oh-miniso

Your voice breaks on the word. Cracks open, raw and wet, and you press your forehead harder into his back, feeling the vibration of him against your skull and your arms tighten around his waist further. You hold on the way you held on in the meadow, in the nest you’ve shared.

“You promised you wouldn't hurt me, BB. And this—” Your voice drops, shaking. “This would.”

BB goes still.

The fury doesn't leave. You can still feel it, coiled, massive, a thing with its own gravity sitting inside his ribcage, pressing outward against the seams of him. But the stillness settles over it like a lid over a flame. His breathing—the breathing he doesn't need, the breathing that's been coming in ragged, animal bursts—slows. His shoulders drop by a degree, and the heat recedes, fractionally, from scalding to merely unbearable.

His hand opens.

Bobby drops down.

He hits the floor hard, knees first, then hands. Then he's on all fours, gasping, dragging air into his lungs in long, shuddering, tearing inhales that sound like they're being pulled through a crushed straw. The colour rushes back into his face all at once, from white to red, the blood flooding back into tissue that was seconds from permanent damage.

Kat is on the floor beside him in an instant, her hands frantic on his shoulders, his face, checking his throat, his pulse, and she's saying his name (Bobby, Bobby, breathe, look at me, breathe) and Bobby is coughing and gasping, his eyes streaming. The red marks on his throat are already darkening into bruises that will look, by tomorrow, like a handprint painted in purple and black.

You let go of BB, stepping back.

One step. Two. Putting distance between your body and his, and BB turns to face you, his hand lifting instinctively, reaching for your face, any part of you he can touch to confirm you're whole, and you step back again.

His hand halts mid-air.

You've seen BB confused many times before. You've seen him curious, amused, predatory, ancient, tender, wrecked with wanting. But you’ve never seen BB wounded.

His hand hangs in the space between you, reaching for a face that pulled away, and his eyes—still black around the edges, the warmth fighting its way back to the surface through the damage and the fury—registering the distance you've put between your bodies. Reading the enormity of your retreat with a precision that leaves no room for misunderstanding.

You stepped back from him.

You. The person who named him. The person who leaned into his forehead kisses and fell asleep against his cool chest and taught him to dance in a kitchen he built for you. You stepped back, and the distance is a sentence he can read, and the sentence says I don't trust you right now.

His hand drops to his side.

“What the fuck.”

Bobby. On the floor. Coughing, gasping, one hand on his throat and the other braced against the floorboards, and he's staring up at BB with an expression that’s blown past fear and into something else.

Incomprehension, horror, the cognitive whiteout of a man looking at his own face on a body that just tried to kill him.

“What the actual fuck,” Bobby says again, louder this time.

The choking has left his voice shredded, hoarse, each word dragged across damaged vocal cords. He gets to his knees. Kat's hand grips his arm, trying to hold him down, but he shakes her off and gets to his feet, his legs unsteady but his eyes are locked on BB. His jaw pulses, hands fisted at his sides, and he’s staring at his own face and finding a stranger peering back.

“That's me.” Bobby's voice is climbing, ragged with disbelief. “That's—that's my face. That's my face. Why does it have my face?”

BB's jaw tightens. The ancient thing flickers behind his eyes. A flash of contempt, of possessiveness, of the territorial fury that just had Bobby pinned three feet off the ground.

He looks at Bobby the way you'd look at a counterfeit of yourself. A draft. A rough sketch someone made before the final version.

“Answer me!” Bobby surges forward even as Kat scrambles to grab his arm. He shakes her off again without looking. “What are you? What the fuck are you?”

“BB.” You say it before you can stop yourself, before the anger and the hurt and the betrayal can seal your throat. The instinct to name him, to give him the dignity of the identity he let you choose for him, is still there underneath everything else. “His name is BB.”

Bobby stares at you both. The information moves across his face in parts. Confusion first, then processing, then a slow, horrible understanding that reorganises his features into something you've never seen on him. An emotion beyond anger, beyond hurt.

“BB. That BB? What kind of name even is that?” Bobby demands.

BB’s nostrils flare. “It stands for Better Bobby.”

Suffocating silence folds over the room. Kat’s mouth pops open in your peripheral, and you suck in a breath of your own.

“Better Bobby.” The real Bobby laughs. A short, ugly sound that's closer to a bark than a laugh, the kind of noise a person makes when the absurdity of their situation has exceeded their capacity for rational response. He barks out another laugh, then, “Better Bobby. Are you kidding me?”

BB's lip curls, a flash of teeth appearing. “I didn't choose the name for your benefit.”

“No, you just chose my face. You stole my face and my—and my—”

Bobby's gaze cuts to you, then back to BB. The calculation happening behind his eyes is visible, mechanical, each variable slotting into place with an almost audible click, and you can see the exact moment the picture completes because Bobby’s expression doesn't crumble; it hardens. Sets. His jaw locks and his eyes go bright and hot, the hurt underneath the anger so vast it makes the anger look like a puddle on an ocean.

“You've been down here,” Bobby begins, his voice pitching quiet. The dangerous quiet. The one that comes right before the blade. “This whole time. Down here with that.” He points at BB accusingly without looking at him. “With some thing wearing my face. A cheap copy—”

BB snarls. Low. A sound that makes the fractured windows rattle. “I'm not a copy—”

“—while I sat in a basement for seven months talking to a fucking wall, thinking you were dead." Bobby's voice cracks open, choking. "While the cops thought I killed you. The tapes went blank, and your face disappeared, and everyone forgot you existed. I thought I was going crazy because I was the only person left who remembered what you looked like—”

He's shaking. Full body vibration.

His hands tremble at his sides, and his jaw is trembling, and the chain at his throat is shimmering with movement. He’s a man coming apart at every joint because the grief and the fury are feeding each other in a loop that's spinning too fast to control, only amplifying the hurt beneath.

Each word comes out hotter than the last, each breath shorter, and Kat is standing behind him with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide like she’s never seen Bobby like this because Bobby doesn't do this.

Bobby deflects; he bites. Bobby is the one who turns his pain into a joke or a weapon. But Bobby doesn't break. Except he's breaking. Right now. In a pink house on Level 974, looking at his own face on a monster and the woman he loves standing between them.

“Terrence forgot you.” Bobby's voice cracks on the name. Pure pain that sinks between your ribs. “Terrence. Our best friend, remember him? The only person who believed me when the whole neighbourhood decided I was a killer. He sat with me in bars and told people to back off and drove me home when I couldn't drive, and he was the last one—the last person besides me who still said your name. And then one day I said it, and he looked at me like I was speaking a different language. Like the word didn't mean anything. Like you were—like you'd never—”

He presses the heel of his hand into his eye. The old gesture. The grinding-the-tears-back gesture, brutal and effective. “I watched him forget you. In real time. I said your name and I watched it fall out of his head and he looked at me with this—this pity, like I was talking about someone who never existed. And I wanted to grab him and shake him. Scream she was real, she was REAL, I loved her, and she was real—”

Bobby sucks in a breath so hard his whole body jerks with it.

“Eighteen months,” Bobby croaks out hoarsely, the shaking getting worse. “I nearly died waiting for you. I stopped eating, stopped sleeping. I sat in that basement until my back seized up and I couldn't stand straight, and even then I went back. I kept going back, and you're here. You've been here this whole time. Completely fine. With him. Letting him—wearing my face while he—”

Bobby can't finish the sentence. His hand comes up and covers his mouth, his eyes squeezing shut, and the sound Bobby makes behind his palm is tiny and wrecked. You shouldn't be hearing it, but you can't stop hearing it.

“Bobby—” Kat whispers, reaching for him.

“Don't touch me.” He shakes his head, opening his eyes.

And the expression on his face is the one from the doorway, the one you never saw because you were the one walking away. The expression of a man watching the person he loves leave and being unable to say the thing that would make them stay. Except now it's worse because you didn't leave. You were taken. And what took you gave you a version of him that does all the things he couldn't.

Then, in a dazed whisper, “Did you fuck him?”

The question lands like a grenade. Kat visibly flinches. BB goes rigid in your line of sight, and you feel numb shock slacken your expression.

“Bobby,” Kat says sharply. “This isn’t the time—”

“Did you fuck him?” Bobby's voice cracks, splitting, the words coming out jagged and shaky because he can't control himself. “This thing that stole my face—did you let it touch you? Did you let it—” He gestures at BB, at you, at the space between your bodies. “Were you playing Barbie and Ken down here with my—with a goddamn copy of me while everyone back home thought you were—”

He stops, pressing both hands over his face. His shoulders heave. Once. Twice. The sound he's holding back is massive, and he still won't let it out. He won't. Because he’s Bobby Franklin, and he doesn’t cry in front of people, not even now, not even here, when the girl he spent seven months talking to through concrete is standing five feet away next to the thing that kept her.

“They all thought I killed you. Our neighbours. Our friends. Clark. Strangers on the street. They'd look at me, and I could see it. He did it. The boyfriend did it.” Through his hands. Muffled, reedy, barely controlled. “Months of that. Of carrying that and going to the store every night, sitting on the floor and talking to you because it was the only thing—the only thing—that kept me—” His hands drop. His face is red and wet, ruined. “And you were here. Did you even try to go home?”

The room vibrates. The hum, the tension, the emotional charge of three people and two entities standing in a space too small for the volume of pain it generates.

You stare at Bobby's wrecked face, those bright, glassy eyes, his shaking hands. The man who loved you and couldn't say it and sat on concrete for seven months saying it to a wall instead. The man who grunted at your goodbye. The man who let you stand in a doorway feeling invisible. The man who came through the wall to find you.

“You moved on too,” you say lastly.

Quiet. Cold. The voice the Backrooms gifted to you. The flat, unmoved, survival-voice, the one that doesn't shake because it can't afford to do so.

Bobby's mouth opens. Closes. His features spasm like you’ve struck him despite the distance between you.

“You moved on too, Bobby. You're standing here with her—” you gesture at Kat, who shrinks back— “shielding her with your body, doing all the things you stopped doing for me. And I'm supposed to—what? Feel guilty? Because I survived? Because I found something down here that you couldn't be bothered to give me up there?”

“That's not—”

“You left first.” The words tear out of you before you can weigh them, before the part of you that knows this isn't entirely fair either can catch up to the part of you that’s been carrying this for months and is finally, finally letting it spill. “You left me in that apartment, Bobby. You left me standing in doorways waiting for you to look up. You left me lying next to you in bed wondering if I was still visible. And I don't know why. I've never known why. I loved you more than anything I've ever—”

Your voice fractures, words catching in your windpipe. You press your knuckle against your mouth, mouth wobbling, try your hardest to breathe through it.

“I loved you,” you repeat, steadier, lower. Your anger holding the grief upright the way a spine holds a body. “More than anything. And I didn't need to hear it. I never needed you to say the words, that’s the thing. But I used to feel it. In how you touched me and kissed me and held me. In how you looked at me in the morning. And then you stopped. You just… stopped. And it wasn't sudden. It was slow. So slow I didn't even notice it happening until I was already standing in it. This—this absence. Where you used to be. And I tried to talk to you about it, and you said don't be dramatic, and we're fine. I tried again, and you turned up the TV. I stood there in the kitchen watching the back of your head, and I thought—”

You choke on the words. Your eyes burn, but the tears won't come because the anger has dried them at the source.

“I thought maybe this is what love becomes. Maybe this is normal. Maybe I'm asking for too much. And I made myself smaller and smaller and smaller to fit inside whatever you were still willing to give me, and it was never enough. I didn't know why and you wouldn't tell me—”

“I was scared.” Bobby. Raw. Stripped to the bone. “I was so scared of how much I—”

“I don't care.” Flat. Final. Your voice hardens despite the thickness of your voice. “I don't care that you were scared. I was scared too. I was scared every single day that you were going to wake up and decide you didn't want me anymore and instead of telling me that. Instead of saying I'm terrified and I don't know how to love you without losing myself… you just stopped. You made me feel so alone. I used to talk to the walls at Clark's store because the walls were better company than you were.”

You suck in a ragged breath. It shakes on the way in, steadies on the way out. Bobby’s peering at you wide-eyed, his mouth parted, tension between you thrumming. You exhale, chuckling shakily, pained.

“And the worst part, Bobby?” you pose, not waiting for a response. “The worst part is it took me disappearing for you to care. It took me falling through a wall and vanishing from the face of the earth for you to sit down and say the things you should have said when I was standing right in front of you. You had me. I was right there. Every day. For years. And you couldn't be brave enough to tell me you loved me or hold me like you needed me. But the second I'm gone—the second you can't have me anymore—suddenly you're on a concrete floor pouring your heart out to a wall. Suddenly you remember how to feel.”

Bobby flinches. Full body, his blue eyes bright and shining. Like you've hit him again.

“And you want to know the thing that really kills me?” Your voice is shaking now, the anger fracturing, the grief bleeding through the cracks again. “I was working the late shift alone. In that basement. Alone, Bobby. Because you stopped coming. You used to come keep me company, and you stopped. I was down there by myself, sorting inventory, and that's where it happened. That's where the wall took me. And if you'd been there… if you'd just walked through that door one more time, if you'd come to the store instead of staying on that couch…”

You shake your head, glancing down. BB jerks, like he’s fighting an urge to reach for you, to comfort you somehow. “I wouldn't have been alone when it happened,” you go on, lifting your head again. “I might not have been standing in front of that wall at all. You want to know who's to blame for me being here? It's not the Backrooms. It's not BB. It's the fact that the man I loved couldn't be bothered to keep me company like he used to.”

The silence that follows is absolute. Suffocating. The hum drops to its lowest register.

Bobby stares at you. His face is open in a way you've never seen before. No armour, no grin, no deflection. Just Bobby. The raw, messy human underneath all the performance. And the expression on that face is not anger. It's devastation.

Because he’s just heard the exact truth he's been telling himself for eighteen months spoken aloud by the person he failed, confirmed, verified, stamped and sealed.

Kat stands behind him, her arms heavy at her sides, face tight with an attempt to hold her composure. She’s just learned the full dimensions of the wound she's been dressing for over a year and finally understands it goes deeper than she knew.

BB watches you with an expression you can't read. His black-edged eyes roam over your face, cataloguing the anger, the grief, the terrible release of words held back for so long. His hand twitches at his side again. The instinct—to reach, to touch, to soothe—still running underneath the barrier you imposed.

“Come with me,” BB urges, his words low. His hand lifts again, reaching for your elbow. “You don't have to stay here. Let me take you—”

“Don't touch me.”

BB's hand freezes midair.

“You're no better.”

You watch the impact of your words jolt through him. The way BB’s whole body registers it, a flinch that travels from his face through his shoulders to his hands. He absorbs it the way Entity X absorbs damage, except this doesn't regenerate. This is a cut that stays.

“You—” BB starts, his brows furrowing. His confusion is genuine, nothing performed in it. There’s no curious tilt he does when encountering new concepts, but real confusion, the bewildered processing of a being trying to understand what went wrong.

“Did you know?” you bite out.

You ask it quietly, peering at his face. Bobby's face. The face that heard you through a wall and chose to want you, that built you a kitchen and kissed your forehead and promised you things and held you while you cried.

“Did you know Bobby was out there? For months. Did you know he was looking for me? Sitting in that basement, talking through the wall. Did you hear him, BB? Did you hear him saying he loved me while you were holding me and telling me it was all his fault?”

BB's expression goes smooth.

The warmth and confusion drain, followed by wounded bewilderment. What's left is closed. Perfectly, terribly closed. The face flattening into something that's neither Bobby nor BB but something older, something that predates both of them.

You laugh. A short, bitter sound, no joy in it.

“Yeah,” you exhale. Shaking now, because anger can't hold your grief forever, the frame is buckling, and you can feel the tears starting to press against the backs of your eyes like a tide against a wall. “That's exactly what I thought.”

The room is quiet.

Bobby is on the floor with Kat's hand on his shoulder and bruises darkening on his throat. BB stands in front of you with a closed-off face and a frozen hand, the ruins of every tender moment you've shared settling around him like a ring of ash. Mr Kitty lingers in the corner, his dark shape motionless, his blank face oriented toward the centre of the room with the patient, unhurried attention.

“I need time,” you say, your voice thin. “I need… to think. I can't—I can't be in this room right now.”

You spin on your heels, walking toward the staircase, your bare feet on the floorboards. You clutch your notebook against your chest, your shoulders set in a rigid line, your chin up, and your eyes burning, but you don’t cry.

You will not cry. You’ll walk through this door and find a corner of this level that doesn't contain Bobby or BB or Kat or anyone else, and you’ll sit down and breathe.

You’ll figure out what is left of you underneath all of this wreckage.

BB moves after you. You hear it more so than see it. The shift in air pressure, the displacement, his body orienting toward yours the way it always does, the magnetic pull that has governed his movements since the first day. His footstep on the floorboard behind you.

Mr. Kitty steps into his path.

The tall dark shape moves from the corner to the centre of the room in a single fluid motion, interposing itself between BB and the door, between BB and you. Mr Kitty doesn't speak. Simply stands there. Immense, faceless, filling the doorway with the calm, absolute certainty that informs everyone, silently, that no one is getting past him.

BB snarls.

The sound fills the room, saturating it. Harsh, emotional, stripped of the controlled fury from earlier. This isn't the predator defending his territory. But something hurt and desperate, unable to reach the only thing that makes the hurt bearable, and the snarl carries all of it—the confusion, the desperation, the agony of watching you walk away from him and being told he doesn’t get to follow.

“Get out of my way.”

BB's voice is low. Vibrating. The hum in the walls responding to him, the floorboards creaking around you, the cracked windows rattling in their frames. The power coming off him is palpable. A pressure change, a density in the air, the room bending around the force of an entity that’s existed for longer than these walls have stood.

Mr. Kitty doesn't move.

The house begins to vibrate.

A deep, foundational tremor that runs through the floor and up through the walls and into the ceiling. The scones on the counter rattle. A crack appears in the plaster above the kitchen doorway. Two forces pressing against each other. BB's vast, ancient fury and Mr. Kitty's quiet, absolute sovereignty over this level, this house, this ground.

Mr. Kitty may not be as old. May not carry the same raw, limitless power that BB channels from the Backrooms itself, but Level 974 is his. The pink walls and the Hello Kitty figurines and the golden light.

His domain, his territory, his rules.

And in this space, on this ground, Mr Kitty doesn’t yield.

The vibration deepens. The figurines on the shelf chatter against each other. Bobby grabs Kat and pulls her toward the corner, away from the two entities locked in their silent standoff.

“Enough.”

Your voice. From the doorway, looking over your shoulder at the room. At BB, rigid and his mouth snarling, at Mr Kitty, immovable and calm, at the house shaking around them.

“Stop it. Both of you. Right now.”

BB's eyes are black, wild, fixed on Mr. Kitty's faceless head with a fury that has nowhere to go.

You look at BB.

It's the look that stops him. Your eyes on him, meeting his, and the expression in them—cold, hurt, closed, the warmth he's spent months earning withdrawn behind a wall he can't charm or claw his way through. You look at him the way you looked at Bobby in Santa Clara, in the doorway, in the kitchen, during all those conversations he refused to have.

“Leave me alone,” you say coldly. “I mean it, BB. Leave me alone.”

The vibration cuts out.

The house settles around you into eerie silence, the figurines stilling. The crack in the plaster stays but doesn't spread further.

BB's snarl dies in his throat, not released but swallowed, pushed down into whatever deep place he stores the things he can't process. His fury collapses inward, his features rearranging not into Bobby's easy mask but into something fragile and deeply, fundamentally lost.

Because he’s just been told by the only person who matters to him that he’s not wanted here.

Mr. Kitty steps aside.

You walk through the door, up the stairs that don’t make a single creak, and don’t look back.

BB does not follow.

The bedroom is pink.

Every surface of it. The walls, the ceiling, the bedframe, even the dresser with its rows of small ceramic figurines. All Hello Kitty, some with bows, others with tiny painted expressions of vacant, cheerful contentment that feel deeply wrong in a place where nothing should be cheerful.

The bed is covered with a pink duvet and pink pillows, a stuffed Hello Kitty the size of a small child propped against the headboard. You’re sitting on the edge of said bed in this aggressively pink room, clutching a pillow to your chest and crying so quietly your body barely moves.

You washed your face in the bathroom with shaking hands. The soap smelled like strawberries, which is either a kindness or a coincidence and in the Backrooms you've stopped trying to tell the difference. You scrubbed the tear-tracks and the grime and the black residue of Entity X's blood from your skin, and you looked at yourself in the mirror, but the face peering back at you was thinner than you remembered. Sharper. Older in a way that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the kind of living you've been doing down here.

You looked at your own face, and you didn't recognise the expression on it, and then you did, and that was somehow worse.

You press the pillow into your chest, tears soaking into the fabric, leaving dark spots as you wipe them with the back of your hand.

A plate appears on the bedside table.

Cookies. Round, golden, slightly uneven. Arranged in a careful circle on a pink ceramic plate with a Hello Kitty border.

You didn't hear Mr. Kitty enter. You never do.

He's simply there, filling the corner of the room, his dark shape folded into a crouch that brings his smooth, featureless head level with the top of the dresser. His long arms drape over his knees. The posture is oddly casual for something that nearly went to war with a fellow ancient entity an hour ago.

You glance at the cookies. A wet, exhausted laugh escapes you. Because there's a faceless being the height of a doorframe crouched in a pink bedroom offering you baked goods, and this is your life now, apparently.

Are you feeling better, little one?

His voice settles into your skull with that warm, furred pressure, gentle and unhurried. Little one. He's been calling you that since the third time BB brought you to 974, and the tenderness of it used to make you bristle. You're not little, not a child, not something to be diminished with a pet name, but you've come to understand that little is relative.

To Mr. Kitty, everything is little. The Backrooms are little. Time is little. The enormous, life-destroying pain you're feeling right now is little. Not because it doesn't matter but because it exists within a framework so vast that even devastation is a passing thing for him.

“No,” you answer honestly. “I feel awful.”

Mr Kitty's head inclines. A slow, measured tilt that you've learned to read as acknowledgement. He doesn't offer comfort. He doesn't say it'll be okay or this too shall pass or any of the empty phrases that people deploy when they can see someone hurting and don't know what else to do.

“Have you ever experienced anything like this?” you ask, wiping your eyes with the heel of your hand. “This mess. This kind of—”

You gesture vaguely at the room, at yourself.

No.

A pause.

I'm not human.

You stare at him. His blank face gives nothing back. The delivery is so flat, so matter-of-fact, so completely devoid of inflection that it takes your exhausted brain a second to register that the seven-foot faceless entity crouched in a bedroom full of Hello Kitty memorabilia has just delivered the driest possible response to your question.

You snort wetly despite yourself, wiping your nose.

“Is everyone okay? Out there?”

The humans are safe. They've eaten. I've provided almond water. It helps with the psychological effects of prolonged exposure. The mind frays here. Theirs will fray faster than yours did. A pause. The blank head angles slightly, as if consulting a source of information you can't perceive. The older man… he was located. But he refused to come with my guidance. He's making his way back toward the entry point on Level 2. Alive, as far as I'm aware. Frightened. But alive.

“Thank you.” The words come out thin. Insufficient. You're thanking a being older than human civilisation for babysitting your kinda-boyfriend and his new girlfriend while tracking down your former employer through an interdimensional nightmare. “For all of this. For letting us—”

You're welcome in this house. You've always been welcome.

Your fingers dig into the pillow. “What about BB?”

Mr. Kitty's head tilts again. The angle is different this time, sharper, more deliberate.

The Backrooms are in disarray. An observation, not a complaint. Entity X's presence has had an unusual cascading effect. Smilers are ranging further. Skin-stealers have been reported on levels they typically avoid. Another pause. His faceless head angles toward the window, toward the levels that stretch below and above and in every impossible direction. Your boy is clearing up the mess.

Your boy. Indulgent, slightly bemused. You don’t correct him, not even now.

Entity X seems to have an unusual ability to affect other entities. Amplifying their aggression. Destabilising their territorial patterns. As if its presence is contagious. An emotional frequency that spreads through the hum, agitating everything it touches.

You think about Entity X. About the burning yellow eyes that never looked away. About the argument it played through the walls to lure you out. Why that conversation? Why your argument, specifically?

Why did it know what Bobby sounded like when he was shutting you out? The questions stack up in your head the way the entries stack in your notebook. Pattern without explanation. You can feel the shape of it, the edges pressing against the inside of your skull, but the centre won't resolve.

“Why me?” you ask, peering at Mr Kitty. “Why does it want me?”

Mr Kitty is silent for a long moment. His blank head angles toward you with that sharper tilt. As if he's reading something written on you in a frequency only he can perceive.

I have a theory. Measured. Careful. But theories without sufficient evidence are just stories. And stories can be dangerous in a place that listens and can make them a reality.

“Tell me.”

When you're ready to hear it, little one. When the answer won't do more harm than the question.

The deflection is gentle but absolute, and you know better than to push. Mr Kitty doesn't withhold out of cruelty. If he's not telling you, it's because the telling carries a weight he doesn't think you can hold right now.

You file it away. Another entry in the private section of the notebook. Another question with no answer.

“Has it—is it gone?”

Retreated. Very suddenly. For reasons I can't determine. Mr Kitty's face tilts back toward you. That concerns me more than its presence did. An entity of that power doesn't retreat without cause. It either ran into an unexpected problem, or it decided to wait for a better opportunity.

The words settle on your shoulders.

You sit for a moment longer. The pink room. The cookies. The faceless being in the corner, patient and still. The faint sound of voices from the living room floats over. Low, murmured, too indistinct to make out words. Bobby's voice. Kat's voice. Talking about you, probably. Talking about what comes next. Discussing whatever people do when the world has ended, and they're sitting in a pink house eating scones and trying to pretend their worldview hasn’t just shattered.

You reach for a cookie. Bite into it. It's good. Buttery, slightly sweet, with a texture that's almost right. The Backrooms' version of homemade, close enough that your tongue can't argue.

“I can't hide here forever,” you mumble, chewing. Your voice is scraped raw, and the cookie is doing nothing to fix that, but it's doing something for the rest of you. The simple, animal act of eating, of taking a thing and putting it in your body, of fuelling the machine. “Even though I want to.”

Mr Kitty says nothing. His blank face radiates with the particular silence that means I agree, and I'm glad you arrived there yourself.

You stand, pressing your palms against your eyes. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. In. Out. The way you breathe before entering a new level, before turning a corner in an unmapped corridor, or opening a door whose other side you can't predict.

The survival breath. The steadying edge you didn’t have back in the real world and only developed here. The willingness not to run away and hide.

You wipe your face one final time. Set the pillow down. Pick up the notebook from the bedside table where you placed it beside the cookies, pressing it against your chest. The weight of it is familiar, grounding, the only possession you have that still feels like yours.

“Thank you, Mr. Kitty.”

Eat another cookie before you go. You’ll need it.

You do as he instructs, then open the bedroom door. You walk down the short hallway of Mr. Kitty's house, past the framed Hello Kitty prints and down the stairs, stepping into the living room.

Bobby and Kat are sitting at the kitchen table.

Their heads are bowed. Close together. Kat's hand is on Bobby's forearm, and Bobby's other hand is pressed flat against the table, fingers splayed, bracing himself.

They're speaking in low voices. You catch the edge of a word. Your name, maybe. Or something that used to be your name before it became something else.

Bobby spots you first.

He stands immediately, like the sight of you alone gave him an electric shock. The chair scrapes the floor. His face is a mess of competing expressions: relief, tension, the careful, wary hope as eh drinks you in. The bruises on his throat have deepened. Dark purple against his tanned skin, four finger-marks and a thumb-mark, BB's handprint developing like a collar on his neck.

You catch the flicker across Kat's face, brief and involuntary. The subtle tightening around her eyes, the tiny pull at the corner of her mouth.

She was saying something to Bobby, and you interrupted it, and the hurt of being interrupted is tangled up with the hurt of being here at all, of sitting in a nightmare for a man who’s looking at another woman with that expression. That searching, desperate, is-she-okay expression that Kat has probably been working for months to earn, and you just walked in and collected without trying.

You see it. You look away from it.

You wrap your arms around yourself. One hand on each elbow, holding yourself together.

“You need to leave,” you tell them flatly. “Both of you. Right now. The Backrooms aren't safe for humans. They were never safe, but right now they're worse. Entity X destabilised everything. Every entity on every level is more aggressive than it should be and you don't have the training or the knowledge to survive that.”

“I'm not leavin' without you.” Bobby. Immediate. Jaw set, chin up, the Bobby-stubbornness that looks like courage and has always been, underneath, a different kind of fear. “I didn't come through a wall, walk through hell and get choked out by my own doppelganger to leave you down here alone. No way in hell.”

You level him with a flat look. The one you learned living here. A part of you wants to remind Bobby that he tore into you less than an hour ago, but he's calmer now. Past the initial, ugly shock.

Bobby surprises you by holding that look.

For a moment that stretches into two, then three. Then his jaw flutters, his gaze dropping, and you see it: the fight leaving him. Not because he agrees, or wants to, but because the woman standing in front of him is not the woman he lost.

The woman he lost was standing in a doorway with her keys and her heart in her eyes, waiting to be seen. The woman standing in front of him now has a notebook and a survival instinct, and she's not waiting for anything.

“BB,” you call out.

The air shifts. Between one breath and the next, there’s a displacement, and the pressure changes in your sinuses.

BB stands at the edge of the living room like he's been there the whole time, like he materialised from the wall, which he probably did. He's more put together than the last time you saw him. His face reset, the fissures sealed, the eyes back to Bobby's blue with only a thin ring of darkness at the outer edges. The black blood is gone. The torn shirt is the same, but he's cleaned the rest, reassembled the human costume with great care.

He looks at you and his whole body orients again. That magnetic pull, that compass-needle pivot, his weight shifting forward onto the balls of his feet, his chin lifting, his eyes searching your face with a hope so raw it makes your heart ache.

