[mads]

“Get up,” Aerion hears, blinking blearily as his sheets are ripped off his body. “Aerion, get up! Now!” 

What the fuck—

Half awake, Aerion’s heart races as he pushes himself into a sitting position, trying to figure out what the fuck is happening. The only reason he doesn’t reach for his blade is that he recognizes your voice. He lets out a disgruntled noise when he feels fingers grab his cheeks hard, glaring when he sees your face inches from his.

Outraged, he sees movement from the corner of his eye and realizes that you did not come alone.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demands, still trying to wake himself up. He tries to look to the side to see who the fuck you brought into his chambers, but your grip on his face tightens. He grimaces, giving you an annoyed look. “Answer me, you miserable wench. Why—”

“The Golden Company is in Lys,” you say, and Aerion doesn’t think that he hears you correctly at first, staring at you blankly. “Caelyx has clothes for you. Get up, and get dressed now.”

“What did you just s—”

Aerion’s head snaps to the left, a sharp pain spreading through his cheek as he stares at the open balcony looking over Magister Vyrano’s manse. 

Did you just strike him?

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, brows furrowing in disbelief. Before he can look back at you and demand to know what the fuck is the matter with you, he feels your hands cradling his face, forcing you to look at him again. 

“Aerion, wake the fuck up,” you say again, and he should be angry—he is angry, his chest is hot and bubbling, and his face stings, and indignity and pride flare terribly, and it all fizzles when he hears the fear plain in your voice. He’s never heard you sound this way before. He’s heard you furious, mocking, teasing, happy, but never scared. “Get up, and get dressed now. Stop asking questions. We do not have time.”

Aerion stares at you for a moment longer before he pushes himself out of bed, hardly given a chance to orient himself, before someone—your whore, Aerion realizes disdainfully, the silver-haired pillow boy who always attaches himself to you—is forcing silk chiffon over his shoulders. He looks at the white fabric that he’s being dressed in: revealing and clinging in a way that feels entirely inappropriate for the situation. Dress for a whore, not a prince. And then he looks at the fitted leathers you’re wearing, the red cape attached to your shoulder, the sword at your hip, and he shoves your whore away from him, sneering as he watches him stumble back into a table. 

“I am not fucking wearing this,” he spits furiously. “What the fuck is going on?”

“You’re going to wear whatever the fuck I tell you to wear,” you reply, undeterred by his fraying temper. You step closer again, and you grab his cheeks to force him to look at you. You don’t let him yank his face away when he tries. “We need to get you out of the manse and into one of the whorehouses so that your kin don’t come and slit your throat. I’ve arranged for the Second Sons to take you on a ship out of Lys to the Disputed Lands, but the ship doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning, and they cannot leave earlier without drawing suspicion. So for the next day, you’re going to be Ari of Lys, dragon prince, and Aerion Targaryen will have left Lys a moon ago because he grew bored with whores and wine. Do you understand?”

Aerion shakes his head, and when your whore tries to get the clothes on him again, he raises his hand furiously, threatening to put his fist into his face. You immediately raise your hand in response, threatening to strike him again. Aerion gapes at you, betrayed.

“If you strike him, dragon prince, I will parade you around as you are,” you hiss, pointedly looking down at his current state: bare-chested and hair sleep-mussed. “Caelyx was kind enough to let you borrow his silks so that you may not be entirely indecent when you step outside. Or would you prefer to be dragged through the streets half-naked for all of Lys to admire?”

“It is transparent,” Aerion says furiously. “I may as well be bare.”

“It is disguising,” you shoot back. “No one will look twice at another silver-haired whore on an island full of silver-haired whores.”

“I am not a fucking whore.”

“You will be whatever the fuck I tell you to be if it keeps you alive,” you shout. Then you exhale, rubbing your face. “Aerion, please—they are docking, they have probably already docked by now. We do not have time for this.”

Frustrated, Aerion glares at you, and then he glares at your whore, who has the audacity to give him a sweet smile. Aerion bares his teeth at the boy, a disgusted expression on his face as he returns to dressing him in the soft silks.

Aerion spits, “How many men have you let fuck you in this?” 

The whore raises his eyebrows, lips curled up. “They are my special silks, prince,” he purrs. He looks pointedly at you as he answers, “Only one person has fucked me in them.”

Aerion’s blood pressure skyrockets, pulse thudding dangerously in his ears as he turns to look at your whore. There’s no way that he’s being dressed in something that another man was wearing while you fucked him. The boy only gives him a smug smile, and Aerion’s gaze cuts toward you, questioning, and he blanches when he sees your eyes slide shut. 

Instead of denying it, you give your whore a long look—a warning. 

Aerion gapes again. “You cannot be serious,” he hisses at you, ripping his arm away when your whore tries to finish dressing him. “Will you—”

“We do not have the time for this,” you say through your teeth, turning a cold look on Aerion now, as though Aerion isn’t the victim in this situation. “Caelyx, stop antagonizing him. Aerion, get dressed.”

Aerion’s nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, tongue pressing against the back of his teeth as he wills himself to calm down. His gaze flicks back toward the open balcony as your whore—Caelyx—returns to wrapping him in the fine silks. He can’t see anything—Aerion’s balcony faces the west, and Lys’s ports are to the north, but he’s heard enough about the Golden Company in passing to imagine the fleet of ships with golden banners docking in the harbor. Recent reports have put their numbers at over twelve thousand—all of Essos has been whispering about them since the sacking of Qohor. 

“How many are here?” he asks you, jaw tight. 

“Enough,” you answer, arms folded over your chest as you stand in the doorframe of his chambers, one hand on the hilt of your sword, looking down the hall, as though you expect Aegor Rivers to come barreling down any moment. Aerion’s heart is pounding, he realizes, as the situation finally begins to hit him. “One of my harbor boys came running to me as soon as he saw the gold banners in the distance. I came here as soon as I got everything handled.”

Aerion lets out a sharp breath through his nose, dragging his hand through his hair as he paces once across the room, away from your whore, silk clinging to him in a way that makes his skin crawl.

“After you got everything handled,” he echoes, incredulous, turning on you, trying to turn the nasty panic that climbs his throat into something more manageable: anger. “Instead of waking me, you decided to—what—build a whole fucking scheme while I was asleep?”

“I did not have time to argue with you first,” you hiss. “By the time I reached the harbor to confirm the banners, the first ship was a mile out from docking. I—”

“You should have come to me first,” he interrupts, heat rising in his chest. “You should have—”

“Aerion.”

Aerion’s teeth grind, something uncertain spiking in his chest with his heart rate as he fists his hands at his side to hide the way his fingers tremble—he pretends it is fury and not fear. You look back over at him, gaze lingering on the way the sheer silks cling to his slim hips, hiding little more than necessary—barely what is necessary. He glares at you, but there is a lump in his throat, and he cannot swallow it away. 

Aerion could die today.

There is a really good chance that Aerion will die today. 

He exhales as he paces over to the balcony. When his back is to you and your whore, he lifts shaking fingers to his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. The last time it beat like this—wild and erratic, like it was trying to tear itself out of his chest—was during the Trial of Seven. In the mud, with blood in his mouth, in his eyes, iron on his tongue, vision blurring and head half in the clouds because he lost so much blood, staring up at a hedge knight who could have killed him if he wanted. 

He had been afraid. 

He’d been lying in the muck; he knew he had lost even before he yielded. He knew it the moment the oaf stood back up after Aerion had given it his all. He had no energy left, and he was bleeding out, and when he hit the ground that final time, he knew that he wasn’t going to get up. He remembers hearing his father yelling for him—my boy, Aerion! My boy!—and he remembers thinking that at least he would die in battle, at least he would die with his father’s voice in his ears, he would die knowing that his father cared enough to fight for him, to beg for him.

He is afraid now. 

And there is no oaf in front of him this time, no enemy wielding a blade that he can try to strike down, and no father to save him; just ships on the horizon, men he cannot see yet, and the suffocating feeling of knowing that they are coming from him. The Blackfyres are here, on this island, searching for him, and there’s nothing he will be able to do if they find him. There will be no yielding, no surrender. If they figure out he is here, they will cut his throat, and he will die cowering in silks instead of armor, in silence instead of with his father’s voice in his ears. 

He wonders, briefly and bitterly, if Maekar will even care. 

Probably not—no, there’s no probably about it. His father will not care. He did not care when Aerion was choking over his own blood, hardly able to speak, when he delivered the news that he would be sent across the Narrow Sea. He did not care to hear Aerion beg him not to do this, did not care when Aerion reopened the stitches on his thigh, trying to scramble after him when he turned his back on his own son. His father knew that the Blackfyres and their allies were across the Narrow Sea. Knew that this was a risk. And he sent Aerion here anyway. Aerion died to Maekar the moment Baelor’s heart stopped beating.

He will not care.

Maybe, even, he was hoping for this. 

A tragedy to befall the mad prince that he can work into a way to gather sympathy back home. Aerion was never useful to him alive, cost him far more than he was worth, but maybe in death—

Distantly, he hears you tell your whore to leave and then your boots clicking against the ground as you make your way over to him. He half wants to tell you to fuck off, to let him handle this himself, that he doesn’t need nor want your help, and he can face the Blackfyres himself, but then you slip your arms around his waist, rest your forehead against his shoulder blades, and the protests die on his lips. His throat bobs as your hand slides up his torso so that your palm is over his heart, feeling the rapid, fluttering pace of it. 

“Do you trust me?” you ask quietly, lips against his shoulder.

It terrifies him how easily the answer comes to him. “Yes.”

“Then trust me,” you say. “Go with Caelyx. He will bring you to the Perfumed Garden. The First Magister and I will be meeting the Golden Company in the central square. The Garden sits on the north end of the central square. You will be able to watch and listen to what we say to the Golden Company, and if things go south, Caelyx will make sure you get to the west side of the city and—”

“And what about you?” Aerion demands, whirling around to face you. “If things go south, you expect me to cower and hide while you—” While you die. He cannot even bring himself to say it. “I will not. You cannot expect that of me. You—”

“I’ll be fine,” you say dismissively. “I—”

“Do not take me for a fool,” he hisses. “There is a reason you are armed.”

You press your lips together, staring at him for a long while, and Aerion feels sick. They are here for him, they will kill him if they get their hands on him, and you are trying to send him away so they cannot, but if they realize what you’re doing, they will kill you. 

Aerion might die today, and Aerion might get you killed today, too.

He has never felt so useless before.

“They won’t kill me if things go south,” you finally say, shaking your head, and Aerion bristles, because you do take him for a fool and he should see your tongue removed for it, but all he can do is try to swallow his own as fear claws at his chest. “They won’t, Aerion. They will not risk making an enemy of Volantis. We have been over this before. If anything, they will take me hostage and—”

And what the hell do sellsword companies do with their hostages? he wants to scream at you. You are capable, he knows this. You are capable, and you are influential, and you are dangerous, but you are a woman. He wants to shake you to make you understand—if they take you hostage, then—

“They will do worse to you if they get their hands on you,” you say quietly. “They will make a spectacle of you. They will want something to show for it—something to carry back across the Narrow Sea and boast of. The Brightflame finally put out, the mad dragon tamed. They will keep you alive long enough for word to spread, long enough for your family to send men after you, and while they have you alive, they will do everything they can to break you—”

Aerion does not need to hear this from you. Doesn’t like the way it makes his skin crawl. 

“You are a fool if you think they would break me,” Aerion says through his teeth. “They—”

“They will,” you interrupt, voice so firm that it makes a chill run down his spine. “Aerion, they will break you. They will take their time, and they will make you into something that can be passed from hand to hand, something they can laugh over and parade about as a prize to mock your family. And once word has spread, and there is nothing left of you worth keeping, then they will kill you.”

“I would sooner kill myself,” Aerion hisses, but his stomach is turning, and the room feels too small, and the silk is too tight, and the air is too thin. “I would—”

You grab his face between your hands hard, pinching his cheeks, and Aerion loathes what you must see in your eyes to make the frustration and anger drain the way it does into something softer, grip on his face more gentle as your thumbs stroke his cheekbones.

“They would not let you, Aerion. Please stop fighting me. We do not have time for this.”

He glares at you, fury and indignation rising rapidly in his chest, because he knows that you are right. He knows it in the way his pulse will not slow, in the way his thoughts keep circling back to the same suffocating end, no matter how hard he tries to twist them into something else. He knows, and he hates it, hates that you have named it, hates that you are forcing him to look at it, to feel it.

Will his father even care? 

Will Maekar spare a second thought or go on his merry way?

“Do you trust me?” you ask again, firmer this time.

Aerion’s jaw tightens, and he nods.

“Then trust me,” you repeat, hands sliding from his cheeks to hold the back of his head, fingers threading through silver hair. “Trust me. Please. I need to meet with the First Magister before the Golden Company reaches the central square. Go with Caelyx and listen to him. He will relay everything else I don’t have the time to explain, okay?”

Aerion does not like it. He stares at you, and he is angry and helpless and so frustrated that he can feel his stomach churning, and he knows you know it from the way your eyes search his, begging him to just agree, not to make things more difficult.

He lets out a noise caught between a scoff and a sigh. “Fine. Fuck. Fine. But I do not like this at all, and if things go wrong—”

If things go wrong, then what? He’ll be dead, or worse. You’ll be dead, or worse. 

His throat bobs as he swallows.

Still, you say with a smile, “If things go wrong, you may hate me for it, and you may tell me I told you so when we meet in hell.”

Aerion snorts. “That is not funny, wench.”

You hum, lips still curved up. “It is kind of funny.”

“Not even slightly.”

You laugh, leaning in to press your forehead against his temple, and he sighs, eyes sliding shut. You ghost your lips against his cheekbone, and then turn his face slightly to the side so that you can brush your lips against his.

You say quietly, “Pāsagon nyke. Nyke gīmigon skoros iksan gaomagon.”

Trust me. I know what I’m doing.

“Gaoman pāsagon ao,” he murmurs. “Issa pōnta qilōni gaoman daor pāsagon.”

I do trust you. It is they whom I do not trust.

He feels you smile against his lips. The nerve.

“Eman ossēntan lēda qubykta vali,” you tell him, brushing your fingers through his hair. “Mirri kessa ivestragon iksan qubykta vali.”

I have dealt with worse men. Some would say I am worse men.

Aerion scoffs, but he finds himself smiling. “Iksā iā mittys, iksis skoros iksā,” he replies, voice weaker than he intends for it to be. “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”

You are a fool, is what you are. Return to me. That is an order.

Your lips curve up again, and you tilt your face to ghost your lips against his temple. “Kesan va moriot māzigon arlī naejot ao, zaldrīzes dārilaros.”

I will always return to you, dragon prince.

It should bring him some semblance of comfort, but the pit in his stomach only worsens.

———————

 “You should be paying attention to me, prince,” your whore drawls as he leans against the  doorframe to the room Aerion is waiting in. “I am trying to teach you how to behave properly as a courtesan.”

Aerion’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t look back at him, staring into the central square as you talk quietly to the First Magister, standing between him and his son, several of the Second Sons and the magister’s household guard lingering behind the three of you. 

This is the first time he’s seen the man look so serious—he’s always been quick to smile, friendly enough to be overlooked, though you are quick to tell Aerion that he is quite the cruel gossip behind closed doors. A vicious tongue and sharp mind to match, because one does not become First Magister in Lys without both at his disposal. 

Aerion has always dismissed it when you would tell him this; he’s never been able to reconcile the man you lauded as quick-witted and ruthless with the jovial man he portrays himself as, but now he can, with the way his eyes are cold and expression is stern as he stares in the direction of the ports, head tilted slightly toward you as he listens to whatever you’re saying. His son stands slightly behind the two of you, stiff, hand on the pommel of a decorative sword, gaze flicking nervously, visibly taking deep breaths to calm himself. 

“Did you know Marcellus asked her to marry him when she first arrived in Lys?” Caelyx says as he makes his way over to where Aerion is sitting, lounging on the cushions across from him. Aerion gives him a cool look, but the whore only raises his eyebrows, smiling easily, as though the Golden Company isn’t about to come down on Lys. 

“Who the fuck is Marcellus?” 

Caelyx lets out a huff of laughter and then nods out to where you’re standing. Aerion realizes he must be referring to the First Magister’s son—Aerion never even bothered to learn the idiot’s name. He scoffs and says, “Him? He is a fool. I once saw him trip over his own silks walking into a feast. Nearly took half the table with him. Then had a servant whipped to make it seem as though it was her fault.”

“He is an idiot,” Caelyx agrees, taking a sip of wine, unbothered, “but he is also pretty, and he is also cruel, so that makes him just her type.”

Aerion sneers, gaze flicking back out to where he’s standing just a smidge too close to you. He isn’t sure if he’d go so far as to say pretty—he’s sun-kissed, tall and thin, not toned, missing the lean muscle Aerion has, missing the silver-gold hair of Valyria, even if he does have the purple eyes. It’s a tawny brown instead, braided over his shoulder; he finds himself shaking his head, a scoff on his lips. 

No, Aerion thinks bitterly, not pretty at all. Not nearly your type.

“She liked him well enough for a few months,” Caelyx notes, smiling to himself as he watches the square. “Lasted longer than most, poor boy actually thought she might marry him. Eight whole moons, then he didn’t exist to her anymore. The two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you?”

Aerion stills, gaze sliding from the square to the whore sitting on the cushions next to him—too close to him, too smug. Aerion does not have time for this. Does not have time or patience. The Golden Company will arrive any moment, but—

—but he does not like the mockery in his tone. The implication. Aerion is not stupid, he knows what your whore is trying to say, and it settles very, very poorly. 

Caelyx leans in a little, so close that Aerion can smell the cherry wine on his tongue. “I could teach you to pleasure her,” he murmurs, leaning in closer to brush his lips against Aerion’s ear. “So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else.”

Aerion shoves him away hard, seething. “I should take your tongue, whore,” he spits. “Who do you think you are?”

