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In which Aerion’s wife is the opposite of him in all aspects, her gentle nature is less of something to break, but rather protect. Like a dragon guarding his plunder.
word count: 1,366
cw: 18+ mdni, talks of toxic relationships (not readers), consented biting, this is just pure fluff, sexual themes, characters are adults always - YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT AND MEDIA THAT YOU CHOOSE TO CONSUME
Ashford tourney was supposed to be for mending long lasting alliances with the houses of the Reach. Instead, your father-by-law had lost two of his son’s on the journey, and the one that remained had managed to kill a horse during his first and now only joust. He had been banned from competing for fear the small-folk would try and pelt him to death with stones in the arena. You had been there all of three days, and you were all as sick of it as the people were of you.
Therefore when the evening jousts commenced at sunset, you had urged your husband to join you on a walk in the meadows. No one else will venture there you had said, they are preoccupied with the tournament.
And your words rang true, the meadow was deserted. Insects flew freely, birds sung loudly, an orange glow cast across the entire scene. It was picturesque. Utterly beautiful. That’s where you led amongst the flowers of the field, your head resting in your husband’s lap as his fingers fell idly through your hair.
“You are going to get filthy led down there.” He uttered, fingers tangling several strands together in a pattern which slightly resembled that of a plait. “You worry too much about things that do not matter my dragon.” You reached up a hand, pressing your two central fingers against his lips as he parted them, welcoming their taste against his tongue before biting down lightly. A pout fell across your face as you yanked your hand back, little red crescents bled across your fingers from the rawness of his touch. Biting was a known affection of your husband. He did it playfully, he did it endearingly, he did it in bed, he did it when he thought you needed a reminder of to whom you belong. You had grown used to it being a silent form of I love you, this makes you mine.
In retaliation to his brute touch you kissed his palm tenderly, pressing his fingers flat against your cheek as your lips caressed his callous hands. “You do not always have to be so gentle.” He murmured, his unused hand resuming its place at the crown of your head, massaging gently. “I do not seek to hurt you, husband.” It was true, did his immature actions like killing a horse in a friendly tourney make you want to suffocate him with your pillow? Yes. Would you ever do such a thing? No. Because you maintained impulse control, something your husband feverishly lacked. “People talk of our marriage you know.” It felt like a confession from his lips, he desired to be feared but he hated the whispers that carried pity in your direction, that he would dare lay a hand to his own wife, he would sooner cut it off himself than do such a thing to you. He was rough when he knew it brought you pleasure only, never would he strike you down for merely existing, why would he have taken you to wed if your thoughts and feelings deserved to be silenced at his hand? But he knew what people thought, he was publicly careless in his actions, he hurt others without thinking twice. They pitied you publicly, his own family even contributed.
The Mad Prince’s Poor Wife
Brightflames caged dove
The living ghost of Summerhall
They truly believed you to be so unseen. Sure you were quieter than most, but your husband was devoted to your every need. They did not see his affection, they had not earned it. You had never had to, but to hear the whispers on the wind of their blatant pity was painful. You were not ignored, far from it. But in Summerhall there was few that made good company, you often found yourself wandering the halls late at night when sleep would not find you, resulting in the living ghost becoming an unwanted nickname - because the servants truly believed you were wandering due to the fact your husband was bedding whores in your shared bedchamber, another misconception, he just snores very fucking loud.
“I know of what they say.” You looked up to meet his eyes lightly, his contrasted your own heavily “but again, it does not concern me for they do not know me.” He scoffed, untangling his fingers from your hair “Yes but maybe it should, they speak as if I hate you, I bed whores in our shared bed, I make you suffer when I do bed you.”
“Maybe they think that because you make me scream.” You giggled, you caught the amusement flash across his face in a subtly proud smirk before he shook his head “That is absolutely beside the point. Do not be so vulgar, it is not befitting of a Lady.” He was teasing, abundantly so, he lowered his face until he was inches from your own, upside down from your perspective. The tip of his nose brushed against the bridge of your own, however in his distraction you placed several kisses to his taught jaw. His eyes fell shut with a hum, you tangled your hands in his hair, pulling his face as close as you could get it to your own, kissing his forehead to his cheek tenderly, before releasing him and turning onto your stomach, resting your arms in his lap. You were propped up that way, giving him better access to the entirety of your face. He seized the opportunity to entwine his hands with your hair full, locking them at the base of your scalp so that you were forced to maintain eye contact with him. “Look at this dress. Have you any idea the coin I spent on it?” He tutted, the once flush pink skirts were saddled with marks of dusty mud - it would undoubtedly brush off but he enjoyed the game of making a fuss. “Probably more than was necessary.” You smiled, meeting his lips in a devastating kiss as he groaned into your mouth.
“It is growing late, we should return to bed.” He pulled away ever so slightly but you chased his lips with your own, “I do not wish to depart yet! No need to stay in that dreary place when this is the view.” He groaned against your lips before he was silenced by your tongue fighting its way back into his mouth. You settled yourself into his lap now, allowing you a better reach to his face as he chuckled quietly at your desperation for closeness.
“Do not laugh at me.” You whined, his hands settled to your hips in an attempt to settle your dispute. “You are desperate.” He titled his head, a lazy smile planted onto his face, such a vast separation from the brute man that held his own on a tourney field. “I am allowed to be desperate you are my husband.”
“Yes well, if you would come with me to bed I would be able to satisfy your desires.” He raised an eyebrow, a kiss pressed to the side of your face. “I desire your company and your affection and I want it here in this field.” You demanded, maybe it did sound a bit desperate in hindsight but you didn’t have the care for it. He only laughed louder as you pouted at him, “you sound childish. Lose the attitude my flame it does not best suit you.”
“Childish! How dare you!”
“Oh how dare I? Gods I do forget myself.” His lips joined to your neck in a flurry of hurried kisses that only forced your laughter to join with his. “There, is my wife now satisfied?”
A hazy smile joined your face, you adored your husband more than anything because to you this was who he was. It brought you pain more often than not to know how those around you viewed your relationship. They did not see his affection, they saw your withdrawal from public affection. You did not hold hands, you did not kiss or even touch where others could see. Because it was not for them to have. What you shared was gentle and sacred and entirely your own.
A/N: shorter and entirely out of character for aerion i know, but i couldn’t resist. sometimes i forget im literally writing fanfiction and i can write whatever i want however i want so yes this is not who aerion is as a character but i had a lot of fun so i hope you all enjoyed.
as always: likes, comments, reblogs + any interactions at all are always always appreciated - take care everyone!!
DISCLAIMER: All themes, plot, images used in general and characters from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms + elsewhere belong to the rightful owners, I hold no rights to the original media - but my writing belongs to me.
content warning: 18+ mdni | smut | m!masturbation | alcohol consumption | explicit sexual fantasies | mentions of: pornography, oral (f!receiving), p in v, daddy kink, biting, hair pulling
masterlist ────୨ৎ──── taglist
Aerion was having one of those nights. The kind where everything felt too heavy, too much. The shop had been a nightmare—two no-shows, one engine block dropped on Daeron's foot, and Maekar had been breathing down his neck about the accounts all day. Aerion had barely made it through his front door before cracking open a fresh bottle of whiskey, the first one he'd bought in weeks because he'd been trying to "do better," whatever the fuck that meant.
Now he was three glasses in, sitting on his couch, his phone in hand, staring at your contact like it might reach through the screen and punch him in the face. The living room was dark except for the blue glow of the TV, some shitty action movie playing on mute. He should turn it off. He should go to bed. He should stop thinking about you.
But instead, he was scrolling through your photos. The ones he'd saved over the years, the ones he told himself he kept for Maegor but really, really didn't. There was one of you at the river last summer, Maegor sat on your shoulders, both of you were squinting into the sun. Another from Maegor's birthday where you were holding the cake and laughing at something Rhae had said. And then there was the one he shouldn't have. The one he'd taken when you were both drunk at his trailer a few months ago, with your shirt pulled down, your tits in his hands, your face flushed and smiling. He'd told you he was deleting it. He never did.
His cock was already twitching in his jeans, half-hard just from looking at you. He groaned while adjusting himself. The whiskey was making everything feel a little too good, a little too sharp. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the couch, and tried to think about something else. Anything else. But all he could see was you. The way you'd looked that night of the picture. With your hair all wild, and your lips swollen from kissing him, the way you'd moaned when he touched you, like you needed it as much as he did.
He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before bringing his phone back up. He figured was already going to hell anyway. So he clicked on your name, pressed the phone to his ear, and waited for you to pick up. He knew you were asleep. It was almost midnight, and you had to work tomorrow. But he couldn't stop himself.
"Hey, baby," he started when he got your voicemail, his voice already rough from the whiskey and the need coiling in his gut. He unzipped his jeans as he spoke, letting his hand slip into his boxers to wrap around his cock. "I know you're sleepin', but... fuck, I can't stop thinkin' about you."
He stroked himself slowly as he squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall back. "Remember that time in my truck? When we drove out to the river and you climbed on top of me? Fuck, you were so wet, baby. I could feel you through your jeans. You were ridin' me like you were tryna kill me, I had to bite down on your shoulder and I loved every fuckin' second of it."
He groaned, swiping his thumb over the head of his cock, smearing the pre-cum while the next string of slurred words tumbled out of his mouth. "I'm touchin' myself right now. Thinkin' about how you looked with your tits bouncin' in that little tank top. And the wind was blowin' your hair all over the place. You were so fuckin' sexy. You still are. Drivin' me crazy."
"I wanna fuck you so bad, baby. Wanna bend you over the hood of my truck again, pull your hair until you're cryin', just like you like. Remember how you sounded? Beggin' me not to stop? God, I could listen to you beg all night." His hand moved faster, his hips now thrusting up into his fist as he kept thinking of the two of you together.
The whiskey burned in his throat, but he didn't care. He was too lost in the memory, in the fantasy of you. "I wanna taste you, too. Wanna put my mouth on that sweet little pussy until you're screamin'. You always get so fuckin' loud when I do that. Remember when Maegor was at my dad's, and we had the whole place to ourselves? I ate you out for hours, baby. You—god—you came so many times I thought you were gonna pass out. Best fuckin' night of my life."
He was panting now. His grip tight, his movements growing more desperate by the second. And his phone was pressed so hard against his ear it was probably leaving a mark. "I was watchin' this video earlier this week. Some porn shit. Whatever. This girl was gettin' fucked from behind, and she was... fuck... she was callin' the guy 'daddy.' And all I could think about was you. You callin' me that while I'm balls deep inside you. Fuck, baby, I'd give you anything if you said it just once."
He choked out a laugh and his head fell back again. "I know you won't. I know it's not your thing. But I can't stop thinkin' about it. About how fuckin' hot it would be. You, lookin' back at me with those big eyes, tellin' me to fuck you harder. Callin' me— Christ, I'm gonna come just thinkin' about it."
His strokes became erratic as the heat built. He was trembling and whimpering at the image of you back in his bed. "I miss you, baby. Fuck, I miss you so much. I miss wakin' up next to you, miss makin' breakfast with you, miss watchin' you with Maegor. But I mostly miss this. Miss how you feel, how you fuck me like you're never gonna let me go. I'm still yours, you know that? Even if you don't want me anymore, I'm still fuckin' yours."
The orgasm hit him hard; his body tensing and his cock pulsing in his hand as he spilled over his stomach. He moaned your name, a low, broken, drawn out sound. The phone slipped from his ear to land on the couch beside him. For a minute, he just sat there, chest heaving, watching the room spin from the whiskey and the intensity of it all.
Finally, he picked up the phone again, his voice now taking on that soft, tender tone he sometimes used when actually speaking to you. "Anyway. Just wanted to... I don't know. Fuck. I'm drunk. Don't listen to this. Delete it. I'll see you tomorrow when I pick up Maegor. Love y— Good night, baby."
He knew he'd regret it in the morning. Knew he'd probably made a huge mistake. But as he wiped his hand on his shirt and stumbled to the bathroom to clean up, he couldn't bring himself to care.
When he finally crashed into bed, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from you. He smiled in the dark as his chest tightened with what felt a lot like hope. So he fell asleep with the phone in his hand, the glow of the screen lighting up his face from where he'd left it open to your message thread:
It'd been five months since you told Aerion you couldn't do it anymore and left for the house your grandmother left you. It'd been three months since he stopped coming around asking to "talk about it." And it was still raw. Like sticking a band-aid on an open wound and pretending it didn't still bleed.
You'd promised you'd come; it was Daella's birthday. Maegor had been talking about it for weeks—about the cake, about seeing Papa. You couldn't say no. He was just a month shy of turning two, and he'd asked, in that tiny voice that broke your heart, if Daddy would be there too. You'd said yes. Because it wasn't about you and Aerion anymore. It was about Maegor.
Maekar's backyard was chaos, as always. Kids screaming, adults drinking cheap beer, someone grilling burgers while someone else argued about lawn games. You'd barely stepped out of your car when Maegor was already wiggling in your arms, pointing at the swing set.
"Mama, swing!"
"Yeah, baby, we'll go swing," you murmured, adjusting him on your hip. Your stomach tightened as you scanned the crowd and saw Aerion by the cooler with a cigarette in his mouth. He hadn't seen you yet; he was laughing at something Daeron said, but you knew the second he did, it'd ruin whatever peace you'd managed to scrape together.
You set Maegor down, holding his hand as he dragged you toward the swings. You could feel eyes on you—Maekar, Daella, maybe even Egg. They were good people, but they were loyal to Aerion first and foremost. You didn't blame them. You just hated the pity.
You got Maegor settled on a swing and began pushing him gently while trying to ignore the way your skin prickled. Then you heard the crunch of boots on grass and inhaled the smell of smoke.
"Baby. You came."
"I said I would."
"Still... thanks. For bringin' him."
"Aerion, he's our son. I'm not keeping him from you."
You sounded tired. You were tired. You pushed the swing again, your focus on Maegor, who was giggling and completely oblivious.
Aerion moved to stand closer. He stood just behind you. You could feel the heat of him, the way he always seemed to take up all the air around you. "You look good."
You laughed under your breath and shook your head. "Don't."
"Don't what? Tell you the truth?"
"Just... don't."
He didn't listen, of course. He was never good at that. He just stepped around you to lean against the swing set pole, always watching you with those damn eyes. "You been okay?"
"Peachy. You?"
"I've been better," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I, uh, got my dad to give me more hours at the shop. And I stopped goin' to the bar as much."
"That's good. I'm... I'm glad."
"Baby, can we—"
"Mama! Higher!" Maegor's voice cut through the tension, giving you a moment to finally let out the breath you'd been holding since you heard him approach.
You gave him one more push, then turned to face Aerion. "I'm not doing this here, Aerion. Not today."
He sighed, looking like he wanted to argue but didn't know how without you slapping him or upsetting his son. "Alright. But later—"
"There is no later. There's just Maegor. That's it."
You left him standing there, going to grab Maegor when he started whining about being hungry. The rest of the party went by in a blur. You smiled when you had to, made small talk with Daella, let Maekar hold Maegor while you got a plate of food. Every time you felt Aerion's eyes on you, you ignored it. Because if you didn't, you'd break.
By the time it was dark and Maegor was asleep in his car seat, you were exhausted.
You didn't realize Aerion had followed you to your car until you rounded it to open your door and saw him leaning against the back bumper. "What, Aerion?"
"Just let me talk to you, fuck... Please."
"What is there to talk about? We're not together. We're not getting back together. We have a son together, and that's all."
His jaw tightened, and his eyes flashed with that familiar stubbornness that pushed you away in the first place. "You don't mean that."
"I do," you insisted, even though part of you didn't. "We were awful for each other, Aerion. You know it."
"I know I wasn't perfect, but you—"
"I wasn't either; I get it! But that's not the point. The point is, we broke up for a reason. And I can't keep doing this back-and-forth shit with you. Not when Maegor's involved."
"So that's it? We're just... what? Fuckin' co-parents or whatever you call it, who see each other at birthdays and holidays?"
"Isn't that what you wanted? Your freedom? No 'ball and chain'?"
"Fuck you. You know that's not what I wanted."
"Then what did you want, Aerion? Because I can't do this anymore. I can't keep hoping you'll change and then being disappointed when you don't."
"I'm tryin'. I am. I just need you to give me a chance—"
"I gave you a chance. I gave you a million chances, Aerion. I'm done doing that for you."
You turned to get in the car, but he grabbed your arm, spinning you back around. "Please, baby. Don't do this."
"Don't," you warned. Your voice and your hands were already shaking, and you just wanted to go. "Don't make this harder than it already is. I need to get Maegor home."
He didn't listen. He kissed you. It was desperate, rough, as if he thought he could change your mind if he just kissed you hard enough. And for a second, it almost worked. You could smell the beer on his breath, the smoke in his clothes; you could feel the way he was trembling just a little. For a second, you were back in his trailer, letting him kiss you like he'd die if he didn't. But then you pulled away.
"Stop it."
He didn't, just kissed your jaw, your neck. His hands gripped your waist and stayed there. "I love you, baby. Please. I love you."
"You don't get to say that. Not now."
But his mouth found yours again, and this time you kissed him back. Because you were weak, because you were sad and your frontal lobe hadn't developed enough to fully deny him. The kiss turned messy, needy, his hands started moving up under your shirt, and you knew you were making a mistake.
"Come home," he muttered against your lips. "Just... come home. We'll do better. I'll be better."
You shook your head, even as your fingers tangled in his hair. "I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"Aerion—"
"Please, baby. I swear to God, I'll do whatever you want. Just... don't say no."
"Aerion..."
You didn't finish. Instead, you cradled his face with your hands and kissed him again, softly. He kissed you back like it was the last time he would get to, because it felt like the last time. When you finally broke apart, you didn't say anything. Just got in the car and drove away.
He didn't call that night. Didn't show up at your door, either. But the next morning, there were fresh flowers on your porch, and a new box of crayons for Maegor. And even though you knew it didn't fix anything, it was enough to make you remember the first time he gave you a flower after making you cry about running over a parking curb when he was teaching you to drive.
"I don't know about this shit. But you're real pretty and I feel like an asshole for makin' you cry, so... here," he'd said. "You like yellow, right?"
Because that's the thing about Aerion—he was always trying. And even if it wasn't enough, it was always something.
synopsis. — in which ser gwayne hightower is abysmal at flirting, so you find another use for him
pairing. — gwayne hightower x reader
content warnings. — reader being a manipulative diva (we love a resourceful queen 🙂↕️), gwayne being down bad and horrible at flirting (i’ve fallen for the sub!gwayne propaganda), cumming untouched, cumming against a shoe (yeah uh idk how to justify that one), i guess shoe-humping technically, reader seducing gwayne for that hightower bag
word count. — 2.8k
notes. — talk to your crush, they said. it’ll be easy, they said. + reader’s house is unspecified + reader plans to use gwayne but of course there will be love in the end + currently writing a significantly longer ver of this, lmk if you’d like to be tagged for it + hope you enjoy!! <3
“Do you have a lover?”
You turn towards him, very slowly, careful not to let your chair creak. It is very unfortunate, you think, in the span of that moment, that the two of you are the only ones in the council chamber.
The man has been badgering you incessantly since he took his seat besides you (an arrangement you will change immediately, once you have the chance to speak with the Queen Dowager alone), all sorts of peculiar inquiries that you have only ever seen directed towards consorts and the pretty fawns applying to work in brothels. In such a mild manner, too, eyes boring into yours expectantly and asking his questions straight faced.
“Pardon?”
“I imagine my sister does not allow her advisors to keep lovers. Does she permit you?”
Never in your life had you ever expected to hear such a query from any figure related to the Queen Dowager, much less Gwayne Hightower himself.
You take a moment to gather yourself, lest you spend the imminent meeting agog, “Perhaps… perhaps it would be wise to discuss such matters outside of the council?”
“Sir?” You add, almost as an afterthought. You are not sure exactly how much emphasis you should put upon his importance, both as a knight and the Queen’s brother.
He thinks for a moment, and concedes, “I suppose you’re right.”
You sit back in your seat, allowing none of your movements to betray the tremendous effort required to maintain your grace in such a position. Had you been wrong to expect a more civilized gentleman to be the new face you were welcoming to the roundtable? The Queen Dowager had always spoken fondly of her brother.
You cannot imagine the same adjectives of ‘charming’ and ‘chivalrous’ could pertain to the man besides you and the numerous exchanges that had just come to pass, the man raising new questions of increasingly salacious nature each time you attempted to conclude the conversation. Perhaps she had been referring to a different brother…? You are not sure how many she has.
You hope sincerely, that the other members of the council will make themselves known soon and that he will be silent in the meantime, as well as making a note to yourself to make this meeting with him a first and a last and never to be alone with him ever again.
Unfortunately, the hope is in vain.
“Would you be willing to discuss those matters in my chambers instead?” He asks, without any increment of shame, “Tonight, if possible.”
You’re certain your distaste must show in the set of your jaw, for he gathers the decency to quell his own impudence.
“I apologize, milady,” he has the courtesy to finally backtrack, “perhaps I should have introduced myself first. I am—”
“I am aware of who you are,” you cut him off, coolly. You have half a mind to lay into him with a good lambasting, before the rest of the council arrives, but you are taken aback enough to forget your growing chagrin when you notice how bashful he seems to be, all of a sudden. Desperate, almost:
He is certainly a very peculiar man, spiraling from shamelessness to diffidence so swiftly. Like a puppy, you think, sighing internally. He is normally such a… refined man from a distance, something even you admit amidst the current circumstances. It is strange to think that you may be the only one privy to such a… boyish outburst.
A stupid one.
“Is that a yes?” He asks, after a contemplative moment has passed.
“No, of course not!” You snap, nearly jerking away from him physically.
He deflates immediately, having the decorum to at least sit back from where he had been leaning forwards in subconscious anticipation and leave you alone for a good while (longer than before, anyway).
Quietude, serenity. You are given the opportunity to think, at last.
Of the war, of the Queen Dowager, of what is to be done with Daeron.
You have been forced to turn a blind eye to the various trysts your Queen and her Princess have been traipsing throughout the conflicts. What would the public think, should they ever uncover the truth? The two rulers they have been sacrificing everything for, harmonious amongst themselves but still insisting upon finishing the war. And for what?
The conflict will not bear any end of consequence, of that you are sure. Only death and death and death. Noble houses with enough influence are at least offered the luxury of choosing the side they wish to die for, while houses of meager ascendancy are simply forced to whichever side preys upon them first.
You are one of the latter. Although you are more fortunate than most, fortunate enough to occupy a position in the council of the Greens, and even more so to hold authority as a direct advisor to the Queen Dowager herself. And of course, her offspring.
And what of them, you ponder? Helaena is sure to be tucked away securely with her mother to the best of the council’s ability. Aegon and Aemond are constants in their unpredictability, something you have grown to accept in each discussion involving them. Daeron…
He is… stable enough, with Ormund. You wonder if the Council will consider wedding him.
But to whom? Another Tarly? A Targaryen? It would be better, you decide, for the boy to pick his own lover from a circle where there could only be beneficial options. Wiser.
You will have to inform the Queen of that, send word to Ormund, perhaps.
(Your attention diverts, briefly, when Gwayne shifts in his seat, in want of anything to do. You ignore him, pointedly.)
And what of you, you question, finally? Gwayne has poisoned the bulwark of your mind, you concede, enough so that you have begun to ponder the matter in what begins as idleness and grows earnest. It would be wise to marry into the royal circle. Your house would thank you for it. Marrying into the Hightowers would have brought much influence before the war, when Otto was Hand to the King, but it brings more value now, in the depths of it.
To be and remain wed to a Hightower until the aftermath of victory would be greatly advantageous given your current position. And should the tide of war turn in favor of the Blacks your house does not lack in ebony silks and duplicity.
It would be an excellent move no matter the result of the conflict. If the Blacks were to win, it is easy enough to become widowed; you are sure no figure openly opposed to Rhaenyra would be spared, and you could plead your allegiance, grovel that you had been forced by your family, there had been no other way.
And for the Greens to win would be most fortunate. You could live with a loveless marriage, for you would at least be alive to do so.
Besides, with the marriage would come power and with more power would come the potential to play the battlefield as you see fit and ensure victory, in some way, whether for yourself or for your faction.
Yes, a viable route. But to implement it effectively it would need to be soon, and it comes down to a matter of who.
It is a partnership, you think. It would need to be someone of enough status to elevate yours from where you are already fairly distinguished, but not so potent as to mark you as a figure to be dealt with immediately should you fall into enemy hands.
Someone… renowned through consanguinity, perhaps, but not so much so as title. Close enough to power to be of value to the Greens and of danger to the Blacks, but far enough from it for you to have a chance of being spared. You, and not them. That is quite integral.
You have been taught by the years of war that cunning requires patience. Have experienced firsthand how brashness could derail a legacy entirely. But the epochs of patience must have paid off, culminated in an expeditious result just this once, for your solution comes quickly.
Consanguinity… a brother, perhaps? Close enough to power, to the family… a member of it. Dangerous, through his duty as a knight, but not so dangerous as the line of succession and their predecessors. Far enough from the throne to never directly threaten it, but close enough to those who do.
Your knight in shining armor, you think, with affection now that you see his value.
“Her Grace does not prevent me from keeping lovers,” you decide to throw him a bone, “it is of my own accord if I wish to take them.”
His head raises at your voice, with significantly more composure than before, something that you note. He is learning, you think.
“And you would…” he hesitates, “would you take me as one of them?”
You smile, unable to surpress your delectation at how eager he is, even through his hopeless attempts at seeming more collected than before.
“Do you have a spouse, Ser Gwayne?” You query.
The intention behind your question is not lost on him, and his lips part in a way that draws your eyes to them involuntarily. He’s not… bad-looking, you begrudge.
“You— you wish to—” he fumbles a few times, gathering his wits only after embarrassing himself sufficiently, “No, I— I have no spouse.”
“Is that why are you so insistent on becoming my lover?” His eyes widen, pupils dilating and flaring.
“I— milady—” he attempts.
“It is a simple question, Ser Gwayne,” you tell him, lightly, “if your answer pleases me I may consider it.”
“Milady…” he murmurs, voice barely trembling above a whisper.
He looks utterly in pieces, from your words alone. Face flushed heavily, throat bobbing with each heavy swallow, trembling fingers curling into his breeches. He must be greatly affected to be so unkempt.
Yes, that is your verdict. He is only like this around you.
Very well, you think, a little pleased despite yourself. You’ll just have to train him.
“Do not get your hopes up, Ser Gwayne,” you decide to humor him, leaning forwards to cup his face with one hand, “I do not have to marry. It is simply… useful.”
He must surely understand that utility and necessity are one and the same here, but he seems to ignore it in favor of how utterly foolish you render him and accepts your words as the gift you phrased them as.
Good, you think. So he can be taught.
“Well?” You hum, allowing a mocking lilt to enter your voice, “you were very eager before, don’t tell me you’re daunted now.”
You start to press him down into the seat, his face warming rapidly beneath your fingers, “All this talk of lovers, Ser Gwayne… I’m sure you would fare equally well with a wife.”
