Morn Writes.

kids shouting and laughing bounce off the pavement, slicing through any semblance of peacefulness. they're everywhere, jumping from equipment to equipment and running around like there's flames licking their heels so that they don't get tagged.

you're among them, standing in front of the monkey bars and waiting for your turn in line. a third grader is behind you and far less patient. he shoves you out of the way, sending you tumbling to the ground when you were supposed to be allowed to go. woodchips hit your arms and knees, giving you small splinters that makes your eyes instinctively water.

"hey, you jerk! you can't do that!" a voice that isn't your own reaches your ears. you look up, bewildered, and see your classmate running over. he hadn't been very far, but neither were you two close enough to think he would care, both literally and figuratively.

"shut up, i can do what i want! i'm bigger than you!" children's arguments were never very intellectual, but it was a good point to make for an eight year old. aerion does not let the boy continue. he lunges, as vicious as six year old him can be, and they go down in a flurry of motion.

scrambling to your feet, you stare for a solid thirty seconds as the kids around you start to scream and run off or form a wide circle to watch. the dull pain in your elbows and knees from a few splinters are leagues away from your little brain now.

you're unsure what possessed you to intervene, but you do. you reach forward and grab aerion's shoulders, yanking him back with all of your might. he doesn't go flying back like you had seen in movies, but he loses his grip on the other boy's shirt. a fist collides with his nose, followed by a downpour of blood that makes the kids around you shriek in horror.

a teacher reaches you three and separates you with the help of a fellow adult that was following the first. the three of you are taken to the nurses office, where tears start welling in your eyes and you're apologizing to aerion for him getting hurt.

"i did it because he was being a jerk and he deserved it. i don't need your sorrys." aerion lifts his head, all too pleased with himself for swinging on the kid who thought it was a good idea to mess with you. he winces when pain shoots up his nose and then chooses to glare at the third grader across the nurse's office. the kid pointedly looks away, somehow looking worse than both you and aerion combined.

the three of your guys' parents show up, all with varying degrees of concern and anger on their expressions. you guys explain what happened to them, then to the principal, and you're the first one to be dismissed. you had the least involvement even if you were the one who unintentionally started this whole mess.

on the day following the fight you sit under an elm, book in your lap. you'd decided not to go play today.

aerion approaches you then, a flower in hand and a face that's an angry shade of red. his chin is raised and his cheeks are puffed out in indignation. the small plant he plucked somewhere in the yard is shoved into your hand, violet eyes blazing with something neither of you can name yet.

"my mom says i am to say sorry for fighting someone in front of you. so. here." white petals tickle your nose and causes it to scrunch. you smile a little, giggling as you take it by the green stem and put it behind your ear. aerion's entire brain gets rewired in those two seconds you giggle. he decides, then, that he wants more of that sound. he will do whatever he can to keep it and, greedily, hoard it like a dragon so that nobody else gets the pleasure of knowing it.

"it's okay. thank you for the flower, it's pretty." you finally say, scooting over. a small pause, then you're patting the grass beside you in a silent invitation for him to sit.

aerion assesses the pat, blinks once, then sits down with one of his boney knees knocking against yours, "we read a lot in class. why are you not playing?"

"i don't want to. my knees still hurt." there's small bruises on either of them, but they'll go away within the next day or two. aerion nods once, like you just said something wise.

the bell rings. you both get up, brushing yourselves off and then scurrying towards your classroom with a newfound friend at your sides.

nobody sees the third grader at school again. you'll find out later—when you and aerion are 16 and having dinner with his family—that maekar threatened legal action. aerion says some snarky comment about how the kid deserved worse than that and you just sigh, kicking him under the table.

Even at age 17, where magazines covering the latest gossip share about how Aerion Targaryen—second son to one of the most terrifying defense lawyers in the entirety of Westeros—has been caught at another late night party he had no business attending or seen in another fight with some lesser rich kid who will pointedly avoid any question regarding the rumors for the rest of their life.

Paparazzi snap pictures of Aerion with a new girl hanging off his arm every week by age 18, spreading it to every source that will share it publicly. At some point near age nineteen it stops becoming a huge scandal and more of a routine that impresses nobody.

Unless it’s photos of you. Although the average mom won’t bat an eye at yet another photo of you two together, the internet is a different story.

Nobody asks “how do you know one another?” anymore. They haven’t for a very, very long time. Instead, the questions have turned into “do you think they’re secretly together?” and “if they don’t get together true love is DEAD. why aren’t they MARRIED yet?”.