Because you called him. And the part of BB that lives underneath the fury and the ancient power and the territorial instinct—the part that learned to kiss you in a kitchen and asked am I doing it right and pressed his lips to your forehead because you taught him that tenderness—that part heard his name in your voice and came running. And he’s standing in front of you now, practically vibrating with a desperate, transparent hope that calling means forgiving.

It doesn't. He can see that too. The hope flickers. Dims. Holds, just barely, at the edges.

“I need you to take Bobby and Kat out,” you tell him calmly. The survival voice. “Back to the real world. Through the wall in Clark's basement.”

BB's expression morphs. A crease appears between his brows, a tightening at the corners of his mouth. He glances at Bobby, at Kat, and the glance carries a weight that isn't quite hostility. Closer to resignation.

“I can't,” he says.

“BB—”

“The path is gone.” He says it plainly, without the smooth, closed expression he wore when you asked if he knew Bobby was looking for you. “Entity X destroyed sections of Level 0 during the fight. The corridors between here and the adjacent entry point to the storage basement on Level 0 are collapsed. The hum no longer reaches those sections. They've been severed from the level entirely.”

You can feel everyone staring at BB as you absorb his words.

“Then find another way,” you say. “There are other exits. Other entry points. You've said—”

“The only feasible exit I can guarantee right now is the M.E.G. outpost.” BB's eyes are on you. Only you. Bobby might as well be furniture. “The one on the far side of Level 4. But the direct path from here is gone. We'll have to go through the Poolrooms, and cut across to Level 4 through the threshold at the deep end. From there it's a straight corridor to the outpost, but that corridor runs through a section of Level 4 that's been unstable since the cascade.” He pauses, weighing his words. “The Poolrooms should be passable. Level 4 is the risk. Entities might shelter there because the layout gives them cover. Under normal conditions it's manageable. Right now, with the aggression spike, it'll be hostile.”

You run the route in your head.

Level 974 to the transitional stairwell. Through the Poolrooms, warm chlorinated water and blue tile, a level you've mapped partially, three pages of the notebook dedicated to its spanning layout and the way sound carries across the surface.

You know the Poolrooms. BB took you there multiple times. You used them in the past for hygiene and a change of scenery both.

The water was warm, and the light was washed-out blue, and nothing lived in it that wanted to hurt you, at least not then.

From the deep end threshold into Level 4. The endless office complex, the one that looks like every corporate building you've ever been in hollowed out and stretched to infinity. Dark. Echoing. Full of cubicles and conference rooms and hallways that dead-end without warning.

You've only been there once, briefly, and your notes on it are thin at best.

Half a page, a rough sketch, a warning symbol in the margin.

“How far?” you ask.

“Through the Poolrooms, it's distance without danger. Level 4 is the gauntlet. Maybe an hour on foot, if the path holds without shifting and nothing's nesting in the corridor.” BB's expression goes tense, focused. “I'll clear what I can ahead of you. You navigate.”

“Wait, who's M.E.G.? What’s Poolrooms?” Kat’s voice floats over from the table, cautious but steady. “What even is that?”

“Research group,” you reply, turning to her. It's the first time you've spoken to her directly without anger in your voice, and you can feel the shift, the effort of treating her like a person instead of a scapegoat to your jealousy. “Explorers. They study this place. Map it. They've been operating down here for… I don't know how long. But they're organised. They have resources.” You pause. “I think they can be trusted. It might be the safest option.”

Kat nods, quick and decisive. The relief on her face is visible. Not at the thought of leaving you behind, or at winning some unspoken competition, but at the prospect of a plan. A structure. An exit with a name and a direction and people on the other side who might know what they're doing.

Kat is a practical woman in an impractical situation; you can tell as much, and the offer of practicality is the first solid ground she's stood on since she climbed through a wall in Clark's basement.

“Fine,” Bobby says quickly, his voice rough. “M.E.G. Great. Let's go.” He pushes off the table. “All of us.”

You inhale deeply. “Bobby.”

“I said I'm not leaving without you.” Louder. More determined. The Bobby-edge again, the blade under the casual, except there's no casual left. It's all blade now, all sharp. “I'll go with Kat. But I'm not walking through some—some exit and leaving you in this place. I'm not.”

BB's lips peel back. A flash of teeth behind the Bobby-mask, involuntary, predatory, the territorial snarl surfacing before he can catch it.

The sight of Bobby refusing to leave you, refusing to relinquish, insisting on staying close to the thing BB considers his triggers something primal in the entity underneath.

He catches it at once, swallowing over it. His lips close over his teeth, jaw clenching painfully. He doesn't speak. Just stares at Bobby with the flat, unblinking intensity that tells you he’s choosing, with considerable effort, not to put Bobby through another wall.

Bobby, to his credit, ignores him. Pointedly and aggressively, with that specific brand of human stubbornness. Bobby will not look at BB. Will not address BB. Only pretend that the thing wearing his face is not standing six feet away radiating enough barely-contained fury to crack plaster.

This is Bobby's version of control: the refused glance, the turned shoulder, the full-body declaration that you do not exist to me deployed by a man who’s terrified and is handling it the only way he knows how.

BB turns to you.

His expression changes immediately. The snarl evaporates. The territorial fury, banked. What replaces it is… you haven't seen this expression on him before. Grim. Drawn.

“The Backrooms are more dangerous than they've been in—” He pauses, choosing a unit of measurement you'll understand. “A very long time. Entity X's effect on the other entities hasn't fully dissipated. Level 4 will be a problem. The interior section between the threshold and the outpost is normally dead space. Empty offices, dead lights, nothing worth hunting in. Right now it's contested. Things are sheltering in the cubicle rows and conference rooms because the layout gives them cover, and they're angrier than they should be.” He twists his head, and you hear a crack follow the near reptile movement. “I'll move ahead. Clear what I can. You bring them through behind me. Move only when you’re certain, and stay together.”

You look at him. Really look, for the first time since earlier. Past the anger, and the betrayal, past the closed-off face and the too smooth expression and the omission that restructured everything between you. You look at BB, and you see—

He's thinner somehow.

The word isn't right, but it's the closest you have.

The Bobby-suit fits differently. Looser. The cheekbones more prominent, the jaw more defined, the chain at his rebuilt throat sitting lower against collarbones that press closer to the surface than they used to. He looks worn in a way that has nothing to do with clothing and everything to do with consumption.

And you understand, then, that the fight with Entity X and the sustained lockdown and the perimeter patrols and all the emotional turmoil earlier have been drawing from a reserve that isn't infinite.

As if even ancient things have a fuel line and his is running lower than you've ever seen it.

You choke the worry back. Push it down. Below the anger and the hurt, into a place where the things you can't afford to feel right now go to wait.

“Fine,” you say. “The M.E.G. outpost. Through the Poolrooms, across Level 4.”

You turn to Bobby and Kat. Bobby is standing by the table with his arms crossed and his jaw clenched rigid, staring at a random spot just past BB’s shoulder.

“Grab anything useful,” you instruct. “The almond water Mr. Kitty gave you if there's any left. Take that, don't spill it. Anything you can carry that isn't too heavy.” You glance at Bobby, stopping him in his tracks when he tries to approach you, his mouth open. “We're leaving right now. Not in ten minutes. Not after another argument. Now. Every second we stay is a second Entity X might come back and cause more damage.”

Bobby sucks in a breath, but the argument dies on his tongue. You watch it happen. He could spit back a thousand arguments, but you’re the one speaking and he hears the authority earned through months of exploration, notebooks, and close calls.

He doesn't trust the Backrooms. He doesn't trust BB. But somewhere underneath the hurt and the anger and a thousand unspoken things, Bobby Franklin still trusts you.

He grabs the water from the table without a word, shoving it in his jean pocket. His camera is gone—left on the floor in the junction room on Level 0, the first camera Bobby has ever abandoned—and his hands look wrong without it. Empty. Painfully exposed. Like a man missing a limb he didn't know was prosthetic until it was gone.

Kat gathers the remaining almond water, tucking what food she can into her hoodie pockets. Practical. Quick.

“Let's go,” you say.

You don't look at BB or at Bobby when you say it. You look at the door, at the path beyond it, at the route in your head that threads from 974 through the transitional stairwells to the Poolrooms and across Level 4 to the outpost, and you start walking.

They follow.

“Stay close to me at all times. Don't touch the walls and don’t trust any voices you might hear.”

Your voice rings flat. Instructional. Bobby and Kat fall into step behind you. Bobby first, Kat behind him, the formation you established at the threshold of Level 974 and haven't had to explain because the hierarchy asserted itself the moment you started walking.

You lead. They follow.

The notebook is open in your hand, a pen gripped in your other, and you're annotating as you move. Small marks in the margins, corrections, new landmarks added to half-finished maps.

The stairwell between 974 and the Poolrooms is narrower than you remember. The lights are different. Dimmer. The hum is carrying a frequency you've never heard before. A low, dissonant undertone, like a second voice buried beneath the first, and you don't like it.

Something skitters in the walls.

The sound is dry and rapid, claws or teeth or something with too many joints moving through a space between surfaces, and it tracks your group for three corridors before fading into the deeper dark.

Bobby's breathing changes behind you. Faster. Controlled, but faster. He's holding it together for now, jaw locked, hands fisted, the physical performance of calm layered over a body that is screaming at him to run.

Kat grabs the back of his shirt, her knuckles blanching from how hard she grips. He doesn't shake her off.

The stairwell descends, the air changing the lower you go. Warmer, carrying a chemical sweetness that prickles in your nose and coats the back of your throat. Chlorine.

The smell of it hits your chest like a memory: public pools in the valley, summer afternoons, the way the chemical tang used to cling to your hair for days. Except this chlorine is wrong. Too sweet, too warm. Like the Backrooms took the concept of a swimming pool and replicated it from the smell up, getting the details slightly off.

“What is that?” Kat wonders from behind Bobby, her voice raspy.

“Chlorine,” you answer. “We're close to the Poolrooms.”

“Right. The Poolrooms."

You don't answer. The stairwell opens up, and Level 37 unfolds in front of you.

Water. Everywhere. Still, warm, impossibly blue; a type of blue that doesn't exist in nature, that sits somewhere between swimming pool and bioluminescence, casting its light upward onto tiled walls and low ceilings and pillars that descend into the water at regular intervals.

The room is vast, the ceiling dipping low. The combination creates a sort of compression. Intimate and infinite at the same time, the sense of a space that goes on forever in a room you can almost touch the top of. The water is clear to the bottom. The tiles beneath it are white, clean, pristine, stretching into a distance that the blue light eventually swallows.

No sound except the dripping water. The gentlest possible lapping against tile, rhythmic, hypnotic, the sound of a surface that is barely being disturbed by something you can't see. The hum is different here. Softer, rounded, the dissonant undertone from the stairwell dissolved into sound almost musical.

The Poolrooms absorb aggression the way water absorbs heat. BB was right. Nothing agitated shelters here.

“Jesus Christ,” Bobby says quietly, staring at the water with wide-eyed awe.

You wade in first, and the water is mercifully warm. Body temperature, lapping at your ankles, then your calves, then your knees as the floor descends in a gentle gradient. Your bare feet find purchase on the tiles below.

You've been here before and know the depth map. There’s shallow sections that hug the walls, and the deeper channels between the pillars which intercut with the point near the centre. That’s where the floor drops and the water reaches your waist, the blue light intensifying until the whole room looks like the inside of a sapphire.

Bobby and Kat follow behind you. Slower, less sure.

Kat gasps when the water reaches her thighs. Bobby is silent, wading after you without a word. He scans the surface, the pillars, the low ceiling, and you can see him searching for threats the way you used to. With that raw, untrained hypervigilance you had in the beginning when you could tell something was wrong but didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what.

You navigate by the pillars. Third from the left, then straight, then angled right toward the far wall where the tiles change colour. White to grey to a faint, barely-visible green that marks the deep-end threshold.

BB showed you this path. BB walked it with you, his hand at your back, his cool skin a contrast to the warm water.

And BB's presence now is a pressure at the edges.

You can't see him. Haven't seen him since you left 974. But you can feel the evidence of his passage all the same. A corridor that should have been obstructed, clear. A sound in the distance that starts hostile and cuts out abruptly.

Then a silence that follows when something deadly, fast and ancient has moved through a space and left nothing alive behind it.

He's ahead of you, running interference, clearing the route the way he said he would. And even through the hurt, the reliability of it—the kept promise, the maintained commitment to your safety—swells a lump in your throat you can’t quite swallow over.

Behind you, Kat mumbles something, a joke maybe, chuckling weakly even when Bobby doesn’t join in. His reply is swallowed by water churning around your waist.

“How long did it take?”

You say it without turning around. Your voice carries across the water, bouncing gently off the tiled walls, and the acoustics of the Poolrooms give it a quality that sounds almost peaceful, almost conversational.

Bobby's wading pauses. A half-step. Then he catches up. “What?”

“Before you slept with her.”

Behind Bobby, Kat makes a small, indignant sound, an inhale that she catches in her throat, and then silence again. Just the three of you wading through water in a room that shouldn't exist.

You wait for the usual: the blade, the joke, the easy redirect, maybe even anger. But he surprises you again.

“Fifteen months.” The damaged vocal cords give the words a rough, scraped quality. “After you disappeared. Not after—not after the store. Not after Clark kicked me out. Months after that. She'd been...” He trails off, water sloshing around his hips. “Kat was just there. Every day. And I was—I wasn't okay. I wasn't anything close to okay, and I thought I’d never see you again. And one night I just—” He pauses, breath catching in his chest, refusing to look at you or at Kat while he speaks. “Fifteen months. It took fifteen months.”

Your stomach turns. A slow, visceral roll, nausea that has nothing to do with the chlorine and everything to do with the number.

Fifteen months of absence before the body you loved pressed itself against someone else.

Fifteen months of grief before the hands that used to find the small of your back in a crowd found someone else's waist in the dark.

You do the math. You can't help it. The inventory brain, the cataloguing brain, calculating: he thought you were dead. Everyone had forgotten you. The tapes were blank. Fifteen months is a long time when grieving. Fifteen months of believing the person you love is gone is a long time.

The math doesn't help. Not even a little bit. The pain blooming in your chest is too blinding and too scalding to lean on logic right now.

You nod. Once. Keep wading, your teeth sunk into your cheek to stop yourself from being petty, trying your hardest to understand.

“Did you?” Bobby asks. His voice is different now, quieter, stripped of the combative edge from earlier, carrying instead a fragility that doesn't suit his face. “BB. Did you—with him?”

“No.”

Bobby exhales. A breath he's been holding since Mr Kitty’s house, maybe longer, released through his nose in a long, shuddering stream. The relief on his face is naked and immediate, and you can see it from the corner of your eye even without turning to look at him.

“I taught him to kiss,” you admit, still staring straight ahead. At the pillars, at the blue, at the threshold approaching in the distance. “But it took months. He didn't… he'd never touched anyone. Never been touched. I taught him to dance first. Then the kiss.”

Bobby lets out a soft, bitten scoff. Air pushed through his teeth, his head turning away, and you brace for the quip, for Bobby's deflection mechanism deploying against the image of his own face learning to kiss from the woman he loves.

But the scoff dies without becoming a sentence. It lacks heat., and it lacks edge. It's just a sound a man makes when he's hearing something that hurts in a way his defences can't react against.

When you glance at him, Bobby's face is sad. Not angry like earlier, just sad.

The anger burned out somewhere in the Poolrooms, extinguished by the tranquil water and the washed light, and what's left is just Bobby. Heartbroken. Worn to the bone by grief and stress. Looking at you in the blue glow with his eyes full and his jaw loose, his whole face creased with emotion Bobby Franklin has spent his entire adult life refusing to let sit on his features unchecked.

He opens his mouth. His lips form the beginning of a word—your name, maybe, or something else, something that's been sitting behind his teeth for eighteen months waiting for you to be close enough to hear it—but you turn away. Keep walking.

The water parts around your waist and the threshold is ten metres ahead, and you keep walking because if you stop, if you let Bobby say whatever he's about to say with that face in this blue light, you will not be able to handle it.

You're not going to have this talk with him now, while Kat is right there.

“We're close,” you say instead. “The threshold is at the deep end. Keep your heads up.”

Level 4 is wrong.

The threshold deposits you in a corridor that looks like every office building you've ever been in.

Fluorescent-lit, drop-ceiling, grey carpet, cubicle partitions stretching into a distance that the lights don't fully reach. It should be mundane. It should be the most boring level in the Backrooms. An infinite corporate complex, all right angles and fire exits that don't actually exit and conference rooms with whiteboards still carrying the ghosts of meetings that never happened.

You've seen it before. Your notes describe it as low-threat, low-entity, dead space.

Your notes are wrong.

The lights flicker. Every third tube is dead, creating pockets of darkness between the lit sections, and the darkness is too deep. A dense, weighted thing. The cubicle rows stretch to the left and right, and the partitions are higher than you remember. Head-height, blocking sightlines, creating corridors within corridors, and the air smells like old paper and burnt plastic.

“Stay behind me,” you whisper, your heart rate picking up even as you fight to keep your tone level. “Single file. Don’t speak above a whisper.”

Your feet carry you through the cubicle rows. Past desks with dead monitors and phones with their receivers off the hook, and coffee cups with something growing in them that you don't look at closely. The carpet muffles your steps. Bobby and Kat are ghosts behind you. Silent, moving when you move, stopping when you stop, their breathing controlled, shallow, and terrified.

There’s sudden movement in the cubicle row to your left.

You freeze. Hand up, the signal you developed on Level 1 with BB, palm flat, fingers spread, stop now. Bobby and Kat stop at once.

The movement continues, a shape passing behind the partition, visible through the gap between the top of the cubicle wall and the drop ceiling. Tall. Hunched. Moving with a liquid, boneless gait that doesn't match any anatomy you've catalogued. It passes through the row parallel to yours, separated by one partition, close enough that you can hear the sound it makes. A wet, clicking respiration, each breath accompanied by a small pop, like a joint dislocating and relocating with every inhale.

It passes, the clicking fading into the background as it goes. You count to thirty before you move again.

Two more corridors follow. You pass a conference room with the door ajar, and inside you spot something that looks like skin draped over a chair. Smooth, pale, and gently rising and falling with a respiration you can see from the doorway. You steer them around it. Wide. Bobby's eyes find it through the gap, and his face goes grey while Kat presses her face into his shoulder and doesn't look.

The evidence of BB is everywhere.

A corridor that ends in a smear of black against the wall. Fresh, wet, still dripping. A fire exit door buckled inward from a force applied on the other side, the metal warped around a handprint that's too large to be human. A section of cubicles reduced to kindling, the partitions shattered, the desks overturned, and in the centre of the wreckage a shape. Crumpled and motionless, its limbs arranged at angles that suggest it was alive when it was rearranged and is not alive now.

You don't let Bobby and Kat see this one. You route them around the long way, through a break room with a vending machine that hums with a frequency that makes your ears ring.

The M.E.G. outpost is close. You can feel it.

A shift in the hum, a thinning of the air that means a threshold is near. The levels get permeable around outposts, BB told you once. The boundaries soften.

You round the corner into a wider corridor—open-plan, the cubicles giving way to a broad hallway with glass-walled offices on either side—and you see the equipment. Monitors. Cables. A mounted camera fixed to the wall at head height, its red recording light blinking steadily. Sensor arrays bolted to the ceiling tiles. Data collection equipment arranged along the corridor walls with the organised, labelled precision of people who’ve been here a long time and plan to stay.

“M.E.G.,” you say, exhaling. The relief that pangs your chest is almost physical. A loosening in your shoulders, a softening in the grip of your hand on the notebook. “We made it. This is their monitoring station. The outpost should be just ahead. We just need to—”

The hands come from behind you.

Three sets. Gloved. They grab your arms, your shoulders, the back of your neck, practised and coordinated.

You're yanked backwards off your feet, and the notebook hits the floor, your spine slamming against a body wearing tactical gear, a muffled voice barking something clipped into a radio, and the hands are everywhere. On your wrists, pinning your arms, dragging you sideways toward a section of corridor you haven't mapped.

These aren't M.E.G.

The gear is different. Same black from the first attack, not yellow. No patches, no insignia, no identification. The faces behind the balaclavas are blank and professional, and they are not studying you. They’re collecting you, the way you'd collect a sample they failed to collect the first time around.

Bobby's scream rips through the corridor.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER—GET OFF—”

He's fighting. You can hear it behind you, the sounds of a man throwing himself at something larger and better-armed, the crack of a fist against body armour, the grunt of impact. Bobby's voice, raw and shredded and operating on pure adrenaline, screaming obscenities that echo off the walls while someone restrains him.

“Leave them,” one of the agents says into the radio, his voice clipped, indifferent. “The woman is the objective. Leave the other two for the others, it’ll buy us some time.”

For the others. The words register with a cold, clinical clarity. Leave Bobby and Kat in a Level 4 corridor swarming with agitated entities and walk away. Leave them to die. Leave them as discarded variables in whatever equation these people are solving, the irrelevant remainder, the human wreckage.

Your rage swells to near blinding.

A sudden, massive, tidal expansion in your chest, filling every cavity, pressing against your ribs and your throat and the backs of your eyes.

The agent's hand is on your arm, and the grip is iron and Bobby is screaming. Kat is somewhere behind you shouting, and these people are going to leave them here to die. And the anger is so total, so complete, so enormous that it bypasses your brain entirely and becomes a physical thing, a vibration, a frequency—

The hands holding you fall off.

You stumble forward. The grip just… released. You spin, expecting to see BB, expecting the displaced air and the black eyes and the sound of the hum—

The agent who was holding you is staring at his hands. What's left of them anyway. His gloves end at the wrist, and below the wrist there is nothing. Smooth and cauterised, the flesh sealed as if the hands were never there to begin with.

He hasn't started screaming yet. The shock is still travelling from his eyes to his brain to his vocal cords.

You turn.

Entity X is standing in the corridor behind you.

The fluorescent lights are red again. That deep, arterial crimson that transforms the office corridor into a living organism. Red light pulses, filling the hallway from floor to ceiling, its matte, leathery skin absorbing the crimson until it looks like the corridor itself has grown a body. The featureless face is smooth and wrong, but then the eyes peel open again at your presence, and the burning yellow fixes on you at once.

On you. Only you. As always.

You stumble backwards, your heel catching a cable on the floor. You barely keep your feet.

Entity X is three metres away, and it reaches for you—the arm extending, elongating, the joints clicking with a sound like knuckles cracking in an empty room—and its chest produces a noise.

Low. Gurgling. A wet, clicking sound that lives somewhere between a purr and the settling of bones, repetitive and rhythmic and deeply, fundamentally wrong in a way that your brain can’t place.

It's a sound without analogue. A sound that a body makes when it has no face to express what it's feeling and must channel everything through the mechanics of its torso, and the sound is fixated. Directed at you.

The audio equivalent of the eyes that never leave.

“Get away from me.” Your voice comes out harder than you expect. Sharper. The fear is there. Your heart is slamming, your palms are slick with sweat, your legs trembling beneath you, but your anger is louder. The rage that swelled in your chest hasn't receded. It's sitting right behind your teeth, and when you speak it comes out as a command, not a plea. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Entity X cocks its head.

The motion is slow. Curious. The massive featureless head tilts to one side with an almost canine quality. It’s almost the same tilt BB does, just wrong, and for one terrible second the gesture looks interested. Like it heard you. Understood what you meant. Like your anger registered as something other than a feeble attempt at resistance, and the fury in your voice is a thing it recognises, that it wants.

The agents regroup behind you. Three of them. The handless one is on the floor, in shock. The others raise weapons. Compact and military-grade, and open fire.

Entity X doesn't look at them.

The bullets hit its torso and sink into the matte skin like stones into mud, and Entity X's arm sweeps sideways, casual and unhurried, the way you'd brush a fly, and the agent closest to it comes apart.

Messily. The one behind him fares worse. The sounds are wet, almost mechanical and over very quickly, leaving nothing but puddles of gore on the floor.

Entity X does all of it without moving its eyes from you once. Bored. Performing violence with the same disinterested efficiency that a human swats insects. The agents are not a threat, not an obstacle, not even a distraction.

Entity X silences them and returns its full focus on you, and the clicking sound continues in its chest, steady, rhythmic, almost gentle.

BB arrives like a thunder crack.

The air splits around you, the pressure wave alone knocking you sideways. Kat hits the floor rolling, and Bobby staggers into the glass wall of an office.

BB hits Entity X at full force, and the two of them crash through the corridor wall and into the space beyond. Cubicles disintegrate around them, ceiling tiles raining down, and the fluorescent tubes shatter in cascading waves as two things too large for this hallway tear it apart around each other.

BB's hand finds your shoulder. Between one collision and the next, between heartbeats. He's there, beside you, in front of you, his black eyes wild and his damaged face cracking, his grip on your shoulder bruising.

“The outpost. Go. Now.”

You run, reaching for Bobby blindly.

Bobby is already moving, Kat's hand in his, pulling her along, his legs unsteady but functional, his face a mask of focused terror.

You grab the notebook from the floor as you pass it, scrambling on your hands and knees. The three of you sprint down the corridor toward the monitoring equipment, toward the thinning in the air that means exit.

You spot them in the distance first.

Yellow suits and masks on. Four of them, clustered at the far end of the corridor around a section of wall that looks slightly different. Smoother, carrying a faint shimmer that you recognise as the visual signature of a no-clip point.

M.E.G. operatives. Real ones, in their trademark gear, and they're waving at you, frantic, urgent, beckoning you forward with the full-body gestures as the fight behind you intensifies.

Bobby's hand closes around your wrist, pulling you forward, and you're running together, his callused fingers locked on your pulse point.

For about three seconds, it's the parking lot at Clark's store, it's the apartment doorway, it's every moment he should have reached for you and didn't. Except now he's reaching, his hand is on you, now he's pulling you toward safety with a bruising grip that says I’m not letting go—

Entity X's hand closes around Bobby's torso.

The grab is sudden and massive, an arm extending from the wreckage of the corridor behind you, reaching over your head, the joints clicking in rapid succession as it unfolds to its full, telescoping length.

The clawed fingers close around Bobby's ribcage and lift. His hand tears from your wrist. His feet leave the ground. His body rises—up, up, Entity X hoisting him like he weighs nothing, his legs kicking, arms flailing, his face contorted with a terror so complete it erases everything else.

Entity X holds Bobby in the air and looks at you.

The burning yellow eyes, fixed. The clicking purr in its chest, steady. Holding Bobby in one hand the way you'd hold up a lantern, displaying him, presenting him, showing you the man in its grip and watching your face to see what you'll do.

“Let him go!” You slam your fists against Entity X's arm—the matte skin fever-hot and yielding and horrifyingly close to organic—and the contact sends a jolt through your system that feels like recognition, like touching a live wire, like something in Entity X's body responding to something in yours. “Let him go, put him down—”

Entity X peers down at you, his head tilting. Curious. Reading. The same interested quality from before. Your hands are on its arm, and it's letting you hit it, absorbing the blows with the patient stillness of a thing that wants to see how far the anger goes.

It throws Bobby.

A casual, underhanded toss, its wrist flicking, the arm releasing, Bobby's body sailing through the air of the corridor and hitting the wall near the no-clip point with a sound that empties your lungs. He crumples. Slides down the wall. You lurch towards him, but Entity X’s clawed hand closes over your throat, yanking you back toward it.

Kat's scream is a bright, piercing thing that cuts through the red light and the clicking, and the M.E.G. operatives move. Two of them grab Bobby under the arms, a third seizing Kat, who was running toward him, dragging them toward the shimmer in the wall.

Bobby is dazed.

His head rolls to one side, his eyes unfocused, blood from a gash above his eyebrow streaming down the side of his face. But he's fighting.

Even concussed, even barely conscious, his hands are grabbing at the M.E.G. operative's jacket, his body lurching back toward the corridor, back toward you, and his mouth is forming your name.

You can see it, can read it on his lips, the shape of the word you taught him to say in a hallway in high school in your junior year, and his eyes find yours through the blood and the chaos and the red light and for one second the corridor contracts to the width of that gaze.

You and Bobby. Looking at each other across a distance that is about to become permanent.

The M.E.G. operatives haul him through. Bobby's reaching hand—the same hand that dropped a camera for you, that grabbed your wrist, that used to find the small of your back in a crowd and cup your face before he kissed you—disappears through the shimmer, still reaching. Kat follows, and the wall smooths over again. The no-clip point seals.

They're gone.

Entity X stands behind you. The clicking sound in its chest shifts, lowering, a frequency that almost sounds satisfied. It adjusts its grip on you.

BB's fist connects with the side of Entity X's torso.

The impact sends the massive red body sideways, slamming into the corridor wall with enough force to buckle the drywall and shatter every remaining light tube within a fifty-foot radius.

The red light dies, plunging the space into darkness lit only by Entity X's yellow eyes and the faint, colourless glow leaking through the cracks in BB's ruined face.

BB's hand finds your shoulder.

The world folds.

The displacement dumps you onto the grass of Level 14, and the impact is soft, yielding, the earth absorbing you the way the Poolrooms absorb sound.

You land on your hands and knees, and the grass is cool and damp against your palms, and you gasp. Pull air in through your teeth. Your lungs are burning. Your ribs ache from the displacement, from the running, from the screaming, from the hours or minutes or however long it's been since you ate a cookie in the pink bedroom and walked into the worst day of your life.

BB is beside you. On his knees. His hands on your arms, your shoulders, running over you with that focused, diagnostic urgency. He’s checking for injuries, for broken things he can fix with his hands, because the broken things he can't fix are piling up faster than he can count.

His fingers press against your ribs. Your wrists. His eyes search your face with a desperation that’s stripped away the last of the Bobby-mask. What's looking at you is BB, just BB, the cracks in his face leaking that pale light, his jaw pulsing, his mouth pressed into a tight line.

“You're not hurt,” he says. Half-statement, half-question, his hands lingering on your shoulders. “Tell me you're not hurt.”

