Sam✳️

“just you-“ he grunted voice sharp enough to cut.

You did not bristle at it. Your skin has grown tougher over the years, Maekar was simply rough man. He did not care much for the poetics of overstated manners.

“yes, gods, just i.” You confirm with a roll of your eyes before the latch opens and you are able to push the door forward. It swing closed behind you as you step into the space. Looking around for him.

“I seem to have pulled something.” He said through gritted teeth. Behind you, his voice coming from lower which was strange…he always towers above you, aside from more intimate moments, but this was not one of those.

Your shoes turned against the stone floors as you faced the door again and looked to the side of it. Maekar was slumped half over on the floor, a hand braced against the ground and his other holding his back.

“Oh gods-“ you knelt right away and went to feel where his hand was.

“fucks sake woman!” He hissed when your fingers pressed against the tender muscle.

“I’m calling for a maester-“ you tell him seriously and stand up about to go open the door and demand one be brought here.

“no…wife, no.” His voice is softer now, less anger filling it and more anxiety. His hand has also reached to grab your ankle. To stop you from stepping. To prevent you from swinging open the door and letting all those gathered see him crumbled on the floor. Weakened by a overdramatic muscles spasm.

You sigh, nod, so he doesn’t hurt himself by attempting to stop you from bringing people in.

“fine…no maester.” You reach to rub his cheek and frown at the pain you see etched into every feature.

“Here,” you begin to remove his training leathers and eventually get him so he’s sitting in a more upright position. “Trust me.” You kiss his temple once and stand up going to the door. Cracking it open and looking out.

“leave us…” when they all lingered just blink at your command you swallowed, set your jaw in the way Maekar had shown you and bit out. “Have you all gone deaf? Leave us, now!”

Maekar laughed at the hurries responses and the feet he could hear retreating. The laugh earning him a groan as well because the air pushing through his throat had hurt his back.

“Now they won’t hear your crying.” You hum. Sitting behind him on your knees and you began to work at his back. Pushing your thumbs in hard against the tightened muscle and breaking it up as much as you can.

“seven fucks-“ he bit out, hand tense on his own knee as your normally tender fingers tore apart every knot that attempted to cause him discomfort. You destroyed them like they cause you great offense. They did.

“There you are,” you smile and stand back up as your husband rolls his neck and shoulders. Lose and pain free. You smirk as he stood without issue. “You really must stop falling apart on me, I was hoping you’d last till I’m decently old.” You tease and he gladly kisses the grin right off your lips.

Maekar Masterlist, Prompt list/Prompt Masterlist

You’ve lingered at court for years, brought from the confines of your noble house when you were just a girl, standing at the same height as him then. A lady in waiting for Lady Jena Dondarrion, his own aunt, and you were exactly what he viewed you as, what you should be.

Forbidden fruit.

You were taken under her wing, shielded and protected by the elder ladies just as you were by your father’s title. And it still leaves him with a scowl at just the thought, because he shouldn’t even give you one.

You’re careful, always present, a sparkling eyesore in royal jewels and silken dresses that remains standing in his way in corridors and blinds his view as you cheer for his cousin in the royal box at tourneys. You’re simply there, and yet still, you find a way to take over, laughing in jest, sitting so close, so comfortably with his family, his blood. The very people he only orbits, you bond and live beside. So pleasant and proper and.. captivating.

The same woman who stands dutifully among ladies and Kingsguard, the very one that charms his uncle and cousins with a smile and quip, the same who has his own younger brother chasing after you with laughter so loud it makes his head ache.

So achingly beautiful it grates at him. Chips away at everything he’s laid so properly before everyone like a vice. That now it’s seemingly driven him to the point of madness.

He shouldn’t have to do it, any other maiden or lady would be falling at his feet, no matter how nervous or scared. And he should have that, you should be doing so, but you won’t pay any mind to him, nor even give the chance. Kind and polite, tight lipped smiles from across the long table or a simple nod in shared company, that’s all. He doesn’t return them, but he watches, he waits.

In fact you bide more time into his cousin Valarr. The Young Prince, the one they speak of such a dutiful husband he will make, a great man like this father, that betrothals are soon to flood in with time. The man you reserve the softest smiles for, your arm in his as you walk amongst court.

And it makes him seethe.

Because he knows who it should be. And it should be him.

—

The ride back to the keep was a deadly silence, eerie with only the distant thunder of Ser Donnel’s stallion behind his own. Rain washed down in torrents, chasing them into the gatehouse as he slid from the saddle.

Ser Donnel had not questioned his Prince on the whereabouts, or why he called on him at such a late hour to journey into the streets of Flea Bottom, but they had done so. A small cabin the place was, down the back of a dingy, cobbled alleyway, lit only by torchlight in which the man stood vigilant underneath. Many would go to such a place for their ailments, whatever troubled them, their head, their aches, but no such place for a royal.

They had maesters for that. Though Aerion insisted, shoving past the older knight with a frown.

Whispers carried just as fast through King’s Landing, more so than their Ravens did. And the ailment the Prince had ordered for would not be cured by some lowly maester’s balm. This was urgent. And Aerion listened, far more than people cared to notice, and those whispers led him there.

“Should you need anything else, your Grace?”

Aerion fumbled with the belt of his cloak, tugging it from himself as the dirt caught from the streets and rain fell to the ground, leaving only his shirt and trousers clinging to him. His eyes flickered only for a moment, before shaking his head, shoving a small bundle into his pocket.

“No. Leave me.” He called back, straightening the tunic at its collar.

And the man took his leave, standing straight backed as Aerion passed him from the stables and walked in heavy strides through the pouring rain and into the lower stairwell of the Keep.

The damp still drips from him now, the warmth of the chambers doing little to settle the aching anticipation in his bones. The backs of his calves press sharp into the wood of the bed frame beneath him, boots planted harsh into the floor. His finger flicks back and forth along the clasp that encases the bundle.

A sphere, much like a perfume or pomander lord’s carry on their belt, something unsuspecting. Its patterns cover in gold and silver, wrapped in black twine all along its outside. A witch’s knot. One he’d heard through the woman’s rambling inside of the rickety, old store. Supposed that it was to ward evils away from its user, if used correctly.

He lets out a huff, sharp and drawn, eyes drifting along every intricate detail before cracking it open.

A singular diamond shaped vial lies inside of it.

He wasn’t certain what to expect, the witch left that much of it out. But its results are the only thing he’s after, no matter how queer the insides might seem. The liquid near enough matches his eyes, a deep velvety purple, swirling with a dark shimmer silting at the bottom.

Thunder rumbles low in the distance, rain now lashing onto the windows with a ferocity that would make some tremble. Would leave others to think on their decisions, to take their time to weather the storm around them, to think of such outcomes.

But he doesn’t, because Aerion never has, and he doesn’t care to any longer.

The instructions come back to him in parts, staring solely into the palm of his hand where he reaches for it with jerked fingers. But it doesn’t come simply, nor without price. He goes to take it, reaching in before he can stop himself from embarrassing himself any more. Though his movement acts otherwise, just as he plucks it, he jerks back, raising his finger to his lips where a searing pain pricks at him, the sphere tumbling to the floor.

A thorny branch from the twine sticks into his finger, catching along the skin and pouring blood from down until it drips onto his wrist. He bring it between his lips, sucking it into his mouth and licking it once before snatching it away, the sting of it dripping into his palm, his brow pulling tigh.

Remove the binding, break open the seal, speak your truth.

And drink.

That was all he was told. He can’t help but think how pathetic it sounds.

But he does it regardless, uncorking the vial with a sharp pop and bringing it to his lips before he can think against it. Aerion pauses in a single breath, eyes fluttering closed and open halfway.

“Make her be mine.” He rasps.

And he drinks, tipping the substance down his throat without another second that passes. It catches in the back of his throat, the taste tangy and bitter, a sickly bitterness that coats his tongue, slapping it against the roof of his mouth.

And it’s done.

—

The morning welcomes the way it does most often. With a chambermaid and gentle greetings, and a pitcher of water at your bedside. News of an upcoming tournament held in the near Stormlands is on everyone’s lips, carrying from room to room before a knock wraps at your door.

Your maid eyes you, following carefully as you nod, “Please.” She bows with a simple smile, settling the tray of cloths and linens in her hand onto the table before stepping towards the door.

Lady Ellyn steps in with a peek of her head around the heavy wood, near enough making your maid jump as she steps back, sliding the door open further. Your closest confidant, one your own age unlike many of the other ladies. Her hair cascades in a braid that weaves her golden hair down her back, as fair her complexion. A wide smile breaks on her rosy face when she sees you, thanking the young girl gratefully before jumping at the end of your bed.

The very image of her cousin, Lady Aelinor Penrose, married to the Prince Aerys. You only hope, silently, a similar sorrow won’t fall on her also. A girl far too giddy and joyful, even at this time in the morning.

“Come we must break our fast.” Her hand taps the plush furs, tugging them slyly as they slide from your legs, the cotton your your nightgown going with it. You snatch it with a warning glare, stopping her from pulling it completely.

“If you’ll allow me to be ready first.” You huff, raising your arms above your head with a yawn. She nods, rolling her eyes as she stands from the end of the bed to round to your side. The mattress dips as she sits herself onto it, kicking her legs off of the edge as she waits. And waits, expectant eyes blinking at you.

“Fine, fine I’m coming.” She claps her hands at that, rising as you do with her, sliding, less wistfully out of the comforting warmth of your bed.

Lady Ellyn stays with you as you are dressed, chatting away about the travelling market passing through King’s Landing. You listen, but her voice drifts, eyes following out of the window, watching the birds that circle the street. Hands lace your bodice carefully, a deep pale gold with trimmings of crimson and silver jewel.

“Oh.. you look ethereal.”

Your feet step from the stool carefully, taking a deep breath from the boning breaking into your spine and chest. Your maid curtsies, both women looking at you in a profound awe, and though she doesn’t speak, her face tells that she agrees.

“Careful, wearing such a dress, the Prince Valarr will be all over you.” Lady Ellyn takes your arm with a snicker, and you swat her with the other, a grin finding its way to your face.

“Well suppose I’d have some competition with you, my lady.”

The pair of you find your way through every winding hall until you settle in the great hall. You break your fast with the ladies. Lady Jena, Lady Dyanna greet you with a nod and a smile, seated already beside their good sisters Lady Aelinor and Lady Alys. All seem to be in good spirits, you and Lady Ellyn seated opposite one another as another elder lady sits at your right.

