered, relieved to find them distracted enough to not notice you lingering briefly behind the doorframe.

You only peeked inside long enough to check whether Aang had returned.

He hadn't.

The realization made a smile threaten at the corners of your mouth.

This was your only opportunity.

So you slipped away again, quieter this time, searching through the massive house floor by floor while the sounds of laughter and conversation faded further beneath you.

Only upon reaching the topmost level did you finally slow.

Just before stepping fully into the room, your attention caught on the open balcony doors inside it.

There he was.

Your expression brightened instantly at finally finding him, eyes fixed on the sight of Aang leaning against the railing alone, letting the cold night air wash over him while the city lights flickered below.

Just as you were about to take a step forward—

"Just what are you plotting?" 

Toph's voice came through, although quiet, held her usual fierceness.

You whipped around immediately, barely stopping the startled noise threatening to leave you before finally spotting the blind girl standing further down the hallway.

"Toph!" You hissed under your breath, pressing a hand against your chest before realizing what she had actually asked.

"I...was just making sure Aang was alright..." you answered quickly, which technically was not a lie, hoping it was bypass Toph's instincts.

Toph snorted.

"Yeah. Sure you were. Because you've always cared about him so much."

"Of course I do. He's my friend."

"Exactly," she drawled. "Your friend. Come on, at least try sounding convincing."

"I am not lying."

"Please." Toph folded her arms. 

"I may be blind, but even I can sense your desperation from across the house. 'Cute outfit!' 'Thanks, Aanggg.'" 

She mockingly pitched her voice higher during the imitation. "You were practically squealing."

Heat rushed straight to your face despite your irritation.

"And following after him?" She continued mercilessly. "Could you make it any more obvious? You're lucky everyone else in this house is dense enough to miss it."

You lowered your head slightly, irritation and embarrassment mixing unpleasantly inside your chest while Toph continued talking without pause.

"But not me. Since I am obviously the greatest Earthbender to ever li—"

Her voice rose noticeably toward the end of the sentence, forcing you to quickly slap a hand over her mouth before she could accidentally alert the entire floor.

"Fine, I get it," you whispered sharply. "Now can you please leave?"

Toph peeled your hand off her face with visible offense.

"Rude."

To your surprise, Toph's presence seemed to grow heavier beside you, the teasing tone disappearing entirely.

"You do know what you're doing is wrong, right?"

You paused, genuinely not expecting an actual lecture from her of all people.

"How is it wrong?"

Toph folded her arms. 

"First you reject him. Then you throw him toward Katara. And now that those two finally have something going on, suddenly you want him back?"

"Toph, we were kids," you argued quietly. 

"He's not still hung up over some rejection from when we were twelve. We're friends." You hesitated briefly before adding—

"And those two barely even have anything happening between them. I literally heard Katara admit it herself."

"Doesn't matter. It is still wrong."

"You're acting like I'm breaking them apart. They were never together to begin with!"

Toph clicked her tongue.

"You're still meddling. Worse, you're trying to steal him from your own friend."

You exhaled slowly, trying to keep your composure intact.

"Toph," you said carefully, "you're supposed to be the sensible one here. Is it really my fault if, after all these years, Aang ends up choosing me?"

"What makes you so sure he will?"

"Because Katara already had her chance." The words left you more sharply than intended. 

"They've spent years dancing around each other and still nothing came out of it. I disappeared from his life completely, and somehow even that wasn't enough to push them together." You glanced toward the balcony again. 

"At some point, maybe you have to admit it's simply not meant to be."

"You can't be the judge of that."

"I'm not trying to be." You straightened slightly, smoothing your skirt back into place before lifting your chin. 

"Aang will make his own choice. And if he chooses me...then just know I was right." A faint smile touched your mouth.

Toph let out a slow breath through her nose.

You glanced toward her once more before stepping back toward the doorway leading to the balcony.

"Now go, Toph. I'm sure you don't want to become someone who meddles."

She clicked her tongue at that, clearly unimpressed by your attempt at turning her own argument against her, though after another moment she finally sighed and began walking away down the hallway.

Yeah.

She really was a good friend.

Unlike you.

You stepped into the room slowly, making sure your footsteps were loud enough to announce your presence rather than startle him.

Still, you saw Aang's shoulders tense slightly at the first creak of the floorboards behind him.

He turned around quickly. "Katara?"

The name struck harder than you expected.

But the moment he realized it was you instead, surprise softened into a smile.

"Hey..." His voice quieter now, softened by the lingering haze the alcohol had left behind.

You approached carefully as you joined him near the railing, sliding the balcony doors shut behind you to block out the noise from downstairs.

You smile up at him, trying not to show your irritation at the name he had called out.

"Hi, Aang. Are you alright? You've been gone for a while." You kept your tone light, sweet enough to avoid making him cautious.

"Yeah," he answered with a small laugh beneath his breath. "I just needed some air. Clear my head a little."

"I see." You rested your arms lightly against the railing beside him. 

"Feeling better now?"

"Much."

He smiled again before glancing back toward the streets below.

"I think we should've predicted you'd be a lightweight."

"Seriously. It felt like my head fell off after one sip." Aang laughed rubbing the back of his neck.

"You head seems to be on right at least." You muse, leaning your back against the railing, having your head turned towards him as you spoke.

"Yup! I feel like myself again! For the most part at least." He jokes, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"You certainly look like you do." You tease, your eyes drifting over him once more before returning to his face.

"Come on. Let's go back! You did find me after all...everyone must be waiting." He says, before stepping away from the railing.

He had barely taken more than a couple of steps before your hand reached out instinctively, fingers wrapping around his forearm to stop him.

"Wait, Aang!"

He stopped the moment your hand touched him, turning back toward you almost immediately while you gently pulled him to a halt.

"Everything alright...?" He asked, remaining where he was instead of pulling away from your touch.

"Yeah, I just...I wanted to talk to you about something." You slowly let go of him once he stepped back beside you again.

"Oh." Aang settled against the railing once more, patient as ever. 

"What's up?"

"Aang..."

Well fuck. You didn't actually think this through.

You had managed to get yourself up here alone with him, had spent the last twenty minutes convincing yourself this was your perfect opportunity, and now that he stood in front of you waiting so openly for whatever you wanted to say, you realized you had absolutely no idea how to make any of this work without sounding insane.

How exactly were you supposed to convince the boy you once rejected to choose you over the girl he had spent years being smitten with?

The girl he had apparently already shared a bed with.

Your teeth sank unconsciously into your bottom lip while nerves clawed their way through you, your throat tightening with the sudden realization of how pathetically desperate you must have looked tonight.

Toph had been right.

Spirits, she had been completely right.

You tried not to let any of it show on your face, but something must have slipped through regardless, because Aang picked up on it immediately.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Aang's voice softened immediately with concern as he stepped closer, one hand settling carefully against your shoulder in an attempt to pull you out of whatever spiral you had disappeared into.

The touch snapped you back to reality far too quickly, his touch sending a chill throughout your skin, his newly matured voice doing wonders for your already fuzzy mind.

It completely ruined your ability to think straight.

"Why didn't you ever visit me?" The question slipped out before you could stop it.

Aang blinked in confusion. "What...?"

Well.

You had already said it now.

There was no point trying to take it back.

"Everyone visited me. Or at least wrote to me often. You never did...and eventually your letters stopped showing up too."