His eyes are blown wide, a fire brimming in the pit of his gut. Somewhere in his mind he is perfectly aware that he is being played for a fool, that this marriage will bring nothing but longing for him, but his body cannot reject your touch, cannot help but succumb to that gleam in your eyes, he can barely think straight.
He slides off the seat in an instant, fingers curling into the fabric of your skirts, lowering himself onto one knee, “…Please.”
It is far too intimate a move, one that should not be for anyone but dubbers of knighthood and certainly not for women planning to use you for their own benefit, as comely as they are cunning. Even less fitting when his crotch is pressed directly against your shoe, so that you can feel everything.
His cock, straining against his breeches. He must be painfully hard, his condition only worsened when you lift your foot slightly, the minor stimulation drawing a low groan from your knight’s lips.
“Please, what?”
His eyes meet yours, dark with need and face half-pressed in your lap, “Please, milady. I am in your service forever, please… if you’ll have me.”
Heat begins to stir in your gut despite yourself, when his hips press subtly, involuntarily, against your sole, prompting something akin to a whimper to spill unbidden from him. He’s oddly pretty, you think, all undone for you.
“A marriage would be helpful. As would an heir,” you muse, “I am not planning to have one, but perhaps you could persuade me.”
His cock gives a pathetic twitch against your shoe. His head raises, eyes shining dutifully, “I would be glad to give you one. I would do anything for you.”
“Anything?”
He’s pitiful. A mess of a man, yet still so forward. It’s awfully endearing.
“Anything,” he murmurs, breathlessly.
Your fingers find his face once more, gentle enough that he yields to the touch immediately. You tilt his face towards yours, close enough so that you think if he was as brave here as you’ve always heard he was on the battlefield, he would kiss you. His hips give another sinful roll against your shoe.
“Then marry me, my knight.”
You think he must’ve tipped over the edge, for he lets out a broken sound, his face slipping from your fingers and burying fully into your skirts. His hips shift weakly against your shoe, breeches damp with his own desperation.
Your head reels at the sounds leaving his lips, muffled by the fabric but ruined nonetheless. It’s depraved, you think, and very telling.
He will do nicely, you decide. You rather like the prospect of Hightower behind your name. It has a certain ring to it.
“Come now,” you murmur, fingers curling into his locks and pulling his head back. He blinks rapidly, trying to quell the surge of tears in his eyes but only succeeding in forcing them to flow freer.
You cup his face with both hands, brushing his tears away with your thumbs, “The meeting will start soon. Go tidy yourself up. You wouldn't want them all to see you like this, would you?”
He shakes his head weakly, using the table for support as he rises with shaky legs. He starts to make his way to the privy chamber in the corner, to at least wash the debauchery off his face. He will not be able to clean the mess from his breeches, though, not until he is alone in his chambers later and ready for another rendezvous then.
“Oh, and one last thing,” you call out, as poised and dignified as before now that he has been reduced to a devoted mess, “do let me know your favorite shade of green. Perhaps I could have a gown fashioned.”
His lips part helplessly, wanting so desperately to answer but not clear-headed enough to grasp at any particular shade in his mind. Where has that self-assuredness of his gone now, you ponder?
“Tell me later,” you tell him, “I will come find you, after the meeting. We still have much to discuss.”
He nods, compliantly.
You lean back in your chair, crossing your legs. You will have to clean your shoe thoroughly, later, but it is a small price to pay for the success you have secured. All that’s left to do is ensure you can resolve the rest of the predicaments. A hefty step, still, but much more attainable than before. And you have a whole council for that, and numerous meetings to come.
Besides, what is victory but a series of smaller triumphs?
Yes, victory…
Soon, perhaps in a few days, or even tomorrow, depending on how the night goes, you will marry Gwayne Hightower in his favorite shade of green, and once you are wed you will decide what to do. For now, though, you sit back and listen to the pattering footsteps of the other council members, fast approaching, like torrential rain. Chittering amongst themselves as they reach the door, as you revel in your own glory.
Gwayne returns to his seat next to you, fresher than before but still noticeably out-of-it compared to his usual composure.
“Do try to appear normal, darling,” you murmur, fingers palming his still leaking erection through his breeches, “We wouldn’t want to break the news too soon.”
His breath hitches immediately, hardening rapidly beneath your touch, “Y—yes, milady.”
He makes an effort to appear self-possessed when the other members first enter, but it is soon undermined when your fingers curl around the outline of his cock. It is sad, you think, how quickly he crumbles.
“It took you all quite a while,” you declare lightheartedly as the council members enter, “Ser Gwayne and I have been forced to entertain ourselves.”
“Haven’t we, Ser?” You glance at the man pointedly, the barest smirk gracing your lips.
He clears his throat panickedly, “I— yes, we have.”
Adorable, you think, before turning back to the rest of the council.
“Shall we begin?”
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content: It was no secret that Lord Ormund was fond of his uncle’s wife, but when she was sent back along with Daeron is was clear just how fond he was.
words: 2.5k
cw: MDNI 18+ allusions to sex, canon divergence, possessiveness, infidelity, Otto Hightower, we're going with a halfway between show and book, Daeron is like 5 when going to Old Town, talks of offing (💀) someone, not proofread, lmk if I missed any.
a/n: in other words Otto sends his wife to go play house with his nephew so they continue to have Old Town's support in his schemes!
The anger that surged through Old Town when it was announced you would marry Lord Otto Hightower, was still talked about even over ten years later.
Mainly Ormund's screams and the items that crashed against the walls. The threats that spilled from his lips to his uncle.
You had warded almost your entire life in Old Town. Growing among the Hightowers. It was no secret of young Ormund's fondness for you nor yours for him. It was thought that you would have been wed.
It was what made sense.
Until it all came crashing down when Lord Otto had struck a bargain with your father, for you to be his wife instead. It was abrupt. It was sudden, and even as the years passed it still made your gut churn in disgust.
It was not clear then why Otto had decided to marry you, but as the years passed it slowly clicked into place. He needed that reassurance when the time came Old Town would follow with his plans. That Ormund would follow his plans.
You were a pawn nothing more. Dragged to the capital to play further into schemes, but your true mistake came when proving just how well you fit the place of what he needed. You were more useful then he could have even imagined.
Your hands moved skillfully through Helaena's hair, braiding it, in the very way you use to do her mother's, when you were both girls. You liked the girl, loved her even.
Though she was often regarded as odd you always sought her out. You tried in ways her own mother did not. You went to her, often.
Then she started coming to you, and then it sort of became an every day occurrence. Her brother's were much the same. You gave them the love they lacked. Especially Aegon, molding and shaping him just the way Otto wanted. Or at least attempting too.
"Grandmother," she then called out, trying to turn back to you, but you kept her head straight.
The title was still an odd one. You were the same age as their mother. It felt wrong, but you would not correct it.
You never had.
"Why did you marry grandsire?" she asked suddenly.
Her words left you perplexed of a sort. You blinked slightly, your mouth opening as closing as you tied off her hair. You tried to think of an answer. One that would make it seem more like a piece of a fairytale then a broodmare being sold off.
You were never given the chance to answer when the door burst open revealing the said man. He stood there for a moment eyes flickering between the pair of you before he conjured a smile, that was merely for the performance of Helaena.
"Why don't you go to the gardens, get started on your findings and I will be right out to join you," you said, grinning gently.
She nodded eagerly not sensing the tension in the room or ignoring it before sprinting out, yelling something over her shoulder than went unheard to you.
The door shut with a loud thud as you both stared at the other. "Well. What is it?" you asked, standing to your feet. You watched him carefully seeing if you could guess what it is before he could say it, most of the time you could.
This time you would not, because the last thing you would have ever guessed came out of his mouth, "Ormund's wife has died," he suddenly declared. The words took only a second to register before you could hear your heart beat begin to pick up.
You kept your face neutral, something you had spent too much time practicing, "What does that have to do with me?" you asked, plainly, raising an unamused brow. "I am still married to you last I checked, unless this is how you plan to tell me you are finally dying."
He smirked unphased by the dig, "Daeron is being sent there…He will eventually squire for Ormund, and you will go alongside him."
"Otto," you warned, but he continued.
"I thought that marrying you would be all I needed to keep him in line. To remember exactly what I had over him, but after I have received some reports from Old Town, over the last few years I have been proven wrong. I only provoked the boy it seems."
You let out a laugh, shaking your head, "I would not regard him as much of a boy these days. Lord of Oldtown," you tilted your head, "What do you expect of me, husband. Speak plainly. 'Tis only us," you said, making your way toward him.
"I want you to be your charming self of course, and keep him…pleased," he decided on. He did not directly speak of what he meant, but you knew exactly what he meant nonetheless.
You let out a breath, "And what if he does not want me anymore? It has been years."
The old man only smirked, "I have no doubt that you can make him fall for your charms."His hand reached out grabbing your face, "My dutiful wife. You are more than I could have ever imagined," he whispered, his head tilting as his eyes drifted across you face.
A chill ran yo your spine, but you did not cower. He did not scare you, not anymore. "Why do you think this will make him compliant to our cause?"
"Because I have the very thing he wants…You will be in his grasps, and then I will remind him that I can take you back or keep you there depending on his behavior."
"And what if Ormund decides he wishes to kill you so he can marry me himself?" you asked.
"Then I trust you to carry on our work, dear wife," he said, his large hand tilting your head back before leaning down to press his mouth to yours.
Upon arrival back to Old Town, Daeron Targaryen was pressed into your side as if he was a second skin. He was frightened, and for good reason. He was boy of only five, in a place he had never been before, and the only person he knew was you. And Ormund Hightower never had looked like an soft, approachable person even in boyhood.
The Lord had not even spoken to you at first, nor had he spared you a second glance. His children on the other hand came to you as if you were a mother duck, but you could not blame them. So, you distracted yourself with them, tending to their needs as if they were one of your own.
And then that night, when most of Old Town had slept he finally sent for you.
You moved through the halls with muscle memory. You had grown up here. You had been suppose to live here forever. Though even as King's Landing turned into your home you still dreamed of this place.
You hesitated outside his door, not out of fear only preparation. You did not know what to say to a man you had not seen in over ten years. The one your mind often drifted to. The one that still held your heart despite the time apart.
Ormund did not look up to you when you entered his solar instead staring down at the chalice in his hand. He spun the liquid around watching it closely, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. As if you did not stand a mere feet away after all these years.
"You are good with Daeron," he finally spoke, still not turning toward you. If there was anyone else in the solar you would have thought he was talking to them rather than yourself.
You stepped further into the room moving toward him. He sat by a small window, overlooking Old Town, not that you could see it fully with the darkness, but you did not have to. You could picture it from memory as this use to be his father's solar. Where the pair of you had snuck in a week after your arrival, and he showed you the view.
"He is my grandson," you replied, forgetting where you were for a moment. That this was not court and you were not expected to play Otto's wife here. Not in Old Town. Not with Ormund.
He let out a bitter laugh, "And yet you have no children of your own, but you are already a grandmother," he finally turned toward you, raising a brow.
You held his gaze, nodding slightly, "Otto has his children. He did not want anymore…nuisances," you quoted your husbands words that he had repeated back to you and others man times.
You watched his jaw clench as he finally stood to his feet, turning to look at you. He did not move from his spot, "Is it that or does his cock just no longer work from old age?" he hissed, his words turning into a blade ready to draw.
But you were not his target.
"It still sadly works," you told him, your lips turning down slightly. Before the anger could stew much longer you looked to the floor, trying to change the course of where this was headed. "You had a wife of your own. Four beautiful children."
You could hear his ragged breaths despite your heartbeat pounding loudly in your ear, "I did," he agreed, but said nothing more, waiting, watching to see what would come next.
"Did you love her?" you finally asked, not looking up from the floor.
Now he moved toward you, standing in front of you, not crossing that invisible line that would cause him to com crumbling down into your hands, "No," he answered without hesitation, "Every time I looked at her all I could think was this she was not you. She wore your perfume, she dressed like you, but at the end of everyday she was not you."
Ormund took a step forward, over the line, and just like that he was putty for you to mold. You held an arm out. He reacted instantly, falling into your warm embrace, his face immediately going to the flesh of your skin, his nose pressing against you.
Neither of you spoke for a moment, simply living in the the feeling of the other pressed into your bodies. "He has a treasure," he then confessed, quietly, the raw truth heard through each syllable.
You laughed. It was not a humorous one, but rather filled with the bitter resentment an danger you had felt sense the raven from your father had first arrived all those years ago.
It was an honor to marry the Hand of the King, he had deemed, and even now he still held the same opinion. Only it doubled after Alicent married Viseyers, as he became the father of a Queen.
And you become…"I am his dutiful wife nothing more," you replied.
He did not lift his face, but you could feel his anger coursing through him once more, "He is a fool for not realizing what he has," he whispered into your neck inhaling you as if you were the very thing he needed to breathe in to live. "I would have…" he trailed off not quite knowing how to put into words everything he felt.
"Show me," you whispered, as if you could read his mind.
It was the final confirmation he needed, before stepping over that line, and though he was a pious man. He did not see this as a sin. That thought did not even cross his mind that he was sleeping with another's wife. His very uncle at that.
Because you were always his, even now. Your heart. Your body. Everything was his for the taking, and you would not stop him even if Otto ordered it.
You had just put the children to the bed as you lounged back in the quiet of Ormund's solar. A book propped open on your lap, as your eyes scanned the words, but not truly taking them as your brain felt foggy from the tiredness of the day. Five children were, all under the age of seven, would be a lot to anyone, even a woman with help like yourself.
The door finally burst open, ruining the calmness causing your head to snap up. Ormund's fury was apparent as he held something clenched tightly in his fist as he paced the floor, likely to burn a hole through it if he walked any faster.
"I should kill him," he suddenly declared. You knew exactly who he meant, but had no context as to why.
"Why now?" you asked, standing to your feet slowly. You did not approach, letting him get some of the rage out.
"He has called you back to King's Landing! For some fucking event!" he continued, his hand bawling and un-bawling at his side indicating just how much you wished to wrap them around his own uncle's neck.
"Ormund," you then said, calm, breaking through the burning anger. He paused for a moment, taking it a deep breath, his entire body shaking. He closed his eyes for a second, two, three, and finally opened them looking to you.
"I do not like it when you leave," he confessed, and his voice sounded more boy then man.
You smiled sadly at him, "I will come back. I always do."
Otto did not this on purpose time and time again. Letting you settle into the comfort of Ormund's embrace, allowing him to play pretend for a time before drawing him back into the harsh reality every time.
You were not Ormund's wife, but Otto's and that was a truth that kept the Lord of Old Town up almost every night.
"I pray the stranger takes him," he muttered, shaking his head, his hand moved to rest against his forehead.
"In due time," you replied, calmly, moving toward him slowly. His jaw clenched, his eyes flashing as something crossed his mind, and you knew it would be only a moment before he confessed it to you. He never was one to hold his tongue, especially when it came to you.
"You were suppose to be mine," he grit out, his knuckles bawling at his side. The familiar sense of violence that filled him every time the thought crossed his mind.
You did falter from it, instead stepping into the storm. Your hand raised resting against his cheek forcing him to look at you, "I am, in everyway the matters," you whispered. Ormund let out a shaky breath, leaning down to rest his forehead against yours, as you both let the silence speak for you.
And you meant it, more than you had anything that had come out of your mouth in recent years, because it was not hidden in pretty words. It was the raw truth. That no matter what Otto expected of you, or any part you played, that at the end of the day your heart still lived and beat for Ormund Hightower.
You didn't start the fire, but you took advantage of its distraction happily. Everyone in the camp either ran to the bright flames, or to the nursery to protect the children. That's where you were supposed to go, where he told you to run to, and you started to make your way there. You did. But you saw it then, the gate to the road was open, left ajar from when the truck carrying water from the river had come in.
You weren't brave, or strong. Not anymore. But you were desperate.
You ran. Freedom greeted you on the other side of the gate, and you smiled for the first time in a decade.
A year later
The knock at your apartment door takes you by surprise, a curse falls from your lips when your lipstick smears, and you wipe it away hastily as you go to the peephole and peer through. You do that every time, checking who is there, even if you know full well who it probably is. Like now.
Maekar stands there, all in black as usual, his hands in his pockets, before he brings one out so he can look at his watch. You smile to yourself as you hear his muttered complaint,
“I love waiting in the hallway like a stalker,”
A chuckle bursts out of you, and you quickly disengage the locks, and open the door to your neighbour, apologising quickly,
“Just give me a few minutes? You're earlier than usual,”
He eyes the stain on your face, and shrugs, “No bother, I'm going to answer an email quickly, take your time,”
It had taken you six months to trust Maekar enough to let through your door. He was a good neighbour, when you first moved in - scared and unwilling to talk to any of your neighbours - he had politely left you alone, but also firmly helped you carry groceries or packages up the stairs to where you lived. He never tried to come in, or even talk to you, but he made it clear he would be there for you if you needed him.
A month ago was when you'd first invited him into your space, desperately knocking on his door and begging him to get the large spider out of your apartment which he'd graciously done, no complaints. Once the creature was carefully placed out of the window, Maekar had stood in front of you, a glower on his face that almost made you tremble in fear… and then he'd laughed,
“Such trouble for a fucking spider!”
You couldn’t help it, now the danger had passed, you realised he was alone with you in your space, and your eyes went immediately to the floor and wouldn't lift. He was going to ask for payment, and you would have to give it-
“Mice?”
“What?” You lifted your eyes then, “Mice?”
Maekar shrugged, “I'm afraid of mice. If one appears at home, I'll call you over and you can deal with it. Fair’s fair, yes?”
“I… you don’t want anything else?” You force the hesitation out of your voice, making yourself look into his eyes. They were purple. You'd never noticed before. Maekar frowns at you,
“Anything else? Like what? It's a fucking spider,” he puts his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “let me know if you need me again. Good night,”
And he had left without a backwards glance.
It had a been a tentative thing then, allowing him further into your life and space, but Maekar was proving more trustworthy and gentle than you would've predicted. Men were neither trustworthy or gentle in your experience. Now though, you liked to invite Maekar in for coffee in the mornings, and he walked you to work.
He said it was to keep you company, but you were starting to hope it was more.
“Ready?” Maekar asked when you came out of the bathroom, lipstick now where it should be and no longer smeared on your cheek. Your smile is small, but you nod.
The silence between you and Maekar is comfortable, he doesn't seem to need to fill silences, and you never know exactly what to say anyway. You want to tell him everything about you, to explain why you are the way you are, but you also never want to speak about your experiences again. To speak his name out loud feels like it would summon him.
The last thing you ever wanted was to have that man's presence back in your life.
When you arrive at the building where you worked, you thank Maekar quietly, but instead of nodding and leaving to go to his own work as he usually would, Maekar stands in front of you, a determined look on his face. You frown, open your mouth to ask what's wrong, when he speaks,
“I would like to take you on a date on Friday night, to the new Dornish restaurant that's opened two blocks away,” he holds a hand up to stop you interrupting, even though you were too shocked to speak, “I like you, and I think you like me, and I can tell that there's things you don't want to talk about so I make an oath right now to not ask you to tell me. You can do, if you want, but I won't make you. And if you say no to the date, I will still be your friend,” he smiles a genuine smile then, and your shoulders relax slightly,
“I just wanted to be blunt. I'm not getting any younger,”
That makes you laugh, “Well, neither am I, I suppose,” you pause, “so a… date?”
“Only if you say you want it to be, otherwise it shall be just two neighbours enjoying Dornish food,” he shrugs, “I really like Dornish food,”
Maekar was right. There was a lot you were hiding from him, that you didn't want to talk about. There was a shadow looming over you, his presence tall and suffocating like a tower on a crowded street. You clench your fists, anger blooming like fire suddenly.
It had been a year since you'd granted your own freedom, and never set eyes on him again. It was time you let yourself live your life again, after all, like Maekar had said, neither of you were getting any younger. You mentally shake yourself, and then smile at Maekar,
“I'd love to go on a date with you.”
He leans forward like he would kiss you, but pulls himself back quickly, instead awkwardly waving and promising to meet you for lunch as usual. Your step is light, and your smile broad as you go into the building, you're blind to everyone else around you. You're finally living life again and it felt incredible.
You fret over what to wear, his words filling your ears, the rules you had lived with for ten years almost crippling you as you stare at your reflection in the mirror. The relationship you'd fled from hadn't started out badly, they never do, but it had been too late by the time you'd realised the predicament you were in.
You force yourself to say his name out loud. Ormund. The man from your nightmares. He had been the man of your dreams when you'd first met him. He had been handsome, charming, well dressed and attentive to you. He spoiled you, took care of you, and when you'd finally fallen into bed with him, he'd ruined you in the most thorough way you'd ever experienced.
You had been lonely all your life, though there was no real reason for it. You tried to make friends, but the friendships never became more than surface level. You'd had lovers, but they left you before it could get serious. Your work was fine, but it was work, no one would've missed you if you left suddenly. You had no family, you were alone, living your simple life when you'd bumped into Ormund at the grocery store.
He was a master at manipulation and control, but there was very little to manipulate or control with you. You had no one for him to isolate you from, but he had many friends of his own who all seemed to love him. His family liked you a lot, they encouraged you to spend more and more time with Ormund on their compound which they called Oldtown.
Soon, you'd left your job to work there with him, it paid better, and you were surrounded by people who seemed to love having you around and appreciated your efforts. When Ormund asked you to be his wife, you thought your life couldn't get any better.
The wedding was simple and beautiful, the wedding night was sublime. If only it had lasted.
You should have known, but how could you? You'd wanted so desperately to be loved, you hadn't seen the danger in giving up everything that was yours to him. Soon Ormund was telling you how to dress, who to talk to, he stopped you working, and all the money you had saved went into an account he controlled.
You shake yourself as you stare at your reflection in the mirror, and deliberately put on the black and red dress that you'd bought in a fit of excited defiance this afternoon. It was something that would've earned you the paddle back in Oldtown if you'd dared try to wear it in public.
Maekar wouldn't hurt you like that though, and he dressed so impeccably all the time, you had to look nice for him…
Sure enough, when you disengage the inner locks and open the door, your mouth drops open. Maekar looks spectacular, his silver hair contrasting beautifully with the black suit he wore, and his purple eyes shone with appreciation as they looked you up and down,
“You look… very beautiful,” he swallowed thickly, and a surge of confidence went through you enough for you to smile openly,
“Thank you, Maekar. You look incredibly handsome yourself,”
“Oh fuck off, I'm not handsome, but- ah… thank you,” he held out his hand which you took, “I'm sorry, I never usually get compliments, I don't take them very well,”
“Well, you do look very nice,” you shrug, pulling the door closed after you and walking down the hallway, “I'm looking forward to the food,”
“Me too. My ex-wife was Dornish, she got me hooked on the stuff,”
“Your ex wife?” You're stumble over the words, your steps faltering, but Maekar doesn't appear to notice,
“Yes. Divorced a couple of years now. A good woman, we just wanted different things in the end, but we share custody of the kids,” he shrugs, “what about you? Any exes I need to know about?”
Your heart pounds, the wedding band that is hidden under a floorboard a physical curse that you have to ignore. You smile up at Maekar,
“No exes. So, tell me about your children,”
You asked for no desert without thinking at the end of the meal, a meal where you'd eaten as little as possible because you hadn’t eaten with a man in a year, and the last time you had Ormund had controlled everything on your plate. At your new sanctuary with your new freedom, you'd allowed yourself treats and larger portions, but the habit kicked in immediately as soon as you'd sat down with Maekar.
He didn't say anything, but as soon as the desert was placed in front of him, he'd scooped up a piece, then taken your chin in between his thumb and forefinger, and gently pulled you towards him over the table,
“Open your mouth, and eat,”
You did. You held his gaze as he fed you from his spoon, and when you licked your lips absentmindedly, you watched as Maekar’s pupils dilated and his eyes dropped to your mouth. For the first time in over a year, you felt arousal course through you like wildfire. Maekar meets your eyes,
“I'm getting the fucking cheque,”
He holds your hand in his as you walk back to your building, his thumb running gently over your inner wrist. Shivers roll over you, nerves, need, a desperate desire, fear, all of it making your head swim. You knew you wanted Maekar, in a way you hadn't wanted a man in a long time. You had wanted Ormund too, that was the problem, he had seduced you, tricked you, lured you in with the expertise of his body, and then trapped you.
Ormund had never forced himself on you, not in the violent way most people would think, anyway, but once you were married and you couldn't escape, sex with him became an expectation that you couldn't avoid. When you had tried, Ormund would punish you, so you stopped trying. You let him do as he would and tried to glean as much pleasure as you could from the act.
What would happen if you decided you didn't want to bring Maekar to your bed tonight? Would he be angry? Would he vow to never see you again?
You entered the building behind Maekar, eyes to the floor when he led you into the elevator. He didn't let you hide though, when the doors slid closed, he once again held your chin and got you to look at him,
“I'm very glad you agreed to a date with me tonight. I had a wonderful time,”
You huff a laugh, your eyes dropping after a moment, “So did I… I just don't know…”
“I'll walk you to your door, and we can organise another date then?”
Again, Maekar proved that he was more than willing to let you move at your own pace, and you almost felt like crying. To be considered in this way, like your feelings mattered-
“I want another date with you, Maekar. I'm sorry, I'm-”
“I'm nervous too. I've only ever been with my ex wife. This is also new territory and not one I want to rush into,”
He sounded so firm, so sure, that your shoulders dropped and you relaxed immediately. Of course, his assurances made your arousal start up again, but you ignore it and let it simmer. You could do this, let your trust build, let Maekar set his own pace. It was better that way.
He continues to hold your hand as you both walk towards your door, you're almost sinking into the feeling of safety he brings you - a feeling you hadn't felt in years - when Maekar stops dead, and you follow suit. You look at him, confused at the look of confusion on his face when you then notice it. Your front door is ajar.
“Did you forget to close your door?” Maekar sounds uncertain over the pounding of your heart. You let go of his hand, automatically going to your door, but he stops you with a hand on your shoulder. You think back desperately,
“I think so?” You remember leaving with him. Surely you would've closed it? It was second nature. Maekar pulls you gently back behind him,
“Let me check inside. Stay here until I say you can come in,”
He doesn't wait for an answer, leaving you hovering in the hallway, your fingers trembling as you pull your phone out of your purse, ready to call the emergency services if Maekar uttered even a small sound of distress-
“It's empty,” Maekar pulls the door open, “you need to see if anything has been stolen,” you take his hand as you go inside, and you cast a careful eye over everything in the small apartment. You don't even feel embarrassed when Maekar comes into your bedroom, and then your bathroom behind you. You were too busy fretting that your sanctuary had been violated by some unknown stranger, but the longer you were in there, the less certain you could be.
Did you forget to close your front door in your excitement? Did you leave your knicknacks like that earlier after you'd dusted? Did you forget to put those clean clothes away, or had they already been there when you were trying on dresses?