Talk picks up as it usually does, fresh fruit picked from gardens and far away orchards, toasted bread and jams are decorated and layered china bowls and plates. You take your helping as the rest of them do, chatter echoing the hall, heard only by yourselves and the Kingsguard that stand tall by each large door.

It only depletes to a silence when they open once more, all heads turning in a wondrous gaze. Prince Valarr steps across the hall, greeting the older ladies first and his mother with a kiss to the cheek.

They remain in their seats while you and the lower ladies rise at his arrival, chair scraping out behind your knees as you hold your skirts.

His aunt Dyanna teases him, remarking with a sip of her summer wine that he’s avoiding council again. Valarr only laughs, light and courteous, completely princely.

And then from across the table, his eyes land on you. It’s natural, just as he’d expecting you to be there, and the smile softens on his face, meeting his eyes as he steps closer. Only then does he excuse himself from his mother, leaving them to resort to their whispering just behind.

“My lady.” His voice is gentle, more tender than it should be for such a meeting and you feel another pair of eyes on you. Lady Ellyn. Staring obviously from across the wooden table as she sits down quietly.

You curtsy, inclining your head before your eyes meet again. Golden brown and violet, the very image of his father’s, except they aren’t as hardened, boyish still beneath the young manish demeanour.

“My prince.” Your skirts sweep the stoney floor as you stand upright, mere inches between you, blinking up at him.

“I’ve been hoping I’d catch you.” He speaks hushed enough it’s for you, but loud enough it doesn’t inspire scandal.

That alone makes Lady Jena exchange a knowing smile with Lady Dyanna. One only mothers seem to be aware of. And his glaring advance to orbit your side.

A short laugh escapes you, tucking your arms in front of you, “I wasn’t aware I was difficult to find.”

“No,” Valarr smiles. “I’ve simply been elsewhere.” He states it as though disappointed, as if elsewhere were not where he wanted to be at all.

“I’d hoped…” He clears his throat, a rumble under his breath, inclining his head, feeling the burn of eyes at his back, before they swiftly look away. “Though it may not be proper, that if you attend the tourney…”

He looks almost embarrassed, a blush creeping his pale cheeks as he shakes it from himself. You offer him a nod of encouragement.

“…you might consider lending me your favour.”

A thumping appears fast and palpating in your chest and you blink, once, twice and hard. The pair of you have known each other since you were children, surrounded by propriety and politeness in close encounters, and you had always been close. But a favour was something else entirely. A favour was a promise.

Surprise wracks your features, and somehow everyone around the table is far more interested than they were before. Lady Aelinor covers her mouth to hide the grin that appears, though you cannot say the same.

Yours widens, more than you can stop yourself, stumbling out your words, “I’d be honoured.”

It is simple, courtly. Nothing improper that would leave gossip for either of you, but he takes your hand in his, a warm palm curling gently around your own.

“Then I will not disappoint you.”

He bows his head, releasing you from his grip carefully before returning to the hall, bidding the rest and his mother a farewell. And nothing more. However as the door closes, the table erupts. Laughter and chatter, swooning and fawning over you as you make an attempt to sit down again. A reddened blush covers your cheeks as you listen to them.

A favour..

Perhaps you’ll be crowed his Queen at the tourney.

Lady Jena hushes them, finding you from across the raucous, and she simply nods, lending an understanding motherly gaze, settling you the way it always had. She doesn’t speak it aloud, but talk for far longer than known have you and Valarr been considered for a match.

She had only hoped it had happened this way.

Valarr had chosen of his own accord, and he had chosen you.

However, shadows encase the halls of the Red Keep, tracing the very perimeters of tapestries and stone that you can’t quite see. Another pair of eyes, beyond Ellyn’s excitement and the ladies’ awe, watches on.

Aerion sees it all.

He hadn’t planned to stay as long as he did, merely passing through on his way to his own duties. To things much more important. But then he saw it, witnessed with his own eyes how his cousin stood himself before you, cohorting and smiling.

Only his eyes were not on Valarr, they were on you.

His fingers tighten around the twisted pommel of his sword, shoulder resting onto the thick, marble pillar beside him. It’s tight enough his knuckles are turning white, skin near splitting with how he hard he curls his hand around it. But he doesn’t notice, not even as a voice addresses measly and careful behind him.

Aerion doesn’t just pretend to not to hear it, he can’t. All he can hear is the rush of blood thrumming in his ears. All he can see is Valarr’s smile, proud and affectionate, and you smiling back. And he twists his hands tighter.

The bell tolls and breakfast comes to an end, clattering plates and pattering footsteps that don’t even notice him standing in the distance. Not his mother, or his aunt, or you. Instead you’re taking Lady Ellyn’s arm, whispering happily as you leave.

“The roses must finally be blooming.” She speaks to you as a jest, nudging your arm as you follow everyone toward the outsides. Though it sparks something in you, softly joking back as you loosen your arm.

“I believe I’ll see for myself.” You purse your lips as you move from each other, turning your backs with a promise to find the other later.

Aerion doesn’t move for another minute. Or maybe two. He isn’t counting, only turning his head without his eyes following to the voice insisting at his side.

A squire. A skinny young man dressed in washed colours. He says something about his father and uncle, that he has been called upon.

Aerion only tells him that he’ll be there shortly, waving him off. The boy scurries away, ducking into a bow before leaving once more to deliver the news. Even though he has no intention of following just yet.

And it is not questioned, because it’s completely him, even if more detached. Callous and careless, perfect in the fractured way of a Prince not bothering to concern himself. And only when the hall has emptied, does he rise from the pillar.

He adjusts his hand, tearing it away from his sword without urgency, straightening the drape of his cloak as he turns for the other doorway. He’s attempting not to explode on the spot seeing you disappear into the gardens. But he doesn't follow openly, he lets you leave first, down the steps of the Keep and out onto the balustrade that overlooks the hedgerows and flowerbeds. It’s rare for you not to have an escort, it's improper, wrong even for you.

And so Aerion takes another path, stepping with a practiced ease across the other side of the balcony, circling it so that by the time you reach the rose garden, he’s already standing around the altar of flowers, rocking on his heel. If you did not have an escort, you will. His hands clasp behind his back, one lazily on the pommel of his sword, staring out over the hedges, as though he’d been admiring the flowers.

It’s something you’d always done when time would allow it, escaping endless company and lessons to be with your thoughts. You were looking forward to it, on your lonesome, time to think over what had just happened at breakfast. But the head of mussed silver hair made you slow where you walked. You pause for a moment, the crunch of gravel turning his head at the sound, and for a moment you go to walk the other way but violet eyes catch you. You curtsy just as fast, the way you’d been taught.

“My Prince.” You speak gently, wavering in confusion. It doesn't feel as familiar as it did before, as it did with Valarr, but you do it out of politeness.

He doesn’t answer straight away, only turning to face you with his body, face still fixed on the roses.

“You favour this garden.”

It’s not a question, but a statement. And you smile, rising to straighten your knees.

“I do.”

You always have, stalking away from court just as enamoured with the ocean of greenery in the midst of the stone and hardened rock, as you have since you were a girl. He was right. Though how he one was a mystery.

“I’ve noticed.” It’s simple, nothing but a mere observation, one that perhaps had been made by many over time.

But he changes the subject before you can ask.

“The white roses are dying.”

You glance beside him, toward the bed of them.

“They bloom again in spring.” You counter softly, tutting silently at Lady Ellyn’s comment from earlier.

“I know.”

You squint your eyes at him, tempting a foot forwards, skirts hanging in between your fingers. You hadn’t many conversations with the Prince, with orders to keep your distance always whispered into your ear, you’d listened, but you hadn’t realised he’d been so odd. Cocky and dismissive, yes.

But the tension was almost one sided. The grit of his teeth evident as if he were in deep thought.

“You usually come earlier.”

“I beg your pardon?” A muffled laugh escapes your throat and you blink.

“You’ve been late this week.”

“I.. have?”

“You’ve been attending to my aunt, have you not?”

It’s as if discussing the weather, once again, only an observation, and a crystal one at that. One anyone could work out easily enough.

“Well she has a great need for me, for all of us. I didn't realise anyone had noticed.”

“I notice many things.” Aerion falls casually, the natural hint of arrogance clear in his tone.

Like my cousin Valarr taking a liking to you.

He looks at you then, finally. And you feel yourself shrink, not shyly, but under the complete intensity of it. And so you busy yourself, standing on the opposing side to him as you reach for the dying roses, plucking the heads from them.

“Do you enjoy court?” His eyes follow you, burning into your back as you tempt a smile back up at him.

“Very much.”

“Four years you've been here.” He tastes it on his tongue like he's contemplating it, settling in his stance to take you in fully.

You go to pluck another rotten bloom, grasping it in between your fingertips when a thorn catches the pad of your finger. A sharp hiss escapes you, a dark bead of blood welling across your skin. It’s small, simple, only enough to burn, you could have wiped it away on your skirts and been done with it.

Only a figure appears at your back, a hand enclosing around your wrist. Quicker than either of you had expected. Your eyes flicker between him and your hand, his grip turning it in his hold. His thumb steadies your palm, studying the crimson beading across your hand like something catastrophic.

“It’s only a thorn, my Prince.”

He doesn’t answer, his thumb hovering closer, just beneath the cut. A touch almost reverent as he punched it by the slightest to stop the blood.

You laugh again, sharper this time, attempting to ease the strangeness.

“I’ve survived worse. Suppose we both have in this court.”

It’s still silent, but his face contorts. Agreement in a sense you wager. And then you realise, he’s still holding your hand. The skin is warm, warmer than you’d expected, calloused from swords and rough at the edges even though it’s pallor is almost entirely without blemish. Save from the risen line across the side of his palm.

“You have hurt yourself.”

He blinks for the first time, slowly, flickering his eyes to your own. As though he’d forgotten.

“What?” His eyes snap up, still holding his fingers around your own.

“Your hand.”

You turn it gently before he can pull away and stop you.

”This.”

The scar where the twine bit into him.

His skin shudders under yours, and for a heartbeat he simply stares at it, and the memory comes rushing back.

The linen, the black twine, the vial.

Her to be mine.

His fingers tighten, not simply to hurt but enough that you notice, snaking your hand from his carefully, but it stays there.

“It’s nothing,” His voice comes too quickly, brow pulling tight and tone distant, “A scratch.”

“It looks painful.”

“It isn’t.”

"I suppose we both enjoy injuring ourselves." The words cut deeply, your smile more cutting. Almost innocent just as you try to ease the awkwardness.

But Aerion cannot tear his eyes away from the two hands. Yours and his. The tiny drop of blood from your finger and his faded scar, resting against one another.