Aang looked genuinely taken aback by that.

"Is that why you've been mad at me?"

You frowned slightly. "I've been mad at you?"

"You keep glaring at me, and you've barely talked to me since you got here." He admitted carefully.

Between obsessing over him and trying not to stare at him every five seconds, you may have completely forgotten to behave like a normal person around him.

In hindsight, perhaps openly glaring at Katara every time she touched him had not been particularly subtle either.

The realization made heat crawl straight up your neck, embarrassment settling uncomfortably in your chest at the thought of who else might have noticed your behavior tonight.

Though, considering Toph had described the others as "dense as rocks," perhaps you still had some dignity left intact.

But then again, you figured you could use that to your advantage.

"Yes. I am angry with you." You confirmed, averting your gaze, knowing damn well his absence in your life hadn't been significant either way.

Aang's expression fell almost immediately.

"I'm sorry. You never wrote back and I just thought..." He hesitated briefly before laughing awkwardly under his breath.

"I don't know. I thought maybe you hated me." Aang admits, trying to convince you he didn't do anything deliberately.

"Why would I hate you, Aang?"

Your voice softened deliberately around his name while you turned your face again, grateful for the lingering effects from the wine making your flushed appearance seem far more believable.

"I don't think my heart could ever hate you," you murmured. "No matter what you did."

"That means a lot to me. Really."

You nearly frowned when Aang completely missed the implication behind your words, smiling instead at what he clearly believed was simple affection.

"I know I annoyed you a lot back then," He continued with a sheepish laugh. "Following you around and all. I just thought you didn't like me."

You knew he did not mean 'like' in a romantic sense.

Though even if he had, he would not have been entirely wrong.

"I did like you, Aang," you admitted softly. "I think...I admired you more than I wanted to."

His looked taken aback at that.

"At first, I honestly couldn't stand any of you," you continued with a quiet laugh. "Watching you and Katara run around the North Pole disrespecting centuries of tradition nearly drove me insane." 

You shook your head lightly. 

"But I'm grateful for it now."

"I heard you started your own academy for women."

The pride in his voice made warmth bloom annoyingly in your chest.

"Yes. Alongside healing, I teach combat to anyone interested in learning." A faint smile crossed your face. 

"For that, I only have you and Katara to thank. Which is why..."

You let your voice trail off after that, deliberately avoiding his eyes while your fingers traced absent patterns against the railing, hoping it would make him more curious. 

And it does, almost predictably so.

"Which is why?" Aang prompted gently.

You hesitated just long enough.

"Which is why it hurt when you never showed up."

The apology appeared on his face instantly.

You could see it in the subtle stillness that overtook him, in the way his hands loosened against the railing as though guilt had slipped into his bones before he could defend himself.

"I thought you didn't want me there." He admitted quietly. 

"You never answered any of my letters, and after a while I just..." He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head once. 

"I didn't want to bother you."

A smile touched your mouth, carrying just enough sadness to make him regret the sentence before it had even finished leaving him.

"You could never bother me."

The night air drifted between you both, carrying distant sounds from the streets below, though they hardly reached the balcony anymore. 

His attention had settled entirely onto you now, patient and open in the way only Aang could be, and you hated how easy it was to pull him in once he decided to listen.

"I kept thinking you'd visit eventually," You continued.

"Every few months someone would arrive at the tribe and for a moment I'd convince myself it would be you." A quiet laugh escaped you. 

"Sokka and Suki came whenever they could. Katara visited enough that the children started asking when she would return. Even Toph showed up once and insulted half the tribe before she left."

That finally earned a laugh from him and you waited for it to fade before looking up again.

"But never you."

The amusement disappeared from his expression so quickly it almost made you feel cruel.

"I didn't know you wanted me to."

"I think I just expected you to know."

You softened the line the moment it landed, turning your head away before it could sound accusatory.

"Aang" and "knowing" had always belonged together. 

He noticed every frightened child, every wounded stranger, every person trying too hard to pretend they were alright. 

You were counting on that part of him now, feeding it carefully until he began searching your face for things you had not yet said.

"Spirits. This sounds embarrassing now." You say, covering your face with your hands.

"No, it doesn't."

The answer came too quickly, and so did his hands as they rested on yours, pulling them away from your face.

"Back then, you always pushed me away. You never really took me seriously whenever I..." A small laugh escaped him, awkward and fleeting. 

"I thought it meant you didn't want me around."

You looked at him for a moment before smiling faintly.

"Aang, we were children."

The embarrassment on his face deepened instantly.

"You were running around the world flirting with every girl who smiled at you."

"That is not true."

"Suki told me you tried to impress the Kiyoshi Warriors by flexing your staff."

"That was one time. I had never been around people who admired me before."

"You asked me if I thought your tattoos made you look mysterious."

"That—! That was Sokka's idea of— Ugh..." Aang groaned quietly into his hand while you laughed under your breath, watching the tension ease from him little by little.

"You were impossible, of course I didn't take you seriously." You chuckled.

"But...you do now?"

There it was.

Just a sliver of hope in his voice.

You waited, hesitating for a good anticipating moment before you spoke.

"I just...I think somewhere along the way...you stopped being a boy I simply found...amusing."

The honesty in that sentence unsettled him. His attention lingered on you, trying to read through your expression and failing each time you softened before giving too much away.

"You still could've written back to me." He muttered, though the guilt had not left him entirely.

"I know." You sighed lightly, searching your head for a believable excuse.

"But after the war ended, everything changed so quickly. You had a city to build. Katara stayed beside you. Sokka had Suki. Zuko was ruling an entire nation. Toph disappeared into whatever cave she crawled out of. " A smile tugged briefly at your mouth. 

"I suppose I convinced myself there wasn't really a place left for me."

"That's not true." 

"Isn't it?" You shot back instantly.

You did not say it bitterly. It was important not to do so. You couldn't show any anger or place blame. 

"You all built something together here while I stayed behind in the North teaching children how to heal sprained wrists."

"You did more than that."

"I know," you answered gently. "But it's different hearing about someone's life through letters instead of being part of it. And every time your letters became shorter, I told myself it was normal. You were growing into someone important. But..."

You paused again, and you knew every time you did so was nipping at his curiosity.

"You were important to me, Aang."

His throat shifted around a swallow.

"You were important to me too."

"Were?"

The correction slipped out playfully, but it struck him all the same. You watched realization move through him at once, watched him stumble over himself trying to fix it.

"Are. I meant are."

You let him have the recovery, lowering your eyes with a quiet smile that rewarded him for it.

"I know everyone needs something from you now," you said after a moment. "The council needs the Avatar. Republic City needs its founder. Whole nations probably line up waiting for a piece of your time." 

His attention was rooted to you. 

"But I didn't miss the Avatar."

He had gone entirely still beneath your words, waiting for you to finish your sentence. 

You slowly moved, catching him off guard as you softly took his hands in yours.

"I missed you."

You could practically feel him trying to make sense of it, trying to decide whether this ache blooming inside his chest had always been there or whether you had placed it there yourself.

"You...make it sound like I abandoned you..." He admitted, though there was no defensiveness in it.

You tilted your head slightly, watching him through your lashes.

"Didn't you?"

"Aang!" A voice echoed faintly somewhere inside the house, muffled by walls and distance. 