You shake your head because you can't speak yet.

The breath is still caught somewhere between your diaphragm and your throat, snagged on the adrenaline. On the afterimage of Bobby's reaching hand disappearing through the wall, and the sound of Entity X's clicking purr.

You fall back onto the grass, press your palms over your eyes, and breathe. In. Out. In. Out. The stream somewhere behind you moves over its stones with the gentle, trickling sound while golden light drips over your shaking hands.

It takes minutes. Several.

The shaking subsides in stages. Hands first, then arms, then the deep tremor in your core that's been running since since the red light, since the first time you heard Entity X's clicking in the corridor and knew, with a certainty that bypassed logic, that it was coming for you.

The shaking stops, your breathing evening out. Your hands drop from your face, and the meadow is still there. All of it. The tall grass, the fallen log, the amber sky that never changes. BB sits across from you with his knees drawn up and his forearms resting on them and his face wearing the careful, watchful expression.

You rub your face. Drag your fingers across your eyes, your cheekbones, the tight muscles at your jaw. Working off the edge. Pressing the panic down into the place where it can be stored and processed later, when BB isn't watching, when the aftershocks have enough room to shake without an audience.

“Entity X is gone,” BB says quietly after another moment, testing. His voice is low and rough, stripped of its usual easy warmth. “They retreated. Again. Whatever he wanted—” He looks troubled, genuinely so. “Bobby and Kat are through. The M.E.G. have them. They're out of the Backrooms.”

You nod, staring blankly at the grass between your knees.

“You did it.” Softer now. Almost gentle. The voice from the kitchen, from the dance, from the mornings he'd say hey, baby and the world would shrink to the width of his full mouth. “You got them through. They're safe because of you. And I can—I'll rebuild. The apartment. The sublevel. I'll find Entity X and after I've dealt with it, we can—”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

BB falls silent.

A bird, the same small brown bird, or one just like it, lands on the branch above the fallen log and tips its head and watches you with one bright black eye.

“About Bobby.” Your voice is calm. Scraped clean of anger, clean of accusation. Just the question, unadorned, sitting in the air between you. “You heard him. Through the wall, same as me. For months. You heard him looking for me. You knew he loved me. You knew he was sitting three inches away from the entry point, saying the things I needed to hear.” You look at BB. His face, Bobby's face, the face you touched and kissed and studied in firelight and fluorescent light and the blue glow of the Poolrooms. “Why didn't you tell me, BB?”

BB is quiet for a long time. The bird chirps a few times in the tree above. The amber light paints his cracked and healing face, and the tense silence between you fills with the full weight of every answer he could give and the inadequacy of all of them.

“I heard how lonely you were.” Picking through the words the way you'd pick through wreckage, testing each one before putting weight on it. “Before you came through. When you were alone in the basement, on the late shifts. I heard what loneliness sounded like in your voice. And when you were here—when you cried, when you talked about him, when you said he stopped seeing me—I thought—” He falters, shifting in such an shy, human way you almost soften. “I thought we were the same. That our loneliness was the same. Mine and yours. And that I could—”

“That's not what I asked,” you intone coolly.

BB flinches. His fingers curl against his forearms, pressing into the fabric of his ruined shirt as he ducks his head lower.

“BB. Tell me the truth.”

BB's face visibly contorts with pain, his features rearranging around an admission he's been carrying for months the way you carried your anger. Not smoothing over. Not closing off. Just hurting.

“I knew you still loved him,” he admits, barely above a whisper. His eyes fix on the grass, unable to look at you. “I could hear it. Every time you said his name. Every time you cried about him. Every time you talked about the apartment, the mornings you shared, the way he used to look at you. You never stopped loving him. And I—” His voice thins, fraying. “I thought if you knew he was looking, if you knew he was right there, you'd leave. You'd go back through the wall and I'd—”

He stops, swallowing thickly. The sound is audible. The borrowed mechanism of a throat that doesn't need to swallow performing the gesture anyway because the emotion behind it is real even if the body isn't.

“I know it was selfish,” he adds in a hushed whisper.

You gaze at him blankly for what feels like a small eternity.

“You didn't just withhold it.” Your voice is steady, but your hands are shaking again. Anger and grief coiling together so tightly you can't separate them, can't feel where one ends and the other begins. “You used my loneliness. You heard me at my lowest, and you leaned into it. You built a life around my isolation because as long as I was isolated, as long as I didn't know there was something to go back to, I'd stay. With you. That's not love, BB. That's keeping.”

BB's head snaps up. His eyes are bright and wounded, but the expression on his face is gutted. Sheer hollowed-out devastation of hearing the worst possible interpretation of the best thing he ever did and recognising, with a clarity that makes his whole face crumble, that the interpretation isn't wrong.

“That's not—” he starts shakily. Tries again. “I didn't—I wasn't trying to—”

“But it's what you did.” Quiet. Final. “Regardless of what you meant. Regardless of how well you meant it. That is exactly what you did. You heard a woman crying about being invisible, and instead of telling her she was being looked for, you made yourself the only thing she could see.”

The amber light falls on his struck face, and the cracks in it have stopped leaking, the damage from the fight slowly closing, and the face that's left is Bobby's, wearing an expression he never wore.

Raw and open, and so deeply, completely sorry that the air around it seems to bend.

“You were happy,” he says quietly. Almost to himself. Like he's testing the memory against the accusation, holding them up side by side to see if they can coexist. “You started smiling again. Laughing. When we walked through the Poolrooms the first time, you laughed at something I said and the sound—” His voice catches. “The sound was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. I thought—I thought I was fixing it. The loneliness. The pain. I thought if I could just—keep you safe, keep you close, give you everything he didn't—you wouldn't need to go back. You wouldn't want to. And that would be enough.”

Your eyes burn, tears pressing forward, hot and insistent, and you clench your jaw against them.

Because you can hear his sincerity. The genuine, unperformed, unhuman sincerity. He heard you cry through concrete and decided, with the full weight of its ancient and limited understanding, that the solution to your pain was its presence. 

BB didn't think he was trapping you. BB thought he was saving you.

The distinction doesn't make it okay. The distinction makes it worse because it means the thing that hurt you was trying, with every tool it had, to love you well. And its best tool was deception.

“You should have told me.” Tears are falling now, and you don't wipe them. “You should have given me the information. All of it. And then you should have let me choose. Even if the choice was leaving. Even if the choice was him. You should have let it be my choice, BB. That's what love does. It doesn't decide for the other person. It doesn't curate the options to guarantee the outcome you want. It gives them everything, and it lets them choose, and it survives the choosing, even if the choice breaks it.”

BB says nothing. His eyes fix on yours, and his expression is accepting. Terrible, slow, grinding acceptance. The kind that arrives not all at once but in layers, each one heavier than the last, pressing down on whatever passes for his heart.

“I didn't want to lose you,” he whispers, his voice catching. “I'm sorry. I—I didn't want to lose you.”

You sit across from the being who built you a kitchen and taught itself to kiss and pressed its mouth to your forehead every morning so it could lie to you with every tender gesture because the truth would have set you free and freedom was the one thing it couldn't give.

You breathe in, glancing up at the sky. At those breathtaking gradients of gold and amber, laced with violet at the edges. The sky that never changes, the eternal late afternoon of a level called Paradise that exists inside a place that shouldn't exist at all.

You look back at BB.

“Do you know why I stayed?” you ask softly. “In the beginning. When I found out you weren't actually Bobby. Do you know why I didn't run?”

BB's face tightens, and the pain that crosses it is visible, bright hot.

“Because of the face,” he says, low and pained. The words dragged out of him like splinters from beneath the skin. “Because I look like him. Because you love him. Because you wanted him—always him, always Bobby—and I was close enough.”

Your eyes fill. The tears spill over fresh, tracking down your cheeks, and you stand. Cross the distance between you. Close it. Three feet. Two. One. Until you're standing in front of him and he's looking up at you from the grass with Bobby's blue eyes and BB's anguish and the meadow light on both of you.

You touch his face.

Your fingertips on his cheekbone. The line of his jaw. The scar from the cabinet door that happened to someone else's body. Your thumb traces the corner of his mouth. That corner where the grin starts, the lopsided one, the one that's his and not Bobby's.

BB makes a sound. Low. Wounded.

A vibration that starts in his chest and comes through his throat as something between a sigh and a moan. His eyes close and his head turns into your palm, nuzzling closer. Desperate, pressing his face into your hand the way he did the first time you touched him. The sound he's making is continuous, a keening that he can't seem to stop, and his hand comes up and covers yours on his cheek and holds it there, feeling him shake.

“It was never about the face,” you choke out, your voice breaking. The tears fall freely now, and you let them. “It was you. Just you, BB. The way you listened. The way you learned me. The way you held me like I was the first thing you'd ever wanted to hold. The way you asked am I doing it right after kissing me, and the answer was always yes. It was always just you.”

BB's eyes crack open. Wet. Bobby's blue, glassy with a moisture that shouldn't be there, that his body doesn't produce, that has no biological mechanism to explain it… and yet. His lashes are dark and clumped, his eyes full and the expression in them is so devastated, so completely and utterly undone, that you have to look away.

You pull your hand back.

BB makes another sound. Louder. A moan that cracks open midway through and becomes something raw and guttural, a noise that comes from the place beneath the face, beneath the voice, from whatever vast and ancient thing lives at the core of him and is now experiencing, for the first time in its incomprehensible existence, the human agony of being left by the person it loves.

“No,” he breathes. “Please. No, no.”

You lower your head. “Take me to the M.E.G. outpost.”

“Please.” His hand reaches for yours but catches only air. You've stepped back and his fingers close on nothing and his face—Bobby's face, BB's face, the face that learned to smile because you smiled first—contorts. “Don't. Don't leave. You can't—I'll fix it. I'll tell you everything, I'll never keep anything from you again, I'll—”

“BB.”

“—the apartment, I'll make it better. I'll find Entity X and end it, and you'll be safe. You'll be safe forever, I can keep you safe, please, I can—”

You can barely speak. “BB. Stop.”

He stops, his mouth trembling. The word he was forming dies on his tongue. His eyes rest on you, wide and wet, terrified.

“All that's waiting out there is a life that hurt you,” he blurts out, desperate. The words tumble, tripping over each other. BB, who is rarely inarticulate, is now struggling to assemble sentences fast enough to change the outcome. “Illness and old age and people who forgot you and—and a man who didn't see you until you were gone. That's what's on the other side of the wall. You’ll d-die. I… no. Please, no. Not you, not you.”

Your heart is ripping apart. A physical sensation of something in your chest being torn in two directions at once, the fibres separating, the tissue rending.

He's right. He's right about all of it. The world on the other side of the wall is the one that hurt you. The one that made you invisible. The one that let you stand in doorways waiting to be loved and answered with grunts and cold sheets and blank tapes that erased your face. There is nothing on the other side of the wall that is gentle the way BB is gentle, nothing that listens the way he listens, nothing that will press its mouth to your forehead every morning and hold you through the night and learn your name syllable by syllable.

But it's your life. The miserable, broken, painful, mortal thing. Yours.

“If you love me,” you say in a quiet rasp, each word costing a piece of your heart you can feel being subtracted from the centre of your chest. “If you love me the way you say you do. If that promise you made me meant anything at all, or the name I gave you meant anything... then you'll let me leave.”

BB stares at you. The tears—his tears, not Bobby's, the moisture that has no biological origin and exists only because the grief demanded a vessel—tracking down his cheeks, and where they fall the skin glows. Faint. Luminescent. A soft, shimmering iridescence that blooms along the tracks of the tears like bioluminescence, like foxfire, a visible signature of an inhuman emotion marking inhuman skin.

His agony written on his face in light.

BB reaches for your shoulder slowly. His hand is gentle, his touch almost absent.

The meadow folds around you, your stomach lurching. The golden light compresses, narrows, and when the world straightens again, you're standing in the corridor on Level 4.

The monitoring equipment. The cameras. The wall with the shimmer. The remains from operatives are mostly gone. Absorbed by the Backrooms, consumed by the level itself, the corridor healing over the evidence of violence the way skin heals over a wound. A few remain. Dark shapes at the periphery that you don't look at.

The no-clip wall is there. The shimmer and behind it the real world. A place where it rains, and people eat hotdogs and phone calls go unanswered. Where love atrophies through neglect and everyone you've ever known has forgotten your face.

And BB's hand rests on your shoulder, trembling openly. A hand that was built to hold on, that heard you, chose you, kept you, loved you and lied to you, and is now standing in a corridor doing the one thing it has never done.

Letting go.

His hand lifts from your shoulder.

You feel the absence instantly. The place where his palm was goes cold, the last physical connection between your bodies dissolving into air.

“Please,” he rasps behind you, low and shaking, stripped of everything. The charm, the cockiness, the ancient resonance, the hum's harmonic, all of it gone, the voice of a thing that has been reduced to its simplest possible setting: a being, in a hallway, begging. “Please stay. Please don't leave me alone again. Please.”

You turn, walking toward the wall. Your notebook tight against your chest.

“Please.” Louder, more frantic, the word cracking. “I'll be better. I'll tell you everything. I'll never lie to you again. I'll—I can change. I can learn. You taught me how to dance and how to kiss. How to hold you. Teach me this too, teach me how to let you be angry and still stay, teach me how to—”

You keep walking. The shimmer is close now. Five metres. Four.

“Please don't go.” His voice is climbing. Not in volume, in pitch. In frequency. The human register giving way to something else, something that vibrates in the walls and the floor, fillings in your teeth. “Please. I can't—I'll be alone. I'll be alone again. I was alone for so long, and then you were there, and I heard you. You were the first voice in—in—”

The sound fractures. Becomes a keening. A high, sustained, inhuman wail that has no words left in it, just the raw frequency of loss, a being older than language grieving in the only language it has left. Sound itself, vibration itself, the hum turned inside out and made to carry a weight it was never designed to hold.

You stop.

Your composure breaks. Silent tears pour down your face, and your mouth contorts, your chest heaving and you press the notebook against your sternum until it hurts. The keening behind you is the worst sound you’ve ever heard. Worse than the Smiler, worse than Entity X, worse than Bobby's voice saying baby? in a yellow corridor, because this sound has your name in it.

This sound is the noise a heart makes when it's too old and too vast and too full to survive what's happening to it.

You turn and look behind you.

The corridor is empty.

The shimmer on the wall pulses gently, waiting. And the space where BB stood—three metres back, in the corridor, where his voice was—is vacant. Just the flat, beige, infinite emptiness of a level that's been suddenly abandoned.

He's gone.

For all his power. For all the corridors he owns and the entities he's unmade and the levels he moves through like blood through a vein. For all the ancient, vast, immeasurable force that lives inside the Bobby-suit and behind the borrowed eyes and underneath the face he chose because he heard a woman crying and wanted to be the thing that made her stop.

The one thing BB couldn't do was watch you leave him.

You press your hands over your face, and you sob. Hard. A sound that comes from the bottom of your gut and fills the corridor and bounces off the walls and comes back to you changed, louder.

You scrub your face. The heels of your hands grinding against your eyes until white spots swim in your vision. You breathe wetly, straightening, and look toward the wall. The shimmering exit.

You step through.

Summerhall appears like a fortress carved from ivory amongst velvet green hills. Large windows glisten and reflect the midday sun, and the gardens tended around are thick and lush. Even the air is cooler out here, fresher than what traps stagnant in the alleys of your home slum. You can’t quite believe what you’re looking at as you clamber from the carriage with a timber-like stiffness in your bones. You clutch your satchel of medicinal supplies, a small trunk of your belongings at your feet.

Ahead of you, Aerion dismounts his horse with a flourish of his black cape. It billows around him like wings, and as he settles, his palfrey guided away by a servant, he spares a look in your direction. The corner of his lips quirk, something near a smile, as he appraises your expression of wonder, your eyes glittering as you stare up at the grand royal residence. Your fingers clutch nervously at your satchel, and there’s a subtle dip in your brow that tells Aerion all he needs to know.

But you’ll be fine here. You have him, after all.

He takes a few steps in your direction before he stops. He freezes, boots crushing gravel. There’s an obvious flex in his jaw as he watches a member of the kingsguard—oh, it’s Roland fucking Crakehall, Aerion immediately thinks—approach you with kind eyes and a disarming smile. Roland says something that snaps you out of your little trance, and you bow your head, saying something in return that makes the smile on Roland’s face split even wider.

Aerion watches you look up at Roland, and the nervous fidgeting of your fingers against the smooth leather of your satchel suddenly stops.

There’s a tick in his chest. A small, dull tug at the bottom of his heart and it sets off in a structured rhythm as he watches you and Roland interact. It has the nerves along his spine standing up, prickling with a heat he’s never felt before, venomous in its leeching through his diaphragm and up into his brain. He can taste it now—jealousy—and it’s sour on his pointed tongue, dripping from his teeth as his lip curls itself into a grimace.

He kicks himself from the gravel and approaches with meaningful strides. He feels the eyes of servants on him, hears the way they skitter out of his way like vermin. They drop their heads and lower their voices, and the tension that hangs treacle-thick in the air makes him feel great. It makes him feel alive.

He calls your name, and your eyes find his immediately. A rumble passes briefly through his aching chest, a proud purr as you respond so obediently to him. He snaps his fingers at a nearby servant then, gesturing to the wooden trunk at your feet. The servant nods, and immediately moves to pluck it from the ground and hurry towards the castle.

You frown. “Aerion, I am perfectly capable of—”

Roland speaks at the same time. “I was already offering—”

Aerion waves a hand, cutting both you and Roland off as though he had shouted at you. The silence is painful in the cool air, and you find yourself clutching your satchel firmly to your chest as the prince draws nearer.

“I will take my witch to her chambers,” Aerion says, and seizes you firmly by the elbow.

You do not dwell on the tightness of his fingers at your sleeve, nor do you dwell on his use of my witch. Instead, you offer Roland an apologetic smile as the prince all but drags you across the threshold, busy servants making quick work of throwing themselves out of his way.

You look around, possibly for someone to help. Not that you had belief anyone could save you from this situation, but maybe someone could at least offer you sympathy. But Prince Maekar was nowhere to be seen; neither were any of the other Targaryen siblings. Although, you think you catch a fleeting glimpse of dirty blond hair disappearing towards the kitchens, but that’s all it was: fleeting.

Aerion hauls you up a wide flight of steps, your footfall muffled by thick carpet. You shoot a glance downward as you ascend, in the general direction of the hall which would lead you, you’re sure of it, to the servants’ quarters. You were technically a servant.

“Your grace,” you begin as he hails you down a long corridor, grip still unrelenting on your arm. “Should I not take residence with the other servants? Surely—”

“You are not sleeping alongside the help.”

You scowl at his tone. “Well, I am the help, your grace.”

Aerion scoffs, pulling you around a corner. There’s another long hall that stretches, lit up by sunshine and hues of green where light passes through stained glass. It’s also empty, and you yelp when Aerion spins around and slams you roughly against the wall. You drop your satchel on instinct, the bag falling to your feet with a clattering of glass bottles—thankfully, not glass breaking—as your hands shoot up. Your palms rest flat to his chest as he presses close to you, one of his hands still on your arm, the other caging you in, propped up against the wall by your head.

“You are not the help,” Aerion begins, voice low. His eyes flit across your face, violet irises bright. “You are my help. You help me. And because you help me—you’re here for me—you will take residence where I tell you, yes?”

Your hands tighten against the red velvet of his gambeson. “I don’t think—”

“Yes?” Aerion repeats, the fingers on your arm clamping down. There’s a bite of blunt nails through the material of your sleeve too, and you draw in a calming breath as you try not to melt beneath the heat of his violet stare.

“Yes, your grace,” you whisper, dropping your head.

Aerion huffs, the hand on the wall shooting across to seize your jaw. You blow out an exasperated sigh through your nose as he forces you to look at him. The pads of his fingers are soft against the bone of your jaw, but his grip is tight. Unyielding.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” he says, cocking his head. He raises his eyebrows, imploring, waiting for you to speak again. “Speak up.”

“Yes, your grace,” you echo, louder this time. Your voice carries in a murmur down the hall, and you grimace hearing yourself bounce from the ornate walls.

But it pleases the prince, for he breaks out into a vulpine smile and pats your cheek firmly before stepping back. You release a tense breath, collecting your satchel from the ground as Aerion resumes his hold on your arm and leads you down the hall.

After a moment, he gestures to a door with a torch mounted to the wall nearby.

“These are my chambers,” he tells you, then leads you further down the hall. You pass by several more doors before the hall’s end greets you, where a door sits beneath a large Targaryen banner. He opens the door with a heavy hand. “And these are yours.”

The room is… not small. It’s grand and spacious, with the largest bed you’ve ever seen taking up a considerable amount of space to the right. Tall, latticed windows allow bright light to stream in, resembling ghostly fingers reaching for the Myrish carpet that covers the floor. There’s an empty hearth, plush chairs, and a writing desk nearby too. The desk is bare, and you approach it tentatively, placing your satchel down. As you take off your travelling cloak, draping it across the desk, you notice that your trunk of belongings already sits at the foot of the bed.

“This is excessive…” you find yourself muttering, turning and leaning back against the solid wooden desk.

Aerion looks at you from the doorway. “This is what you get.”

You grip the edge of the desk, looking around. “It’s not that I’m unappreciative, but—”

“Then thank me,” Aerion interrupts, stepping forward. He closes the door. “Say thank you.”

You look at him as he slowly crosses the room. You utter softly, “Thank you.”

“Thank you what?” Aerion stands before you now, trapping you against the desk. 

You can feel the heat radiating from his body; the blemishless shine of his pale skin. He leans in close and you can feel his breath ghost across you, tainted with mulberries and hazel. 

“Thank you, your grace,” you reply, challenging his gaze.

He grunts, a rough sound from the back of his throat, as he grabs your wrist. You let him steal your hand away from the desk, and you let him press your palm flat to the front of his trousers as he leans in closer. You smell ash and lavender wax soap across his skin. You bite your lip, ignoring the sudden wash of heat through your core, as he gently ruts his hips against your palm. There’s a shift beneath the fabric, and your lips part.

“Say it properly,” Aerion hisses, still looking at you. He runs your open palm against the front of his trousers, and you feel his cock give another jerk beneath the material. 

His hand is warm around your wrist, and you wonder if he can feel the thundering of your pulse beneath his thumb.

“Thank you, Aerion,” you whisper, and the lilt in your voice has his hips rolling deeper into your touch. “For the room.”

“Thank me for bringing you here,” he says quickly. He gently moves your hand up and down, and you can feel a tent pitching beneath your palm. “Tell me how lucky you are to be here with me.”

You frown, turning your head, his eye contact too intense. It’s cloying, overwhelming, molten heat that sticks to you the longer you look. You shake your head slightly, muttering, “Aerion—”

The prince’s other hand snaps up and grabs you harshly by the nape of your neck. He forces you to look at him, his other hand continuing to drag your palm across the bulge in his trousers. He looks at you, waiting.

“Say it.” It’s firm and venomous in its delivery.

The heat inside you doesn’t vanish. It swirls deeper, fills you broadly, and your free hand grips the edge of the desk in an effort to stop yourself from trembling.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” you say quietly, and you notice something flash in the violet of his eyes. You continue, “I am… I’m very lucky to be here.”

“With me,” Aerion utters, hand squeezing the back of your neck.

“With you,” you add, a little breathless.

Silence stretches. The distant rustling of leaves seeps in through the windows behind you, and the rush of blood in your ears is loud enough to bring you some sort of comfort. Aerion stares at you, blinking slowly, pupils tracing the lines of your face as he continues to gently move your hand against his covered cock. He’s so close that you can see the tiniest little scar just above his lip—a well-healed blemish you’ve never noticed before.

His eyes find your mouth.

You press your palm harder against the length of him, and he lets out a strained groan, before tipping forward. With his hand still on your nape, he cranes your head slightly so he can bury his face into the crook of your neck. He inhales deeply, the sensation causing a shiver to rocket down your spine. His pelvis presses closer then, trapping your hand between his hips and yours. He groans into your shoulder, mouth against bare skin where the neckline of your dress exposes you.

You feel his teeth sink into your skin: not enough to break, but enough to have you squirming beneath him. You feel him chuckle, then pull away. A string of saliva stretches from the little indents at your shoulder, to his lips, but it snaps when he levels his face with yours. His tongue darts out and swipes across his bottom lip.

There’s a wordless message passed between you. 

Your fingers find the clasp of his trousers and you surprise yourself by undoing it one-handed. Aerion seems impressed too: he smiles and shoves his hips forward, rutting against you. You find the ties at his waist next, pulling at the knots as he lets a low groan slip from his mouth. Heat is sticky and stagnant in your stomach, sitting heavy in your core as you undo the ties of his trousers, exposing the linen of his breeches.

He helps you, shoving his trousers down his thighs as you untie his breeches. You need another hand for this, fingers moving deftly, eyes directly down. But you can feel him looking at you still, waiting for you. As you yank the ties of his breeches open, he leans in and presses his lips to the curve of your jaw—a brief moment of intimacy before his mouth opens and he licks like a dog across your pulse.

“Aerion,” you breathe out, tipping your head in an attempt to flee his tongue.

He just chuckles, pulling away and peering down at where you finally push his breeches down. His cock, blushing warm and hard, hangs free. You shift to take it with reaching fingers, but he slaps your hand away. You jerk back, then forward when the gap between you increases, and suddenly he’s guiding you onto your knees by the hand on the back of your neck.

He fists himself as he settles you in front of him, your head parallel to the desk behind you. You peer up at him, hands resting against his thighs, and he peers down at you. There’s a mirror in your expressions: a silent need as you squeeze your thighs together and he grips, white-knuckled, around the base of his cock.

“Say thank you,” the prince whispers, dragging his cock along your cheek. He’s drooling out against your skin, leaving glistening lines in its wake as he smears himself across your lips. He’s warm and solid, skin soft and blushing and pliable as he rolls the shaft across your other cheek too. He grins, bringing the tip to your lips. “Say thank you, sweet girl. Thank me for this cock.”

“Thank you,” you manage to say, gripping the bunched material of his trousers.

Aerion grins, lilting, “Oh, you’re welcome, little witch.”

He bullies his cock between your lips then, and you part them with a grunt. Still grinning, fox-like and stretched across his pride, Aerion pushes his cock deeper into your mouth, feeling over the bumps of your tongue as you lower your jaw to take him deeper. An airy moan leaves him as he grips your neck and feeds his cock down your throat, pressing your face into his pelvis. You close your eyes, screwing them shut as you withhold a gag. 

He pulls out, then shoves back in. You manage to open your eyes, tears wet in your lashline as you look up at him. He’s already looking down at you, the smile still there but a lot smaller as he fucks his cock into the heat of your mouth.

“You’re here, in this room,” Aerion begins suddenly, vowels extended through a poorly hidden whine. “For me. You will come to my chambers when you are called upon, no matter the time. You will serve no one else but me.”

You want to argue. You’re a healer of the people. If someone else needed your assistance, it would go against all you believed in to disregard them.

But, of course, you can’t argue. Not just because you’re dealing with Aerion Targaryen, whose wrath sets ablaze like a dragon’s fire, but because you’re choking around the width of his cock, words beat back down your throat.

Instead, you moan around him. The vibrations tremble thick and fast through his cock, and he lets out a hoarse moan.

“For me,” he whispers, looking up and speaking it directly into the ceiling.

There’s a loud knock on the door and your heart drops into your stomach. Your hands squeeze his thighs tightly as he pulls you firmly against his hips, holding you there as he struggles to even his breathing. Aerion waits, and you swallow around his cock, saliva building uncomfortably in your mouth. His fingers tighten around the nape of your neck, a warning, as another loud knock rocks through the chambers.

“What?” Aerion calls, curt and obviously angry.

“Apologies, your grace.” Roland Crakehall. Aerion could murder him. Through the door, the kingsguard continues politely, “I’m looking for the lady.”

“Why?”

“Ser Donnel requests her presence in the main hall,” Roland replies, his voice slightly muffled through the thick wood. “Immediately.”

Aerion looks down at you, and you give him a pointed look. He shakes his head, and you take a gamble: gently scraping your teeth along the sensitive skin of his length. The prince sucks in a quick breath, and you manage to pull yourself from his cock, coughing lightly. Aerion is seething as you fend off his hold and get to your feet, hurrying towards the door whilst wiping your sleeve across your mouth.

You pull open the door and smile at Roland. “Hello.”

“Oh.” Roland bows his head politely. He addresses you by name. “I apologise if I’m interrupting something.”

You shake your head, smoothing your hands down your skirts. “Not at all. Shall… I come with you now?”

Roland nods. “Please. And bring your supplies.”

You nod, quickly rushing across the room to snatch your satchel from the desk. Aerion, hard cock stuffed back in his trousers, reaches a hand out, the tips of his fingers just brushing your arm before you breeze past him. 

He grunts, messily tying a knot in the laces of his breeches, shifting towards you with ire flashing in his violet eyes. “Now, wait—”

“Lead the way,” you say to Roland when you reach the doorway once more, ignoring the Targaryen prince looming. 

You quickly step out into the corridor and slam the door shut behind you. Roland can’t help himself: he lets out a small laugh as he begins leading you down the hall.

“I’m not sure if he wants to murder me or you,” the knight says plainly, thick with humour. His eyes sparkle as he looks at you, matching the gleam of his polished white armour. “You’re as brave as they say.”

You ignore his first comment with a playful roll of your eyes. Instead, you cock your head. “They?”

“Those who work for the household,” Roland tells you. “Word travels fast, and the woods witch Aerion Targaryen has taken a liking to makes for good conversation.”

“Great,” you mumble sarcastically.

Roland reassures you with a polite smile. “Don’t fret. You are well liked amongst the ranks, and Ser Donnel speaks very highly of you.”

That puts you slightly at ease as you traipse the sun-soaked corridors of Summerhall.