A sign. And for the first time it settles wholly in his chest, there isn't doubt, not just arrogance, but something is telling him.

Divine.

He doesn’t speak of it, he releases your hand instead, a beat too late. Your own fingers enclose around your wrist absentmindedly, swiping away at the last drop of blood from your finger, the wound closing already.

“It has been five.”

He looks up again.

“Five years in court.” You correct him, smoothing your sleeve over your arm.

“I know.” He takes a step back, eyes growing distant as he nods, flexing the length of his fingers to curl them into his scarred palm.

“I forget you’ve probably read everyone’s histories.”

Aerion doesn’t answer. Because he didn’t learn any of that from record, he had learned it by remembering. Something that now, is all he seems to know.

You go to speak, to dismiss yourself and apologise for the predicament you’d found yourselves in, that somehow that would cure the pained confusion from his face. But another voice calls out and does it for you. You cannot quite make it out, but you turn your head, Aerion’s ears pricking, barely acknowledging it.

“I ought to go.” You call out to him, inclining your head to attempt a better look. Out of pure politeness.

He nods, “Of course.”

And you go, leaving with a scoop of your skirts and taking off the way you came. He doesn’t follow, he doesn’t even move, simply rests back onto the wooden beam beside the roses, fingers resting out along their stems. Across the thorns and petals and the drops of blood you’d left onto the whites of them.

He exhales sharply, violets fluttering closed as he watches on from the opening of the gardens. Because he doesn’t have to move to know where you’ll go, what will happen next. It’s already mapping over and over in his head.

You’ll take Lady Ellyn’s arm, and journey your way to the Lady Jena’s compartments, making your way across the east gallery of Maegor’s Holdfast to join the rest of them.

And through the bay windows of the lower quarters, he can see it all, just as he predicted. The first crack of satisfaction breaking its way onto his features, because now he doesn’t have to want for anything, it’s coming to him.

Or so he thinks.

—

The corridors bustle far too early for the hour, alive with movement and the sounds of footsteps and talk echoing the halls of the Keep longer. Ladies hurry between apartments, while squires carry polished helms. Servants step hurriedly aside as members of the royal family pass.

The tourney is only days away, and everything feels louder. An inescapable chaos that for once is more joyous than it is uncontrollable.

You walk beside Lady Jena and Lady Ellyn. Conversation drifting from gowns to the coming lists, Jena wonders aloud who might be crowned, eyeing the pair of you at her side

“Perhaps Prince Valarr has already chosen.” Lady Ellyn teases and your cheeks warm.

“Do stop."

More footsteps resound from the opposite end, steel plated heavy ones, already armoured from morning drills and practice, cutting you off from where you’re about to further scold Ellyn.

Aerion's breastplate catches the light filtering through the window, one gauntlet hanging loosely in his hand. You catch sight of him in a rush as you turn the corner, and the corridor narrows.

There is no avoiding one another.

All of the ladies curtsey.

“My prince.”

You offer the same polite smile as always without saying a word.

And for just a heartbeat too long, his gaze travels over you with quiet familiarity

Lady Dyanna notices, “Aerion.”

At last he turns, his mother’s voice reaches him.

“You’ve been on the practice field since dawn.” She mentions gently, looking him over and the scratches and dents that litter the armour.

“I have.”

"You’ll wear yourself out before the tourney.”

A faint corner of his mouth lifts, self assured and arrogant.

"I doubt it.”

Yet while he answers her, his attention drifts.

Back to you, with just his eyes. Like a compass stubbornly finding north.

You shift your weight, suddenly and strangely aware of yourself. Lady Ellyn begins speaking again, incoherent and hushed into your ear as the congregation begin to dismiss themselves.

“Aerion.”

Prince Maekar’s voice cuts cleanly through the corridor, as commanding as you'd expect. Aerion straightens instinctively, his father approaching with measured strides. He is dressed for the yard himself, a stern coldness set onto his features as he reaches him.

“You’re late.” The older man speaks with a measured annoyance.

“I arrived before sunrise.” Aerion bites back coolly, not enough to push, but enough.

“And yet Ser Donnel has been left waiting.” Maekar stands at his side, starting to shoulder him out of the way, “You’ve kept him.”

Aerion glances toward the training yard, then back to you. For one final time. And it is enough that even Maekar notices the delay.

“What is it?”

The question is simple, heads turning to face them both as Dyanna shakes her head, Jena on her arm huffing amusedly.

Aerion answers almost immediately, “Nothing.”

Maekar follows the direction of his son’s gaze for an instant only. He sees, a cluster of ladies and his son’s disobedience. Nothing else. And the sight annoys him further.

“Come.”

This time Aerion obeys.

But not before inclining his head toward you. A gesture no different from any other prince might offer. Only when he’s disappeared around the corner does Lady Jena murmur, almost teasing,

“The prince seems unusually attentive of late.”

“The tourney must have everyone restless.” Lady Ellyn laughs, the group of you stepping through the stoney corridors and out into the halls.

You smile because it’s the easiest response. Because what else could it be? And yet find yourself looking towards the empty corridor where he’d vanished.

You try to shun the thought, the idea of it. But it had felt, for one impossible moment, as though none of them had held his attention quite as completely as you had.

—

The chambers are thrown into darkness by the time he gets to them, ordering every servant out of his way as he enters. Every one of them scurries with trays and pitchers in hand, doors closing swiftly behind them.

Aerion had taken up all day in the training yard, fighting whatever prickling itch had settled itself inside of his bones. And no amount of driving his sword had aided it, it only made it worse.

It was supposed to work out in his favour. To do exactly what he had asked it to do. For you to be his more than anyone else in the realm. And he had been plagued for so long, too long, made to live a life so troubled and pathetic.

But it was going to be different, because he found a cure. It was meant to be what he wanted, and what he wanted was you.

The witch must have cursed him, tricked him into another means in his desperation, because it twisted itself into something far different.

It will enhance what is there, leaving only the truth. Her words still ring loudly in his head, pulsing in his temples with every moment that passes. Love shall grow deeper, desire will burn, and obsession.

Well, it overflows.

And denial is a cruel mistress. One that comes back to bite those that aren’t careful, and he denied it even now, but Aerion had fallen into its trap. Because you did not feel what he had, desire and lust and want wasn’t your emotion. You were simply oblivious, trying to figure out every advance he had been making.

It was his.

The idea angers him. That you would have been anything else but his the way he wanted you to be. It makes him tick to imagine you elsewhere but at his side, a rage so raw it pumps tight in his veins along with whatever else has planted itself inside.

His hand collides with the marbled basin, hard and fast, stone cracking under force. A pained groan leaves his throat, eyes flickering to catch his face in the reflection from the dimly lit candles behind. The expression he finds undoes him, wide eyes and crazed, deep violets blown a deep black, rimmed a bloodshot crimson at the edges from lack of sleep, rendering him almost lifeless.

“What the fuck is this.” Aerion isn’t certain who he’s talking to, but it comes out a lowly whisper, the pain pricking hard up his fingers. He attempts to flex them but they only freeze his grip, stiffening like the aching in his back. The muscles of his chest stretch in the glow as he straightens, watching his hand intently. He doesn’t go to aid it, nor bathe it in the warm water below, he just stares. Allows himself to feel the tingling sensation run up his arm.

And that’s when it replaces itself. Like a sudden snap of a tree branch underfoot.

A new feeling washes over him all at once, one that takes the pain away and the angst with it. His eyes squint at his skin, focusing on the broken skin of his knuckle. And suddenly it breaks him open much like the wound, the confusion fading, like the first drop of wine onto a pure tongue.

Why was he questioning it? Why not just let it happen? The questions differ from the old ones. He no longer asks why it’s happening, or what is. This is purpose, this is what he had asked for, and pride would not let him falter.

No, he wouldn’t let it.

If the potion was strong enough to come to fruition, to bring him closer to you, he’d give into it. It wasn’t doing harm, it was the divine, the way it should be. And so he’d let it take over, allow it to do its work, he’d continue his advances like he had planned to all along, this time harder.

Perhaps that way, you would come around.

—

Muddled. That’s the only way you can describe it.

The days before the tourney pass in a blur of banners, arriving lords and restless anticipation. And they pass with excitement not only of the celebration itself, but of you, and the two princes who are circling you.

Aerion begins appearing where you’d least expect him, not often enough to call it coincidence and yet it’s too often to ignore.

The library one afternoon, though he’d never struck you as a man fond of books. The castle walls at dusk, overlooking the training fields where you’d only stopped to escape the heat. The sept of all places. One other place you’d found that grants you freedoms and peace away from court, and yet a shadow lingers behind the entrance, beyond where the candles burn low at the altar.

Aerion treats it like chance, hardly speaking, still looking down his nose at everything that passes him by. He is still what exactly what you’ve come to view him as, cutting, controlled. A deviant in the eyes of many. The Prince you’d been warned about hasn’t changed, he’s only embedded himself.

And you told yourself it was. Chance.

You had to.

Yet something had shifted. And not even in him, in you.

You’d begun looking first. Before entering a room and before stepping into a corridor, some foolish part of you wondering whether violet eyes might already be there. And more often than not, they were.

At supper, he no longer sat with the detached indifference you’d heard whispered about since first arriving at court. He still spoke little, carried himself with that same cold composure, yet whenever laughter drifted from your end of the table, his gaze followed it. Fleeting glances had turned into things you’d feel, long enough that the burn of a cold stare was almost always on you.

When the eve of the tourney came, the Great Hall filled with music and anticipation. The feast was brighter than usual, draped in crimson linens and the dragon’s banger. Knights boasted with their cups in hand, ladies quietly wagering amongst themselves.

You were situated in the very center, taken with the conversations of Lady Jena and Lady Dyanna, attending to their husbands who they sat beside, no doubt in private jest of other lords. Your plate was empty, wine steadily sinking to the bottom of your cup as you glanced around the room.

Prince Valarr accepted endless well wishes with an easy smile, turning about the hall gaining many a favour from the crowd. Though Aerion remained almost entirely silent, not rising from where he shoved himself into his chair at the far end of the table.

The only time he seemed truly attentive, was when another lord leaned a little too close to hear what you’d said over the music. A meagre thing. Elder Lord Beesbury sharing his excitement for the tournament to come, as he had done in his drunkenness to near everyone else in the room.

But Aerion saw what he wanted to, his goblet paused halfway to his lips, watching over the golden, jewelled rim before taking a sip. Lord Beesbury had departed with a gentle hand to your shoulder, fatherly, encouraging, and nothing more.