Katara.

You felt the interruption scrape across your nerves, but you did not let it show.

Instead, your thumb brushed once against the inside of his wrist, subtle enough to feel accidental.

His attention remained on you.

Interesting.

"I know you had your reasons." You continued gently, lowering your voice until it almost blended into the wind around you. 

"You've always done what everyone else needed first. I think that's why people expect you to wait forever for them."

Something unreadable passed through him then, because he understood exactly what you meant even without hearing her name.

"And what do you need?" He asked.

There it was.

Not the Avatar speaking.

Just Aang.

You let the silence play out for a while before finally moving your hand from his wrist and sliding it slowly into his palm instead, holding it facing up.

"I think, I wanted to know whether you would've chosen me if I had asked you to stay." You said softly,

"...Stay where?" His breath got heavier, very aware of your hand in his. You moved to use both your hands to hold one of his, bringing it closer to yourself with every word you spoke.

"With me? Continue to be a part of my life?" You say with a tilt of you head, brining his hand even closer till his fingers were barely grazed your stomach.

It was only when you slid his hand down, letting it slip under your skirt did he react. His breath hitched a sharp, stifled gasp and a deep flush crept across his face, catching him completely off guard.

"Wait—" 

Aang barely managed his protest before you smoothly cut him off with your own plea.

"I needed you, Aang. And I still do."

You really did.

He felt the heat of you, letting out an audible hiss at the touch. You weren't just warm; you were burning, so soaked that the fabric covering you had long since lost its purpose.

To test the waters, you removed your hands from the equation.

To your surprise, Aang does not pull his hand away, resting it right where it was, fingers pressed into the drench fabric.

You shifted, leaning forward to wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a deep embrace that forced him to hunch over and rest against you. 

As you pulled him close, his face instinctively tucked away, hiding the sheer embarrassment of having his hand still buried between your thighs.

He could have moved. He should have. Yet, he stayed.

And he only melted further into you when your voice added—

"I really need you...Aang."

Apparently it had been enough to set him off, as you felt his fingers slip past the fabric failing to hold your desire, and his touch began experimental movements across the length of your folds, testing just how wet you really were.

"Hahh...!"

A breathless huff escaped you. The sensation of his fingers was far better than any fantasy had led you to expect.

Aang still hid his face against the curve of your neck, but you could feel his warmth radiating against you. 

The sweat that had beaded on his forehead, cutting through the arrow, now getting smeared onto you.

It didn't bother you not when you could feel his ragged, confused breaths fanning against your skin.

Dropping one arm from around him, you slid it between your thighs, pressing yourself against his hand to encourage him to dip inside.

He complied, though with a heavy hesitation, taking a few agonizing seconds to decide which finger would breach you first.

A moan escaped you, only to be stifled as you bit down hard on his shoulder. The memory of Katara looking for him just moments ago flashed through your mind.

You silently wished the fellow Water Tribe girl wouldn't ruin this moment for you.

Not when you were so close to having him.

Aang remained pressed against your shoulder, his mind a whirlwind of uncertainty. The frantic beating of his heart was uncontainable, and he knew you could surely feel the thud of it against your own skin.

His mind drifted to Katara. He remembered when they had finally seemed to have something, only for her to put a hold on it never speaking of it again, acting as if nothing had changed.

But you were right here, soaking his hand with a heat that was clearly a desperate need for him.

Sure, you had turned him down, but you were kids! And he was annoying and unserious back then.

And he had insulted your tribe's customs, likely offending you far more than he had ever intended.

He had spent so long thinking you hated him, never realizing that you had been caring for him all along.

And he had denied you that care, never once coming to visit.

He was torn.

He was caught between the woman who had shut him down when they were children, the one he held right here beneath his fingers, and the woman he had spent nearly a decade with, only to be turned away just as they had finally made progress.

Unable to decide, he forced himself to focus on the way you wrapped around his fingers, feeling the warmth of your honeyed walls clinging tightly to him.

"Have you...done this before?"

Your voice came in a breathless rasp, finally pulling away from his shoulder where you had been biting down to muffle your cries.

He couldn't be dishonest with you, but his voice failed him; instead, he answered with a silent nod.

You felt the small, hesitant shake of his head against your shoulder. You already knew his answer, after all you had overheard enough of Katara's words to lead you to this very moment.

"Would you like to...tell me who...it was?"

You pressed the question, struggling to keep your moans contained as your focus drifted from the slow pumping of his fingers.

Fuck...he was doing so good.

Aang still couldn't find his voice; worse, he felt too exposed, too shy to answer. 

He found a strange comfort in the way you gave him an option. You hadn't demanded a name or forced him to relive the details; you had simply asked if he wanted to share.

He figured that since you cared for him so deeply, you would never hold his past against him. With that thought, he responded with a small shake of his head.

He disagreed.

If you hadn't already known about him and Katara, his disagreement to sharing the name would have bothered to no extent. But knowing the truth made his hesitation sting. 

Still, in this moment, his reluctance only worked in your favor.

You shifted your weight, swapping your arms; you replaced the one draped over his shoulders with the one that had been aiding him, bringing it down to join his hand between your thighs. 

Your now free hand reached up to his head, stroking softly against his skin as you whispered—

"Okay. You don't have to tell me."

You spoke softly, a gentle balm intended to soothe his nerves.

Minutes passed as his fingers continued their work, though in the lulls, he opened his eyes to gaze at the city sprawling below.

Even though they were on the topmost floor of Katara's home, they weren't entirely invisible. They weren't high enough to be truly hidden; while a passerby at this hour was rare, it wasn't far from impossible. 

If anyone were to look up, they would find the Avatar in a very compromising position.

But he couldn't bring himself to care. Not when it felt like he was searching for the lost puzzle piece of his life inside your cunt. 

You on the other hand were thoroughly enjoying yourself, completely dazed under Aang's tentative touch.

But of course, it was only a matter of time before someone had to ruin it.

You didn't see who it was; all you noticed was the sudden creak of the door as the corridor light spilled into the room, a sharp intrusion that made you instinctively push harder against Aang.

"Someone is here, Aang straighten up!" you ordered in a hurried whisper. He barely seemed to register the command, so you pushed against his shoulders with renewed urgency, forcing him to straighten up and take a frantic step back.

"Oh! There they are!" Sokka's voice cut through the silence, muffled and faint behind the balcony door. You knew you only had a few seconds before he made his way over.

Moving with desperate grace, you caught Aang's hand, guiding it out from inside you. 

You brought his hand up to your face, and he watched, mesmerized, as you used both hands to direct him.

You pressed his slick fingers against your lips, observing his wide eyes as you slowly dragged the wetness down, your bottom lip bouncing back into place as the finger passed.

His first real reaction came when you took those same fingers into your mouth, cleaning them with a slow, deliberate sweep of your tongue before letting them fall.

His lips pressed together in a tight, pained line as you licked your own, wiping your tongue across your bottom lip while keeping his gaze locked onto yours. 

It was only when Sokka finally swung the balcony door open that you used a free hand to casually wipe the remaining moisture from your mouth.

"Do you have any idea how long we've been looking for you?"

Sokka's voice came first. You still could not properly see him with Aang standing between you and the entrance, though the annoyance in his tone painted the expression well enough.

"Why would you guys come all the way up here?"

Katara spoke next.