After fifteen minutes of careful looking around, you stand with Maekar in your living room, in front of your television that you loved. You bite your bottom lip, carefully rearranging one of the stuffed animals that adorn your space. You secretly called them your friends, the creatures that watched the trash movies and tv that you hadn't been granted access to in a decade. You take another look around, and shrug, tears pricking your eyes,
“Nothing is missing. I must have just… I forgot to close the door. Very stupid, I know,”
You look up from the carpet when you hear Maekar chuckle, “I suppose I am rather attractive and distracting,”
“Very,” you squeeze Maekar’s hand, “I'm sorry for making you worry, but everything is fine,”
“Are you sure?” Another gentle grip of your chin to make you meet his eyes, which you pull away from. As much as you felt he didn't mean anything controlling by it, you wouldn't let Maekar just help himself to your attention whenever he could. You do continue to hold his gaze however, and he drops his hand on a mumbled apology,
“Yes I'm sure, I promise,”
“In that case, I'll leave you to the remainder of your evening.”
You follow him to the front door, taking his hand as he is about to leave, “Thank you for a lovely date, Maekar,”
“You're welcome,” he holds your gaze for a moment, then leans forward and kisses you, almost like he doesn't want to wait in case he changes his mind. His hands are warm as they cradle your face, like you're made of glass, like you're precious. The moment doesn't last long enough, you chase his mouth when he pulls away, your eyes opening as you whine briefly. Maekar chuckles to himself,
“Still got it,”
“You can stay,” you blurt suddenly, “you can stay. Tonight. With me. If you want to… you can stay,”
Maekar shakes his head after a moment's pause, “I would love to, but I won't. I see too many nerves in your eyes tonight,” he leans forwards, his lips brushing the shell of your ear making you shiver, “I want you needy and desperate for me, the same way I will be for you… sleep well,”
And with that, he took your hand, and placed a kiss on your knuckles before he opened your door and left.
Flowers wait for you the following day at work, golden yellow blooms surrounded by deep green foliage. When you open the card, it just says ‘soon’, and you smile, your face heating as your co-workers ask you about the beautiful flowers and who sent them. Your morning is spent giving details about Maekar, and daydreaming about what was to come.
It meant a lot that he was happy to take it slowly with you, for all you were well past the age of needing your hand held through dating etiquette, it also had been a very long time. You still thought of all the mistakes you made with Ormund constantly, how you should have realised sooner what he was doing to you, how easily he'd isolated you and kept you from anyone that might have been able to help. You'd only had one date with Maekar and you were already analysing every single syllable that he'd spoken, every slight movement he made.
The flowers were beautiful, but what if they meant more than you were ready for?
You pull out your phone, and text Maekar before you can stop yourself,
Thank you for the flowers, you shouldn't have.
Ormund had once sent you flowers, and when you'd sent a similar message to him, he'd bombarded you with more flowers, sweets, trinkets. You'd enjoyed being spoiled then, but you would see a tactic like that for what it was now, you were certain of it. Maekar responds about twenty minutes later, and you feel the blood drain from your face as you read the words,
I haven't sent you flowers?
They were from Ormund. There was no other explanation. Heart pounding painfully against your ribcage, breathing harshly like you'd run a mile, you beg your manager's leave and say you're too sick to stay, and go before they can stop you.
Every person you pass resembles the husband you don't want to acknowledge, wearing a cold knowing smirk. Every stranger's casual pass on the street sent you jumping into the air, curses spilling from your lips. No one was safe to you, they all could be his spies-
Your phone rings, and you squeak in alarm before you pull yourself together enough to look at the screen and see it's Maekar. You should ignore the call, you need to run, and he can no longer be a part of your life, but you're weak. You want to hear his voice one last time,
“Maekar, I-”
“You didn't answer my message, I was worried, are you well?”
You stop in the street, ducking into the doorway of a closed down restaurant to answer, “N-no. I'm sorry for the confusion, it's just-”
“Who sent you those flowers?” His voice went hard, “Where are you?”
“I'm- I need to go home-” you cut yourself off, “the flowers are from my- an ex. I just want to get home,” you don't say that you've hidden money at your home, and you need it to start over again. It's foolish, you know that. If Ormund knew where you worked, there was a good chance he knew where you lived.
But there was also a chance that he didn't know. You couldn’t take the risk of leaving without your coin, there would be no trace of where you went that way.
“Your ex?” Maekar sounded an ill fitting combination of angry and bemused, “You never told me-”
“I didn't have to tell you anything, Maekar!” You interrupt him, ignoring the stab in your heart for what you would say next, “We're not a couple, and we never will be. This isn't what I want… you're not what I want,” you close your eyes as you hear a pained gasp, “goodbye,”
You hang up before he can say anything else to you, and resume your journey back to your apartment.
You push your way into your apartment, taking a moment to stand in the doorway. Nothing seems out of place, everything feels still and quiet… you go to your hidey spot immediately, lifting the floorboard easily and pulling out the box that held all the money you'd hidden and saved. You also pull out your wedding band, vowing to sell it when you can this time.
It only takes a minute to pack essentials, and you head to the door, leaving a wistful look at your ‘friends’, knowing you can't take them with you, you'd have to start your collection again… you frown as you stare at them.
You hadn't noticed last night, but one of your stuffed animals was out of place, and you knew that because it always stood at the back as it was so tall. It now stood closer to the front, blocking out some of the smaller animals. You should be running, you should be halfway back to the ground floor after getting in the elevator. A taxi to the closest station to bring you to the North would be your next step. But instead, you walk to your stuffed animal, and take him down. Stomach sinking as you realise it's heavier than it should be.
The camera isn't that big, it's probably why you didn't notice the lens pointing at your apartment through a hole that was ripped into the belly of the bear that housed it. You take it out, staring at the cursed thing, and then throw it to the floor and stamp on it. It only takes one time to shatter it to pieces, but your breath comes out in ragged bursts, your lips pulled back from your teeth in a snarl, and you hiss,
“Fuck you!”
Standing, you rush to the front door, hoping that Ormund had seen that, that he was as angry as you were, that his impotent anger would give rise to a heart attack and he would die so you would never have to see or think about him again-
You freeze as you pull open your door. Ormund is on the other side, a terrible smirk on his face,
“Hello, wife,”
A brief look of surprise crosses his face when you go to bolt past him and into the hallway where you would yell and shout and scream, but he's faster than you. Ormund grabs you on a grunt of effort, his hand covers your mouth immediately, cutting off the noise you wanted to make, and dragging you back into your apartment. You stumble into the living room when he pushes you away from him, staring helplessly as he takes a key from an inner pocket in his jacket and locks the door. Ormund takes his time, carefully putting the key back, zipping up the pocket, running his fingers through his hair and taking a deep breath before he turns to face you.
A million memories rush through your head as you watch your husband wrestle his temper back under his control. Ormund was a nightmare made flesh when he wanted to be. A man who could be calm, composed, even charming… until something happened that he didn't like. Too many times you'd dodge objects thrown at your head, vile insults thrown at you, belongings smashed to pieces or your clothing torn to shreds.
And those were just the times he didn't target you personally. There were places on your body that still ached after his temper had been levied at you. Usually Ormund preferred to keep your body and skin intact, choosing instead to torment you with implements and toys that would have you screaming and begging, but occasionally he would hurt you. His favourite then would be a cane or paddle.
The last time this had happened had been for the crime of thanking a delivery driver in passing. You don't even think you truly looked at the man's face, but that hadn't mattered to your vengeful husband.
You absentmindedly rub against the small raised scar on your palm from when he'd used the cane there. It had made Ormund even more angry that you'd bled and couldn't touch him as he wanted. The smell of the blood had sent him from you though, which had been a blessing, and one of his brainwashed cousins had helped you bandage it.
His eyes drop to your hands, and a gentle smile crosses his face as he looks back at you,
“I've felt your loss much like the wound that caused that scar, wife. I should have brought that cane for you to use on me, it would hurt less than your betrayal. I mean, Kingslanding? You know I hate this city and how it reeks,”
Of course you'd known, the fact that the city did have an odour was a large reason for the appeal of hiding here. That and there were millions of people crammed within the almost labyrinthine streets. You were supposed to blend in.
You don't respond, waiting for Ormund to do or say something. Bitterness chokes you, he didn't love you, not truly. You couldn't give him the heirs he wanted, and he'd blamed you for tricking him, then proceeded to sleep with every woman within that wretched compound of his family’s and you had to witness several children being born who had their fathers eyes or smile or hair. You were worthless to him now, why did he even want you back?
Eventually, Ormund sighs, and takes a step closer to you, “You are still my wife, as witnessed by Gods and man. Consummated under the seven pointed star, and confirmed to the Septon by mine own father,” he took your hand, his thumb rubbed your scar gently, “you cannot run away from me again, wife, from your duty to me and my family,”
“Why?” You snatch your hand back, “Please don't lie to me. You don't love me. Men who love don't hurt their women as you did, and I'm no good for breeding, so why?!”
Ormund cups your cheek with his free hand, your eyes meet his, and you swear for a brief moment that you see tears in his eyes. The fingers brushing yours clasp your hand more firmly, it's almost reflex to hold onto him in return. He drops his forehead to yours, his scent filling your nostrils, and yet more memories come. Good ones. Early ones where you used to tease him for his excessive grooming and cologne. Where he would laugh, then tackle you to the bed so he could rub the fresh scents onto you and bury his face in your neck.
The strongest one he wore was one you'd picked out for him, after hours of careful selection. That's the one you can smell so clearly now, the one that brings tears to your own eyes as Ormund whispers in a broken voice,
“Can you not believe that I have changed? That I miss you, and I want to do better?”
You raise your own hand to mirror his, the slight feeling of stubble against your palm telling you he'd not shaved that morning like he usually would. The first tear falls,
“Ormund… I-”
“Please… just let me take you back home. We'll forget all about this. Start again,”
Perhaps you could try to believe him. So many memories of what you had with Ormund are good, that's what makes the pain of his betrayal and abuse worse. He can be a good boyfriend, husband, lover. He was the best man you'd ever known until…
“We could run away together,” you rush out, pulling away enough so you can meet his eyes, “we can go away and start again, man and wife, I have some money saved, look-” you pull out your coin, showing him your stash. It's modest but there is enough there to hire cars out of the city, take the train… wherever. There was more on this earth than the Seven Kingdoms. You could find somewhere to make a life.
An alarm bell rings in your head, too small to pay attention to, when Ormund takes your stash with a curious look. He looks through it… and finds your wedding ring. Your stomach lurches when you see it, fear punching through you enough that you try and jerk away without thinking. Ormund's hand grabs yours before you can move, lightning fast and just as painful. You wince as he squeezes, trembling as his voice drops to a dangerous level,
“You almost made me forget, wife. Of course a whore like you wouldn't be wearing my possession anymore,”
Tears are falling now, enough that you can taste the salt on your lips, “I'm no who-”
“I saw you with that man!” Ormund takes your wrist, pulling on your arm until you cry out, your body pressed to his. A moan escapes when he points to the camera you'd all but forgotten about, “I instructed my men to install that. I couldn't be here, I'd have kidnapped you the second I saw you, so they helped me. I just wanted to know,” he traces your cheek with his free hand, “if you were no longer my wife. If you were too changed. I might have let you be, you know… but I saw you kiss that man,”
“Please, Ormund-”
“A wife must stay true to her lawful husband, lest she be punished,” he closes his hand around your throat in a grip just this side of bruising, “you will beg forgiveness with your mouth, and then return to Oldtown with me for further penance. You belong to me!”
Ormund leans forward, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, “On your knees, wife,”
***
Maekar slammed his phone to the table, cracking the screen and sending him further into a rage. No one knew where you were, everyone from the Gold Cloaks to your work colleagues thought you had left of your own free will, but he knew better. You wouldn't have left those damn toys behind, he'd witnessed your joy in collecting them over the months you'd become friends. And you'd been so scared on the phone.
He missed you, and Maekar vowed he would raze cities for you to find you. Unfortunately that meant calling someone he didn't want to, but who was far more adept at finding people than anyone knew. Maekar managed to get his phone to work, sighing when Brynden's voice came through,
When the maester accidentally gives Prince Maekar Targaryen something that most certainly does not ease his headache, Maekar finds himself instead with one other problem. He burns.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒; sexual content, possessive behaviour, rough sex, maekar goes absolutely feral on you, explicit sexual content, p in v, fingering, maekar absolutely dominates you, this is pure filth, minors dni.
The maester had pressed the small vial into Prince Maekar’s hand early that morning with a respectful bow and a few murmured words about easing the headache that had lingered since the previous night’s long council. Maekar had taken it without thought, swallowed the bitter liquid in one go, and headed straight for the training yard.
The sun was already climbing and the clash of steel felt good in his hands and at first the draught seemed to do its work.
The dull pressure behind his eyes faded. He moved through his drills with sharp precision, sweat soaking his tunic, muscles warming in that familiar, satisfying way.
But as the morning wore on, a different kind of heat began to build.
It started low in his gut, a restless warmth that spread through his veins like slow fire. By the time he sheathed his sword and made his way back to his chambers to wash and change, the warmth had turned into something far more insistent.
His cock thickened without warning, swelling and lengthening until it pressed heavily against the front of his breeches. He frowned and adjusted himself, but the touch only made it worse.
The ache settled deep in his balls, heavy and tight. By the time he stripped for a quick wash, he was fully hard, the shaft flushed and already leaking at the tip. He tried to ignore it while he dressed, choosing the supple leather breeches he favored for court.
It was a mistake.
The material hugged every inch of him, and as his cock strained harder, the confinement became exquisite torment.
The broad head caught against the lacing with every step. Precum beaded steadily and soaked into the fabric until a damp patch formed against his thigh. He gritted his teeth and forced himself toward his solar, telling himself it would pass.
It did not.
By midday the need had grown unbearable. Maekar dismissed his squire with a curt word and locked the door of his private solar behind him. He stood there for a long moment, one hand braced against the heavy oak, breathing hard.
This was beneath him.
He was a prince of the blood, a warrior who had led men into battle, not some green boy who could not control his own body. Yet his cock throbbed insistently, the leather of his breeches now visibly damp where the head pressed against it.
Every beat of his heart sent another pulse of heat through the thick length. He could not go to the feast like this. He could not sit beside you, his wife, and pretend composure while his mind supplied image after filthy image of what he wanted to do to you.
With a low curse he unlaced his breeches and freed himself. His cock sprang out heavy and flushed, the head dark and shiny with precum that dripped in a steady string onto the floor.
Veins stood out thick along the shaft. His balls were drawn up tight and aching. He wrapped his hand around the base, squeezing once, and hissed at the sensation.
The touch was almost painful in its intensity.
He stroked upward in one rough pull, thumb dragging over the leaking slit, spreading the slickness down the length. A groan tore from his throat.
He tried to keep his mind on duty, on the letters that still needed answering, on the training schedule for the new recruits. But every stroke pulled his thoughts back to you. Your voice, soft and even as you spoke to him at meals. The way your hips moved when you walked.
The soft sounds you made when he was inside you. He imagined bending you over the desk in this very solar, rucking up your skirts, and driving into your cunt in hard, punishing thrusts while you clutched at the wood and cried out his name.
He imagined filling you so full of his seed that it leaked down your thighs for hours afterward, marking you as his in the most primal way.
His hand moved faster, rougher. The wet sound of skin on skin filled the quiet room. He braced his other hand on the desk, hips jerking forward to meet each stroke. Precum flowed freely now, making everything slick and hot. He could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter at the base of his spine. His balls drew up even further. He was close, so close, and the need was overwhelming.
“Fuck,” he growled under his breath. His strokes grew erratic, almost desperate. “Wife. My wife.”
The orgasm hit him hard. His cock jerked in his fist and thick ropes of seed spilled across the wooden floor in heavy pulses. He kept stroking through it, milking every drop, your name still on his lips in a rough, broken groan. For one brief moment relief flickered through him, warm and sharp.
It lasted only seconds.
The heat did not fade. If anything it roared back stronger, hotter, more insistent than before. His cock remained thick and heavy in his hand, only half softened, still twitching with aftershocks.
The ache in his balls doubled.
Fresh need surged through him so fiercely that his knees nearly buckled. He stared down at himself in disbelief, at the mess on the floor and the way his shaft was already filling again, hardening once more as if he had not just spent.
The potion, whatever the maester had given him by mistake, had turned a simple release into fuel for the fire.
His mind flooded with even more vivid images of you. Of taking you. Of ruining you. Of claiming you so thoroughly that you would feel him for days.
Maekar let out a low, frustrated snarl and cleaned himself with a cloth from the basin. His hands shook slightly as he laced himself back into the confining leather.
The pressure was worse now.
Every step would be torment, his cock felt enormous, trapped and leaking again almost immediately. He was riled beyond reason, restless, on edge in a way he had never experienced.
Discipline had always been his strength. Today it felt like a fraying thread.
He forced himself through the afternoon duties anyway. He reviewed reports. He spoke with his captains. He tried to focus on anything but the constant, throbbing ache between his legs and the way his thoughts kept circling back to you.
By the time he bathed and dressed for the feast, the need had grown into something almost feral.
His cock strained against the leather with every movement, the head catching and rubbing until he was gritting his teeth against the sensation.
He was leaking steadily now, the front of his smallclothes soaked.
The failed attempt at relief had only made him more desperate, more possessive, more determined to get you alone and take what his body was screaming for.
The great hall was bright with candlelight and alive with sound when he arrived. Roasted meats and spiced wine scented the air.
Music drifted from the gallery above. Nobles filled the lower tables, laughing and calling to one another. You were already seated at the high table, and when he took his place beside you, you turned with that calm, lovely expression and spoke in your quiet voice.
“The roast swan is particularly good tonight. The cook used those spices from the Summer Isles you favor.”
Maekar managed a short nod. His cock was now a thick, throbbing bar trapped along his thigh, the leather stretched so tight across the swollen flesh that every small shift sent sparks of sensation through him.
He could feel the steady leak of fluid making everything slick inside his smallclothes. Under the table he reached for you, but instead of taking your hand his palm settled on your thigh, fingers spreading wide and gripping hard. The silk of your gown was warm from your skin. He squeezed, feeling the soft give of flesh beneath, and did not let go.
You continued speaking in that same even tone, as if the world were perfectly ordinary. You mentioned a letter that had arrived from Dorne, the new tapestry being hung in the queen’s solar, the way the Pentoshi singer’s voice carried so clearly through the hall.
Your words were soft and pleasant, meant only for him.
Each one sent another pulse of need straight to his groin.
He imagined silencing that sweet voice with his cock, pushing between your lips until your eyes watered, or better still, flipping up your skirts right there and driving into your cunt while the court dined on unaware.
The failed release in his solar had left him even more riled, the images in his head sharper, more urgent. He wanted to ruin you. He wanted to make you take every inch and every drop until you were shaking and marked and his.
He leaned close, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Keep using that voice and I will not answer for what I do to you before the night is done.”
Your eyes flicked to him, a flicker of awareness there now, but you kept your tone steady as you reached for your goblet. “The singer is quite talented. Do you think the queen will request another song before the dancing begins?”
Maekar’s fingers dug deeper into your thigh. His cock jerked hard in its prison, another thick bead of precum soaking through the leather. He was riled beyond reason, restless, shifting constantly in his seat as he tried to find relief that would not come.
The head of his shaft felt raw from the constant friction. His balls ached with the need to empty again, even though he had already spent once that day.
He could smell you beside him, that warm skin and faint floral oil you used, and it made his mouth water and his cock throb harder. He wanted to drop to his knees under the table, push your thighs apart, and lick you until you shook and came on his tongue.
Then he wanted to flip you over and take you from behind, hard and deep, while you were still fluttering from your release.
The courses came and went. Servants moved around them with platters and pitchers.
Maekar ate almost nothing.
He drank more wine than was wise, hoping it might blunt the relentless throb between his legs, but the alcohol only made the heat spread faster through his blood. His cock felt enormous, straining so fiercely that the laces bit into the swollen flesh. He shifted again and again, trying to ease the pressure, but nothing helped.
Every time you spoke, every time your shoulder brushed his or your hand moved near his, he imagined those hands wrapped around his shaft, stroking him, or your mouth stretched wide while he held your head and fucked your throat in steady thrusts.
The memory of cumming earlier with your name on his lips only made the current need sharper. It had not helped. It had made everything worse.
When a servant leaned in too close to refill his cup and accidentally brushed his arm, Maekar snapped a sharp word that made the man flinch and nearly spill the wine.
He regretted it at once and pulled you closer with the hand still gripping your thigh, as if your nearness could somehow anchor the fire raging inside him.
You glanced at him again, that same quiet concern in your eyes.
“You seem very tense tonight, my prince. Shall I send for the maester to have another look at your head?”
He turned toward you, voice a low, rough growl meant for your ears alone. “The maester can rot. Whatever he gave me has my cock hard as iron and leaking like I am some desperate boy. I tried to find relief with my own hand earlier and it only made the need worse. All I can think about is getting you alone, bending you over the nearest surface, and ruining this sweet cunt until you cannot walk without feeling me. Until my seed is running down your thighs and you smell of nothing but me for days.”
Your breath caught, just slightly, but you recovered and took a sip of wine as though he had merely agreed with your earlier remark about the singer. Your hand, however, slid over his under the table and pressed down firmly, a silent answer that sent another bolt of raw lust through him.
He lasted through the start of the dancing. Barely. When the musicians struck up a lively tune and couples began moving to the floor, Maekar stood. His cock was a constant, painful throb, the front of his breeches now visibly darkened if anyone cared to look. He took your hand without asking and led you from the hall with long, purposeful strides. Several lords called after him. He ignored them all.
In the corridor he moved quickly, pulling you along until he found a shadowed alcove behind a heavy curtain. The moment you were hidden he was on you. His mouth crashed down on yours, rough and demanding, tongue pushing deep as his hands tore at your gown with impatient fingers.
Fabric ripped, the sound was loud in the small space as your breasts spilled free and he palmed them hard, squeezing the soft flesh, pinching your nipples between thumb and forefinger until they tightened and you gasped into his mouth.
He broke the kiss only to drag his lips down your throat, biting hard enough to leave dark marks, sucking until blood rose to the surface beneath your skin.
“Could not wait another fucking minute,” he snarled against your neck. One hand dropped to his laces, freeing his cock with rough tugs. It sprang out heavy and flushed, the head dark and shiny with precum that dripped steadily onto the stone.
Veins stood out thick along the shaft. His balls were drawn up tight and aching.
He hiked your skirts roughly, bunching the silk high at your waist, and shoved two thick fingers between your legs. You were already wet and hot. He groaned at the slick feel of you coating his fingers and pushed them deeper, curling them once before pulling them free.
“Good. Already soaked for your husband’s cock.” He did not waste time with more preparation. He lined the broad, leaking head of his cock up with your entrance and thrust in hard, burying himself to the root in one powerful stroke.
The stretch was intense.
He felt your walls clench around his thick girth, struggling to take him after the long hours of denial. He gave you no time to adjust as he pulled back and drove in again, setting a brutal, relentless pace from the first thrust. The wet sound of his cock slamming into your cunt filled the alcove. His hips snapped forward again and again, skin slapping against skin, each deep stroke jarring your body against the stone wall.
“Fuck, yes. Take it. Take every inch of me.” His voice was ragged with lust and hours of pent-up need. One hand gripped your hip hard enough to bruise while the other fisted in your hair, pulling your head back sharply so he could bite at the junction of your neck and shoulder.
“This is what you do to me. Tried to take the edge off with my own hand and it only made me want you more. Now you are going to take my cock until I decide you have had enough.”
He fucked you without mercy, the potion and the long day of torment making him almost savage.
Each thrust was deep and punishing, the broad head dragging over that sensitive spot inside you on every withdrawal before slamming back in to the hilt.
His free hand came down on your ass in a sharp slap, the crack of it loud in the small space. He did it again on the other cheek, harder, watching the skin bloom red beneath his palm.
“Mine. This cunt belongs to me. Mine to use. Mine to fill until it overflows.” Another slap, then another, the sting making your walls tighten around him. He felt you flutter and clench and grinned against your throat, feral and satisfied. “You like that. Like when I take what is mine. Like when I ruin you.”
Your body responded, walls pulsing around his thick cock as the first orgasm crashed through you.
He did not slow.
He fucked you straight through it, hips driving harder, the wet sounds growing louder as your release coated his shaft and dripped down your thighs.
When he finally came it was with a guttural roar, slamming deep and holding there as his cock jerked and pulsed, flooding you with thick, hot ropes of seed.
He kept thrusting through it, short, hard jerks of his hips, pushing his cum deeper inside you, making sure it stayed. It leaked out around his shaft anyway, running down your thighs in warm, messy rivulets that soaked into the bunched silk of your gown.
He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, breathing hard, forehead pressed to your shoulder. His cock twitched with aftershocks, still half hard thanks to whatever the maester had given him.
Slowly he pulled out, watching with dark satisfaction as his seed spilled from your well-fucked cunt in a steady stream.
He turned you around, lifted you easily into his arms, and carried you the rest of the way to your chambers without bothering to right your torn clothing.
Once inside, with the heavy door barred behind them, he laid you on the bed and stripped away what remained of your gown with impatient hands. His own clothes followed in quick movements. His cock, still slick with your combined fluids, stood ready again, flushed and heavy.
He climbed over you, spreading your legs wide with his knees, and thrust back in without preamble. This time he took you slower but no less roughly, each stroke measured and deep, grinding the base of his cock against your swollen pearl on every downstroke. He pinned your wrists above your head with one strong hand, the other gripping your jaw, forcing you to meet his burning violet eyes.
“Look at me while I ruin you properly, wife.” His voice was lower now, rough with spent lust and lingering fire. “I tried to find relief earlier and it only made this need worse. I am going to fill you again. And again. Until you cannot take any more. Until you smell like my seed and everyone who comes near you tomorrow knows exactly who you belong to.”
He released your wrists only to hook your legs over his shoulders, folding you nearly in half so he could drive even deeper. The new angle made every thrust hit that spot inside you with devastating accuracy.
He pounded into you with steady, powerful strokes, the bed creaking beneath the force of it. His hand slid between your bodies, thumb finding your swollen pearl and rubbing tight, relentless circles while he fucked you. “Come for me again. Now. I want to feel this cunt milk me while I fill you.”
When you came, clenching and fluttering hard around his thick cock, he followed quickly, burying himself as deep as he could go and pumping another heavy load into you.
This time he stayed inside afterward, rolling to his side and pulling you with him so your back was to his chest, his cock still nestled in your warmth.
One hand stroked down your side, over the marks and red prints he had left, soothing even as he remained possessive. He pressed a kiss to the back of your neck, softer now.
“The maester is going to explain himself at first light,” he muttered against your hair, though there was no real anger left in him. Only deep satisfaction and the fierce, abiding devotion he felt for the woman in his arms. “Whatever he gave me tonight, it has made me want you more fiercely than I have in years. But I would have wanted you anyway.”
His hand slid down to cup your ass, squeezing gently over the heated skin where he had spanked you. “Rest while you can. I am not finished with you yet.”
The night stretched long and heated. The fire the remedy had lit in his blood burned hot for hours more. He took you again sometime in the deep hours, slower but still intense, your bodies moving together in the dark with quiet, desperate sounds.
You had both drifted into uneasy sleep afterward, tangled together, his arm heavy across your waist.
It was near dawn when he stirred again.
You felt him wake behind you, his body pressing closer along your back. His skin was clammy against yours, hot and damp with sweat, and he was trembling.
