ReptileRae

Dunk grows up with the Baratheons and spens a lot of time at the family stables, manned by the ever grouchy Mr Arlan Pennytree, who teaches him how to care for the horses.

As he grows up Dunk realises that his calling consists of taking care of children, so he gets a diploma in child caring before starting on one to become a teacher.

While he studies he also works as a babysitter for a bunch of rich families (Baratheons family firends) and with the money from his allowance and money from his work he buys himself an apoartment in the city (coming and going from the mansion was troublesome).

One day, he applies for work as a babysitter for the rich Maekar Targaryen and gets hired. He is hired not only because of his diploma in child-caring but also because of his experience with horses and his license as a historical fencing instructor (Egg is going through a phase).

He works there for months, taking care of the younger children of Maekar, and there he meets Baelor Targaryen, Maekar's brother, who he starts an easy friendship with, at first they talk about their shared knowledge about knights and their code of conduct and the cìdifferences between noble and lowborn knights, but slowly they fall for each other.

One day the Baratheons are hosting a gala and the Targaryens are invited, Maekar and Baelor arrive at the gala and are shocked to see Dunk (who they thought a normal college student with moderately wealthy parents) there. They approach him and are like: "Why are you here?" and Dunk is, confused :"I'm hosting????"

That's how the Targ find out that Dunk is the famous Duncan Baratheon (people assumed he took the name whenin reality he didn't), the orphaned child the coupole had taken in over ten years before. While Dunk finds out that his bosses fdon't know what family he's part of...which makes a truckload of sense (Maekar never bothering to censure himself about his dislike for Lyonel while in Dunk's presence).

Valarr is tired of his dad always looking at Dunk like this:

And of Dunk being the human embodiment of the heart eyes emoji when looking at Baelor. And then neither of them actually doing anything about it. So he takes matters into his own hands (he's emboldened by booze, while Dunk and Baelor are more buzzed on happiness than any drink) and catches Dunk to give him a reminder of the exact location of Baelor's much more private than anything that can be found in camp rooms at the castle and tell him to go there immediately and wait for Baelor to join him.

Dunk is racing up to the castle immediately.

Then Valarr catches Baelor and is all "Time to retire for the night, old man."

Baelor trying to protest. Not least of all because getting sent to your bed by your own son is lightly embarrassing, but also because he's having a great time at the party, freer than he's been at any celebration in far too long.

Valarr resists the urge to call his father an idiot and instead settles on, "We might all be heading for King's Landing now, but he won't stay there forever, you know this. My recommendation is that you spend as much time with him while you can. And also never tell me what you do."

Baelor cycles through the entire spectrum of human emotion in about three seconds, ending with pride. He grabs Valarr by the back of the neck and pulls him in close, giant smile stretched across his face. "I thank the gods for you, every day."

"And I, you." Valarr closes the distance and presses their foreheads together. "Now, go- you are wasting time."

-

Baelor makes it to the castle in record time, ignores anyone who tries to get his attention and kicks down the door to his borrowed chambers.

In the roughly three seconds it takes for Baelor to cross the room, Dunk has said about eight thousand words. Stammering through an explanation. Apologising for he doesn't even know what. Trying to justify his presence alone here.

Baelor cuts all of that off with a kiss when he finally reaches Dunk.

And then it's Baelor's turn to panic because Dunk just freezes. So he steps back, pointedly ignoring Dunk's gaze, probably bright red, thinking that he's misread everything and wondering whether Valarr is too old for him to ground, for pushing him into all of this. And then he stammers through an apology. He didn't mean to force anything on Dunk. And of course Dunk is more than welcome to still accompany them to King's Landing. Or he can just head back out on the road already and he'll make all the apologies to the king. And he definitely didn't fight for Dunk in the hopes that something like this would happen afterwards. And he would fight for him all over again, if they had the chance to do this from the beginning. He'd fight for him, no matter the circumstances. And he's trying to leave, to get away from the embarrassment (maybe there's still some good wine left in this castle or he can sneak back down to the party), and makes it all the way to the door, hand reaching out for the latch.

Dunk stops him. By simply holding the door shut with one hand.

Yes, Baelor does think this show of strength is hot. Or at least he would if he could think of anything other than how close Dunk is standing and staring down at him, with the darkest eyes he has ever and breathing at least as heavily as he is and getting ever closer with every ragged breath that falls from both of them.

"Not really sure what you're supposed to do when a prince kisses you. Think I might have messed it up a little. Think I might like the chance to make that right if you'll have me."

"I'd have you right here if I could." Baelor meant it to be teasing, but there's nothing teasing about the way Dunk's eyes flutter shut or the whine he lets out in response. But he needs to be sure, before he crosses the last sliver of distance between them. "You want--"

Dunk presses a palm to Baelor's cheek. "Haven't wanted anything this much in a long time."

Baelor would have taken either the words or the action as confirmation, but both? Both is good. He doesn't know if he moves first or Dunk does or both at the same time, but it doesn't matter because then they're kissing again.

And there's no freezing and no panic this time.

I want them to have a soft kiss the first time. Just gentle and leaning into each other and learning what they can and just revelling in getting this and almost not being able to manage it because they're too busy smiling.And then they have to pause for breath. And then they're stood foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air more heavily than either of them had counted on. And it's only then that they get desperate.