Instinctively, your attention flicked back toward Aang, searching immediately for some reaction at the sound of her voice.

There was none.

He remained entirely absorbed in the moment you had dragged him into, eyes fixed stubbornly on your mouth as though he still felt your lips around his fingers. 

And because he was looking at you so devotedly, you knew you could not risk letting your satisfaction show.

So you put on a usual cheeky smile.

Leaning slightly to the side, you finally stepped into view of the Water Tribe siblings.

"Katara! Sorry for intruding around your house," you said easily. "I just needed some air and ended up finding Aang here."

You smiled sweetly while speaking to her.

"It's alri—"

Katara barely managed half the sentence before Aang interrupted unexpectedly.

"Could you guys give us a moment?"

Even while speaking, he never looked away from you.

"What?" Sokka laughed. "You guys talking about something we're not allowed to hear?"

The joke landed far closer to the truth than he realized.

"We were discussing your birthday present," you answered smoothly before Aang could attempt it himself. "You don't want us ruining the surprise, do you?"

The lie came easily, effortless beneath your smile.

"Oh, sweet." Sokka grinned immediately. "Come on then, you two. Aang's still not off the hook for abandoning his drink after one sip."

You nodded along lightly at his teasing.

"Come on, Katara."

He motioned toward his sister, though Katara still had not taken her eyes off Aang.

"Your robes are clean now," she told him quietly. "You can dry them out and put them back on."

She was waiting for him to answer.

You truly expected him to.

But after several seconds passed in silence, with Aang still standing there looking entirely lost in you, you finally spoke for him instead.

"He'll be there in a minute," you said gently.

Katara's expression shifted almost imperceptibly at that, though all she gave in response was a small nod.

The siblings eventually turned away, disappearing back through the doorway.

You missed the way Sokka's smile slowly faded the moment they left the room, suspicion settling quietly beneath his expression.

The second they disappeared from sight, you turned back toward Aang and lifted your arms around his shoulders, slowly pulling his face closer to yours.

"Aang..."

He said nothing.

For one horrible second, you genuinely wondered whether you had pushed him too far, whether everything you had carefully built tonight had finally cracked beneath the weight of your own desperation.

Still, you forced yourself to continue.

"I have certain feelings for you, and..."

You let the sentence trail off deliberately, lowering your eyes for only a moment to see whether he would follow.

He did, meeting your eyes quickly.

"...If you feel the same," you continued softly, "or even if you don't...I would rather you tell me honestly instead of making me guess."

He still doesn't say anything, and suddenly you became painfully aware of the fact he still was not touching you back. 

His hands remained tightly wrapped around the balcony railing while he stayed slightly hunched within your hold, breathing harder than before yet making no move toward you at all.

So you leaned in first.

Your lips barely brushed his, letting it rest against him softly, giving him every opportunity to close the distance himself if he wanted to.

You waited.

But when nothing came from him, you slowly pulled away again, forcing yourself to accept the rejection with whatever dignity you still had left.

You released him completely after that.

Without another word, you moved past him and made your way back toward the room alone, fixing your appearance along the way while trying not to think too hard about the humiliation burning through your chest.

By the time you reached the room again, Zuko was approaching from the opposite hallway carrying a rolled mattress beneath one arm.

"You're staying over?" You asked quietly, falling into step beside him.

"We all are," he answered simply while pushing the door open. "Sokka's idea."

"Let me help."

You moved beside him automatically, helping spread the mattress across the floor while the others continued setting up the rest nearby.

Several minutes later, Aang finally returned.

The moment he stepped back into the room, nearly everyone looked up toward him automatically while Katara quietly approached with his robes folded neatly in her arms, still slightly damp from washing.

"Thanks..." he says, accepting them with a small smile though noticeably avoiding her eyes.

With one absent motion of his hand, warm air rushed through the fabric until the remaining dampness vanished completely, pulling the robes back on quickly.

"You're staying over, right, Aang?" Katara asked him.

Aang let out a distracted hum first, clearly taking a second to even process the question.

"Y-yeah! Yeah, I'll stay." He answered.

Then he moved toward the others to help arrange the remaining mattresses across the floor.

You noticed immediately how carefully he avoided looking at you.

Humiliation crawled so violently through your chest that for one awful moment you genuinely thought you might burst into tears right there in front of everyone.

So, you decided to play your final card.

After finishing helping Toph Beifong with one of the mattresses, you slowly rose to your feet. The others remained distracted arranging blankets and arguing over sleeping spots, giving you the perfect moment to speak.

"I'm sorry, guys." You said quietly, right before the final mattress could be laid down properly. 

"I think I'll head back to the inn for the night."

Almost immediately, Suki looked up in concern, her attention catching on your agitated expression.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." You forced a faint smile. 

"I don't think the wine sat right in my stomach, and I'd rather be alone before it gets worse."

The excuse sounded embarrassingly pathetic even to you, though thankfully nobody questioned it.

You had barely managed three steps toward the hallway when Aang's voice suddenly cut through the room behind you.

"Wait—"

The word came out louder than he intended, pulling the attention of everyone gathered across the floor. Conversations halted almost immediately, Sokka halfway through unfolding another mattress while Suki looked up from where she sat beside him. 

Even Katara paused mid movement, fingers still curled around the edge of folded blankets.

Aang looked momentarily caught off guard by the silence he had created, standing near the doorway with his robes hanging loosely from his shoulders. 

His eyes found yours first before quickly shifting toward the others.

"I'll be back. I'll just walk her back. It's late." He said, clearing his throat once.

You stopped at the sound of him volunteering himself so quickly, though you made sure not to turn around immediately. 

The smile threatening to betray you curled against your mouth before you forced it back down, lowering your head just enough to hide it beneath the curtain of your hair.

Behind you came the soft sound of approaching footsteps.

You finally glanced sideways once his presence settled near enough to feel, only to notice your shadow disappearing beneath his entirely, swallowed whole against the wooden floorboards.

"Let's go."

You nodded softly before leaning sideways toward the room, offering everyone one last smile.

"Goodnight."

A chorus of sleepy replies followed, though the atmosphere had shifted too strangely.

You stepped into the hallway first, Aang close behind you.

Perhaps Katara already understood he would not be returning tonight. 

Perhaps all of them did.

Because right before Aang had pulled his robes back on, the mark you left behind had not gone unnoticed.

The bite pressed near his shoulder stood out plainly against his skin for one terrible second before fabric covered it again, though one second had been more than enough.

Enough for Sokka's expression to flatten beneath confusion.

Enough for Suki's eyes to widen before she quickly looked away.

Enough for Katara to go completely still.

No one spoke of it.

They simply resumed around the absence, voices awkwardly finding each other. 

Toph remained the only one untouched by the shift in atmosphere, still arguing with Zuko over where she wanted to sleep while the rest of them waited quietly for the Avatar's return despite knowing, somewhere deep down, that he would not be coming back anytime soon.

The walk back to the inn passed beneath a suffocating silence, neither of you quite knowing what could possibly be said after what had happened on that balcony.

Aang stayed half a step ahead the entire way, shoulders tense beneath his robes, attention fixed stubbornly on the empty streets ahead rather than you. 

You noticed it after the second block.

His hand.

The same hand that had been between your thighs less than half an hour ago kept flexing at his side every few moments, fingers curling tightly into his palm before releasing again, restless and agitated.