And Aerion had already turned away, sinking the last of his Arbor Gold with a sharp clatter to the table.

It became difficult to remember the Prince people had warned you about. Though not for the reasons as before. Before it was duty, responsibility to bow to those higher than yourself, it was recognition.

But now, he seemed sharper than ever. It felt as though the rest of the court occupied his attention by obligation, while yours held it by instinct.

And what was one to do when he has suddenly deemed that you are worthy of his attentions.

Aerion had never proved them to you as his cousin Valarr did. He did not leave tender written letters in the hands of your maids, nor did he have flowers brought to your chambers, in fact you’d had more conversation with squires in the years you’d been living beside him than ones with him.

But he stood closer, vigilant like he claimed it his as his birthright, across every space that had you found yourself in, in places that were hard to ignore.

And it was enough to leave you wondering.

Why, you?

—

Aerion had always resorted to some sort of violence. It was custom, to be expected. He was a knight, a Prince, he had some reason to make people fear him.

It was how he first gained the name, Brightflame.

But something flickered deeper beneath it all, something more fierce than the anticipation sitting amongst the lists. This was a drive unpredictable, a thirst for blood that couldn’t be quenched. He'd splashed his face in cold water many times before leaving the pavilion, adorned from helm to toe in the agile, scaled steel.

It wasn’t nerves that consumed him.

He had ridden in too many lists for that, and the young lord opposite him was hardly a challenge. One look had been enough. His seat sat too high, his grip too eager on his reins.

He would not last, that much was certain.

The thought made something warm and terrible course beneath the steel on his shoulders. It had begun the moment his eyes found you amongst the royal boxes.

Bathed in Targaryen crimson and black, sunlight catching the embroidery upon your sleeves as you leaned forward beside the other ladies. Unaware and smiling politely at those around you. He committed that to memory, tightening the reins of his stallion as he swung himself atop it.

Before more of the scene caught his sight, unconsciously following to where you sat beneath the sun.

A young lord lowered his visor only halfway, flashing that broad, youthful grin at you as he stops right before the box.

“For you, my lady.” His lance tips toward your stand, blinking up at you hopefully. A ripple of laughter and knowing murmurs traveled through the galleries surrounding the lists.

Whispers had already begun these past days. The courteous letters from Prince Valarr, the lingering conversations. Now another young knight had found courage enough to dedicate a tilt in your honour.

You smile because court demanded it. Nothing more, and instead your mind began drifting to who would be his challenger. Valarr came across your mind.. and you’d hoped in silence it would be. That the tourney would be as grand as people were speaking of and you had reason for your favour to be given. Truly.

But it had already been decided, hooves thundering in a burst through wooden gates before anyone could catch him.

The herald’s voice carried across the field and all heads snapped up.

“Prince Aerion Brightflame.”

The roar that answered swallows the rest.

His horse shifts beneath him, stamping impatiently against the earth. Aerion settled the lance beneath his arm with practised ease, violet eyes never once leaving the man opposite.

Few seconds passed as squires rushed to each of their sides, checking the lasts of their armour and swiftly running back as the first horn sounds.

They charge, steadfast with a few yards between them until they narrow. Wood shatters, the impact echoing across the lists as both lances splinter into flying shards. Neither rider yielded an inch.

A respectable pass, an unassuming one. The crowd applauds loudly, Lady Ellyn gripping your hand with the same harsh tension squeezing in your chest.

The young lord laughs as squires hurried forward with fresh lances, Aerion rounding his stallion from the other side as he snatches the one from his hand.

“Well struck, my prince.”

The second tilt comes harder, the laughter from the lord ringing in his head beneath the helm, the sight of a smile through his visor. The young lord aimed for glory now, lowering his lance sooner, riding faster.

And so Aerion waited.. and waited. He did not bite. Not until the final heartbeat, where he shifted barely an inch in the saddle.

The opposing lance skims harmlessly across his shield. But his own strikes true, a sharp angle upward to the shining bottom of his breastplate.

The crack rings across the grounds, breaths held tight in throats as both men waver from the strength of the collision. The young lord lurches violently, nearly torn from the saddle and every face leans in, clutching fans and wooden beams. A breath passes and coin is slyly passed in the lower crowds, predictions already being made. But he rights himself to cheers from the crowd, swivelling his helm properly back onto his head.

A close thing, too close.

Aerion watches him recover, slamming down his visor with a growing satisfaction.

All eyes watch on with an intrigued intensity. Prince Baelor with his hand wrapped around his wife’s own, face unreadable as he studies his nephews movement. And his expression cracks, the familiar recognition of something dreadful to come. Prince Maekar sits near enough the same from the other end, only with less interest and with his back slumped in the chair, knowing just as much as a father would.

Something is wrong.

You manage to stomach what you can, gaze flitting between both men as they prepare themselves for another round. A hush falls over the stands, and by the third pass, the laughter disappears. completely.

The young lord no longer smiles. And all of the joy seems to fade. He adjusts his shoulder where the last blow had landed, wincing before taking another lance. And from across the field, Aerion is an unnerving still, his horse breathing steadily hoof kicking up the mud, where his chest heaves, unable to.

You find yourself gripping the edge of the splintered wooden beam below you. Though you aren’t certain why, only that something about the Prince was more unsettling than usual.

Not his skill. But his focus. Far too narrow for what could be considered normal, as though the rest of the tournament had fallen away, a deadly calm.

And it leaves only one obstacle before him.

The final horn.

The horses spring forward once more as it sounds, dust exploding in the mud beneath pounding hooves.

The distance vanishes almost instantly, because this time Aerion does not merely seek victory. He seeks blood. And he drives through the impact, lance sticking squarely against the young lord’s groin with a sickening force that sent him flying clean from the saddle.

He hit the ground shoulder first rolling to his side and then landing on his head. The sound silences the cheering, every one jolting backward at the side of his horse continuing riderless down the lists.

The young lord does not rise, his groans turn guttural and wheezed, breathless with the dented armour shoving into his cracked rib.

And for a lingering moment, no one moves, only squires rushing to his side with maester’s following. Voices erupt from every side of the field, your head turning to follow and chase every sound.

“A healer, we need one.”

“Clear the lists.”

Aerion slows his stallion at the far end of the barrier, glancing back only once with his head held high. His face stays unreadable, hidden beneath the dragon scale helm without so much as a scratch. As though he, too, were merely watching another unfortunate accident.

Yet from your place amongst the royal boxes, something cold settles in your bones, a shiver wracking your body. You remember the way the young lord had raised his lance towards you, the way Aerion was watching, or must have been the way he entered himself upon the tilt. And though the applause had died, the feeling that this had not been simple misfortune refused to leave you.

Because it was not.

The herald concludes Prince Aerion the victor for the morning despite the scene. Though he does not smile, in fact his face doesn't change at all as he raises the visor for a final time. The man’s blood drips down his cheeks, splattered across his nose and forehead, silver hair dirtied with mud and sweat, and the faint curve of his lip.

One that can only be seen as, pride.

Most eyes remain fixed upon the injured knight as he is lifted carefully from the churned earth, one arm hanging limp, blood soaking steadily through the padding beneath his breastplate. Servants hurry around him as the lists descend into organised chaos and the royal box remains seated, lords with faces in their hands, ladies shuffling readily to exit, quiet in the tense understanding you all are aware of.

Tradition demands its ending. The victor must name his Queen of Love and Beauty.

Moments pass before his horse turns, midnight black under armoured bone and ivory. But he doesn't ride to the pavillion of noble ladies, nor does he stop before the Prince's to bow, he turns to you.

Your stomach knots in one impossible heartbeat, and you wonder, hope, that he might pass. Maybe he will choose another, forget the weeks that have passed and the confusion he had led you both into.

But he doesn’t

He continues guiding the stallion to the royal boxes, lance still tucked beneath one arm. Its splintered tip is dark with mud, a smear of blood stains the ash wood lower down where it had been gathered after the final tilt.

The crowd falls strangely quiet, even the murmurs seem to wait and you rise because every lady chosen before you has risen. Because there is no graceful way not to.

But he doesn’t stop for them, Aerion stops beneath you.

Violet eyes meet yours, and for once they look whole. Bright in a sinister sense, like you are the very thing he can see. And only him.

Without speaking, he lowers the broken lance, the use of a weapon now tranformed asan offering.

Upon its jagged end rests the circlet of winter roses. White petals, much like the ones you recall from the gardens, already beginning to bruise beneath flecks of drying earth.

“My lady.”

His voice carries only far enough for those nearest to hear. There is no flourish or perormance, not even for the sake of his victory, but there is confidence, out of want. Because everyone’s eyes are on you both, you can feel it, everyone can see. His father, his mother, the crown Prince, even Valarr from the distant saddle of his own stallion, seated tilting his head in intrigue.

And a jealous silence.

The circlet trembles ever so slightly as you reach for it. And so he takes it himself, rising as you lean clutching the balcony, to place it upon your head.

His fingers brush your temple as he does, deliberate with a singular touch of a strand of your hair, before pulling back. He shifts back into the saddle as you rise straight in front of him, forcing a smile and the bend of your knees into curtsy. His head turns, taking the reins in hand as he faces Prince Baelor and the hosting lord.

“Your Queen of Love and Beauty.” Aerion announces.

Only then do the cheers begin, scattered and uncertain, excitement growing louder as tradition overtakes unease. You shove yourself back into the wooden chair, glancing at Lady Ellyn as her she eyes you back, mouth agape and in shock. Everything that is expected of you, you have done, posture straight and graceful.

Yet beneath the roses, your skin has gone cold.

—

By sunset, the remaining tilts are abandoned. Officially, it is out of respect for the injured knight. Unofficially, no one much wishes to continue after what they’ve witnessed. The boxes empty early, the crowd sifted back into their respected pavilions where music plays quieter, more tranquil, and wine flows heavily.

Every conversation somehow finds its way back to the lists, and you have long left the bustle behind, choosing to be farthest from it. The roses have begun to wilt against your hair, sticking thorny into the corner of your head as you remove them before reaching your pavilion, carrying them loosely in one hand.

The petals leave damp marks across your fingers, the broken ones falling onto the carpeted trail beneath you.

Aerion sees you before you see him, though you don’t notice him at all. He has been walking without destination. Or so he tells himself. The maze of tents stretches ahead, canvas walls shifting gently in the evening breeze.

He rounds one corner with a roll of his shoulders, the weight of his armour discarded.