Everyone with a set of eyes can see it. The chemistry between you two is hotter than a dragon’s fire and more than once has something been said about how you’re both attached at the hip. Literally and figuratively, depending on the time.

Mixers were somewhat common for those with more money than they knew what to do with. Three hours of people flaunting the amount of zeros in their bank accounts while draped in finery, plastering smiles onto their lips that were akin to a predator’s looking for weak points to later use. Nobody sane truly enjoyed them, but they all went anyway. Being absent from such an event was its own sort of poor decision, one of which would be gossiped about for a week until something juicier came to light.

You attended, because of course you did. Your parents were there, siblings too. Certain statuses were meant to be upheld and you played your part, no matter how bored you might be.

The Targaryens were expected to make their appearance roughly five minutes from now, which meant that Aerion would be here in thirty. Just enough time for his family to mingle with the crowd, earn some questions of “oh, and where is your second boy?” that would have Maekar scowling and Baelor easily guiding the conversation into something new, and then be considered “fashionably late”. He wouldn’t have showed up at all, if not for you.

Strutting into the expensive event space with some new, pretty thing hanging off his arm and looking far too bright for a man as dark as he, Aerion made his entrance. Nobody directly approached him, but they all greeted him with forced politeness that he replied to with a sharp glance or nothing at all. Everyone had learned early on that he was not a kind man and to try initiating with him directly always wound up in sharp words tearing into their hearts.

Of course, there was some leeway with you. By no means were you an exception to this wordless understanding that everyone had.

However.

When you two made eye contact across the room, the smallest tilt of your head was offered in greeting and something flashed behind Aerion’s eyes. It was nothing that someone could spot, if not for you. You were in the midst of a conversation with some young man who was interested in what your family could offer if he were to capture your heart, so he was attempting to do just that. Charming smiles, warm words that were hollow at the end of it all, and the occasional brush of fingers against yours, all of which you permitted. Not forced yourself into, but allowed because you knew how much playing along was required of you.

Seven Minutes.

Seven minutes passed before you were being interrupted in your conversation with this man you barely remembered the name of. That was exactly how long it took for Aerion to discard the girl on his arm, lazily placating her with a “get yourself a drink n’ have fun”, and then shut down the conversation with this audacious man. He doesn’t even say anything, he just looks at the man with a glare that would make someone drop dead if he had the ability to, and watches as he scrambles off.

“Only one cherry? How disappointing.” There is no formal greeting between you two. Instead, Aerion is pressing a drink into one of your hands and you take it, glass clinking against the rings you chose to adorn your fingers with this evening. You comment on the fact that there’s only one cherry instead of the usual two or three in your drink and it makes an almost-laugh come from the Targaryen. It’s breathy, coming through his nose and one corner of his lips turning upward into something that could be a smile if he tried a little more.

“You’ll survive.” Aerion’s voice is almost flat, save for the undertone of amusement in the back of his throat that most would overlook. You don’t. You kick his expensive loafer with an equally pricey high heel adorning your own. He grins properly, silver hoops littering his ear shining under the dim lighting of the event space, “Ouch.”

The one word of acknowledgment is full of amusement now. You click your tongue in faux annoyance and then shift your stance a little.

Both of you settle into the familiar rhythm of going back and forth, speaking on the conversations you overheard and Aerion listening with a bored expression that conceals the way he’s not taken his eyes off of you since he walked into the room. Your bodies are close enough that most would suspect a relationship if either of you were not who you were. Instead, they do not bat an eye.

One arm is draped on the railing behind you two, thumb just barely touching your upper arm and his whole body is angled toward you, just like that photograph when you were seven. He’s occasionally sipping his own drink with the other hand, right leg pressing into your left as you almost tuck yourself into his side. It’s a familiar stance you two have partaken in so many times before that it’s natural.

“It’s been well over an hour. Shouldn’t you go find your little model?” You inquire about the woman out of politeness more than actual care for her. This isn’t the first time he’s brought someone to a mixer for show, just to abandon them in exchange for you.

“She’s fine. I saw her batting those fake lashes of hers at Baratheon fifteen minutes ago.” Aerion says it as if that means the entirety of the girl he’d brought to this mixer is a problem already solved. It is, in a way. He doesn’t bring people of any real importance to his life here. He selects those that he can get away with ditching if they bore him or, more likely, if you want to leave earlier than the rest of your family.

The rest of the Targaryen household approaches you both slowly, making their rounds through the room and finding you two last. They already know where you guys are going to be and do not rush to greet you.