Once, he nearly lifted it toward his face before abruptly stopping midway, jaw tightening faintly as he forced it back down again.

You had to bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from smiling.

Because despite the distance he was trying so desperately to create between himself and what happened, his body had already betrayed him entirely.

By the time you reached the inn, the silence between you had grown so dense it nearly felt tangible.

Aang stopped only once the two of you stood at the entrance, the lantern hanging beside gate casting a dim glow across the side of his face. 

For the first time since leaving Katara's house, he finally looked at you properly.

"Okay. Goodnight." He said after a moment.

You watched him step past you.

And just before he could get too far, you finally spoke.

"Come to my room, Aang."

He stopped instantly.

For a second he did not move at all, standing there with his back turned toward you before slowly facing you again. 

The flush across his face had not faded in the slightest, still spread stubbornly over his cheeks and ears while confusion sat plainly beneath it.

You tilted your head slightly.

"Did you really come all this way just to say nothing?"

Aang opened his mouth briefly, only for whatever response he meant to give to die somewhere before reaching his tongue. 

His attention slipped away from you again, landing somewhere near the floor while his hand flexed once more at his side.

Then, without a word, he closed the distance between you.

You turned before he could second guess himself, walking down the hallway with measured steps while his followed close behind you. 

Neither of you spoke as you unlocked the door, pushing it open before stepping aside to let him enter first.

Aang hesitated slightly before walking in.

You shut the door behind you and leaned against it for one brief moment, fingers still curled around the handle while your heartbeat thundered violently against your ribs.

Because all you could think now was—

It was now or never.

"Aang." You call out softly, just his name, testing the weight of it.

He flinches like you've struck him. His shoulders drop, his head bowing as if he's suddenly carrying the weight of the entire world again. 

"I shouldn't be here," he whispers into the quiet of the room, his voice cracking enough to show how close he is to snapping. 

"I should go back. It's not right, and—"

"It's not right," you interrupt, your voice dropping an octave. You take one step closer, watching him tense. 

"But you want to stay. You want this so badly it's making you tremble, Aang."

He lets out a ragged, broken sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan as he finally looks up. His eyes are wide and desperate with of confusion. 

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?" You're in his space now, close enough to feel the heat coming off him. 

You reach out, your fingertips barely grazing the fabric of his robes along his collarbone where you bit him earlier. 

He shudders at the proximity, his breath hitching. 

"You can go back to being the perfect Avatar, the perfect friend, the perfect everything. You can walk out that door right now and pretend this never happened."

You lean in closer, your lips brushing his ear, your voice a velvet promise. 

"But you won't. Because for the first time in your entire life, you're going to choose what you want. Not what's right or expected of you. Just what you want."

You pull back enough to catch his gaze, your eyes dark with the truth of it. 

"So tell me, Aang. Are you really going to walk out that door?"

He moves away from you, crossing to reach your bed.

Aang sinks onto the edge of your bed, burying his face in his hands as if he can squeeze the conflicting thoughts right out of his skull. 

You move to sit beside him, your thigh brushing his, and the way he flinches even now makes your pulse thrum.

"Why is this bothering you so much?" You ask softly, your voice a gentle caress against his turmoil.

"It's not..." He chokes out the lie, his fingers digging into his scalp. 

"It's just...everything changed. The way I look at you, the way you look at me it's like the world shifted and I don't know where my feet are supposed to land."

He turns his head, searching your face for something an explanation, a reason.

He finally asks—

"What do you need from me?"

You paused, not having expected it but grateful for his question nonetheless.

"I just want you." You say simply.

He stares at you, eyes wide and searching, trying to untangle the knots you've tied in his mind. 

You don't make him wait. 

You stand, moving between his knees as you straddle him, settling yourself firmly in his lap.

His hands hesitate in the air, fingers twitching as if they want to catch you, to hold you and then they drop, fists clenching at his sides as he forces himself to stay still.

"I will give you everything you want, Aang," You promise him, leaning in until your breath fans over his lips. 

"I will never disappoint you. I'll give you a home. Children. A safe place where you can just be Aang. No burdens."

The silence that follows is different, heavy with the weight of the life you've just offered him. 

Finally, he finds his voice. 

"Why...?"

"Because I want to." You say, the words sure and steady. 

"I want to be your wife."

Aang's entire body stills. 

His eyes widen, his breath hitching in his throat as if you've just knocked the wind out of him. 

"Why...why would you want that?" He sounds genuinely lost, as if you've just spoken a language he doesn't understand.

"Because..." You hesitate, letting out a chuckle as you see him unconsciously lean closer in patience.

"I love you," you say, leaning forward to press your forehead against his, closing your eyes. 

"And I want you to be free."

You stay there for a moment, letting the weight of your confession settle. 

When you pull back, he's looking at you with an expression you can't quite read.

It was something between awe and sheer terror.

For a long painful while, Aang said nothing at all. 

His eyes slowly slipped shut, his head lowering slightly while his fingers tightened into fists. 

You watched the conflict move across his face in, watching him sit there trying to untangle every thought pulling him apart from the inside.

And suddenly, fear crawled its way up your spine. It truly felt possible that he might pull away from you completely.

"You will have to come live in Republic City," He says quietly.

You were snapped out of your wallowing thoughts. 

When you finally replayed the moment, his sentence barely registered.

You were still too focused on the fear twisting inside your chest, too busy preparing yourself for rejection to properly process what he had actually said.

Then the meaning finally settled into place.

Your head snapped up immediately, as you froze, pulling back to stare at him in shock. 

"Are you...agreeing?"

He hesitates, his throat working as he swallows hard. Then, slowly, he nods.

You can't help it; a squeal of pure triumph escapes you. 

"Thank you, Aang!" 

You lunge forward to hug him again, the momentum sending you both backward onto the mattress.

When you sit back up, Aang's breath hitches. 

His eyes go wide as you reach for the hem of your top and pull it over your head in one fluid motion. 

The fabric slides off your shoulders, leaving you bare chested in the dim light, your nipples already peaked from the adrenaline.

"What are you doing?" He almost exclaims, his voice cracking. He wrenches his gaze away, jaw tight, shoulders hunching as if he's trying to make himself smaller.

"Isn't this why you came here?" You tilt your head, watching him through your lashes, your voice dropping into that sweet, manipulative purr.

"We still have things to talk about," He says, forcing himself to sit up straighter. 

He stares at your face with desperate intensity, pointedly ignoring the way your breasts are inches from his chest.

"Do you...not want me?" You let the question hang, making your voice go small, making your eyes well with perfectly calculated tears.

"That's not—!!" He cuts himself off, the confession dying in his throat.

"Then kiss me..." You whisper, the command soft but absolute.

Another moment passes in a thick and suffocating silence before he finally gives in. 

He leans in, his movement hesitant as he presses his lips to yours. 

It's not the confident kiss of a man who knows what he wants, it's the kiss of someone who's finally stopped fighting the inevitable.

You let the kiss linger, pressing into him enough to leave him breathless, then pull back with a shy, triumphant smile. 

"There..." You whisper, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw. 

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Before he can answer, you reach for the ties of his robes. 

Your movements are swift as you undo the knots. 

Aang freezes, his breath hitching in his throat, but he doesn't pull away. 