A low, shaky breath left him as he nuzzled into the curve of your neck. One of his hands slid down your hip, then between your legs, fingers finding where you were still slick and sensitive from earlier. He made a broken sound, half groan and half apology.
“I am sorry,” he murmured against your shoulder, voice rough and thick with sleep and lingering need. “Wife… forgive me. I cannot stop. The fire… it will not let me rest.”
You felt the thick, hard length of him press against your entrance from behind. He was shaking as he pushed in, slow at first, then deeper, burying himself inside you with a trembling thrust. His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you back against him as he began to move. The strokes were not gentle. They were deep and urgent, his hips rocking forward with a desperation that made the bed creak softly. His free hand gripped your thigh, holding you open for him.
His skin burned and chilled at the same time against your back. You could feel the fine tremors running through his muscles, the way his breath hitched with every thrust. He pressed his face into your shoulder, teeth grazing the skin there before he bit down, not hard enough to break the skin but firm enough to leave another mark, a sharp sting that made you tighten around him. A muffled groan vibrated against your flesh.
“I want to hurt you,” he said, the words slipping out raw and unfiltered between shaky breaths. “I want to mark you. Make you feel this for days. I want to ruin you until you cannot think of anything but me inside you.” His voice cracked on the last word. He thrust harder, the apology coming again even as his body betrayed how much he meant it. “I am sorry. Gods, I am sorry. But I need… I need to hurt you like this. Need to feel you take it.”
His teeth sank into your shoulder once more as his hips snapped forward, the bite grounding him even as he lost control. One hand slid up to cup your breast, squeezing almost too tightly, while the other held your hip in a bruising grip. He fucked into you with short, powerful strokes from behind, his cock dragging along every sensitive inch inside you. The trembling in his body grew worse. He was shaking against you, clammy skin sliding over yours, his breath hot and uneven on your neck.
The sound of his teeth scraping against your skin was drowned out by the wet, rhythmic slap of his pelvis crashing against your ass. He wasn't just fucking you; he was trying to merge with you, his movements frantic and devoid of any gentleness. Every time his cock bottomed out, it felt like a physical assault on your insides, a blunt force that left you breathless and reeling.
“Tell me you want it,” he growled, his voice a guttural rasp. He shifted his grip, his fingers digging deep into the soft flesh of your hip, leaving white marks that would surely turn purple by morning. He pulled back almost entirely, teasing the entrance of your pussy for a fraction of a second before slamming back in with a violent, bone-jarring thrust.
You let out a choked scream, your fingers clawing at the sheets, but he didn't let up. He leaned forward, his chest crushing you into the mattress, his weight pinning you down as he continued to hammer into you. The friction was intense, the heat between your bodies becoming suffocating. He reached around, his hand leaving your breast to wrap firmly around your throat, not enough to choke you, but enough to let you feel the absolute power he held over you in this moment.
“Look at me,” he commanded, though you were facedown. He forced your head to the side, his violet eyes dark and blown out with lust and a desperate, starving kind of need. “I'm ruining you, aren't I? I'm breaking you open.”
He accelerated the pace, the short, powerful strokes turning into a blur of raw motion. His cock felt thicker, harder, stretching your walls to their absolute limit. He began to bite again, not just your shoulder, but the nape of your neck and the slope of your shoulder blade, marking you with a territorial hunger.
The apology was gone now, replaced by a low, animalistic moan that vibrated through his chest and into your back. He was close, his muscles locking up, his entire frame vibrating with the effort of holding back just a few seconds longer to savor the feeling of you tightening around him.
“I'm going to fill you... I'm going to leave it all inside you,” he hissed, his grip on your throat tightening slightly, tongue licking at the sweat that accumulated on your neck.
“Take it,” he growled softly, the words half apology and half command. “Take what I give you. Even when I am like this. Especially when I am like this.”
Another bite, this one lower on your shoulder, followed by the wet heat of his tongue soothing the mark. His thrusts grew rougher, more erratic, the potion’s last embers driving him to claim you one final time before it released its hold.
You felt him reach his peak with a broken moan against your skin, his cock pulsing deep inside you as he spilled another heavy load, hips jerking through the release.
Maekar didn't give you a second to recover. The moment the last pulse of his orgasm faded, he gripped your hips and violently flipped you over, manhandling you onto your back with a force that knocked the wind out of you. You hit the mattress hard, your legs splayed wide, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable beneath him.
He didn't wait for you to catch your breath, your eyes wide with desire. He surged forward, his hand snapping up to wrap firmly around your throat.
He didn't squeeze enough to cut off your air entirely, but the pressure was constant, a heavy reminder of his dominance that forced your chin up and your chest out. His eyes were still dark, blown out and predatory, his teeth bared in a feral snarl as he looked down at you.
“I told you I wanted to ruin you,” he rasped, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. “I'm not fucking finished.”
He positioned the head of his cock, still slick and swollen from his first release, against your soaking entrance and with one brutal, uncompromising shove, he slammed back inside you. The impact was jarring, his cock sliding through the pool of his own cum to bottom out deep against your cervix. You gasped, your back arching off the bed, but his grip on your throat tightened, pinning you down and forcing you to take every inch of him.
He began to fuck you with a renewed, aggressive energy, his hips snapping forward in a relentless rhythm. Each thrust was a heavy, wet thud, the sound of his pelvis crashing against yours echoing in the room. He wasn't looking for pleasure now; he was claiming you, driving himself into you as if he wanted to leave a permanent mark on your insides.
“Take it,” he commanded, his voice guttural. ”Take all of it.”
He shifted his weight, pinning your wrists above your head with one hand while the other remained locked around your neck.
The position left you completely open, your pussy stretching and gripping him with every violent plunge. He began to pick up the pace, his movements becoming frantic and raw.
He leaned down, his teeth sinking into the sensitive skin of your collarbone, biting hard enough to draw a whimper of pain and pleasure from your lips.
The friction was agonizingly intense, the mixture of his cum and your own lubrication creating a loud, squelching sound with every stroke. He was hammering into you now, his cock hitting your depths with a force that made your entire body shake. He watched your face, savoring the way your eyes rolled back and your breath came in ragged, broken sobs, his expression one of pure, unadulterated hunger.
He stayed buried there afterward, still trembling, still holding you tight as if afraid you would slip away. The apologies came softer now, murmured into your hair between shaky kisses to the bite marks he had left.
“I am sorry, wife. For the bite. For the words. For needing you so fiercely it feels like it will tear me apart.” His hand stroked down your side, gentler now, though the tremor had not fully left him. “The maester will answer for this. But you… you are everything. Even when I lose myself like this.”
The worst of the fire finally began to fade as the first pale light of dawn crept through the shutters.
Maekar’s eyes flew wide, the reverent haze shattering in an instant. Violet irises, still dark with the remnants of lust, locked onto the marks he had left, deep, angry crescents of teeth sunk into the curve of your shoulder, the mottled purple and red where his fingers had clamped like iron vices during the peak of his release. A raw, guttural sound tore from his throat.
“Gods, woman, look at what I have done to you?”
The words were barely finished before he ripped himself from your body with violent suddenness.
The thick drag of his cock withdrawing punched a broken gasp from your lips, the sudden emptiness was jarring, followed by a hot, messy spill of his spend that leaked thickly down your thighs and onto the ruined sheets. He recoiled as though scalded, shoving himself upright and backward in one brutal motion, his broad, sweat-slicked chest heaving.
He stared down at you like a man who had just woken to find blood on his hands. One hand hovered in the air between you, fingers trembling, before he yanked it back and clenched it into a white-knuckled fist against his thigh.
The protective cage of his body was gone, now he knelt above you, silver-gold hair wild, the pale dawn light carving harsh lines across the sharp planes of his face and the corded muscle of his arms.
“Fuck,” he rasped, voice hoarse and cracking. “I— I used you like a beast. Like some half-mad dragon that doesn’t know its own strength.” His gaze raked over every mark, every bruise, every place his mouth and hands and teeth had claimed you through the long, brutal hours of the night. Shame and something darker, possessive, almost feral, warred openly in his expression.
He swallowed hard, throat working. For a heartbeat he looked like he might reach for you again, but he stopped himself short, muscles locked tight with the effort of restraint. The bed creaked under his shifting weight as he put another deliberate inch of distance between you.
“Tell me,” he demanded, low and rough, eyes still wide and frantic. “Tell me I didn’t break you. That I didn’t take more than you could give.” His voice dropped even further, almost pleading beneath the growl.
“Because if I have… if these marks are more than passion’s price…” He trailed off, jaw clenched so hard the muscle jumped, and for the first time since he’d dragged you into this bed, Maekar Targaryen looked truly afraid of what his own hunger had wrought. “I am going to fucking kill that fucking fool, oh Gods, my love.”
His hand lifted again, hovering over the worst of the bites on your shoulder without quite touching. The tremor in his fingers was visible. “Speak, little one. Now. Before I lose what little control I have left.”
You were still breathless, lungs burning, body trembling from the sudden, brutal emptiness he’d left behind. His spend was leaking hot and thick down your thighs, your cunt still fluttering around nothing, sore and slick and used. The marks on your shoulder throbbed in time with your heartbeat, but the ache between your legs was deeper, sweeter.
You reached for him with one shaky hand, fingers brushing the tense muscle of his forearm before he could pull farther away.
“Maekar,” you rasped, voice hoarse from screaming his name through the night. “Look at me.”
His eyes were still wide, wild with guilt, but you held his gaze and gave him the truth, raw and unashamed.
“I liked it,” you whispered fiercely. “I liked it. Every mark. Every time you bit down and fucked me harder because you couldn’t stop yourself. Whatever that maester gave you…” A shaky, breathless laugh escaped you. “It made you so fucking sexy. Like you were burning from the inside out and the only thing that could put the fire out was me.”
You shifted on the ruined sheets, letting him see the mess he’d made of you, the glistening streaks on your inner thighs, the way your body still trembled with aftershocks, the vivid proof of his hunger painted across your skin.
“I wanted it,” you continued, softer now but no less certain. “I wanted you like that. Rough. Desperate. Like you’d die if you didn’t get deeper inside me. The way you growled my name when you came… Gods, Maekar, I’ve never felt so wanted in my life.”
His breath hitched. The horror in his violet eyes cracked, something darker and hotter flooding in to replace it. His cock, still half-hard and glistening with your combined release, twitched visibly against his thigh.
You saw the moment the fear lost its battle with need. His hand finally closed the distance, fingers trembling as they traced the bite mark on your shoulder with something that was no longer just shame and guilt, but that it was possession, renewed and burning.
“Say it again,” he demanded, voice low and rough, almost broken. His thumb pressed into the deepest tooth mark, making you hiss. “Tell me you wanted the beast. That you still want him.”
He leaned over you again, caging you in, but this time the tension in his body was different, coiled, hungry, barely leashed. The pale dawn light caught on the sweat still clinging to his chest, the faint tremor in his arms as he held himself above you.
“Because if you keep talking like that, little one…” His gaze dropped to your mouth, then lower, to the way his spend continued to drip from your well-used cunt. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep myself from taking you again. Harder. Until every mark on you is fresh and you can’t walk without remembering exactly who put them there.”
His eyes were wide again, but not with fear this time, but with hunger and he was waiting for your answer like a man starving.
You reached up with trembling fingers and brushed a strand of silver-gold hair from his forehead, your voice soft and breathless in the quiet dawn.
“Maekar… can you go slow for me?”
For a heartbeat he simply stared at you, violet eyes wide and searching, as if he couldn’t quite believe you were still asking for him after everything. Then something in his expression cracked open, raw relief, aching tenderness, and a love so fierce it looked almost painful.
He nodded once, jaw tight. “Anything,” he rasped. “Anything you want, my heart.”
He lowered himself over you with deliberate care, one hand sliding beneath your head to cradle it while the other stroked gently down your side, avoiding the worst of the bruises. His cock, still slick with the evidence of his earlier frenzy, nudged against your entrance. He paused there, forehead resting against yours, breathing you in.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against your lips. “Just feel me.”
The first slow push was almost reverent. He sank into you inch by careful inch, letting you feel every thick ridge, every pulse of him as your body stretched around him again. The mess he’d left behind made the glide obscenely wet, but he moved like he was afraid to hurt you, deep, steady, and so achingly gentle that your eyes stung.
Maekar kissed you like a man worshipping at an altar. Soft at first, then deeper, his tongue stroking yours in time with the slow roll of his hips. Each thrust was measured, loving, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in to the hilt, grinding there so you felt every inch of him claiming you anew.
“So good for me,” he praised against your mouth, voice rough with emotion. “My brave girl. Taking everything I gave you and still wanting me like this.” He kissed the bite mark on your shoulder with exquisite tenderness, tongue soothing over the indents his teeth had left. “These marks… they’re mine now. Because you wanted them. Because you wanted me.”
Another slow, deep thrust. He groaned quietly into your neck, the sound half-reverence, half-restraint. His hand found yours and laced your fingers together beside your head, squeezing gently as he rocked into you.
“I love you,” he breathed, the words slipping out raw and unguarded between kisses. “Even when the fire takes me. Even when I lose myself in you. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you feel how much.”
He kissed you again, slow, deep, and devastating, while his hips continued their unhurried rhythm, each thrust a promise, each roll of his body against yours an apology and a devotion all at once. The morning light painted both of you in soft gold as he loved you with everything he had left.
He felt it the moment your body began to tighten around him.
Maekar’s rhythm never quickened, but it deepened, each slow, deliberate thrust grinding against that perfect spot inside you with devastating precision. He watched your face the entire time, violet eyes dark and intent, drinking in every flutter of your lashes, every soft sound that escaped you.
“That’s it,” he murmured, voice low and rough with love. “Let go for me, sweet girl. I’ve got you.”
His free hand slid between your bodies, fingers finding your swollen clit with gentle, circling pressure that matched the unhurried roll of his hips. He kissed you through it, deep, lingering kisses that stole your breath, then moved to the marks on your shoulder, pressing his lips there like a vow.
“You’re so perfect like this,” he praised, the words hot against your skin. “Taking me so sweetly. Letting me love you the way you deserve.” Another slow, grinding thrust. “Come for me. I want to feel you fall apart around my cock. I want to feel how much you still want me.”
The combination unraveled you.
Your orgasm built like a slow, inevitable tide, deeper and more overwhelming than the frantic ones from before. Your back arched, thighs trembling around his waist as the pleasure crested. You clenched hard around him, pulsing in long, rhythmic waves that dragged a broken groan from his chest. He held you through it, never stopping the steady, loving rhythm, fucking you gently through every crest and aftershock while whispering your name like a prayer.
“Beautiful,” he breathed, forehead pressed to yours as you shook beneath him. “So fucking beautiful when you come for me. That’s my girl. My brave, perfect girl.”
He kept moving through the last tremors, slow and deep, letting you ride out every last ripple while his arms cradled you close. Only when your body finally went soft and pliant beneath him did he allow himself to bury his face in your neck, hips stuttering once, twice, then stilling as he followed you over the edge with a low, reverent groan of your name.
Even in the afterglow, he didn’t pull away. He stayed buried inside you, kissing the tears of pleasure from your lashes, stroking your hair, murmuring soft praises against your skin while the first true light of morning crept across the bed.
He pulled you closer, wrapping himself around you protectively, his lips brushing the marks on your shoulder with something close to reverence.
“Sleep,” he whispered, voice hoarse but steadier. “I have you. I will always have you.”
And for the first time since the remedy had taken hold, Prince Maekar Targaryen let the tension drain from his body, holding his wife close as the unnatural heat finally cooled, leaving only the deep, steady truth of what he felt for you beneath the stern and possessive surface.
─ pairing: Maekar Targaryen x sister!reader x Baelor Targaryen
─ content: literally just endless fluff | targcest (throuple)
─ a/n: a little blurb because I miss my men. Working through this inbox...we will get there.
You sat propped against a mound of pillows, your silver-gold hair still damp at the temples and swept back over your shoulders. The linen had been changed; fresh, soft cotton against skin that still prickled with fatigue. Every bone ached in ways you had not expected, yet it did not matter. Not now, with the weight in your arms.
Maekar sat to your right, still in his doublet, the laces at his throat loosened. To your left was Baelor. Between them, cradled against your chest, lay your son.
He was so impossibly small; the kind of small that made the entire chamber feel cavernous and echoing. His lids were shut, faint blue veins visible beneath paper-thin skin, and his lips, scarcely formed, fluttered open and closed. A fine down of dark hair covered his head, silk-soft, with a single streak of white just above his left temple.
All three of you watched him in silence until, suddenly, his eyes opened. One was a deep, lucid violet; the other warm amber, flecked like honey held to the light. They blinked once, twice, unfocused, and turned toward the glow of the hearth. Heterochromia, just like Baelor's.
You turned to look at Baelor. His jaw clenched, the muscle in his cheek twitching before his lips pressed into a thin line. A solitary tear slipped from the corner of his amber eye and traced a path down his tan cheek. Maekar's hand rose to rest on Baelor's shoulder; his thumb brushed the seam of Baelor's doublet in a gentle, absent gesture. Baelor inhaled slowly, covered Maekar's hand for a heartbeat, then let it fall.
You shifted forward and tilted the babe toward Baelor. "Here," you said, your voice rough and raw. "Hold him."
Baelor's arms moved, hesitated. "I'll—"
"You won't," you said firmly, guiding the child into the cradle of his forearms. You reached up, pressed Baelor's left hand against the back of the babe's head. "Here. Support him like this. Yes."
The infant weighed almost nothing in Baelor's arms; arms that had swung swords and toppled champions in tourneys. Still, he held the child as though his very life depended on it, his shoulders curving inward protectively, his frame folding around that tiny body.
Behind you, Maekar's arms came around your waist, pulling you back against his chest. His mouth found your temple. "You did well," he murmured.
You squeezed his forearm where it lay across your collarbone, leaning back against him as his embrace tightened.
Baelor gazed down at his son. The babe's little hand flexed; fingers splaying, curling, against the cotton of Baelor's sleeve.
"Maekar," Baelor said, "greet your son."
Maekar lifted his chin from your hair. "Yours." Then, quieter, "He looks nothing like me."
You frowned, turning your head against Maekar's shoulder to look up at him. His face was still; jaw set, mouth flat, eyes fixed on the bundle in Baelor's arms.
Baelor shifted his gaze from the child to Maekar. "He is yours, nevertheless, as the children who take after you will be mine."
Maekar opened his arms. Baelor transferred the babe with the utmost care, one hand lingering at the nape of his neck until Maekar's fingers slipped into place. Maekar tucked the child into the crook of his elbow, cradling him exactly as you had shown Baelor.
His free hand rose, a single finger tracing the curve of the babe's cheek. The skin was impossibly soft, softer than anything he had ever touched. Then the babe's fist closed, wrapping all five tiny fingers around Maekar's index finger with instinctive strength. Maekar's breath caught, his eyes widening, his mouth parting in a sound that was not quite a laugh or a word; something fragile that cracked at the edges. In that instant, he knew he could never love anything more fiercely than this small, warm life.
You leaned in, your head resting on Maekar's shoulder. Baelor's hand found the small of your back, anchoring you both in that circle of three around the child.
The babe's eyes drifted again, slow and unsteady, across the faces above him; the white-haired man who held him, the woman pressed close, the dark-haired brother beside you. His mouth twitched, his nose scrunched, and then he sneezed; a soft, kittenish sound that made his whole body jolt. His face crumpled, relaxed, and a massive yawn stretched across his tiny features, far too large for such a small mouth. When it was over, his lids fell shut once more, his breathing deepened, and his grip on Maekar's finger softened; loose but unwilling to let go, as sleep claimed him.
The fire flickered lower. Silence settled over the room.
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Ok but did Ormund love lady Hightower in the custody series? Or was it more a marriage of duty that fostered mutual appreciation. Or something else?
okay hmmm this is such an interesting question and that was actually one of the first things i thought about when writing COB. let’s walk through it, shall we?
i think there was actual love and affection in the marriage. maybe not lust or passion, but genuine tenderness. it was a marriage of duty, yes, but Ormund and Lady Hightower (going to say LH for short) were close. they were both similar in age, attractive, young people. LH was educated and courtly. very much a proper and respectable match for Ormund. they were companions, there was trust. LH gave Ormund three healthy sons. LH was kind and a wonderful mother by all accounts.
they both got what they wanted out of the match: Ormund got a legacy and a respectable household, and LH got a title, comfortable life, and children (her own plus reader) who she loved very dearly and devoted much of her time to raising. Ormund genuinely mourned her when she died.
now, as for Ormund and reader…
let’s put it this way: Ormund loved LH as a man should love a wife.
Ormund loves reader as though she was created from his own rib and the Seven trusted her soul to no one but him.
there is OWNERSHIP with reader. there is SANCTITY with reader.
with LH, she had a life before Ormund. she had an identity outside of him. reader has none of that. she was nothing before him, and she will be nothing without him. he has spent years being everything to her: guardian, protector, confessor, and now, husband.
we could talk all day about what would have transpired between Ormund and reader if LH had lived, but i think that’s a conversation for another day…
Pairing(s): Gwayne Hightower x TagaryenWife!Reader
Description: You were a Targaryen princess who married a Hightower, the people will whisper, of course, and especially undermine your marriage; however, you were raised under prim and poise. But who knew that all it took was a few flirtatious moves on your husband to ignite such an egoistical wife?
WC: 3.5k
CW: Reader is an icon and a very mean diva. No physical descriptions of Reader. Gwayne is smitten (and breedable, but the roles are reversed for this one). SMUT, just smut and a tiny little plot. PinV. A slight spit/saliva kink if you use a magnifying glass or a scanning tunneling microscope. My favourite word: breeding. Cunnilingus. Cum eating. More breeding. Slight cockwarming in the end. Reader tops but gets tired, but a diva still has needs.
GIF Credit (TYSM!): @/dracaria-dracarys
The tourney had grown boring, unbearable, and hot. It was a tourney for pleasantries and other obnoxious reasons for more chatter.
Knights were swooning over you which in turn had caught the malicious attention of the other noblewomen who were in the bylines. You could not help but roll your eyes at the next Lord that would introduce themselves to you, but prim and poise was your vice, you were high on it, surely you must be. Gwayne is far more better than you in exchanging civilities, it is his strong suit and you? You were the complete opposite, which had confused the others of your marriage. The most righteous man in all of Westeros chose the egoistic sensualist of a wife he could ever find—it stunned you as well at the match, but it worked in your favour.
However, you had places to be, if not with your husband, then on your husband.
You made your way in the sea of people who had been going through similar struggles as you in this heat. Thankfully, the wine makes everything somewhat bearable in the scorching heat, your silks clung onto your skin as you aggressively fanned yourself to cool down, it was hot and you were tired.
Your servants did their best to alleviate the effects of the warm weather and the stuffy environment as you made your way through the many nobles that looked at you like you were a fresh piece of meat for the taking, for gossip, position, and whatever else they can gain from you.
Finally, a cool breeze had brushed over your skin, soothing your strenuous toil but that was only for a short while. Your gaze landed on the ladies that were unashamedly doting on your husband, Gwayne. A blonde noblewoman had been faking her laughter to get his attention, only for her to finally gain it when she forcibly interlocks her arms with him. You took immediate notice of the recoil in his reaction, he knew better, good. Disgust was an understatement that painted his features.
The lesser blonde goads and toys with him as other ladies made this their chance to vie for his attention. It was an uncommon occurrence for some to slip past you but it is uncommon for a reason. Even so, it did not do any wonders to your ego, the skin you that you wore had shed and the dragon beneath it had finally revealed itself.
“Ser Gwayne? Your thoughts on the lovely knights today?”
“Have you tried the wine? Absolutely delicious!”
“You’ve great hair, is that lavender I smell?”
Their shrill voices rang in your ears as you made your way to them. Prim and poise. Which still rang true … but that was for occasions that it is appropriate, this was not.
“Princess! I did not realise you were here, you were gone for some period of time, but do not worry, your husband had better company to attend to,” the Lady exclaimed in such a fake manner that it heated your face to a flush of pink as the words landed like a strong blow. It only worsened the feeling as you see her holding Gwayne like she owned him, like he was her property. To your advantage, you knew how these played out, you were not idle and stuck with cross-stitching and other things, you were either on dragonback or training with your sword, an unbecoming image for a princess but you were no ordinary princess—you have the blood of old Valyria running through your veins and you have dragons.
You retaliate.
“You speak as though my presence requires your acknowledgment, rest assured, it does not.”
It deepened the disdain that took root in your bones, as it did not easily sway the Lady beside your poor husband who is caught in the crossfire. The look on your face was not quite subtle anymore, the disrespect you had experienced fueled the scorn on your face.
You carefully designed the woman that stood right in front of her, through years and years of defiance and spite, you’ve learned to mask the arrogance with humility and the animosity with kindness. However, your arrogance took matters into her own hands, Gwayne knew upon entering your marriage that there would always be a third, your ego.
You ignored his innocent stare, reminding yourself to take care of him … later.
Much to your annoyance, another lady from yet another house spoke, “dragons tend to blend into the scenery until they choose to open their jaws.”
You gave her a small, pitying sigh, “how quaint. You speak of dragons as if they are beasts to be feared, rather than kin to be commanded. Do not mistake my silence for blending in, for I am merely deciding if you are worth the breath.”
The opponent had weakened, only then, you had struck the final blow.
It was simple. Unnerving. Scorching.
You held your gaze to their embarrassed ones, a sickly sweet smile you mimicked the first lady from earlier, your quaint fingers toying with the fabric of her dress, “although …you must pray I keep mine closed. Your silks are far too pretty to be reduced to ash.”
With a gentle grip, you pulled Gwayne’s arm from her grasp, walking away from the group of vipers and snakes.
You could care less of the broken proper princess act in front of the noble men and women who were practically slithering from the sides just to take a piece of their gossip. The air as you walked right passed them grew cold and icy. They hold no worth to you, regardless of their miniscule jabs at you and your house.
The proud dragon princess. The defiant heir. The evil Hightower wife. The tyrant Targaryen.
At least they knew what the Gods have granted you before you even drew your first breath: the divine, unyielding right to rule, which left the rest of Westeros to pray the coin lands on the side that spares them from your fire. You hailed from the royal house that many feared … but most of all, you were in love.
Gwayne had softened the rougher edges you wore when you met him, which had stunned you, you never bowed to anyone, no, not until he arrived into your life. He has earned the softness of your heart and you promised yourself that he will have it for the rest of your days together.
You endured to heat as you scurried towards your guest chambers, your husband following suit. He knew better than to defy you and your authority.
“You are angry,” he pointed out, a pout could be seen from his lips. Gods, he was handsome.
“I am fine, I do not partake in such folly,” you said wryly.
“Are you mad at me?”
That question stopped you in your place, you turned back to him as if he went mad.
“Absurd.”
He sighs, “you are tense.”
“They treat you as if you are a toy to play with, I simply reminded them of who warms your bed.”
That reply made Gwayne blush. The sight made your heart soften.
You circled him like a dragon ready to devour its prey, guiding him towards your bed unknowingly, again, he knew better than to defy you of all people.
He sits at the edge of your bed, you rightfully took your place between his legs, your hand gentle as you grasped his chin to look up at you. Your eyes never left his, you were furious of course, no one deserved to touch him like you did, to love him like you did, to pleasure him like you did.