—✿—

As the sun sets, Aerion realises he hasn’t seen you since Roland whisked you away. You had vanished; seemingly slipped into the shadows, or danced off with the wind. He scoured the brightly lit halls, shoving open doors and tearing curtains from their hooks with dramatic flourishes as he peered out windows. You weren’t anywhere, it seemed, and there was a pit forming in the base of his stomach: a heavy stone, almost unbearable in its weight.

Having done three laps of the royal residence, Aerion huffs to a stop near the entrance to the servants quarters: the only place he hasn’t checked. He curses himself for being so ignorant as he stares down the dark, narrow hall that winds itself deep into the castle’s interior.

“Your grace.”

Aerion turns, finding Ser Donnel approaching. The kingsguard rests a hand casually on the pommel of his sword, which sits snug at his hip. He looks at Aerion with slightly narrowed eyes, a flat smile, and the look of a disappointed father.

“She’s in there, isn’t she?” Aerion questions, although it’s less a query because he knows. The shadows of the narrow passageway are thick, and he’d be a fool not to have noticed the way you looked at them when you had first arrived.

Donnel shrugs. “And what if she was? Do you intend to fetch her?”

“Yes,” Aerion replies quickly.

Ser Donnel lets out a mirthless laugh. It’s quick and sharp, and Aerion’s jaw twitches in response. The knight shakes his head too.

“Leave her be, just for the evening,” Donnel says firmly.

Aerion narrows his eyes at the kingsguard, the white of the armour appearing grey beneath the evening shadows and the flickering of mounted torches nearby.

“You sent her there,” Aerion mutters, recalling his little witch’s sudden—and unwelcome—departure from him earlier that day. “What did you say to her?”

Aerion grips the handle of his dagger, which rests comfortably at his side, sheathed in black leather. Donnel notices the movement and shakes his head, breathing out a chuckle. He nods towards the passageway, the air around him shifting.

“A few of the cooks suffered burns preparing supper,” Donnel tells the prince.

“We have maesters for a reason,” Aerion growls out.

Donnel gives him a pointed look. “Yes… we do.”

Aerion huffs, lip curling as he grips the black leather of his dagger. “Do not patronise me, Ser Donnel. She is mine. She is not here to serve anyone else.”

Donnel takes a step towards the prince, armour clanking. He drops his voice, speaking low, “You have already taken her from her shop, and her livelihood, and her people: the least you can do is let her help others while she is here.”

Aerion seethes. “How dare you speak—?”

“You do not need her help at this moment, your grace,” Donnel interrupts. “Please let her be.”

Aerion passes a challenging look to the kingsguard. Never in his life has anyone dared speak to him in such a manner, except possibly his mother or father. Ser Donnel matches Aerion’s glare with a calm look of his own, and Aerion realises that this knight really does care for you. He’s protecting you.

You don’t need protection from Aerion. You’re his.

Aerion spins on his heel and proceeds down the passageway. The firm, metallic footsteps of Ser Donnel behind him only spur him on, and he ducks down the narrow hall like a serpent shifting through stones. He breaks through a doorway and finds you sitting amongst a group of servants, your satchel open and resting in your lap. Beside you, a young woman admires a glistening cream-coloured salve—obviously your work—spread across her forearm, obscuring an angry burn. You hold a small bottle between your fingers.

“This is a natural disinfectant. It’s good for cleaning wounds, on both humans and animals…” You trail off, eyes lifting to find Aerion in the doorway. You swallow thickly, slowly placing the bottle back into your satchel as the servants notice his presence.

They scarper like rats, Aerion thinks, as he watches the group disperse in a flurry of limbs. Many scramble past him, disappearing down the hall, whilst others vanish through another narrow entrance across the room. They leave you alone, perched on the edge of a rickety wooden bed, the straw mattress threadbare and thinning beneath you.

“You grace,” you begin, getting to your feet and hefting your satchel over your shoulder.

“You’ve been hiding from me,” Aerion says.

You shake your head. “No, I’ve been helping—”

“You’re not here to help them,” Aerion spits, crossing the room now. “You’re here to help me, yes? You’re here for me.”

You look past Aerion as he draws within a few feet of you, and the prince turns to see Ser Donnel in the doorway. Your hands shoot out, finding the plush warmth of Aerion’s doublet, but your eyes are still on the kingsguard across the room.

Donnel frowns. “M’lady?”

“I’m alright, Ser Donnel,” you tell him gently, fingers balled in the prince’s shirt. It’s half to keep you grounded as you breathe, smelling cedar and smoke in Aerion’s clothes, and half to keep him in check, for you have a feeling he may lunge at someone. You nod at the knight. “I’m fine.”

Donnel looks between you and Aerion. “Are—?”

“She said she’s fine, did she not?” Aerion spits over his shoulder. “Now, be a good knight and fuck off.”

Ser Donnel, despite the worry flashing across his gently aging features, turns and slips down the hall and out of sight. Aerion was still his prince after all, and he knows better than anyone that the prince is… temperamental.

Aerion turns to you now, his hands finding the satchel on your shoulder. He carefully removes it, wordlessly, eyes near black in the darkness of the room. A small candle, dripping wax mounting at its base, illuminates part of the room, but the shadows here are consuming. They cling to your body as Aerion’s hands find your hips, rubbing up and down your sides, fingers ghosting across the top of your skirts.

You breathe out carefully, fingers loosening in his doublet. You rub circles across his chest, soothing. You pet him like a cat, fingers bending and circling. And he responds like a cat, eyes closing as a purr-like rumble stirs from deep in his chest. You feel the vibrations as he slowly moves you until the back of your calves hit the low bed.

“Aerion,” you whisper, and you mean for it to sound stern, but it’s breathless. 

Wood and ash, a smouldering hearth, is what you swims in the air around you as he leans over you, head dipping and finding the bend of your neck and shoulder. But there’s a sweetness in the white flicks of his hair as it brushes against the side of your face, his mouth drawing over your skin. Cedar and blackberry wine, sugared with the smell of sweat.

He says your name in response, muffled as his teeth skim over your skin. He bites again, a firm imprint of teeth, before he sucks hard. It lodges a whimper in your throat, head leaning to the side as your hands grip at his doublet once more. His own hands dip low as he hunches against you, guiding you down, down, down until you’re sitting on the narrow bed. You squeak out, aware that this isn’t your bed and this isn’t your chambers and Ser Donnel is only just down the passage—

“Too sweet for your own good, aren’t you?” Aerion mumbles against your neck as his hands bundle up the material of your skirts. He brings them up to your hips, exposing the clean linen of your smallclothes. He ignores the muffled whimper you let out, your lips pressed in a tight line. He tuts, “Such a good little helper. They just love you, don’t they?”

“Aerion,” you breathe out again, your hands finding his shoulders now. 

You feel the working of the muscle and joints as his arms shift to take hold of your smallclothes. His arm is thick and warm between the press of your thighs, but you don’t try to close them—in fact, you part them, shuddering as he pulls the linen away and exposes your slick cunt to the shadows of the quarters. His other hand finds the back of your neck as he picks himself out of your shoulder, lips shining with spit. He angles your head so he can trace the lines of your face with his swollen pupils.

“You enjoy spending time down here?” Aerion whispers as two fingers run down your slit, spreading you apart. He groans at the wet heat and the little moan you try to catch between your teeth. “With the servants and the maids?”

His fingers languidly shift, drawing your folds apart until they press to your hole. He wastes no time either: running a couple of circles around you, he dips his fingers inside you, slowly pulling you apart knuckle by knuckle.

“Yes,” you say around an exhale.

“More than with me?” His fingers crook inwards and your head tips back involuntarily, a hushed moan slipping from tongue to shadow. Aerion cradles the back of your neck, watching you carefully as you slowly settle your head to meet his gaze. You give a subtle shake of your head, and Aerion smiles. “No?”

“No,” you whisper, then bite down on your bottom lip, eyes closing. His fingers press against that perfect spot, your cunt clenching around the digits as something rolls in your tummy, a rope of tension stringing across the front of your womb.

Aerion rucks his fingers in and out of you. The silence of the room is filled with the slick plap-plap-plap of his fingers inside you as his movements pick up. You writhe, whimpering softly, and your fingers grip his shoulder tightly, pulling him to you. He obliges you, chest nearly against yours as he rests his mouth against your forehead. His lips press to the soft skin, not quite a kiss, as he pants against you, eyes fluttering as he feels the hot clutch of your cunt around his fingers. So wet and warm and wanting.

“Does being down here make you happy?” He asks, words breathed out against your warm skin.

You whimper.

“Answer me,” Aerion whispers, but it’s not harsh. It’s pushed out on an exhale and it’s surprisingly gentle. Smothered by shadow, carried away on a light summer breeze.

“Yes,” you manage to squeak out. “Yes, my prince.”

He crooks his fingers as he ruts them in and out. There’s slick dribbling slowly across his bottom knuckles, and there’s small sounds working out of your throat like the mewls from a kitten. His mind swims, cock half-hard and twitching in his breeches, sweat tacky on his forehead as his arm and fingers work.

“Okay,” he begins, pulling his fingers from you. He angles back, and you groan at the empty feeling that braces against you like a chill. Your orgasm recedes and you let out a breathy whine, fingers tugging at his doublet. He shushes you, the hand on your nape pulling you back and laying you on the mattress. “Okay, sweet girl, you can help them.”

You open your eyes properly. “Really?”

“But you will always help me first,” he says, and you’re already nodding. He doesn’t want to share, but he’s doing this for you. He takes his fingers, wet with you, and presses the pads to your lips. “You will help them when I say you can. Not—” he shoves his fingers into your mouth. “—when Ser Donnel says, yes?”

You hum around his fingers, tongue wrapping. He smiles, pleased, pulling them out. He pats your cheek before he shrinks back, parting your thighs. Hefting your hips, the prince bends and settles his face directly against your core. The abruptness of it has you keening, and the moan that leaves you is frighteningly loud. Aerion chuckles to himself as his mouth parts against your pussy, tongue splitting up between your folds, laving over your clit. You mewl, hand shooting down out of instinct to fist his hair. He groans in response as his fingers find your hole again, pushing in with an audible shlick.

“Oh, fuck, Aerion, wait—” You cut your whispered plea off with a moan as his fingers curl. Perfect, precise. It makes your hips grind down, twitching against his face as he licks across you simultaneously. The sounds that leave you, draped in shadow and hushed between the desperate clenching of your teeth, spur him on. You whine, that rope of tension in your lower belly pulling taut. “Aerion, my prince, please.”

Aerion’s other hand is tight on your thigh, dimpling flesh as he keeps it hooked around his shoulder. His head moves, eyes unwavering in their stare over the mound of your belly, the bunched fabric of your dress, the valley of your breasts, and onto your face. You’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen: eyes fighting to stay open, teeth sunken into your lip. You writhe beneath him, and you’re just so warm. Your cunt, wet and hot; your thighs soft and warm against his ears.

His tongue follows your sounds. The high-pitched mewls you try to hide when he licks over the puffy bud of your clit, or the low keen he feels rumble through you when he spreads your folds apart. Deft fingers push and pull, in and out, until he can see the way your body begins to tighten and tremble. He knows you by now.

The rope inside you frays and you arch off the thinning mattress. You press yourself deeper into his touch as your release snaps through you, fingers tightening in his hair as you cry out his name. It’s loud, and the little candle nearby flickers as the sound bounces off the stone walls. The shadows do nothing to muffle it as you shake, thighs tightening around his head as your pussy clenches around his fingers. The prince groans into you as you whisper his name, his cock painfully hard in his breeches.

Slowly, and with a pained grunt, he pulls himself from between your legs, wiping his mouth against the inside of your thigh. You make a noise of complaint, but he shushes you as he rights himself.

“Should’ve known this pretty pussy’d taste of the heavens,” Aerion whispers, more to himself than you.

You hum in response, reaching down and grabbing your smallclothes where they gather messily near your knees. Aerion shifts back and watches, palm resting over his pelvis, as you pull your undergarments back into place. You sit up, then stand on shaky legs, allowing your skirts to fall back into place. The prince sits on the edge of the low bed, not saying anything. He simply watches you.

“Come now,” you whisper, holding your hand out.

Something lurches in his chest. He takes your hand and gets to his feet. And then he follows you from the quarters, his hand fitting so perfectly into yours, and he doesn’t even bat an eye when they pass by Ser Donnel waiting at the entrance, ever the good knight.

—✿—

Three days later, you open your satchel in search of a small scrap of gauze. Rhae, having toppled from her pony, sits on the stone bench beside you with a small cut on the palm of her hand. Tears wet in her eyes, she watches you as you carefully rifle through your supplies. Butterflies breeze overhead, birdsong filling the garden as the sun shines warmly against your back. In your satchel, you find your roll of bandage, but what you don’t find is your pouch of moon tea. Where it usually sits, amongst your vials and bottles, is empty. You frown to yourself, pulling the bandages out anyway and setting to work.

“Thank you,” she mutters, watching you with glossy violet eyes as you wrap a small scrap of the linen around her hand.

Not long after, you send her on her way. You peer into your satchel then and confirm that yep, you’re moon tea is gone. You look up and around, annoyed. Aerion lounges across the garden, head tipped back with serene bliss stretched across his face, skin glistening like tallow. As if sensing your eyes on him, the prince, without even looking in your direction, simply crooks a beckoning finger.

You huff, but oblige, padding across the soft grass until you reach where he lays.

“Have you seen my moon tea?” You ask him. There’s a nagging in the back of your head. You know exactly where your moon tea has gone.

“Your what?” Aerion opens one eye.

“You know exactly what, your grace.”

Aerion scoffs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine,” you say. “I’ll fetch some more.”

“Fine,” Aerion replies casually, closing his eyes again.

—✿—

That night, he has your face pressed into the pillows of his bed. They smell of him, of a settled dragon, as you suck in short gasps as he splits you apart on his cock. He kneels behind you, mattress dipping beneath his weight as he locks his fingers around the plush of your hips, pulling you back to meet his thrusts. His movements are deep and heavy, the thick reach of his cock nudging towards the base of your cervix as you arch your back for him. You grip the silken sheets either side of you, panting, legs trembling.

You come with his name muffled against feathers, a sob breaking free of your throat as you turn your head to moan through it. Your pussy sucks him in tightly, fluttering with the rapid beating of your heart as you release for the third time since he’d dragged you to his chambers.

The prince groans in response, hips slapping against your arse as he ruts into you, chasing his own high. “Fuck, yeah, ah shit.”

He angles deeper, pushing you further into the mattress, your knees threatening to buckle. A deep-seated moan, thick as stone, fills the room as he pitches forward. Pleasure sits hot in his lower belly, itching at the base of his spine.

“Here it comes, sweet girl,” he grunts behind you, one hand leaving your hip to smooth up the dip of your back. “Take it all—take your dragon’s seed like a good little—”

Aerion knocks forward as he comes, all but flattening himself into you as he falls apart. His jaw hinges around a moan of your name as he spills, cock pumping thick and hot inside you, right up against the plug of your womb. You don’t have the energy to respond with anything else but a loud exhale that snags the end of a whine as it passes through your lips. Aerion’s hips roll himself through it as he empties completely, and even when the movements of his hips still and he’s sticking to you completely unmoving, he doesn’t pull out. The thick of his cock plugs you full as he hovers behind you, hands roaming, kneading, squeezing as he settles back within himself.

And you fall asleep like this: with him stuffed inside you, your back pressed to his sweat-slick chest. Slumber finds you easily, although you wake hours later with a dull ache between your thighs and the soft length of him resting against the cleft of your arse. 

Gingerly, you pick yourself out of bed, careful not to stir the sleeping royal, wrap yourself in your cloak, and vanish out the door. You’ve gotten quite good at leaving unannounced.

In your chambers, you find your satchel.

You pause. The fresh moon tea you had picked up that afternoon was gone. You can’t help but roll your eyes, exhaling an exasperated sigh through your nose as you opt for one of your homemade remedies instead, plucking the small vial from its place in your bag.

You know exactly what Aerion is trying to do, and for the most part, it makes you fume. As you uncork your own vial, you stew in your anger: he’s trying to get you pregnant; he’s trying to tie you to him, a tether of flesh and blood. You down the bitter liquid in a few deep gulps and your face scrunches in disgust. It tastes, for lack of better words, fucking disgusting. Sour with fermented tansy, bitter with concentrated mugwort. The moon tea at least tastes a bit better than this.

However, there is a part inside you that grows hot. You place the empty vial back into your satchel, licking the aniseed from your bottom gums. Aerion wants you. His need grows teeth: long, sharp fangs that sink deeper and deeper into your flesh. He doesn’t want to let you go—he can’t let you go. And the thought, as you close your satchel and bundle your cloak tight around your naked body, sits heavy in the front of your mind.

A sticky heat prickles beneath your skin, the feeling of being in the sun for too long. You hurry out of your chambers and back into Aerion’s, taking your cloak off and slipping back into his bed.

So, he’s hiding your moon tea from you. He wants you with child.

You smile at his sleeping form, noticing the way his white eyelashes rest against his cheekbones. You can let him play this game for as long as he wants. He won’t win.

—✿—

Two days on, Aerion leaves his father’s solar and makes for your chambers. A carnal need claws against the hooked bone of his ribs. He needs you.

He pushes open the door of your chambers without so much as a knock, expecting to find you at the desk, or perhaps lounging by one of the grand windows with a book in hand. However, the hearth is cold and the room is empty. 

He frowns to himself and heads down the long hall.

He checks the servants’ quarters, startling those who huddle within. They spook, staring at him as more phantom than man as his eyes settle on women who are not you.

“Where is she?” He hisses, and one of the younger women—the woman you had treated for burns, he remembers—raises a shaky hand and points behind her, gesturing in the direction of the gardens. 

Aerion nods curtly and departs.

The sun greats him warmly, as does the sound of your laughter, and he physically feels his heart leap in his chest. His need for you has reached his teeth now, and his jaw works as he grinds his molars, gnawing on the desire to sink the points into your flesh. Your thighs, preferably, or the fat of your arse. Although your shoulder works just as well when he’s stuffed to the hilt inside you.

The thought has his cock jerking in his breeches.

Across the garden, you stand amongst blooming carnations, pink petals soft as silk. You rub the tips of your fingers against one—one that Ser Roland fucking Crakehall had plucked and handed to you. The knight hovers by your side, a pleased smile on your face as you speak to him, rolling the delicate flower between your hands. Aerion can’t make out what you’re saying as you gesture to the blooms around you, but Roland is paying close attention: his eyes never stray, his smile never falters, and he nods along as you ramble.

The need inside Aerion sheathes like cat’s claws.

Anger remains. Why can he never seem to keep you for himself? You’re his.

“I know that look,” Ser Donnel says around a tired chuckle, appearing at the prince’s side. He looks down at Aerion, then over at you and Roland. “You must let her have some freedom, your grace.”

“I do,” he spits a bit too quickly. “I’ve let her treat the servants.”

“You have,” Donnel replies, clearing his throat after. “Which was very gracious of you, your grace, but she is a young woman who deserves more freedom than you give her.”

Aerion scoffs, eying the knight suspiciously. “Since when have you ever spoken to me so openly, Ser Donnel? I could have your tongue for that.”

Donnel gives the prince a pointed look.

Aerion shakes his head. “She has freedom. I give her freedom.”

Donnel grunts, unconvinced.

Aerion looks back over to you. You’re bending, plucking another carnation from a nearby shrub, and the curve of your arse beneath your skirts is on full display. Roland ducks his head, preserving some kind of decency between the two of you. When you right yourself, you turn and accidentally bump into the knight, who reaches his hands out to steady you, fingers on your upper arms.

Aerion’s jaw twitches.

“Your grace…” Donnel warns, low and father-like, and it reminds Aerion, for a split second, of the day he first met you: the day when Ser Donnel had been taking too long in a healer’s shop. A healer the knight insisted was the best in all of King’s Landing.

Aerion ignores the knight though. Lightning quick, he reaches down and plucks Donnel’s knife from his side, ripping it from its sheath in one smooth movement. Before the kingsguard can even react, the prince slices the blade across his own forearm, ivory giving way to crimson. Blood ribbons over his skin as he hands the knife to a gaping Ser Donnel.

Aerion calls your name, approaching with one hand pressed to the finger-length wound on his inner forearm. You lift your eyes, smiling as the prince approaches, but it quickly vanishes when he presents you his arm.

“Oh!” You jump away from Roland and immediately take Aerion’s arm in your hands, the carnation you had been holding fluttering to the ground. Your touch is warm, soft. Caring. “Aerion,” you breathe, shaking your head. “What’ve you done to yourself?”

“I need your help,” he tells you, ignoring your question. He lifts his gaze and gives Roland a firm look. Roland shifts uncomfortably, before ultimately looking away.

You’re nodding before he even finishes his short sentence. “Okay, okay, come on.”

You take gentle hold of his wrist and guide him away. He spares a look at Ser Roland, and then another at Ser Donnel. Both read much the same: Aerion Targaryen gets what he wants.

Back in the sanctuary of your chambers, he sits on the edge of your bed. Clean, white sunlight fills the room and a pleasant coolness sweeps in from where one of the large windows sits open a crack.

You bandage his wound silently. And he watches you the entire time. You sit beside him, fingers wrapping, and he watches you with violet eyes glossy and nearly unblinking. There’s a heat in his gaze like the brush of a candle flame. You can feel it against the skin of your face, and you wonder then if the silence in the room is amplifying the hammering of your heart against your sternum.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you tell him finally. The silence is too heavy.

“I’ll look at you however I want,” he replies simply. 

He cocks his head, dipping slightly to speak. He’s imploring, begging you to look at him, but you resist as you fasten the scrap of bandage into place. A beat passes, and he speaks again. He speaks your name, and it’s soft. Too soft for Aerion Targaryen. Too soft for a dragon’s tongue and teeth.

You relent, looking at him as you place your spool of bandage aside. Your hands fold together in your lap. It’s there again, the silence. His eyes dart across your face, feature to feature, and you see his pupils expanding the longer he looks at you.

“You’re such a pretty girl,” the prince whispers, and the hand of his non-injured arm finds your cheek. The backs of his knuckles trace across your skin, up over your cheekbone; a sweep of a raven’s wing, no scales or spines. You can smell the ash, the fire and the cedar and the blackberry wine, but you don’t see a dragon. He breathes out slowly, hand flipping so he can run the pads of his fingers down the side of your neck. “My pretty girl…”

“Aerion, don’t…” You whisper, watching the point of his tongue find the corner of his mouth. 

He doesn’t register your words as his hand finds and cups the base of your neck. “Gods, you always take such good care of me, don’t you? My sweet girl, so smart…”

You wait for a mock, a jibe, a force of his hand against your thundering pulse. But it doesn’t come, and the anxious weight in your chest quickly trades places with the needy weight in your stomach.

“What would I do without you?” He asks, hand travelling from your neck and over your jaw. His thumb presses to your lips. Words evade you. You let him press the tip of his thumb against the corner of your mouth. He continues, voice low, “What would you do without me?”

His hand shifts then, cupping your jaw and bringing your face forward. He carefully presses his lips to yours, the motion tender. And his lips are soft against yours. Years of care within castle walls; years of healthy food and drink at banquets; years of being coddled by the powers of coin and gemstones. A prince of the realm.

But his movements begin hard. He holds your jaw tightly now, coaxing your mouth apart as his lips move, and he groans against you when you obey. Your eyes flutter closed and your hands, once on your lap, shift to his chest and shoulders. Aerion makes another deep sound before he angles further inwards and his tongue graces between the split of your lips. You oblige him once more: parting with an airy whine and allowing the point of his tongue to slip over your teeth. Your tongues meet as you try and push back, need growing white-hot. You fist his doublet, pulling him tighter against you as his free hand sets on your hip.

You move like you’ve both been practising. Aerion pulls you up, the both of you standing. He breaks the kiss with a pained whine and spins you around so quickly you almost lose your footing.

“My prince,” you whisper as his mouth finds the side of your neck as his fingers—quick and experienced—begin unlacing the threads of your gown. You arch your neck into his touch, feeling the pinch of teeth. “Aerion.”

In seconds, you feel your bodice loosen around your chest and torso, and you help him by slipping out of the sleeves and kicking off your shoes. The dress pools at your ankles, and you kick it away as the prince spins you again and slams his mouth back to yours. This one is harsher, faster. He’s licking over your teeth like he’s committing your taste to memory, and you can’t help but whine as he kisses you again and again and again.

You tug at his doublet, and he gets the message. Parting from you, silence stretches thick as he throws the garment over his head. His tunic follows as your hands find the laces of his breeches. You easily pull the knots apart, and he discards himself of his boots. You lift your head and slam your mouth back to his, and he groans in surprise, one hand cupping your cheek, the other helping you in pulling the ties of his breeches apart.

Your movements are hurried, and when you get his breeches open, you break the kiss and try to drop to your knees—but he stops you. With his hand on your face, he urges you back to him and kisses you. You whine, pulling out of the kiss, and now you’re both panting.

“Aerion,” you breathe, but he’s not listening.

He grabs the material of your chemise. “Arms up.”

You listen, and he pulls the garment off your body. It flutters away and the prince lets out a long-winded moan that sets your core alight. You can’t help but squeeze your thighs together as he looks you up and down, eyes glazing over.

“My pretty girl,” he utters, dipping to kiss you again. Your tongues meet, passing ash and berries and sugar, as he guides you onto your bed.

You move as though you’d done it all before. You shuffle back and he chases you, mouths barely leaving, barely pausing in their movements. When he gets you flat on your back, Aerion pulls away and his hands immediately find your tits. Kneading, rolling your hardening nipples beneath his thumbs. Then, they travel, skimming over your sternum, your ribs, and down your tummy.

“Here she is,” the prince coos as he parts your thighs. One of his hands massages the pliable flesh there, the other grips the base of his cock. He’s hard, tip a bruising red and leaking from the slit, pearling and rolling down the vein on the underside. Your throat works around a moan as you watch him, his eyes on the slit of your pussy. “My prettiest girls.”

You moan. “Aerion.”

“Don’t start,” Aerion mutters as he pushes the head of his cock against you. You moan again, embarrassment crawling up your neck as you feel how wet you are—you feel the cool slick webbing between your folds as he parts you, the movement too slow, too gentle. Aerion chuckles as you squirm. “Oh, she’s wet. M’gonna slip right in, aren’t I?”

This is the Aerion you’ve come to know.

He chastises you as he drags the head of his cock up and down your slit, coating himself because, as much as you burn from the inside–out, he’s right. You’re soaked, cunt clenching around nothing as you lay back completely bare for him. For him.

“Gods above, she’d be worth more than a few gold dragons, wouldn’t she?” The prince whispers, almost in disbelief, as he slowly pushes the leaking tip of his cock inwards. You suck in a breath—no stretch of his fingers, no circle of your clit—as your cunt parts around him. He groans, “But—oh, fuck—b-but I’m the only dragon you need.”

If he wasn’t spearing you on the thick of his cock, pushing in and splitting you apart with a lithe string of moans falling from his soft lips, then you would’ve rolled your eyes. You would say something to quell his ego, but you can’t. You simply moan, a desperate and loud sound that rattles through your skull, and arch. He leans over you as he rolls his hips, bottoming out with a moan of your name.

Then, he bends. His mouth is on yours like he can’t get enough. And, in all honesty, neither can you. Your hands find the back of his head, threading through white strands and tugging as your teeth clash and your tongues meet. Aerion grunts, hoisting your thigh up around his hips as he pitches forward, then shrinks back. You gasp out of the kiss when he notches the head of his cock just inside you.

And doesn’t move.

Sunlight spills across your joined bodies. Your nails scrape along his scalp causing goosebumps to appear along his arms. He pants like a worked hound, eyes on your face as he feels your pussy fluttering around his tip. Begging for it.

“You’re perfect,” Aerion whispers suddenly. It tastes like I love you on his tongue, but he knows that’s impossible. You’re perfect because you’re here. With him. Doing as he says. Aerion Targaryen doesn’t love. He continues, “You’re perfect and you’re mine.”

He doesn’t have the patience in waiting for your response. He thrusts back in with a curl of his spine. It’s rough and hard and it knocks the wind from your lungs. The sound that leaves you is distressed: a broken mewl as a bruising ache festers low in your stomach. But as the prince moves in and out, setting a rhythm that rocks you into the mattress, the pain subsides and is instead replaced by that simmering heat you’ve become all too familiar with.

“Oh, g-gods,” falls from your mouth as you take both hands and seize him by the shoulders. “Aerion, my prince, oh—”

You press little indents into his shoulders as you rock beneath him; the angle he’s made of you, with a hand on your thigh, driving him deep towards the plug of your cervix. He pries you apart so effortlessly with both his words and the length of his cock.

“That’s it, just like that,” Aerion grunts as he fucks you. Sweat glistens high on his forehead and there’s a light blush over his cheekbones as he drives you into the mattress. The fingers on your thigh squeeze, dimpling the flesh as he groans. “Taking your prince’s cock like an absolute dream, little witch.”

Heat moves through your body like steaming water. It coils tight in the pit of your stomach, sitting heavy behind your navel as he hits that perfect spot inside you over and over. You grip him with tightening fingers, pussy clenching around the thick of him. Your thigh on his hip presses inward, driving him closer to you as his pelvis meets yours.

The mattress groans slightly beneath you as you both rock. Dappled sunlight blurs through your lashes as you look up at him, whining when he dips his head again to kiss you. You take it with kiss-bitten lips, opening for him while he grunts. The wet grip of your cunt around him is silken soft, and it draws his thoughts away as his mouth moves messily against yours. You snake a hand to the nape of his neck and hold him to you as his hips roll deeper.

“Aerion,” you mutter against his mouth. You’re not kissing anymore. It’s an open press of lips as you both grunt and mewl and take what you need.

“Say it like you mean it,” he mutters back, the tip of his tongue flicking serpent-like over your parted lips. He pulls back slightly so he can shift his spine and push his hips further against you. “Say my name when you come, sweet girl, c’mon.”