And he stops, not because of you. He lets you walk on, the dark hues of dusk creeping in over the shadows of the trees. The flap of a healer’s pavilion hangs open, and inside something more curious. The young lord laid beneath candles and incandescent, his breathing shallow as the maester binds cracked ribs while another mixes milk of the poppy nearby.

The knight’s eyes are closed. But he is alive, broken, but alive.

Aerion watches for only a moment, the maester’s do not notice him, no one does.

You step quietly between the rows of pavilions, clutching the circlet of roses he’d placed upon your head. You never glance toward the healer’s tent, never see the knight within, disappearing into your own, canvas falling shut behind you.

Aerion remains where he is, gaze lingering first on your tent until he shifts back to the injured lord.

The maester speaks to another as he shakes from the bed, “If the night is kind, he shall recover.”

Aerion’s jaw tightens in certainty, looking once more toward the closed flap of your pavilion, toward the place where you are beyond sight.

The decision settles over him with terrifying calm, an inevitability.

He turns away before anyone notices he’d ever been there. And long after the camp has fallen into silence, hours passed when the last torches burn low and even the horses have stilled, Prince Aerion returns to his own bed.

Alone.

—

You’d been none the wiser, in fact no one had been. Wine flowed delicately in your system and sleep succumbed you in the early evening. Though your mind lingered occasionally.

The Prince.

You hadn’t thought much of him before. Only what you had been told. Callous, cruel, a bully to many, even his brothers. Much like his father in a darker sense someone had mentioned. Though Prince Maekar was cold, he bore the love in his children and for his elder brother Prince Baelor quite clearly.

Aerion was something different.

There was a glint in his eye that often unnerved many people, many young maidens falling into hushed whispers from his presence alone. There was a darkness there, one you had witnessed today with your own eyes, as much as you wanted to deny it.

He shouldn’t have paid attention to you at all. As a lady in waiting to his own aunt, it was hardly a need for you to cross paths at all, but somewhere along the lines, he had began appearing inside every part of your life, forming his own web that had you tangling and restless even in dreams.

Existing where he never had before.

The morning comes damp and cold, due prickling the morning grass where drunkards still sway and grumble their chants past the tents. The stoked fire has burned low, the furs from the bed gifting you the last covers of warmth. You toss and turn for a while, shifting under the sheets so harshly your hair musses around you. You sit up at last, abandoning the idea of sleep altogether.

Myrish carpet finds your feet as you press them into the ground and into your slippers, tugging the large, silken coat from its stand and around your shoulders, your chemise hidden dignified underneath. Maids sleep in their beds around you, snoring softly where rest has not yet escaped them, but you don’t go to wake them. Instead you let them rest, crouching and tiptoeing out of the pavilion and into the morning air.

There are few still moments before it comes tumbling down. First it is a scream, shrill and piercing from metres away, and then running, the first breath of fresh air you take stolen as your eyes snap fully awake.

You follow the sound, and it seems others from every direction have the same idea, men and women rushing down the road, to find something that makes you stumble.

“The knight..”

You don’t hear the rest, the crowd picks up before you're drawn from it, sliding through the sea of heads until you find your place at the front, coat cloaked tight around your middle.

The knight had succumbed to his wounds, crumpled in a heap in the middle of the stoney pathway, and in a pool of his own blood. How unfortunate, voices counter. It happens.. a tragic tilt, an injury too great.

“Shame..” Another voice you hear.

But something doesn’t feel quite right, it doesn’t make any sense. He was taken away by the maesters and that was the last anyone had seen of him. A stab wound opened from his back, ripped around a hole in his thin cotton shirt. This was no injury, it’s fresh and still leaking..

It’s murder.

The commotion grows wild, biting colder than the chill of the morning as you glance around, stepping back from it as the thought punches you in the chest. Perhaps it’s a lie, perhaps it’s just another fool making scandal for the sake of it.

Perhaps—

A familiar face makes its way out of the crowd, one that stirs you more than it should.

Aerion.

Standing on the outskirts of the townsfolk jeering and yelling, far from the royal pavilions you’d both been assigned to.And he’s looking, already. Not at the knight’s crumpled body, not at the crowd.

At you.

As though your opinion and the shock on your face matters more than the dead man lying fifty yards away.

That should be the first thing to properly make your stomach turn, and then the memories come. They rearrange themselves cruelly.

The gardens, the roses and the way he knew you’d be there.

The thorn and the scar on his hand, the way he finished sentences before you were able to even speak. The fact his pride was not just about bitterness, it was knowing, it was stating facts only you were aware of.

The way he’d watched the knight all afternoon and the prolonged silence when the man spoke. The crown he placed in your lap and the burn of his eyes bearing into yours.

It’s all there, it just wasn’t in the right order before.

—

You don’t accuse him, you can’t. Doing so would be high treason, and stating it would be against what you want to believe.

But you cannot breathe in this air, swarmed with people and stuck between the entrance of the paviliona, and him. So you leave, you take off behind where anyone can see.

The woods. The only place you can think of, and you nod to Lady Ellyn as you pass who only gives you a short nod, peeking from the tent beside you own, her face a pale through the mist.

The woods.

And not because you're running, but because it’s quiet, it’s the closest place you can put distance between all of this. You walk further than you mean to, your lungs burning leaving an ache in your throat. Past the horses, past the pavilions, until the shouts are only nearby echoes through the trees.

You come to a stop along the root of a large oak, hand bracing against its rough bark as you catch your breath. The leaves shake and shudder with the breeze, shades of green shading you all around.

“A curious place to hide, dove.”

The name punches your chest, knocking whatever air was left in your lungs from them. You don’t jump, but the hairs on your skin stand on end, your eyes closing tight. Because somehow, you had already known he was going to come.

“Did you follow me here?” You breathe out, pressing your hand tighter to the tree, standing straighter.

“No,” Twigs crunch under his boots, his tone nothing short of calm and collected, the dangerous kind, “I though you’d come here.”

You turn on your heel, and the sight nearly makes you laugh. His hands are clasped in front of him, sunlight filtering on the striking silver of his features, red tunic clasped perfectly.

“Why were you there?” You don’t know what to make of you own words, it comes out so fast in a burst as you rise to stand opposing him.

He raises an eyebrow without looking away.

“At the gardens you were there..”

“The roses..” You continue without cowering, stepping forth on the uneven earth.

“You knew that I would be there.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t falter not once, and your eyes dart past him, right toward where knights and Kings guard rush past over the bushes.

“The knight.”

It’s the first time he looks away, not in guilt or remorse but recognition. The lines of his face draw tight, striking in the dappled light.

And you notice, shuffling in place, slippers sinking into the dirt.

“Did you do it?”

A long silence comes, and so you ask again, clearing your throat as if scratches.

“Did you kill him?”

There it is. His jaw tightens, muscle flexing from the bone.

“He wasn’t worthy. He presumed himself.”

Your nails bite into your fingers as you clutch them at your sides, he dares a look once before looking away, to your hands, to your face. Like it doesn’t phase him.

That’s all he can say. The knight thought himself worthy. Of you. Your blood runs cold, there’s no denial in it, and he doesn’t even begin to give it.

You blink, gaze catching the faintest flicker of blood on his sleeve, darker than the crimson tunic, running a dark brown along the hem.

“You’re frightening me.” You state it loudly, shakily on your breath as twigs crunch underfoot.

That breaks something him, it cuts him deep. Because he didn't intend to frighten you, he wanted you closer, to be near you, to make you see what he sees.

To make you his.

He steps closer, a foot disappearing between you.

“A Prince wouldn’t—” You start, raising your head to meet his height.

“Wouldn’t what?” He takes another step, head tilting at you and your mouth snaps shut. And he answers for you, he’s already forgotten duty, no care left for it.

“I’ve done everything I know.” Another step. “I’ve buried everything else, fought it, ignored it. It refuses to leave.. you refuse to leave.”

“All it’s about is you. Where you are, and why you’re not by my side.” He sounds almost annoyed, like the admission angers him.

He steps forward again, and you're frozen on the spot, rocking back on your heel.

“I have no reason to be at your side.” You speak plainly.

His hand wraps around your arm, looking down as you attempt to yank it back, but you can’t, he has it firmly gripped, shoved between your bodies as he stands right before you.

“Do you think I enjoy this?” He whispers lowly, violets turned a dark purple, so deep you can see your reflection in them, startled.

“Then let it go..”

He chuckles then, low and dark and broken. And the look in his eyes is something you’ve never seen before. It’s chipped away at the edges, so undone and unhinged as if you’ve asked him to stop breathing.

“If I could..” He leans in closer, breath hitting your jaw as you turn your head away, the sickly woody scent of him reaching your nostrils . “I would have weeks ago, but you keep— you’re still here.”

“Why me, all of this.. you don't love me, it’s simply the idea.” You stumble out, biting the words around your tongue as you bare your teeth back in warning.

“Don’t.” His fingers grip tighter, clamping at your wrist.

“Don’t what?” You counter.

“Reduce this.”

You stare at him instead of speaking, and his brows furrow, because you don’t give him anything, a blank space that he’s created, “You’ll see.” He assures and he releases you from his grip, your arm wrenching free as you step backward.

And he lets you, he doesn't chase, left in the hollow of the woodland, nostrils flaring as he hands his head.

—

The walk you take is slow, unnerved with your fist clutched tight to your chest.

The grounds are dismantling piece by piece with servants packing their wagons, pavilions taken apart, and squires rushing by. Everything moving on just as it usually does. And some part of you imagines you’d dreamt it, how wrong and odd it is to think of such a thing.

That perhaps the grief over the knight has made everything seem stranger than it is.

The canvas shifts gently in the breeze as you reach it, stepping inside amongst the maids, now awake and folding your clothes and dresses. Some hand long over the bed, others draped over chests, but you pay no mind to any of it. It is the table that catches your eye first.

More so what’s on it. Beneath the flowered vase, the one Valarr had gifted you in china blue. There it sits.

An envelope. Yellowed parchment pressed in a dark, crimson stamp, pressed with the three headed dragon along its lining. Your eyes stare longer than your fingers are tempted to move, tracing over the seal before you finally break it.

It tears with a pop, the envelope opening to reveal the letter inside. All of it perfectly placed. So calculated it could only be one of two.

All eyes in the room fall to you hushed with their heads low, parchment crackling softly beneath your fingers

It’s not a love letter, or a simple request, it’s formal.

The sort of letter a noble would send. A Prince. It speaks of honour, of houses, of futures and seeking permissions to court.

To take care of you and properly.

Nothing inside of it would be deemed improper, yet every word your eyes flutter over carry the weight of what you’d heard between the trees. Not because of what you have dreamt, or the teases that have came your way.