Caelyx is unbothered, smiling still as he leans back against the cushions again. “I only mean to help, prince—”

“My prince.”

“Would that you were,” Caelyx drawls smugly. “Think on it. We both know she grows bored easily, and we both know that in the five years she’s been here, she’s never grown bored of me. I love nothing more than to be of use. We could have fun—the three of us.”

“Do not speak to me again,” Aerion says through his teeth. “If you speak to me again, I will have your tongue removed, and not even she will be able to save you.”

“Did you know that sometimes she enjoys taking the lead?” Caelyx continues, unperturbed, silver hair falling in his eyes as he tilts his head to the side. As Aerion’s about to spit out a yes, reminded of the countless times you forced him onto his back and climbed on top of him, Caelyx adds, “In ways most men are too proud to learn.”

Aerion pauses, brows furrowing as he casts a side eye toward the whore, unsure of what exactly he is implying. He fights a snarl when he’s met with another too smug smile. 

Caelyx only smiles wider. “It can feel good for men too, prince,” he purrs, leaning in again. “Taking it the way a woman does. She knows how to make it feel good.”

Aerion’s face burns hot as soon as Caelyx’s words register. He flounders, lips parting, attention drawing from the square fully now. Vile words threaten to burst from his lips, pride and indignity warring, insult for this whore to say something so crude, but they die in his throat, strangled by the heat that floods his chest and the unwelcome flicker of curiosity that follows. He hides it with a scoff, but—

His thoughts traitorously cling to the idea, envisioning what your whore dared to imply. He can see it too easily—your hands on Caelyx, pushing him back against the bed, holding him there, his head tipped back, mouth parted, gasping, moaning, violet eyes rolled back as you press deep inside him and take what you want.

Something green and ugly twists in Aerion’s chest, breath quickening, rage curdling, and then—

Then it turns. Then it is your hands on him instead, firm at his hips, nails digging into his skin as you force him down, as you hold him there, and all he can do is take everything you’re willing to give him. It would be a fight—everything is always a fight with the two of you, a war for dominance with blood drawn and bruises painted on smooth skin. He would not yield to you, not so willingly, not like your whore, but you would make him yield, and Aerion would—he would enjoy it. Aerion has never let anyone take control like that, has never given it, has never even considered it. The very idea should disgust him, should make him recoil the way he did just a moment ago, but it doesn’t.

He chokes, breath catching in his throat, heat flooding his face as he realizes how much his thoughts have drifted—that Caelyx has noticed it too, from the way satisfied expression on his face—and Aerion jerks his gaze away like he’s been struck.

“Shut up,” he snaps hoarsely, jaw clenched so tight it aches, because he cannot tell if he wants to rip Caelyx’s throat out for saying it or himself for imagining it.

Luckily, or unluckily, maybe, Caelyx does not have the opportunity to respond, because the Golden Company finally approaches the square. 

Disgust curdles in Aerion’s stomach when he recognizes Aegor Rivers standing at the head of the group, black hair loose at his shoulders and dressed in plain armor, the Valyrian sword Blackfyre sheathed at his hip. 

For a moment, he nearly rises. The impulse is sudden and violent—grab a blade, any blade, and cut his way through them until the bastard bleeds out in the dust and that stolen sword is returned to where it belongs. 

Behind the bastard are the false claimants. Aerion recognizes them without introductions, and it makes him sick. It makes him sick that they look like him. Sick that they have the same silver hair, the same violet eyes, the blood of Old Valyria running just as true through bastards and pretenders as it does through him—and they dare to stand beneath the banner of the black dragon. 

His body shifts, nails biting into his palm and teeth grinding together. 

He hates them. He hates the way they stand there like they have a right to be, like they have not stolen everything they are from his family and twisted it into something lesser. Hates the way the city seems to hold its breath for them, as though they’re something to be reckoned with instead of something to be stamped out. 

He starts to rise, and your whore tenses on his opposite side as though to stop him, and then—

—and then the First Magister steps forward, and Aerion loses the opportunity. 

He draws blood from how hard he bites his tongue, feels it dripping between his knuckles, too.

“I must say, if you have come to conquer our fine city with such… modest forces, then you will find us less accommodating than you might hope,” the First Magister says, eyes sharp as he stares down at the Golden Company from the top of the marble steps. “We do not take kindly to uninvited guests.”

Aegor Rivers does not rise to the bait. He paces a few steps forward, standing at the foot of the steps, gaze sweeping from the First Magister to you to the First Magister’s son, and finally to the men arrayed behind the three of you—a small regiment of the Second Sons, Lys’s gonfaloniere, and the household guard. The other magisters are nowhere to be seen. 

It is a statement of unity, Caelyx had explained when Aerion first made note of it—the Golden Company is not welcome in Lys. 

“We are not here to conquer, magister,” Aegor Rivers replies at last, inclining his head to the First Magister. “We hear you harbor a guest of particular interest to us, and we hope to come to an… understanding.”

“How unfortunate that you have come all this way for a rumor,” the First Magister replies with a thin smile, and he exchanges a quick look with you that Aerion isn’t able to read, “and without the decency to give notice before your arrival. One would almost think you meant to insult us. Did you mean to insult the magisters of our lovely Lys, my lord?” 

“He is no lord,” you interrupt blandly. “You are being far too generous, magister.”

Aerion’s lips curl up despite himself. But then you throw a wink back at the First Magister’s son, Marcellus, who snorts at your words, and his smile flattens, irritated again. He side-eyes the two whores who slip into the room with them—two girls, he’s seen them hanging around you before, but he doesn’t know either of their names.

“Caelyx,” the taller one says, glancing nervously out to the square. “How is it going?” 

“She’s only insulted them once,” Caelyx says as he smirks into his wine. “So I would say well.”

The shorter girl laughs, settling onto the cushions next to Aerion, resting her head on her arms as she looks out into the square. Aerion finds himself irritated again all of a sudden—the silk clings to him, too soft and too light and too wrong, and the scent of perfume and wine hangs thick in the air, cloying and suffocating. 

He should be down there—at your side, at the First Magister’s shoulder, steel in hand, not hidden in silk and pillows and painted smiles, not tucked away among whores. His fingers curl into the cushions, nails biting into the fabric as his eyes track you. This is fucking humiliating. He exhales hard through his nose, trying to calm his temper.

“Watch yourself, prince,” Caelyx drawls, watching him carefully from the corner of his eye. Aerion sneers at him. “I only mean to say that you know what is at stake. Do not let your pride get the best of you.”

“I do not need you reminding me, whore,” Aerion scoffs.

Still, his stomach flips as he remembers what you said earlier. He does not want to think about that, because if he thinks about that, he thinks about how he got here, and if he thinks about how he got here, he thinks about his father, and if he thinks about his father, he will wonder—will he even care? And Aerion will not like the answer he comes to, so he cannot think about what will happen if the Blackfyres see through the lies, so he does not.

“I had thought Lys better governed,” Aegor says after a moment, “than to allow its… wards such freedom with their tongue.”

You tilt your head, considering him. 

“And I had thought you more impressive,” you reply. “Given the stories.”

“Across the Narrow Sea, a ward who spoke so carelessly would find herself corrected. Firmly,” Aegor says after a moment, voice low and edged. “It is a failing of the Free Cities that they keep such a gentle hand in the face of such disobedience.” 

“If you are so fond of firm hands, I suggest you sail back to your Sunset Kingdom and find one willing to keep you,” you say, smiling, until you are not. “If you ever imply I need to be firmly corrected again, I will skin you alive and pour salt over every inch of your body.”

Aegor’s mouth curves, faint and humorless. “A bold threat,” he says. “Though I wonder—would your hosts thank you for starting a war in their square? It would be a shame to see Lys burn for your temper.”

“Lys would not be the city that burns, sellsword. It will be your ships and your men,” you drawl. “The sacking of Qohor has made you bold, but Lys is not Qohor—nor is Volantis, and you tread on making an enemy of both.”

“You are an exile, my lady,” Aegor says coolly, tilting his head. “You think your city will go to war at your whims.”

“Exile, maybe, but I am old blood, and you are the son of an Andal whore. They would never suffer the insult without consequence.”

Aerion barks out a laugh.

“It’s good to know you haven’t lost your teeth in the years you’ve spent amongst silk boys,” an unfamiliar voice says from the crowd of sellswords. Your expression shifts instantly, the irritation disappearing, eyes widening, and a pit inexplicably forms in Aerion’s stomach. He spares a glance at Caelyx, but Caelyx put down his wine, frowning as he straightens from where he was leaning back against the cushions. “I warned him that you would eat him alive if he tried to play this game. You should have listened, Rivers.”

Aerion watches as a man with silver hair, braided back from his face, makes his way across the marble toward you, all careless smiles and casual arrogance. He is tall, thin, but lean in the way of a man who knows weaponry, not the pillow play of the Lyseni silk boys—and he is very, very pretty. He dresses like you in black leather with a red cape over his shoulder, and he wears Valyrian steel like it’s fucking gold on his fingers, on his neck, on his ears, a sword at his hip and a dagger at his forearm. 

Aerion knows before either of you speaks. 

All of the tension bleeds from your body, disbelief spilling across your face, and Aerion feels sick to his stomach already. 

“Jaenys?” you gasp, a breathless smile spreading across your face as you make your way down the steps to meet him halfway. Aerion doesn’t realize he’s rising to his feet until he already has, jaw tight as he watches the way the man reaches for your waist, pulling your body close until it’s flush to his. Your hands rise to his face, gentle, your cradle his jaw, thumbs brushing his cheekbones like you need to make sure he’s real. Aerion’s stomach twists. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s one of her friends,” one of the girls says, and Aerion’s teeth grind because that is not the way friends hold one another. “From back home. I recognize the name.”

That is the way—that is the way you’ve held his face in the cove, in bed, when it is only you and only him. He watches as you let out a bright laugh, genuine and pretty as a bell, more real than anything Aerion has ever heard from you before. And Aerion feels fucking sick—he feels sick, and he does not want to see this, but he cannot draw his gaze away, watching as the other man draws you in close, burying his face in your hair, pressing his lips to your temple, your neck, laughing into your skin. 

“Why is he with the Golden Company?” the other girl asks warily. “Caelyx, what should we do?”

Caelyx is no longer drinking. He has set his wine aside, watching the scene with calculating eyes, and he’s holding a small bowl in his right hand, and distantly, Aerion recognizes the fine powder that sits inside it from the corner of his eye, but he’s more focused on you, on the way your gaze traces Jaenys’s face, the way you’re holding him, the way he’s holding you. You’re talking to him, but your voice is too quiet now for him to overhear from the Perfumed Garden, as though you’d forgotten he was listening, forgotten you’d promised that you would talk loud enough so that he’d know what was happening, forgotten about him. 

Aerion’s fingers curl at his sides, nails biting into his palms as he watches the way Jaenys lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles, your wrist, your pulse, smiling into your skin—the two of you curling into one another like the Golden Company is not in the square, like there’s no danger and no one is watching. 

What the fuck?

You say something again, too quiet again, and then you nod toward the Perfumed Garden, and Aerion’s heart drops to his fucking feet. No—no, you wouldn’t. His mind scrambles to make sense of the motion you just made, to force it into something that doesn’t feel like a blade sliding between his ribs. You wouldn’t just—you wouldn’t just give him up so easily, not like that, not after everything you said, not just because, not just because—

He can’t even finish the thought, because he can’t even fucking convince himself of it. He knows well how much you long for home, more than he does; he knows the way you speak of the people you left behind, the future you lost, and he knows—

“It’s not what you think,” he hears Caelyx say, but it feels like there’s fucking cotton in his ears. Everything feels distant and far away, and he can only stare out at the square, at the way your head is bent together with Jaenys, at the way you motion again to the Garden, to Aerion. “It’s not—”

“I know,” he spits, and then he laughs once, sharp and humorless. “You do not need to—I do not need—”

He can’t even get a fucking sentence out, and his face flames red with humiliation, and his breath is too shallow. You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t—iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. You said it, he said it. You would not give him up so easily. 

“She told me to tell you that if the Golden Company pressed for negotiations, she would bring it to the Perfumed Garden so you could listen in on what’s being said in the chance it pertains to your house,” Caelyx says, and then shifts closer. Aerion shifts away, bumping into the whore on his other side, and he suddenly feels too closed in and too distracted, because he can’t drag his eyes from the square. “You need to take this.”

“I am not drugging myself when they are five feet from the fucking door,” Aerion snaps, rounding on him, voice low but vicious. His hands are shaking now—he curls them into fists to hide it, nails digging deeper into his palms. “When they will be in the same fucking room as me. Have you lost your damn mind?”

Caelyx doesn’t flinch. “You will give yourself away the moment they start talking about you or your family,” he says, lifting the bowl slightly, the fine powder shifting inside. It’s not the same one you took with him in the garden at the revel—this one is a shimmering blue. “Look at you.”

“I am fine,” Aerion spits.

“You are not,” Caelyx replies flatly. 

Aerion’s pulse won’t slow; his thoughts are spiraling, circling back to you, the Golden Company, Jaenys, that gesture, to the way it looked, to the way it felt, to the way it hurt. Aerion isn’t even sure if he’s breathing properly.

Will his father care?

Will he think twice when news reaches him?

Will you care?

Will you—

Caelyx’s gaze flicks behind Aerion, and Aerion catches it a split second too late. His gaze snaps behind him as the woman on his opposite side grabs his right wrist hard, pinning it to the cushions, while the other one grabs his left. Aerion thrashes, but they are stronger than they look, and Aerion is thoroughly distracted.

“What the fuck—” Aerion snarls, twisting hard, muscles straining as he tries to rip himself free. The cushions shift beneath him, silk sliding, his footing useless, and fury spikes hot and immediate, cutting clean through the panic. “Get your hands off me—”

He jerks again, violently this time, and one of them gasps as his shoulder clips her, but her grip doesn’t loosen. The other tightens, digging her fingers into his wrist hard enough to bruise, and Aerion cannot get his footing for leverage to pull away.

“Hurry up, Caelyx!” 

“You think you can lay hands on me? I am a prince of the blood,” Aerion spits, voice dropping into something more dangerous but riddled with panic that he cannot quite push down. His eyes flash, violet gone almost black in his rage. “I will have your hands for this—I will have your tongues, your lives—every last one of you—”

“Hold him,” Caelyx snaps, all softness gone.

Aerion bares his teeth, lunging forward despite the hold on him, trying to get at him, to hurt him, because this—this humiliation, this loss of control, this—

Caelyx moves faster. A hand fists in Aerion’s hair, yanking his head back hard enough to make his breath hitch, his throat exposed, jaw forced open on a startled inhale, and then fingers are shoved into his mouth, the powder coated on digits, and Aerion chokes, thrashing hard now, rage turning wild and frantic as he bucks against their hold. Your whores, to their credit, look guilty—the girls do at least, Caelyx is only watching with thinly pressed lips, holding his face and his nose so that he cannot breathe, forcing him to swallow the powder he pushed into his mouth.

“Sorry, prince,” Caelyx murmurs, though he doesn’t sound all too sorry. The powder is already dissolving on Aerion’s tongue, bitter and strange, and when he tries to gasp for air, he swallows. “She told us to use whatever force was necessary if it came to this.”

He shoves Caelyx away hard, scrambling off the cushions to the marble floor, on his hands and knees, vision blurred as he tries and fails to gag up whatever they forced him to take. One of the girls has the audacity to creep closer to him, worried, and he bares his teeth at her furiously, grabbing whatever is closest to him—a glass— and flinging it hard at her head. It misses, shattering against the wall, but it still has its desired effect, as the girl scrambles away.

“I’ll kill you,” Aerion gasps, eyes wild and furious as he stares up at Caelyx, who hasn’t budged from the cushions. “All three of you, her, I’ll kill you all, I’ll—”

Caelyx sighs, gaze drifting out to where you’re still laughing with your friend, limbs entwined, faces too close together, to where the Golden Company is waiting for the two of you to stop talking, and he says quietly, “Let’s make sure you live long enough to have the opportunity, yeah?” 

Will you care? Will you care? Will you care?

———————

Everything feels distant and faraway. 

After Aerion settles down, Caelyx explains that they give the younger ones this powder when they take their first clients. Men pay extra for whores who haven’t been passed around yet—cruel men, violent men, the kind that want to see the blood, that want to cause it, that want to hear the sound a girl makes when they hurt, but still want to convince themselves that they’re not doing anything wrong, because it’s only sex with a whore, after all. 

The powder makes it easier for them; it softens the worst parts, turning something unbearable into something survivable. Not painless, because it’s never painless, but it makes everything more distant and manageable. 

Aerion stares forward as you enter the room, laughing in the arms of your friend Jaenys, and there’s not even a tug in his chest or a twist in his stomach—as though everything happening around him belongs to someone else.

He knows what he should feel—the bitter, ugly flood of it, the heat and the humiliation, he knows it is there, but he just… cannot reach it. It sits somewhere behind his ribs, muffled and dulled down to a distant pressure that cannot claw its way to the surface.

Aerion watches you as you cross the threshold, Jaenys’s hand at your waist like it belongs there, like it has always belonged there, like Aerion is an imposter and never truly had a place in your life—the sight registers cleanly, but it does not cut the way he knows it should.

Your gaze slides over him like he’s not even there. 

He should not have stayed.

(“You don’t have to sit in the room for the conversation,” Caelyx says as he gets the main room ready for the meeting about to take place—only the Perfumed Garden’s best permitted in the area. “You can wait in the back or upstairs. You’ll still be able to hear it all, but—”

“No,” he says after a moment, voice slow to his own ears. He cannot even reach the anger he knows he should feel. It is infuriating. “No. I need to be here. They won’t recognize me. Not like this.”

Because this is humiliating. This is shameful. This is everything Aerion Brightflame is not. Even if they do see a ghost of the Targaryen dynasty in his face, the whole world knows him well enough to know that he’d never be caught dead dressed in silk posing as a whore. That’s exactly why you insisted on this, exactly why he fought it. 