You peel the heavy fabric from his shoulders, exposing the broad span of his back and the striking blue line that curves down his spine. His skin is hot beneath your palms, and you feel the way his muscles jump at your touch.

"You're so beautiful." You coo, your voice a velvet caress as you slide the robes down his arms, leaving him bare chested. 

The arrowheads on his hands flex as he grips the mattress, knuckles white, his chest heaving.

You shift your weight, moving from his laps as you sink to your knees onto the ground between his legs, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes. 

"May I?" you ask, your hands already moving to the waistband of his pants.

Aang makes a sound like he's choking on it. 

"I... yes," He manages, his voice barely a whisper.

When you finally free him, he's already past the point of no return. 

You take him in your hands first, stroking him slowly, watching his head fall back as his hand tremble to hold his weight upright. 

Then you lean in.

The first touch of your lips makes him gasp, his hips jerking up involuntarily. 

You go slow, teasing him, swirling your tongue around the head, catching every drop of pre cum. 

You want him to feel every sensation, to realize exactly what he's been missing. You take him in deep, inching slowly as your throat tightens around him, and the sound that leaves him is raw and broken.

"Spirits, please..." He moans, his fingers digging harshly into the sheets.

"Do you like this, Aang?" You murmur against him, pulling back enough to look up at him. 

"Do you like how I take care of you?"

You let the question hang in the air, your tongue slowly tracing the length of him again, making him whine that sweet, broken sound that tells you exactly how close he is. 

You can feel the way he's trembling beneath your touch, his breath coming in shallow, uneven hitches.

"Shh, I know," You whisper against him, your lips barely brushing the sensitive skin. 

"I've got you, Aang. Let me take care of you."

You keep your movements agonizingly slow. 

You drag your tongue up and down, teasing the ridge with just enough pressure to make his hips twitch involuntarily before you pull back. 

You want him suspended here right on the edge of conflict and emotion, hoping it might bring out some of his truth out with it.

His hand moves, finding the top of your head.

His fingers tangle in your hair, not pulling you but holding you there, grounded by the contact. 

"You're...you're making it so hard," He chokes out, his eyes squeezed shut, his head lulling back and forth.

"Is it too much?" You murmur, your voice dripping with fake concern as you take him deeper. 

You swirl your tongue around the tip, and the sound he makes, that wrecked, desperate whimper is better than any confession he could have given you.

You keep your pace steady, your eyes never leaving his face as you watch him whimper breathlessly. 

You lean back to press a soft kiss to his inner thigh, your lips barely grazing him, and hear him catch his breath sharply.

"Please..." He pleads, his voice cracking. "I don't... I don't know how to "

"It's okay," You interrupt softly, your hands sliding up his thighs to feel the taut muscle there. 

"Just feel it, Aang. Just feel how good this is."

You go back down, your tongue working in slow, deliberate circles, teasing the sensitive skin just below the head. 

When his hips buck upward, nearly meeting you halfway, you pause, pulling back once again to look up at him through your lashes. 

His chest is heaving, his skin flushed, those arrowhead on his hand flexing as he dug into the bedding.

"Do you want more?" You ask, your voice a velvet trap.

He can't even find words. 

He just nods, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding back.

You take him in deep, your throat tightening around him, letting out a soft, satisfied hum as you feel him shudder underneath you. 

You keep it slow, tantalizingly close to the edge, making him feel every single second of it.

You pull away abruptly, the sudden absence of your warmth making him let out a pathetic, wounded hiss through his teeth. 

You can't help the laugh that escapes you as you watch his hand leave your head and meet the mattress again, eyes glazed over and unfocused.

"You said earlier you've done this before," You state, moving your hand to resume that slow, torturous slide up and down his length. 

"Did she not do this...?"

Aang shakes his head, his entire body betraying him as a fresh bead of pre cum wells at the tip. 

He doesn't know you already know. He doesn't know you've already heard the truth, and you savor that.

"What did you do then?" You ask, your voice dripping with faux innocence.

"I...I used my fingers on her..." He trails off, his blush deepening to a feverish red that stains his cheeks and the tips of his ears. 

"Then I tried to..."

"Go on..." You encourage, stopping your hand entirely. 

You watch the way his breath hitches at the sudden lack of friction, his hips twitching upward instinctively.

"I used my mouth..." He chokes out, his voice barely audible. "But she didn't like it..."

"Not everyone enjoys it." You say with a gentle shrug.

"It difficult, being so exposed to the person you like..." Trailing off, you wait for a nuance, but his breathless gasps continue.

"Had she asked you to do it?"

"No..." He says immediately, the word tumbling out with a touch of guilt. 

"I just...I didn't want it to hurt her when we..."

You pout.

"How sweet of you, Aang," You coo, resuming the rhythmic movement of your hand. 

His hips jerk in place, his breath hitching as he fights to keep it together. 

"And then what happened?"

"Then we did... it." He groans, his eyes fluttering shut.

"Is she still in your life?" You question, watching to see if he would finally admit it.

"We never spoke about it after..."

"Oh, you poor thing..." You murmur, letting go of him entirely as you move upward to wrap your arms around him. 

You press your face into the crook of his neck, feeling the rapid thudding of his heart. 

"I would never deny you like that, Aang. Never."

The silence stretches and the weight of your words fall thick around you. 

Then, slowly, hesitantly, his arms come around you. His touch is almost reverent, his fingers curling into your back as he pulls you flush against him. 

"Thank you..." He whispers into your hair, so quiet you almost miss it.

You pull back to look him in the eyes, your expression a mask of perfect, gentle understanding. 

"Would you like to...try it with me?"

He doesn't hesitate this time. He nods, his grey eyes focused on yours with a look of surprising relief.

"Okay." You say, your smile widening just a fraction too far to be entirely innocent. 

"I think we can skip a step, since you've already used your fingers earlier tonight. Not that I'm opposed." You give a gentle wink, making him shyly avert his gaze.

The air in the room feels like it might combust from the sheer, unadulterated tension as you slide off his lap, the movement agonizingly slow. 

The sound of your skirt hitting the floor is the only thing breaking the silence, followed by the sight of your soaked underwear being peeled away.

Aang's breath hitches audibly as he watches you maneuver onto the bed.

His eyes drop to where you're sitting back against the pillows, legs spreading open to reveal everything to him, glistening and swollen in the dim light. 

He looks completely undone. 

He crawls forward on his knees, hovering over you like he's approaching something sacred, his hands trembling as they ghost over your thighs.

When his thumb finally makes contact, pressing against your already swollen folds, you can't help it that sharp hiss escapes your teeth.

"Hahh!" 

You arch slightly, your fingers digging into the bedsheets. 

You look down at him through your lashes, voice breathless and strained. 

"Do you...know what to do?"

Aang shakes his head, his face flushed a deep, burning red. 

He looks absolutely terrified to mess this up, yet the need in his eyes is undeniable. 

Without waiting for another word, he leans forward, his tongue darting out to taste you.

The contact makes your hips jerk upward, and when he pulls back, a long, broken moan tears from your throat. 

You can feel the heat radiating off him, the sheer desperation in his movements.

"That's okay..." You say, your voice dropping into as devastatingly sweet, encouraging tone. 

You reach down, your palm cupping his cheek, forcing him to look up at you while his mouth is still wet from you. 