Not because they are from Valarr, they’re not. But because cause they are his words.

Written in that same dark, unwavering hand.

“By your side, it would be an honour to take my place.”

The words are rearranged, and so clearly not his, at least not the way he’d word it.

Because the words jumble before your eyes as you blink, and the only thing you see, hear, is his voice ringing in your ears and your stomach turns sharp, bile rising in your throat.

What Aerion had been truly meaning to say.

Be mine.

Leaving out the final part, the one that lingers in his head.

You already are.

I'm coming back. I'd like to see you. I'd like to see our son. If you're still willing. If you're still there. I'll be in the city next Tuesday. There's a café near the old apartment. The one with the terrible scones you used to pretend to like. 2pm. I understand if you don't want to come. I understand if you've moved on. But I've been in therapy, and I've been working on myself, and I think, I hope, I'm ready to try. I'm sorry it took so long. I'm sorry for so many things. I'll understand if you can't forgive me. But I wanted to ask. For a chance. Just a chance.

He read it again. Then a third time. Then he looked up at Maekar, who had abandoned his spoon and was now attempting to pry the suction cup off his tray with the focus of a safecracker.

"Your mother," Aerion said, his voice coming out strange and thin, "is coming home."

Maekar looked up. "No," he said, for no particular reason.

"Yes," Aerion said. "Yes, she is."

He didn't sleep that night, or the night after. He drafted and deleted thirty-seven responses. Too eager. Too cold. Too desperate. Too formal. Too much, always too much, the Targaryen instinct to overwhelm, to consume, to possess.

In the end, at three in the morning on the third night, he wrote:

Tuesday. 2pm. I'll be there. We'll be there. Take all the time you need. I'm still here. I never left.

He sent it, then lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling and trying to remember how to breathe.

Tuesday arrived with the kind of crisp, golden weather that made the city look like a postcard. Aerion dressed Maekar in the outfit he'd agonized over for three days, a soft blue sweater that brought out the purple in his eyes, proper trousers, tiny shoes that would probably be kicked off within minutes. He dressed himself with less care, which was to say he changed shirts four times and then put the first one back on.

The café was exactly as he remembered it. Slightly shabby, perpetually understaffed, with scones that could double as hockey pucks. You'd discovered it during your university days, before him, before everything, and you'd brought him here on your third date. I know it's not much, you'd said, but the coffee is good and they don't care if you sit here for hours. He'd taken a bite of a scone and nearly cracked a tooth, and he'd smiled and said it was perfect, and you'd laughed at him, head thrown back, and he'd known in that moment that he was done for.

He arrived at 1:45. The café was nearly empty, just a student with headphones in the corner and an elderly couple sharing a pastry by the window. He ordered a black coffee and a hot chocolate for Maekar, who was strapped into a high chair and trying to grab the sugar packets.

"Those are not toys," Aerion said, detaching a packet from his son's surprisingly strong grip.

"No," Maekar agreed, and grabbed another one.

At 1:58, the door opened.

He knew it was you before he looked up. He felt it, a shift in the air, some gravitational pull he'd been orbiting around for the past nine months. Nine months and thirteen days, to be precise. He'd counted.

You stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the autumn sunlight. You looked different. Not in any dramatic way, your hair was a little shorter, your face a little thinner, the shadows under your eyes a little lighter. But you held yourself straighter, steadier.

Your eyes found him immediately. Then they dropped to the high chair, to the silver-haired toddler who was now chewing on a sugar packet with great concentration.

Your hand went to your mouth. Your shoulders began to shake.

Aerion stood up. He didn't remember deciding to stand up. His legs just moved, carrying him across the café until he was standing in front of you, close enough to touch, not touching, terrified that if he reached out you would vanish like smoke.

"You came," he said. It was the only thing his brain could produce.

"I came," you said. Your voice was hoarse. Your eyes hadn't left Maekar. "Is that...he's so big. He's so big, Aerion. I missed...I missed so much..."

"Hey," Aerion said, and now he did reach out, his hand hovering near your elbow, not quite landing. "Hey. It's okay. You're here now. That's what matters."

You looked at him then, and he watched your face crumple in a way he'd never seen before. You'd always been so controlled, so careful, keeping your cracks hidden behind walls he hadn't known how to scale.

"Is it?" you whispered. "Is it okay? After what I did?"

"We have time," he said. "We have time to talk about all of it. But right now, there's a small person over there who would very much like to meet you. If you're ready. Only if you're ready."

You drew in a shaky breath. Nodded. He let his hand settle on your elbow, and walked with you to the table.

Maekar looked up as you approached. The sugar packet fell from his mouth. His head tilted, the way it always did when he encountered something new and interesting and potentially edible.

"Maekar," Aerion said, his voice rough. "This is your mama."

You knelt down beside the high chair, bringing yourself to eye level. Tears were streaming down your face, but you didn't seem to notice. "Hi," you said, barely a whisper. "Hi, baby. I'm your mom. I'm your mom, and I'm so sorry I was gone. I'm so, so sorry."

Maekar studied you with the intensity of a tiny scientist examining a particularly fascinating specimen. Then, slowly, he held out the soggy sugar packet.

The laugh that burst out of you was half-sob. "Thank you. That's...thank you, that's very generous."

"He's a generous soul," Aerion said. "He also tried to give me a half-eaten cracker this morning. You're in good company."

You looked up at him, and something passed between you. Something fragile and trembling and alive. He wanted to gather you up, to fold you into his arms, to take you home and never let you leave again. But that was the old Aerion, the one who grabbed and held and didn't ask. The new Aerion, the one who had spent nine months and thirteen days learning how to wait, stayed where he was.

"Do you want to hold him?" he asked.

"I don't know if I should," you said. "I don't know if I've earned..."

"It's not about earning," Aerion said. "It's about whether you want to. And if you do, if you're ready, he's right here."

You nodded, a tiny, terrified movement. Aerion unbuckled Maekar from the high chair, lifting him into his arms. The baby, toddler now, he had to stop thinking of him as a baby, immediately grabbed for his watch.

"We've talked about this," Aerion told him. "Not a toy."

"No," Maekar said, with great satisfaction.

"Yes, exactly." Aerion turned to you. "Ready?"

You held out your arms. Your hands were trembling. Aerion settled Maekar against your chest, and you gathered him in with a care that broke something open in his chest, something that had been locked tight for nine months and thirteen days.

"Hi," you breathed, your cheek against the silver-gold hair. "Hi, Maekar. I'm here now. I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay."

Maekar tolerated this for approximately thirty seconds before he began to squirm, reaching back for Aerion. Aerion saw the flash of hurt cross your face, quickly suppressed.

"He does that to everyone," Aerion said. "Yesterday he tried to escape Elena by climbing over her shoulder. We're working on stranger danger, but he seems to have interpreted it as 'strangers are fascinating and I must touch their faces.'"

You laughed, a wet, shaky sound. "He doesn't know me."

"No," Aerion agreed. "Not yet. But he will. If you want. If you're staying." He paused. "Are you staying?"

You settled Maekar on your hip with a naturalness that suggested muscle memory, some instinct that nine months of absence hadn't erased. He squirmed less this time. "I want to. If you'll have me. I know I don't deserve...I know I left, I know I walked out and left you both, and I wouldn't blame you if you hated me..."

"I don't hate you," Aerion said. "I've never hated you. I was scared, and I was angry, and I was so fucking sad I couldn't breathe, but I never hated you. I read the brochure. The one about postpartum depression. I found it in the nursery."

Your face went stony. "You found that."

"I found it. I didn't understand, before. I didn't see how much you were suffering. I kept leaving, kept going on business trips, kept assuming you were fine because you said you were fine. I should have looked closer. I should have asked harder questions. I'm sorry."

"Aerion..."

"Let me finish." He was shaking now too, he realized. "You left because you were drowning, and I didn't throw you a lifeline. I just stood on the shore and offered to buy you a better boat. That's on me. Some of it. Not all of it, I know, but some of it. And I've had nine months to think about it, and I've been working on…on being someone who listens. Someone who stays. I've been here, in the apartment, this whole time. I didn't go back to the estate. I didn't tell my family what happened. I've been waiting. For you. However long it took."

You stared at him. Maekar, sensing the emotional weight of the moment, chose this exact time to grab a fistful of your hair and yank.

"Ow," you said, startled.

"Sorry, he does that too. Here, let me..." Aerion reached out, gently untangling the tiny fingers. For a moment, his hand covered yours, both of them resting against the back of Maekar's head. Your skin was warm, familiar.

"Can we sit down?" you asked, your voice small. "I think I need to sit down."

He ordered more coffee. You didn't touch your scone, which was probably for the best. Aerion told you about the past nine months: the sleepless nights, the first steps, the first word, the first birthday. He told you about the nights he'd sat on the kitchen floor and called your voicemail just to hear your voice. He told you about the email, how it had been a lifeline, how he'd read it so many times the words had worn grooves in his brain.

You listened. You cried, silently, tears tracking down your face and dripping onto the table. When he was finished, you took a deep breath and started talking.

You told him about the clinic, the one from the brochure. You'd gone, once, before you left, but you'd been too scared to walk through the doors. After you disappeared, you'd found another one, in another city, and this time you'd gone in. You'd been diagnosed with severe postpartum anxiety, with a side of PTSD from the traumatic birth. You'd done inpatient treatment. You'd done outpatient treatment. You'd done therapy three times a week, group therapy, medication, the whole brutal, exhausting gauntlet of putting a shattered mind back together.

"I wanted to call," you said, your voice breaking. "Every day. I wanted to call and hear his voice and hear your voice, but I was so ashamed. I'd left my son. I'd left my husband. What kind of person does that? What kind of mother does that?"

"A sick one," Aerion said quietly. "A sick one who needed help. You got help. You're here now. That's what matters."

"That's what my therapist says." You laughed, a hollow sound. "You sound like my therapist."

"I'll take that as a compliment. She sounds like a smart woman."

"She is. She helped me understand why I left. Not just the depression, but…everything. The loss of control. The way my entire identity got swallowed up by being a Targaryen wife and a mother. I didn't know who I was anymore. All my boundaries were gone. My job, my apartment, my body, my time. It all belonged to someone else. And I didn't know how to ask for it back. I just…ran."

Aerion was quiet for a moment. Maekar had fallen asleep against your chest, his face slack and peaceful, one hand still gripping your collar. "Your apartment," he said finally. "The one you kept. I never went there. I don't have a key. But I thought about it a lot. About why you needed it. About what I'd done to make you feel like you needed an escape hatch."