He will put it to the test, he decides, and if it fails, and he is butchered in silk by the Blackfyres, then it will be your fault.

Will you even care? Will you even—)

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t like seeing you with your friend. He doesn’t like the way you don’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t like the way the First Magister’s son trails behind you, looking out of place and like he wants to cling to you. Doesn’t like the pit in his stomach that forms when he sees Aegor Rivers duck into the Perfumed Garden with a twisted expression, distant and unreachable as that pit may be. Doesn’t like the sight of the Blackfyre bastards that follow in after him—three of them, silver-haired and violet-eyed. 

“My lady,” Caelyx greets you with a demure smile, pressing his lips to your knuckles. You are leaning your body against Jaenys, as though you do not wish to stand on your own, as though the two of you are husband and wife, lovers who can’t bear to part. The sight of it makes Aerion sick—or, it should make Aerion sick. He cannot reach that either. He does not like this. “We’re here to serve as you please. Let us know how we may make your guests comfortable.”

“We’ll take the room,” you reply, and you shift to stand up straight. Aerion can breathe again. You finally look around the room, disinterest flicking across your face until your eyes settle on him resting against the cushions. He catches the irritation that flashes briefly in your eyes. “Get me Vaella and Rhalla. And a couple of the other girls. Boys too. And wine. Lots of it. Gods know I need it.”

You are a fucking idiot, you tell him without saying anything, fighting a frustrated sneer as your gaze lingers on him a moment too long. Why are you lounging about so carelessly? Why didn’t you go upstairs?

Aerion doesn’t raise his eyebrows mockingly, but he thinks you know he wants to, because your eye twitches before you mask it and turn back to your guests. 

“We do not need whores,” Aegor Rivers says roughly. “Let us—”

“Do not speak to me unless I address you first,” you cut in, casting an annoyed look back to the sellsword. 

Aerion knows it’s because you’re frustrated with him and taking it out on the first person who dared to speak to you, and it pleases him—or it should. He cannot feel anything beyond this muted numbness. 

The silence stretches, taut, as Aegor stills at your interruption, something dark flickering behind his eyes, his jaw tightening just a fraction before he reins it in. You turn your back on him, dismissing him, then make your way over to the cushions, exhaling as you drop back onto them, head rolled back as you stare up at the ceiling for a moment. He wants to know what you’re thinking, he wants to know what’s happening, he hates this. He hates all of this. 

The others begin to seat themselves—Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre pretenders across from you, Marcellus on your left, Jaenys to your right. After what feels like an eternity, Caelyx returns to the room with the two girls from before, along with several others, boys and girls alike, all soft smiles and lowered gazes as they drift into the room, trying to figure out who to go to, where to stand, like they are nothing more than decoration.

Your head rolls to the side, gaze cutting across the room, straight to Aerion. 

“Ari,” you purr, lips tilted up into a lazy smile. Aerion doesn’t react only because he can’t. The muted panic sits low and unreachable in his stomach when he realizes that you’re purposely drawing attention to him. What the hell are you doing? “Come here. I’ve missed you.”

The instinct to refuse is there, buried beneath the haze, sharp and stubborn and his, in spite of the drugs dumbing him down. He wants to bare his teeth and stay exactly where he is, wants to force you to come to him instead. But it never makes it past that first flicker, because Aegor’s gaze shifts, the room tilts in his direction, and Aerion is suddenly very aware of every pair of eyes that might look at him with suspicion if he hesitates or lingers too long or does anything other than exactly what is expected of him.

Because he is a whore of the Perfumed Garden. Ari of Lys. 

Aerion fucking hates you. Aerion wants you dead. Not even this stupid drug can force away the resentment that bubbles in his chest as he forces himself to his feet, silk scraping uncomfortably against his skin as he makes his way across the room toward you. 

Are you purposely doing this to humiliate him? Why would you do this? Will you care? Will you—

“Do you know all of the whores on this island by name?” one of the Blackfyres drawls across from you, distracted as he glances up at a pretty golden-haired girl who smiles sweetly at him. 

Aerion realizes that no one is really looking at him anymore, not beyond the short glance when you first addressed him. By the time Aerion reaches you, the attention has already shifted away—he has been dismissed, just another pretty thing in silk. 

That was your play, he recognizes too late, lowering himself into your lap when you guide him down. You pulled him into the center of the room, forced their attention onto him for a heartbeat, just long enough to see him clearly, to register him, and then discard him. Better this than the edges of the room, where he would linger, where sharp eyes might wander back to him, and suspicion might build, where he might become something worth noticing.

Now, he is nothing—a prop, a distraction already spent. 

“Most of them,” you agree with an easy smile, one arm slinking around his waist possessively as you pull him close and he settles against you, shoulder pressed against your chest, hand sliding to rest loosely at the side of your neck, fingers grazing the edge of your jaw. “The ones worth remembering, at least.”

He hates this. 

He hates the silk clinging to his skin, too soft and too revealing, nothing like the leather everyone else of note in the room wears, nothing like anything a prince of House Targaryen should ever wear. He hates the way they look through him like he’s not even there. He hates that his body sinks into yours, and he cannot help the way his eyes half-lid when your fingers slip beneath his silks, thumb rubbing soothing circles over his hip, out of sight from everyone else. He hates that it comforts him. Hates that his head dips toward yours instinctively. Hates that he can feel the heat roaring through his veins, that he knows he should be ripping himself out of your hold, baring his teeth, reminding them all exactly who the fuck he is: a dragon and a prince, better than them, all of them, but he cannot fucking reach it. He cannot reach the fire he knows is there; it dies before he can hope to grasp at it, and he—

Someone is still looking at him. 

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and Aerion’s gaze shifts to the side, trying to figure out who is still looking at him, and he pauses when he sees that it’s your friend, Jaenys, watching him with sharp, calculating eyes, trained not on his face, but—

—Aerion forgot to take off the steel.

Aerion forgot to take off the fucking steel.

The Valyrian steel at his throat—the steel you gifted him, the steel you placed on his neck, the steel you found in the ruins of Valyria, likely with the boy sitting right next to you, weighs on his neck like a fucking shackle. How the fuck did he forget to take off the steel? He’s become so used to the weight of it that he doesn’t even notice it anymore. He didn’t even think anything of it until now, until someone who recognizes it stares at it like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room, because why the fuck would you gift the last relic you have of your home to some random Lyseni whore?

Aerion’s fingers twitch against your neck, a useless, delayed reaction, his mind scrambling sluggishly to catch up with what his body should have already done—hide it, move it out of sight, do something. But he doesn’t, because it’s too late, because moving now would draw attention and confirm exactly what he knows Jaenys must be suspecting.

Jaenys watches him for a moment longer, gaze lifting from the steel at last to his eyes, and Aerion hates the look in his eyes—amused and knowing and far too perceptive for Aerion’s liking. His lips curl, just slightly, but then he turns his attention back to you, lithe fingers reaching for your free hand. 

Jaenys holds eye contact with Aerion as he lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles again before he leans in to ghost them against your ear. He says something quiet, only for you to hear, and Aerion can only make out the word special, but whatever is said is enough to make you physically tense, grip on his hip tightening. 

“How is everyone back home ?” you ask, ignoring the Blackfyres and Aegor Rivers to focus on your friend. 

“Miserable without you,” Jaenys says with an easy grin and a wink in your direction. “You could not imagine how boring things have been. You’ve probably been having more fun on this whore island than we are in Volantis.”

Aerion feels you huff out a laugh, chest rising and falling against his back. “Do not be dramatic, Jaenys,” you reply. “There is little to do here beyond fucking and drinking, and we both know I can only handle so much of that without some blood in between.”

Jaenys hums, amused, lithe fingers sliding absently up and down your forearm. Aerion’s gaze follows them, watching how easy the movement is, how familiar—thoughtless in a way that makes Aerion’s chest tight even though that powder should have him dulled into oblivion. 

“You always did prefer a little chaos to keep things interesting,” Jaenys murmurs. “I’m surprised you haven’t burned this place to the ground yet.”

“If you are quite finished reminiscing,” Aegor cuts in, tone clipped, bold considering the way both you and your friend raise your eyebrows at one another, smiles easy, but not entertained. “We did not come here to hear tales of your boredom.”

You do not even look at him.

“Then perhaps you should not have come uninvited,” you reply smoothly, eyes still on Jaenys, as though Aegor is little more than background noise. You ask Jaenys quietly, “Why did you come, Jaenys? Why are you here with these Andal cunts?”

Jaenys exhales hard through his nose, averting his gaze for the first time since he entered that room, the easy amusement slipping into something more serious.

“I told you, it’s miserable without you,” he says with a sigh, fingers still against your arm, sliding down to entwine your fingers with his. Aerion can’t draw his gaze from it, can’t ignore the pressure rising in his chest, muted and distant but still somehow all-consuming. “The Tigers are restless, and the Elephants grow bolder by the day. Every assembly turns into the same argument and—” Jaenys exhales through his nose, and Aerion’s stomach twists. He doesn’t like where this is going before he even really knows where it’s going. “We are tired of waiting. Everyone is.”

Your thumb stills at Aerion’s hip.

“And you think I am the solution to that? Eight hundred miles away?” you ask, voice light and dry, but Aerion can feel the tension in your body now, the way your grip tightens at his hip. “Do not be ridiculous, Jae—”

“Not from eight hundred miles away, but yeah. You are.”

Aerion does not like this.

His fingers twitch at your neck, and he instinctively starts to shift in your lap, only to be stopped when the hand on his hip becomes painful, warning him not to move around and make a scene. Whores are meant to be pliant and obedient, seen but not heard, decorations not meant to react to anything being said around them.

But Aerion does not like this. 

His heart thuds in his chest. He does not know if the powder is wearing off on its own or if he’s just so bothered by the implications of what’s being said that it’s forcibly sobering him—or worse, this is the muted version of what he should be feeling. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, Jaenys?”

“You’re not meant to rot away on this island of fucking whores,”  Jaenys says, grip tightening on your hand to force you to look at him. “We were never going to let you, and now we’ve finally got a way to get you back.”

Aerion can feel your heart against his back, racing in a way that he’s never felt before. Aerion’s is too. His mind is too slow right now—if he wasn’t drugged up on this stupid powder, he would’ve been able to put together what’s happening by now, but instead, he’s stuck, lagging behind his own thoughts, watching everything happen in pieces instead of all at once. 

Aerion swallows hard, breath shallow, fingers tightening at your neck like he can ground himself there, like if he holds on tight enough, it will force everything to click into place like it already should be. 

“And the Andals have something to do with this plan to get me back to Volantis?” you ask, voice riddled with disbelief, nails biting into his skin the same way his are biting into yours, trying to ground yourself with him the same way he does with you. “Jaenys, you—”

“They offer a path,” Jaenys interrupts, glancing briefly toward Aegor Rivers before returning his attention to you. “Just hear it out, okay?”

They’re supposed to be here for him, Aerion thinks desperately. They’re supposed to be here for him, are they—are they here for you? They’re here to—to take you?

“The Golden Company has the men and the means,” Aegor Rivers says, finally pushing into the conversation. Aerion expects you to shut him down again. You do not. “We would be willing to lend our support to the Tiger Party in the event of conflict. To ensure that the outcome is favorable.”

“Conflict?” you echo. Your voice sounds far away. Underwater. Aerion does not like the word, what it means, what it implies. Sellsword companies do not do anything for free. So what do they want from— “You mean to throw Volantis into civil war, Jaenys? What the fuck? We don’t need the help of the Andals if we want to take Volantis by force, but we don’t want—”

Jaenys says your name. Aerion hates the sound of that too—the way he says it, soft and lilting, begging for you to listen, and he hates the way you actually do, halting in your venomous rant as soon as he speaks. Your fingers on his hip are bruising, and his on your neck twice as hard. His gaze drags over to Aegor Rivers from where he was staring over your shoulder; the man stares right past him—at you—and Aerion doesn’t know if he’s breathing properly. His head feels light, and each breath is shallow.

He could kill him right now. 

The thought cuts through the haze, and for a moment, Aerion almost feels like himself again. 

Aegor Rivers sits barely five feet away—this registers for the first time since everyone seated themselves. No armor, no helm, no guard between them but a room full of distracted men to expect a blade from a whore’s hand. The Blackfyre bastards, too—silver-haired, violet-eyed mockeries of his blood, close enough that Aerion can see the faint scars on their hands and faces, the way their chests rise and fall as they breathe. He could do it. He could lunge forward, rip free from you, seize the fruit knife on the table between the cushions, and drive it through Bittersteel’s throat before the man could react. He could carve through the rest of them after, one by one, leave them bleeding out on cushions and marble like they deserve.

He might die.

He probably would die.

But—but his father would hear of it. Aerion Brightflame, striking down Bittersteel in a way that neither he nor his uncle was able to during the rebellion, cutting through pretenders with his own hand before falling in battle. Not an embarrassment. Not something to be ashamed of. Not an inconvenience to be sent across the Narrow Sea and forgotten about. A Targaryen prince. A dragon in full, not silk and perfume and humiliation. 

You would probably die, too. 

That is what makes him falter. If he jumped forward now, if he cut Aegor River’s throat and then carved up each of the Blackfyre bastards, you would be caught in the middle. You’re armed, yes, and the moment the lingering Golden Company sellswords drew their blades to cut Aerion down, you would draw yours (right? you would, wouldn’t you? would you defend him? would you even care? would anyone care?). And you are skilled, he knows you are, but there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Blackfyre loyalists on this island right now, and not even you—

“We could do it,” Jaenys says quietly. “A full coup, rout the Elephants—”

“That’s not how things fucking work in Volantis,” you hiss, interrupting Jaenys, whose lips tighten with irritation at your words. “We are not Andal cunts who chop each other up over inheritance—who destroy our houses and birthright for personal ambition. The Triarchy is not won by butchering half the city in the streets and hoping the rest fall in line.”

“I thought you would want to come home—”

“Of course, I want to come home,” you spit, voice rising in anger. Your grip on Aerion’s hip is painful, and it grounds him, pulling him away from the violence and blood that threatens to put him into a situation that will get both of you killed. “But gods, Jaenys, does my father even know about this? The rest of the Tigers? This could destroy everything, this could—what?”

Jaenys tosses his head back, beckoning someone to come forward from the edge of the room. Aerion’s gaze drags, following the motion as a man steps forward from the line of sellswords. He carries something wrapped in dark cloth, held carefully, and Jaenys reaches forward to take it from him, peeling back the cloth to reveal a sheathed sword—ruby-embedded hilt, dark, rippling steel, the patterns in it catching the sunlight. 

Aerion’s mouth dries, and you inhale behind him, leaning forward, lips ghosting his shoulder as you look over him at the sheathed blade. Jaenys gives you a pointed look before he places it between the two of you. 

“He gave this to me before I left,” Jaenys says softly, “to give to you.” Jaenys continues, voice lower now, only for you to overhear, “He wants you to come home. We all do.”

Oh. 

Aerion feels the change in you immediately. Your spine straightens, and your grip loosens on his hip. You don’t let go of Jaeny’s hand—you let go of Aerion as you reach out to brush your fingers against the hilt of the sword resting between the two of you. The aggression fizzles out of you, and you exhale in a way that is not frustrated or irritated; it’s contemplative. 

Aerion’s throat goes dry. His fingers twitch at your neck again, a delayed, useless motion, like he’s trying to remind you he’s still there—he’s still here—but it feels weak, inconsequential, swallowed by everything else that just shifted in the room.

“And what? The Golden Company wants to displace the Elephants and put us in power out of the goodness of their hearts? What do they want in return?” you ask. 

There is no derision in your tone. There is no bite or mockery, no easy dismissal waiting behind it. 

It is a real question.

Aerion feels it like a blow to the gut, wind knocked from his lungs. His fingers falter against your neck, the last weak attempt at grounding slipping away into nothing as a slow and suffocating reality settles in around him. You’re not shutting this down, and you’re not laughing it off anymore. You’re really fucking considering it.

You might actually accept it.

The thought lands heavier than anything else—heavier than the Golden Company arriving in Lys, heavier than the thought of war, than his father not caring about him, than dying here. His lashes flutter, and the next breath he lets out is shaky. 

This is what you’ve always wanted.

He knows that. Knows it in the way you talk about Volantis, about home, about what was taken from you. Knows it in the way you’ve never quite belonged here, no matter how easily you play at it, no matter how well you’ve carved a place for yourself in Lys. Knows it in the way you always look east. 

You never wanted to be here—you just never had a way back home.

And now you have a way back.

But you promised him. 

You promised him that you would come with him back to Westeros. You said it: iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, you told him you loved him, he asked you to come with him and you said I will. You promised, you promised—

“Well, we would like the Bright Prince, for one,” one of Daemon Blackfyre’s wretched sons says easily, gaze lingering for a moment on where Caelyx sits on the cushion next to Jaenys, before he focuses on you. “We heard he was here in Lys.”

Aerion’s pulse spikes hard and fast, blood rushing loud in his ears as his fingers lock at your neck—not gentle or grounding this time, clingy in a way that’s pathetic. 

Do not give me up, he says without saying anything at all, desperate and pleading, not half as commanding as he would like, do not betray me, do not leave me. 

He would not even be able to defend himself right now, he realizes, tense. He does not have the means—no armor, no sword, and if his body is half as sluggish as his mind is, he does not stand a chance. He is sitting right across from Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre bastards, he is drugged with nothing to defend himself, and you might give him up to them now. 

His breath catches shallowly against your skin, the haze fracturing as fear edges out the last of the powder. You don’t react to his fingers at your neck, not for a long, long time, but then your hand smooths over his hip, squeezing it lightly before you lean back against the cushions with a sigh. 