Blood replaced by a golden-hot ichor, you tip your head back as you tremble. Your release builds hot in your veins and you’re right there, bathed in sunlight, as you’re taken apart from the inside–out by a prince of the realm. Your fingers scrape down his front as you arch off the bed, moaning—airy and wanton and loud—as you come.

“Aerion—!” The syllables are rich and honey-sweet in the warm summer air of your chambers. Your entire body trembles, limbs tightening as it takes hold: a gold-fingered grasp around your diaphragm as your moans turn to whines.

Aerion groans, smiling to himself as your cunt clenches tight around the width of him. Muscles pull taut, fluttering with your beating heart, and it gushes too—he can feel it, hot and slick as he rolls his hips, a thin white ring around the base of his cock. The clutch of your pussy around him, and the little whines you taper off with, some battling around whispers of his name, have the tension in his belly and spine contracting. 

He screws his eyes shut, muttering to himself, “Oh, sweet girl, my sweetest girl…”

He thinks of spilling inside you. He thinks of filling you with his seed and watching you grow round with his child. His poor little woods witch, pregnant with a bastard child but oh, how he’d look after you. You’d never leave his side. You’d be spoiled beyond reason.

“F-Fuck, oh fuck,” he curses at the thought, cock jerking inside you. You whine, fizzling down from your release, fingers tracing lazy circles across his chest. He opens his eyes at the sound, gazing down at you. He coos, “Oh, don’t cry yet, little witch, your prince is here. Your dragon’s right—fucking—here—”

You choke on a moan. You hadn’t noticed a tear slip from the corner of your eye.

He speaks around heavy, rolling thrusts, cock knocking up deep until you feel his body shudder beneath your touch. He groans, thick and leonine from the back of his throat, as his head dips down one last time.

The prince kisses you as he spills right up against your cervix. A low utter of your name passes from his mouth to yours as he licks over your tongue, his cock jumping inside you as he comes. Thick, hot ropes pulling deep from his being, and the weight of his orgasm has him collapsing half on top of you as he continues to spill. The pressure on your belly and the angle at which your legs part around his body makes you gasp, then whimper, but the prince licks the sound before it touches sunlight.

Aerion picks himself out of the kiss, sitting back on his haunches. You pant, hands gripping the sheets now as he slowly pulls his cock from you. He watches himself drool out of you. The feeling makes you squirm.

“Uh-uh, don’t be like that,” Aerion whispers, one hand coming to rest on your lower belly. He presses down firmly, and the throaty whimper that leaves you is completely involuntary. His other hand collects his seed from the curve of your arse, using two fingers to stuff it back into your cunt. You whine, and Aerion shushes you again. “Fussy girl. Can’t let it go to waste, can we?”

You bite your lip and stare up at the ceiling as Aerion curls his fingers into you. Your legs still bracket his hips and you can feel the ash-licked warmth radiating from his pale skin.

His fingers stretch you, curling and splitting against the silken walls of your cunt. They reach deep too, and after a moment of holding back your whimpers, you feel a prickling heat reappear beneath the press of his hand. Your legs shake before you can say anything, and the heat builds and builds as you attempt to lift yourself onto your elbows.

“A–Aerion, wait, wait—” You stutter out, then fall back onto the mattress as another orgasm rockets through you. It’s sharper, hits you in the base of your lungs and forces sounds from you you barely recognise as your own.

He watches you come undone again with a satisfied smile on his face, his softening cock giving a feeble twitch against his thigh. Your pussy squeezes around the thick push of his fingers, and he strokes you through it, pushing his cum right up towards your womb. The hand on your tummy gives you a gentle pat when you quit your shaking, and he carefully pulls his fingers from you, watching the way your slick and his seed webs between the digits.

You watch, vision blurred by your back-to-back orgasms and the early afternoon sunlight, as his tongue unfurls from between his kiss-bruised lips. He licks his fingers clean in a few curling movements, and you feel something jump in your belly, a flip beneath the press of his hand.

“My prettiest girls,” the prince whispers, wiping his wet fingers on your inner thigh before giving your pussy a quick pat—the sudden pressure making you jolt against the mattress—and manoeuvring himself beneath the sheets. 

He helps you with him, and after a moment of silence, you’re both tucked beneath the silks of your bed. You don’t say anything as he pulls you to him, tucking your body against his. But you do look at him as he rests against the pillows with his eyes closed. You admire the way little orbs of sunlight dance across the bare skin of his chest, shoulders and neck. You can’t help yourself: you reach up and trace the dappled light with your fingers, trekking up the side of his neck until you reach the curve of his jaw. His pulse jumps out to meet you.

He opens his eyes and peers at you sideways. “Something you want?”

You hum a no, then say, “You’re so pretty.”

Aerion rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Silence beats through the room like a racing heart.

Then, “Aerion?”

“Hm?”

“You cut yourself on purpose, didn’t you?”

The prince opens his eyes again and shifts his head to look at you. His eyes dart across your face as if searching for any disappointment or anger. But he finds none.

“Maybe,” he replies after a moment.

You sigh. “You’re impossible.”

“Ser Roland was too close to you.”

“We were talking about flowers.”

Aerion huffed. “You can talk about flowers with me.”

You give him a sceptical look, fingers tracing the sunlight on his shoulder now. “Do you even know anything about flowers?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then what kind of—?”

“They’re carnations,” he interrupts. He looks away from you. You pause, hand over his heart. He continues quietly, clearing his throat. “My… my mother had them planted.”

You pout. “Oh, Aerion…”

“So, yes, I know flowers, or whatever the fuck you’re interested in,” Aerion hisses, reaching an arm around and taking your jaw between firm, still slightly sticky, fingers. He leans down and presses a kiss to your lips before pulling back before you could plead for more. “And so the next time you want to talk about flowers with someone…” He looks away, almost embarrassed. His cheeks are pink. “You can talk to me.”

These words taste like I love you as well, and it makes him grit his teeth.

It’s not said possessively. He holds your jaw tenderly, and his words match his hold. He actually means it: it’s sincere and honest, and he’s bearing his heart to you and hoping you don’t tear it apart.

“I’d love that,” you respond, your hand finding his and guiding it away from your jaw. You kiss his knuckles as he closes his eyes again.

I love you is written all over that too.

———

they kissed and everybody cheered

tags 🌿

Aerion's question pulled you from the peace of your mind, drawing your attention up to your husband. A weary smile pulled at your lips, face still glistening with sweat from the efforts it took to bring new life into the world. “The maester says all is well.”

Aerion only nodded, pleased with your tired reply for now. His brow wrinkled just slightly, and with a touch too tender for a man of such cruel nature, he reached out and touched the newborn's forehead. The babe stirred slightly, a small, humming sound as she shifted in her swaddling clothes and settled again. His forefinger traced her soft hairs, then down the line of her nose. His nose.

“A girl, I hear,” the prince said thoughtfully, withdrawing his hand to admire both mother and child. He had never been a man fond of soft things, but something deep within his chest tightened at the sight of the fragile being in your arms. His expression showed none of his confliction, carefully blank as he tilted his head.

“Does that upset you?” Your voice trembled faintly, eyes searching Aerion's impassive expression. This was different from Maegor's birth. Your husband had taken your firstborn into his arms, declaring him a strong little dragon. Now, there was only silence — thick and dreadfully brittle.

“No.” His reply came low in his throat, a mere mumbled word as though his thoughts were elsewhere. The babe stirred again, her small brow pinching as she blinked her eyes open. Violet irises fluttered up, a silent, innocent gaze meeting his own. Aerion swallowed. “Visenya.”

“What?”

“Her name.”

“Husband, I had hoped we would decide to-”

“Her name is Visenya.”

His tone was firm and unwavering, leaving no room for discussion. Aerion knew his children were strong, fierce dragons just as he was. They deserved names befitting of their lineage and succession. His jaw clenched, a muscle jumping along the bone as he met your gaze to await submission. You sighed, but offered a weary nod. Some fights were not worth pursuing, and this was one of them. Visenya was a strong name for a strong girl.

Aerion seemed pleased with your reluctant acceptance, a small smirk tugging at his lips before he forced it away. He looked back down at the small creature in your arms, reaching out to stroke her round cheek. “She has eaten, yes?”

“Mhm,” you hummed, laying further back against the plush pillows that had been stacked behind you, the cushion a well-needed respite from some of the ache in your spine. “I've never met a newborn with such an eagerness to feed. Even her brother was not so hungry when he was born.”

“She already has the greed of a dragon, then,” Aerion said with the faintest curve of his lips. His brief amusement was replaced with a quiet concern when he met your gaze. “You should rest. I know the turmoil of your labors has been taxing. I will see to it that the maester and nursemaids attend to you both. Here, hand her to me.”

With a quiet relief, you handed your husband your new daughter. Visenya stirred lightly, whining at the change of hands, but she settled down in her father's hold. Her small lips parted slightly around noisy breaths, her head cradled reverently in one of Aerion's hands.

It came to pass that Aerion held his greatest treasure in his arms. Not gold. Not a crown. Not a scaled dragon of his own. But her.

He leaned down, eyes fluttering closed as he pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Hello, Visenya.”

Evening had settled over Summerhall, and you had returned to the familiar comfort of your marital chambers from the birthing chambers. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting odd shadows against the walls as the last light of the sun slipped through sheer curtains. It was quiet and warm and serene, and you had once again grown accustomed to the weight of an infant in your arms.

Aerion sat on a velvet-lined settee by the hearth, dressed down to a loose tunic and breeches, a goblet of wine hanging haphazardly from his grip. The arbor gold had scarcely been touched, save for a few idle sips. The prince's attention was aimed towards you as you stood over Visenya's cradle. She was cradled in your arms, her small hands curled around your breast as she nursed eagerly. His gaze couldn't help but follow that loosely-fitted nightgown that slipped from your shoulder, revealing the delicate line of your throat and the curve of your spine as he admired you from behind. The picture before him was one of softness, the warm sunlight painting your figure in an angelic view, your face pulled into a tender look of love as you tended to his daughter.

Aerion exhaled slowly, his chest tightening up once again. He had never been a man prone to tenderness, but the sight of his wife and child did that odd thing it always did. It brought up warmth, like the fire within a dragon's belly.

He set his goblet down with a faint clink, rising to his feet. He approached with slow strides, careful not to disturb the delicate atmosphere that had taken over the chamber. He stopped behind you, peering over your shoulder to watch as Visenya drank hungrily. "Always so demanding, the little hatchling," Aerion murmured, though his eyes never left the baby’s face. He stepped closer, closing the small gap, his presence looming and warm. "She has her father's appetite for what is hers, it seems.”

He reached out, not for his daughter, but to catch a stray curl that had escaped your hairpins, winding the thick strand around his finger. His touch was deliberate, a silent claim. He already envied the ease with which Visenya could command your attention, much like Maegor, yet he found a twisted sort of pride in the way their newborn mirrored his own voracious nature. "Let her have her fill," Aerion commanded softly, his voice dropping to a velvet rasp as he leaned down, his breath ghosting against her ear. He placed a delicate kiss to the shell of it. "And once the little one is sated and dreaming of dragons, perhaps you might find a moment to attend to your husband. He has been quite patient, has he not?”

“Aerion,” you said his name lightly, head tilting just a bit when his lips grazed your ear. “You know we cannot do anything. The maester says it will take my body time to heal after this birth.”

“I am no fool, wife,” he said, the words heavy with a bit of sharpness at the offense he felt. Aerion knew well enough that your body needed rest, and he had not intended to imply otherwise. “Can a man not simply hold what is his? You look beautiful like this, my brave girl. Soft with motherhood, still rounded and mine. Besides, I fear this may be the one night I have until things return to as they were. Tomorrow, Maegor will meet his sibling, and once again, I shan't be able to tear him away from your side. The little wyrm is as clingy as a leech.”

You sighed quietly, a bit of tension leaving your shoulders. It was odd that your husband was not demanding anything more from you, but perhaps that was the reward for all of the hardships it took to bring forth life. A faint smile touched your lips, amused. “Are you asking me to cuddle, Aerion?”

“Cuddle,” he scoffed, repeating the word as though it had personally attacked him. “I am not asking to cuddle, I am asking to hold what is mine.”

Your smile didn't waver, but you knew better than to poke the dragon. “That sounds lovely.”

A faint, hesitant knock on the door broke the gentle moment.

Aerion exhaled lowly, pulling away from you and Visenya with a noise akin to a growl. He reached for the iron-wrought handle on the door. It swung open quietly, his hand firmly gripping the wooden edge. Whatever frustration he had felt now mounted to its peak, glaring at the nursemaid in front of him, and little Maegor holding onto her skirts. “The boy is supposed to be in bed.”

“Y- yes, your grace,” the nursemaid stuttered, avoiding his gaze like the plague. “But the prince insisted that he could not sleep without bidding goodnight to his mother.”

“Our lady needs her rest after childbirth. You know this.”

“Yes, my prince-”

Maegor stepped forward, reached to tug on the loose hem of Aerion's tunic. His lower lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout, his little brows furrowing as he looked up at his father. “Please, papa,” the boy pleaded, tugging on the red silk in his hands. “I want… I want to see mama!”

Aerion let out a heavy exhale, glancing over his shoulder to share a look with you. You relented, nodding. “Fine, then,” he said grumpily, guiding Maegor by the shoulder to enter the room. He didn't spare a glance at the nursemaid before dismissing her with a flippant wave of his hand. “Begone, wench.”

The door closed.

“You must be quiet, sweet Maegor,” you said gently as the boy approached. He appeared hesitant, his features — which were now beginning to look more and more like his father's with each passing day — were pinched with a quiet worry. He toddled across the bedchamber, violet eyes glued to the small form in your arms. “This is Visenya,” you explained, turning to face Maegor when he stopped by your side. “Your baby sister. Once she is done eating, you may hold her if you wish.”

Baby sister.

Those words lingered in the air, light on your breath but heavy as they landed on Maegor's ears. His frown deepened, his small chin quivering and something close to fear struck your heart. Your son looked seconds away from weeping, but startled at the sound of Aerion's voice.

“It seems you are no longer the one vying for your mother's attention. She won't have much time for us any longer.”

That did it. Something shattered on Maegor's small face, tears beginning to roll down his fat cheeks. He let out a small cry; high-pitched and hoarse in his throat before he turned away from you. For once in the two years of his life, he turned to his father for comfort, his arms wrapping around his leg.

“Aerion!” You hissed his name like a scathing scold, jaw trembling from how tightly it was clenched. Aerion had always been a jealous man, even when it came to your own son. He had always been prone to cruelties, but antagonizing Maegor was not something you would let happen while you sat idly by. “How dare you say such horrid things?”

“It's the truth.”

“No, it is not and you know it!”

Aerion pouted at that, one hand sliding down to rest upon Maegor's silver curls.

“Don't pout, it's unbecoming of a prince who calls himself a dragon,” you quipped, before your gaze landed on Maegor. He looked so pitiful, face hidden against Aerion's breeches. Once Visenya had unlatched, which only took a few seconds more, you settled her into her cradle. She didn't whimper or cry, clearly unperturbed by the chaos that had erupted around her. “Maegor.”

The boy didn't respond at first. He merely whined, sniffling against the fabric of the pants he now clung to. Slowly, hesitantly, he turned his head to meet your gaze. You smiled gently, approaching him. You offered your hand, a bridge between the distance that had suddenly been put between you. Maegor took it, his chubby hand slotting against your own as his tears began to slow. You guided your son to the shared bed in the center of the room, offering your arm to help him climb up onto the mattress.

Aerion watched from a few strides away, gaze darkened as you gently wiped away Maegor's tears with the sleeves of your nightgown. “Do not listen to your father. He says cruel things because they amuse him, not because they are true,” you urged, pressing a kiss to his forehead. You straightened up, one hand settling onto your son's small shoulder before you turned to adress both him and Aerion.

“My love is not a finite thing. It does not have to be split. All three of you are my family now, and I love you more than anything. You both should know that.” It was a statement mainly directed towards your husband, the last words laced with a hint of anger at his childish whims. “I will always have time for you.”

Aerion felt his cheeks flush with something he would not name. Guilt? Embarrassment? He blinked, avoiding your gaze as shame washed over him like a second skin. There were few who could tame the dragon, but your words made him see reason when his jealousy blinded him. He closed the distance between you, hands sliding down to gently cradle your hips as he stood behind you. “I'm sorry, my love,” he whispered so that only you may hear, ashamed that he had to stoop so low to begin with. He had been frustrated with the interruption, anger coiling in his chest when the quiet moment he had shared with you and Visenya had been shattered. But it was not fair to his son, and your words rang true in his mind. His lips found your neck in a slow kiss, a silent apology. “You just brought our daughter into this world. You should be resting, not dealing with my actions.”

Maegor sniffled, his hands reaching for the front of your gown. His little fists clenched around the soft linen. “Mama, I'm sorry, too,” he whined. He had no need to apologize, but he had watched with wide eyes as Aerion had done so first. You only breathed out a sigh, and ran your fingers through his silver.

“Now, Maegor, would you like to meet your sister?”

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but terrence is smart. terrence has always been an observant person despite performing the role of the easygoing one. and terrence knows, immediately, viscerally, on a level he can't articulate, that a lot about this situation doesn't add up.

the math is all wrong. the story has holes the size of texas. bb is strange in a way that "estranged brother" doesn't cover. more like strange in a way that "human being who grew up on earth" doesn't cover. the way bb stands too still. the way his reactions arrive a half-second late, like he's translating from a foreign operating system where simplest, mundane things are foreign to him. the way he tilts his head at an angle that looks right on a bird and wrong on a person. the way he watched a ceiling fan for forty-five unbroken minutes the first time terrence came over and when terrence carefully asked "you good, bro?" bb said "it goes around" with quiet awe.

shit doesn't add up. terrence knows shit doesn't add up.

but.

he has you both back.

that's the thing that overrides everything else in his mind. the thing that makes terrence swallow his questions and shelve his suspicions and extend a grace period of indefinite length to the weird twin who showed up out of nowhere.

because terrence spent months watching bobby disintegrate. spent months thinking you're dead in a ditch, then his memory went to shit and he spent months writing lists in a notebook fighting an erasure he couldn't name. and then you came back. and bobby came back. the real bobby, the bobby who laughs and picks up the camera and makes terrible coffee.

and if the price of getting you both back is accepting that bobby's "brother" is a deeply strange man who doesn't understand sponges and stares at ceiling fans and occasionally forgets to blink for ninety seconds at a stretch, then fine. terrence will pay that price. terrence will pay it gladly. terrence doesn't need the truth. he just needs his people. and his people are home and the weird guy comes with the package and terrence can live with weird.

so he goes along with it. weeks pass, and bb is a freak. there's no kinder way to say it. 😭 bb is a walking collection of social miscalibrations that bobby manages with exhausted patience like he's wrangling a golden retriever that's never been indoors.

bb tries to pay for something at a store by handing the cashier a smooth rock. bb stands in the rain for twenty minutes because "water comes from UP THERE." bb eats a lemon wedge at a restaurant, rind and all, and says "this is nice" and bobby puts his face in his hands and terrence laughs so hard he cries and bb looks at terrence laughing (not mocking, but genuine amusement) and does the head tilt.

because terrence is easy.

that's his superpower. he flows around obstacles instead of crashing into them. he doesn't correct bb. doesn't flinch at the strangeness. doesn't treat bb like a problem to be managed the way bobby sometimes does (out of love, out of exhaustion, but still).

terrence just... rolls with it. bb says something deeply bizarre and terrence says "huh, wild" and moves on. bb doesn't understand a social cue and terrence just fills the gap without drawing attention to it. bb stands too close and terrence shifts to accommodate without comment. the patience isn't performed. it's just how terrence operates. low friction. high warmth. the gentle steadiness that makes frightened things feel more at ease.

bb notices the ease. notices that his body is less tense when terrence is in the room. that terrence doesn't produce the anxiety spike that most humans do. the constant low-grade stress of performing human correctly, of being watched and assessed and found wanting.

terrence doesn't assess. terrence just accepts. and for an entity that has spent its entire existence outside the backrooms being subtly wrong in every social context, the experience of being accepted without assessment outside of you and bobby is so novel it borders on intoxicating.

after a single afternoon of terrence teaching bb how to use a TV remote (patiently, without condescension, letting bb press every button and ask seventeen questions about signal transmission), bb turns to you in the kitchen and says, with the solemn gravity:

"terrence is my friend."

you fight back a smile. "oh yeah?"

"yes. I have a friend and his name is terrence."

he says it the way a kid says it when they come home from the first day of school and announces their new best friend with this unguarded pride. and your heart clenches because this is an apex predator who is older than humanity and he's BEAMING because the lacrosse boy with the easy laugh showed him how the volume buttons work.

bobby, overhearing from the couch: "you've known him for like three hours."

"he's my friend."

"you can't just claim people after three hours—"

bb sniffs. "I claimed her after four minutes."

bobby opens his mouth. closes it. opens it. turns toward you. you shrug. bobby pinches the bridge of his nose again.

and then the night everything changes.

because terrence has always had an open door policy with your apartment. that's always been the deal. terrence shows up unannounced, lets himself in, and raids the fridge. this is a foundational law of your social structure that predates the backrooms and the existence of bb in the living world.

the problem is that nobody remembered to update the foundational law to account for the fact that bobby and bb sometimes, occasionally, y'know, make out in the kitchen now.

terrence lets himself in on a monday evening. keys in the door, "yo, it's me," rounding the corner into the kitchen expecting to find you or bobby or both and instead finding bobby pressed against the refrigerator with his hands in bb's hair and bb's mouth on bobby's mouth, and the two of them devouring each other, flushed from the complicated feelings still swimming between them.

and terrence stops dead in his tracks.

bobby and bb separate at the speed of light. bb's expression goes carefully blank. the reset to neutral, the emergency shutdown of emotional display that he defaults to when caught off-guard. bobby's expression is the expression of a man watching his entire cover story collapse in real time like a house of cards in a hurricane.

"okay," terrence says slowly, standing in the kitchen doorway, keys in hand. "so. that's... not a brother thing."

"terry—"

"that is definitively, conclusively, absolutely not a brotherly thing."

bobby stumbles forward. "I can explain—"

"you were making out with your twin brother who i'm becoming increasingly sure is not actually your twin brother against the fridge where I keep my leftovers."

silence. bb looks at bobby. bobby looks at you. you've appeared in the hallway, drawn by the sound of terrence's voice and bobby's panic, and the look bobby gives you is asking permission to try the truth.

you nod carefully.

it's a long night.

the three of you on the couch. bb on the floor because bb prefers the floor, sitting cross-legged at your feet with his back against your shins. bobby doing the talking because bobby owes terrence the truth and he knows it and he's never lied to terrence and the weight of the months of lying is coming off him in waves of relief and guilt.

the backrooms. entity 0. the face. the nest. the seven. all of it. terrence sits on the couch with a beer he stopped drinking twenty minutes ago and his face cycling through different expressions.

and terrence listens. asks questions. doesn't flinch. when bobby finishes, when the silence is thick enough to taste, terrence looks at bb on the floor.

"so you're not his brother."

"no."

"you're an ancient entity that wears his face."

"yes."

"and you and her are—"

"yes."

"and you and HIM are—"

"... yes."

terrence takes a long gulp of the beer he stopped drinking twenty minutes ago. sets it down. stares at the ceiling. looks back at bobby, then at you. finally at bb.

"cool," he says after a beat. "same rules apply? I can still come over whenever?"

bobby laughs but it sounds raspy in his throat, caught. you press your face into your hands, smothering your relieved smile.

"you're still my friend terrence," bb says seriously from the floor. "this doesn't change that."

"buddy," terrence says dryly, "at this point you're the most honest person in this apartment."

he's not wrong.

terrence keeps the secret. of course he does. terrence has been keeping secrets for the people he loves since he was seven years old and this is just the biggest one. and the friendship that grows between him and bb (slowly, built on terrence's ease and bb's earnest hunger for connection) becomes a warm spot.

terrence teaches bb about music. bb teaches terrence about frequencies. terrence takes bb to his first concert and bb stands in the crowd with his eyes closed and his face tilted up and feels the bass in his chest and says "oh" with quiet wonder that makes terrence look at him sideways and think, for the first time, yeah. whatever he is. he's decent.

and bb, every single time he introduces terrence to a concept or a situation or a person, says it the same way. with the same unguarded pride. the same first-day-of-school wonder.

"this is my friend terrence."

every time.

—

Although it was true that Daeron was the dragon dreamer of the family, prophetic and misconstrued dreams plagued three of Maekar’s six children. It wasn’t something your husband talked about often, but you knew he understood the weight of them. He’d familiarized himself with the history and legacy of his house from the time he could read. Of course he knew who throughout his ancestry possessed this rare skill. 

It wasn’t something Daeron could hide. Plagued the most, he chose to drink, gamble, and lust his way through the nights to avoid them. Aerion, however, was much more reserved about it.

When your marriage was first arranged, neither of you were thrilled. You didn’t want to leave your home in Highgarden, and Aerion had no interest in some simpering girl who couldn’t meet his gaze without trembling. Despite his fondness for women, he preferred having the choice. What fun was it if you didn’t know how to play the game with him? 

You were summoned to court shortly after the news of Baelor’s death. Maekar, clinging to what little good he could make of his family after everything that happened, was desperate for a girl that could whip his son into shape. He needed a girl that was strong as well as beautiful, smart as well as dignified. He needed a match for his son that would hopefully finally make a man out of him. After carefully examining the eligible daughters of the Great Houses, you were selected. Within a fortnight of Lord Tyrell receiving the raven, you were on your way to King’s Landing.

Much to his father’s dismay, Aerion was the first to greet you upon your arrival. He didn’t even let Maekar get a word in before he stepped up to the carriage once the door was opened, offering you his hand to help you down. If you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought the action chivalrous and princely. But you’d heard plenty of tales of the prince before your arrival. You knew this was a calculated move, a test. He was purely waiting to see whether you’d pass or fail. 

Without missing a beat, you hiked your skirts up with one hand and gripped his hand tightly with the other. “Did you know you can smell the shit for miles coming into the city?” 

You carefully stepped over a pile of mud as he helped you down, letting go of him to smooth out your skirts. Once you were satisfied with your appearance, you looked up to meet him in the eye. He didn’t say a word, but you could see the intrigue in his gaze. He cocked his head to the side, glancing back at Maekar.

“Did you hear that, Father?” he hummed, clearly amused by his father’s usual grimace that was temporarily stunned into a look of confusion. “You can smell the shit for miles.”

You remembered your lessons, curtsying carefully. “My lord. It is an honor to meet you. I thank you for the invitation.”

You spoke like the lady he’d hoped you would be, but Maekar could hear the disgenuine tone in your voice. Either you were even smarter than you looked, or he’d made a grave mistake. Only time would tell. 

“The journey was comfortable, I hope?”

More pretty words his own mother had taught him to say. Princes were supposed to care about hospitality and manners, as though they were golden knights among mere men. He’d always found it to be a load of bullshit, but he’d grown accustomed to it over the years. He’d never heard a lady of a noble house speak to him with anything but the carefully crafted words their mothers or septas taught them to say when addressed by a lord. But here you were, swearing upon your first meeting with them. He couldn’t help but begin to like you. 

“Highgarden must smell pleasant with all those gardens,” Aerion mused, gaining your attention. “Does the smell of our city offend you, my lady?”

“Aerion—”

“Nonsense, my prince,” you answered sweetly, taking a deep breath of city air. “It suits me just fine. Shit and all.”

Maekar couldn’t help but laugh, trying and failing to stifle it. “Shit and all, my lady?”

“Shit and all.”

—

The following days were spent getting to know your new home and your betrothed. Aerion, ever the little shit, did all he could to bother you. But not once did you let him phase you. Every harsh word, every too tight grip, every whim he wanted you to indulge him on, you endured it. His father was never far, always watching with a scrutinizing stare to see if you’d slip up. He watched for days and days, but you never once faltered. Whatever tests he and his son had for you, you’d passed them with flying colors. He grew surer and surer about his decision to betroth you by the day. 

When the day of your wedding finally came, Aerion was enamored with you. 

He didn’t want to be, but he couldn’t help himself. He liked you. Your beauty, your wit, your tenacity. He thought he would enjoy making you squirm and wince, but he found himself enjoying the chase more. Your bark was every bit as big as his, and he could only hope your bite was the same. 

He used to shudder at the idea of becoming soft for someone. The only woman he ever got that way for was his mother, and she was long gone. He had no intention of ever letting that part of himself surfacing again, yet you brought it out of him as you slowly settled into your marriage. 

He was still every bit as harsh and possessive as he was the day he’d met you. But where he used to dig his claws in, he now favored a tight grip. His bite had turned into nothing more than a nip. He was learning to love you how you deserved to be loved, unwilling to settle for anything less.

It was obvious to anyone with eyes — the prince was head over heels for his wife.

Despite his closeness to you, Aerion was a tough nut to crack. He was always fond of jokes and deflection when the moment turned serious. Any time you prodded into his past, he’d gently guide you away with a sharp quip or wandering hand. More often than not, you’d let him. But over time, you slowly wore him down. 

It took him weeks into your marriage to even admit that he had strange dreams. You’d pried the information from him the third night in a row you’d found him staring up at the canopies once you started sharing a bed.

“It’s just dreams,” he scoffed once you sat up and looked at him with concern in your gaze. “They don’t mean anything.”

You frowned, reaching up to smooth a hair out of place back down. “You need your rest, Aerion. You annoy me as it is. I will not indulge a husband comparable to a whining child all day tomorrow because he was too stubborn to sleep.”

Aerion stifled a grumble, turning his head to nip at your wrist. He caught it when you tried to pull away, pressing a kiss into your skin instead. You let your wrist go slack in his grip, watching as he guided your hand back into his hair.

“So spoiled,” you whispered, but you were smiling as he relaxed into the pillows once more.