“You are pliant, husband.”
“Of course I am. Only to you,” his statement encouraged the uproar in your thinly veiled arrogance, the mix of pride and ego had egged on your arousal. It claws on your stomach as he submitted, caved into your touch alone, reminding you once more that he belonged to you.
His hands slithered up to your waist, undoing your laces as he maintained eye contact with you, serving you. His grip possessive and needy, the heat you had complained about was erased from your memory as a fresh wave of fire began in your body. Your dress pools down to your feet as he strips the rest away, pulling you in, making you straddle his lap.
He kisses you earnestly and eagerly, his hands cupping your breasts as you press yourself closer to him, the erotic sensation of your nakedness that is opposite to his clothed body is vibrating between your bodies.
He hums into the kiss as he deepened it, taking claim of you, his tongue sliding against yours in an indulgent dance that rendered him weak. There was no urgency in the act, it was just two people who willingly adored each other in secrecy and in public. You attempted, hard, to keep up your strong appearance, to stay mad but you were oh so soft for your husband. The feigned hatred in your face began to dissipate as he pathetically moaned into your lips, owning him, needing him. You submit.
On the other hand, Gwayne felt almost unworthy of having you all to himself, the unashamed greed made him run hot to the touch. He holds your body against his, his kisses more insistent and that was all you needed to undo you. Gwayne feels the love that is radiating from you and he plans on using that to his advantage, to win you over, carefully, lovingly, intimately.
He pulls away to look at you and then to your pouted lips, a string of saliva connecting you both. He notices that you look … softer in the ambient light of the chambers, although he loves you just the same even when the fire in you sparks aflame. Your hair is a mess but it sat pretty on you, you have this effortless beauty and sensuality that you exuded and he envied almost anyone who will ever come across you—but he would never tell you that, it must be a safely kept secret but it would not matter if he considers you a god. The Seven truly took their time with you and he was grateful that you chose him, he could not bear spending a life without you by his side.
Gwayne never indulges himself, he rarely does, not until he met you. His earnest gaze appreciated your features, he notices the smallest of things, the faint scar on your neck from your cousin’s dagger, that crooked smile you have whenever you are content, the pattern of your breathing is different when you turn supple and needy—these are some of the things he notices about you, because he listens and he knows.
Your clingy sounds had urged Gwayne’s light kisses on both of your tits, which soon evolved into sloppier ones that made you sigh in relief as he grips the back of your thighs, pulling you closer to him, your puffy cunt brushing up against his clothed cock, a needy moan slips past between his lips.
To him this was vulnerability but to you this was opportunity.
You ground your hips against him, feeling your slick arousal spreading on the fabric of his breeches, the action sending waves of pleasure to your body. You pushed his body against the bed, your hands placed on his chest as you continued the rolling motion of your hips as you made him watch you take your pleasure from him.
“You only look at me,” you moaned, your gaze fixed on his face as you rode him, your movements provocative and needy, only for him. Only for Gwayne.
If it was humanly possible, Gwayne could have peaked at the sight before him, his cock twitched needily under your wet cunt. His hands were snug at your waist, your movements were encouraged by him, his groans were like hymns of worship to you and you lived for it. The heat from earlier took a toll on your stamina but you were bound to endure it, lest your claim be proven hollow—you were stubborn.
Gwayne touched you everywhere as you rolled your hips against him, you threw your head back as you felt yourself closer to the edge, the friction between your sexes is delicious. It relaxed your complaining body and pleasured it further. Another wet spot had appeared on his breeches from his precum and tantalizingly mixed with your wetness. Your moans had increased and your nails scratched at his chest as you quickened your movements.
There was a fire that had awoken in your belly, it was only spurred when Gwayne moved against your hips, intensifying your pleasure, the action provoking your climax. Your hips stuttered as you came, your pants and mewls were of his name and that made Gwayne groan deeply.
It tamed you. Your body took comfort on top of his, Gwayne pulled you closer, his movements subtle yet noticeable, he partially slid his breeches off, his hard cock instantly meeting your sensitive sex.
He whispered praise to his sweet wife and that alone had lulled the fire in you, only a little bit before it gave out on you and gave more way to him. You were still sensitive from your high but the want is still etched into your body, Gwayne caressed your buzzing body, his fingers feeling every crevice you have.
“My sweet dragon … I need to feel you around me, come home.”
That usual sweet tone of his stirred you out of your bliss, your consciousness coming back to you fully as he tapped the enraged head of his cock to your hardened pearl, you reacted to the sensation as he collected more of your previous honeyed arousal to lubricate himself with.
He fixes your position, raising your hips a little for him to move properly beneath you, his cock nudging into your hole, the squeeze of it made Gwayne twitch beneath you.
His free hand guided your hips down his length, practically splitting you in half at the sheer size of him when he enters, it overwhelmed the both of you at this point. Your wetness emitted a sound so scandalous that Gwayne was livid for it, he tested his rhythm as he bounced you on his cock, the air left his lungs as he moved you up and down.
Your body was still pressed against his body, your hips met his, Gwayne controlled your movements, using your sensitive cunt for his pleasure. He made sure to revel in moments like these, taking charge of your shared pleasure when you were typically the one in control.
His hold on you was intimate, it weakened your defences and had your walls fluttering around him which earned a soft whine from your husband, he accentuated his movements, his tip nudging against the spot that made you spasm and shake, exactly where he belonged.
“Gods,” you mewled, the walls around you collapsed, there was no reason to shield yourself with your ego, you were snug in his arms and you were being ravaged in full force, what more could you ever need in this moment?
You cried out as your cunt clamped down his twitching length, his orgasm following suit as you felt him coat your walls with his cum. He needed to stuff you full to the brim and to hope to the Gods that it takes root in your womb. He felt himself softening as you both came down from your highs, he could feel himself leaking out from your pretty hole, your essence running down from your thighs to his.
Gwayne then kisses you silly, as egoistical as you are, you were ticklish and he used it to his advantage, you giggled softly and before you knew it, you were laying down on your bed. His unabashed gaze took you apart, like always, with care.
You were not going to finish this day without a fight.
You slightly opened your legs, your cunt oozed what was left of your mixed arousals and that had fogged the goodness in your husband’s eyes, almost completely. Gwayne went weak when he saw you leaking more of him, puffy and pretty.
His mouth was on you, his hands on both your thighs as he opened you up to him. To some, this endeavour was mechanical, to Gwayne, it was pure love, for you.
His tongue dipped right between your folds, lapping up the leaked evidence, the sweetness and the saltiness was almost like a drug to him. You moaned wantonly and called out to him in your pleasure, your hands on his hair and on your tits. Gwayne’s strong hands fought with your thighs that had threatened to close in on him, but he wanted to worship you first before indulging himself. The obscene wet noises fell from his lips, guttural grunts and groans as he tasted you both on you.
“Yes, Gwayne, yes!”
The words that came out of you was a plea instead of a command, your fingers tugging tightly at his hair. Gwayne sucked the last of his cum from your cunt and resurfaced with a pussy-drunk smile on his face.
By the time you pull him on top of you, closer to you as your lips meet for another kiss, his length has hardened once more. Gwayne’s words of love and praise fell muffled to your lips, his cock heavy on his hand as he supported himself with the other.
He pushed himself inside you once more, purely for the reason of belonging there, of completing you—making you full. His free hand plays with the pearl of your cunt, earning him scratches on his arms as you hold onto him.
“My sweet wife, you are perfect … you are all mine,” he grunts into your ear.
His demeanour softens at your blissful face, the cacophony of sounds emitting from the both of you across chamber walls which turned into intimate hymnals that billowed around your connected bodies and fine silks you lay on top of.
Gwayne was determined to push for another peak for you, to make sure that his sweet wife was satiated, to forget her woes, to remember that he belongs to her—Gwayne needed it like the air he breathed, like the uttered prayers under the Seven’s eyes, like his sustenance to live for you. Gwayne wanted it now more than ever, his thrusts became rough, your sounds more high-pitched, melodic even. You could feel his slicked up balls slap your ass, making a plapplapplap sound as he quickens his pace.
He could feel you swarm around him, like flames and he was unaffected by it, your cunt does the fluttering around his hammering length once more and it sends him to the Seven Heavens and Seven Hells and back.
His movements erratic, panting as he holds your body closer to him as he finishes inside you once more, coating your tightening walls, your orgasm making his length even more slick.
Gwayne pulls out momentarily, patiently watching both your essences ooze out you again before collecting it with the tip of his cock and fucking it into you, you moaned lazily as he thrusts deeper, slower. He emphasises his movements, the belonging and need, his message was not lost on you. You were beyond saving from the very moment you submitted to him, from the moment you met him, leaving your ego no choice but to watch your carnal affair instead.
“That is it, my sweet dragon, you did good, so good.”
His voice a soft whisper to your ears as he peppered your face with kisses, his hips halting their movements, staying right there and inside you.
Gwayne is not a man of pride but this time … he indulges for his egoistical wife, smugly.
SUMMARY: Father Baelor Targaryen has spent fifteen years believing his faith could withstand anything. Then you walked into his parish, carrying your own grief, and suddenly the hardest thing he's ever had to confess isn't to God, but to himself.
WARNING(S): priestAU/modernAU, dual POV, no use of y/n, AFAB reader, religious themes, hierophilia (priest kink), forbidden romance, slow burn, mutual pining, religious guilt, crisis of faith, loss of faith, catholic imagery, blasphemous thoughts, grief, mourning, emotional repression, yearning, unresolved sexual tension, internalized guilt, loneliness, age gap, unhealthy devotion, obsessive thoughts, explicit sexual thoughts, masturbation, praise and worship parallels, hurt/comfort, angst with romantic undertones, "they're both so painfully in love it's embarrassing" trope
WC: 21.1k (probably the longest of the parts this story will have)
A.N.: thorny dividers are mine. i think this work could be catalogued as a slow burn with sexual contents present almost since the beginning. as i warned some days ago, it might well be the slowest of burns i have ever written. i wanted to get a bit out of my comfort zone with this one, so it relies heavily on inner thoughts of both reader and Baelor. i would appreciate it a lot if you could throw some feedback my way, because i somehow feel kinda meh with this so far.
You could not have named the date of the last Mass you'd attended — it had slipped out of you somewhere between one grief and the next, uncatalogued — but you remembered the feeling of it with an accuracy that unsettled you a little: the ache of kneeling too long against unpadded wood, incense sitting as a faint film at the back of your throat, your father's hand closing warm and certain over yours during the Sign of Peace. You had been accepted there, once, entirely and without the usual preconditions. You had wanted that feeling back for longer than you would have admitted to anyone who might have thought to ask.
Father Arlan had presided over all of it for as long as you could remember him: an old, soft-spoken man with liver-spotted hands, who knew every child in the parish by name and forgot no one's saint's day. You learned of his death secondhanded, years after you'd stopped attending, from a text message that tried to cushion the news with a single mournful emoji. You cried once, briefly and uselessly, in a bathroom stall at work, and then, within the week, you noticed you had largely stopped. Grief, you had since learned, kept no fixed schedule. It arrived when it wished and left when it wished, and sometimes it left too soon, and came back, much later, for entirely the wrong person.
Your father had never stopped going. Even in his last years, when his knees complained and the walk to the church had become a small daily negotiation with his own body, he still went every Sunday and some weekdays besides, because — he told you, more than once, in the tone he reserved for things he considered simple fact — a person owed God the courtesy of showing up.
Whatever capacity you had once had for faith, you had inherited from him, before you let it go the way you let most things go that required upkeep you didn't feel you had hours to spare for. He'd mentioned the new priest to you once, years back, over dinner: a Father Baelor, transferred in from another diocese, young yet by his account, and by all reports a fine homilist. You made a noise of polite interest and never once, in all the years your father had left, went to see for yourself.
Then your father died — quickly, in the way that manages to feel both sudden and, in hindsight, inevitable for months beforehand — and it was only you and your mother left in a house that had never before had to hold just two people's worth of grief and now had far too much room for it.
Your mother wept in the kitchen at strange hours over recipes she had made a thousand times before and now, apparently, understood she was making for one person fewer. You held her. You made the calls. You signed what needed signing and discovered you could go entire days without anyone asking how you, specifically, were managing — because it had not occurred to anyone, least of all to you, that you might need managing too. You had not known, until that year, that loneliness could exist inside a house that still held another person in it.
On a Wednesday in the flat middle of an otherwise unremarkable week, for reasons you could not have fully explained under interrogation, you put on real clothes instead of the ones you had been sleeping and grieving in, and walked to the parish you had not entered in the better part of a decade.
The building had not changed, which felt like its own small insult. The same water stain crossing the ceiling beam over the side aisle. The same brass rack of votive candles, most of them lit by hands you would never know, guttering low in their red glass cups. You dipped two fingers into the stone font at the door out of a muscle memory old enough to embarrass you — you hadn't decided to do it, your hand had simply done it — and the water was cold enough to register up to your wrist. You took a pew near the back, out of an instinct you didn't examine too closely, and sat with your hands loose in your lap, turning your father's old verdict over in your mind. A fine homilist. You supposed you would judge that for yourself, if you managed to stay through the whole of it.
You laced and unlaced your fingers, conscious of how conspicuous your own restlessness must have looked beside the handful of elderly women scattered through the front pews, each of them still in the settled way of people who had done this ten thousand times before and expected to do it ten thousand times again. A small bell sounded once from somewhere near the sacristy — a clean, single note, felt more in the sternum than heard — and the women rose as one, the movement automatic, requiring no more thought from them than breathing did. You stood a half-beat behind them and turned toward the side door as he came through it.
He was not what you had pictured, though you couldn't have said what you had pictured instead. He was tall enough to duck fractionally beneath the door frame, an old habit worn smooth by however many years of practice, and built with a breadth through the shoulders and chest that the green vestments of Ordinary Time did nothing to disguise, and seemed, if anything, cut to accommodate. He crossed to the centre of the sanctuary, made his reverence to the altar, and for a moment before the Mass properly began you simply looked at him the way you might look at any large, unfamiliar object set without warning into a room you thought you knew by heart.
This, you supposed, had to be the Father Baelor your father had mentioned all those years ago, at a dinner you otherwise barely remembered. He looked, on the strength of nothing more than how he carried himself at the altar, like precisely the sort of man your father would have approved of.
The opening rites passed you in fragments — the cross traced automatically over your own chest, the responses arriving on your tongue half a second before you'd consciously recalled them, evidence that some part of you had never actually released any of this, whatever you had spent the last decade telling yourself. It was the Gospel that undid whatever fragile composure you had managed to assemble since walking in.
Father Baelor stepped to the ambo, made the small triple sign of the cross — forehead, lips, heart — that you copied without deciding to, and read from the Gospel of John: Christ's promise to his disciples, the night before he died, that he would not abandon them. I will not leave you orphaned; I will come to you.
It was a passage your father had read aloud to you more than once, in years you would rather not audit too closely, on nights neither of you could sleep for reasons you never named to each other directly. You had not thought of those nights in years. You thought of nothing else for the length of the Gospel, sitting with your spine very straight and your face arranged into the specific blankness you had perfected these last months for use at funerals, hospital corridors, and now, it seemed, church pews.
The homily was not what the voice had led you to expect. You weren't sure what you had exactly expected, to be honest, but it certainly fell somewhere more instructive, maybe, closer to a lecture. Instead, he spoke low and unforced, pitched to carry to the back pews without ever seeming to labour at it, and what he spoke of was loneliness: not as a sin requiring confession or a weakness requiring correction, but as a country nearly everyone in the room had crossed at some point, a good number of them more than once.
He told the story of the prophet Elijah, fled into the wilderness and certain he was the last faithful man left alive, so worn through by his own isolation that he begged God to let him die under a solitary broom tree — and how God had answered him finally not in the earthquake, nor the fire, nor the great wind tearing the mountain apart, but in what the old translations called a still, small voice, so quiet the prophet had to go silent himself and strain to catch it.
Presence, Father Baelor said, was rarely loud. It came, more often than not, in the smallest and least dramatic of forms — a hand set on a shoulder, a voice through a doorway, someone choosing, again and again, simply to remain. You are not abandoned, he said, near the close, his voice dropping lower still, and for one unreasonable, indefensible moment it felt aimed directly at the back pew where you sat with your hands gone white-knuckled in your lap. You are not orphaned. Even when it feels that way. Even now.
You heard little of what followed. You were aware, distantly, of standing and sitting in their correct places, of the practiced choreography of the Eucharist proceeding at the front of the church, but your attention had narrowed to the low cadence of his voice and stayed there, snagged, useless for much else, for the remainder of the hour. You did not go up for Communion. It did not feel earned yet — whatever grace required of a person who had spent ten years deciding this building had nothing left to offer her, you weren't ready to test in front of witnesses whether you'd been wrong.
When Mass ended and the small congregation filtered out into the ordinary Wednesday afternoon waiting for them, you stayed behind. You told yourself it was to pray, though when you tried to assemble the actual shape of a prayer in your head, you found you had lost the grammar of it somewhere in the years between. You could recall the posture without the words, kneeling with your forehead nearly against your folded hands, the old formulas half-remembered and abandoned partway through.
You were still sitting there, in the hush a church holds once everyone else has gone, when you became aware of a presence behind you, waiting with the patience of someone who had nowhere else in particular to be.
You turned. He had shed the outer vestments somewhere between the sanctuary and here, down now to the plain black cassock, and without the ceremonial weight of the chasuble he looked, if anything, larger rather than smaller — less an office now and more simply a man, broad through the shoulders and faintly stooped in the way tall men sometimes learn to stand, in rooms built at a scale for other people. He was smiling at you, and it was not the composed, public smile he had worn at the altar. This one sat a little crooked, tucked at one corner, like something he had not entirely decided to let you see. In the low light through the side windows his eyes read as two different shades entirely, and you couldn't have said with any confidence which one was closer to true.
You got to your feet too fast, some old reflex about remaining seated in front of a priest reasserting itself before you thought to question it.
"I'm afraid I haven't seen you before today." He offered his hand, and you registered, absurdly, how much larger it looked before you'd even taken it. "Are you new to the parish?"
"Not new." His palm was warm and dry, the handshake brief but not perfunctory. "Estranged is probably closer to it. I used to come here with my father, when Father Arlan had the parish."
Something shifted across his face — recognition, maybe, or just the private realization of years passing. "That was quite a while ago, then. I've had this parish almost ten years now."
"I stopped coming altogether, somewhere in there." You gave him a lopsided smile you didn't entirely feel behind.
He tilted his head slightly, looking at you from his considerable height in a way that felt like being properly seen rather than assessed, and when he spoke again there was no trace of the judgment you had braced yourself for out of old habit.
"It's a wonderful thing, coming back to Him."
"I'm not sure I'd say I've come back. Not yet." The admission left you before you'd quite decided to make it. You hadn't planned on honesty with a stranger, least of all one in a collar.
If the words troubled him at all, he didn't show it. "That's no trouble whatsoever." The corner of his mouth deepened. "Would you like me to hear your confession? I promise I won't make you feel judged. Friendly priest's oath."
You laughed, a small, surprised sound you hadn't produced in longer than you could easily place. "Maybe another time. I don't think I'm up for it today."
He nodded, unbothered, and the quiet that followed felt like permission rather than dismissal, so you turned and started toward the door, your footsteps loud against the stone in the emptied church.
You were nearly at the threshold when you heard him behind you again, his stride longer than yours, closing the distance without seeming to hurry at all.
"I'm Father Baelor, by the way." He held out his hand a second time, as though the first exchange hadn't quite counted, or this one meant something slightly different. "Though most everyone here just calls me Baelor."
You took his hand again and gave him your name. His closed fully around yours — warm, a little rough at the knuckles, engulfing rather than simply holding.
"It's been a pleasure, having you back."
You managed something close to a smile before you turned and let yourself out into the ordinary daylight, the door falling shut behind you with a weight that, for the first time in longer than you could say, did not feel entirely like an ending.
You had told yourself you wouldn't come back so soon — one visit had been forgivable, permitted on the strength of grief alone, and you had meant to leave it there. And yet here you were again, five days later, on your knees at the same back pew, arguing with a God you'd spent the better part of a decade insisting you didn't especially believe in.
"I really don't know why I'm back here," you said, low, to the wooden cross above the altar, the words barely clearing a whisper.
You'd meant it as prayer when you'd knelt. What came out instead was closer to an indictment: anger at your father for dying, resentment at your mother for being so thoroughly undone by it that there'd been no room left over for you to be undone too, something smaller and uglier aimed at yourself, for how little of what you were meant to feel you actually managed to feel most days. And underneath all of it, aimed at the cross itself like it might actually answer back — fury at God, plain and entirely unmanaged, for allowing any of it to happen in the first place. You knew exactly how this looked from the outside: a grown woman muttering to an empty chancel. You wouldn't have blamed anyone for thinking you mad. Fuck, you thought yourself mad half the time.
"I don't even know why I'm trying to talk to you," you went on anyway, some perverse momentum carrying you now that you'd started. "You've only proved yourself real by fucking up my entire family." You let out something between a laugh and a scoff, some small vicious part of you almost proud of the defiance. Your father would have killed you for saying it aloud. Father Arlan would have lectured you into an early grave, out of sheer patient disappointment.
You were still smiling faintly at your own blasphemy when a low chuckle sounded from somewhere behind you, and it startled a small, undignified sound out of you — something between a gasp and a curse.
"You really shouldn’t say things like that." Father Baelor's voice reached you before he did, warm and unbothered, that same lulling register from the pulpit put to entirely domestic use. "I hear there's a priest about."
You twisted around on the kneeler to find him a few pews back, tall even sitting, dressed only in the black of the cassock rather than anything more ceremonial. You recovered enough to manage a lopsided smile of your own. "I think the old ladies who come every single day are the ones I should actually be afraid of."
"There's one in particular who's appointed herself unofficial sacristan." He came forward and lowered himself into the pew beside you, his knees drawn up higher than the pew in front of him had been built to accommodate. "I'd be careful there, if I were you."
"Are you mocking your own flock, Father Baelor?" You'd turned fully around by now, still on your knees, to look at him properly.
He laced his hands over the back of the pew ahead and looked toward the altar rather than at you. "Merely observing." A trace of mirth touched the words. "Purely so I know what to brace for, come Sunday confessions."
You studied his profile while his attention stayed elsewhere, something you allowed yourself only because he wasn't looking. He was, you decided with a clinical honesty you rarely extended to strangers, a good-looking man. The beard did something generous for his jaw, and the collar, stark white against the black, framed the whole arrangement in a way that felt almost unfair — engineered for maximum effect on a face that presumably hadn't needed the help to begin with. You found yourself wondering, in a thought you filed away immediately as unhelpful, whether he'd have been just as striking without either — beard gone, collar gone, nothing left to signal what he was and wasn't allowed to be to you.
"I believe I heard you telling Him off, a few minutes ago." He turned his head and caught you looking, though he didn't seem to register it as anything worth remarking on. "Would you like to talk about it?"
"What is it with priests and confession?" You shook your head, grateful for the change of subject. "You're all just gossips with better outfits."
He laughed low in his chest. "This needn't be a confession. Mondays run quiet, around here. We could simply talk, if you'd rather."
"Free information, and you won't even absolve me for it?" You aimed a teasing frown his way. "Now I really know you're a gossip."
His smile deepened enough to finally reach his eyes, and you were certain, seeing it properly this close, that they weren't quite the same colour, though you couldn't have said in what way exactly they differed. Maybe one bluer than the other. "It would do you good. I promise."
You considered that for a few seconds, weighing something you couldn't entirely name. "If I'm doing this," you said finally, "I think I'd rather do it properly. In the confessional, I mean."
He only nodded and rose, offering a hand down that you took before you'd quite decided to, and led you toward the confessional set into the side wall — dark wood, a heavy curtain standing in for a door.
The interior smelled of old varnish and years of incense worked into the grain, close and dim enough that the mesh screen resolved him into little more than a suggestion: a dark shape, the pale smudge of his collar, one hand loose at rest against his knee. You settled onto the narrow kneeler, your knees complaining faintly at the thinness of the cushion.
"I don't actually remember how this starts," you admitted into the dark, feeling foolish for it. "It's been a while."
"Then we'll do it simply." His voice came low through the screen, closer somehow than it had been out in the pew, stripped of whatever distance the space was meant to enforce. "You needn't recite anything. Just tell me what's sitting on you. That's the whole of it."
You gathered what you could of your thoughts, which had scattered the moment you knelt, and started with the easiest one, because you didn't trust yourself yet to start with anything harder.
You told him about the anger — at God first, for allowing any of it, and then at your father, for the particular unfairness of an ordinary Tuesday becoming the day everything else stopped making sense. You told him about your mother, and the resentment you were ashamed even to name, at how completely her grief had swallowed the whole house, leaving you to manage the funeral home and the paperwork and her, on top of whatever you were supposedly still allowed to feel yourself. You told him, last and quietest, about the funeral itself — how you had stood dry-eyed at the graveside while cousins who'd seen your father twice a year wept without restraint, how at the reception after you'd caught yourself counting the sandwiches left on a tray instead of thinking about him at all, and had hated yourself for it in almost the same breath you'd been grateful for the distraction.
He was quiet for a moment once you'd finished, long enough that you nearly asked if he was still there. When he spoke, something in his voice had changed — pulled tighter, quieter, though no less warm.
"None of that needs absolving." A pause, brief, before he went on. "Grief isn't a sin. Neither is anger, however much it frightens you to feel it. God can bear a great deal more fury than you're capable of giving Him, I promise you that." Another pause, and when he continued, the words seemed to be reaching somewhere past the space between you, as though he were, in some way you had no means yet of naming, telling himself the same thing. "Loneliness convinces you that you're the only one who's ever stood where you're standing. You're not. You won't be, either, if you let anyone stand there with you."
You closed your eyes without deciding to, letting the voice move through you unbroken by the sight of him, and found you could feel each word land somewhere just beneath your sternum, distinct as a hand pressed flat there.
When you had said what there was to say, he walked you through a short Act of Contrition, feeding you the words a line at a time since you had lost the shape of them years ago, and then his voice dropped into the older cadence of formula — mercy and reconciliation folded into a rhythm that didn't belong to him alone, ending the way it always ended, your sins spoken loose from you and a cross traced in the air with steady hands somewhere on the other side of the screen. You said Amen because you remembered, at least, that much.
You heard him rise and draw back the curtain on his side before you trusted your own legs enough to do the same. It took you a few extra seconds — you told yourself it was your knees, stiff from the kneeler, and mostly believed it — to gather up whatever had come loose in you, listening to that voice low and unbroken by any obstruction, aimed entirely and only at you in the dark. You were fairly sure that wasn't the reaction the sacrament was designed to produce. You filed it away regardless, somewhere you didn't intend to examine too closely, and finally pushed back your own curtain.
He was waiting near the confessional, hands loose at his sides, and the smile he gave you this time didn't climb all the way to his eyes the way it had out in the pew. You couldn't have said what the difference was, exactly — something in the set of it, something you didn't yet have the information to name.
"Do you feel better?" he asked.
"I feel different." You wrapped your arms around yourself, an old habit you hadn't consciously chosen.