“Even if the Bright Prince were here, I wouldn’t give him to you,” you say with a shrug, and Aerion doesn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but it puts him at ease, something terribly warm bubbling in his chest. “I’m fond of him. We got on well while he was here. He kept me—entertained.”

“Really?” another pretender drawls, mocking. “I hear he’s temperamental. Prone to mad fits. Not the sort one keeps for long.”

Aerion’s throat bobs at the words, remembering your whore’s comment from before: the two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you? So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else. Annoyance flares, teeth grinding; he shifts in your lap before he can stop himself, an instinctive movement like he’s trying to settle into you more firmly. Your grip tightens—a warning—you must realize that he’s coming down from the powder. 

“Which one are you?” you ask suddenly, gaze roving over the Blackfyre. “Wait. Let me guess. Another Aegon? You Westerosi seem fond of that name.” 

Jaenys snorts, turning his face toward you, a smile curving at his lips.

The silver-haired pretender flushes red, an irritated expression on his face. “Haegon, actually.”

You bark out a surprised laugh. “Wow, almost,” you drawl. “Well, Haegon, you’ll find I’m quite skilled at bringing temperamental little dragons to heel. I’m fond of it, even. You seem rather ill-tempered yourself. That, at least, is promising.”

Did you just flirt with that miserable fucking wretch?

A ripple of amusement moves through the room, and Haegon’s flush deepens, pale lashes fluttering as his gaze shifts to the side. Aerion wants to rip his eyes out. Aerion wants to rip your eyes out. Your tongue. His tongue. Aerion can’t deal with this anymore, Aerion—

“The Bright Prince is out of the question,” you say dismissively. “He’s not here, and I’m not wasting my time chasing ghosts. I assume you came with more demands than that, otherwise you make for poor bargainers, and I do not entertain poor bargains, be they in my favor or not.”

Aegor’s lips quirk into a smile, and Aerion feels unsettled. He knows what is coming before anything is said, but the words still make his stomach flip when Aegor Rivers finally speaks them:

“Once you are installed as Triarch, we would expect Volantene support during our campaign in Westeros and taking the Iron Throne from the Targaryens.”

———————

“Is this how it’s going to be, then? We’re not going to speak?” 

Aerion doesn’t reply. Can’t reply. Doesn’t. This is the third time you’ve tried to start a conversation with him since returning to your chambers, and Aerion remains seated on the cushions on the far side of your room, face turned away, fiddling with the dagger he should have taken to the whorehouse so he could plunge it into Bittersteel’s throat. Your throat, too, maybe. His fingers slide along the edge, and the pain helps ground him, brings him back to the present, away from the shame eating at his stomach and the rage threatening to consume him.

He never should have let any of that happen. He never should have agreed to let you dress him in silk, never should have hidden himself away in a whorehouse, never should have allowed those stupid whores to drug him stupid and pliant. He should have just died with his blade in hand, one final stand for his father to be proud of—maybe he could have even taken one of the Blackfyres or Bittersteel out with him. His face is hot with mortification; he can’t even look at himself in a fucking mirror.

He cuts through the pads of his fingers once, beads of blood welling up and dripping down his skin. He watches impassively, and then he slides the edge of the blade through them again, deeper this time. A third time, then a fourth, then—

“Aerion.”

Aerion doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t react when you snatch the dagger from his hands and put it to the side. He doesn’t look up at you when you spit out a curse at the sight of his bleeding hand, and he doesn’t let you bandage them when you reach out, pulling away and pressing the injured fingers to his lips, staring blankly at the wall as he sucks the blood from the cuts. You kneel in front of him, and Aerion hates the expression on your face more than he hates anything else—you’re pitying him, you’re pitying him. 

“Do you really want to?” Aerion asks, voice low and edged. “Because I do not think you are going to like what I have to say.”

You exhale hard through your nose, and Aerion can see the irritation thinly veiled. You have some nerve, he thinks. Some nerve to be irritated. Some nerve to question him. Some nerve to fucking pity him. He doesn’t need your pity, doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything, he doesn’t want you, he doesn’t—

Something wet tracks down his cheek, and his spiraling thoughts come to a halt. His brows knit, breath catching, and then—another, his opposite cheek now, more after that, one after another. His uninjured hand comes up quickly, swiping at his face, and he stares at the wetness smeared on his fingers like it’s something foreign. 

What the fuck?

Aerion clenches his jaw hard, teeth grinding, panic flashing hot through the anger still clawing at his chest. He’s not—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, ashamed. He’s not fucking—he’s not upset. He scrubs at his face again, harder this time, like he can force it to stop, like he can drag whatever this is back down where it belongs, bury it under the anger, turn it into something that makes sense. 

“Stop,” he hisses, and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to you or himself. 

His breath hitches, quick and loud and fucking mortifying, and that only makes everything worse. Fuck. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being in exile, he’s sick of the constant humiliation—things had been different for a while, different because of you, different because you made it feel like it didn’t matter. The exile, the rumors, the looks, and the shame—you made him feel like it could all be ignored if he just stayed close to you because iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, because he is yours and you are his, because you said you would come with him, because you said you wouldn’t leave him behind, and now—

Now it is back to those first few weeks of humiliation, when he was chasing you around like a fool, losing his temper before magisters and merchants, making a spectacle of himself every day. He trusted you—you told him to trust you, and he did. He trusted you. 

And now you’re going to give everything up. 

You’re going to give him up. 

He knows it—he knows it’s the truth in his gut, in his heart. He knows it. You are going to give this up so that you can go home. 

“Get the fuck away from me,” he tells you when you try to reach for his bleeding hand again. He rises to his feet and paces away. His heart thuds painfully in his chest, and his fingers sting, and his vision is blurry, and he cannot stop the fucking tears. He’s not even upset—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s—he’s fucking betrayed. “You humiliated me. You—”

“I kept you alive,” you counter, rising to your feet and turning toward him. Aerion hates that you’re not angry, and he hates that look in your eyes—you’re still fucking pitying, you’re still— “I—”

“You had me drugged,” Aerion interrupts, furious, voice rising. “You had me drugged, dressed up in silk like a whore, and sat me in your lap like a damn pet. You made me sit there while you conspired—”

“I did what I had to do,” you spit, pity finally shifting to anger, and Aerion can deal with this. He prefers this. He’ll take all of your anger if it means he won’t be on the receiving end of pity. “If you had walked into that room as yourself, you would be dead, and you know it.”

That’s not the point, Aerion wants to scream. He wants to tug at his hair and fight you for the dagger you stole from him, so he can put it through your throat. He wants to—

“I do not care,” Aerion says, and he shuts it all down, pushes it deep, deep down, just like when he was young, when his mother died and Daeron changed and Maekar refused to speak to any of them. He pushes it down, and he blinks once, twice, three times, and he pushes away the anger and the frustration and the tears. “I trusted you. You told me to trust you, and I did, and then you couldn't trust me. I would rather have died than sit there like that. I do not care if it was necessary, or if it kept me alive, or even if you were right. I do not care. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” you reply, and glee briefly bubbles in Aerion’s chest when he hears how your voice loses the heat, weaker. Aerion huffs out a laugh through his nose. “I didn’t, Aerion—”

“You did,” Aerion hisses. The heat bubbles again, and Aerion smothers it with another deep breath. He doesn’t look at you, raising his chin as he stares out over the balcony, over the gardens of the First Magister’s manse, where he has spent hours laid up in your arms, watching sunrises and sunsets, magisters’ sons make fools of themselves after too many glasses of wine, laughing and sharing breath, kisses, touches. His eyes slide shut. He pushes this away, too. “You did. You lied to me. You told me that I was yours, and you were mine. You told me that—” Breathe. “—that you loved me. That you would come with me. And you sat in there—you sat in there listening to them, conspiring with them—”

“Do not be a fool, I—”

“Do not call me a fool,” Aerion snaps, whirling on you again. It bubbles again, hotter and faster this time. Too much—you’re across the room, but he can feel your hands around his waist, running through his hair, your lips on his skin, and your breath against his ear. All of the promises, all of you. All of the fucking lies. “You were. I know you. The moment your friend showed up, when he gave you that sword—”

“Of course, I was, Aerion,” you shout at him. “They offered me an opportunity to go home. How could I—”

“Then go!” he shrieks right back, defensive, voice pitching higher than he intends. He needs to get ahead of it, needs to be the one to send you away so that you aren’t the one to choose to leave him. “Go back to Volantis. Take their deal, your city, your war. March against my family, march against me—fucking hand me right over to them while you’re at it, would you?”

“Wow. I knew you were hiding a secret, ñuha jorrāelagon, but I didn’t realize your special whore was the Targaryen prince everyone is looking for.”

My love.

Aerion goes stiff at the familiar voice coming from the entrance to your chambers. Your friend, Jaenys, leans against the doorframe like he owns the place, an easy smile curling at his lips, like he hasn’t just walked into something he was not meant to see. You’re as frozen as Aerion is, eyes widening as your gaze cuts to the side, anger draining into something far worse. 

Jaenys pushes himself off the marble, slinking forward in your direction. 

Aerion watches you, not him. Watches the way your mouth presses thin and the way your shoulders are tense. You never spoke much about your friends back home with him. Aerion hadn’t even recognized the name the way your whores had, he realizes bitterly. But he does know how you describe Volantis and its courts—cruel and vicious, people always looking for the next step up the ladder.

Will Jaenys give him up to the Blackfyres? 

Will you let him?

Will you care? Will you care? Will you—

Aerion’s gaze snaps over to you, trying to gauge where you’re at, but he can’t tell, and all of the frustration begins to bubble again, the heat in his chest and behind his eyes. His pulse climbs, and he cannot push it back down. He has to stop him—has to stop both of you if that’s what it takes. He’s never fought you for real; the two of you have sparred occasionally, but always while drunk. He’s never seen you fight at full force, but he knows you’re skilled—knows your friend must be too, from the way you talked about the upbringing of Tiger children. Can he take you both out? Aerion is confident in his swordplay, but he was confident at Ashford, too, and everyone knows how that went, and you two would be much more skilled than that oaf of a hedge knight. But he can’t allow himself to be caught, can’t give his father another reason to—

Fuck. 

“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” Jaenys asks you, raising his eyebrows mockingly, tilting his head to the side. “You’re going to choose some Andal cunt over a chance at coming home?” His gaze flicks over Aerion once, dismissively. “He’s not pretty enough for you to be so pussy-whipped, and we both know you’re not so sentimental.”

Aerion cannot stop the words from leaving his lips.

“What did you just call me?”

Everything is burning. 

He thinks he laughs as he whirls on your friend, but it’s not really a laugh; it’s too quick and too sharp, breaking halfway through. Your friend tosses an impassive look over his shoulder, violet eyes sweeping over Aerion once before he rolls them, as though decided Aerion isn’t even worth the effort to properly address.

His pulse roars. Something breaks loose in his chest, hot and violent, and it feels more like him than the haze he’s been stuck in all day. All of the muted emotions that he couldn’t sort through in the whorehouse come surging: the rage, the humiliation, the frustration. He exhales hard and takes a step toward Jaenys.

“What did you just call me?” Aerion repeats, slower this time, voice dropping as he makes another noise in the back of his throat—laugh, scoff, something in-between. 

“You heard me,” Jaenys replies, unbothered, barely looking at him. Aerion wants him dead. Aerion wants you dead. “Careful now. One word from me and every Blackfyre loyalist in this city will know exactly where to find you.”

Aerion’s lips pull back into something that might be passable as a smile if it weren’t so strained.

“Try it,” Aerion says, though he doesn’t even really register himself saying it. This whole day has been—fuck, wrong. It’s all been wrong. Wrong from the moment the Golden Company ships arrived in Lys. Wrong from the moment you looked at that sword. Wrong from the moment he sat in your lap, and you didn’t feel anything at all. Wrong, wrong, wrong—even he feels wrong now, like he’s not even in his own body, like he’s watching himself from somewhere just behind his eyes, feeling his mouth moving, hearing his voice as though it belongs to someone else. “Try it. See if you get the chance to finish the call out for them. I do not care who you are to her, I do not care where you’re from. If you say one word, I’ll have you skinned and hung from the—”

Jaenys laughs, loud and bright and mocking, genuine glee threaded through the sound. 

“You? Kill me?” Jaenys echoes, a condescending smile on his lips as he looks over Aerion once. “Little prince, I would eat you alive.” He looks back toward you, dismissing Aerion again. He winks at you and says, “You know, I shouldn’t be so surprised you went for this one, ñuha jorrāelagon. You always did like the fiery ones—Visedor, Naera, Aenys. Can you tire of him already? Let’s give him over to those Andals and go home already.”

Aerion’s jaw locks.

You say through your teeth. “It’s not like that, Jaenys—”

“You say that every time,” Jaenys scoffs, “and every time it is the same. I am not going to sit here and let you destroy your shot at going home for a boy you won’t think twice of in a few months.”

Why does everyone always speak around him? 

Why does everyone fucking talk about him as though he’s already half gone?

Aerion is a prince of the blood. A dragon. He is the one who takes and discards. He is not—

He is a prince nobody wants around. At best, a problem that cannot be fixed, and at worst, a mistake to be forgotten. To you, to his father, to the rest of his family, to everyone. 

It is infuriating. 

No one ever says it in those words, but they don’t fucking need to—they cast him out like he’s nothing, they do not say goodbye to him when he leaves, they do not send ravens unless someone has died, and even then, they still do not want him home. 

And you—everyone seems to be certain that you’re on the verge of tiring of him. Caelyx says it off-handedly when he has far more important things to be worried about. Jaenys stands there speaking as though Aerion were some passing amusement you would soon tire of. As though Aerion should be grateful for whatever scraps of loyalty anyone saw fit to throw him, and Aerion is fucking sick of it. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of believing it—he just wants—

He just wants you. He wants you to want him. He wants you to choose him. He thought you would, because you told him that you would. Iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon—he is yours and you are his. 

And yet, he does not think you will anymore. Not now, and maybe you never planned to. 

He should have expected it. He should have known better than to take you at your word, than to believe that—

He cuts the thought off before it can finish. He’s not going to stand here and pick himself apart over it—not in front of Jaenys, not in front of you.

Still, the idea sits under his skin, festering. That you might leave him, you might choose them, you might hand him over. 

Fuck.

“… always told you, didn’t I?” Aerion hears Jaenys saying, drawn back into the conversation at hand when he notices him take a step back toward the open door. You don’t move to stop him. Aerion’s jaw tightens—he’s going to have to do this himself. Will you draw a blade against him if he attacks your friend? Did you ever actually care the way you claimed to? “I’m not going to sit back and let you make mistakes like this. I—”

Aerion does not flinch at the sudden crashing noise when you move forward and drive your foot into the open door, slamming it shut before Jaenys can leave, but his breath does hitch when he watches you shoulder Jaenys into the marble hard, putting the dagger you took from Aerion against his neck and pressing deep enough that blood dribbles down his pale skin.

The room is silent for a long, long time.

“I’m not letting you do that, Jaenys,” you say quietly. “You are my dearest friend. Do not put me in this position.”

Jaenys stares at you with an unreadable expression on his face. “You’d draw on me for him?” he breathes, voice riddled with disbelief. You do not respond, because the blade at his neck is answer enough. Oh. All of the tension that had spread through Aerion’s body, the heat beneath his skin and pressing behind his eyes, fizzles as he stares at you, throat working to swallow the lump that formed in it. “But the only person you’ve ever done that for is—”

Jaenys doesn’t finish the sentence, but understanding crosses his face instantly as he glances between you and Aerion one last time. Another few seconds pass with neither of you moving, staring at one another, and then Jaenys exhales, shoulders slumping as he shakes his head with a roll of his eyes. 

“You are impossible,” he mutters, and when you don’t immediately drop the knife from his neck, he raises his eyebrows tauntingly. “If you keep that there for much longer, you’ll make my cock hard, and if you do that, you will be taking care of it, ñuha jorrāelagon—favored prince or not.”

Aerion’s lip curls up in disgust. Jaenys notices. 

“He really doesn’t like sharing, does he?” Jaenys laughs, head rolling to the side to look over Aerion. He says lazily, “You’re lucky it was me who came, little prince. Naera or Visedor would have snapped your pretty head off if you wanted to keep her all to yourself. Lucky for you, I understand and will oblige you—for now, at least.”

Aerion gapes in fury, hand darting to grab the sword you’d rested against your wall so he can put it through the other man’s neck, but you give him such a cold look that he falters.

You’re choosing him. You’re choosing them. You’re choosing—

“Skoros iā qrīdronnor. Ao gīmigon skorkydoso naejot iderēbagon zirȳ, ñuha jorrāelagon,” Jaenys sighs, more serious now, silver hair falling in his face. “Skoros gaomagon gaomi sir?”

What a mess. You really know how to pick them, my love. What do we do now?

The tension bleeds from your shoulders at his words, and you drop the blade from his neck. Jaenys wanders over to your bed and sits at its edge like he belongs there, burying his face in his hands, and you lean against the wall you just had him pinned against, staring at the blood staining the blade. Aerion does not budge from the opposite side of the room—he doesn’t know what to say, if he should say anything. The way you stare down at Jaenys’s blood, and the way Jaenys is looking at you from the corner of his eye, it feels too personal. Aerion feels uncomfortable—he just, he wants to go back to how things were yesterday.

You’re choosing him. You’re going to choose Jaenys. You’re going to side with the Blackfyres. You’re going to march against his family—against him. You’re going to betray him. You’re going to—

You exhale, sliding down the wall until you’re seated on the ground, still staring down at the marble.“Eman iā kȳvanon naejot jiōragon zirȳla hen se tēgembōñ. Kessa henujagon lēda se Tȳni Trēsi hemtubis.”

I have a plan to get him off the island. He will leave with the Second Sons tomorrow.

“Gaomagon daor ȳdragon yno hae lo iksan daor kesīr,” Aerion hisses, still wound up, not sure what to do with himself anymore, but you let out such a heavy sigh that he physically falters, zeroing in on the exhausted expression on your face.