Aerion huffed, closing his eyes. “I am what you made me.”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?”

“It is.”

“It has nothing to do with being a brat all your life before I came along?”

“Shut up, woman.”

“Excuse me?” you asked with a raised brow, pulling your hand away.

“No, no, no, no,” he rushed out, hastily pulling your hand back to his head. “I take it back, I take it back.”

You rolled your eyes, relenting. “Of course you do.”

—

As your marriage progressed, Aerion’s dreams got worse. 

They were violent affairs. Before you, he dreamed of dragon fire and burning cities, the stench of death filling his nose. And before you, these dreams didn’t bother him much. Death was an inevitable thing. He would greet death as he greeted life, with a glint in his eye and a sword in his hand. It was no matter to him. The lives he took, or the one that claimed his, it was all inconsequential. It was a fate his ancestors met for centuries before him, and it was a fate his descendants would meet for centuries after him. 

As his affection for you grew, his dreams began to shift. What was once vague and out of body became too up close and personal. The faceless men he’d watch be slaughtered suddenly began to morph into you, his beloved wife he’d burn down cities for.

The first time it happened, he was dreaming of your wedding day. 

He dreamt of you standing at the altar with him, your beautiful gown flowing behind you. Your hair was done flawlessly, every pin placed with purpose. You smelled of roses and sunlight. Your father had arranged to have oils sent to you to remind you of home. Aerion felt weak in the knees the first time he smelled them on you. You had to pry him off you every time he’d get a whiff in passing and promptly bury his nose in your neck. 

He dreamt of your smile, the way your gaze met his as you said the vows countless others had made before you. Up until that point, it was perfect. It was a happy memory. 

But then your smile faltered.

You lowered your head slowly, grasping at the fabric banded across your stomach. Aerion watched in confusion until he felt dread spread throughout his chest, watching in horror as blood began to seep through your dress. You clutched helplessly at your stomach, looking to Aerion for help with desperate eyes, but there was nothing he could do. His own hand moved to cover yours, pressing down as hard as he could to stem the bleeding. But it was to no avail. You were bleeding out.

You crashed to your knees, clutching at his shoulders like a scared little child. He could hear himself screaming. It was a carnal and pained sound, a wail like the one his mother used to make when it was time to bring a new little brother or sister into the world. He felt like he was drowning in it. 

He clawed and pawed at you, desperately looking around for help from someone, anyone. But help didn’t come. He had no choice but to watch you bleed.

He finally ripped himself from the dream when the light left your eyes, shooting up in the bed with a gasp from breath. His chest heaved as he panicked, blindly reaching over to your side of the bend until he could feel warm skin under his palm. 

“Mmm,” you groaned, shifting onto your side as you cracked open an eye. “Aerion? What is it?” 

I watched you die, he immediately wanted to say. I couldn’t save you. 

But Aerion was full of pride. It pained him to admit vulnerability. He already choked on his love for you as it was. He couldn’t stomach the inevitable look of pity in your eye when he told you the truth. So he took a shaky breath, slowly laying back down.

“I dreamt I was falling,” he murmured, patting your thigh. “Go back to sleep.”

You frowned, throwing a leg over his hip to hold him down. “That’s silly.”

You twisted and turned in his grip until you were pressed flush against him, your limbs intertwined. One hand reached up to thread through his hair, the other resting on his arm. He let out a content purr, like a cat who’d just found a warm lap to sit in. 

“There,” you whispered, resting your head on his chest. “I’ve got you. You can’t fall.”

He turned his head until his nose was buried in your hair. “Clever girl.”

—

The dream repeated itself often in various forms, always ending the same way — he couldn’t save you. 

Whether it be by his hand or another’s, he’d watched you die now more times than he could stomach. Aerion wasn’t as foolish as some of his ancestors. He knew what the dreams were, and he knew they weren’t to be ignored. 

Not when it came to you. 

Still, though, he couldn’t talk to you about it. What if you didn’t understand? What if you laughed at him? What if you looked at him like he was crazy? What if—gods forbid—he burst into tears like some sniveling child clutching at his mothers skirts? 

Before his mother passed, all of his siblings had nightmares at some point bad enough to send them climbing into her bed. Maekar was absolutely no help when it came to comforting his children. 

“It’s not real,” he’d grumble, shifting over in the bed to get whichever child it was off of him. “Don’t be silly.”

Dyanna was kinder. “It was real to them.” 

She’d sit with them until they calmed, rubbing their backs and stroking their hair. Then she’d take them back to their room and tuck them into bed, promising them a restful sleep now that they’d chased the bad dreams away. Aerion’s mother had been gone for years now. He hadn’t had anyone to chase the dreams away in quite a long time, and he didn’t want the burden to fall on you. 

That didn’t mean he didn’t comfort himself, though. 

You’d feel him reach for you in the night, clinging to you even worse than he normally did. He’d hold you close, whispering something you couldn’t quite make out into your skin. If you rolled away from him, he’d drag you back into his chest and lock his arm around your waist. If some part of him wasn’t touching some part of you, you’d get an earful in the morning about it. 

As the dreams progressed, the worse about it he got.

One day, he decreed that you couldn’t leave his side unless absolutely necessary. “Where else do you have to be that’s more important than by my side?”

It was ridiculous, but he looked adorable when he pouted. You couldn’t help but goad him on. 

“So, I'll never have anything for myself again? I have to follow you around to training, to meetings, to wherever you’re summoned? I can’t spend time in the gardens, or meet with any of the ladies of the court?”

“They’re quite dull, I assure you,” he shrugged, a goblet of wine poised at his lips. “We can go to the gardens if you wish. But not by the little yellows ones. They make my eyes water.”

He’d discovered that after following you in one day. He was sneezing for a week before he figured out that the few you’d plucked and gathered into a vase for your room was causing it. He promptly threw the entire thing out the window. 

“You’ll go to the gardens with me?” you asked with a raised brow. 

He smirked, and you knew his intent was less than innocent. “We can hide behind the ivy walls and play a little game. See just how quiet my girl can be.”

You laughed, but there was a shred of annoyance in your tone. “I am not a dog to be leashed, Aerion. You can’t command me to be by your side every second of every day.”

“Can’t I?”

You narrowed your eyes at home. “You can if you tell me why.”

“Because I said so?” he mused, narrowly moving out of the way fast enough to avoid your attack on his arm. “Can’t a husband want his wife by his side?”

“Can’t a husband be honest with his wife?” you countered, grinning when he glared. 

You reached for him, taking his hand in yours. “When you’re ready to tell the truth, we can open this discussion again. Until then, I’m going to the gardens. You’re free to do as you wish, husband. Do behave yourself.”

You turned and walked away before he could protest. He watched you go with a longing ache in his chest, willing himself to call out to you. But his pride wouldn’t let him. Instead, he let you go. 

—

This behavior continued until it all came to a head one night when a dream ripped him from sleep like claws digging into his side, piercing his skin. 

He shot up into the dark with a cry, sucking in air like it was the last breath he’d get. His hand fumbled in the dark for any inch of warm skin he could get his hands on, but dread settled in his stomach when all he felt was cold sheets below his palm. His mind was still muddled with sleep, his heart racing in his chest. He’d yet to get his bearings, but he willed his brain to catch up with his body as he frantically reached around for you. 

It was the middle of the night — where could you have gone? Has something happened to you? Did someone come in and take you? Did you leave him? 

He nearly made himself sick, bile rising in the back of his throat at the thought of any one of those possibilities. He quickly ripped the sheets off his body, clambering to his feet. He stumbled around as he looked around for the clothes he’d kicked off the evening before, finding his shirt at the foot of the bed and his pants across the room on the floor. He could feel tears stinging behind his eyes that he willed not to fall as he moved around in the dark with nothing but a single candle to light the way. 

Just as he reached for his shirt, he heard the chamber door creak open with a groan. He immediately lunged for the sword he kept by his bedside, only to stop in his tracks when his wild gaze met your bewildered one. He stared at you in shock for a moment before he finally snapped out of it, his face growing cold. 

“Where were you?” he demanded to know, dropping the sword and the shirt he had balled up in his fist. 

You gently shut the door behind you, setting down the plate you’d taken from the kitchen on the side table. “I was hungry?”

You cautiously approached your husband as if he was a cornered animal, gently reaching out to brush the tips of your fingers along his arm. “What’s going on?”

“You weren’t here!” he spat, pulling away from you like your touch burned. “Why didn’t you wake me? Why did you leave?”

“Aerion—”

“I told you not to leave my side!”

“Aerion!”

There was clearly a lot more going on here than meets the eye. You gently shushed him, reaching for him again, this time with a firmer grip. You could feel him flinch under your grasp, but you didn’t relent. He fussed and whined like a child until you managed to catch both of his wrists, squeezing them until he finally let his arms go lax. 

“There,” you murmured, releasing your grip to slide your hands into his. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

He was breathing heavily as he clung to your hands, a look of distrust in his eye. You frowned, reaching one hand up to run your thumb along his cheekbone. 

“What is it, Aerion?”

He didn’t answer with words, instead pulling you into a bone crushing hug. He would’ve knocked you off your feet if you hadn’t dug your heels into the floor to brace yourself. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, trying your best to sooth him. 

“What is it, love?” you asked once he’d calmed down some. “What happened?”

He whispered something into your skin, unwilling to pull away even an inch to speak more clearly. 

But you didn’t need to hear him. You’d been seeing the change in him for weeks now. The restless nights, the fidgeting in his sleep. The way he’d refuse to talk about it, always throwing you off the scent. He wasn’t going to talk about it until you forced him to. 

“A dream?” you asked.

His silence was enough of an answer. 

“Someone hurt you?” you gently prodded, pulling back enough to look into his eyes. “Someone hurt me?”

He winced, a blazing look in his eyes. “Never. I will never let anyone hurt you.”

His voice wobbled as he spoke, and you felt something crack in your chest. You slowly guided him backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed, silently asking him to sit. When he did, you promptly tucked yourself into his lap, your eyes level with his. He held you so tight that all you could manage was shallow breaths. 

“I’m safe,” you tried to reassure him, speaking softly but surely. “You’re safe. We’re alright.” 

Aerion nuzzled his nose into the crook of your shoulder, inhaling deeply. “I told you not to leave.”

You would’ve scolded him if he didn’t sound so pathetic. You cupped his cheeks, squishing them together until his lips puckered into a pout. You could tell he was scowling, but he made no move to pull away. Any touch from you would be welcomed with open arms.

“Stubborn thing,” you murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

He scoffed. “And say what? ‘My love, I keep having dreams of you dying horrible deaths where there’s nothing I can do to stop it?’ That’s what you want to hear?”

“That’s a start,” you mused, brushing his hair back with gentle hands. 

Aerion rolled his eyes, turning his head to nip at your palm. “You’re a pain.”

You laughed, pinching his cheek. “Takes one to know one.”

Aerion grumbled to himself, pulling you closer. He was always like this. He always had to be touching you, feeling your skin on his. Now you understood why. You let him squeeze the life out of you, running a hand up and down his back. 

“You smell like wine,” you murmured into his shoulder. “Have you been drinking?”

“Sometimes it stops the dreams,” he shrugged. 

You sighed, pulling back to look at him. “It also makes you restless. You never sleep well, and you always complain about your chest burning. If you want to sleep dreamlessly that bad, we should ask the Grand Maester if he can make you something.”

Aerion didn’t answer you, too busy analyzing every nook and cranny of your face as if it was the last time he’d get to see it. He scowled at the dreaded love and affection he felt for you growing tenfold when he saw the concern in your eyes. 

“He’ll just tell me to drink tea. I hate tea. It tastes like grass.”

You hummed, leaning forward until your nose brushed his. “I have a question.”

“I don’t have an answer.”

“Oh, shut up,” you grinned, pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose. “Do you have good dreams? Happy ones? Or is it only the nightmares?”

Aerion thought a moment before shaking his head. “I have good ones too.”

“Well? Don’t leave me guessing.”

He let his hands settle on your hips, gently squeezing. “Days at Summerhall. Mother telling me a story. You…the day you arrived.”

“Such a sap,” you mused, patting his cheek.

Aerion groaned, dramatically flopping back onto the bed. He dragged you down with him, refusing to let go until you were pressed flat against him like a weighted blanket. Only then did he let you reach for the covers, letting you shift until you were comfortable. You relaxed into the warmth of him. 

“I didn’t even get to eat the bread I took.”

Aerion bit back a grin. “Well, excuse me for wanting to hold my wife. Think you can hold out till morning, you bottomless pit?”

You smacked his arm, earning a laugh. “Bottomless pit? Do you want me to stab you? That can be arranged, husband.”

“I’m sure it could,” he replied, resting his chin on the top of your head. “Sleep.”

You frowned. “What about you? The dreams.”

You could feel him shake his head. “I think you’ve chased them away, love.” 

You felt your cheeks warm at his words, hoping he couldn’t feel the heat of the one pressed against his chest. He softened underneath you, the tension in his muscles starting to ease. His breaths got shallower as sleep started to take hold. You spared a glance up at him once you felt his hands loosen their grip on you. You smiled at the look of peace on his face. 

Even here, in a town that saw more Dornish traders than Stormland lords, word of the princes at Summerhall had spread. They were the sons of prince Maekar, grandsons of the old king, and their reputation preceded them. Prince Daeron the drunkard, prince Aerion Brightflame, prince Aemon the scholar, and the youngest, who went by Egg. The town was close enough to Summerhall that everyone knew the stories. Everyone knew to tread carefully.

The prince’s gaze swept the room as his companions started to wander around the room, lingering here and there on a bare shoulder, a painted mouth, a curve of breast. The whores preened and posed, sensing coin, sensing the kind of patron who might toss a gold dragon as carelessly as another man might toss a copper. But Aerion did not seem impressed. He looked bored, that particular brand of noble boredom that was more dangerous than outright anger, because it demanded to be alleviated.

One of the Kingsguard, a broad-shouldered man with a handsome, weathered face and short hair, crossed the room and lifted you bodily from your bench. You let out a startled gasp as he settled you on his lap, his armored thighs hard beneath you, his gauntleted hands closing around your waist.

“This one’s pretty,” he said. “Quiet, too. I like them quiet.”

You knew his face from the occasional processions through town. Ser Ronald Crakehall, a knight of some renown. He was handsome enough, not old, perhaps forty, with laugh lines around his eyes that suggested he was not entirely humorless. His fingers found the curve of your hip and squeezed, not painfully, but with a proprietary confidence that made your stomach tighten.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, his breath warm against your ear. “And what’s your rate, sweetling?”

You swallowed hard, acutely aware of the prince’s gaze on you. Aerion had turned from his survey of the room and was watching the two of you with an expression you could not quite read. Appraisal, certainly. 

“It’s my first night,” you said, and your voice came out steadier than you expected. “My first time here.”

Ser Ronald’s eyebrows rose. He looked at you more closely, taking in the slight tension in your shoulders, the way your hands had instinctively clasped together rather than reaching for him. He was not an unobservant man, it seemed.

“Truly?” he said. “A virgin to the trade. How novel.”

But before he could say more, prince Aerion was there, standing over the two of you with his arms crossed, his violet eyes bright with sudden interest. Up close, he was even more beautiful than the stories suggested, with the sharp, delicate features of old Valyria, high cheekbones and a mouth that looked made for cruelty. There was something feverish in his gaze, something hungry and not entirely sane.

“I’m bored, Ronald,” he announced, as if the knight’s name were an inconvenience. “These painted slatterns have nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times. But a new one…” His gaze dropped to you, lingering on the exposed curve of your breast above the silk gown. “I have always preferred to break things in myself. It’s the only part that’s any fun.”

Ser Ronald’s hands loosened on your waist immediately. He did not argue, did not even protest. You saw something flicker in his eyes, resignation, perhaps, or a long-practiced survival instinct, and then he was lifting you off his lap as easily as he had placed you there.

“She’s yours, my prince.”

Aerion’s hand closed around your wrist, his grip much tighter than Ser Ronald’s had been, and he hauled you to your feet. His fingers were long and elegant, but the strength in them was surprising. He did not speak to you as he dragged you through the common room, past the curious stares of the other whores and the careful blankness of the Kingsguard. He simply walked, and you stumbled after him, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat.

The room he chose was one of the larger ones, with a bed draped in amber silk and a brazier burning low in the corner. The air smelled of roses. He released your wrist only when the door was bolted behind you, and then he turned to face you, his head tilted slightly to one side like a hawk examining a mouse.

“How many men have you really had?” he asked. His voice was soft, almost conversational, but there was an edge to it that made the hair on your arms stand up.

“One,” you said. “My husband.”

Something shifted in his expression. Amusement, maybe, or disbelief. “Your husband lets you whore?”

“He lets me earn coin however I see fit.” You lifted your chin slightly, meeting his gaze. “We’re not starving, but we’re not rich. And you’d be surprised what a new oven costs.”

For a long moment, he simply stared at you. Then he laughed, a short, sharp sound like a blade being drawn. “You’re not lying. How refreshing. Every woman in this place has been trying to convince me she’s the most experienced courtesan from here to Lys, and you stand there and tell me about your oven.” He stepped closer, close enough that you could smell the wine on his breath and the faint, clean scent of some expensive soap. “What’s your name?”

You told him. Your real name, not the false one Margot had suggested. You did not know why. Perhaps because he seemed like the kind of man who would know if you lied.

“I am prince Aerion Targaryen,” he said, as if you might not have known. “And since you’ve been honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. I am not about to be gentle with you.” His hand came up, and one finger traced the line of your jaw, feather-light, a startling contrast to his words. “But I pay well, and I don’t leave marks where they can be seen. Will that do for you, little seamstress?”

You should have been afraid. Part of you was afraid. But another part, a part you had not known existed until that moment, was curious, thrilled. 

“Yes,” you said. “That will do.”

He did not waste time after that. There was no more conversation, no more teasing. He took what he wanted, and he wanted everything. The silk gown was torn, he would later toss three gold dragons at Margot to pay for it, more than the dress was worth by a factor of ten, and you were bent over the bed, pressed against the wall, pulled onto his lap on the single velvet-covered chair. He was rougher than Merrett had ever been, rougher than you had imagined a man could be, but there was a precision to it, a control. He wanted to see you gasp, wanted to see your fingers clench in the sheets, wanted to hear the sounds you made when pleasure and pain blurred together until you could not tell one from the other.

It was a siege. He fucked with a detached, methodical cruelty, his every touch was a calculated experiment. He’d pinch the soft skin of your inner thigh until you gasped, then soothe the sting with a lazy, swirling tongue. He’d take you right to the trembling edge of a pleasure you’d never known existed and then stop, holding perfectly still inside you, his smile a slash of white in the gloom, while he watched the frustration bloom in your face. He wanted your reactions, your raw, unpracticed honesty, and he took them, one by one, until you were a shuddering, overwrought mess of nerve endings and confused ecstasy. When he was finally spent, he didn’t collapse. He simply withdrew, stood, and adjusted his clothing as if he were alone in his private chambers. Then dropped a small leather purse on the table by the door.

“That’s for the hour,” he said. “I’ll be back. Teach yourself something new before then.”

The purse contained five gold dragons. More than your husband earned in a season.

You did not tell Merrett the details. You told him only that a wealthy patron had taken a liking to you, and that you would be returning when the opportunity arose. He looked at the gold dragons, looked at you, and asked only if you were all right. When you said yes, and meant it, he kissed your forehead and said he would speak to the baker about the oven.

Aerion returned four nights later, and then again the week after that. Each time, he paid more, stayed longer. And each time, you learned a little more about what he liked.

He liked resistance, so you gave it to him, arching away from his hands so he would have to pull you back. He liked begging, so you learned to plead, not for mercy but for more, words tumbling from your lips in a desperate litany that made his violet eyes blaze. He liked to talk, sometimes, in the aftermath, lying in the tangled sheets while the candles burned low. He talked about dragons, mostly. The ones that were gone, the ones that might return. He talked about fire and blood and the way the world had been before the Dance, when his ancestors were gods among men. He never talked about himself, not really, but you learned to read between the lines. You that his older brother Daeron was a disappointment, that his younger brother Aemon was weak, that the youngest, Egg, was a nuisance. You learned that his father prince Maekar was a hard man to please, and that Aerion had stopped trying long ago.

You learned that he was cruel, but you also learned that cruelty was a kind of armor. He expected the world to hurt him, so he hurt it first. It did not excuse anything he did, but it explained it, and understanding was its own kind of power.

The third time he came, he brought a small velvet box. Inside was a pendant, a silver dragon with ruby eyes, delicate and beautiful and worth more than everything you owned.

“Don’t read into it,” he said, his voice clipped. “I simply don’t like my whores to look cheap.”

You wore it anyway, and when he saw it against your throat, something in his expression softened for just a moment before the mask slid back into place.

Aerion kept returning. Each time, he taught you something new, how to use your mouth in ways you had never imagined, how to position your body to drive him to the edge and keep him there, how to read his moods and respond to his unspoken demands. He was a demanding lover, capricious and intense, but there was a strange intimacy in it, a knowledge of each other that went beyond the physical.

“You are the only woman who does not lie to me,” he said once, in a rare moment of something almost like tenderness, his head resting on your shoulder, a finger tracing down your spine. “Do you know how exhausting it is to be surrounded by liars? Everyone wants something from me. Everyone simpers and flatters and tells me what they think I want to hear. But you, you just tell me the truth. An oddity. An honest whore with an honest cunt.”

You did not tell him that you were lying, too, in your way. That you were playing a role just as much as any courtesan. That the truth was simply another strategy, one that happened to work on him. Some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud.

It was perhaps two moons into this arrangement when prince Daeron found you.

When he stumbled in one evening with a retinue of laughing friends and a decidedly unsteady gait, you recognized him immediately. Daeron was softer, his features blurred by drink, his eyes holding a sorrow that even the wine could not entirely drown.

He did not choose you at first. He chose two other girls, giggling things who fawned over him and called him “my prince” in breathy voices. But you watched him throughout the evening, and you saw how he flinched at their simpering, how he drank to drown out their empty flattery rather than to enhance his pleasure. He was a man who was running from something, though you did not know what.

The third time he came, Aerion had been gone for a fortnight, off to some tourney or other, and the brothel was quiet. Daeron arrived alone, which was unusual, and he sat in the corner with a flagon of Dornish red and a face like a man attending his own funeral. The other whores gave him a wide berth. A drunk prince was unpredictable, and unpredictable patrons were bad for business.

You approached him anyway.

“My prince,” you said, sitting down beside him on the bench. “You look like a man who could use a kind word more than a warm body.”

He looked at you, and for a moment, something flickered in his bloodshot eyes. Surprise, maybe. Suspicion.

“And what would a whore know of kind words?” he asked, but there was no venom in it. Only weariness.

“I’m not a whore,” you said. “I’m a seamstress. I mend things.”

He stared at you for a long moment. Then he laughed, a bitter, choking sound. “A seamstress. Of course. Why not? The world is absurd enough already.” He took a long drink from his flagon. “Do you know what it’s like to have dreams that don’t stop? Dreams that feel more real than waking?”

“No,” you said honestly.

“Lucky you.” He set the flagon down with a thump. “I dream of dragons. Every night. They’re calling to me, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s like a word on the tip of my tongue, but I can never quite reach it.” He rubbed a hand over his face, and when he looked at you again, his eyes were wet. “My father thinks I’m a disgrace. My brother Aerion thinks I’m a joke. And the dragons won’t stop screaming.”

You did not know what to say to that. So you did not say anything. You simply reached out and took his hand, holding it in both of yours, and you sat with him in silence while the candles guttered and the other patrons came and went.

Eventually, he led you to a room. It was not like it was with Aerion. Daeron was gentle to the point of apology, his touches hesitant, his movements slow. He kept asking if you were all right, if he was hurting you, if you wanted him to stop. He was not a bad lover, exactly, but he was a sad one, and when it was over he wept silently into your shoulder while you stroked his hair.

He came back the next week, and the week after that. He never talked about dragons again, but sometimes, when he was lying beside you in the dark, you could feel him trembling. 

He liked to be held. He liked it when you ran your fingers through his hair. He liked to fall asleep with his head on your chest, and he always left a pile of coins on the nightstand when he woke, far more than the hour was worth, and never counted.

“You’re kind to me,” he said once, his voice slurred and sleepy. “Do you know how rare that is? People are always bowing and scraping and wanting things. But you’re just..kind.”

You did not tell him that kindness was part of the service. You did not tell him that you pitied him, this sad, drowning prince who was trying so hard to destroy himself. You just held him a little tighter and let him sleep.

The gifts from Daeron were different from Aerion’s payments. Aerion’s gold was  a transaction. Daeron’s was careless, extravagant, almost an afterthought. He would empty his purse onto your dresser without counting, wave off your attempts to give him change, press jewels into your palm with a vague, “Here, this matches your eyes,” even when it didn’t.

You never told Aerion that his brother visited you. And Daeron never asked if others from Summerhall came to the Moonblooms. It was an unspoken agreement, a delicate balance that you maintained with the same care you used when stitching fine silk.

Then prince Maekar came.

That was a shock. The prince of Summerhall, the King’s own son, a man who could have summoned any woman in the Seven Kingdoms to his bed with a snap of his fingers, walked into the brothel on a rainy evening with his shoulders hunched and his jaw tight and a fury simmering behind his eyes that made the air itself feel charged. He was not as beautiful as his sons: his jaw was heavier, his brow more prominent, his hair a lighter shade of silver, but he had a presence that filled the room, a weight of authority that made even Margot’s practiced composure falter.

He did not want the simpering girls. He did not want the ones who draped themselves over him and whispered empty compliments. He wanted silence, and he wanted release, and when his gaze landed on you sitting quietly in the corner with your sewing, you had taken to bringing small mending projects to work on during slow nights, his eyes narrowed.

“You,” he said, pointing. “Come here.”

You set aside the tunic you had been hemming and rose, approaching him with the same calm you had learned to project with Aerion, with Daeron, with all the men who passed through looking for something they could not name.

“My prince,” you said, curtsying.

“Do not simper,” he snapped. “I’ve had enough simpering to last a lifetime. What is your name?”

You told him. Your real name. It felt important, somehow, to be honest with these silver-haired men who could have you killed with a word.

“I am prince Maekar,” he said, though you already knew. “I have spent the day listening to my sons disappoint me in increasingly creative ways, and I have a headache that could fell an ox, and I do not want to talk. Can you manage that? Can you just be silent and let me fuck you without pretending you’re enjoying it?”

“Yes,” you said. “I can.”

He blinked, clearly not expecting such a straightforward answer. Then he nodded and led you to the room.

It was different with him. Not rough like Aerion, not sad like Daeron. It was desperate, almost frantic, as if he were trying to outrun something inside his own head. He did not speak, and he did not want you to speak, but when it was over he did not leave immediately. He lay beside you, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling. Then he reached for the pitcher.

He drank the wine in one long swallow and set the cup aside. Then he looked at you again, his gaze more assessing than it had been before. “How long have you been doing this?”

“A few moons. I was a seamstress before. I still am, during the day.”

“A seamstress.” He seemed to find this amusing. “And what does your husband think of your…second profession?”

“He doesn’t mind. He trusts me.”

Maekar’s eyebrows rose, the same expression of surprise his son had worn. “A remarkable man.”

“He is,” you agreed.

Something in him seemed to crack. He lay beside you, his breathing harsh, and you saw his hands were trembling. Without thinking, you reached out and covered one of them with your own.

He flinched, but he did not pull away.

“Are you all right, my prince?” you asked softly.

“No,” he said, and his voice was raw. “I am not all right. I have not been all right for a very long time.”

He turned his head to look at you, and for a moment, he was not a prince. He was just a man, tired and weighed down by responsibilities and disappointments he could not escape.

“My sons are a trial,” he said quietly. “Daeron drinks because he dreams of things he cannot understand. Aerion burns because he feels things too deeply and has no outlet for them. Aemon hides because the world is too sharp for him. And Egg…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Egg is too young to be a disappointment yet. But he’ll get there. They all do.”

You did not know what to say, so you said nothing. You kept your hand there. He did not pull away.

Maekar came back. Not as often as Aerion, not as regularly as Daeron, but every few weeks, when the pressures of Summerhall became too much, he would appear with a face like a thundercloud and seek you out. He never wanted conversation, but sometimes, afterward, he would talk. About his father the king, about the weight of a crown that would never be his, about the sons he loved and did not understand. He brought you gifts: a bolt of Myrish lace so fine it looked like seafoam, a pair of silver hairpins set with sapphires, a small enameled box filled with Dornish spices that must have cost more than your house.

“For your husband,” he said gruffly when he gave you the spices, as if that explained anything.

You never told him about Aerion. You never told him about Daeron. And they never told him about you. It was a dance, a delicate, dangerous dance, and you were the only one who knew all the steps.

The Moonblooms prospered. Word had spread, somehow, that the establishment was favored by the princes of Summerhall, and custom increased tenfold. Margot hired more girls, expanded into the building next door, started serving food in the common room. She never asked you about your patrons because you had warned her that the princes would stop coming if she advertised you as their favorite, but she gave you the best room, the one with the feather mattress, and she never took more than her agreed-upon cut.

Your husband got his oven, his medicine, a new roof, a set of copper pots that gleamed like sunset. He never asked questions, and you never offered answers, and somehow, improbably, your marriage remained intact. Merrett still looked at you with wonder across the supper table, still reached for you in the night with a gentleness that none of your patrons possessed, still made you laugh with his dry observations about the townsfolk and their creative approach to accounting.

“You seem happy,” he said one evening, as you sat together in your small garden, watching the stars come out.

“I am,” you said, and you were surprised to realize it was true. “Are you?”

He considered the question with the same careful attention he gave his ledgers. “I am. We have good food, a sound roof, and each other. What more could a man want?”

A dragon, perhaps, you thought but did not say. A crown. A kingdom.