"Different bad, or different good?" Something in the way he held himself shifted, almost imperceptibly, closer — as though some string you couldn't see had drawn taut between you.
"Just different." You breathed the word more than said it. "Which is better than nothing. It's a start."
You started toward the main doors, and he fell into step half a pace behind you, quiet in a way that didn't feel like absence so much as consideration. Near the threshold, you turned back to him.
"Thank you. For listening."
He shook his head, easy, deflecting the weight of it. "It's nothing. It's the job."
He hesitated, though — long enough that you noticed, long enough that whatever came next had clearly needed the extra half-second to arrive at. "You know these doors are open to you. Whenever you need them. Not only on Sundays or odd Mondays."
You looked up at him, at the mismatched eyes, and something in how he'd phrased it — whenever you need them, not whenever you need Him — struck you as slightly too warm for something owed to any parishioner off the street. Or maybe that was only your own starved and unreliable judgment, filling gaps that weren't there with whatever it currently wanted to find.
"I know," you said simply.
"Good." He nodded, more to himself than to you, it seemed, some private thought being settled. "Good. Sunday, then? I'll see you at Mass?"
You let a smile pull at one corner of your mouth as you turned on your heel toward the door, already walking backward into the beginning of an answer he wasn't going to get easily. "Don't push it, Father."
Hypocrite.
The word arrived most mornings before his feet had properly found the floor, uninvited and precise, phrased the same way it had been phrased for longer than he cared to count.
Bloody hypocrite. How dare you counsel anyone toward righteousness when you cannot walk two steps down that road yourself? How dare you comfort a soul in despair when despair is the country you've been living in for years?
It was not so much a thought as a visitor who had long since stopped waiting to be let in. It simply arrived, sat on his chest, and stayed there until he had wrestled himself upright and into the black. He had come to think of it, with the only kind of humour he still had reliable access to, as his cross. Not poverty. Not chastity, not obedience, though God knew those extracted their own toll daily. Hypocrisy. A priest who no longer entirely believed the thing he had given his whole life to proclaiming.
He told himself, most days, that this was temporary, a crisis of faith, the kind nearly every priest he'd trained alongside admitted to somewhere in the confidence of a rectory kitchen, late, after the wine had loosened something. Faith was a theological virtue, after all. A gift, not an achievement. He'd had it once, freely given, and a gift once given could presumably be asked for again.
The problem, as Baelor saw it, was that he had been asking for four years.
His faith had gone dry as a wadi in August, and no amount of kneeling had managed to run water through it since. He kept the form of the thing scrupulously — the Office, the daily Mass, the rosary some nights when sleep wouldn't come and there was nothing else worth doing with his hands — because he had learned, early in seminary, that discipline outlasted feeling, that a man didn't stop rowing simply because he could no longer see the shore.
He had read enough John of the Cross in seminary to recognize the shape of what he was in — a dark night, technically, textbook enough that he could have lectured on it — which didn't make the nights any shorter, or any less dark. Recognizing the disease in a book had never once, in his experience, cured a man of it. He knew, with the specific and humiliating clarity of a man who had studied theology long enough to diagnose his own condition and still be unable to treat it, that there was a difference between fidelity and faith, and that he had been running almost entirely on the former.
Loneliness was the part he told no one, not even in his own confession, which he supposed was its own failure of the sacrament if nothing else.
It wasn't for lack of company. There were the parishioners — the same handful of devoted, elderly women who left casseroles at the rectory door like offerings and asked after his health with more attention than his own mother sometimes managed. There were the other priests, the ones he saw at diocesan meetings and ordination anniversaries, men who clapped his shoulder and asked how the parish was doing and never once, in fifteen years, asked how he was doing, because none of them had been trained to ask that question of each other and neither had he. There was his family — brothers, more nephews than he could always keep straight at a glance, a standing invitation to Sunday dinner he took up perhaps twice a month, sitting at the end of a table crowded with other men's children, uncle to all of them and father to none, which had once felt like a clean and holy kind of sacrifice and now, some nights, simply felt like a room he was allowed to visit but never quite live in.
None of it touched the actual thing. He was lonely. So fucking lonely, if he let himself reach for the one word he'd never once used from the pulpit, in the one register no parishioner would ever hear, in the privacy of his own skull, where apparently no vow of composure held any jurisdiction at all.
He knew, in the part of his mind that still functioned as a theologian even when the rest of him had stopped functioning as a believer, exactly what was supposed to go in that hollow he felt in his chest. It had gone there before. He could remember — not abstractly, but with the kind of sense-memory that ambushed him at inconvenient moments — what it had felt like in his first years ordained, kneeling before the tabernacle at two in the morning because he simply wanted to, not because the breviary demanded it, and feeling something answer him that was not merely his own voice bouncing back. He hadn't imagined that. He was nearly certain he hadn't imagined that. But it had been a long time since anything had answered, and he had run out of new ways to ask.
Which was, he suspected, why he had not been able to stop thinking about her.
She had come to him unannounced, not quite a fortnight ago now, and confessed in the dark, through the screen, in a voice trying very hard to sound steadier than it was, to a loneliness so exact in its shape that he had sat on his side of that screen and felt, for one disorienting moment, as though he were somehow listening to himself. Grief for a father. Resentment she was ashamed of. The exact exhaustion of being the person everyone assumed was managing, because she had gotten so good at performing it that no one thought to check. He knew that exhaustion. He had built a fifteen-year vocation on top of it.
He'd told her, because it was true and because it was his job to say true things in that room: loneliness convinces you that you're the only one who's ever stood where you're standing. You're not. You won't be, either, if you let anyone stand there with you.
He had believed it, saying it. He still believed it, as doctrine. And walking back to the rectory afterward, hands cold in his pockets, he had been visited by the obvious, unavoidable question, arriving with all the cruelty of a thought that shows up exactly when a man is feeling pleased with himself: had he ever once let anyone stand there with him?
He hadn't. He knew that the moment the question landed. Not his brothers, who would have tried, who had tried — one of them, Maekar, had cornered him once after a dinner, quiet, asking if he was alright, really alright, and Baelor had said yes, of course, only tired, and watched the offer close itself back up like a door he had chosen, deliberately, not to walk through. Not the other priests. Not even, if he was honest, God — not really, not with the thing that was actually wrong, because admitting the actual thing out loud, even to Him, even in the dark, even where it was supposedly safe to admit anything, felt like the one betrayal he wasn't sure he'd survive committing.
He recognized something else in her, too, underneath the grief. That same instinct to manage her own drowning quietly rather than let anyone watch her go under, the same reflex against being a burden. He knew that instinct from the inside. He'd built a career on it.
It frightened him a little, watching it in someone twenty years his junior, because he knew exactly where that road went if nothing interrupted it early enough. He wanted, with an urgency that surprised him in its intensity, to reach her before she arrived wherever he currently was. Before the loneliness calcified in her the way his had done.
He simply didn't know how to do it without frightening her off entirely, without becoming one more authority figure informing her what she needed, which was, he suspected, exactly the kind of attention she'd spent her whole adult life quietly avoiding.
He was still turning the problem over, unsolved, on the Sunday morning he stood in the sacristy working his arms into the alb, the young deacon's voice carrying faintly from the sanctuary as the boy tested the bell.
The vestments went on in their fixed order, the way they had for fifteen years — the alb first, white and formless, the cincture cinched at the waist, the stole crossed over his chest the way it was worn by priests rather than draped straight the way a deacon wore it, and finally the chasuble, green for the long ordinary stretch of the year.
He murmured the old vesting prayers as he went, mostly from habit rather than intention, half in the Latin an elderly priest had taught him as a seminarian, before he'd properly learned to shave. He caught his own reflection, briefly, in the sacristy's dark window as he settled the chasuble across his shoulders — a tall man, greying now at the temples, dressed for a role he had once wanted with his whole undivided self and now simply performed, competently, the way a man performs any task he has done long enough to stop feeling much of anything while doing it.
Get it together, he told himself, in the tone he might have used on a nephew who'd skinned a knee and was making more of it than the injury strictly warranted. It's an hour. You've done this ten thousand times before.
The bell sounded, thin and clear, and Baelor walked out into the nave doing the practical arithmetic he always did on the way to the altar; a rough count of heads translated automatically into a rough count of hosts, a habit worn so smooth by repetition it required almost no conscious thought at all.
Except that his eyes, running the width of the church, caught on the back pew and simply stopped there, sum completely abandoned.
She was there. Sitting exactly where she'd sat the last two times, in the pew closest to the door, as though she wanted a clean line of retreat available at all moments, as though some part of her still hadn't decided whether she was staying. She looked, from across the church, like she'd apologize for existing in the space if anyone asked her to.
Baelor thought, with a conviction that arrived whole and immediate and slightly too fierce for a passing observation, that she could not have been more wrong about that if she'd tried.
The midday light was coming through the east windows at the low, slanting angle it only managed for a few hours that time of the year, falling directly across the back pews in long panels of colour, and it happened to be resting on her the moment he looked — gold and red and a deep, churchy blue laid over her like something intentional, though he knew perfectly well it was only the accident of architecture and the hour.
He thought, with the part of his brain that had apparently decided today was the day to stop cooperating with the rest of him, that he had never, in all his years at this altar, seen anything as purely, uselessly beautiful as her sitting alone in stained-glass light when she had no idea anyone was looking at her, and no idea, either, how much sorrow she carried visibly enough that a stranger could read it from forty feet away.
He lost, he would later admit to no one, a genuine portion of his own homily to the fact of her. He knew the passage well enough to preach it on autopilot — he'd written the thing himself three days earlier, in a version of himself that had apparently not accounted for this — but somewhere in the second point he caught himself having skipped an entire line of his own argument, recovered only by long practice and the mercy of a congregation too polite to notice a priest losing his thread. He watched her instead, in the gaps his voice could apparently manage without him. Watched her bite the inside of her cheek when something he said caught on some private snag of hers. Watched her brow pull together, briefly, at a line about mercy, as though mercy were a concept she was still deciding whether to trust.
Time did the thing it did during Mass, folding oddly, and he surfaced properly only at the Communion, distributing the host down the line with the automatic grace of long practice, until he registered, with a small, precise jolt, that she had risen from the back pew and joined the queue.
She had not, he remembered clearly, gone up the first time she'd come. He had noticed that too, at the time, and filed it away as simply information: she wasn't ready, and a priest who pushed a person toward the altar before they were ready did more harm than the waiting ever could. That she was standing now, moving forward a few careful people at a time, felt disproportionately significant for something so small — a woman joining a line — and he was aware, distantly, of being moved by it in a way that had very little to do with sacramental theology and a great deal to do with simply being glad, in some entirely personal register, that whatever had been keeping her back had loosened its grip a little.
She reached him a few communicants later, and knelt.
He hadn't expected the kneeling. Most of the parish took the host standing these days, the old rail rarely used except by the handful who'd never adjusted to the newer practice, but she went down onto the worn kneeler like it was a thing she'd done a thousand times before she'd ever stopped, muscle memory outrunning whatever else she might have decided about the morning, and he found himself praying, hard and specific and entirely impious in its motivation, that his hands would hold steady.
They did not, quite. Not enough that he thought anyone else would have caught it — fifteen years gave a man excellent control over the visible parts of himself — but he felt the small tremor in his own fingers as he lifted the host, and knew precisely why it was there, and hated himself for it with an efficiency that would have been almost funny had it not been happening to him specifically, in front of her, at the altar, during the single most sacred moment the day contained.
"The body of Christ," he said, and his voice, at least, held.
She opened for it the way most of the older parishioners still did, tongue offered rather than hands, and he registered the fact of it with a clarity he immediately, furiously, wished he hadn't. The pink, slight wetness of it, the plain vulnerability of the gesture, a woman kneeling in front of him with her mouth open and her eyes lifted to his through her lashes, trusting him with something that had nothing at all to do with what his body had apparently decided to make of the moment.
"Amen," she said, quiet, and he set the host down against her tongue, and for perhaps a quarter of a second, no more, the pad of his thumb grazed the wet warmth of it.
He felt the reaction low and immediate and entirely outside his own permission — his cock twitching hard against the front of the alb, an animal response to a moment he had spent his entire adult life training himself out of having at all, arriving anyway, uninvited, in the one setting on earth where it had absolutely no right to.
She rose. Crossed herself. Returned to her pew without a backward glance, entirely unaware, he was fairly sure, of anything beyond having received Communion for the first time in over a decade, which should have been the thing occupying the whole of his attention, and which he found he could not currently locate among the noise of his own reaction.
He had, God help him, an entire line of communicants still waiting.
He served the next in line, an elderly man who had been kneeling at that rail longer than Baelor had been standing behind it, with the effortful concentration of someone performing a familiar task while a separate part of his mind stood off to one side, arms crossed, informing him in no uncertain terms exactly what he was.
Hypocrite, the voice supplied, obligingly, and for once he couldn't argue with it.
He had spent the walk back to the rectory that first week convinced the problem in front of him was pastoral: a lonely, grieving young woman who needed someone steady to reach for, and a priest well-placed, by training if nothing else, to be that steady thing. He understood now, standing at his own altar with his body still humming with something it had no business feeling anywhere, let alone here, that he had gotten the shape of the danger badly, embarrassingly wrong.
The problem was never going to be knowing how to help her.
The problem was going to be whether he could stand this close to her at all without eventually wanting something from her that had nothing to do with helping, and everything to do with the plain, damning sin he had promised, fifteen years ago, in front of a bishop and his own weeping mother, that he would never again allow himself to want.
Something close to a week had passed since the confessional, and you had, despite every intention to the contrary, kept coming back. You told yourself it was for different reasons each time — the quiet, mostly, a kind of nothing that a weekday Mass demanded of you, ten minutes where nobody needed managing and your mother's grief could exist without an audience for once. In all four of those weeks, you had not planned to receive Communion. The plan, such as it existed, was to sit in the pew and let the ritual move around you, spectator rather than participant, the way you'd done as a child through the parts of Mass you were still too young to properly understand.
This Sunday was different, though you couldn't have said exactly when the decision got made. Somewhere between the Gospel and the final blessing, some quiet negotiation appeared to have concluded itself without consulting you, and by the time Father Baelor descended from the presbytery, distributing the host himself, your body had already decided the matter on your behalf.
You didn't remember deciding to stand. One moment you were sitting with your hands folded loosely in your lap, and the next your feet had committed you to the aisle, already three steps into the queue before the rest of you had caught up to ask what, precisely, it thought it was doing.
You told yourself the nerves climbing your spine were simply the ordinary nerves of the thing itself — ten years since you'd last done this, and your body apparently hadn't forgotten how much weight the act was meant to carry, even if the rest of you had spent a decade pretending otherwise. That explanation held for approximately four pews. By the fifth you were close enough to watch him working down the line, steady, unbothered, that same soft cadence repeating itself to each person in turn, and the nerves sharpened into something with a considerably more specific target.
You watched the woman two ahead of you receive the host into her open palm, easy, practiced, already turning away before she'd finished her Amen. That was how you'd meant to do it too — you'd decided as much, sitting in the pew, some sensible, unbothered part of you resolving to take the host in hand like a normal person having a normal religious experience.
The line moved with the same unbroken rhythm every queue like it seemed to share, and ahead of you his words repeated themselves at even intervals — the body of Christ, the body of Christ — until they nearly lost their shape entirely and became simply sound, a current pulling you forward rather than a sentence you were choosing to walk toward. And then it was your turn, and you were on your knees on the worn kneeler before you'd consciously authorized the movement, spine bent, chin lifted, and your tongue, God, your tongue was already out, waiting, and you were looking up at him through your lashes in a way that had nothing to do with piety and everything to do with something you didn't have a clean word for yet.
You had spent a great deal of your adolescence being taught, carefully and thoroughly, the difference between reverence and its imitations. You could probably still recite, if pressed, the specific ways a person's posture and intention were meant to align during the sacraments, the whole careful presence of a well-formed conscience. Nobody had prepared you for how completely that presence could collapse the moment desire decided to borrow its vocabulary. Kneeling had always meant one thing. It appeared to now mean several things simultaneously, and you had no reliable way of establishing which one currently governed your body.
You wondered, distantly, mortified, whether any of it read on your face the way it felt from the inside. Whether a man could look down at a woman kneeling in front of him with her mouth open and simply know.
"The body of Christ." His voice reached you barely above its usual register, quieter than you'd heard him use even in the confessional, and you had exactly long enough to wonder whether that meant anything before you ran out of time to wonder it.
You could have sworn — though you dismissed it in the same half-second you thought it, because surely you were simply looking for things now, seeing significance in whatever your own hunger handed you — that something moved behind his eyes as he looked down at you. Some fraction of dilation, dark spreading further than the low church light could account for. You told yourself you'd imagined it. A composed man, too many years a priest, did not come undone over a woman kneeling at an altar rail. You were, you reminded yourself, spectacularly good at inventing evidence for whatever you already wanted to be true.
"Amen," you managed, in a register you didn't entirely recognize as your own, and took the host onto your tongue. It tasted the way it always had — of nothing, faintly of paper, a blankness you'd forgotten could hold so much weight — and you drew the wet weight of it back into your mouth, uncomfortably aware, for the first time in your entire pious childhood, of every part of a gesture you had never once thought to be self-conscious about.
You crossed yourself, rose, and turned back toward your pew on legs you were no longer entirely confident belonged to you. By the time you reached it you had abandoned any pretence of composure and simply knelt again, forehead dropping toward your folded hands in a posture any observer would have read as devotion, and which was, if you were honest with yourself, mostly a structural decision. You did not trust your knees with your weight. Kneeling, at least, put the failure somewhere expected.
For however long remained of the Mass — ten minutes, perhaps, though it passed with the strange, syrupy slowness of time that refuses to behave when you most need it to — you were aware of a pair of mismatched eyes finding you, again and again, across the width of the nave.
You did not look back. You told yourself it was decorum. The truer answer was that you did not trust yourself either to survive whatever expression you found waiting for you there, and some cowardly, self-protective part of you had already decided, without evidence, what that expression would be. Disappointment, probably. A priest, watching a woman make a spectacle of an ancient, most-sacred rite because some starved, undisciplined part of her had wanted an excuse to kneel in front of him. You could not have named a single thing Baelor had actually done to earn that verdict. You handed it to him anyway, because it was easier to believe yourself pathetic than to consider the alternative: that he had looked, and kept looking, for reasons that had nothing to do with judgment at all.
It was, you supposed, a very on-brand mistake for you specifically to make: assuming the worst interpretation of yourself before anyone else had the chance to offer one, a habit you'd perfected over exactly the kind of year you'd just had.
When Mass finally released you, you gathered your things and made for the doors, only to find your escape blocked by the usual congregation of elderly women, several of whom had apparently decided the threshold was an ideal location for a leisurely post-Mass conference. Blasted old mules, you thought, uncharitably, easing your way through the knot of cardigans and hairspray with what you hoped read as patience rather than the quiet panic actually driving you.
The churchyard held its usual after-Mass scattering, knots of parishioners trading the same three pleasantries they traded every week, a couple of children weaving between legs, the sharp, cold smell of stone and cut grass that November insisted on despite the season otherwise doing its best to die.
You had almost recovered something like your normal footing when you spotted him, already outside, a few yards off, saying his farewells to a cluster of departing parishioners. You watched him for a moment before he saw you. Safe, for once, in the anonymity of simply being one more parishioner in a scattering crowd. He had a hand braced warm on some old man's shoulder, head inclined to catch whatever the man was telling him, nodding along at exactly the right intervals with the practiced attentiveness of someone who had spent years convincing an entire parish that each of them, individually, had his whole and undivided attention.
It was, you thought, uncomfortably close to the same trick you performed for your mother most days: competent kindness worn like a coat, covering whatever was actually happening underneath it. You wondered, watching him, whether he ever got tired of wearing his.
He must have slipped out through the sacristy door while you were fighting your way past the old guard. You prayed, with a fervency that would have embarrassed you an hour ago, that he hadn't clocked you yet, that you might simply slide past unseen and process the entire morning in the privacy of your own head, where it belonged.
God, apparently, was not in a forgiving mood.
"Wait—" His voice found you before you'd made it three steps past him.
This must be penance, you thought, aiming the complaint at God directly, for telling You off the other week. You turned anyway, because ignoring a priest calling your name across a churchyard felt like a significantly worse option than facing him.
He was still in the green chasuble, and you decided, with the kind of petty, deflecting focus you reached for whenever you needed somewhere safer to put your attention, that green wasn't his colour. Black suited him better — sharper, somehow, unfairly so, as though the absence of colour did something the vestments simply couldn't.
The two of you had drifted, without either of you seeming to choose it, a little apart from the general flow of departing parishioners, into a pocket of relative quiet near the low stone wall bordering the churchyard.
"You received Communion." He was smiling as he said it, easy, a little pleased, as though the fact of it were a small gift someone had handed him unexpectedly.
You nodded once, feeling suddenly, absurdly, like a student called on for an answer she wasn't sure was correct. "I thought it seemed appropriate. Sorry if I — I don't know, did something wrong."
His smile only deepened at that, wide enough to show teeth that weren't quite perfect. One canine set very slightly forward of the other, both slightly longer than the average, a small imperfection that somehow sharpened the effect rather than softening it. You found yourself thinking, with a specificity that alarmed you, exactly what those particular teeth would feel like against skin, and then you thought about the fact that you'd thought that, and wanted, briefly and sincerely, to walk directly into oncoming traffic.
This was, you reflected grimly, an extraordinarily inconvenient time to discover a specific interest in a man's teeth. You filed the discovery away next to the growing pile of other discoveries you'd made about yourself these last four weeks; a pile you were doing an increasingly poor job of pretending not to notice.
"You did nothing wrong." His voice gentled further, if that was even possible. "In fact, I'm rather proud of you."
Proud of you.
You blinked at him and felt the words land somewhere considerably lower than your chest, spreading out into a warmth that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holy Spirit. You were, in that moment, sincerely and profoundly grateful for whatever biological quirk kept the more obvious evidence of arousal confined to men, because you would otherwise have been standing in a churchyard in a state no amount of decorum could have disguised.
You noted, somewhere beneath the more immediate crisis, that it wasn't only your body responding to the words. Nobody had told you they were proud of you in longer than you wanted to calculate. Your father had said it constantly, casually, about report cards and parallel parking and nothing in particular, and you hadn't realized, until a priest said it in a mostly unrelated context outside a church, exactly how much you'd been missing hearing it from anyone at all.
You must have taken too long to respond, because something crossed his face, a flicker of doubt, quickly papered over. "Sorry. That came out a bit strange, didn't it." He laughed, short, and for a moment looked almost boyish about it, which did nothing at all to help your current situation.
You laughed too, mostly to have somewhere to put the air currently trapped in your chest, and mostly to keep from examining the warm, insistent ache that had settled low in you and did not seem inclined to leave anytime soon. "Don't worry about it," you said, and then, because the silence that followed felt like it needed something in it, "it was nice seeing you."
"Nice indeed." He said it slowly, turning the phrase over like he was testing its weight, and you had the distinct, mortifying sense that you'd just stumbled into the kind of conversation you'd have mocked mercilessly in anyone else: two people standing a foot apart in a churchyard, trading pleasantries like teenagers who'd forgotten how words worked.
You were already half-turned to go when he spoke again. "We'll be getting the church ready for Christmas soon — decorations, the nativity, that sort of thing. We could always use another set of hands, if you were interested."
You hadn't expected that. Some vague, formless plan on your part had involved politely declining further entanglement with this parish beyond whatever your body had apparently already committed you to this morning, and here he was, casually assuming a future in which you'd be back, repeatedly, with a staple gun and a box of ornaments.
"Sure." You turned fully back to him, caught slightly off guard. "I mean — yes. I'll see what I can do."
He looked, for just a moment, more hopeful about that than the offer strictly warranted, though he recovered fast enough that you might have imagined it too, the way you'd apparently decided to imagine everything else about him today.
He looked as though he meant to say something further, but an elderly woman intercepted him first — the sacristan-adjacent one, you suspected, from the sheer righteousness of her posture — and launched into what appeared to be less a conversation than a fully prepared monologue on the subject of the Advent wreath.
Baelor towered over her, patient, nodding along to whatever she was saying while his eyes found yours over the top of her head, faintly, helplessly amused.
You mouthed good luck at him and turned to leave, and caught, in the last half-second before you did, the flash of one more toothy, uneven, entirely unpriestly grin aimed directly at you.
You walked home with absolutely no memory of the walk itself.
It was only much later, sitting at your own kitchen table with a cup of tea gone cold in front of you, that you let yourself think properly about any of it. The kneeling, the eyes, every feeling that came onto you without your permission.
You thought about the fact that you'd gone looking, four weeks ago, for the specific comfort of being comprehended without judgment, the thing you remembered feeling as a child and had wanted back badly enough to sit through your own grief to get it.
You had not, at any point in that search, accounted for the possibility that the comprehension might arrive wearing a Roman collar, or that wanting it might eventually stop feeling like faith and start feeling like something considerably harder to confess.
You thought, too, about the Christmas decorations, about staple guns and small nativity figures and days of proximity you had apparently just volunteered yourself into, without any of the caution the last hour should reasonably have taught you. You told yourself you'd think more carefully about that later. But you did not, in fact, do it.
You simply marked the date in the calendar on your phone, and found, when you looked at it sitting there among your mother's doctor's appointments and your own overdue dentist visit, that some small, traitorous part of you was already looking forward to it.
Christmas had a way of crawling under your skin, the way old songs do. You could go months without thinking of it at all, and then a single carol drifting out of a shop doorway would drop you straight back into a kitchen you hadn't properly stood in for over a decade. You remembered good Christmases, the kind that still arrived intact in memory without needing much reconstruction: the house loud with cousins, someone's dog underfoot, your grandmother's insistence on a specific brand of nougat nobody but her actually liked, the whole extended chaos of a family that hadn't yet learned how to lose people. Those years had been good in the uncomplicated way only childhood afforded. You hadn't yet understood that a table could shrink, that the chairs pulled out each year could simply, one by one, stop being needed.
You thought, unbidden, of the last Christmas Eve you'd spent with your father whole and healthy and utterly unaware of what the coming year held for him — the two of you assembling a jigsaw puzzle at the kitchen table past midnight because neither of you could sleep and neither of you wanted to admit it, some ridiculous thousand-piece rendering of a lighthouse he'd bought on a whim and insisted on finishing before morning, as though the deadline mattered to anyone but him. You'd found the last piece around two, and he'd made you both cocoa to celebrate, badly, too much sugar and not nearly enough milk, and you had not known, sitting there in your pyjamas laughing at his terrible cocoa, that you were spending the last ordinary, uncomplicated Christmas you'd ever get with him.
You would have paid considerably more attention, you liked to tell yourself, if you'd known. You weren't entirely sure that was true. You suspected you'd have taken it for granted regardless, the way you seemed to have been built to take most good things for granted right up until they were gone.
They had started thinning sometime in your teens, the guest list first, then the feeling itself, until Christmas became something you observed rather than inhabited — a season that happened around you while some quieter, more adult part of you took inventory of who was missing. You supposed that was simply what growing up did to a holiday built entirely on presence. This year the table would seat two, and one chair would stay pushed in on principle rather than practicality, because neither you nor your mother had yet found the courage to actually put it away.