Do not speak of me as though I am not here.

Jaenys’s eyes flicker with interest at Aerion’s words, lips parting, but before he can say anything, you give him a cold look. He pouts and shakes his head, and then he says more seriously, “Pōnta jurnegon syt zirȳla sir. Issi jāre rȳ mirre hen lenton. Gaoman daor gīmigon lo kessi jurnegon bisy.”

They search for him now. They are going through all of the manses. I do not know if they will search this one.

You throw the dagger on the ground, frustrated, and the metal clatters against the marble loudly. You tilt your head back against the wall, and you hiss, “Nyke qogralbar ivestretan zirȳ īles daor kesīr!”

I fucking told them he was not here!

Jaenys shrugs helplessly and drawls, “Pōnta gōntan daor pāsagon ao.” Then he nods at Aerion, who sneers at him. “Nyke daor pāsagon skoro syt.”

They did not believe you. I cannot imagine why.

You knock your head back against the wall once, twice, a third time. Aerion makes his way over to you to stop you, but Jaenys is closer, and Aerion freezes dead in his tracks when he sees how Jaenys kneels in front of you, one hand slipping behind your head to stop you from smacking your head against the marble a fourth time. His throat is tight as he watches his free hand come up to cradle the side of your face, the way your eyes slide half open to peer down at him, the way you look so exhausted and still lean into his touch. Your eyes are soft, and vulnerable, and—

Have you ever looked at him this way? 

“Jurnegon rȳ nyke,” Jaenys says softly, and Aerion’s skin fucking crawls. How could he ever compete with this? He’s known all along that you yearn for home and the people you left behind—more than he ever has, ever will—but it’s different seeing it in front of his face like this. The way you look at him, the way he looks at you, the tone of voice the two of you take with one another and the implicit trust. Aerion has never had that with anyone. “Kesan ziry, ñuha jorrāelagon. Kesi mirre ziry mirre hen hēnkirī.”

Look at me. I will handle it, my love. We will figure everything out together.

“Jaenys,” you start to say, voice quiet. “I—”

Your eyes slide shut when Jaenys leans in to press his lips to your temple. “We can talk another time,” he tells you. “If you have a plan for the Bright Prince to get off this island tomorrow night, then we will see it done. Until then…” Jaenys’s gaze flicks over to Aerion briefly. “Spend time with your little dragon, ñuha jorrāelagon. It might be your last with him.”

Aerion’s stomach lurches at his words, and you only sigh, gaze lowering again. Jaenys rises to his feet, tilting his head back slightly, a smirk curling at his lips as he looks over Aerion blatantly. Aerion sneers at him, but can’t help the way his eyes widen in disbelief when Jaenys hums:

“Perhaps if things work out—if I am still here and you are still interested in him when he returns to Lys, we can share him. Like old times. It’ll be fun.”

Jaenys lets out a huff of laughter, brushing his braid over his shoulder as he leaves your chambers, shutting the door behind him, and the silence that follows his exit is suffocating, pressing in from all sides, thick and heavy and ringing with everything said and unsaid. 

Aerion does not move. For a long moment, he just stands there, staring at the door as if it might open again, and then at you, curled on the floor, gaze trained on the marble. You are not looking at him. You are not really looking at anything, he realizes. Your eyes are empty, expression just as vacant. Aerion has gotten good at reading you over the last eight moons, but now he cannot read a damn thing. 

And then you sigh again, heavier this time, shoulders curling inward, making yourself small in a way he’s never seen you do before.

“I am sorry,” you say after a moment, so quiet that Aerion almost doesn’t hear you. “I should not have had them drug you.”

Aerion stares at you for a long moment. There are insults on his tongue—cruel and defensive, because he does not forgive you, he cannot forgive you. He needs to brace himself for what is about to come.

Then, his feet move before he knows what he’s doing, dragging against the ground in your direction. His back hits the wall next to where you’re sitting, and then he slides down it to sit with you. Thighs pressing, shoulders knocking together, Aerion’s jaw tightens when he feels you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder as you let out another shaky breath.

“I would be dead if you didn’t,” Aerion replies quietly, the admission tastes like poison on his tongue. He inhales deeply, eyes sliding shut, head hanging forward. “I would not have been able to sit there listening to them. To—”

To you.

“I should not have had them drug you,” you repeat again, something hollow in your voice that makes Aerion press his lips together tightly. “I do not know what to do.”

The admission comes out so small that Aerion almost doesn’t hear it. You exhale through your nose again, sharp and shaky, jaw tight. You look up at the ceiling briefly, and Aerion falters when he sees that your eyes are glassy with unshed tears. His lips part to say something, but he cannot find any words.

“I thought it would be easy—that if an opportunity came for me to go home, there would be no question about it, I would take it no matter the cost,” you continue. “But this? This is—”

You let out another breath, head hanging forward as you shake your head. You look at him again, gaze dropping to his cheek, and your face twists—he’s not sure why until you lift your hand, fisting the fabric of your sleeve as you bring it to his face and wipe off the makeup Caelyx put over his scars so that he would not be recognized by them. 

“If I return to Volantis this way, it will be the beginning of the end for our city,” you say, and something clenched terribly in Aerion’s chest when he realizes that this is the reason you’re wound up, not because of him, not because— “Volantis has existed as long as it has because of the Triarchy, because there are elections and we do not cut each other up over inheritance and right to rule. If I come back through a coup and am forcibly installed as Triarch, everything will change and not for the better.”

Aerion does not respond. 

He doesn’t have anything to say that is not bitter and angry and vile, that would be more humiliating to admit out loud than to just keep it in, because he spent months battling with the fact that you would not return with him to Westeros, weeks questioning you, trying to gauge whether or not you would come if he asked you. The relief he felt when you said yes—it was enough to be debilitating, enough that he did not even care how he looked, did not care that he should be ashamed, did not care about anything, just that he would not have to part from you when the day came. And yet—

And yet, he does not even cross your mind. 

You care about what it would mean for Volantis, you care about—

Shame floods him so quickly that it almost makes him sick. His next breath is quick, almost painful. Shame, humiliation, anger—he had always known in his gut that this was never as serious for you as it was for him. He tried to pretend the same, but it was intolerable. Aerion has never been good at handling his emotions; no matter how hard he tries to shove them down and pretend they don’t exist, they always bubble back to the surface at the worst possible times, unrelenting and all-consuming. And he could not bring himself to pretend that you did not matter to him—not when you were the first thing he thought of when he woke in the morning and the last that crossed his mind before sleep, not when the sound of your voice was sometimes the only thing to get him through bad days, not when he had begun to dread going home because he did not want to leave you behind. 

His throat works as he swallows, fighting the heat that rises to his face, that presses behind his eyes. He has known this even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself, but still, hearing it with his own ears, seeing it with his own eyes—it hurts. Hurts the same way it hurt when Maekar turned his back on him when Aerion begged him not to send him away. The same way it hurt when he waited weeks for ravens from him, or Daeron, or Valarr, and never received anything. 

And Aerion does not beg. 

He does not beg anyone—not even you, especially not you. So if you wish to throw everything away and act like this never mattered, and maybe it never did to you, then so be it. He will get on the ship tomorrow, sail to the Disputed Lands with the Second Sons, and he will never think of you again.

He knows as soon as the thought crosses his mind that it is untrue. 

There is no world where the two of you part ways and he will never think of you again. You will cross his mind every day, every hour, every minute—he will see you in the ocean and the sky and in every person that passes him by. He will spend the rest of his life chasing you, and you will be forever out of reach.

“I lied to you,” you suddenly say. Aerion’s thoughts come to a halt when your words register, brows furrowing. “I was never planning to go back to Westeros with you. I only said I would to get you to stop asking.”

A noise leaves Aerion’s throat before he can stop it—a scoff, maybe, a laugh, something in between. He stares at you, eyes wider than they should be, face hot and he’s sure red, because how dare you. Are you trying to rub it in? To make him feel worse about this? Are you trying to shove in his face just how little he meant to you? His stomach flips, and he—he feels embarrassed, again, because he had known this too. He knew it in his gut as soon as you agreed. He had known it was too easy, and nothing is ever easy with you, but he had let himself believe you anyway because—

Because he is a fool. He is a fool, and he loves you, and he wanted to believe you were telling the truth, wanted to believe that you would come home with him. Aerion hates you—he hates you. He hates that he cannot hate you. He hates that he wants to hate you, but cannot muster anything close. He wonders, briefly, if this is meant to be punishment—penance for getting his uncle killed—because he cannot imagine why else he would love someone who puts him through what you have. 

Lying to him in the same breath you tell him you love him, humiliating him in the same second you step between him and a blade—nothing can ever be simple. There’s always some form of whiplash, and Aerion just—

“Right,” he says after a moment, trying not to let his thoughts spiral, voice thin with something he cannot quite contain. “Of course you did.”

He laughs then—short and brittle and entirely without humor—turning his face from you so that you cannot see how his expression crumbles. You do not deserve to know how much your words have wounded him—you cannot know.

“That makes far more sense,” he goes on, words coming quicker now. Harsher. “Gods forbid anything between us be that simple. I must have been so insufferable asking you to come home with me for you to be forced to lie just to silence me. My apologies. I shall not make that mistake ever again.”

“Aerion—”

“If I am such a bother to you, then maybe you should just hand me over to the Blackfyres,” he hisses, face flushing with fury and mortification, the weight of what you said hitting him in full. He is a fool, and you are—you are fucking cruel. “I would—”

“Aerion,” you interrupt, louder this time, grabbing his wrist when he tries to rise to his feet and pull away, but you do not let him. 

Your grip tightens as you hold him in place, and he bares his teeth furiously, shoving you back when you won’t let go of him, but he cannot fucking get free. He cannot be free of you—he will never be free of you. His breath hitches traitorously, and his eyes feel hot again. Fuck—he is furious, and embarrassed, and he is—

Hurt. 

He is hurt. 

“Let go,” he spits. You do not. “Let go of me, you wretched fucking whore. I do not want to be here. I do not want to—”

Your hands find his face, cradling his cheeks, fingers soft and warm against his skin, and Aerion sucks in a breath that sounds like a whistle. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his face away—distantly, he knows he can push you away. You’re off-balanced right now, half-leaning over him to force his face angled to you, so it would be easy to knock you away and storm off.

He does not.

“Listen to me,” you say. “Let me finish.”

No, he wants to say, because if he lets you finish, if he lets you try to explain your way out of this, he will listen, and if he listens, he will be weak. And Aerion is tired of being weak; he is tired of it—he has been weak all day. Longer than that, even—since the day he met you on that sun-warmed rock, and he let you mock him without consequence. He is sick and tired and he just wants—

“I thought it would be easy to disappear when the ship arrived to bring you west,” you tell him, and Aerion does not want to hear this. He does not need you to rub in his face how much of a fool he’s been. He tries to turn away again, but you do not let him, and he does not shove you away even though he could. “I convinced myself it would be—I would hide away in a cove and wait for the ship to leave port, would watch it leave with you on it, and go on with how life was before you showed up. But I have only been truly lying to myself, I think, because I do not know how I was ever going to disappear when the time came, when now I am handed an opportunity to go home on a silver platter, and I am hesitating because I know if I take this opportunity, I would lose you—for good.”

—you. 

He still only wants you.

Fuck. 

“It is… easier for me to focus on the logical flaws of Jaenys’s plan,” you continue, hands dropping from his face as you sit back on your heels and look away. “Easier for me to convince myself that I do not want to go along with this because it could spell the end of Volantis as we know it. The only thing I have ever loved more than my home is my brother, and it—it terrifies me that I find myself more upset over the thought of leaving you behind than I am at the idea of my city being on the brink of collapse. That I have a chance to see Viserys again, and—”

You do not finish that sentence, but you do not need to. 

“You do not make any sense,” Aerion tells you, voice hoarse. Are you being honest this time? You do not look him in the eye now, gaze averted off to the far side of your chambers, expression downcast in a way he’s rarely seen from you. “You—How am I supposed to take this? Eight moons, and you have only just realized I matter to you? After all of the times you’ve said—”

He can’t spit out the words he wants to say, thoughts jumbled and dangerous, and saying them out loud would only make him feel more pathetic than he already does.  

Avy jorrāelan, iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. All of the nights in the cove that is only yours and only his. All of the hunts through the streets that ended with you in his arms, legs entwined, tangled in sheets. All of the days laughing on balconies, drunk on wine and each other’s breath. And you are only just now realizing—

“That’s not what I meant—”

“It sure sounds like what you are saying—”

“Kessa ao ivestragī nyke tatagon ȳdragon?” you hiss, temper fraying. 

Will you let me finish speaking?

The sharpness of your voice cuts through his spiraling thoughts, right through the mess of everything he’s trying and failing to make sense of. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak again, waiting for you to continue.

“I did not just realize you matter to me. Do not twist my words into something easier for you to be angry at,” you say, inhaling deeply as you shift to sit next to him again, gaze pinned on your lap. “This is not simple for me, Aerion. I—I’ve known for months, since you came down with fever. Before that, since the first time I brought you to the cove, I just—”

He remembers that day—the way you disappeared all day, how he spent hours looking for you, only for you to show up in the middle of the night, dragging him through the dark, over rooftops in a storm to the cove that you claimed was only yours, and now only his. He remembers a couple of days after that, too, when you disappeared again: boredom is survivable, you had scoffed, and I’m not? he asked, and you did not answer. 

You tilt your face to the side so that you can look at him, and his falls to the side, too. His gaze meets yours, and Aerion feels weak because he can feel the anger draining as the two of you share breath, as your eyes search his face. His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this expression on your face before. It is open—open and vulnerable in a way he’s only ever caught glimpses of when you tell him about home. 

“Avy jorrāelan,” you tell him, and Aerion’s jaw tightens as he fights the instinctive need to look away, face hot and eyes burning. “Nyke drējī jorrāelagon ao, Aerion, se iksan zūgagon kesrio syt eman mērī mirre dija sīr kostōba syt mēre tolie issaros isse ñuha ābrar, se nyke pryjatan ñuha giez ābrar syt zirȳla. Tubī, nyke shifang bona kesan gaomagon keskydoso syt ao, se gaoman daor gīmigon skorkydoso naejot mazōregon lēda bona.”

I love you. I really love you, Aerion, and I am scared because I have only ever felt so strongly for one other person, and I destroyed my whole life for him. Today, I realized that I would do the same for you, and I do not know how to cope with that.

Aerion inhales quickly, breath hitching in a way that should leave him mortified, but he cannot even bring himself to care. He admits, voice hoarse, “Nyke pendagon īlē jāre naejot tepagon nyke bē rȳ mēre jēda.”

I thought you were going to give me up at one point.

You shake your head, and he is only consoled by the fact that your eyes are as wet as his are. “Dōrī,” you say. “Kesan daor emagon tepagon ao naejot zirȳ. Daor syt mirros.”

Never. I would have never given you to them. Not for anything.

Aerion doesn’t know why he says what he says next, because he should be taking advantage of this. Drive the nail into the coffin and make you stay with him with just a few well-placed words. 

Aerion is not above it. He’s spent his whole life curating a softer, more palpable personality to put on for his father and grandfather and anyone of importance. He knows how to smile demurely, knows how to lower his lashes and give people exactly what they want to see. He knows what to say to make people give him what he wants, and he knows how to say it. Knows how to soften his voice just enough, how to let it catch on your name, how to make it sound like it costs him something to say it. Knows how to look at you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like choosing you is not a question for him, was never a question for him. Knows how to reach for you slowly, carefully, like he is giving you time to pull away, even though he knows you won’t. 

He has done it before. Not like this—not with something that matters so much to him—but the mechanics are the same. And the worst part is that it would not even be a lie this time.

“I love you,” he could say, and mean it.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he could say, and mean that too.

“I won’t survive it if you go,”—that might be a stretch, because Aerion would survive, he would just be forever haunted by the memory of you, but it would sound right, and you would believe it, because you already want to.

It would be enough to make you stay. Enough to make you choose him. Enough to pull you away from Volantis, from your brother, from everything you have ever wanted, and bind you to him instead.

He should do it.

He knows he should.

You’re halfway there already. He can see it already—the way your guard has cracked and your eyes search his face desperately. It would not take much. He knows how he can finish this and get what he wants, and Aerion has never hesitated in that regard. He always takes what he wants, regardless of the consequences it may have for others. It is his right as a prince, after all.

Instead, he says, “You could go home.”

His voice comes out too weak. He knows how much you’ve wanted this, knows it better than anyone. You should not be hesitating. 

“I could go home,” you agree, voice just as weak as his. He finds comfort in that. “I might never get an opportunity like this again.”

He’s not sure which of you moves in first, but your lips are on his in the next breath—the kiss is chaste in comparison to the ones the two of you normally share, mouths sliding innocently against one another’s. It is slow and gentle in a way you both are so rarely.

It makes Aerion’s heart drop.

It feels like goodbye. 

“I could come with you,” Aerion says quietly, a desperate hitch to the words that he cannot quite mask, lips brushing as he rests his forehead against yours. He hears you sigh, and before you can reject him, he continues, “I have little back home. I am the second son of a fourth son. My own father sent me away as an embarrassment, my brother does not write me. I—”

“And you would be okay marching against your own family? Cutting down your own kin?” you reply doubtfully. “You heard what the offer was. I would be installed as Triarch in return for Volantene support in taking the Iron Throne. Would you back the Blackfyre claim, Aerion? Betray your own blood?”

Aerion presses his lips together, rocks settling in his stomach as he squeezes his eyes shut. “You could not go through with it. Use them, and then—”

“We cannot go back on our word like that, Aerion.”

Desperately, Aerion tries, “You might lose, then.”

“If Volantis marches against Westeros, we will not lose,” you interrupt.

Aerion is frustrated. Why won’t you let him latch onto anything, even if it isn’t true? Why must you be so— “You do not know that.”