You had learned that princes were not happier than commoners. They were richer, certainly, more powerful, more dangerous. But happiness was a currency which did not care about bloodlines.

The summer stretched on, golden and hot, and the princes of Summerhall continued to visit.

You kept their secrets. You took their coin. And in your own way, you cared for them, each in their turn, each in the way they needed.

but underneath the jealousy, feeding it, complicating it: the arousal. because you're making those sounds. in his nest. beside him. your body flushing and shifting and producing the scent that drives him out of his mind and the cause is internal. invisible. a private theatre in your skull running a show he hasn't been invited to and the exclusion is maddening and the performance is exquisite and bb wants to watch and he wants to be in it and he wants to peel your skull open and crawl inside the dream and replace whatever is touching you with himself.

your back arches. slightly. the moan again. louder. and your mouth forms a shape that might be a name and bb leans closer ( inches from your sleeping face, black eyes wide, every receptor straining) trying to read the name off your lips.

he can't tell. the shape dissolves before it becomes a sound. your hips roll again. your thighs press together and the scent spikes and bb is vibrating with the effort of not touching you and the effort of not touching himself the way you showed him and the growing, bewildering realisation that watching you dream about sex is doing things to his body that actual sex sometimes doesn't.

you wake up.

slowly. blinking. still flushed. that disoriented warmth of surfacing from a dream your body was fully committed to. your pupils are blown. your breathing is ragged. and bb is RIGHT THERE. face inches from yours. black eyes enormous. the expression on bobby's face one of intense, focused, bewildered hunger.

"you were making sounds," he says promptly before you've finished blinking.

"I—what?"

"sounds. the sounds you make when I—when we—" he stops, draws a breath you both know he doesn't actually need. "your heartbeat tripled. your skin heated. your arousal—" he inhales through his nose, deliberate, savouring, "—is significant. and you were moving your hips in a rhythm i've observed during—"

"oh god."

"—a rhythm that corresponds to—"

"OH god."

"explain." the head tilt, but his voice is lower than usual. thicker. the fascination threaded through with something more molten. darker. he's affected and trying to be clinical and failing at it completely. "your body responded to something that wasn't happening. something inside your brain. explain how."

you press your face into the pillow. can feel heat spreading down your neck and his hand has found your hip under the blanket and his thumb is stroking a slow, absent circle on your skin as though the touch is involuntary. as though his body moved toward yours before his brain authorised it.

"it's a sex dream. sometimes when you're sleeping your brain just... creates a scenario. a sexual one. and your body responds like it's real because your brain can't tell the difference."

"your brain can't tell the difference," he repeats slowly, his thumb still circling on your hip. "between real sexual contact and imagined sexual contact."

"basically."

"so you were—in your sleep—experiencing—"

"yes."

"with someone."

"yes."

"who?"

and there it is. the edge beneath the curiosity. the black eyes fixed on yours, the jaw tight. the needy possessiveness surfacing through the fascination like a fish fin through water.

"who was doing the things that made you make the sounds?"

"you," you admit quietly, because it was.

bb's whole body locks up.

the edge dissolves. the tension in his jaw releases with it, and what replaces it is hunger. pure, luminous, fascinated hunger. the slow blink. the purr igniting low in his chest. the satisfied warmth of hearing that he exists inside you even when he's not trying to.

"me." soft. his body shifting closer. "your brain chose me? unprompted. unsupervised. it just... reached for me?"

"that's generally how it works, yeah."

"and my—the dream version of me—was doing things to you. intimate things. things that made your body respond as though they were real?"

"...yes."

he wraps around you.

slowly. coiling. his arm sliding beneath you, pulling you against his chest, his legs tangling with yours under the blankets. his chin settling on top of your head. the purr deepens at once. his body curls around you snugly because he wants something and is going to be patient about getting it. the cat-with-a-mouse configuration. the one where the mouse is already caught and the cat is just deciding which angle to start from.

"tell me." murmured into your hair. his hand sliding up your spine in a long, slow stroke that makes your still-sensitive body shiver. "tell me what he was doing. the dream version."

"bb—"

"i want to hear it." his mouth finds your temple, pressing. his voice drops into the register that makes your stomach flip. that low, warm, intimate one, coaxing. "i want to hear what your sleeping brain thinks i do to you. what it invents when i'm not directing it." his thumb tracing the knob of your spine. "think of it as quality control. how accurate is the dream version? does he get the details right?"

"this is embarrassing."

"your heart rate just spiked again and you smell—" a long inhale against your hair "— incredible. you're embarrassed and you're aroused and I want to hear everything." his lips against the shell of your ear. the purr vibrating through his chest into your back. "start from the beginning, baby. please. where were we? in the dream. what did it look like?"

"...the nest. we were in the nest."

"good. and I was—what was I doing?"

"you were..." you trail off. press your face into his chest. his hand strokes your spine again. patient. coaxing. the purr steady.

"take your time." whispered against your hair. "we have nothing but time. and I want every detail. every single one." his arm tightening around you. his hips pressing forward against your back and you can feel that he's hard and has been hard since you started moaning in your sleep and the knowledge that your dream aroused him is doing things to your ability to form sentences. "was i touching you? where. show me where."

you take his hand. guide it. place it where the dream version's hand was and his breath catches against your scalp and the purr stutters and restarts at a higher frequency.

"here?" barely a whisper. his fingers curling against the spot you placed them. "like this?"

"slower. he was... you were slower."

bb's fingers adjust. slow down. match the dream's pace with the same meticulousness he gives to everything you teach him. "like this?"

you sigh. "yes."

"what else?" his mouth on your neck now. between words. kissing the skin he's speaking into. "tell me what else. what did the dream version say. did he talk? did he use his mouth?"

and you find yourself telling him. in fragments, in whispers, in half-sentences that dissolve into gasps when bb's real hands mirror the dream hands' movements. because bb is coaxing it out of you with ancient patience but with gentleness of someone utterly besotted. he's not interrogating you. he's unwinding you. peeling the dream out of you layer by layer, his voice low and warm, murmuring encouragements into your hair— "yes, and then what?" and "show me" and "like this?"—while his body wraps tighter around yours and his hands learn the choreography your sleeping brain invented for him.

"your dream is more honest than you are," he murmurs against your throat. his fingers stroking you in a way you've never asked for out loud because asking would require admitting you wanted it. "your dream doesn't have embarrassment. your dream just wants."

"and what does the dream want?"

"me." said with quiet wonder. "it just wants me."

he's quiet for a moment, his hands still moving. his mouth presses to your pulse, the purr running deep and steady.

"tonight, when you fall asleep," he drawls against your skin. "i'm going to watch again. and tomorrow morning you're going to tell me everything. again."

"bb—"

"i want to learn every version of me that lives inside your head." his arm tightens around you, voice thick with something that goes beyond arousal, or curiosity, even beyond possessiveness. something closer to reverence, to simple, unadorned, love. "the dreaming one. the waking one. every version your brain builds when i'm not looking. i want to know all of them. i want to know if they're getting me right."

he presses his mouth to the spot behind your ear tenderly.

Exile, you discovered, was a surprisingly festive occasion.

The harbor bustled from sunrise. Sailors shouted over one another, ropes creaked against wooden masts, and gulls circled overhead with all the dignity of drunken courtiers. The smell of salt, fish, tar, and seaweed clung stubbornly to the air, settling over the docks like a damp blanket. Ships rocked lazily against their moorings while merchants complained, sailors cursed, and somewhere nearby a man was loudly losing an argument with a crate.

A crowd had gathered along the waterfront.

Not because exile was particularly rare.

But because Aerion Targaryen being exiled was apparently an entertainment.

Prince Maekar stood at the front of the gathering, grim and immovable as a carved monument. He looked exactly like a man who had spent the last several weeks regretting every decision that had led to this moment. Servants darted through the crowd carrying trunks and supplies while several ladies pretended not to stare.

They all stared anyway.

You stood among them, naturally, because as Aerion's wife, failing to attend his departure would have raised questions. Questions were dangerous. Questions led to conversations. Conversations led to explanations. And explaining why your husband's exile felt suspiciously similar to receiving a gift from the gods seemed unwise.

So you attended. You stood dutifully among the gathered nobles and courtiers and tried very hard to look devastated. You even practiced beforehand— the result was a strange expression that made you look either mildly constipated or recently widowed.

And unfortunately for you, your lips kept attempting to smile.

Across the dock, Aerion was arguing with three different people simultaneously while sailors loaded his belongings onto the waiting vessel. It was genuinely impressive, to say the least.

One sailor was attempting to explain that no, his hunting hounds could not occupy the captain's quarters. Another was trying to convince him that six barrels of wine counted as excessive provisions for a journey that would last less than two weeks.

A third appeared to be defending himself against accusations that he had somehow personally arranged the weather.

All three were losing.

"You are transporting a prince," Aerion informed them loudly. "Hhave some ambition."

"The cabin physically cannot fit twelve dogs, my prince."

"They are sensitive animals."

"They bite people."

"They are discerning."

The sailor looked ready to throw himself into the sea.

Nearby, one of Aerion's men was attempting to load a trunk large enough to conceal a horse.

You narrowed your eyes.

A trunk.

The sight of it immediately filled you with unpleasant memories. You decided you hated trunks.

Aerion continued talking— or complaining.

At this point the distinction hardly mattered.

His silver hair caught the morning light as he paced the dock, gesturing dramatically enough that several sailors had begun avoiding eye contact altogether.

The exile had been announced days ago and the kingdom had known peace ever since.

Aerion, however, had spent those same days informing anyone willing, or unwilling, to listen that the punishment was unjust, outrageous, politically foolish, personally insulting, and possibly treasonous.

The fact that he had threatened multiple people before being exiled seemed, in his opinion, entirely irrelevant. According to Aerion, the punishment was excessive, unfair, politically foolish, and a personal attack orchestrated by people who lacked both imagination and gratitude. Most disagreed. People said he deserved it—some quietly, others not so quietly.

His recklessness, his temper, and his endless appetite for trouble had finally caught up with him. More importantly, his actions had contributed to the death of Prince Baelor, and that was not something even a prince could simply laugh away. The court had spent weeks whispering about it in corridors and behind closed doors, and for once those whispers had reached the king. Exile, many thought, was a mercy. Aerion, naturally, disagreed.

Your gaze drifted toward the ship.

Lys.

Of all places, they had chosen Lys.

You felt a flicker of disappointment.

Exile was supposed to be miserable. Remote. Unpleasant. The sort of place people were sent to suffer and reflect upon their mistakes.

Lys was none of those things.

Lys was warm. Beautiful. Rich. Full of gardens, fountains, music, and enough pleasure houses to keep Aerion occupied until the end of time. Frankly, it felt less like a punishment and more like a reward.

You had spent half your childhood trying to convince your family to leave Lys and travel somewhere exciting. Aerion had indirectly killed a prince—no, the prince of the realm, heir to the Iron Throne, and somehow been granted a seaside holiday.

It was deeply irritating.

Still, at least he would be several hundred leagues away.

There was comfort in distance.

Not enough comfort, perhaps, but enough that you found yourself hoping the ship sailed very, very slowly.

And as Aerion boarded the ship, you could only hope he never returned.

Not in the dramatic sense. You did not wish for storms. Storms were unpredictable and had a habit of affecting innocent people. Nor did you wish for pirates. Pirates tended to be enthusiastic about everyone else’s problems. Shipwrecks seemed messy. Assassinations seemed excessive.

No.

You simply hoped he stayed there.

Forever.

Lys was lovely. Lys was warm. Lys was beautiful. Lys was full of vineyards, musicians, fountains, silk, and enough distractions to occupy Aerion until the end of time. Surely, somewhere within that city, there existed a problem dramatic enough to capture his attention permanently.

Perhaps he would fall hopelessly in love with a Lysene courtesan. No— you scoffed, Aerion out of all people wasn’t capable of love.

Perhaps he would offend the wrong magister and spend years arguing his way out of prison.

Perhaps he would become obsessed with some absurd Essosi hobby and refuse to leave.

Perhaps he would simply forget Westeros existed.

You were not particularly concerned with the details.

The important thing was that he remained several hundred leagues away from you.

The ship slowly drifted from the harbor. You watched it pull farther and farther from shore, the sails swelling in the sea breeze as sailors moved across the deck like tiny figures against the morning sky.

Aerion stood near the stern as the ship drifted farther from the harbor, one hand braced against the railing while he argued with someone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby.

Even from this distance, it was obvious.

The other man looked increasingly exhausted.

Aerion pointed toward something in the distance. The sailor pointed elsewhere. Aerion threw both hands into the air in outrage.

Remarkable.

The man could start a dispute in an empty room and somehow emerge convinced he was the victim.

A laugh almost escaped you.

Instead, you lifted a hand to your face. Not to wave. Merely to shield your eyes from the sun. At least that was what you told yourself.

The ship continued onward.

The sounds of the harbor slowly swallowed the last traces of it. The shouting sailors became indistinct. The creaking wood disappeared beneath the cries of gulls overhead. The red-and-black Targaryen banners that had snapped proudly in the wind began shrinking into little more than splashes of color against the sea.

You watched longer than you intended.

Perhaps to ensure it was truly leaving.

Perhaps because after everything, it felt strange seeing him go.

For all his faults—and there were enough to fill several books, Aerion had occupied every corner of your life since your arrival in Westeros. He had been an irritation, a humiliation, a disappointment, and occasionally a genuine threat to your continued existence.

And now he was becoming smaller by the second. The ship diminished into a dark shape upon the water.

Then a speck.

Then little more than a pale shadow against the horizon. You kept staring even after it was nearly impossible to distinguish from the sea itself.

Finally, being a kind, generous, and forgiving woman, you offered a few final wishes for your husband.

May his wine always be slightly sour.

May his boots leak whenever it rains.

May every chair he sits upon wobble just enough to be irritating but never enough to be fixed.

May every meal arrive cold.

May every horse dislike him on sight.

May every woman find him exhausting.

May every pillow be warm on both sides.

May every bath be slightly too hot or slightly too cold.

May his sleeves catch on door handles.

May he forever lose one glove and never the matching one.

May-

Well.

The sentiment was there.

You lowered your hand. The ship vanished completely. Nothing remained but the sea.

For a moment, you simply stood there, letting the wind pull at your sleeves. The harbor bustled around you. People resumed their conversations. Sailors returned to work. The world continued as though nothing remarkable had happened.

Perhaps nothing had.

Yet the absence settled over you immediately. Not grief. Certainly not grief. But something that felt suspiciously close to relief.

By the time the ship vanished entirely from sight, you felt lighter than you had in months.

Perhaps years.

The following weeks passed pleasantly.

Then months.

The palace settled into a quieter rhythm without him. His absence left behind an unexpected peace, like a storm finally moving beyond the horizon. Meals became calmer. Servants no longer looked constantly terrified. Nobody threw goblets at walls.

You spent your mornings in the library. Your afternoons overseeing your school. Your evenings reading beside candlelight without wondering whether Aerion was currently setting something, or someone on fire.

Life, for the first time since your arrival in Westeros, felt manageable.

Letters arrived occasionally from Lys. At first, you could not understand why. The very existence of them seemed absurd.

Aerion did not like you. You did not like Aerion.

This was a fact both of you had established repeatedly and with remarkable consistency.

And yet the letters came.

Every few weeks a servant would appear carrying another sealed parchment bearing Aerion’s name. Sometimes the seal was broken. Sometimes wine stained the corner. Once there appeared to be scorch marks.

You read the first few, mostly out of curiosity. The first was three pages dedicated entirely to an argument he had started with a ship captain. Aerion maintained the man had insulted him.

The second letter involved a Lysene magistrate. The third somehow involved the same magistrate, a horse, and a public fountain.

You never learned exactly how because the writing tended to wander. Aerion would begin discussing one subject before veering abruptly into another. Half his letters were complaints. The other half were descriptions of people who had apparently disappointed him.

The city disappointed him.

The food disappointed him.

The magistrates disappointed him.

The weather disappointed him.

One memorable letter was devoted entirely to explaining why a particular tavern owner deserved imprisonment for serving wine that Aerion described as “an insult to grapes.”

Not once did he ask how you were.

Not once did he mention missing home.

Not once did he mention missing you.

You found this reassuring.

After several months you stopped reading them altogether.

There hardly seemed a point.

Instead, the letters accumulated unopened upon a table in your chambers until eventually even that became tiresome. You instructed a servant to place them elsewhere. You never asked where.

Curiously, the letters continued arriving for some time after that. As though Aerion had convinced himself you were reading them.

Or perhaps he simply enjoyed complaining and required an audience, even an unwilling one.

Then, one day, they stopped. No letter arrived that week. Nor the week after. A month passed. Then another.

You found yourself noticing the absence immediately.

Not because you missed them. Gods, no. Quite the opposite, actually. The silence felt like relief. A deep, unexpected relief.

Perhaps he had finally forgotten about this place. Perhaps he had become distracted by Lys. That seemed likely.

Lys excelled at distracting men.

Perhaps he had discovered some new amusement. Some new scandal. Some new woman patient enough to tolerate him. Perhaps, at long last, he had decided to remain there permanently.

The possibility settled warmly in your chest.

And as the months continued to pass without a single letter from across the Narrow Sea, you allowed yourself to hope. Just a little.

Perhaps Lys had finally decided to keep him.

The months continued to pass.

Seasons changed.

Your school grew.

The memory of your husband slowly became less of a daily irritation and more of a distant nuisance, like an old scar that only hurt when touched.

And so, almost peacefully, an entire year slipped by.

Unfortunately, Aerion Targaryen did not.

One year later, standing upon that very same harbor beneath a pale morning sky, you found yourself staring across the sea at a familiar vessel cutting through the water.

For a moment, you merely watched it. Then your stomach sank.

The ship drew closer.

Closer. And closer.

Until the black-and-red banners became visible against the wind.

Around you, servants began moving with excitement. Someone announced the prince’s return. A knight laughed (one of Aerion’s so-called friends perhaps). Another called for preparations.

You simply stood there in silence.

The gods, it seemed, had received every one of your prayers.

And ignored them completely.

ONE YEAR AGO

You settled quickly into life without Aerion. Perhaps too quickly.

The moment the ship carrying your husband into his well-deserved exile vanished beneath the horizon of Blackwater Bay, a suffocating weight had lifted from your chest. In his absence, you carved out a quiet, deliberate existence. The charity school you championed became your sanctuary, occupying the vast majority of your attention. You spent your mornings matching names to eager young faces, listening to the scratched scratching of quills on cheap slate, and finding a profound, grounding purpose in the simple act of teaching.

And the library occupied whatever remained of your waking hours. There, hidden away in a sunlit corner where dust motes danced in the quiet air, you lost yourself in histories of the First Men, treatises on old medicine, and maps of lands you would likely never see. The days bled into weeks, and the weeks into peaceful, seamless months.

It was a serene, predictable routine, so beautifully unhurried that you occasionally forgot you were technically married to a monster exiled across the sea. You were a wife in name only, and you thanked the Seven for that mercy every single night.

Then King Daeron ruined everything.

Well– not intentionally.

Probably.

The King, after all, was known for his gentle disposition, but a monarch’s kindness could be just as disruptive as a tyrant’s whim. A royal summons arrived one crisp autumn morning, delivered by a solemn page and bearing the heavy, intimidating weight of the King’s personal crimson wax seal. The parchment unfurled to reveal elegant, sloping script informing you that His Grace believed it would be highly beneficial if you took up residence at the Red Keep for the foreseeable future.

The reasoning laid out by the crown, apparently, was loneliness. King Daeron, in his infinite, misplaced paternal worry, believed that a young woman left to her own devices in a quiet estate must be rotting away from isolation.

You stared at the letter, the ink blurring slightly before your incredulous eyes.

Then you looked up at Meriel, who was sorting through a basket of fresh linens.

Then you looked back down at the letter.

“I am not lonely,” you stated flatly, as if stating it to the empty air would somehow manifest the truth across the small palace and to the Red Keep.

Meriel stopped her folding and glanced at the overwhelming piles of leather-bound books, loose scrolls, and heavily annotated ledgers completely surrounding your chair. Her expression remained utterly deadpan.

“You spend most of your days speaking to parchment,” she observed dryly.

“I enjoy parchment,” you shot back, defensively tapping the edge of a heavy historical tome.

“Be that as it may, His Grace believes female companionship would be beneficial for you,” Meriel countered, a faint, teasing smirk threatening to break her composure. “He thinks you need the laughter of noble ladies, not the scent of old glue and dusty books.”

You looked utterly horrified, the very concept of being dragged into the gossiping web of the courtly maidens sending a cold shiver down your spine.

Unfortunately, kings were remarkably difficult people to argue with.

Especially when they were correct about being king.

And so, several grueling weeks later, you found your peaceful isolation shattered. You found yourself riding through the massive bronze gates of the Red Keep, returning to the very sprawling, blood-stone castle where your disastrous marriage had begun.

The familiar, looming towers rose aggressively above the churning waves of Blackwater Bay, looking exactly as you remembered them.

Unfortunately.

The jagged silhouette of the Red Keep cut into the sky like an open wound. You had hoped never to see some of these corridors again, specifically the ones leading to Aerion’s old quarters, which still seemed to hold the faint, ghostly echo of his cruel, manic laughter.

The court, meanwhile, welcomed you enthusiastically.

Far too enthusiastically.

In a palace where the highborn starved for any scrap of novelty, a prince’s absent, abandoned wife qualified as premium entertainment. You were like a living curiosity: the girl who had survived the cruel prince and had now been summoned back by the King’s own hand.

The ladies of the court descended upon you almost immediately, like a flock of colorful, preening birds of prey trapped in a cage of silk and velvet. They cornered you in the gardens, crowded around your table at morning break-fast, and shadowed your steps through the lower galleries.

They discussed gowns down to the exact placement of expensive laces. They argued over jewels, measuring the worth of a house by the clarity of a diamond.

They debated marriage as if it were a game of cyvasse, plotting which second sons could be bartered off. They tore down other ladies with sharp, syrupy smiles.

They whispered endlessly about who was sleeping with whom.

They speculated wildly on who wished to sleep with whom.

And, most exhausting of all, they giggled over who claimed not to be sleeping with whom, despite very obviously sleeping with whom.

You hated every single, agonizing moment of it. Your face grew stiff from forcing polite, empty smiles. You missed the smell of your books. You missed the earnest, chaotic energy of your school. You missed the absolute, unblemished luxury of silence. Most of all, you missed the simple dignity of being left entirely alone.

Fortunately, the gods occasionally offered small compensations for human suffering.

In this case, your salvation came in the form of Princess Daena.

The youngest child and only daughter of King Daeron. Daena was a whirlwind of a girl.

She was only a few years older than you, though one would never know it from the way she carried herself. Where most women at court acquired a degree of restraint with age, Daena seemed to have actively rejected the concept. She possessed an astonishing, almost magnificent combination of supreme confidence and complete, unadulterated foolishness.

It was the sort of foolishness that could only flourish in someone who had spent her entire life being adored.

Perhaps it was because she was the youngest of the king’s children, born long after her brothers. Perhaps it was because she was the only daughter in a family full of princes. Or perhaps everyone around her had simply surrendered years ago and decided it was easier to indulge her than correct her.

She had been married once. A lord from a respectable house, if your memory served correctly. You never quite remembered which one because Daena never spoke of him with much enthusiasm.

The marriage had not lasted long though.

Her husband died during the Blackfyre Rebellion, leaving her widowed while still very young. Most women would have been expected to remain with their husband’s family or remarry eventually.

Daena simply returned to the Red Keep. And never left. No one seemed particularly inclined to force the issue. Not when she was the king’s only daughter. And not when she appeared perfectly content exactly where she was.

Years later, she still occupied her apartments in the castle as though she had merely stepped out for a brief visit and forgotten to go back.

She spoke constantly, her words tumbling out in a breathless rush that often seemed to outrun her thoughts. Conversations with her rarely followed a sensible path. One moment she would be sharing some scandal she had overheard at court, the next she would interrupt herself to wonder aloud whether horses had favorite colors. By the end of the conversation, neither of you could remember how it had started.

She approached every mundane aspect of life with the fiery determination of a seasoned warrior, combined with the fragile intelligence of a deeply distracted goose.

Within three days of your arrival, despite her complete lack of sense, she had become your favorite person at court. Not because she was particularly clever.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

But she was thoroughly, wonderfully entertaining. She was a breath of fresh air in a room full of perfumed suffocations. And unlike most of the venomous ladies at court, Daena possessed absolutely no talent whatsoever for subtle cruelty. She didn't know how to whisper a compliment that doubled as an insult; if she disliked something, she simply stated it with the bluntness of a warhammer.

“You read too much,” she informed you one bright afternoon, peering over the top of your thick tome while swinging her legs off the stone bench in the godswood.

“You read too little,” you replied without looking up, turning a crisp page.

“Books make me sleepy,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “All those tiny black letters look like ants crawling across the paper. It gives me a headache.”

“Books give you knowledge, Daena. For instance, they might teach you what animals eat. You once attempted to feed a lemon tart to a royal peacock.”

Daena sniffed defensively, tilting her chin up. “It looked hungry.”

“It tried to bite your fingers off.”

“Yes. A thoroughly rude animal,” she grumbled, entirely unrepentant. “No manners at all. Next time, I shall bring a stick instead of a pastry.”

The months passed pleasantly enough after that, the sharp edges of the Red Keep softened by Daena’s chaotic companionship.

Until the sickness arrived.

At first, it was little more than a collection of distant whispers. A sudden, shivering fever in the rotting alleys of Flea Bottom. A hacking, wet cough among the kitchen servants.

A handful of isolated deaths among the smallfolk that nobody in the upper keeps considered particularly alarming. People died in the slums every day, it was the tax of poverty.

Then, the whispers grew into a deafening roar.

The fevers spread like wildfire through dry brush, leaping over the city walls and defying the heavy oak doors of the wealthy. Entire noble households fell ill within a span of days, masters and servants dying in the same sheets.

The city began to change, stripping away its vibrant, chaotic skin. Doors remained barred and locked from the inside. The bustling markets emptied, leaving rotting produce and abandoned carts in the squares.

The ominous, rhythmic tolling of funeral bells rang far more frequently than the bells of the church septs.

People stopped gathering in crowds, looking at their own neighbors with raw suspicion. Fear settled over King’s Landing like a suffocating, physical shadow, choking the life out of the capital.

The Great Spring Sickness.

Even the name sounded deceptively gentle, evoking images of blooming flowers and morning dew. But there was nothing gentle about it.

It was a horrific, bloody scourge that turned a man’s blood to water and his lungs to ash within two days of the first chill. Every single day brought a fresh wave of reports to the castle. More deaths. More uncontrollable fevers. More black drapes of mourning hanging from balconies.

The Red Keep attempted to continue as normal, putting on a brave, stubborn face to prevent total panic in the streets.

For a time.

Then, the ultimate terror struck, even the royal family, with all their ancient valyrian blood and isolated privileges, began to fall ill.

Prince Matarys, young and full of promise, went first.

Then Prince Valarr followed his brother into the dark.

One right after another.

There was a crushing silence that followed. The sheer disbelief that washed over the courtiers.. The raw, jagged grief of a family being systematically hollowed out. It was a terrifying realization for the entire realm: that dragons could die just as easily, just as pitifully, as any beggar in the gutter.

The court changed overnight, its glittering facade completely shattering. Laughter disappeared entirely from the halls. Conversations became quieter, reduced to paranoid whispers in darkened alcoves. People began watching one another with a terrifying, hawkish intensity, staring at a neighbor's throat or forehead as though the sickness might be visible if one looked hard enough, terrified of a single cough or a sudden bead of sweat.

Then came the worst, most devastating blow of all.

King Daeron.

The kind, weary king who had summoned you to court because he genuinely worried you might be lonely in your quiet life. The Great Spring Sickness claimed him before the year was out, leaving his bedchamber cold and his throne empty.

The Great Sept of Baelor smelled of death. It was not the crisp, clean scent of the high-burning pyres, but the heavy, suffocating odor of hundreds of beeswax candles, stale incense, and the lingering, invisible phantom of the Great Spring Sickness.

The funeral of King Daeron II, and his two bright, promising grandsons, Valarr and Matarys, had ended hours ago. The highborn mourners had dispersed like smoke, leaving the massive stone structure hollowed out and freezing.

You remained behind.

You had not known the princes well. They were distant figures of duty and grace, but they had been good men. Kind men. In a dynasty so frequently plagued by madness and cruelty, they had been a promise of a gentle spring. Now, they were ashes, and the crown had slid heavily onto the head of Daeron’s second son, Aerys, a man who preferred dusty scrolls to the living world.

You knelt before the altar of the Mother, your hands clasped tightly against the rough wool of your mourning gown. You wanted to pray. You needed to pray, if only to find some semblance of order in a world that had tilted entirely off its axis in a matter of weeks.

"A crown," a voice rasped through the gloom. "A crown of gold, heavy with the weight of dozens... dozens of ghosts." You flinched, your hands dropping as you turned sharply.

Emerging from the shadow of one of the massive marble pillars was Maester Gladys.

Your breath caught in your throat. This was the man. The architect of your misery. It was Maester Gladys who, years ago, had whispered into the ears of your family and the Citadel, orchestrating the match that bound you to the nightmare that was Prince Aerion. You had hated him in silence since then.

But looking at him now, hatred gave way to a cold, prickling dread.

The maester’s robes were disheveled, the links of his chain clinking together erratically as he trembled. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and glassy as he stared completely past you, trapped in the throes of a waking delirium. The sickness had not taken his body, but it seemed to have shattered his mind. He was hallucinating, his hands clawing at the empty air as if tearing away a veil.

"They fall," Gladys whispered, his voice rising in an eerie, melodic cadence. He stepped closer, entirely unaware of who you were, seeing only a shape in the dim sept. "The dragons fall like autumn leaves. First the brave, then the beautiful, then the old king. The spring takes them. But the spring is just the wind that clears the field."