"It wasn't you," you said. "Not just you. It was everything. The whole world telling me that I should be grateful, that I should be happy, that I had everything a woman could want, and I was just…empty. Hollow. I couldn't feel anything except this grinding exhaustion and this terrible fear that I was going to break my son. Hurt him. Not on purpose, but just…through being broken myself. I didn't trust myself. And I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell anyone. So I left."

"I wish you'd told me."

"I know. Me too. I'm trying to learn how to tell people things now. It's harder than it sounds."

Aerion reached across the table and took your hand. Slowly, carefully, giving you time to pull away. You didn't. "I'm not going to pretend the past nine months didn't happen," he said. "I'm not going to pretend I'm not hurt, or that I'm not scared you'll leave again. But I'm also not going to pretend I don't want you back. I do. I've been half a person since you left. Maekar needs his mother. I need my wife. But I need you to be well more than I need you to be here. Do you understand? If you need more time, take more time. If you need to go slow, we'll go slow. Whatever you need."

"You've gotten better at this," you said, and a ghost of your old smile flickered across your face. "The whole listening thing."

"I've had a lot of time to practice. Maekar is an excellent conversationalist, but his feedback is somewhat limited."

"No," said Maekar, without opening his eyes.

"See? Criticism, but no constructive suggestions."

You laughed, a real laugh this time, and it was the most beautiful sound Aerion had ever heard. He wanted to bottle it. He wanted to wrap himself in it and never let go.

"I missed you," you said. "I missed you so much. Both of you. Every day. Every minute. Even when I couldn't face you, I missed you."

"We missed you too." He squeezed your hand. "We talked about you constantly. Well, I talked. Maekar mostly drooled. But the sentiment was there."

"What did you tell him?"

"Everything. About how we met. About the wedding. About how you wore a suit instead of a dress and my father almost had a coronary. About how you argued with me about financial regulations on our third date and I knew I was going to marry you. About how you're the bravest person I've ever met, because you walked away from everything to save yourself, and that takes more courage than anything I've ever done in a boardroom."

You were crying again. "Aerion."

"I told him his mother loves him. Every day. Even when she couldn't be here. I told him she was getting better, and she was coming back, and when she did, we were going to be a family again. I've been telling him that for nine months. Please don't make me a liar."

You lifted his hand to your lips and kissed his knuckles. Your lips were chapped, and your hand was still trembling, and you were crying and laughing at the same time, and Aerion thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life.

"I'm not going anywhere," you said. "I'm going to stay. I'm going to be here. We're going to figure this out. Together. If you'll have me."

"Always," Aerion said. "As long as it takes. However hard it is. I'm not going anywhere either."

They stayed at the café until the sun began to set and the barista started giving them meaningful looks. Maekar woke up, cranky and hungry, and you watched Aerion produce a pouch of apple sauce from the diaper bag with the efficiency of a man who had done this a thousand times.

"You're good at this," you said, a note of wonder in your voice.

"I've had practice. Also, the first time I tried to feed him, I got formula all over the ceiling. I'm still not sure how that happened. Physics-defying. Truly impressive."

"I missed all of that. The messy parts."

"There are plenty of messy parts left. He's entering a throwing phase. Every meal is an adventure. You'll get your chance."

You watched him coax the apple sauce into Maekar's mouth, dodging the grabby hands with the grace of long experience. Your expression shifted, softened.

"I'm scared," you said. "I'm scared I won't be good at this. At being a mother."

"Nobody's good at it at first. I certainly wasn't. I'm still not, half the time. Elenaa has to remind me which end the diaper goes on."

"That's not reassuring."

"It's not meant to be reassuring. It's meant to be true. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be here. Show up. Try. Fail. Get up and try again. That's what parenting is. That's what marriage is, I think. I didn't understand that before. I thought it was about providing. About fixing things. About being the big important Targaryen who could solve any problem with money and influence. But it's not. It's about showing up. Every day. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard."

You were quiet for a long moment. Then you said, "Can I come home?"

Aerion looked at you. His wife. His exhausted, trembling, impossibly brave wife, who had walked into the abyss and fought her way back out again.

"The apartment's still there," he said. "I never left. I couldn't. It wouldn't have felt right, going anywhere else. I kept waiting for you."

"You kept it."

"It's ours. It's always been ours, I was just too stupid to realize it."

You reached out and touched his face, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw. "You're not stupid."

"I have my moments. This isn't one of them. Come home. Please. Come home."

You nodded, and Aerion felt something crack open in his chest, something that had been frozen solid for nine months and thirteen days, and warmth flooded through him like spring after a long, brutal winter.

"Okay," you said. "Okay. Let's go home."

The apartment looked the same. That was the first thing you noticed, standing in the doorway with Maekar on your hip. The same grey sectional, the same glass coffee table, the same stack of baby books on the end table. But there were differences, too. A play mat spread across the living room floor. A basket of toys in the corner. Pictures on the wall that hadn't been there before: Maekar's newborn photos, his first smile, the two of them at the park, Aerion looking exhausted and proud.

"You redecorated," you said.

"I had a lot of time on my hands. Also, the walls were very bare. It was starting to feel like a hospital waiting room. I needed something to look at during the 3am feedings."

"It looks like a home."

"It is a home. It's been waiting for you to come back to it."

You set Maekar down, and he immediately crawled toward the basket of toys with the single-minded determination of a heat-seeking missile. You watched him go, your face unreadable.

"Where will I sleep?" you asked. "I don't want to assume..."

"The bedroom," Aerion said. "Our bedroom. I've been sleeping in the nursery half the time anyway. Maekar still doesn't sleep through the night consistently, so..."

"No," you said. "No, I mean...I don't want to kick you out. That's not what I'm trying to do. I just...we haven't...it's been so long, and I don't know what we are right now, and I don't want to push..."

Aerion took your hands. "We're married. We're still married. I'm still your husband. You're still my wife. That hasn't changed. Nothing fundamental has changed. We've both been through hell, and we're both still standing, and we're going to figure out the rest of it. But you are not a guest in your own home. You are not sleeping on the couch. You are going to sleep in our bed, and I am going to sleep next to you, whether or not clothes are involved or anything happens at all. Because we've had nine months of sleeping apart, and I am not spending one more night without you next to me."

You stared at him. "That was very romantic. Also slightly intense."

"I'm a Targaryen. We don't do anything by halves."

You laughed, and then you were crying again, and then you were in his arms, and he was holding you, for the first time in nine months and thirteen days. You felt smaller than he remembered. More fragile. But also more solid, more real, more present than you'd been in the months before you left.

"I'm sorry," you sobbed into his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

"I know. I'm sorry too. We're both sorry. Now we can stop being sorry and start being here. Together. That's the deal. That's the whole deal."

You pulled back just enough to look at him, your face blotchy and tear-streaked and beautiful. "I love you. I never stopped loving you. Even when I couldn't be here, I loved you."

"I know," he said. "I've always known. Come on. Let's order dinner. You must be hungry, and I have approximately three edible things in the refrigerator."

"That bad?"

"I've gotten better at cooking, but I'm still not good. Baby food is easier. Maekar doesn't know the difference between puréed carrots and puréed sweet potatoes. I could probably feed him either and he'd just..."

"No," said Maekar, who had found a stuffed dragon and was attempting to remove its wings.

"Exactly," Aerion said. "No complaints from the peanut gallery."

The first night was strange. He ordered Thai food, and you ate like someone who had forgotten what food tasted like, closing your eyes at the first bite of pad thai. Aerion gave Maekar his bath, narrating the process for your benefit: "this is the part where he tries to drink the bathwater, I recommend discouraging it", and you watched from the doorway, learning the bedtime routine you'd missed.

After Maekar was asleep, you sat on the couch together, not quite touching, a careful foot of space between. The television was on, some mindless reality show, but neither of you were watching it.

"Can I ask you something?" you said.

"Anything."

"Did you think about giving up? On me? On us?"

Aerion considered the question. It deserved an honest answer. "I thought about it. In the beginning, especially. I was angry. I was hurt. I didn't understand why you'd left, and the not knowing was worse than anything. But every time I thought about filing papers, about making it official, I couldn't do it. Because that would mean admitting you weren't coming back. And I wasn't ready to do that. Now I'm glad I didn't. Now you're here. Now we're going to be okay."

"You sound so sure."

"I'm not sure at all," Aerion said. "I'm terrified. I'm terrified I'm going to mess this up, that I'm going to fall back into old patterns, that I'm going to miss the signs again. But I'm also hopeful. Because you're here, and you're getting help, and I've been working on myself too, I've been reading books, actual books, about postpartum depression and communication and how to be a supportive partner, and I think we can do this. Together. Properly, this time."

"You've been reading books?"

"Shocking, I know. I had to order them online. I don't think the Targaryen library has a section on maternal mental health."

You leaned over and rested your head on his shoulder. It was such a small gesture, so achingly normal that Aerion's breath caught in his throat.

"Thank you," you said. "For waiting. For not giving up. For being here."

"Thank you for coming back."

Eventually, you fell asleep against his shoulder, your breathing slow and even. Aerion didn't move. He was too afraid of waking you, of breaking the spell, of losing this moment.

When he finally carried you to bed, you barely stirred, mumbling something incomprehensible and burrowing into the pillows. He lay next to you in the dark, listening to you breathe. Maekar made a small sound through the baby monitor, a dream-sound, and then went quiet again.

His family. His whole family. Under one roof, for the first time in nine months and thirteen days.

He didn't sleep for a long time. He was too busy being grateful.

The weeks that followed were not a fairy tale. Nothing was magically fixed. You still had bad days, days when you couldn't get out of bed, days when you looked at Maekar and felt nothing but that hollow, terrifying emptiness. But now you told Aerion when it happened. Now he sat with you, brought you tea, took over childcare without being asked. Now you had a therapist in the city who you saw twice a week, and a psychiatrist who adjusted your medication, and a support group full of other mothers who had been through the same darkness.

Aerion went with you to some of your appointments, at your invitation. He sat in the waiting room and read outdated magazines and thought about how many ways he had failed you before, and how many ways he was trying to do better now.

He cut back his hours at work. He delegated. He refused business trips unless they were absolutely essential, and even then, he called every night. He stopped trying to fix things and started trying to listen. It was harder than any hostile takeover he'd ever executed, but it was also more important.

Slowly, painstakingly, you rebuilt. Your relationship with Maekar was the hardest part. He was a toddler now, with strong opinions and stronger preferences, and his preference was firmly for Aerion. You took it with a grace that broke Aerion's heart a little.