“I do, because I would be leading the campaign, and I do not lose,” you tell him. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you would be okay with it. Returning home with me, knowing I will march against your family, wage a war that ends with your blood executed—father, uncles, brothers, sisters—and you will not regret it, then I will take you home.”

Aerion’s eyes slide open to meet yours. His lips part. And—and he sees his father teaching him how to hold a sword, hears his voice, my boy, my boy, remembers the way he used to smile at him and Daeron when Dyanna was still alive, before everything changed. And Daeron—he remembers Daeron teaching him to fish. Daeron, finding him on the ground, clawing at his throat, and holding him until the madness passed, teaching him breathing exercises to calm him. Daeron, who would be no better than a trembling fawn on a battlefield, because he never took to combat the way Aerion did.

His throat bobs, and Aerion does not respond. Your lips curve up into a smile that does not reach your eyes, and he knows you know his answer without him needing to say anything.

Is this goodbye?

Will you choose to go home?

Are you going to leave him?

You lean in so that you can kiss him again, more firmly this time, one hand coming up to cradle his face, and Aerion’s drops down to your waist, sliding against the leather of your pants before his grip tightens on your thigh so he can pull you closer to him, onto his lap so that your bodies are flush. Your arms snake around his shoulders, and Aerion sighs into your mouth as you tilt his head back to deepen the kiss. You taste like firewine and faintly of blood—Aerion wonders how hard you must have been biting your tongue when he kept interrupting you. 

“Gaomagon daor jikagon lēda zirȳ,” he murmurs against your lips, pulling back slightly so that he can meet your eyes as you slide his shirt off his shoulders. His breath hitches when you smooth your hands over his collarbones, nails scratching lightly at the hollow. He tilts his head back against the wall to look up at you, eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. His chest rises and falls beneath your palms, and his eyes slide shut when you lean in to kiss him again, slower this time. “​​Gaomagon daor henujagon nyke.”

Do not go with them. Do not leave me.

You do not answer him, and Aerion hates that it makes his heart sink. You are going to make him beg, and Aerion does not beg. He does not beg anyone, he does not beg you, but—but he will. And he hates that. He hates that he would bend, strip himself of every last shred of pride just to keep you here, that he would allow himself to become something smaller—not a dragon, not a prince of the blood, just… just a boy. Just a boy who will dig his nails in and won’t let go, ask you to stay, even if it costs him everything that makes him who he is. 

“Kostilus,” he breathes into your both, shuddering when you press your lips to the corner of his, to his jaw, kissing down his neck. You drag your tongue from the hollow of his throat to the underside of his chin, and he fights a whimper. His chest heaves as you hover above him, lips ghosting his, tongue darting out to swipe teasingly against his upper lip. “Hah—shit. Kostilus. Kostilus.”

Please. Please. Please.

You kiss him again, deeper this time. You still do not respond, and Aerion hates this even more. Is it because you know he will not like your response? Is it because you cannot bring yourself to say that you do choose him, when it means you are choosing him over a chance at going home, over a chance at seeing your brother again? Aerion does not know, but he knows one answer is far more likely than the other.

“Aerion,” you start to say, and he decides immediately that he does not like the tone of your voice. There’s something in it—careful, hesitant, guilty—and Aerion’s heart rate spikes, because it sounds like the beginning of an answer he does not want to hear. 

His hand comes up, fingers tangling in your hair, and he pulls you down into another kiss—harder, less hesitant, less asking. The words die on your tongue before you can get them out, and Aerion kisses you harder still, teeth biting into your bottom lip as his hands slide down to your thighs. He lets out a low grunt into your mouth as he shifts, lifting you with him off of the floor. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist as he carries you a few steps over to your bed.

He drops you onto the mattress, following after immediately, hips slotted between your thighs, forearms braced on either side of your head, breath uneven as he searches your face for the answer he wants to hear.

But he does not find it. You press your lips together as you look up at him, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this look on your face before. His lashes flutter shut when you lift your hand to ghost the pads of your fingers against his cheekbone, tracing the lines of his face reverently. 

“Iksā sīr gevie,” you say softly, two fingers resting over his lips as he stares down at you, hair curtaining either side of his face. Aerion fights a shudder, throat bobbing at your words. “Kesan tepagon ñuha giez ābrar lēda ao lo kostan.”

You are so beautiful. I would spend the rest of my life with you if I could.

This is goodbye, Aerion realizes, breath wavering as he stares down at you helplessly. You’re going to choose them. You’re going to go home. You’re going to march against his family, and you’re going to leave him.

“Kostā,” he tells you, pretending his voice doesn’t break over the word.

You could.

You exhale through your nose, brows furrowing, expression twisting; you let out a sigh that tells him you are still uncertain, battling between two warring desires, and Aerion leans down to kiss you again, pouring everything he has into it. All of the mornings spent hunting you through the streets of Lys, all of the afternoons spent indulging in wine and each other’s arms, all of the evenings at the cove that is only yours and only his, all of the times you cradled his face and said iksan aōhan, iksā ñuhon. 

You kiss him back with the same intensity, legs wound around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair, back arching off the bed because even when your bodies are pressed together, it is never close enough. You whimper into his mouth when he rolls his hips, hands sliding from the back of his head to his cheeks, lips parting so that Aerion can swipe his tongue along the inside of your lip.

“Kostā,” he says again, dragging his lips from yours, to your cheek, your jaw, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your neck. “Kosti umbagon kesīr. Iā kosti jikagon naejot Vesteros. Kosti aerēbahon—naejot Qohor se Brāvos. Naejot Qarthi se Ashī. Skoriot mirre jaelā, kosti jikagon.”

You can. We can stay here. Or we can go back to Westeros. We can travel—to Qohor and Braavos. To Qarth and Asshai. Wherever you want, we can go. 

It is a nice dream, he thinks, eyes sliding shut as he slides off your tunic and kisses down your chest. It is a—he lets out a shaky breath, nails biting into your waist as he rests his forehead to your sternum, face buried between your breasts—it is a really nice dream. He feels your fingers thread through his hair, and he presses his lips to the swell of your breast, fingers trailing down your body to slide your pants over your hips, and then does the same to his own.

He can almost imagine it when he closes his eyes. With your hands in his hair and your breath rising and falling unevenly, the warmth of your skin and the way you breathe his name—he can almost pretend that the two of you are on a ship to another city, just you and him, together, because he is yours and you are his, and nothing matters more than that.

It is childish, he knows that in his heart. He has known it since the argument in Vyrano’s manse, when you shouted at him and told him that things aren’t so simple, that you are bound by politics and the weight of your station, your titles, and your blood. Aerion knows one day he will be called home, and as much as it’s nice to dream of a world where he burns his father’s letter in retaliation for months of exile and chooses you instead, it just—

It is not so simple.

It will never be so simple, and that is why Aerion cannot get rid of the pit in his stomach, because he knows it is not simple for him, and it is even less simple for you. You could very well choose to go home, and Aerion wouldn’t even be able to blame you—not really. He would be angry, he would be cruel and cold, and he would pretend that he didn’t care half as much as he truly did, but he would not be able to blame you for it, even if you did end up on the opposite side of the battlefield one day. Even if you did—

You cradle his cheeks and lift his face again, bringing your lips to his as he rolls his hips against yours, eyes sliding shut as you kiss him deeper this time, gasping into his mouth when you feel his cock slide between your folds, tip pressing heavy on your clit before he drags it to your hole. His lips part, jaw half-ajar as he slowly sinks inside of you.

“Avy jorrāelan,” you whisper into his open mouth instead of giving him a proper answer, dragging your fingers through his hair, nails scraping his scalp. “Sīr olvie.”

I love you. So much.

Aerion lets out a hitched noise into your mouth, a gasp, a moan, something in between, lashes fluttering as he buries his cock deep in your cunt. One hand drops to your waist to hold you in place when you try to roll your hips up, and he presses his face into the crook of your neck, savoring the feeling of being inside of you, of your thighs around his waist, your chest pressed to his. He mouths absently at your neck.

I love you, you say—you’re hardly the first to say it to him. Many whores crawl into his bed professing their love as they paw at his chest and kiss his neck, thinking it’ll coax him into giving them an extra coin. But it’s… different coming from you, because you mean it. You have seen the very worst of him—vicious and violent and half-mad—and you mean it still. He knows it in the way you say it, the way you look at him, the way you drew your blade against your own friend to protect him. He knows you mean it, and he doesn’t know if anyone has loved him—truly loved him, all of him, even the worst bits—since his mother died. 

And he is going to lose you, just like how he lost her, because you love him, but it is not enough to make you stay.

Fuck.

The next breath he lets out is shuddered, and his eyes burn, so he is glad he has his face pressed into the crook of your neck. His chest feels heavy all of a sudden, lust slipping away, and Aerion is frustrated—he’s so frustrated that he cannot even hold onto this. The feeling is there: your body wrapped around his, the heat, the closeness, the way you breathe his name and arch your back into him. His cock is buried in your cunt, warm and wet and tight, walls fluttering around him, but—

His hips still against yours, and for a moment, Aerion cannot move at all, pressed against you, breath uneven at your throat, grip at your waist tight, but not with desire. He does not want to lose this. You.

You card your fingers through his hair, a slow, soothing motion that makes him ache.

“We do not have to do this,” you say quietly, and he hates that you understand. You always understand. Nobody ever understands Aerion, but you always have; with little more than a glance or a look exchanged, you’ve always understood what he wants and needs. He does not want to lose this, he thinks again desperately. He does not want to lose you. “We can just lay together, if you want.”

Aerion’s jaw tightens at your words, frustrated with himself and the situation, because he let himself get too attached to you, because he loves you and now he is going to lose you, because he doesn’t want to just lay with you, he wants you, wants this, but he cannot pull himself out of his own head long enough to even fuck you properly.

“No,” Aerion says, voice strained. “No, I want this.” 

His grip tightens at your waist, almost bruising, trying to anchor himself to you. He forces his hips to move again, slow at first, then rougher, chasing something he cannot quite reach, and it feels wrong—disconnected, like his body is moving without him.

“Fuck,” he breathes, forehead still resting on your shoulder, so frustrated that his eyes burn with tears that he can feel on the verge of spilling over. Aerion has not cried in years, and today he has twice. It is mortifying. “I just—”

He does not even know what he’s trying to say. That he’s angry? That he’s scared? That he does not know how life will be after he loses you? That he wants you to tell him that you will still be here when he returns, even if it’s a lie? 

You lift his face from your shoulder and press your lips to his again, lips moving slowly against his, coaxing him out of his own head and back into the moment. 

“Tell me something,” you say against his lips, fingers carding absently through his hair.

“Like what?” he mutters, sighing as he presses his nose against your temple, basking in your warmth, trying to settle back into the now with you beneath him, your hands in his hair, voice soft in his ear, cock buried deep inside of you. 

“Anything,” you reply unhelpfully.

Aerion exhales through his nose, and then, he inhales deeply, drowning himself in the new lavender oil you bought at the market last week. 

After a few moments, he says without thinking, “Your whore said something earlier.”

You hum. “Caelyx says a lot,” you say, amused. Aerion almost rolls his eyes when he realizes you know which one he’s talking about without him having to say anything. “What did he say this time?”

Aerion’s face is hot as he registesr exactly what he just said, remembering what it was that threw him so off kilter earlier, unsure why he even brought it up. His mouth opens, then closes again, jaw tightening because he already regrets it. You give him a curious look and he scowls.

“Something stupid,” he mutters, trying to brush it off, but your fingers tug lightly at his hair, trying to coax the answer out of him.

“Tell me.”

“That you—” Aerion cuts himself off, eyes flicking to the side until you press your fingers to his cheek and force him to look at you again. Irritation and embarrassment war within him, begging him to shut the fuck up. “That you like to take control. In ways most men are too proud to learn.”

You are silent for a long moment, and then you laugh—it is bright and pretty, and Aerion pulls back slightly to look at the way your eyes shine, and your smile splits your face. Your fingers drag through his hair as you look up at him, an adoring expression on your face that leaves him breathless.

“Gaoman raqagon bona, zaldrīzes dārilaros,” you purr, leaning up to nip his lips. “Issi jaelā naejot sylugon mēre tubis? Ivestragī nyke gūrogon toliot? Mazverdagon ao dijāves sȳz.”

I do enjoy that, dragon prince. Are you wanting to try one day? Let me take over? Make you feel good?

Aerion’s face flushes hot, and he instinctively moves to press his face into your neck again, but you do not let him, forcing him to hold your gaze. There are a dozen things he wants to say, sharp and cutting, to salvage what little pride he has left. But none of them can make it past the heat crawling up his throat.

“That is not—” he starts, then falters, scowling when your expression only grows more amused. 

“Not what?” you murmur, thumb dragging slowly along his lower lip before pressing in slightly. His lips instinctively part for you, letting you trace the inside of his mouth. “Did you imagine it, prince? Taking it? Letting me set the pace, letting me decide how deep, how slow, how hard?”

Aerion’s cock twitches inside of you, breath shuddering, letting out something between a scoff and a strained breath, grip tightening. He stares down at you with wide eyes, and you watch him raptly.

“I think you’d like it,” you continue, thumb sliding further in his mouth to press down on his tongue. He thinks to bite down just to make a point, but he finds himself too consumed by what you’re saying to even try. “Being held down, stretched open, made to take it inch by inch, fucked hard until you forget how to fight me at all—forget to think, forget to breathe.” 

Aerion chokes on nothing at the lewd words, face flaming red, pupils blown wide, breath quick and chest heaving. Something close to a whimper spills from his lips.

“You’d curse me for it at first,” you say, lips curved up, almost thoughtful, like you’re envisioning it yourself—him beneath you, back arching, jaw slack, eyes rolled back as you hold his hips. He is envisioning it too. “Try to push me off, tell me to stop—” Your lips brush his jaw, lingering there. “—and then you wouldn’t want me to, start to realize how nice it feels.”

His nails dig crescents into your skin, so deep that he’s sure he’s drawing blood. His hips twitch, but you stop him this time, legs tightening around his narrow waist to hold him still. He fights a complaint, teeth grinding together as he tries to hold himself together with the sliver of pride he has left.

“It is easy to make someone loud, you know? But I could make you feel so good you’d go quiet,” you tell him. “Turn this pretty head of yours to mush, until all you can do is lay there and take it.”

“You—”

Aerion does not even know what he wants to say, breathing ragged and heavy, cock aching in your cunt. He tries to move again instinctively, only able to grind his cock a little deeper inside of you, and it is not enough, not nearly enough. Your thumb slips from his mouth and Aerion’s head hangs forward, eyes half-lidded, a low groan escaping his lips when you roll your hips up.

“Jaelan so naejot qogralbar nyke se ñuhoso kesā jaelagon nyke naejot qogralbar ao,” you breathe, tilting the lower half of your face up to ghost your lips against his. “Sīr bona skori ao māzigon arlī, kostan gūrogon ao isse manta lēda.” 

I want you to fuck me the way you would want me to fuck you. So that when you return, I can take you apart properly.

When you return—hope flares in his chest with a vengeance, and Aerion is rutting his hips into you before you even finish the sentence, choking over a breath, one hand flying to your hair to crane your head back so he can press his lips to yours. He moans into your mouth, eyes rolling back at the feeling of your walls tight around him, drowning in the lewd sound of skin on skin, the sloppiness of his cock pounding your wet cunt. 

“Aerion—” you gasp, and he loves the sound of his name on your lips, loves it even more when you sound like this—whiny and needy, fucked out in a way you only ever get with him. Aerion will never get enough of you. He could have you forever, and it’ll never be enough. “Hah—shit—”

He grabs your thigh with his free hand and hooks your leg higher to reach deeper inside of you, bracing his knees on the mattress so that he can fuck you properly, relishing in the way you cry his name, back arching into his chest and—

—and for a second, he cannot stop himself from imagining that it’s him instead. That it’s your weight pressing on his body, your fingers pressing bruises into his thigh as you push it up to his chest, his back arched off the bed as you press deep into him, so deep that he cannot breathe, that all he can feel, all he can think is you. And—and it is wrong. Aerion is a prince, a dragon, he does not give up control to anyone like that, much less a woman, much less you, and he is angry. Angry at you for putting the image in his head, angrier at himself for wanting it.

Aerion’s hand slips down to your throat before he can think twice, pretending that it’s yours on his instead, fingers squeezing just enough to cut the air to his lungs, watching the way his face reddens as he gasps for air he cannot breathe in; he imagines the burn in his lungs as your lashes flutter and lips part, the way his head would go light and fuzzy, vision darkening at the edges.

Your hand flies to his wrist, nails digging deep into his skin, eyes rolling back with each thrust of his hips, lips wet and swollen as you try to suck in the air he deprives you. Your eyes are hazy as you stare up at him, hardly able to hold his gaze, his fingers cutting off the pretty moans of his name that he knows would be falling from your lips. 

He cannot get enough of it—he cannot get enough of you. He will not let you leave him, cannot let you leave him. But—but he cannot stop you. He cannot stop you, and you love him, but it is not enough, and Aerion should not be surprised, because when has he ever—

—Aerion does not want to think about that. He does not want to think about it at all, so he leans down to press his lips messily against yours, groaning into your mouth as your walls flutter around his cock. You barely kiss him back, too focused on trying to stay conscious; he can feel the soft, breathless whines against his lips, the ones he cannot hear from his own doing, and he chokes over a moan when he feels you writhe beneath him, jaw falling slack when one particularly rough thrust has you cumming on his cock, hips jerking and body spasming beneath him.

He squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to finish with you, even as his cock aches, head hot and heavy, each drag against your tight walls making his whole body shudder violently. He only lets go of your throat when your fingers start to slacken on his wrist, when he notices the way your head starts lolling back against the pillows.