Baelor sinking his teeth into Dunk's lips hard enough to draw blood.

Bruising kisses.

Ripping clothes.

Breaking at least two pieces of furniture.

Long standing argument about who found it hotter when Dunk just picked Baelor up and carried him to the bed.

Moans and groans shaking the walls.

Ripping clothes.

Staining the sheets so thoroughly that they'll definitely have to be thrown out.

Baelor whispering far filthier things in Dunk's ear than he could ever have imagined (and Dunk promising to make sure every single word comes true).

Dunk gets to find out what it takes to make a prince come undone (and Baelor won't let him stop at just once).

First of all, fuck it, let's make this a no one dies AU. Also, I'm thinking the one canon champion who doesn't fight for Dunk should be Hardyng because of the broken leg. But like in a good "You've got seven able-bodied men willing to fight for you, don't pick the one with the fucked up leg" type way and it's fine because he's the one saying it, even if he does also have reasonable reasons for wanting to beat the shit out of Aerion, too). Plus, it's a good way to remove one of the characters that dies away from the thing that kills him. But the main point it, there's no bad feelings.

I can't entirely say that the Trial progresses as is because it clearly doesn't, but still keep the part where Dunk and Aerion are going at each other and all the beating up and almost dying that entails and Dunk still wins.

Few days to recover because everyone got some heavy knocks (at least, some even worse) and they need some down time. And then it's the night before everyone is due to depart so there's a massive party in the camp. Dunk and all of his champions are the toast of the event. Even the losing team are invited and treated mostly kindly. Not Aerion, who's probably still sulking in his chambers, and no one wants to talk to Steffon anyway. But I thought it would be cool of say the Kingsguard could be there and there's nice talk of tactics and all. And even Maekar turns up and doesn't sulk and Baelor drags him into the conversation more and it's almost like they're sharing war stories again (and that turns out to be more important than they counted on). And Daeron is having a greater time because maybe his Dreams aren't always right and that means there's the opportunity to change anything actually and that might just be the first time he's hoped in a long while.

Party is a great bonding time for Baelor and Valarr, too. It's not war, but Valarr got to fight alongside his dad and how cool is that? And Baelor is proud Papa-ing to anyone who will listen about how skilled his son is. "Did you see that great move he pulled?", "He nearly took my head off.", "Shut up, Maekar- I'm being proud." They just get each other a little better after this.

Everyone at the party being in a great mood basically.

And Baelor and Valarr and Maekar (for a short time at least) and even Daeron and Egg being there is probably actually good PR for the family after all. And not just because of the fancy booze they bring along, but their combined injuries prove their humanity and they're just there, free to talk to and willing to listen to everyone so they're connecting with people better.

Also, please imagine that Baelor is smiling basically the entire way through.

So, since westeros is massive and extremely feudal I reasoned that they'd have a lot of dialects, starting with the main one speaken by nobles, known to commoners as "highborn" (I haven't decided what name the lords would give it).

Nobles use this as a univeral language, but in general every lord speaks at least 2 or three dialects: highborn, and the two most common lowborn dialects of their region, while the nobles that reside in KL court speak highborne, Crown (Crownlands main dialect) and High Valyryan (you will never convince me that nobles aren't foaming at the mouth to speak their liege native language).

Meanwhile commoners speak a number of dialects based on their lives: a normal farmer will probably never leave the land they were born in, as such they might go their entire life only speaking the dialect of their region, while a merchant will know a bunch of different dialects, among which highborn and hedges (dialect made to be understandable to most dialects, its name comes from the fact that most hedge knights speak it), while any lowborn who has to deal with nobles on the daily, like servants or guards will know a number of lowborn dialect while also speaking (or at least unbderstanding) highborn.

So, when a noble travels they usually bring a translator with them, to make sure that they will be able to communicate with lowborns should the need arise.

Now onto how this whole headcanon fits our blorbo: Dunk grew up speaking Flea, the dialect spoken in Flea Bottom, rumored to be so difficult to understand that only those born speaking it can understand it, and he could hold a conversation in Crown.

Later (once he was taken in by ser Arlan) he learned a lot of new languages (he still cannot read), even more than those ser Arlan knew, because he had a talent for understanding people, so learning new languages, as long as it was through speach, came easy to him.

Now, I don't know how many of you can speak more than one language, but it is easy to mix up and directly translate a sentence that doesn't make sense outside of its original language, this is partially the reason Dunk is so akward in the show, because he's speaking highborn, and as much as he's fluent in it, he still makes some mistakes, like when he say relatevly weird shit lik: "it is mine by right" or "I hope they will not be found dead" these sentences in the context they were spoken in eiuther made no sense or were in bad taste, but he was directly translating them from another dialect (for examle Crown) so they did not sound strange to him.

This is not to say that our blorbo isnt akward or shy or a bit socially stunted at times, but it is to say that he's these things even more when talking in Highborn simply because he's not as used to speaking it as he's used to speaking in more common lowborn dialects.

If you are interested in more about this (like, idk, what dialects Dunk speaks or how highborn came to be) you are welcome to ask.