Which was perhaps part of why you found yourself, on a Tuesday evening in the beginning of December, standing on a folding chair in the nave of a church that wasn't strictly yours, marvelling at the old women who'd spent the better part of the afternoon transforming the place into something out of a Christmas card. They'd draped garland along every available surface with a fervent, uncomplicated joy you found yourself envying more than you were entirely comfortable admitting.
You glanced toward the altar, toward the plain wooden cross presiding over all of it. You could spare me a little of whatever they've got, you thought, directing the request at Him with the blend of irony and genuine hope you'd become fluent in these past almost-two months. He didn't answer, which by now you'd come to expect. Silence, you'd decided, was simply His preferred register of correspondence with you.
You supposed you owed whatever had brought you back to this parish in October a debt you hadn't properly paid yet. Somewhere in the weeks since, without your quite noticing the transition, the building had become something closer to a bunker than a place of worship; somewhere you could exist without the performance the rest of your life currently demanded of you. You didn't have to be the strong one here. Not because you necessarily were the strong one everywhere else, but because here, specifically, nobody was paying close enough attention to require it of you.
The old women, you were fairly certain, didn't particularly care for you. You'd become something of a fixture over the autumn — reliably present, reliably unwilling to stay for the rosary, reliably uninterested in the small, warm currency of parish gossip they traded so easily among themselves — and you supposed that reticence read, correctly, as a kind of standoffishness.
You couldn't entirely blame them for the verdict. In the interest of honesty, which spoke poorly of whatever devout young woman a stranger might have glimpsed in you at first glance, you found you didn't much care for them either. It wasn't unkindness, exactly. You simply had nothing left over, most days, for the effort community required, and the women had sensed that absence the way people always seemed to sense exactly the thing you were trying hardest not to show.
You'd lost track of the hour somewhere in the effort of getting the wreath symmetrical — a task that had absorbed you far more completely than its actual importance warranted, the satisfying tyranny of a problem with a correct answer, unlike most of what currently occupied your days.
By the time you next surfaced enough to notice your surroundings, full dark had settled outside the tall windows, and the women who'd spent the afternoon polishing candlesticks and dusting the reredos had long since collected their coats and gone home to their own, presumably fuller houses. There was one stubborn corner of the wreath that refused to sit flush against the beam, and you stapled it into submission with more force than the task strictly required.
"You know, every single one of those will need to come out again come January." The familiar, lulling voice found you from somewhere near the floor.
You looked down from your perch — you'd had to stand on the chair to reach the beam over the door — and found him below you, his face arriving at roughly the level of your waist even accounting for the height the chair gave you. Why was he so fucking tall, you thought, not for the first time since October.
"I'm sure you'll find some other charitable soul to deal with it," you said, aiming for breezy and mostly landing there.
He laughed, low, and the sound did something to the base of your spine you'd rather not have examined closely.
You fixed the last staple and pivoted on the chair to face him properly. "Besides," you added, smirking, "I think some of these staples are older than I am."
His own smirk answered yours, quick and easy. Over the weeks you'd known him, you had arrived at the settled, private conclusion that Baelor was, against every expectation you'd walked in with that first Wednesday, a genuinely good priest to know.
Nothing like Father Arlan's gentle, uncomplicated warmth. Baelor's register was drier, more grounded, quick, despite it, to turn a homily's more solemn point into something almost funny, or at least as funny as a man in his position could reasonably manage without causing a diocesan incident. He'd once, memorably, described a visiting bishop's homily as spiritually correct but tragically overlong, pitched just quietly enough for only you to catch during the coffee hour afterward, and you'd had to disguise your laugh as a coughing fit for the better part of a minute.
But there was something else, too, something you'd started cataloguing without quite meaning to.
You'd caught it first during a November homily on the Prodigal Son, of all things. A pause where his voice simply stopped, a beat too long even for effect, his gaze gone somewhere past the back pews entirely before he recovered himself and finished the line. You remembered, too, a Tuesday afternoon that same month when you'd found him alone in the sacristy long after any practical reason for him to still be there, hands loosely folded, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, so thoroughly somewhere else that he hadn't heard you knock. It had taken him a full three seconds to resurface enough to greet you; three seconds in which his face had held an expression so nakedly exhausted you'd nearly turned around and left rather than intrude on it. By the time he'd properly noticed you, the mask was back in place, warm and unbothered, and you'd both pretended, with the same silent, mutual courtesy, that you hadn't seen anything at all.
There was a darkness sitting behind those mismatched eyes that had nothing to do with the warm, careful light he'd clearly spent years learning to project for public consumption. Something you recognized, with an unsettling flash of kinship, because you'd been living behind a similar performance yourself for the better part of a year. Even now, watching him smile at your staple joke, you could see it there underneath, patient and entirely unmoved by whatever surface amusement was currently crossing his face.
You had, on more than one uncharitable evening alone in your room, caught yourself wanting to reach up and kiss that darkness straight off him; an urge that arrived, inconveniently, with startling specificity, and that you suppressed each time by picturing, with deliberate cruelty toward yourself, the exact white of his collar glowing that much brighter in your mind's eye. A small and effective penance you'd invented all on your own.
"Here." You held the staple gun out to him, resigned. "Take this and help me down."
He reached for it with a half-smile still playing at his mouth, but instead of taking your hand, he simply set the staple gun down on the nearest pew and stayed exactly where he was, making no move whatsoever toward a helping distance.
"You got yourself up there," he said. "I'm reasonably confident you can manage the trip back down unassisted."
"And you can manage the very interesting phone call to the coroner," you shot back, "when I crack my skull open on these charming marble floors."
He shook his head, something between exasperation and fond disbelief crossing his face, but he came to help you regardless.
You'd expected a hand; his palm extended for you to brace against as you stepped down, the same practical courtesy any decent person would offer someone perched too high on unstable furniture. What he did instead rewired something in your chest before you'd fully registered it was happening. His hands came to your waist, both of them, spanning nearly the whole width of you with room to spare, and closed there with an easy, certain strength that lifted rather than merely assisted.
You came down off the chair already caught. His hands didn't release you once your feet found the floor, they stayed exactly where they'd landed, warm even through the fabric of your sweater, and the momentum of the drop left you standing closer to him than either of you had ever managed before, the backs of your knees still grazing the chair's edge, your front nearly flush against the solid wall of him. You had to tip your head back to find his face at all, the angle sudden and unfamiliar even after two months of knowing exactly how tall he was in the abstract.
And when you found it, his expression wasn't one you had a name filed away for. Not the easy mirth from a minute ago. Not the quiet darkness you'd just spent an entire private paragraph of your own thoughts cataloguing. Not even the careful, generic kindness he handed out to every stranger who walked through the doors. This was something else, something focused entirely on you with an intensity that made you feel, absurdly, like the only thing left standing in the building.
The church itself had gone very quiet around you both — no children running, no old women's chatter, nothing but the two of you and the faint, resinous smell of fresh pine garland strung along every surface that afternoon, incongruously festive against whatever was actually unfolding here.
"We wouldn't want to have to explain to our self-appointed sacristan why she'd need to clean blood off her floors, would we?"
His voice, when it finally arrived, had dropped somewhere you hadn't heard it go before. Low, rough at the edges, scraped clean of the careful, cultivated softness he used from the pulpit and in the confessional alike. Fuck, you thought, with the kind of clarity reserved for genuine emergencies, and had to physically bite the inside of your cheek to keep something considerably less dignified than a word from escaping you.
Your brain, which had apparently decided this was the correct moment to abandon you entirely, produced a single unhelpful thought at top volume: that whatever you were currently feeling qualified, by any reasonable Catholic accounting, as a sin already fully committed, whether or not your body ever got around to acting on it. His hands were still at your waist. He had not moved them, and you found you had absolutely no intention of pointing that out to him.
"I can only imagine the headlines," you managed, aiming for something like your usual register and landing somewhere considerably shakier. "Beloved cool local priest murders parishioner over minor stapling dispute."
He laughed at that — a low, private sound you felt as much as heard, given how little distance currently separated the two of you — and in the same motion your own hands found his wrists, not to push him away, you noted with some private alarm, but simply to have somewhere to put your hands that wasn't the fabric of the cassock that covered his chest.
"Finally," he said, something almost boyish slipping into his voice despite its lower register, "you admit I'm a cool priest."
"Never said the opposite," you managed, and were fairly certain your heartbeat had become audible at this point, some frantic percussion filling your own ears loudly enough that you half expected him to hear it too, if he simply stopped talking long enough to listen for it.
He didn't stop talking. He also didn't step back.
What you noticed, in the strange, suspended quiet that followed, wasn't the words at all: it was the small, controlled way the distance between your faces kept shrinking, inch by inch, so gradual you might have missed it entirely if every nerve in your body hadn't been standing at full and humiliating attention.
His eyes had dropped, briefly, to somewhere south of your own eyes, and you felt the weight of that gaze land on your mouth like a physical touch you hadn't known a look alone could carry. You didn't move away. You were fairly sure, standing there with his hands still warm at your waist and the whole of him leaning steadily closer, that moving away had stopped being something your body currently had access to as an option.
Then thunder cracked somewhere close enough to rattle the stained glass in its leading, and the spell broke apart all at once.
Baelor recoiled like he'd been struck, stumbling half a step backward and nearly catching his heel against the kneeler of the pew at his back. His hands left your waist so abruptly the absence of them registered as its own small shock, cold rushing in where his palms had been. He put several feet of distance between you with the swift, overcorrected urgency of a man putting out a fire he'd only just noticed was burning him, and you stood exactly where he'd left you, rooted to the same patch of marble floor, arms hanging uselessly at your sides because you couldn't immediately think what else to do with them.
He turned toward the nearest window, ostensibly checking the weather, though you suspected the actual view held considerably less of his attention than whatever was currently happening behind his own eyes. You watched his shoulders rise and fall once, twice, some private negotiation being conducted entirely without your input.
"I should be going," you said, into the silence neither of you seemed inclined to fill, wrapping your arms around yourself in a gesture you recognized, distantly, as purely defensive, though you couldn't have said exactly what you thought you were defending against at this point.
He looked back at you then, and you caught the specific effort it took him to swallow whatever he'd been about to say instead of the thing he actually said, which was, "Right." A short, laboured breath followed the word, like it had cost him something to produce. "Have you got an umbrella?"
You nodded, not trusting your voice with anything more elaborate, and busied yourself gathering your coat and bag from the pew where you'd left them, grateful for the excuse to look at literally anything besides him.
"I'll come back tomorrow," you said, to the buttons of your coat rather than to his face, "to finish whatever's left."
He said nothing to that. When you finally made yourself look up, he was watching you with an expression you didn't have the emotional bandwidth left to interpret, and you decided, with the last reserves of self-preservation currently available to you, that you didn't especially want to try.
"Good night, Baelor."
You hadn't called him that before — not to his face, not without the Father in front of it — and you felt the shape of his name leave your mouth like something you'd been keeping in a drawer you'd forgotten you owned. You didn't wait to see what it did to his expression. You turned and walked to the doors, footsteps too loud against the marble in the church's electric hush, and did not look back once — not through the doors, not into the wet dark of the churchyard, not all the way to your bicycle.
You weren't sure, if you had, that you would have found the will left in you to actually leave.
What exactly are you doing?
Baelor asked himself the question kneeling at the side of his bed, in the small, plain bedroom of the parish quarters that had been the whole of his home for ten years now. Narrow bed, a crucifix above the headboard he'd hung there himself his first week, a desk crowded with breviaries he increasingly opened out of habit rather than hunger.
Are you out of your mind entirely?
For the first time in longer than he wanted to calculate, he knelt not performing the posture but actually reaching for what it was meant to produce — comfort, or something adjacent to it, anything at all that might quiet the chaos currently occupying his skull.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven—"
His voice wavered on the fourth word and gave out entirely somewhere in the fifth.
"Our Father—"
Her laugh arrived instead. Not summoned, simply there, whole and uninvited. The exact pitch of it from an hour ago when she'd made the joke about the coroner, and behind the laugh, inevitably, her face: chin tipped back to find his, mouth still curved with the last of the humour, eyes doing something he hadn't yet found a word brave enough to use.
He lowered his head further, forehead nearly meeting his own clasped hands. He had heard that laugh perhaps a hundred times over these past two months. He could not account for why it should return to him now, tonight, with such insistence, refusing to be filed away with the evening's other ordinary noise.
He knew the shape of temptation well enough by now to recognize its usual visitors. Fifteen years he'd been fighting it in one form or another, and for most of that decade and a half it had arrived the way temptation was supposed to — faceless, fleeting, a passing current easily broken by discipline and the plain stubbornness of prayer. This was different. This had roots. And prayer, tonight, was not coming to him with anything like its old ease.
When, he wondered, had those roots first taken hold? He turned the question over the way a man probes a bruise to test how deep it goes, expecting each interaction between them to yield the same comfortable diagnosis he'd been offering himself for weeks: compassion, simply. A priest's ordinary, sanctioned care for a grieving soul.
How readily the heart baptized its own sins, dressing them in vestments respectable enough to walk past its own conscience unchallenged.
He knew, kneeling there with the evidence assembling itself against him one memory at a time, that this had never been only compassion. Compassion had not made him remember, with the specific clarity of a man cataloguing evidence, the warmth of her palm the very first time they'd shaken hands beneath the vestibule light, both of them strangers still. Compassion had not made him look at her, weeks later, sitting alone in stained-glass light, and think she resembled something closer to a miracle than to a parishioner. Compassion, God knew, had nothing whatsoever to do with the way his own cock had throbbed, mortifyingly, at the memory of her kneeling before him at the altar rail, tongue offered, so entirely disposed toward receiving him — not the capital-H Him she'd knelt for, but him.
No. This was not compassion. This was desire.
Baelor wanted her.
The realization did not arrive first as language. It existed, before he dared give it words, as a certainty his soul appeared to have recognized considerably ahead of his conscious mind's permission. When he finally did put language to it — silently, without moving his lips, though it felt no less spoken for the silence — the shape of the thought landed like blasphemy against his own teeth.
I want her.
Not merely the light she brought into a parish that had grown grey and administrative around him. Not merely the sharp, unpredictable wit she threw at him like a dare. Every part of her. Even, and especially that, the darkness she carried behind her own carefully practiced eyes, the same darkness he had recognized, the very first time he'd glimpsed it, as an exact echo of his own.
He wanted her wholly. Wanted, with a specificity that frightened him, to imagine some entirely different future, one in which she crossed a room not toward the confessional but toward him. Wanted to wonder, with a tenderness that felt more dangerous than any simple hunger could have, what it might be to hear her say his name in some context that had nothing whatsoever to do with prayer. And, God help him, wanted to hear her moan it.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"No." The word left him barely above a whisper.
But no to what, exactly? To himself? To God, wherever He currently was? To the relentless, unwelcome honesty currently dismantling him from the inside out? To the hardening evidence, even now, of exactly how little his own body cared for the word he'd just spoken?
His vows had once felt like architecture: stone, load-bearing, built up patiently over years until they no longer required conscious thought to remain standing, because conviction itself had become the mortar holding every course of them in place. Tonight they felt like glass instead. Transparent enough that he could see straight through to an entire unlived life on the other side of them. Fragile enough that he feared one careless touch of longing might be all it took to shatter the whole structure at once.
He searched, kneeling there, for disgust. Certain, if only he could locate it, that it would be enough to save him. He tried to name what he was feeling as corruption. As weakness. As the plain, ordinary failure of a man who had simply stopped being strong enough to want what he'd promised to want instead.
What he found, reaching for disgust, was grief.
Because beneath the desire there was love. He could see it now that he'd stopped looking away from it: the faint, unbearable outline of an entirely different life. One with someone actually beside him rather than merely near him. Unwavering loyalty, offered and received both. Being loved, and — this was the part that undid him most completely — being able to see it happening, to actually feel it landing, rather than simply trusting it existed somewhere beyond his ability to perceive it, the way he'd spent fifteen years trusting God's love existed without ever quite managing to feel its weight.
It had accumulated so quietly he'd missed the accumulation entirely. In conversations that ran twenty minutes longer than either of them had any real reason to justify. In the uncomplicated comfort of simply being near her, which asked nothing of him and somehow still gave him more than most of his days currently offered. In the way his own schedule had begun rearranging itself, without his conscious permission, around the mere possibility of crossing paths with her — a Tuesday errand that could easily have waited until Thursday, suddenly urgent, suddenly today. In the strange emptiness that settled over the whole parish on the days she didn't come.
He understood, kneeling there, that he was thoroughly and completely finished.
Because lust, at least, could be confessed. Named, absolved, resisted with enough discipline and enough distance. But what was a man supposed to do with affection that had stopped being distinguishable, at some point he couldn't pinpoint, from prayer itself?
His lips trembled around the next attempt.
"Lord—"
The word broke apart before it finished forming.
He had spent years — his whole vocation, really — teaching other people that grace was never withheld from anyone who sought it honestly, that God did not turn away an honest accounting of a struggling heart. And yet honesty, tonight, felt like the single most impossible thing currently available to him. Because if God were to search his heart in this exact moment, He would find no noble struggle waiting there to reward. Baelor already knew that much. He was already lost, and some new, terrible clarity in him suspected God knew it too, and had simply chosen, as He had for four long years now, to say nothing about it either way.
Perhaps that was what finally pushed him across whatever threshold remained between kneeling there in honest, wretched prayer and what he did next. Perhaps it was simply exhaustion, years of dryness and denial collapsing all at once under the sheer weight of wanting one particular, unrepeatable woman rather than some abstract, manageable temptation. Whatever the mechanism, his hands moved before the rest of him had finished deciding to let them. He undid the drawstring of his pyjama trousers with clumsy, hurried fingers, wrapped his hand around his own cock — already full, already aching — and began, without further ceremony, to work himself with long, rough strokes.
He turned his face into the mattress at the last second, some final scrap of habit or shame driving him to muffle the sound rather than let it fill the small room the way everything else about tonight already had.
In the dark behind his own closed eyes, only one image held. Her face. Not exactly as she'd looked tonight, though the memory of tonight fed everything that followed. Her eyes, specifically, the way they'd caught his after she'd teased him, some light living in them that he had spent two months telling himself he was imagining, a light that might, if he let himself believe it even for the length of this single traitorous hour, have meant she wanted this too. He held to that possibility the way a drowning man holds to whatever debris happens to be floating nearest.
He held, too, to the image his own imagination built for him next, unbidden and merciless in its detail: her, entirely undone beneath him, her spine arched at some impossible, desperate angle, her mouth open around sounds that had nothing left of teasing in them. He imagined the give of her, imagined thrusting into her again and again, deep and unhurried and then not unhurried at all, imagined that every stroke of it might somehow reach past her grief and turn it, briefly, into something closer to pleasure — as if he alone might be capable of giving her that, as if wanting it badly enough might make it true. He imagined her nails finding his back, dragging half-moons into skin that had not been touched with anything like hunger in longer than he could accurately remember. He imagined her voice breaking around his name, over and over, in a register that had nothing whatsoever to do with confession.
What finally undid him — what tore the last of his composure loose entirely — was not any of it. It was the imagined shape of her mouth releasing three specific words in his direction, words he had no right whatsoever to imagine anyone giving him, let alone her, and yet there they were anyway, vivid and unbearable and entirely his own invention: I love you.
He came hard around his own fist, a broken, guttural sound tearing loose from somewhere low in his chest before he could catch it against the mattress, his whole body drawing tight and then breaking apart at once, the mess of it spilling hot over his knuckles.
He stayed exactly where he'd fallen, face pressed into the bedding, and breathed. Once. Twice. A third time before anything like steadiness returned to him.
He raised his face eventually, feeling the cool, unmistakable patch where his own breath had dampened the sheet beneath him, and stared up at the ceiling instead, at the water stain shaped vaguely like a rowboat he'd been meaning to have looked at for the better part of a year.
A thought arrived, quiet enough that he nearly missed the size of the blasphemy folded inside it: if loving her brings me closer to creation than years of praying ever brought me to the Creator, what exactly am I meant to do with that.
He covered his face with his free, cleaner hand.
Perhaps that, he thought, was the actual sin waiting underneath all the others he'd been so carefully cataloguing tonight. Not the desire, or not only the desire. The realization — arriving now, with nowhere left to hide from it — that somewhere along the long road toward this particular altar, he had gone looking for God, over and over, for years, and found only silence waiting at the end of every attempt.
And that tonight, for the first time in longer than he dared admit even to himself, some other voice — hers, or the idea of her, or whatever she had quietly become to him in the space where God's silence used to sit — had finally, unmistakably, answered.
You hadn't slept well. You'd known it the moment you opened your eyes, before your body had even finished the transition out of whatever half-formed dreams had kept you turning most of the night. You had the unmistakable heaviness behind the eyes that came from too little rest rather than too much of it. You'd drifted in and out of something that wasn't quite sleep for hours, catching yourself somewhere between waking and dreaming with your own pulse doing something inconvenient, replaying, on an unwelcome loop, the weight of his hands at your waist and the taut, terrifying stillness of the half-second before the thunder broke whatever had been about to happen between you.
What had kept you awake, if you were being honest with the version of yourself still too groggy to construct a better lie, was a pair of eyes. Blue, though not quite matching, one shade lighter than the other even in memory. And a proximity you still hadn't fully accounted for.
Or that's what you told yourself, dressing for the day, that it was simply eyes and proximity keeping you up, nothing more specific than that, nothing requiring further examination before coffee.
Your mother had been lighter that morning than you'd seen her in longer than you wanted to count — humming something tuneless over the stove, actually eating the toast she made rather than simply making it and leaving it to go cold on the counter. She'd even mentioned, unprompted, something about clearing out your father's side of the closet before spring — not today, not this week, but someday, spoken aloud for the first time since the funeral, which felt like its own small, cautious miracle. You knew better than to expect it to last.
Grief, in your admittedly limited experience of managing hers alongside your own, didn't improve in a straight line; it simply had good days scattered unpredictably among the difficult ones, and you'd learned not to read too much promise into any single morning. Still, you let yourself enjoy it while it lasted.
December seemed to have settled properly over the town by now — breath visible in the cold, the last of the leaves finally surrendered from the trees lining the route you'd walked perhaps thirty times since October, familiar enough now that your feet found the way without requiring much input from the rest of you.
You held the memory of your mother's laugh at something on the radio the whole walk to the parish, turning it over like a stone in your pocket, and told yourself, with the kind of deliberate optimism you rarely trusted yourself with anymore, that today was going to be a good day.
You repeated the thought enough times that it started to feel less like a hope and more like a small, private incantation — as if enough repetition alone might be sufficient to summon the thing into being.
That confidence lasted exactly as long as it took you to push through the church's side door and see two teenage boys — the Dustin brothers, you'd learn shortly, though you didn't yet have names to put to their faces — already up on a stepladder, stapling ornaments to the exact beam you'd left unfinished the night before, their staples crooked and their banter loud and entirely unbothered by the fact that this had been, as far as you understood things, your job.
Something twisted low in your stomach, sharp and disproportionate to the actual size of the slight. You told yourself it didn't matter who finished the ornaments. You did not, in fact, manage to believe yourself.
You shrugged out of your coat in silence, watching the boys' cheerful, careless work a moment longer than necessary, and made your way toward the sacristy, brow already furrowed before you'd even reached the door. The room smelled, as it always did, of candle wax and old wood polish, vestments hanging in their orderly rows along one wall like a wardrobe built for a much stranger kind of theatre.
Baelor was there, alone, occupied with something at the shoulder seam of a violet alb, the colour of Advent, penance and waiting both folded into a single shade of cloth.
"Good morning." You kept your voice light. "What needs doing?"
He turned to look at you, and what met you in his eyes was so entirely unlike what had been there mere hours ago that you nearly took a physical step back from it.
Where warmth had stood the night before — warmth you'd felt with your whole body, warmth that still had your pulse doing something complicated whenever you let yourself think about it — there was now only a careful, deliberate distance, the kind a man constructs on purpose rather than simply falls into.
"Garrick and Harlan are already tending to it. Don't trouble yourself." The smile that came with it didn't make it anywhere near his eyes.
You tried to swallow around whatever his voice had just done to your chest and forced something like a smile of your own. "I brought climbing equipment today. In case it was needed."
"They're handy boys. I'm sure they'll manage." He turned his attention back to the alb, the conversation apparently concluded from his end.
You stood there a moment, fidgeting with your own fingers, looking down at them rather than at him. "Right," you said, mostly to fill the silence. "Well — there must be something else I could do."
"There always is." He offered nothing further, and you waited, foolishly, for an elaboration that simply never arrived.
You tried once more for something like the warmth that had, or so you'd let yourself believe, been growing steadily between the two of you these last weeks. "You look tired," you said, arms coming up to wrap around yourself, the gesture more defensive than you'd intended it to read.
His hands paused over the fabric for the barest fraction of a second. "Do I?"
"A little," you admitted, the faintest smile tugging at your mouth despite everything.
"Occupational hazard." He laughed, politely, and it landed less like genuine amusement and more like something he believed himself obligated to produce. A pause followed, longer than the joke warranted. "Would you mind helping Mrs. Reed in the parish hall? They're sorting donations for the Christmas drive."
You agreed, because there was nothing else on offer, and turned to leave.
The afternoon passed in an accumulation of small, catalogable evidence. The way he found reasons to be in whichever room you currently weren't. The exact, careful politeness he extended to you precisely as he extended it to every other volunteer that afternoon, nothing more, nothing that marked you as separate from Mrs. Reed or the Dustin brothers or anyone else currently sorting canned goods into cardboard boxes. At one point you both reached for the same box of ornaments at the same moment, and he withdrew his hand so quickly, so completely, that you nearly dropped the box entirely, fumbling to catch weight he would ordinarily have simply helped you carry.
You thought, sorting through a crate of secondhand ornaments while Mrs. Reed chattered pleasantly beside you about the parish's fundraising goals, of the specific way his voice had dropped the night before — rough-edged, stripped of its careful public register — and wondered whether you'd imagined the whole of it after all. Wondered whether desire had simply invented a version of events flattering enough to suit itself, the way desire apparently could, given half a chance and a dimly lit church.
By mid-afternoon you had started, despite your own best efforts not to, hunting for a cause. You ran through the obvious candidates and discarded most of them quickly enough — nothing you could point to, no specific offense, no moment you could identify as the hinge everything had swung on. And then, unbidden, unwelcome, one possibility surfaced and refused to submerge again: maybe I made him uncomfortable yesterday.
The thought should have landed like something manageable. Instead, it landed like a stone dropped into still water, and once it had broken the surface, every ripple that followed reshaped how you read the entire day. His hands at your waist, longer than strictly necessary. The way he'd looked at you before the thunder cracked. The whole suspended, tortuous length of that almost-moment you'd spent half the night convincing yourself you hadn't misread. Perhaps you had misread it after all. Perhaps you'd made a decent, well-intentioned man deeply, understandably uncomfortable, and this — the distance, the exact politeness, the careful redirection to donation boxes — was simply the kind, considerate way he'd chosen to handle your mistake without ever having to name it aloud.