“Fuck,” he groans, watching as you inhale the air greedily, imagining the rush to your lungs, the way pleasure has started to shift to overstimulation as you squirm against him, hips still slapping against your ass as he fucks you hard, chasing his own high now, abdomen tense, body hot and prickly, mind half-way gone already.

“Aerion,” you gasp, nails digging into his shoulders as you seek something to hold to, head tossed back, throat bared to him, and Aerion bites down hard, relishing in the familiar taste of iron in his mouth, the way you cry out, hips jerking as you cum a second time already.

He cums with you this time, hips stuttering when he feels your walls tighten around him again, moaning into your neck as he spills his seed deep inside of you.

He collapses against you, chest heaving as he tries to regain his breath. His eyes slide shut when he feels your fingers on his back, tracing his skin lightly as he comes down from his high. He presses his nose into your neck, ghosting his lips against your skin.

After a long moment, he lifts his face from where he’s buried it in your skin so that he can look at you. There is an expression on your face that makes Aerion’s chest tighten—too sad, too close to goodbye, like you’re memorizing something that will soon be ripped away from you.

“You could come with me,” he says, grateful that it does not come out as a plea, because it certainly feels like one. “Tomorrow morning, on the ship. Join the Second Sons with me until the Golden Company leaves Lys. Come with me to the Disputed Lands.”

Aerion knows your answer before you say it. He sees it in your eyes, and his jaw goes tight, helplessness and frustration, pride and anger eating away at him. But before he can spit out a string of vile insults, accuse you of being a liar and a traitor and a whore and whatever else spills from his lips in a desperate attempt to salvage his mangled pride, you lift your hand to his face, fingers brushing beneath his eye before you hold his cheek in the palm of your hand.

“I do not want to fight tonight, Aerion,” you tell him quietly when you see the expression on his face. 

Aerion does not care. You do not get to want anything; you do not get to ask him anything. Frustration bubbles and bubbles and bubbles, and he stares at you accusingly, angrily, because how dare you tell him this when, for all he knows, as soon as he leaves tomorrow, you’ll be on a ship with the Golden Company returning to Volantis. 

And yet, it does not spill over. He does not know whether he is the one who does not allow it, or whether he is just tired and cannot muster it. 

Aerion lets out a breath as he lowers his head to your chest, eyes sliding shut when he feels your fingers thread through his hair again, carding through the long locks gently. He sinks into your warmth, the feeling of your arms around him, legs entangled, so wrapped together that he can no longer tell where he ends and where you begin—as it should be, as it won’t be soon.

Will you be here when I return? he wants to ask desperately. Is this the last time we will be together like this?

He cannot bring himself to ask, because he’s not sure if he really wants to know the answer. 

———————

Aerion wakes to the early morning light spilling through your curtains. He lets out a soft puff of air, pressing his face into your chest before he cracks his eyes open. 

The sun only seems to be just breaching the horizon, and Aerion’s eyes slide shut again briefly when he realizes what that means. He feels your fingers still in his hair, absently twirling the ends, and his jaw tightens. 

“How long have you been awake?” he rasps, not wanting to move from where he’s laid up in your arms, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.

“I did not sleep,” you say quietly after a moment, and Aerion pauses, staring absently out to the balcony looking over the First Magister’s manse, watching the sun rise over the sea. 

For a few seconds, he does not respond. He just listens—to your breathing, to the faint sounds of the city beyond the manse, to the rhythm of your heart beneath his cheek. His fingers smooth over your forearm, sliding down your wrist to entwine his fingers with yours, the movement so instinctive that he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he feels your fingers tighten around his. 

“Why?” he asks finally after a minute, feeling your fingers pause in his hair before you resume the slow strokes. 

“You’re prettier with your mouth shut. I was appreciating the view without all of the snark.”

Aerion clicks his tongue harshly, but his lips curl up into a small smile despite himself. He mutters, “Miserable wench. I should have your tongue.”

He feels you huff out a laugh, and he shuts his eyes again, letting himself rest in your arms, exhaling softly when he feels your hand drift from his hair to trace idle patterns along his shoulder and back. He does not want to move. Does not want to ruin this moment. Does not want to leave when he doesn’t know if you will be here when he returns. He just wants to stay like this.

He thinks you want to, too, because your arms tighten around him, and you make a noise in the back of your throat. He feels you tilt your head down to ghost your lips against the top of his head, sighing into his hair. 

“We need to get to the harbor before the rest of the island wakes,” you finally say, voice quiet. 

Aerion wants to pretend that he doesn’t hear you, that the world outside this room does not exist and the Blackfyres aren’t a breath away, seeking his head—that it is only you and only him, as it should be, as it is meant to be—but his pride is already in tatters and he refuses to shred what little is left of it, so he pushes himself up, out of your arms. 

He hesitates at the edge of the bed, sitting there, staring into the horizon, until he feels your arms slip around his bare waist, nails scratching lightly at his abdomen, your lips on the sun-warmed skin of his shoulder, and he lets his eyes flutter shut again.

Will you still be here when I return?

“I do not have proper clothes to wear,” he says instead. “I will not wear silks to—”

“You can wear something of mine,” you interrupt, and Aerion regrets brushing you off the moment you pull your arms back and shift off the bed, wandering over to one of your chests, pulling out black leathers for him to put on. “We’re going to have to move through the alleys—I’m sure the Golden Company still has men patrolling the streets looking for you. Once you get on the ship, you’ll be fine. They won’t risk starting a conflict with another mercenary company.” 

Aerion knows all of this, and if it were any other day, he would make a snide comment about how you should put your tongue to better use than telling him something he already knows. But it is not any other day, and Aerion can only grind his teeth together as he pulls on the clothes you handed off to him.

The two of you dress in silence after that, quickly so as not to waste too much time, but slowly all the same, casting looks toward one another when the other is distracted, savoring in a sight that you will both soon be deprived of.

On opposite sides of the room, the two of you stare at each other after getting dressed. Your jaw is tight, and he’s barely keeping his breath steady. This is goodbye, he knows that, but he does not know for how long. 

A few months, maybe. 

Forever, maybe. 

His lips part to speak, but no words leave them. You exhale through your nose and reach to your bedside, grabbing the steel you’ve carried the past eight moons. You stare down at it for a minute, fingers tracing the red gems embedded in the hilt—it’s not the Valyrian steel that your friend gave to you earlier, but it’s still one of the finest blades Aerion has ever seen. 

Your grip tightens on it briefly before you make your way over to him.

“This was a gift,” you say quietly. “From the First Magister on my arrival. My father took my sword, my armor, my jewelry, and put it all back in the family vault. He allowed me only the necklace I took for myself from the ruins, and a short dagger to defend myself with. The magisters do not typically allow people who aren’t household guards or hired sellswords to carry steel, but the First Magister gave me this in hopes of making me feel more comfortable as I was not… adjusting well—” Aerion snorts, and you scowl at him, but then hold out the hilt of the blade to him. He gives you a questioning look. “We will not have time to stop by Magister Vyrano’s manse so you can grab the rest of your belongings. Take it with you. A sellsword without a sword makes for only—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” he mutters, chest tightening as he takes the blade from you. It’s light in his hands, balanced, the morning sun glittering against the rubies in its hilt. He admits, “It is a nice blade.”

You give a wry smile that does not reach your eyes. “Do not lose it, dragon prince, or I will take offense.”

Aerion would never lose something of yours, he thinks to himself, but does not say out loud because he cannot bear to admit more than he already has. He thinks you know, though, because your smile fades at the edges, expression slipping the longer you watch him.

“In my chambers in Vyrano’s manse,” Aerion says after a moment, chest tight, exhaling as he looks away, “there is a chest. A black one. It is important to me, will you—”

Aerion cuts himself off, lookin away, unsure what he’s really asking. But you nod, because you know—you always know.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to it while you’re gone,” you say softly. 

You turn your back on him without another word, making your way to the door, and Aerion’s lips part to call after you, panic spiking hard and fast, clawing up his throat. Once you leave this room, everything will end, and Aerion does not want this to end—not now, not ever. Your hand wraps around the handle of the door, and your name is on his lips, but—

—but he closes his mouth, eyes sliding shut as he follows after you instead, unable to rid himself of the heaviness weighing on his chest.

———————

It takes less than an hour to get to the harbor. There was only one brief scare at the market where one of the Blackfyres—Haegon, the one you flirted with—was lingering, talking to a Tyroshi merchant. Aerion had half a mind to put a blade through his throat before making his way to the Second Sons’ ship, but you stopped him before he could, much to his irritation. 

He stands at the edge of the harbor now, the smell of sea thick in the air, watching as the sellswords move about the deck, preparing to set off to the Disputed Lands. The ship looms ahead of him, its shadow dwarfing the pier, and the lump in Aerion’s throat feels terribly uncomfortable.

His thumb tightens reflexively around the hilt of the blade you gave him, thumb brushing over the embedded rubies. Behind him, the city is just beginning to stir, voices carrying faintly from the square as merchants open their stalls, and the harbor children chasing one another down the docks. Life goes on, as it always does whenever Aerion feels as though his life is falling apart.

He lets out a breath, then turns to you.

For a long moment, neither of you says anything.

Up close like this, with the morning light catching in your hair, you almost don’t look real. Like something he imagined into being during those long, empty months of exile. He almost wouldn’t be surprised—Aerion is the last person who deserves to have met his other half, like in the stories and poems that Daella used to have their mother read to them, and madness always has run in Targaryen blood. 

But you are real, you are here, and perhaps it does make sense that he has met you, only to lose you. That is a just punishment, he thinks, for who he is and what he has done. His gaze drifts over your face, lingering, memorizing—the curve of your mouth, the glint of your eyes under the morning sun, the way your lips part as you let out a soft sigh.

He swallows thickly, trying to find something to say, but before he can, you say, “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke, zaldrīzes dārilaros. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”

Return to me, dragon prince. That is an order.

But will you even be here when I return? he wants to ask, the words lodged in his throat, because he is terrified of leaving you here with your friend and the Blackfyres, where they can whisper in your ear and convince you to go along with their plan to bring you home and he will be out of sight and out of reach, too far away to convince you not to forget about him. He is terrified of returning to find you long gone. 

“Gaomā daor udrāzma nyke, quba ābra,” he says instead, grateful that his voice comes out steadier than he feels.

You do not order me, wretched woman.

Your smile lightens at his words—the curve of your lips softer, and the look in your eyes gentler than he has ever seen it, a flash of longing crossing your expression before you hide it with another quiet sigh. 

A yell from the deck of the ship signals that it is almost time for it to disembark.

“Kesi rhaenagon arlī, mēre ñuhoso iā tȳne—bona iksan gīmigon hen,” you say easily, turning on your heel to leave without so much as another lingering look in his direction. Aerion almost calls after you, but he stops himself, watching you leave with his heart in his throat. “Ēva hembar jēda, dārilaros”

We will meet again, one way or another—that, I am sure of. ‘Til next time, prince.

———————

You’ve known Clark Kent all your life. 

That happens when he’s the only kid in a three-mile radius near the house you were raised in — and that also happens when your mothers have been best friends for more than twenty years. There are pictures of him, barely one year old, sitting on the couch of your parent’s living room while cooing at the pink bundle in your mother’s arms — you. From then on, it’s unusual to see a photo of the two of you not together. 

He’s there when you start crawling, clapping his hands in encouragement, a picture showing him smushing his cheek against yours in triumph as you smile with the only two teeth you have. He holds you steady as you take your first steps, a bit wobbly himself, and you both fall into a fit of uncontrollable laughter as you crumble down to the floor. He teaches you his name as soon as you start talking, and when he’s over to your farm you end up following him like a lost puppy, chanting ClarkClarkClarkClark! loud enough for your father to take a peek out of the living room to make sure you’re okay. 

You’re four when you participate to your first dance recital, grinning wildly while wearing the pinkiest tutu your father could find at the only costume shop Smallville has, and when you get off stage after a choreography only the parents of the kids doing it could enjoy, you find a red-cheeked Clark holding a bouquet of flowers almost bigger than him. Your parents watch with knowing smiles as you squeal and topple him to the ground, smooshing your cheek against his. 

“You shouldn’t have, Jon,” your mother whispers to Pa Kent, “I know flowers are getting expensive these days.”

He barely brushes her comment aside, “Oh, shut it, woman, he wanted to. ‘Sides, Eleonor from the flower shop already owed us a favour.” he chuckles quietly, “Why, you tellin’ me it bothers you to see her so happy with her itty-bitty pink tutu and her bouquet?”

By this point, both you and Clark are back on your feet, and you’re jumping around — showing off your flowers to the friends you’ve made in the dance class while dragging Clark along by the hand. The kid is as red as a tomato, shuffling his feet awkwardly as you hold the bouquet like it’s an infant. 

Safe to say, you and Clark are thick as thieves growing up: it’s rare to see him around without you and vice versa, aside from school hours — and even then, you’re always together during breaks and such, and given that you take the same school bus and even get down at the same spot there’s never a day where the seat next to you or next to him is empty. 

Since the Kent farm and yours aren’t that far away you’re both often found wandering in the fields between your houses, sometimes even bringing your lunch lovingly wrapped in an embroidered cloth by your mum, who — same as Ma Kent — always packs not one but two meals; one for you, one for Clark. Of course, you both take advantage of the situation and always end up eating the whole feast without leaving a single crumb, only to then pass out for usually two or three hours after the ordeal on your little beaten up blanket. 

When everybody starts picking on him when he gets glasses — horrendous, thick-lenses ones — you just hold his hand while laying together on the hammock that hangs on two of the trees outside his farm, probably older than Pa Kent himself. “Who cares?” you mumble over his muffled sobs, hugging his side tight. “They all suck anyway. Besides, if they think the glasses look bad on you, maybe it’s their eyes that need fixing.” 

You’re nine when you first see him fly. It’s an accident — he thought you were in town with your parents, but opted to stay home instead and went to the Kent farm for a surprise visit — and he doesn’t talk to you for a week, too scared of confrontation. Things slide back in place as soon as Martha understands what happened and gives him a stern talk about friends and secrets; not even an hour later you’re aware of all his history — the meteor shower of ten years ago actually being his space pod entering the atmosphere, him coming from another planet and having freaking superpowers. 

You’ve always known Clark was special — always thought that he was one of a kind, a boy too gentle to be like everyone. You just didn’t know that special would have meant from another galaxy. 

Not a lot changes by the time you start going to middle and then high school — Clark’s one of the few boys in town that growing up didn’t have a phase or permanently turned into a dickhead. The Kents raised him well, making sure he never disrespected anyone without a good reason to, and even then he’s often too nice to act on it — unless it involves someone other than him. If there’s someone who’s being given trouble at school, he always finds a way to help — even if he himself isn’t really one of the popular kids either. 

That’s what you like about Clark. The ability to look bigger than he is if needed to and a heart of gold that would make the nicest man on Earth look pale in comparison. 

Of course, it’s not a surprise to anyone when you two start dating — it was just a matter of time, clearly. The only visible change is the hand-holding and kissing; when you tell the Kents, as Martha squeals and jumps up to hug you, Jon just sits there with a confused look on his face while scratching his chin. “You tellin’ me you two weren’t together this whole time?” 

Those are definitely the best years of your life, you think one summer evening as you lay on the same battered blanket of ten years ago in the same tulip field with the same boy. It’s just that this time he’s double the size and officially your boyfriend, who holds you tight against his chest while basking in the blazing sun. 

“Will you ever take me flying?” you ask, eyes barely open — just what you need to look at him, golden and smiling. He chuckles, “You’d like me to?”

You nod enthusiastically. You’ve rarely ever gotten out of Smallville, aside from school trips and a couple of vacations with your parents, so it’s safe to say that you’ve never even gotten on a plane in your entire life, with the closest airport being in Metropolis. Clark, you guess, is the next best thing you have to a plane. 

“Dunno, sweetheart,” he presses a kiss to the crown of your hair, “If Pa saw me fly with you, he’d yell at me to get down and start a long lecture about being seen and the dangers of it. Maybe when they’re out of town, mh?” 

You hum, almost half asleep, lulled by his hand gently caressing your back under your shirt and the warmth of the sun. “I’ll hold you to that one.” 

But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end — and just two years after that conversation in the field you find yourself in Clark’s room, holding back your tears as you help him pack his things for college. You should be happy for him — he’s been accepted into the Journalism course, which has been his dream for years — but you just can’t shake the thought of him being so far away in the big city while you’re still stuck here for another year. 

You like Smallville — you love the farm, the animals and the constant fresh air — but there’s basically nothing there aside from fields and the school. You and Clark have never been so far away from each other for so long — you honestly don’t know how you’ll manage without him around. Sure, you have other friends, but nobody could ever make up for his absence. 

And that’s why you’ve been spending the last two weeks tied to his side — helping him get ready for his move and packing old shirts and jeans. You almost burst out in tears when you see him sneaking an old picture of you in a tutu and a bouquet in one of the boxes. 

He notices you staring  — of course he notices. He’s already noticed how on edge you’ve seemed in these last few months, and if he’s right the dam is about to break in a million pieces right in front of him. 

Clark gets up from his place on the floor, wiping his hands on his jeans, “Everything alright?”

You look at him– really look at him. Your lips tremble, tears begin to form in your waterline and judging by the rapid beats of your heartbeat you’re about to have a complete breakdown. Finally, you whimper, “I don’t want you to go,” 

The dam breaks. You start ugly crying, full-on sobbing as Clark hugs you and holds you tight against his chest, “No– I mean– I want you to go, it’s– it’s a great opportunity– but I don’t want you to leave me here all alone–” your sobs rattle against his chest and your words are barely understandable, but for someone with super empathy — you’re sure that’s a real thing and an actual true power of his — and super hearing it’s pretty understandable. 

His eyes soften. “I wouldn’t leave you here if it was my choice,” he murmurs, “I’d take you with me in a heartbeat, but we’ll have to start somewhere if we want to eventually move out of here together. In a year you’ll finish high school, and until then I’ll still visit constantly.” he smiles sweetly, “You could come to visit me too. Did you know that they just finished building the railway connecting Midvale to Metropolis? How convenient is that?” 