The arrow on his head catches the light, his pupils dilated and hazy with need. 

"I...I will help you..."

You slide your hand over his head, guiding him back down, pressing him closer until his lips meet you again. 

Under your hand, you can feel the way he shudders, gasping against you as he finally lets himself lose control, his tongue working with a clumsy, earnest passion that makes your vision blur.

The way he's looking at you right now dazed and flushed, is better than any orgasm. 

You reach down, your fingers spreading his lips apart just slightly so you can guide his face, your voice dropping into a low and instructional tone.

"No, not like that..." You mumble, your thumb grazing his bottom lip. 

"Lower. Right...there." 

You push him down, your hips tilting instinctively toward the contact. When his tongue finds the swollen nub of your clit, you let out a sharp, broken gasp that makes him jerk back. 

"Slow down, Aang. Use the flat of your tongue. Don't...don't be so frantic."

He obeys instantly, his movements cautious and devout as if he's afraid he might get the same reaction he got last time. 

But you can feel the desperation beneath his hesitation, the way his fingers curl into the flesh of your thighs, knuckles white. 

You guide his head with your hands, showing him exactly how you want to be touched long, slow strokes that make your whole body tense, then quick, teasing laps that make your breath hitch.

"Yes...just like that,... You pant, your voice making the short hairs at the nape of his neck stand up. 

"Oh Aang...! You're doing so good. So good for me..."

The praise is clearly working; you feel him adjust, his tongue finding a rhythm that makes your toes curl.

You can feel him watching you through his lashes, studying your face for every twitch of your lips and every stuttered breath. 

You want him to see exactly what he's doing to you, to witness the way his tongue is pleasuring you unimaginably.

You tilt your head back and whisper his name like a mantra. 

"That's it, Aang! Just like that...You're doing so well for me!"

You let your head fall back against the pillows, your breath coming in shallow, staggered gasps as you guide him. Your hand is gently pressing his face closer whenever he hesitates, whenever he pulls back to look at you with those wide, uncertain eyes.

"There...keep going—!" You moan, your hips tilting up of their own accord. "Right there!"

The ragged sound he makes when he's trying to be careful is more intoxicating than any physical sensation. 

Every time your soft instructions pull a whimper from him, a spike of triumph shoots through you.

He's being so careful. So incredibly gentle with you, his tongue moving with a hesitant reverence that makes your stomach flip. He's trying to learn you, trying so hard to do this right, and the sheer vulnerability of it is what finally breaks you.

You did it.

You eyes flutter shut as another wave of pleasure rolls through you. 

You actually did it.

The thought is more intoxicating than the sex itself. 

The realization that you've dismantled the Avatar, stripped away the hero and the monk until all that's left is this raw, exposed boy who is so desperately trying to please you...it's better than anything you could have imagined when you started this a day ago.

"Y-you're doing so good..." You whisper the genuine praise that makes him shudder. His tongue sweeps again, longer this time, more confident, and you can't help the way your thighs tighten around his face, pulling him in. 

"Just like that, Aang. Don't stop. Don't you dare stop...!"

You listen to the wet, slurping sounds of him working on you, the way he swallows every moan you let out, and you feel that possessive heat blooming in your chest. 

He's not yours yet.

Not entirely. 

But you can feel the shift in him. 

The way he's clinging to you, the way he's listening to you.

When he finally presses his face harder against you, his breath hot against your damp skin, and you feel that first surge of your orgasm building. 

You meet him halfway, your hips arching up, your fingers digging into his skin as you whisper his name like a prayer.

"That's it...oh spirits, Aang..."

You watch him through heavy eyelids, the way his jaw works, the way his eyes go unfocused as he feels you writhe under him. 

And you realize that you're already planning how to make him do this again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Until he doesn't even remember what it was like when you weren't the only thing he wanted to please.

"Aang, I'm—!" The words catch in your throat as a wave of pleasure begins to build harshly.  "I'm going to—!"

"I've got you..." He mumbles against your skin, his voice thick and unrecognizable. 

He presses his face into you, his tongue working with a sudden, focused intensity that shatters your last thread of control.

Your orgasm hits like a physical blow, your entire body going rigid as you cry out his name, sinking your fingers into his scalp as you come apart beneath him. 

You feel him catch every drop, his tongue sweeping over you with a greedy thoroughness that leaves you shaking and breathless.

When you finally slump back, your chest heaving, your skin slick with sweat, he pulls back to look up at you. 

His face is feverish, his lips wet, and his eyes are completely glazed with something that looks terrifyingly close to worship.

"Was that..." He starts, his voice cracking. 

"Was that okay?"

You can't even find the words to tell him it was better than perfect. 

You just reach down, your fingers trembling as you cup his face, pulling him back up for a kiss that tastes of you and him.

You guide his back to the pillows with gentle pressure from your hands on his shoulders, watching the way he settles beneath you, all broad shoulders and lean muscles, his tattooed arms splayed out like he's surrendering to something inevitable. 

He looks utterly wrecked, his breathing still coming in ragged puffs, his gaze following your every movement with a mix of curiosity and unadulterated terror.

"I've got you..." You assure, your voice like honey as you straddle his hips. 

You do not rush it. 

You don't even move to come down on him yet. 

You just sit there, your knees on either side of his thighs, feeling the heat radiating off him. 

"Just breathe, Aang. Look at me."

His gaze snaps up to yours, so wide and vulnerable. 

You reach down, your thumb grazing over his lips to wipe the remnants of your pleasure, and he lets out a choked sound when you touch him.

"Shh..." You coo, leaning forward until your breasts brush his chest, your nipples grazing against his skin. 

"I'm going to be so careful with you. I promise."

When you finally lower yourself down, the way he gasps a broken, shattered sound that rips straight through your chest is almost enough to make you stop. 

But you don't. 

You sink down slowly, agonizingly slow, taking him in inch by inch. 

You watch his eyes pull open before screwing shut the next second, his head falling back into the pillows as you fill yourself completely. You can feel his hands hovering just above your waist, trembling, wanting to grab you but terrified to do so.

"That's it..." You moan, your voice thick with the pleasure he's giving you. 

"Oh Aang...you feel so good."

You start to move, but it's not fast. No matter how desperate you were, you do not pick up your pace. 

You move slow, grinding back and forth on him. 

You're taking your time, riding him with a languid motion that forces him to feel every single corner of you. You lean forward and whisper in his ear.

"Tell me what you want me to do, Aang. Tell me how you want me."

"I..." He swallows hard, his hands finally coming to rest on your hips, his fingers digging into your skin with a desperation that makes your smile.

"I want you to...just like that. Please." His sentence was incomplete, but you understood plenty. 

You let out a throaty moan, arching your back as you grind down on him, your moans getting louder, more shameless. 

You want him to hear it. You want him to hear exactly what he's doing to you. You press your palms flat against his chest, feeling his heart hammering like a trapped bird beneath your touch.

"You're so beautiful..." You whisper, your voice trembling with genuine awe as your eyes brim with tears. 

"My perfect, beautiful Aang."

The way he says your name after, in that broken, wrecked manner is when you know you've really done it. 

You've broken him open. 

And as you find your rhythm, as you ride him with the motive to give him that devastating pleasure, you know you're never letting him go.

You lean forward, as you press your chest against his, burying your face in the crook of his neck. Your fingers find your own aching heat, working in a rhythmic counterpoint.