By the time the afternoon's volunteers had gathered their coats and gone, dusk pressing early and blue against the windows the way it did this time of the year, you found him sitting alone in one of the front pews of the small side chapel, facing the tabernacle. Not praying, as far as you could tell. Simply sitting, spine slightly bowed, hands loose in his lap.
It occurred to you, watching him from several pews back, that you had never once actually seen him pray. Not properly, not in all the days you'd come here, though you'd certainly seen him perform every other visible function of his office with total competence. The votive candles nearest the tabernacle had mostly burned down to stubs by now, small orange points holding on against the gathering dark, and you found yourself wondering whether any of them had been lit by him.
You stood there a few moments longer than was probably polite, looking at the width of his back, the black cassock making him seem larger somehow in stillness than he ever did in motion. From this angle the collar was entirely invisible, hidden beneath the fall of black fabric at his throat, and for one strange, guilty moment you were glad of it; glad, however briefly, of the illusion that the man sitting in front of you belonged to no one and nothing beyond himself.
"Everything's finished," you said, quiet, from where you stood. "I think everyone's gone."
He didn't turn. You noticed, though, the small, almost imperceptible way his head dropped a fraction further. "So it seems," was all he offered.
You took a few steps closer and sat yourself in the pew directly behind his, close enough now that you could have reached out and touched his shoulder if you'd had any idea what you would have done with that kind of contact.
You fought, for several long seconds, the pressure building behind your teeth and the humiliating need to simply ask, to stop guessing and hunting through the day's evidence and just ask. You eventually lost.
"Did I do something wrong?"
Your own voice arrived in the same register a child might use bracing for a parent's disappointment, and you hated yourself for it even as the words left your mouth, already too late to call them back.
He turned then — properly turned, for the first time all day giving you the whole of his attention rather than some careful, rationed fraction of it — and his expression shifted through several things in quick succession: confusion first, and then something that looked, unmistakably, like guilt. Real guilt. Immediate and undisguised.
"What?" The word came out on an unsteady breath.
"Yesterday—" You laughed, quiet and humourless, more embarrassment than amusement, and didn't finish the sentence. You tried again, choosing your words more carefully this time, leaving him room to answer honestly rather than simply defensively. "I don't know. You've hardly looked at me all day."
It worked better than a direct accusation would have. You watched him understand that too; watched him recognize the door you'd left open for him to walk through without having to admit to anything more than he was ready to admit.
"I'm sorry." Not defensive. Not brushing past it. Simply, plainly sorry, and something about the sincerity of it hurt considerably worse than deflection would have.
You searched his face for something you didn't have a name for yet. "You don't have to apologize, Baelor."
Something moved across his face at the sound of his own name in your mouth, something you couldn't have fully described if pressed, though you filed the reaction away regardless, another entry in a ledger that was growing longer than you knew what to do with.
He opened his mouth. Closed it again without producing anything. His eyes dropped to his own clasped hands, and you watched, with a strange, suspended clarity, his thumb begin moving absently over the opposite knuckle, back and forth, some private and wordless working-through of a thing he couldn't say aloud. A breath came and caught somewhere in the middle of itself before he managed to release the rest of it. His shoulders sagged, incrementally, as though something he'd been carrying alone for years had finally, briefly, allowed itself to be felt as weight rather than simply as habit.
For one long, suspended moment, it genuinely felt as though he was about to tell you something enormous.
"I'm just tired," he said instead, very quietly.
You studied him for a long moment before you answered. "That isn't the whole truth, is it?"
Another silence, longer than the first. When he finally exhaled, it sounded less like an ordinary breath than something closer to surrender.
"No."
Your heart skipped, actually skipped, one single missed beat, because for the length of that one heartbeat you were entirely certain he was about to tell you. That whatever enormous thing had been sitting behind his eyes all day was finally going to be given words, right here, in the blue dark of a side chapel neither of you had bothered to light.
Instead, he smiled. Weary. Apologetic, in a way that felt like its own small, insufficient penance.
"But it's the only answer I can allow myself right now."
You let the silence sit between you after that, unwilling to push further into a door he'd just as good as told you he wasn't ready to open. You weren’t satisfied with that answer, not at all, but you understood, watching the tension still sitting in his shoulders, that pressing further tonight would cost more than either of you currently had to spend.
You said good night instead, quieter than you'd meant to, and left him there in the blue dark with whatever he wasn't yet willing to hand you, telling yourself, without much confidence, that there would be another evening for it.
There always is, he'd said, hours ago, about something else entirely.
You hoped, walking home through the cold, that it was still true and applicable to the space that seemed to separate you all of a sudden.
The Vigil Mass had let out a little after eight, though the building did not empty of people so much as slowly leak them, handshake by handshake, through the side door into a churchyard gone silver with frost.
Baelor had stood at the threshold the better part of an hour receiving the currency of Christmas Eve and had absorbed all of it with the same trained warmth he produced every December, until the last car pulled out of the gravel lot and left him alone with a stack of foil-covered dishes he had no real intention of eating and several hours yet before Midnight Mass would require anything further of him.
He did not go to the rectory. He told himself, locking the front door rather than the side, that the walk back through the nave would do him good — some vague and unexamined instinct toward penance, though he was long past pretending he still knew the difference between penance and simple avoidance.
He crossed the dark church lit only by the sanctuary lamp and the ranks of votives still guttering red beside the Nativity scene the altar guild had finished dressing that afternoon: the manger no longer empty, the way it had sat through the whole of Advent, waiting. Mrs. Reed had processed the Infant in sometime during the Vigil — she claimed the honour every year, and no one had yet found the courage to contest her for it — and laid Him at last in the straw, small and plaster-pink, catching what little light remained in the building.
Baelor did not know why the sight of it undid something in his chest tonight of all nights, when it had failed to manage the same in ten Christmases prior at this altar. He suspected he knew precisely why, and declined, as he had declined nearly everything else worth confessing this month, to look at it directly.
He took the back pew. Her pew, though he would not have said so aloud to anyone, and had in fact spent three weeks pretending the association had never lodged itself in him at all. Baelor has tried to convince himself of the fact that any pew, chosen at random, might have served just as well for a man wanting a few hours alone with a God who had gone conspicuously silent on him for longer than he currently had the patience to calculate. He, almost always, failed spectacularly.
It had been three weeks, now, since he had watched her walk out that same side door and told himself, with the conviction of a man constructing an alibi, that he had done the decent thing. A priest who could offer a woman nothing but scandal owed her, at minimum, the mercy of not letting her get any closer to a life that would cost her considerably more than it ever gave back.
He had told himself, that last afternoon in the sacristy, that the coldness had been a kindness; a controlled withdrawal engineered for her benefit rather than his own. The responsible action of a man who understood, better than she currently could, exactly how much damage he was capable of doing to a young woman who had already lost enough. He had held onto that story for the better part of a week, turning it over each night like a stone worn smooth from handling, comforted by how reasonable it sounded, how selfless.
He had built that justification brick upon carefully mortared brick, reinforced with enough real theology that it had held, more or less, clean through the third week of Advent. It took him nearly ten days to notice the story had a hole in it large enough to walk through and that the architecture he had thought as precise was clearly not holding tonight.
He braced his forearms against his knees, the cassock pulling taut across his shoulders, and made himself do what he had been circling for three weeks without ever quite landing on: the full accounting. Not the version he preached — love that costs nothing was never love, only convenience wearing love's vestments — but the version underneath it, the one he had apparently reserved for no one at all, not even himself, until an empty church at this particular hour finally cornered him into it.
He had not gone cold to protect her.
He had gone cold because for one suspended half-second three weeks ago, with her spine curved back against his own hands and thunder cracking the stained glass loose in its leading, he had wanted. Wholly, specifically, with an intensity that bore no resemblance to the manageable, textbook temptation he'd spent fifteen years training himself to weather. And the wanting had frightened him more than any sin he had ever been taught to guard against from that pulpit.
Lust, Baelor had been telling himself at the moments he felt more vulnerable, he could have managed easy enough. Lust had its own liturgy: name it, confess it, do the penance, watch it pass the way weather passes. He knew the path.
What had actually moved through him in that sacristy would not pass, though, because it was not lust. He had known that even as he fled it, his own hands leaving her waist so fast the absence carried its own small violence, and the knowing had done considerably more to terrify him than any fear of scandal ever had.
He had told himself he was protecting her. What he had actually done was protect himself and dressed the cowardice in a cassock respectable enough that even he had been fooled by it for most of a month.
A man protecting her would have found some way to remain honest with her. Distant, yes, but certainly careful and honest. He had rather manufactured a performance of indifference precise enough to convince a perceptive young woman that she had imagined two months of something. He had watched her work it out in real time, that terrible afternoon in the parish hall — watched her hunt for the offense she must have given him, watched her land, wrongly and with visible pain, on herself as the cause — and he had let her sit inside that wrong conclusion for three weeks rather than correct it, because correcting it would have required naming what was actually true, and naming it was the one thing he had not yet found the courage to survive.
How readily the heart baptizes its own sins, he thought now, recognizing the shape of it — recognizing, too, that he had thought nearly the identical sentence three weeks prior, kneeling at the side of his own bed, and had apparently learned nothing from the thought except how to think it a second time with a fresh coat of shame applied.
None of this recognition had made the following days any easier to survive. If anything, the clarity made it worse: he no longer had the comfort of believing himself noble about it, only lonely, and specifically, deliberately lonely this time, having manufactured the loneliness himself with his own two hands and then had nowhere honest left to put the blame for it.
He had not known misery like the misery of the past twenty days. Not in fifteen years of vocation, not in four years of dry, wordless prayer. He had simply not accounted for the weight of an absence that was entirely his own doing, a door he had closed with his own hand and then had to walk past, every day, in his own church, knowing exactly whose fault it was that it stayed shut.
Now it was the twenty-fourth of December, and he had not seen her since the day he'd given her nothing but a cold shoulder dressed up as tiredness.
The church clock ticked over its quarter-hour somewhere above the belfry. Soon, he thought. Midnight, the bells, the whole parish arriving half-frozen and candlelit for the one Mass of the year that still filled every pew he owned. He had perhaps two hours left of whatever this currently was — solitude, penance, cowardice examining itself in the dark — before duty required him upright and vested, singing the old proclamations over a congregation with no notion that their priest had spent three weeks failing every single thing he had ever told them love was supposed to look like.
He sat in the back pew — her pew, he admitted again to himself — facing the tabernacle, alone in every sense of the word he currently had access to. He was not praying, not exactly. He had stopped pretending, these past weeks, that sitting in front of the tabernacle and praying were reliably the same activity.
He heard the side door before he heard anything else. It had a particular three-note complaint at the old hinge before it settled that Baelor registered and did not turn. Parishioners came and went from the church at every hour on Christmas Eve; some private, unshakeable devotion drew the lonelier half of his flock back through those doors long after the Vigil crowd had gone home to their families, chasing whatever the empty nave offered that the full one hadn't. He assumed, hearing the door, that this was simply one more of them, and kept his eyes on the tabernacle, and did not turn.
Footsteps crossed the stone toward his end of the church, measured and quiet against the marble, and stopped at the pew he currently occupied. He felt, before he processed it as thought, the small shift of weight as someone settled onto the bench beside him.
He smelled her before he saw her.
Jasmine. Not perfume exactly, or not only. Something warmer than that, something that seemed to rise off her skin rather than sit on top of it the way scent from a bottle usually did, faint and green and just short of sweet, the note he had spent three weeks failing to name in memory whenever he tried and failed to recall precisely what it was about being near her that had always, since the very first handshake in the vestibule, made something in his chest go quiet in a way incense never once managed.
Baelor had never told her he loved that smell. He had never told her anything close to the truth of what moved through him when it reached him, and it reached him now, sudden and total, a full second before she rounded the end of the pew, and by the time she sat down beside him — close, in the way of someone who had chosen him rather than simply taken the nearest available seat — whatever composure an hour of brutal honesty had cost him to assemble had already abandoned him entirely.
He turned.
She was watching him already, had been, he suspected, for the length of those footsteps, and the smile she offered did not come anywhere near her eyes. It sat crooked at one corner instead, apologetic and uncertain in a way that made his chest contract sharply enough that he nearly reached for her before he'd decided to do anything of the kind.
He knew that smile. It was an expression he recognized immediately because he'd been wearing some close cousin of it himself for nearly three weeks.
He said nothing. He had spent twenty days rehearsing, in odd, unguarded moments, some version of what he might say if he ever got to see her again, and found now, faced with the actual reality of her sitting an arm's length away, that every rehearsed line had evaporated completely, leaving him with nothing but the plain, humiliating fact of having hurt her and no adequate words assembled anywhere in him to address it.
They simply existed there together for a while, in a silence that should have been unbearable and somehow wasn't. He could feel the warmth of her radiating against the side of his cassock where her shoulder nearly, not quite, met his. A sweet, ordinary heat that stood in stark and almost startling contrast to the last time they'd been this close, weeks ago, with thunder cracking overhead and his own hands still burning at her waist. There was nothing carnal in it now, or nothing only carnal. It read instead as something closer to relief given a temperature, comfort with a pulse behind it.
Three weeks ago, in this same building, a comparable warmth and a comparable proximity had ended with his own hand around his own cock and a confession he could not bring himself to make even in the dark, even to God directly. What moved through him now bore almost no resemblance to that night's hunger. It was not smaller. If anything it occupied more room in him, sat heavier. It simply was not, tonight, primarily a thing his body wanted. It was something considerably more dangerous.
He looked at the plain wooden cross above the altar and let himself think, for the first time without immediately flinching from the thought, that he still wanted her. He thought, with a clarity that would have frightened him a month ago and now simply arrived, quiet and total, that he could have gone to his knees right there on the cold marble and prayed at the altar of her. He could ask, again and again, for an absolution only she was positioned to grant him; plead, in whatever language a man used for a thing this far past reasonable, that she never left again the way these twenty days had made him believe she might.
He did none of it. He sat, frozen by the sheer size of what he'd just allowed himself to think and let the silence continue instead.
"I hope there weren't too many entitled women today," she said finally, her voice landing somewhere between uncertain and hopeful, testing the ground before committing her full weight to it.
He huffed something close to a laugh and turned to look at her properly. "Let's just say I won't need to cook for myself for at least a week." The joke came easier than he'd expected, some old, grateful muscle memory taking over where his more careful faculties had failed him entirely. "I could see myself through to Epiphany on goodwill alone."
She smiled at that — a real smile, however small, climbing further up her face than the one she'd walked in with — and he could have sworn, absurdly, that his own heart actually moved in his chest at the sight of it, some physical lurch he had no theological vocabulary adequate to explain.
They held each other's eyes a moment longer than the joke strictly required, and the silence that followed felt entirely unlike the one that had come before it — warmer, though not yet safe.
"I actually wasn't sure about coming." Her eyes stayed on her own hands, folded in her lap. "After the other day, I thought — I don't know. I didn't want to be the sort of person who doesn't take a hint. I thought that maybe I needed to give you some space. In case I was becoming a bit too much."
"Don't be silly." The answer left him faster than he'd intended, almost tripping over itself in its hurry to correct her. "It's me who owes you an apology. My behaviour that day was—" he searched for a word that wouldn't require explaining the whole of what actually lay beneath it and settled for an inadequate one. "Poor. It was poor, and it was unfair to you, and I am sorry for it."
She nodded, faint, more to herself than to him, and something in the set of her shoulders told him she wasn't finished. "You had me believing I was unwanted here." Her voice cracked on the last word, just slightly, and he felt the crack land somewhere in his own chest like a physical blow. "Which is stupid, I know — you don't owe me anything, you never did — but I'd started thinking of this place as somewhere that was actually mine. Somewhere I got to just exist, without anyone needing managing from me, for once. And then you—"
She didn't finish it. She didn't have to. He watched the first tear break loose and travel the length of her cheek before either of them had acknowledged what was happening, and something in his own chest gave way at the sight of it more completely than three weeks of solitary, brutal honesty had managed on its own.
He turned fully toward her then, his whole body pivoting on the pew, and his hands found hers where they sat clenched in her lap, covering them before he'd consciously decided to. Her warmth beneath his palms did something complicated and inconvenient to the rest of him, some low, insistent pull he chose, deliberately, to ignore in favour of the considerably more urgent thing happening in front of him.
"You will always have a place here." He got the words out before she could continue, though it turned out not to matter, because she spoke straight over him anyway, the sentence already building too much momentum to be stopped by anything as small as his interruption. "That was never in question. It will never be in question."
"I thought that I understood you." Her breath was coming faster now, catching unevenly between words. "Your loneliness — that sadness you keep locked up behind everything else, that feeling like you have to carry the whole weight of everyone alone — I thought I understood that, in you, because I recognized it. And I thought you understood me too, and I — I—"
Her breathing had gone properly ragged now, words fracturing apart faster than she could assemble them, and he stopped her the only way he could think to in the moment: lifting both hands from hers to her face instead, thumbs coming to rest against the wet tracks already cutting down her cheeks.
Her name left his lips — the only solid thing he had left to offer her, thrown out as deliberately as a lifeline to a drowning woman — and it worked exactly as he'd hoped. Her eyes found his again, properly, holding there instead of skittering away.
"I understand you," he said, quiet and entirely certain, the first fully honest sentence he'd managed to give anyone in longer than he wanted to calculate. "And you understand me. And I am so ashamed — so genuinely ashamed — of having caused you even a fraction of this pain. I—"
He didn't finish. She closed the remaining distance between them in a single motion, the whole of her colliding into his chest, her face burying itself in the black fabric over his heart, and whatever he'd been about to say dissolved, unimportant now, into the more urgent business of simply holding her.
He wondered, distantly, whether she could feel how hard his heart was currently working against her ear, pressed as she was directly over it. He was fairly certain she could, because Baelor didn’t bother trying to still it.
His arms came around her without any further input required from the rest of him, holding her shaking frame together while her sobs worked themselves out against the fabric already growing damp beneath her face, and he stayed exactly like that — steady, present, entirely hers for as long as she needed him to be — for considerably longer than he bothered counting.
Her sobs thinned eventually, then stopped, and she drew back from him at her own pace, wiping at her face with the back of one hand in a gesture that struck him as almost childlike in its simplicity. "Sorry," she managed, on a breath still not quite steady.
"Don't be. Please." He shook his head, meaning it entirely.
She nodded, more to herself than to him, some private decision apparently being finalized. "How about we just — forget this happened. All of it." Her eyes found his again, searching. "Stop apologizing to each other and go back to where we left off. I promise I'll still believe you're a cool priest."
The laugh that pulled out of him was real, surprised out of him despite everything the evening had already asked of him. "I'm holding you to that." His hand found the back of her neck, gentle, tilting her face back up to his when it had started to drop. "I’ll remove you from wreath-duty until next year."
"What?"
"The wreath. You're off the hook until next Advent."
She laughed at that too — a real laugh this time, breaking through whatever was left of the tears — and the sound of it did something to the whole of him that fifteen years of careful discipline had absolutely no defence prepared against.
He turned back toward the altar eventually, leaning into the worn wood of the pew behind him, and she shifted beside him a moment later, settling her weight against his side with an ease that suggested she'd stopped questioning whether she was allowed to. His arm found its way around her shoulders without any real deliberation on his part, and her head came to rest in the crook of it, cheek against the side of his chest, close enough that every breath she took registered against him.
He breathed her in. Jasmine, warm and close and entirely real this time, no phantom trace left to chase down a stranger's collar or a shop aisle.
He fucking loved jasmine.
A.N.: sooooo, what do we think? i warned it would be a slow burn, but they're getting there... i will work on the next parts along the weeks, they will be shorter (or at least i'll try) because proofreading this behemoth was a workout in itself lol. as always, comments and feedback is very much appreciated. i love you all <3
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Summary: You were always Ormund’s prize, forever a step behind him. But what happens when you’re finally one step ahead and beat him at cyvasse?
Pairing: Husband! Ormund x Wife! reader
WC: 1.5k
Warning: 18+, toxic marriage, manipulation, reader and daeron have a good relationship, threats, angry outbursts, reader rides vermithor
The days had dragged on, the kind of days where things had blended together. You were heavily pregnant, pregnant with a babe that you didn't want.
Your wants and desires had long stopped mattering once you married Ormund. The man that had swept you off your feet, made you believe in something that wasn't real, made you think that the Hightower's weren't that bad.
So much had happened and you could barely remember when you met him, how he charmed you and made you consider a marriage proposal.
Ormund's facade dropped right after the wedding. He was no longer the man that you had even stood in front of earlier, he was exactly as your mother had warned you.
You were no longer able to wear your house colors in any capacity, he had Vermithor chained, he didn't allow you to keep contact with your mother. You had lost everything in a matter of a night and by then, it was too late.
You enjoyed the days where you were alone, the days where your Lord husband was busy with things that actually mattered— not criticizing you and your every move.
That morning, you joined him in his chambers as he'd requested— he wanted to indulge in a game of cyvasse.
"How are you and the babe faring today?" He questioned, examining the board.
"I am fine, getting less and less sleep these days. I suppose the babe is doing alright as well, becoming more active." You spoke, your hand resting on your bump.
Ormund loved cyvasse, but you hated it— you hated it, because you could never beat him. It was bad enough that you were the wife of a man who challenged your mother, pregnant, and your dragon was chained up.
You felt hopeless.
No amount of watching brought you closer to beating him, he was always one step ahead.
You watched as Ormund moved his piece, your eyes roaming the board.
"Your mother is.. smart. It was smart to give the bastards dragons and to add what she'd lost. She still lacks the courage and foresight though ." He mentioned.
"How does she lack foresight?" You questioned, moving your piece and keeping your eyes on the board.
Ormund paused, a faint chuckle in his throat.
"Time will tell, sweetling."
He loved to taunt you like that, bring up your mother and draw in your curiosity— only to deny you a true answer.
"Hmmph."
"I missed you this morning, husband."
His brow raised, picking up another piece and placing it on the board.
"Is that right?"
Your conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door, Daeron entering the room. Ormund didn't even have to lift his eyes to know that it was Daeron. He knew based off the sound of his boots.
"To what do we owe the visit?" He questioned.
Daeron was quiet, a mirroring of his mother. A boy who'd been unfortunate in growing up around Ormund.
"I come bearing news for Lady Hightower." He spoke softly, walking over to you.
"What news?" Ormund questioned once more, his tone growing stricter.
Despite your families being on opposing sides, you and Daeron had a bond. You weren't his mother or anything remotely close, but both of you understood what it was like being under Ormund's thumb— being his prize.
You smiled, offering out your hand to Daeron as he approached you. He leaned down and whispered into your ear, telling you news about your dragon.
Ormund watched from across the table, a displeased look on his face.
You listened to Daeron's words carefully, making sure that you did not allow your face to give away what he was telling you.
"Thank you, Daeron. I will see you later at supper." You smiled.
Daeron glanced at Ormund and back down at his feet, walking out of the room— shutting the door behind him.
"What was that?" He asked.
Your brow raised as you feigned ignorance, "what was what, husband?"
He pursed his lips, "move your pawn."
"Do not play the fool with me, my love."
You brought your eyes back down to the board, picking up your next piece.
"It was nothing, just some information about how Vermithor was doing. He has been restless as well."
You placed your piece, giving him an innocent smile.
"I have told the two of you about your feelings towards those beasts.. they're abominations." He griped.
"It is easy to feel that way when you were not born into a house with the privilege of having them."
Ormunds eyes slowly flickered over your pregnant frame, his eyes finding your face.
"It is not a privilege to be born with tainted blood, to be part of a house that has caused everyone else's suffering."
His words struck you like an iron, your eyes starting to sting. You lowered them, fidgeting with your fingers in your lap.
You hated hearing him talk about you and your family that way. You were so “tainted”, but it didn’t stop him from crawling into your bed?
"What of him or her? They are part of me, of my blood, my mothers blood, her fathers blood." You reminded him.
He scoffed, moving his next piece.
"They will be different, not like them. You are different, you are a Hightower now. A name that you can wear with honor."
You batted your eyelashes, fighting back the tears that pricked the corner of your eyes.
"You're right, husband. Please, forgive me."
He reached over, holding his hand out. You placed yours in his, a fake smile on your face.
"Our family will be different. Our children will have you and me to guide them, to show them the truth of things."
You nodded your head in agreement.
"They will—"
"I love you.”
He rubbed your hand.
"I love you more, sweetling."
You pulled your hand away and looked back down at the board, a pit in your stomach. An unexplainable feeling of rot curling into your mouth at his words.
You didn't want a future with him or in Oldtown, you wanted to go home.
"Within a few days, I shall be leaving here for a few matters that need to be handled." He told you, pushing his hair from in front of his face.
You moved your piece, his eyes glancing up at the board.
He stared in disbelief, his eyes blinking several times.
You had outsmarted him in the game that he loved so much.
"That can't be right." He mumbled, a huff of air leaving his mouth.
He moved another one of his pieces.
You stood up, fixing your gown around your belly.
"I think that I will return to my chambers for a nap, I am quite tired."
He scoffed, "you need to move your next piece."
"I will see you at supper, husband."
"Move your pawn, wife."
You ignored him, pushing your chair up to the table.
"Finish the game!" He yelled, smacking all of the pieces off the board.
The sound of the pieces clattering across the stone made the impossible feel possible. You could win against him, you had a chance after all.
"This fucking nonsense!" Ormund yelled behind you, knocking the board onto the ground.
Ormunds footsteps inched closer behind you as you reached the door, his hand grabbing yours.
"Do you think of me a fool?"
You stared blankly.
"Ormund, what could you mean? I am just tired."
"You are a cheater." He fumed.
You yanked your hand away from him, "I did no such thing!"
He took a deep breath.
"You never win those games."
You pulled your shoulders back in offense.
"I am just as capable of winning as you are , you allowed yourself to get too comfortable and I won."
He stepped closer to you, his body pressed against yours. He grabbed your face, his fingers digging into your cheeks.
"My sweet wife.. I have been nothing but good to you and yet you still lie to me?"
You winced, "I didn't lie."
"What.. did Daeron come to tell you earlier?"
You shook your head, trying to pull from his grip.
"You're hurting me, Ormund."
"Tell me the truth." He gritted.
Tears welled in your eyes.
"He told me about Vermithor. I had him go check on him, because I knew that he wouldn't handle being chained well."
Ormund scanned your eyes for lies, but he was only met back with someone he made feel small and scared, his own wife.
He gently let go of your face, wiping one of your tears.
"Forgive me, my love. That was unkind of me—"
"I just do not appreciate secrets. We are husband and wife, they are not appropriate."
You shook your head.
"It was not meant to be a secret, but I knew how you felt and I didn’t want to upset you.”
He pulled you into a hug, trying to comfort you and reassure you that he wasn't mad.
"I believe you, sweet girl. There's no need to lie to me, because I'm your husband and you understand what will happen, if you do."
You bit your tongue and decided not to say all the things that crossed your mind. You re-played the plan that you and Daeron had talked about over and over again.
Daeron found the spare keys to the collars that they had on your dragons, which is why he rushed to come tell you earlier. It was the only thing that kept you from breaking down in Ormund’s arms.
Your chance to escape was closer than it had ever been.
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