"He doesn't know me yet," you said one night, after Maekar had screamed for twenty minutes rather than let you put him to bed. "It's okay. We have time. I'll earn his trust back."

"You don't have to earn it," Aerion said. "You're his mother."

"I'm a stranger who looks like his mother. There's a difference. But I'll keep showing up. That's what you said, right? Show up. Try. Fail. Get up and try again."

"I'm very wise sometimes. It's a burden."

You laughed. You were laughing more now. It was still tentative, still fragile, but it was there. A flame that had almost gone out, carefully nursed back to life.

The breakthrough came on a rainy Sunday afternoon, two months after you'd come home.

Aerion was in the kitchen, attempting to make pancakes, when he heard a sound from the living room that made him freeze. It was Maekar, laughing. Not his usual giggle, the one he gave when Aerion made funny faces or blew raspberries on his stomach. This was a deep, belly-shaking laugh.

Aerion crept to the doorway and looked in.

You were on the floor, cross-legged, and Maekar was in your lap. You were playing some kind of game, pat-a-cake, maybe, or something like it, and every time you clapped your hands together, Maekar shrieked with joy and grabbed at your fingers.

"Again?" you said, and he nodded vigorously. "Again. Okay, again."

You clapped. He laughed. His whole face was lit up, his purple eyes bright, his mouth wide open. He looked at you the way he looked at Aerion, with complete trust, complete delight, complete love.

Aerion stood in the doorway and watched, his heart painfully full. You looked up and saw him. Your face was wet with tears, but you were smiling. "He laughed," you said. "He really laughed. At me. With me."

"I saw," Aerion said. His voice was hoarse. "I saw."

You held out a hand toward him, and he came and sat beside you on the floor, close enough that your shoulders touched. Maekar looked between the two of you, and then he grabbed one of Aerion's fingers and one of yours and tried to put them both in his mouth at the same time.

"Coordinated assault," Aerion said. "He's getting smarter."

"He gets it from me," you said.

"Undoubtedly."

You leaned your head against his shoulder, and the three of you sat there on the living room floor, the pancakes left unbaked in the kitchen, the rain drumming against the windows, a family.

An imperfect family, not an unbroken family. But a family nonetheless.

That night, after Maekar was asleep, you sat on the couch with Aerion, your legs draped over his lap. This had become a ritual, this quiet time after the baby was down, when you could just be two people instead of two parents.

"I want to show you something," you said.

"What is it?"

You handed him your phone. On the screen was an email, professional, with a letterhead from a company he didn't recognize. It took him a moment to parse what he was reading, and then his eyebrows shot up.

"A job offer?"

"A consulting project," you said. "Remote work. Part-time to start. Fintech. They liked my resume, and they were willing to work around...around everything. My schedule. My needs. I've been looking for months. They're the first ones to agree."

"Darling, that's wonderful." He meant it. He meant it with every fiber of his being.

"I'm scared," you admitted. "It's been so long since I worked. What if I've forgotten how? What if I can't handle it? What if it's too much, with Maekar and therapy and everything else?"

"Then you quit," Aerion said simply. "Or you scale back. Or you adjust. It's not all or nothing. It doesn't have to be all or nothing."

"Since when do you understand nuance?"

"I've been practicing. I'm very proud of myself."

You laughed. It was becoming easier to make you laugh. "I want to try. I want to have something that's mine again. Something I built. Not because I don't love you and Maekar, but because..."

"Because you need to be your own person," Aerion finished. "I know. I understand. Probably better now than I did before. Take the job. Take it, and if it doesn't work out, we'll figure something else out. But you should have something that's yours. You've always needed that."

You looked at him for a long moment. Then you kissed him. A kiss that tasted like tears and the faintest hint of hope.

"I love you," you said.

"I love you too," he said. "More than I know how to say."

"You're saying it just fine."

"I'm trying. That's the whole secret. I'm just trying."

You curled against him, your head on his chest, and Aerion wrapped his arms around you and held on. Just holding instead of grasping, just being. That was the whole deal.

a/n: Liked the fic? You can donate on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3

"Hm?" His arm that was looped around your back and holding firmly to the other side of you tightened a bit as the train went around another turn and you wobbled. He wished you’d sit but you’d said sitting so close to the windows made you feel a bit sick. Standing it was.

"You are so, so tall…” you smirked up at him. You weren’t a loud drunk, did not get mean or emotional. Just red in the face, wobbly, giggly and flirty. He thought that the uncoordination was that most dangerous part but the way you’d just informed him he was tall for the fifth time during this ride had him considering that the flirting was actually going to cause more of a problem.

“Aye, I do know that, and you’ve told me today a couple of times."

"I know." You sighed with a satisfied smile as you leaned against him, face squished into his chest and your hand that was lazily holding to his upper arm for support started to drift some. Heading down toward his chest.

"You doing okay?"

"Mhm." The hiccup made that assurance hard to believe.

"Yer gonna be sick?"

"Nope." you accentuated the P with a pop. “I’ve drank more…” you mumble as if that’s a good defense. Right now you believe it was.

“and gotten sick.” He squeezed your side and it made your eyes open. Chin lifting to press against the middle of his wide warm chest.

He loved you. He loved being with you, even if he’d just sat through four hours of woman giggling, gossiping and at some point openly fawning at him. Congratulating you like you had just caught the biggest fish in the pond. He love being there catching your little smirk at him from across the table. Or even just being here now, holding you up in the middle of a subway car because you had given up on trying to fight gravity!

"You have really blue eyes.” You blinked lazily and reached both hands up towards his shoulders pulling him down slightly. “Soft and bright.” It made him blush like a boy when you commented on his appearance, when you openly gawked at him.

“Babe-“ he warned you as soon as he felt your hands reach for his hair. He could see from a mile away where this was heading.

”what? Just kiss me.” You pouted. “I’ve missed you.”

He couldn’t resist the little whine you let out. Ducking his head down so his lips could reach yours. He attempted a peck. Something train appropriate but you parted your lips licking tenderly at his bottom one wanting entrance.

“I’ve been with ya all night.” He reminded and you just groaned gripping his gingery hair and leaning up to kiss him again. This time it was enough of a kiss that the girls in the far back corner all giggled and whispered. Not that you were aware enough to notice.

“You know..." His eyes narrowed a bit. Your tone was dangerous. "we could totally get into comfy clothes when we get back to yours…or just ditch the clothes fully?” Your brow raised like you were suggesting a truly genius plan.

“we could.” He offered, but you weren’t able to decipher if he meant yeah you guys could get naked and roll around on every surface in his flat or, if he meant That you could but likely wouldn’t.

“we should,” you flutter your lashes up at him. Attempting to be seductive. Seducing wasn’t what Dunk needed though. He was already madly in love with you, with your body, with every aspect of you. So much so that it pained him to shut down your advances.

Dunk absolutely wanted to go home and kiss you. Feel you squirm under him until he has to hold you through an orgasm and cover your mouth so the neighbors wouldn’t complain, again.

Your next attempt at a kiss, one that was poorly aimed and landed sort of at the corner of his mouth, reminded him that he couldn’t go home and sleep with you. That You were too drunk and the sex stuff was still too new between you guys.

You stumbled up onto your tip toes, cupped your hand and whispered, somewhat poorly, in his ear.

“I’ve been thinking about more than just your height and eyes Dunk.” Hand sliding down the middle of his chest and your fingers hooked at his belt with a playful grin until he grabbed your wrist and pulled your hand back up to rest against the side of him.

"Hey, We're not doing that tonight." He said it with a straight and serious face but his tone wasn’t unkind. He delivered the rejection as gently as he could. But it did still sting.

“why not?

He was rubbing his hand into your side again, pulling you in closer as your knees wobbled.

"Because you've had, what, a whole pitcher of sangria?"

It was a really a pitcher and then two sneaky shots at the bar on the way back from the ladies room with your friend that you now knew he had not seen.

"But-Dunk I want you…” you sighed and gave him your best pout. “I need you.”

He physically ached because gods fucking know he wanted you bad too but this just wasn’t the time. Not while you were like this.

You were gorgeous and warm and probably would do things they really shouldn’t do in public in the middle of this train right now but he wanted to do those things with you, not your sangria induced personality!

“you don’t want to sleep with me?” That caught the old women’s attention. Just for a moment, she adverted her gaze when dunk grabed both your cheeks with his hands.

This felt like a test. Like whoever was up there in the sky was putting this-you, in his path and tempting him to toss aside his stances because he wanted you desperately, he wanted you for his own selfish needs and feelings and now he wanted you so you stopped pouring and would smile again.

"Jesus-it’s not that babe,” he kissed your forhead, right in the middle where it currently wrinkled. “You know I need you.” He said lower and stroked your cheeks. “Tonight I just want to get you some water, get you in bed with some of those fries I’ve got in the leftovers box.” He nodded to try and reassure you.

“you’ve got fries?”

The worried line of his lips turned up into a grin at that question.

“I’ve got so many fucking fries for you babe. However many you want.” His hand lowered from your face to your back when the train lurched for another stop.

You hid back in his chest as the girls all clamored out of their seats and filed off at this stop. Your Eyes closing a bit too long to be considered a normal blink.

“I do want ya, flutter your pretty eyes at me like that in the morning and i’ll prove that to ya.” He murmured as the train started up again.

The tension in your brow softened then. The alcohol let your feelings express physically before any words that match what you were feeling could be mustered up.

“your sweet, always taking care of me."

He smiled, it was nice knowing you felt looked after. “I like taking care of you." That’s all he cared about.

“like some heroic far to honorable knight…” you yawned some nose pressing against his chest to hide it a bit.

“Am I?” He laughed.

“mhm, all honest and morally coded.” You eyes shut fully now, cheek turned using his soft chest as a pillow. “They’d probably think you insufferably good.” You decided.

“You find me insufferable?” Dunk kissed the top of your head and took it in stride, there wasn’t any fiend insult in his voice.

“no,” your arms looped around him as much as they could. “I find you lovable.”

Dunks hand froze on your back. His eyes looking down at the lump shaped like his girlfriend against his chest.

“yeah?”

“mhm.” You murmured and less than a minute later your breathing evened out and he felt a bit more weight against him. You were asleep.

“I love you too” he said as his hand started up the soothing circles on your back. Looking up at the board to see how much longer.

Three more stops until he could get you safety tucked into his bed.

a/n: scared I started to get a bit angsty there towards the end but hopefully that was still some solid fluff because I certainly felt warm and loved just imagining this playing out!

Dunk Masterlist, Prompt list/Prompt Masterlist