Aang is completely lost now, his head lolling back, his throat working around a broken moan as you guide him toward the edge.

"Aang..." You whisper against his skin, your breath hot making him shudder. You pull back, looking at him softly as you ghost your lips over his.

"I need you to...I need you to let go. Just like that. For me."

His fingers press into your waist with strength. 

His eyes find yours, and for a moment, you finally see it.

The moment he decides to stop fighting.

When it happens, it's so beautiful. 

You feel his entire body seize beneath you, his hips arching off the mattress as he finally breaks. 

You don't even flinch when he gasps your name with a sob, pressing yourself down hard, grinding against him, ensuring every single drop of him is claimed. 

You take it all, swallowing his release with a greedy, possessive whimper, your own orgasm crashing over you in that leaves you trembling.

You stay there for a long time, collapsed against his chest, listening to the frantic, uneven thudding of his heart. 

You can feel the warmth of him still inside you, a thrumming weight that makes your stomach flip with triumph.

Slowly, you pull back. His eyes are still blown wide, staring at the ceiling with a look of complete, hollowed out shock. 

He's breathing hard, his skin flushed, the arrow on his head a stark against his pale skin. 

He looks utterly shattered, completely undone by you.

"Aang?" you whisper, your voice innocent.

He doesn't answer. He just lies there, staring, still taking long inhales through his nose. 

You know exactly what you've done. 

You've crossed a line he can never uncross. 

You've claimed him in the most irreversible way, and you did it while making him think it was his choice.

"Oh, Aang..." You murmur, your hand coming up to stroke his cheek, your thumb tracing the curve of his lower lip. 

"You were so good. So perfect."

His eyelashes flutter, and for a moment, you think he might cry. Then, his hand moves slow, hesitant and rests against your thigh. It's not a push away. It's still there.

“Weren’t you…supposed to…move?” he managed to choke out eventually, his eyes searching yours while you stared back at him in confusion.

For a moment, you genuinely had no idea what he meant.

So you simply waited for him to explain himself.

Except he never actually said it.

Instead, his attention dropped lower, landing where your bodies were still pressed together intimately, and realization hit you almost instantly.

You giggle, lowering your chest to his, as you hold him.

"I wanted it." You confess softly, leaning forward to press a tender kiss to his temple. 

"I wanted you. All of you."

You stay there, wrapped around him, waiting. 

Waiting for the moment he realizes he can't go back. 

Waiting for the moment he accepts he's yours.

And as you feel him exhale, a long, shuddering breath that dissolves into that of relief, you know.

You've already won.

Months later, sometimes you still thought about the look on Katara's face when you and Aang announced not only that you were together, but that the wedding would follow two months later.

You had not enjoyed it.

That was perhaps the cruelest part of all this. 

Beneath the jealousy, the selfishness, beneath the quiet satisfaction curling inside your chest, Katara had still been your friend. 

The sight of her standing there so perfectly composed while grief leaked through the cracks of her face had filled you with immediate guilt.

But guilt did not undo anything.

She had her chance, and she let it pass her by with trembling hands and too much hesitation. 

You had been offered the very same thing only once, and you had taken it without allowing yourself enough time to think twice.

That alone had decided everything.

It did not matter now anyway. 

The damage had already settled itself between all of you. 

You still saw them, of course.

Toph remained unchanged, thankfully immune to awkwardness, still insulting you with the same affection she always had. 

Zuko treated everything with neutrality, though every now and then you would catch the faintest exhaustion in his eyes whenever tension filled the room for too long.

But Sokka had grown quieter around both of you, his easy laughter no longer arriving naturally, while Suki watched situations unfold with patience, refusing to interfere. 

And Katara—

Katara tried.

Spirits, she really tried.

Yet there was only so much grace a person could carry before it started collapsing under its own weight.

The worst part was that none of them even lived in Republic City anymore except for her.

Despite it, you moved to the city.

You had promised Aang you would, and unlike everyone else, you never made promises to him you did not intend to keep.

The pregnancy had complicated things almost immediately. 

Explaining why your stomach had already begun rounding before the wedding was difficult enough, though the true horror came when four months into your marriage you could no longer disguise it beneath layered robes and loose fabric.

People counted months cruelly.

Especially your own friends.

Still, none of them said anything directly. 

Not even Katara.

Marriage itself settled around you strangely fast. 

Domestic life came naturally, and it unexpected how easily your fell into it.

Slipping into place piece by piece until you could no longer imagine waking without Aang somewhere nearby.

Though 'nearby' often meant temporary.

He was gone more than he was home, forever chasing disasters across nations, disappearing on Appa before sunrise whenever the duties of the Avatar demanded him elsewhere. 

Sometimes he would return exhausted enough to barely stay awake through dinner before collapsing beside you still half dressed.

Other nights he came home restless, carrying the weight of too many people needing too much from him all at once.

But whenever he was home, he loved you openly.

That was what mattered most.

By the seventh month of your pregnancy, Aang had developed the habit of kneeling in front of you every evening, pressing his ear against your stomach with complete seriousness while the twins shifted violently beneath your skin.

"They're arguing again." He would say thoughtfully.

You laughed every single time.

"They are not arguing."

"They definitely are. This one keeps kicking the other."

"They must have inherited your inability to sit still."

Aang only grinned before pressing another kiss against your stomach, completely unbothered by your jokes.

He was convinced both babies would be girls.

You remained certain one would be a boy.

Neither of you won.

The labor lasted nearly an entire night, leaving you exhausted beyond reason by the time the twins finally arrived screaming into the world shortly before dawn.

You gave birth to two boys. 

Two impossibly tiny boys with lungs strong enough to wake half the district.

Aang cried harder than either of them did.

You would remember that forever.

The sight of him sitting beside you with one baby clutched awkwardly against his chest while the other rested in your arms, tears slipping down his face faster than he could wipe them away.

You knew he was overwhelmed by something too enormous to fit inside him.

They looked more like him than you from the very beginning.

Those very grey eyes. His nose. Their pale skin that scrunched impossibly whenever they cried too hard.

You could feel it already, that they would be very powerful.

He held those boys carefully, almost fearfully, as though he could not quite believe they were real.

Months later, late at night. you would often find yourself curled against Aang’s side in bed while the twins slept against his chest, tiny bodies rising and falling steadily.

Something deep in Aang seemed to settle whenever the twins were in his arms. The sight softened something deep inside him every single time.

“What’s wrong?” You asked once after catching him staring at them for far too long, distant thoughts clouding his face while one of the babies slept soundly beneath his chin.

Aang blinked before smiling faintly.

“Nothing.”

You leaned closer, pressing a gentle kiss against his shoulder before settling back into his side again, one hand moving instinctively to pat the back of the baby resting on his chest while Aang carefully adjusted the other higher against him.

Then, after a while, his hand drifted absentmindedly toward one of the twins, fingertips brushing softly through the wisps of hair on his head just as a tiny gust of air stirred weakly around the tiny blankets.

The movement was small, but it made you go completely still.

Because suddenly, you understood.

After all, you had not simply become his wife.

You had become the future of the Air Nomads.

The only future left.

a/n: i laughed OUT LOUD on many occasions as i was editing it. but i still like it very much. so, i will sit in my shame like the clown that i am.

masterlist :: atla masterlist