Aerion watches his family greet you with a mild sneer that stays on his face until they’re gone again. It’s the only way that he can cover up the way it warms him, digging up some traitorous part of his heart which beats only for you. Truthfully, it has been beating for you alone for longer than he has known it not to. He will not address it.

It takes forty-five minutes for everyone to say their “hello”s and “how are you?”s like you weren’t over at their house two days ago, helping the youngest do homework like it was your job to. Daella had texted you her assignment, asking for help on a specific question, and you stopped by. You said you were in the area when she asked why you came over. You were not, but she didn’t have to know that.

Nobody else gets to interact with Aerion’s family, not the way you do. Whatever pick of poison he makes each night will never get a greeting from his family, all of whom actually intend on coming to at least acknowledge your presence. You are part of the family in a way that the others can only dream of.

Free from everyone but Aerion in your immediate vicinity once again, you finish your drink. You set it down on the nearby table, twisting your upper torso to do it without moving away from the short haired Targaryen.

“My car’s parked out front.” No question of “are you ready to go?” or “do you want to leave soon?”, just the statement that spoke a near lifetime together. Aerion chugged the last of his drink and began to walk with you three steps ahead of him. Close enough that nobody would engage with you because that meant engaging with him, but far enough that he wasn’t breathing down your neck.

Exhaling heavily only once you two were outside and the cold air nipped at your face, tension was visibly draining from your form. You two slid into his sleek sports car, wrapped in red and gold with a dragon running along the side of it because of course Aerion Targaryen had to put a dragon on everything he could. It’s what he was, after all.

Aerion drives you both to your penthouse in the city that’s twenty minutes away and neither of you say anything during the car ride. Comfort was found in silence whenever it settled between you, nearly two decades of time spent learning each other and when being quiet was or wasn’t the right choice. He leads the way through the parking garage and up to your living space as if he owns it, flashing his personal key FOB into the correct spots.

Jackets are shrugged off in the foyer, Aeroin’s blazer draped over the living room couch while you neatly put yours on the coatrack. He’s toeing his shoes off at the backside of the couch and leaving them there. Each thing is intentional. It’s how he’s leaving a quiet claim, each article of clothing serving as a piece of himself that is meant to mark.

Everything settles in its place like it belongs there. You can’t tell if you hate it or love it.

Loud shhck’s fill the living room as Aerion slides open your backdoor, glass overlapping with glass. He fishes a cigarette from his pocket and a lighter accompanies it, thumb swiping in a quick movement that has a flame flickering to life.

“You should lock your doors before you leave the house. Someone could break in.” Aerion’s leaning against the balcony railing, metal and glass that stops a person from accidentally falling over forty stories to their death.

“If someone climbs up this high to get to me, I would be more impressed than scared.” You hum, sliding your heels off and joining him. His head tilts toward you and those violet eyes of his are on you again.

“Get taken hostage by an intruder, then. I’ll say ‘I told you so’.” Both of you know that Aerion would tear the very world apart to find you if such a thing occurred. Neither of you say it.

City life makes noise down below, but it’s somewhat quiet so high up, filling the lack of words between you both. You’re looking at each other in this pocket of time where everything ceases to exist save for the cigarette smoke curling between your faces and each other.

One of you moves toward the other, although you’re unsure who does it first. Fingers curl into the side of your hip, cigarette still slotted between two deft fingers and you’ve got your hand on his nape. You’re drawing one another in until your bodies are flush, lips parted and breaths mingling together. The small gap between you both doesn’t close.

“Aerion.” You break the silence first, breathing out the Targaryen’s name in a question of something you’re unsure you want the answer to. He says nothing, but his fingers press harder and so does yours.

Years. Years of this moment playing through your minds and it went nothing like how you thought it would be, but also exactly how you two expected. No huge fight—although it definitely crossed your mind a few times—nor some fit of jealousy. It was a moment of quietness that settled between you both like it had a million times before. Lips press together before anything can break the moment, soft for a whole one second and then you’re trying to devour each other.

Teeth catch lip and bite, certain to bruise the flesh for days. Spit pushes between your mouths, tongues tangling and then separating. You push him against the wall of your balcony and he lets you. Aerion lets you and thinks that he would have nothing else. When you pull away with the need to breathe his eyes are several shades darker than they had been, pupils swallowing the violet.

“Do not,” Aerion is dropping his cigarette onto the concrete ground of the balcony, foot stomping it out without taking his eyes off of you, “kiss me like that if you’re going to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Aerion brings his free hand up to your face and slides his fingers into your hair, gripping the strands tightly so that you cannot back away. You do not want to, either.