"Maester Gladys," you said, your voice trembling as you backed away from the altar. "You are unwell. Let me call someone to help y—"

"No!" He lunged forward with terrifying, sudden speed, his bony fingers gripping your wrists. His grip was like ice. His wild eyes locked onto yours, and for a fraction of a second, a horrific spark of clarity pierced his madness. "I saw it. Years ago, before I sent the letters. Before I bound you to the dragon's blood. I had a dream."

Your heart hammered against your ribs. "Let me go."

"A dream of a throne of swords," Gladys hissed, his breath smelling of sour wine and poppy juice. "I saw the royals... their descendants... dozens of them, blood on their doublets, ash in their hair. A line completely severed. And through the smoke, I saw you. Not Aerion. Not Aerys. You, sitting upon the Iron Throne, the realm quiet at your feet. That is why you had to be here! The gods demanded you be planted in the garden before the fire began!"

Horror, cold and absolute, flooded your veins. You yanked your hands from his grasp with a desperate surge of strength.

He stumbled backward, laughing a breathless, broken laugh, still muttering about a throne made of bones and a queen crowned in shadows.

You didn't look back. You turned and ran.

You ran through the towering doors of the Sept, down the endless marble steps of Visenya’s Hill, the wind whipping your mourning veil against your face. Your lungs burned. The maester’s words chased you like a curse. It was madness. It was the fever talking. It had to be.

But as the days bled into weeks, the horror only deepened, because the world began to mimic the madman's dream with terrifying precision.

King Aerys I was crowned in a somber, muted ceremony. He took the throne, ignored his wife, ignored his realm, and buried his face in books of prophecy.

The crown sat precariously on a head that refused to look at the living, while the heavy hand of Bloodraven governed from the shadows. The Red Keep became a tomb of whispers and dust, but the true horror was not the silence of the new King, but it was the terrifying rhythm with which the Stranger kept reclaiming the dragon’s blood.

The madman— or should you say, Maester Gladys’s prophecy did not unfold in a single, sudden ruination. But instead, it eroded the Targaryen dynasty piece by piece, striking down the royals in ways so sudden and bizarre they defied all reason.

The first of these strange, chilling extractions happened right before your eyes, turning a rare evening of courtly pretense into a waking nightmare.

It was during a feast, a forced, hollow celebration meant to project a semblance of stability.

The air in the Great Hall was thick with the scent of roasted meats, spilled wine, and heavy perfumes meant to mask the lingering dread of the city. You sat at the high table, wedged into a space that felt less like an honor and more like a surveillance post. To your left sat Princess Daena, fidgeting with her silver fork. To your right sat Prince Rhaegal.

Rhaegal was a gentle, broken creature, a man whose mind had long since dissolved into a soft, harmless madness. That evening, he was in one of his distant, melancholic moods, his violet eyes glassy as he stared at his plate, occasionally humming a melody only he could hear.

“Try the lamprey pie,” Daena murmured to you, gesturing toward a massive, golden-crusted dish that had just been carved. “The cook swore he used the finest spices from Dorne, though I suspect he just spilled pepper into the broth.”

Before you could reply, Rhaegal reached out. With a sudden, childlike enthusiasm that often characterized his shifting moods, he took a massive, heavy portion of the pie, driving his fork into the rich, dark meat. He ate quickly, untethered from the rigid decorum expected of a prince of the blood, his mind clearly miles away from the Great Hall.

You turned back to Daena, smiling faintly at her chatter, when a sharp, wet gasp cut through the ambient noise of the feast.

You turned sharply. Rhaegal’s fork had clattered against his pewter plate. His hands flew to his throat, his face rapidly turning a terrifying, mottled shade of purple. The gentle prince was struggling for air, his lungs completely blocked by a thick piece of the heavy pastry.

“Uncle?” Daena asked, her voice dropping its playful edge, replaced by a sudden, sharp panic. “Uncle Rhaegal?”

Rhaegal didn't answer. He couldn't. His chest heaved violently, a horrific, choking sound tearing from his throat as he stumbled backward out of his high-backed chair. The heavy oak crashed against the stone floor, a sound that instantly silenced the immediate radius of the high table. Courtiers froze, wine cups suspended in mid-air.

You lunged forward, your fingers catching the sleeve of his velvet doublet as he began to sink to his knees. “Maester!” you shouted, your voice echoing off the high stone rafters. “Help him! He’s choking!”

But the response was too slow. In a court paralyzed by the fear of sudden death, everyone simply stared. Rhaegal clawed at his own neck, his glassy eyes rolling back into his head, fixed on the high, vaulted ceiling as if he could see the invisible threads pulling him down. He thrashed once, twice, a pitiful, desperate struggle for a single gasp of air, and then his body went entirely limp in your grasp.

By the time the Grand Maester finally scrambled up the steps of the elevated dais, robes billowing and chains clinking in a useless panic, the Prince of Dragonstone was already gone. The direct heir to the Iron Throne lay still on the cold stone. Rhaegal had lived through the horrors of the Great Spring Sickness, surviving a plague that had wiped out thousands, only to have his breath stolen by a greasy piece of crust.

A heavy, suffocating panic descended on the hall. Daena let out a small, terrified sob, clutching at your arm, but you could only stare down at Rhaegal’s still, purple face. Dozens of deaths, Gladys’s voice echoed in the caverns of your mind. A line completely severed.

And then, as if the Stranger were executing a meticulously planned script, the dominoes continued to fall with horrific precision. Rhaegal’s son Aelor was named heir, only to be killed in a freak, tragic mishap by his own twin sister, who soon followed him into the grave.

The line was being systematically hollowed out, leaving nothing but ashes and empty chairs. Finally, Aerys too passed into the histories. He left behind a fractured, bleeding court, a vacant throne, and a path that led straight back to the one man you dreaded most.

His name was mentioned over and over again. You heard they had a meeting; a grim, quiet gathering of the small council, tucked away in the council chambers while the King's body was still being prepared for the silent sisters.

The question of who would succeed Aerys was simple on the surface, yet entirely terrifying beneath it. Naturally, the crown belonged to Maekar. He was the last surviving brother, a veteran commander of the Blackfyre Rebellions, and a man made of iron and duty. But after so many sudden, bizarre tragedies, after watching a whole generation of royals vanish into the dirt in a matter of months—the council was terrified of what would happen if Maekar fell next. They couldn't just crown a king, they had to secure a line. They needed to lock down exactly who was standing in line after Maekar.

And that was where the room had completely fractured.

By all laws of Westeros, the succession should have flowed down to Maekar’s eldest son, Prince Daeron. But the lords of the small council flatly refused to accept him. The excuse whispered through the castle corridors was that Daeron was utterly unfit to rule—a notorious drunkard, soft-willed, and so terrified of his own shadow that he had once fled a tourney rather than face a real knight. The lords wanted a strong, formidable heir to guarantee stability after years of plague and chaos, not a prince who spent his days in wine sinks trying to drown his own cowardice.

With Daeron effectively cast aside by the council, the debate turned to the next brother in line.

His name, Aerion, was mentioned countless times.

You heard the arguments from your position near the doorway, your skin turning entirely to ice. The lords spoke of his fierce Valyrian blood. They spoke of his martial skill, his undeniable presence, and the fact that, despite his exile in Lys, he was a prince who would never be accused of weakness or cowardice. You scoffed at that. 

They argued that a fractured, bleeding realm needed a dragon with claws, completely blind to the monstrous cruelty that lurked beneath Aerion's beautiful facade.

Every time his name echoed off the stone walls of the council chamber, Maester Gladys's mad prophecy hammered behind your eyes. A line completely severed. And through the smoke, I saw you.

They were preparing to bring him back. 

They were clearing the path for the monster you had barely escaped, dragging him closer to the throne, and closer to you, than anyone had ever intended.

And so here you were, at the harbor.

The sea stretched endlessly before you, a vast, oppressive sheet of cold gray beneath a morning sky that offered no comfort. The salt air was heavy, thick with the sharp tang of low tide and the smoky breath of the harbor’s watchtowers. Waves slapped lazily, relentlessly against the massive stone docks, entirely unaware— or perhaps entirely uncaring, that they were delivering catastrophe directly to your doorstep.

 Each dull splash felt like a countdown, a steady rhythmic ticking toward the end of the quiet life you had fought so hard to build.

Around you, the chaotic gears of royal preparation were already turning with frenetic energy.

Servants hurried back and forth in frantic pairs, carrying heavy iron-bound trunks, stumbling over coil ropes, and hauling velvet-draped litters. Knights in polished armor gathered near the edge of the piers, their greaves clinking as they shifted their weight, checking and rechecking the alignment of the gangplanks. Courtiers lingered in tight, whispering clusters like crows on a fence, speaking in lowered voices that were not nearly as discreet as they believed. You could catch fragments of their murmurs drifting over the sound of the wind—words like succession, blood of the dragon, Lys, and the King’s heir.

You stood perfectly still amongst them, a solitary figure draped in mourning black, frozen like a statue carved from grief and dread.

Watching. Waiting. Dreading.

With every passing minute, the ship grew larger on the horizon. A year ago, you had stood on this very harbor, watching the sails of his vessel shrink into nothingness, praying with every fiber of your being that the sea would swallow him whole and that he would never return.

The gods, apparently, possessed a vicious, twisted sense of humor. They had not only kept him alive; they had cleared a path through his entire family just to bring him back.

Beside you, Princess Daena squinted out toward the gray water, shading her eyes with a delicate, ringed hand. She was completely oblivious to the cold sweat prickling at your spine.

"Which one is he again?" she asked casually, tilting her head.

You stared at her, your voice flat, drained of all warmth. "My husband."

"Oh." Daena blinked, her brow furrowing in a brief moment of mental calculation. A pause stretched between you, filled only by the screaming of gulls overhead. "The terrifying one?"

"Yes."

"The handsome, terrifying one?"

You closed your eyes, the memory of his cruel, beautiful face flashing behind your eyelids like a brand. "Yes."

"Hm."

You heard absolutely no concern in her voice. When you opened your eyes again, Daena was still staring toward the approaching vessel with open, childlike curiosity, as if she were waiting for a traveling circus to pull into port rather than a monster.

"I always thought he was exaggerated," she murmured, tapping her chin. "The stories the old ladies tell in the solar. They make him sound like a demon out of a fairy tale."

"He isn't exaggerated."

"Really?"

Your jaw tightened. The memories of his unpredictable, erratic whims swarmed your mind. "He once suggested I join him and another woman in bed as though he was offering me cake. No shame. No affection. Just a casual invitation over breakfast."

Daena blinked, her shielded eyes widening slightly as she processed the image. "Oh." Another pause settled over the stone pier. Then, she let out a small, bewildered breath. "That is rather strange."

Rather strange. You briefly, intensely considered pushing her into the sea just to give yourself something else to look at.

The ship was close enough now that individual figures could be clearly seen moving across the polished wooden deck. The distinctive three-headed dragon of House Targaryen snapped aggressively against the gray sky on a field of black silk.

The crowd stirred, a collective, nervous energy rippling through the smallfolk and lords alike. Someone called out a sharp command for the heavy timber gangplanks to be readied.

Further ahead of the crowd, standing at the very edge of the pier, Prince Maekar stood as rigid as stone. His massive frame was clad in deep crimson and charcoal, his hands resting heavily on the pommel of his sword. If he felt any emotion regarding his second son's return, if his heart ached for the monster he had fathered, he concealed it behind a mask of pure iron.

You doubted he was pleased. Maekar was many things—stern, unyielding, and bitter—but even he wasn't blind. The small council might have been locked away in their chambers discussing the technicalities of succession, and the high lords might have been speaking grandly of strength, Valyrian blood, and the necessity of dragons, but Maekar knew his son. 

Perhaps better than anyone else in the Seven Kingdoms, Maekar knew exactly what Aerion was capable of when left to his own devices. And that knowledge alone made this entire situation infinitely worse. The father did not trust the son, yet the realm was forcing them together.

The ship finally eased into the stone slip of the harbor with a massive, slow momentum.

Thick hemp ropes were thrown through the air, caught by straining dockworkers. Sailors shouted orders over the roar of the wind, their voices hoarse and salt-worn. The heavy timber of the hull groaned in protest against the wooden pilings, a scraping, agonizing sound that vibrated right through the soles of your shoes. The vessel settled, its great oars drawing back like a predator folding its wings.

For a terrifying, suspended moment, nobody moved. The entire harbor seemed to hold its collective breath.

Then, the heavy wooden gangplank was lowered, hitting the stone dock with a loud, echoing thud.

A profound, heavy hush seemed to ripple through the gathered crowd. Your stomach twisted into a hard, painful knot. You hated that it did. You hated that after a year of absolute freedom, after all the peace and purpose you had carefully carved out for yourself among your books and your school, the mere possibility of seeing him again could still completely unsettle you. It made you feel weak. It made you feel like the frightened girl he had married, not the woman who had survived him.

The first men began descending the ramp. Guards in practical leather armor, Lysene servants carrying gilded birdcages, merchants in strange, bright eastern robes, faces you did not recognize, a blur of foreign wealth and colonial luxury.

Then– there he was.

Aerion Targaryen descended the gangplank as though he had personally conquered Lys and was returning to King's Landing to collect his rightful reward, rather than an exile being dragged home by a depleted family tree.

The bastard looked infuriatingly healthy.

If anything, his time across the Narrow Sea had only improved him. His silver hair had grown longer, catching the pale morning light, and the hot Lysene sun had darkened his pale skin to a warm, sun-kissed bronze. He wore expensive Essosi silks—a deep, shimmering violet doublet that perfectly matched his eyes—beneath a heavy travel cloak trimmed with fur that probably cost more than some small keeps in the crownlands. He looked rested. He looked powerful.

Which felt deeply, profoundly unfair.

You had spent an entire year secretly hoping for at least one visible hardship to have found him in the East. A limp from a tavern brawl. A jagged scar across his arrogant face. A missing tooth. Something, anything, to prove that the universe possessed a shred of justice. Instead, he appeared to have spent his entire exile drinking fine arbor gold, lounging in pleasure houses, and making everyone else's life thoroughly miserable while you dreaded his shadow.

Aerion’s boots stepped firmly onto Westerosi soil.

He paused at the base of the gangplank, and his violet eyes, bright, sharp, and terrifyingly lucid, swept across the gathered crowd. They passed over the armored knights without interest. They slid over the bowing servants. They dismissed the murmuring lords.

Then, they landed on you.

And stopped.

For one terrible, agonizing moment, neither of you moved. The entire harbor seemed to instantly disappear around you. The shouting of the sailors, the groaning wood, the crashing sea, the crowded pier, all of it was gone, reduced to white noise. There was nothing left in the world except those familiar, deadly eyes staring across the narrow distance between you.

Then, Aerion's mouth slowly, deliberately curved. It was not a smile of affection, nor was it a greeting. It was the sharp, curling smirk of absolute recognition. It was the look of a boy who had just found his favorite toy waiting for him exactly where he had left it.

You stared into his eyes, the madman Gladys's prophecy screaming in your ears, and you immediately regretted being alive.

There were many moments where you regretted being alive, but this was, without a doubt, the absolute worst of it.

It was supposed to be a simple family dinner. Simple, and yet every breath you took felt like swallowing glass. You spent the entire evening faking your smiles until your cheeks ached, holding your heavy silver utensils so tightly that the ornate patterns bit deep, permanent ridges into your palms. You didn't dare look up. You knew exactly what was waiting for you across the linen tablecloth if you did.

One after another, Aerion spoke of his time in Lys. He painted a picture of a paradise, his voice smooth and dripping with that familiar, theatrical charm that made the high lords lean in with rapt attention. He spoke of the towering pleasure houses of the Perfumed Garden, the sweet, spiced wines that never let a man go thirsty, and the effortless luxury of the Free Cities. He spun tales of naval skirmishes and foreign diplomacy as if he hadn't been kicked out of his own country for being a degenerate, but had instead gone on a grand, triumphant tour. To hear him tell it, his exile wasn't a punishment at all, it was more like a holiday.

“The Lysene know how to craft beauty,” Aerion said, his eyes sweeping across the table before settling on you. There was something in his tone that made your skin crawl. “Though there are some things even the wealthiest magisters cannot recreate.”

A knot tightened in your stomach. You lowered your gaze and forced yourself to take another bite of the roasted capon. The meat was tender, perfectly seasoned, and tasted like nothing at all. Ash filled your mouth instead.

To your left sat young Egg. The boy was a stark contrast to the rest of his family, sunburned from his hidden travels, his head recently shaved to hide his Targaryen features, and possessing a stubborn, grounded sense of reality that the rest of the court sorely lacked. He sat right beside you, kicking his legs slightly beneath the heavy oak table, his small fingers violently stabbing a piece of potato.

"He's a prick," Egg muttered under his breath, his voice so quiet it was nearly buried by the clinking of wine goblets. He leaned slightly toward you, his brow furrowed in a fierce, protective scowl. "A pompous, preening prick. He hasn't changed a bit."

A genuine, albeit fleeting, smile finally broke through your rigid mask. You didn't dare say a word out loud, but you let your fingers gently brush against Egg's sleeve in a silent, grateful acknowledgment.

Suddenly, the clinking of silverware died down.

"And what of your duties here, Aerion?" Maekar's voice boomed from the head of the table, heavy and demanding. The King-to-be hadn't touched his wine all evening. His dark eyes bored into his second son. "The council did not recall you from Lys to lounge in the capital like a perfumed magister."

Aerion set his chalice down with an agonizingly slow, deliberate grace. The silver rings on his finger clicked sharply against the gold rim.

"The realm needs a reminder of what a dragon looks like, Father," Aerion replied, his voice smooth, yet underlaid with a dangerous, purring edge. He didn't look at Maekar. Instead, his violet eyes slid deliberately back to you, locking onto your face with a predatory stillness that made the breath catch in your throat.

"And I intend to start my duties exactly where I left them. Beginning at home."

The oppressive, tense heat of that dinner faded, bleeding into the grand, echoey chill of the Great Hall days later.

The air inside the throne room was thick with the scent of burning tallow, heavy incense, and the collective sweat of hundreds of tightly packed nobles. Trumpets blared, their brassy notes reverberating off the high stone pillars, cutting through the low, reverent murmur of the crowd.

It was the day of the coronation.

Before the twisted, towering mass of the Iron Throne stood Maekar. He looked every bit the warrior king, his shoulders broad beneath heavy velvet, his face carved of unyielding granite as the High Septon raised the crown above his head. The crown itself was a heavy, formidable thing, a band of black iron set with square-cut rubies that caught the torchlight that almost looked like fresh, uncoagulated blood.

Your eyes locked onto the crown, tracking its slow descent toward Maekar's brow.

As the gold and iron caught the light, the grand hall seemed to bleed away. The blare of the trumpets distorted, turning into a low, rushing wind, and suddenly you were back in that dim, dust-choked chamber. You could smell the bitter herbs and the rotting parchment. You could see Maester Gladys's trembling, withered hands clutching at your robes, his milky, blind eyes staring right through your soul as his raspy voice tore from his throat.

A line completely severed. And through the smoke, I saw you. I saw you sitting on the Iron Throne.

The memory shattered as the High Septon finally placed the heavy crown onto Maekar’s head, declaring him the first of his name. A deafening roar went up from the crowd “Long live King Maekar!” –and the nobles burst into thunderous applause.

Standing in the front ranks beside the rest of the royal family, you kept your hands folded politely in front of your dress, your gaze never wavering from the rubies glittering on the new King's brow.

And for the first time, you didn't push the madman’s prophecy away. You didn't shudder in fear or wish to run. Instead, you eyed that heavy band of iron and rubies with a quiet, burning intensity, wondering with a sudden, sharp clarity if it really was all true.

If the line was meant to sever, then why shouldn't it end with you?

You looked at Maekar, and then your eyes slid slightly to the side, where Aerion stood basking in the reflected glory of his father's new titles. He looked proud, arrogant, and entirely secure in his place as the council’s chosen future.

But you knew the truth. You were better than Aerion. He was a creature of petty malice and fragile ego, a boy who thought cruelty made him a dragon. You were incomparable to him. Where he brought chaos and terror, you possessed a mind that could actually construct order. You understood the delicate, bleeding pulse of the realm. You knew its history, its flaws, and the desperate, quiet needs of the people living under its shadow.

If the gods or the prophecies meant to hand you the reins of Westeros, you wouldn't just sit on the throne to collect taxes and demand bows. You would change lives. You would rewrite the rules of the court, steady the crumbling foundations of the realm, and build something lasting– something better than whatever broken, arrogant Targaryen kings had come before you.

The crowd continued to cheer, their voices echoing off the high stone ceiling like rumbling thunder, a deafening wave of noise that seemed to vibrate right through the floorboards.

As the hours bled on, the somber atmosphere of the coronation melted away, and the Great Hall was transformed into an ornate ball and a dining room at the same time. Tapestries of Targaryen history were illuminated by the harsh, flickering glare of a thousand fresh beeswax candles. Servants moved in a frantic dance of their own, rushing between tables to replace heavy platters of roasted meats and pour endless rivers of sweet Arbor gold. Music from the gallery above swelled; pipes, harps, and drums weaving a lively, almost aggressive rhythm that filled the cavernous room.

And unfortunately for you– you were seated directly beside Aerion.

Ever since his heavy leather boots had landed on Westerosi soil at the port, he had not once properly acknowledged your existence. He sat beside you like a beautiful, dangerous statue, his attention seemingly entirely occupied by the lords who leaned across the table to curry favor with the new King's son.

It was better, you supposed. In fact, it was much better than the alternative. You would gladly take his cold shoulder over having to deal with whatever sharp, twisted insults normally landed from his vile mouth. You kept your gaze fixed ahead, watching the colorful blur of spinning courtiers on the dance floor, hoping that if you sat quietly enough, you might simply blend into the heavy velvet drapery.

But Aerion Targaryen was never a man to let you find peace.

Somehow, he managed to ignore and acknowledge your presence at the exact same time. He did not look at you, nor did he address you by name, but he spent the evening launching snide, venomous remarks that were lowkey, yet undeniably, about you.

"The women of Lys know how to dress for a feast," Aerion remarked to a minor lord sitting across the cloth, his voice cutting clearly through the ambient music. He lifted his golden chalice, swirling the dark wine within. The man nodded uncertainly, unsure on what to respond. “They arrive determined to improve the evening.”

His gaze drifted briefly toward your black mourning gown. "Not everyone shares that same ambition." A few men laughed. You tightened your grip on your silver fork, your jaw locking into a rigid line.

There were two reasons you still wore black.

The first was respectable enough. King Daeron was gone, as were Aerys and the young princes. Not even a year had passed since death had swept through the royal family with such ruthless speed. Mourning remained appropriate.

The second reason was less suitable for polite conversation.

You were mourning your own life.Or rather, the life you had before Aerion Targaryen returned and proceeded to trample through it like a dragon through a vegetable garden. It had been quiet then. Peaceful. Predictable. You had your books, your routines, your freedom from his relentless presence.

And now he was back, ruining all of it with remarkable efficiency.

Aerion set his chalice down with a deliberate, echoing thud, the gold gleaming under the candlelight as he swiveled his attention slightly back to his sycophants. “That’s another thing I miss about Lys.”

The lord across from him leaned forward eagerly, practically tripping over himself to absorb whatever royal favor or scandalous gossip the prince was about to dispense.

The lord blinked. "My prince?"

A cruel, fond smirk tugged at the corner of Aerion’s mouth as he murmured, “The Lysene women are excellent company.”

“Then perhaps you should have stayed.”

The words escaped before you could stop them. Oops. Awkward.

A mistake.

The moment they left your mouth, you felt it— the sudden shift in the air around the table. The conversation nearby faltered. A few lords looked down into their cups with remarkable interest. Somewhere behind you, you could practically feel Meriel having a silent heart attack.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the high table.

At the far end, Daena brightened immediately. The traitor.

For the first time in days, you had voluntarily spoken to Aerion, and she looked as delighted as if she’d just witnessed a long-awaited reconciliation rather than what was very clearly the beginning of another argument.

But slowly and deliberately, Aerion looked at you for the first time all evening.

The movement of his neck was smooth, fluid, and utterly devoid of warmth. Predatory lilac eyes locked onto yours, wide with a terrifying kind of amusement.

“There she is,” he purred, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling register that made the hairs on your arms stand up.

Aerion leaned in closer, the scent of wine and ash washing over you as his smirk widened into something truly venomous. “What a touching reunion.”

He tilted his head, his eyes tracking the frantic rise and fall of your chest as you struggled to maintain your composure. “I was beginning to worry you’d forgotten how.”

Suddenly, the music shifted, slowing into a heavy, rhythmic cadence. One of the courtiers stepped forward, announcing that the high table was expected to lead the next dance.

Aerion set his chalice down with a sharp clink. That lazy smirk on his lips sharpened into something altogether dangerous. He extended a hand toward you, his fingers long and elegant, yet caked with the invisible memory of violence.

You looked at it—at the calluses earned from relentless training, at the heavy signet ring catching the torchlight. Then you looked up at him, meeting a gaze that was far too calm.

“No.”

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, his dark brows lifting a fraction of an inch before his features smoothed back into that familiar, infuriating composure.

“That wasn’t a difficult instruction,” he murmured, his voice smooth and entirely devoid of apology.

“You’ve ignored me all evening.”

“Yes.”

“And now you wish to dance.”

“Also yes.”

His hand remained suspended between you, an unyielding invitation. Around the high table, the low hum of courtly chatter had died down. Lords and ladies had begun watching, nudging one another, their eyes glittering with the hunger for a domestic scandal.

You decided that you hated every single one of them.

Knowing a public refusal would feed the vultures for weeks, you swallowed your pride. Slowly, deliberately, you placed your hand in his. His fingers closed around yours instantly, warm and possessive.

Aerion’s mouth twitched, a shadow of a smirk playing on his lips. “There she is.”

“I hope you fall down a staircase,” you shot back, keeping your voice low enough for only him to hear.

“See? We hardly spoke for a year and you’ve already missed me.”

The dance was a nightmare.

The court cleared a path as he led you to the center of the floor. Aerion guided you through the intricate, sweeping steps with infuriating ease, his hand firm against your back, effortlessly dictating the pace before you could try to lead.

“You’ve become even more miserable,” he noted, his eyes scanning your face as the music swelled around you.

You refused to look at him, choosing instead to stare somewhere over his shoulder at a dusty tapestry on the far wall. “Welcome home.”

“I left for a year and this is the reception I receive.”

“You’ll survive.”

A corner of his mouth lifted, a genuine glint of amusement in his eyes. “There she is.”

“What does that mean?” you snapped, briefly breaking your vow of silence to glare at him.

“You’ve spent the entire evening pretending I don’t exist.”

“I was hoping you’d do the same.”

He laughed softly, the vibration traveling through his hand on your waist. The sound irritated you more than it should have, warming your cheeks in a way that had nothing to do with the heat of the hall.

“You’ve been hiding,” he said, executing a seamless turn that forced you closer to his chest.

“I’ve been reading.”

“Same thing.”

You considered stomping on his heavy leather boot with the heel of your slipper. It would be so easy. A slight misstep, a quiet crunch of his toes. Unfortunately, half the realm was watching, their eyes tracking your every movement.

Aerion seemed to notice the calculation in your eyes, his grip tightening just enough to anchor you. “Go on.”

“What?”

“I know that look.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You want to kick me.”

Your silence answered for you, your jaw tightening as you offered him a sweetly venomous smile for the benefit of the crowd.

“Very healthy marriage,” he said, drawing you just a fraction closer as the music began to fade.

—

When the dance finally ended, you didn't give him the chance to escort you back. You practically fled the Great Hall, lifting your heavy skirts and hurrying through the labyrinthine, torch-lit stone corridors of the Red Keep until you finally reached the safety of your own quarters.

You pushed open the bedchamber door.

Relief flooded through you. Finally. Silence. No music. No courtiers. And most importantly, no Aerion–

You stopped.

Aerion was sitting on the edge of your bed. A silver goblet rested loosely in one hand, the dark red wine sloshing slightly against the rim. For several seconds, neither of you spoke. The only sound was the crackle of the hearth fire playing across his sharp valyrian features.

Then:

“You took the scenic route.”

You shut your eyes. Slowly and carefully. As though patience alone might make him disappear. When you opened them again, he was still there, stretched across the edge of your bed with all the comfort of a man in his own chambers.

“Get out.”

Aerion lifted his goblet and took an unhurried sip. “No,” the answer came so quickly it was almost insulting.

“I am serious.”

“So am I.”

You dropped your head into your hands, pressing your fingers against your temples. A headache had begun somewhere around the third insult at dinner and had only worsened with every passing hour.

“Why are you here?”

Aerion opened his mouth. You immediately held up a hand.

“Actually, wait.” You pointed a warning finger at him. “I already dislike this answer.” And to your irritation, he looked pleased.

“You fled.”

“Yes.”

“And I followed you.”

“That explains nothing.”

Aerion frowned slightly, as if you were being deliberately difficult.

“It explains the entire sequence of events.”

“No, it explains how you got here. It does not explain why you're here.”

You stared at him, your gaze filled with unadulterated venom. Aerion stared back, entirely unbothered, his posture relaxed against your silk sheets. The silence stretched between you, thick and suffocating.

Then he smirked. “Did you genuinely think you could lose me?”

“Hope is free.”

“Not for much longer, when I become king.”

“If.”

Aerion rolled his eyes, annoyance already flooding to the both of you, shattering the last remnants of any polite pretense. He set his goblet down on the nightstand with a definitive thud and stood up, bridging the distance between you.

"We need an heir," he said, his voice dropping into something heavy and entirely stripped of its playful malice. "My father and the small council spent the better part of the morning discussing it. To ensure the Targaryen line lives on. It is a matter of state."

Sensing exactly where this was going, your stomach churned with defense.

"I am your husband—" Aerion started, his tone commanding.

"Estranged," you cut him off sharply.