“I know.” It’s the only response you give. It does not seem like an adequate response to the demand given, but somehow it is. The demand spoke for deeper feelings than just what was offered. Both of them had orbited one another for so long in one specific way that this kiss was fundamentally tilting the axis in which they sat.

Your name was murmured, blunt nails pressing into one another, and you do not push away. You draw Aerion in again and lick into his mouth, drowning any lingering uncertainty between you two.

The internet explodes when a photo of you kissing at a dinner party gets published a few months later and the Targaryen family is very, very relieved that they don’t have to send some poor girl home in a taxi after being ditched by the second son of Maekar Targaryen.

daeron, who presses his fingertips into you whenever he gets a chance. callouses bite into your soft skin, or the fabric of your clothing, or even the book you've yet to look up from. it's heavily dragged from your fingers and atop your thighs, not unkind in the motion.

daeron, who smells of warm wine, perhaps a Dornish one that was imported recently and he took a liking to. his presence easily surrounds you even though he is directly in front of you only.

you, raising a brow in faux annoyance, but are smiling despite yourself. the bound leather book is shut quietly, worn pages making little noise as they're pressed together.

daeron, who is draping himself atop your body with a bit more force than intended, but does not hurt you either. he's pressing your fronts together, face shoving itself into the crook of your neck with an exhaustion that spoke of bone-deep weariness.

"Spouse," daeron drawls, the word coming out a little slurred and yet gentle, muffled against your flesh. he tilts his head a little further and looks up at you, "It would appear I am out of wine."

you, who snorts a laugh and wraps your arms around the dirty blonde, nails gently raking down his back that was still clothed in his princely attire. a head tilt is offered, then murmured words, "You seem to have drank it all."

you, who grabs the half empty goblet on the small table next to the chaise. playfully, you raise it towards him in a mock cheers that he would be unable to mimic and then take a small sip.

daeron, who groans in response to your little mimicking and reaches up, taking the goblet from your hand. it is not a forceful prying, for you surrender it with ease.

"I have a cruel lover." daeron complains lightly, taking a long sip of the wine and mentally noting that it was not the wine from Dorne that had been imported. arbor gold, terribly sweet and light in a manner that contrasted the more full bodied flavors he preferred.

daeron, who surprises you by leaning up so that he was hovering over you more properly and presses your lips together. his free hand slides up to your jaw, forefinger and thumb pressing into your skin lightly. your lips part and he gives the wine to you, messily.

you, now with a drop of red wine trickling down the corner of your mouth, are gently wrapping one arm around your husband's shoulders. the other finds his back, bunching the black and red silk finery between the digits, and holds him close.

both of you, who begin to undress one another before the first kiss has even been separated. he puts the goblet atop the table with a wobbly movement because he was not about to spill perfectly good alcohol on the floor. wine was great after sex.

neither of you opt to move over to the bed once your naked, for daeron finds it too much work and your need for him far surpasses the desire to switch spots.

impatience means little to daeron, who touches you with a reverence that borders on worship. you are the only good thing in this godsforsaken world that is his and he can never bring himself to be that rough with you.

"My heart and soul." daeron breathes against your skin, chapped lips parted as he plants wet kisses against throat. thick fingers run down your sides, feeling the soft flesh yield beneath his hands.

you hum in response, but know better than to expect anything other words from him.

daeron is not speaking with the intention of receiving replies. it's sober thoughts being murmured aloud, said like a kneeler before an altar. your breath hitches in your throat as he skims your chest, down your stomach and further still.

when daeron finally pushes into you there's a soft gasp from you and a groan from him. his lips don't stop their movement, lazily kissing every inch of skin that he could while his hips snap without any specific rhythm.

a breathy plea was pulled from daeron's throat as he found your hips, one hand snaking between your legs. with a few more sloppy thrusts and expert movements of his hand, you both were tumbling over that edge of pleasure.

daeron, who collapses on top of you— although he hadn’t gone very far to begin with— burying his face into the crook of your neck again. arms wrap around your torso, keeping your bodies as close together as possible.

“Do not go anywhere.” is panted against your skin, an edge of desperation to daeron’s voice. it’s unclear whether he’s speaking more in the moment or about another dream where you have some future you’re unsure of.

you do not budge. your hands gently run down his back, through his hair— anywhere that you can reach.

daeron, who winds up lightly snoring atop you within the hour and then complains in the morning about being sore. you only roll your eyes and kiss him to silence him, your own muscles aching.

it will most definitely happen again, the both of you know.