His heart breaks even more when you don’t stop crying. His shirt is damp by now, and you are starting to hyperventilate — sobs becoming more drawn and hoarse. “Hey, hey,” he takes your face in his hands, wiping away your tears with his thumbs, “we’ll be okay, alright? Nothing will change. We haven’t been friends for seventeen years only for things to change because of– what, a hundred miles of distance?” he starts peppering your damp cheeks with kisses, managing to get a strained laugh out of you. “I didn’t come all the way here from another galaxy just to forget about you the second I move out of town.”

You’re back in the Kent’s farm two days later to say goodbye to Clark along with some close friends of his, and you cry more than you’d like to admit — but for now it doesn’t matter, because he’s still here and still able to wipe your tears with a gentle hand and dry the dampness on your cheeks with kisses. The real problems will arise when he won’t be able to do that anymore — and it happens soon after: he and Jon get on his truck and start driving towards Metropolis.

You stay seated on the Kent’s porch until Clark’s truck isn’t visible anymore, and Martha gently puts a hand on your shoulder. “Want a slice of pie? Lemon blueberry tart, your favorite. I made it… well, I kind of knew this sadness was coming.” she gives you a tight-lipped smile, teary herself. “I’ll miss him too. But it’s not the end of the world, is it? It’s just a new beginning. Besides, a couple of months and it’ll be Christmas. And you know we always spend Christmas together, hun.” 

The next few months are spent between your studies for the admission tests for University and hours-long calls with Clark, who’s enthusiastically adapting to life in the big city as you try not to give away too much that you’re rightfully sulking back at home. Christmas is a nice break from your longing, and you barely spend any time apart from each other, but after that it’s back to square one. 

Much to your displeasure, the calls start to become less and less long — and you really don’t want to be the type of girlfriend that stalks her boyfriend’s every step, but you really miss him, and it’s hard staying in Smallville without him when you’ve only known the town with him in it. He’s just starting to make new friends and getting to know the city, and you know that, but you wish you could be there with him instead of being stuck in the middle of nowhere. 

Spring break comes, and with it your train ticket from Midvale to Metropolis and your hunk of a boyfriend waiting for you at the arrival station. You nearly tackle him to the ground — and that says something, because he played football in high school — and kiss him fervently right here and there, not really caring about being in public. He takes your luggage like the real gentleman he is and tries not to laugh when you take his hand and start skipping like Heidi as he leads the way to his apartment. 

It’s definitely the shortest week of your existence — you get to have a preview of the life you’ll have with Clark in Metropolis, but not really the whole thing. You try to forget about how soon you’ll have to be back home as he shows you around and introduces you to his friends, and try to ignore the fact that while you’ve been wallowing in your own pity and having breakdowns weekly he seems to be just fine — peachy, even. As you barely manage to adapt in an environment without him, he’s thriving without you — and you know it’s not specifically because of your absence, but still. It drives you crazy, the way you seem to cling on him for everything as he manages to handle even the most complicated things alone. 

The week ends, and you go back home — maybe it’s for the best, you try to reason with yourself. You’re not sure of how much you could go on without going crazy while seeing him being perfectly fine without you as you’re spending every day missing him, and you’re starting to doubt yourself. Maybe he just doesn’t need you as much as you need him, and that hurts, because you’ve spent all your life by his side and don’t really know how to change that.

You still try to put up a brave face when talking to him on the phone, even though you’ve been counting the days that remain until your graduation — and thus Clark’s next visit — and try to hide your anxiety about your college applications. Veterinary Science, you’ve chosen — pretty predictable for a farm girl who was raised around animals, really. Metropolis is your first choice, of course, but what you haven’t really told Clark are the other options — Gotham University, Central City College, and countless others that you don’t really want to mention to him. 

Truth is, you’re not sure you’ll be accepted into Met U, and even if you did — you’re still not sure it would be the best option. Clark seems to be holding up the fort just perfectly without you — and since you’ve visited him in Metropolis, you’ve had this horrendous itch that you just aren’t able to actually scratch. Would you be able to create the life he’s having, alone? Are you melancholic just because you’re in Smallville, and to you Smallville has always meant Clark Kent? Would it be the same if you weren’t here but somewhere else, like Gotham? 

Graduation day comes and goes, and not even Clark’s presence is able to bring you out of the existential crisis you feel you’re living in — because the thing is, you don’t really know how you would manage in a new city alone. You’ve never explored the idea because you’ve always taken for granted that Clark would’ve been there for you, but seeing the acceptance rate at Met U really gave you a reality check. 

You spend the day throwing mostly fake smiles at everyone that congratulates you and going back to frowning at your shoes once they notice Clark at your side, not able to ignore the pit that’s formed in your stomach at the thought of not being accepted at Metropolis University anymore. But why do you really want to go there, anyways? Because there’s Clark? As much as you love him, you don’t want to live your life tied to his side only to then discover you can’t actually function without him. 

And when, inevitably, the admission letters come back in, you try to act like you can keep it together — like you’re not nearly combusting at the mere idea of opening them. Clark comes over in the evening and you open them together, hearts thumping and feet tapping nervously against the ground. The first one you open, of course, is from Met U. 

Dear miss, this is in regard to your application to the Veterinary Science program at Metropolis University, Delaware; we regret to inform you that… 

You don’t even want to read the rest of the letter, immediately dropping it on the table and getting up from your seat to go take a breath of fresh air on the porch — trying to avoid the inevitable nervous breakdown waiting for you if you dare to look into Clark’s eyes. You don’t want to see the disappointment in them — you know he’d never really blame you, but you’ve been waiting for this moment for a whole year, and despite all your doubts you still wanted to be admitted. It’s, honestly, so humbling. 

Clark is smart enough to give you a couple of minutes to yourself, coming to sit beside you on the porch when he’s sure you won’t burst out crying as soon as he mentions the subject, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “It’s not the end of the world,” he hushers, pressing a kiss to your temple, “you’ve been accepted to GCU, which is still closer to Metropolis than Smallville. Or– or Star City, too, even if that’s a bit far– whatever makes you happy, I’ll support that.” 

You sniffle, rubbing the palm of your hand on your face. “You opened the other letters?” 

He chuckles quietly, “Wouldn’t rob you of the experience. X-ray vision, remember?” 

A small, broken laugh escapes you. “Oh, you and your outer-world powers.” he shares the laugh with you, the air lightening for just a moment before it goes back to heavy. “I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”

He flinches. “You– oh, sweetheart, no,” you can tell that he’s, for maybe the first time in his life, at a loss for words. “It’s… it’s just a mishap. They happen. It’s not your fault.” 

You hide your face in your knees and hug them tight against your chest. “I was already imagining us two happily living together in Metropolis.” you're now imagining yourself not able to live alone without him and ending up all alone in the new city, whatever one it’ll be. 

“And it will happen,” he assures you, “just, in… a couple of years. As soon as they let you transfer to Metropolis University.” 

Life goes on. You choose to pursue Gotham University, even if your parents are a little worried about the percentage of violent crimes there, and find a little apartment near campus in a complex that’s owned by the School Department and offered to the students for a modest price in one of the relatively safest areas in town. Clark helps you pack and even drives you all the way to Gotham when it’s time for the semester to start, unloading all your things in his truck and carrying them up the stairs to your unit. 

That being said, your roommate’s already there when you enter. “Jenna,” she introduces herself, enthusiastically shaking your hand as you let Clark do all the work in the background. She’s got a shirt with the drawing of a bat on and looks already settled in. “Heard you weren’t from around here, so I got you a little welcome present!” she passes you a glittery pink box with a bow on it, smiling excitedly. 

You blush, hesitantly accepting the gift, “Oh, there was no need–” 

She brushes you off with an easy smile, “Nonsense! Now, open it and tell me if you like it,” she’s buzzing with joy, and Clark curiously joins your side while wiping inexistent sweat from his forehead. You cautiously untie the ribbon, then open the box to reveal the gift, “It’s a…” you’re trying your best not to seem rude, but you’re really confused. “...A weirdly shaped bat?” Clark tries, not unkindly. 

Your roommate doesn’t seem too disheartened by the inexistent recognition of her gift. “It’s a Bat-taser!” she says it like there could be no doubt ever about it. “They’re really popular these days. Trust me, you’ll need it.” a fucking taser. Shaped like a bat–

Clark perks up, “Oh, yeah– is it from the guy that goes around dressed like a bat?”

Jenna claps like he’s won the lottery. “Batman, yeah!” 

You frown, “I’ve heard of him. Guys playing dress-up are getting really popular these days, aren’t they? Heard about a guy floating around in a horrendous green suit in Star City.” you lower your voice, making sure only Clark can hear you, “You sure he isn’t from your planet?” 

“I sure hope not,” he whispers back, “would really taint the whole mysterious thing about being from an unknown planet, you know?” 

Bat-taser aside, you find out pretty soon that Jenna’s actually really cool. She was born and raised in Gotham, apparently, and lunged at the idea of moving into a safer area of the city when given the opportunity. “Things are actually crazy around here,” she tells you as soon as Clark leaves — thank God, because the last thing you want is a far-away worried boyfriend that shriekes in fear every time you have to go out. “Got even crazier when Batman started going around. We’ve got so many insane criminals that a whole island’s basically dedicated to them.” 

“You mean Arkham,” you recall, slouched on the couch beside her, “so the stories about the asylum are true?” 

“Probably even watered down,” she muses, “the city’s had more lockdowns than sunny days these last few years.” 

Well, isn’t that exciting. Something tells you that soon, you’ll learn exactly why Bat-tasers are so popular these days.

You adjust to life in Gotham pretty well — to be back home before the sun sets, to use all the locks on the door even if it’s still just noon and never ever leave a single window open. You and Jenna have the disadvantage of the balcony — a tiny little crane that looks onto the street below —, disadvantage, you learn confusedly, because apparently Batman and his friends (aka the lunatics that he follows around in the city) often swing by those and either break the rails (in Batman’s case) or straight up break-in (in the lunatics' case). 

Adapting to Gotham is hard — but still easier, you must say, than adapting to a Smallville without Clark. It’s a new city, after all, void of any memories and full of new things, and soon enough you’re too immersed into your studies and the new city to constantly miss your boyfriend's presence. 

It’s not that you don’t miss him — you do — it’s just different than in Smallville. It doesn’t feel like something — someone — is constantly missing, and you have enough things on your mind to keep Clark’s absence out of your mind until mid to late evening, when usually one of you calls the other to talk about how things are going. 

Jenna helps, too — you find yourself being more close to her than you could ever imagine. It’s more like having a sister rather than a roommate, really. She manages somehow to get you a job at the same animal clinic she works at, and you've discovered more things that people can do in the last few months in Gotham than in your eighteen years of life, and that’s probably where farm life has stunted you. 

She offers you your first cigarette — not really a cigarette, she specifies, it’s made out of natural herbs that should taste like strawberry or something like that — and soon enough you purchase two ten-dollar fold-in chairs from Target just for the thrill of sitting in your little hazardy balcony while gossiping about the other students or one of her fifty family members. 

“And you?” she asks during a Saturday night in October, spent happily freezing outside while bundled up in a blanket each, “I bet at least one interesting thing happened in your eighteen years spent in your little farm town.”

You think about Clark flying and holding up cows and tractors like they’re berries, “The most interesting thing that can happen in Smallville is a particularly nice harvest. Even though I do recall that the milkman’s wife cheated on him with the mailman a couple of years ago.” 

For Christmas, obviously, you go back home. Jenna tells you that she’ll take care of the plants and make sure that nobody dares to break in, even if she’s back to her parents in Chinatown. Clark picks you up at the Metropolis' train station, greeting you with a tight hug and a loving kiss, and you make the two-hour drive to Smallville together, chatting quietly about how the last few months have been. Not surprisingly, even with the distance between you two shortening to eighty-seven miles rather than the hundred from Smallville, you haven’t really had the time to see each other. 

Something’s going on with Clark. You’re not really sure what it is, but the look in his eyes troubles you. He looks dazed, almost dull, and he isn’t anything like your usual loverboy Kent is. 

“Hey,” you whisper to him on Christmas Eve night, as everyone chatters happily while waiting for midnight to open the presents, “everything alright?”

“Mh?” he looks taken aback. “Oh, yeah, I’m just…” he sighs, slumping his head against your shoulder, “lost in my own thoughts, I think.” 

“Well, what about them?”

His brows furrow. “Not sure yet.” he looks up at you, pretty blue eyes shining under the dim light of the living room, “Do you ever think that my powers should be used for good?”

You stay silent for a moment. “I think you’re too kind to use them in any way but for good. Why?”

“I don’t mean ‘helping my parents in the farm’ good,” he nuzzles his nose on your shoulder, leaving a faint kiss there. “I mean, like, ‘helping citizens during a crisis’ good.” 

You blink. “You’ve got a heart of gold, Clark Kent,” you hush lovingly, pressing a kiss into his curls, “but as much as I love that about you, I don’t think you should put that burden on your shoulders. If you could, you’d help everyone, but that can’t really be possible. There’ll always be an old lady you couldn’t help walking the street, or a girl you couldn’t save from a mugger.”

His eyes are so soft that they might melt you too. “Why are you telling me this?”

You frown in the most gentle way possible. “Because I’m worried that if you start being like Green Lantern or– or Batman, you’ll never be able to come to terms with the people you weren’t able to help.”

“I still could try to help,” he argues without any spite. 

You study his face — oh, your sweet, sweet boy… “Jenna told me stories,” you murmur, “about Batman having to crawl back to his car, bloodied and barely alive, and sometimes even fainting in some God-forgotten alley — saved only because of some good samaritans that helped him get back up on his feet. I… I know that you might feel like you have a mission, Clark, but you have to consider the downsides of it.” you shake your head gently, “I don’t want you to be the man lying half-dead in a dark alley while I wonder why you’re so late to dinner.” 

Of course, none of you knows the true extent of Clark’s powers — that happens when someone has to hide them for all of his life. When the winter break comes to an end, you go back to Gotham with Clark like always, but this time the car ride is silent. He drops you off at your apartment, carries your luggage up the stairs and kisses you goodbye like nothing’s wrong — like the air isn’t heavy with something. 

Your days go on like always — you listen to your lessons, study, have a half-decent lunch with Jenna, listen to some more lessons, do your shift at the animal clinic and get back home before the sun goes down. The calls with Clark have slightly lessened, and you’d like to think that the blame can be put on the shoulders of the exam season, which — you are sure of it — is kicking both of your asses. Everything continues just fine until April comes. 

Clark calls, which by now it’s unusual because it’s always you that calls him. “Hello?” Your reply comes after a few rings, because it’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday and you sure as hell weren’t thinking about getting out of bed before it was time for lunch. Silence meets you on the other end. “I said, hello?”

“Hi,” Clark’s voice is the tiniest squeal, a very unusual thing for him — he’s never insecure about something, and when he is, you talk it out like the responsible people you’d like to think you are. 

You sigh softly on the phone, already fighting back sleep, “Hi, baby,” you yawn loudly, “what’s up?” 

“I, um…” he stutters for a bit, maybe unsure of where to start. “I’m in town for a couple of commissions. Are you up for a coffee?” 

Well, if that doesn’t wake you up, you don’t know what would. “You’re here? In Gotham?” 

“Yeah.” you do hear the ever persistent GCPD sirens screech on his end of the line. 

“Not that I’m mad about it, but why?” 

Another weird silence. “I told you, had a couple of commissions to run.”

It confuses you — what kind of job would Clark have to do in Gotham, and why didn’t he even tell you about it before coming here? — but you just shrug it off, taking for granted that he’ll explain everything about it when you see him. You get ready to meet him downtown quite happily, thinking about maybe a surprise, but nothing could really prepare you for what’s about to come. 

“I think we should break up.” 

The words ring in your ears. You’ve never pondered about the option of Clark and you breaking up — honestly, you’ve known him for so long that it just wasn’t even a thought in your head. Ever since you were little, you’d dreamed of the day you’d finally be able to marry Clark Kent and have the life you’d always fantasized about with him. 

The café he told you to meet him in is nice. Not one of the fancy ones in uptown Gotham, but not even one of the worst ones down in Crime Alley. You’re pretty sure you’d actually be able to enjoy it if it wasn’t for the fact that your boyfriend of four years is dumping you in it and you have no idea why. You can’t even form an actual thought, let alone an intelligent one, so the only thing that escapes your mouth is, “Uh?” 

He doesn’t look so comfortable either. It’s your first time getting dumped, but it’s also his first time dumping someone, you guess. “I just think it’s not working anymore between us. That we may need some time to figure things out on our own.” the shock must be written on your face, because he almost flinches. “Don’t look at me like that, please.”

“A cappuccino, an espresso and a croissant,” the waitress pretends not to listen as she brings you guys your order, but you saw her staring earlier. You shake your head in disbelief as soon as she leaves, pinching the bridge of your nose to try to make sense of anything that’s happening right now. “So you mean to tell me that the commission you had to do in Gotham… was to break up with me?” 

He grimaces. “Don’t say it like that,” 

“How else should I put it?” you hiss, “Clark, we’ve been together for four years — friends for all my existence even before that. You’ve been in my life since I can remember and you want to break up with me with the whole ‘I don’t think it’s working anymore’ bullshit? No, my guy, you’ll have to tell me a lot more than that. What is up with you?”

He presses his lips together for a brief moment, “I managed to get my degree earlier than I expected,” he almost stumbles over his words, “I… it was always my intention, but I didn’t think I’d actually manage to do so in such a brief period of time.” 

You blink. “You never told me that.” 

“I– I never told anyone, actually.” now he’s actively avoiding your eyes while nervously playing with his fingers, “Clark, it’s not a thing you just casually avoid to mention. You turned a three to four year program into a year and a half course. That’s a big thing. You should’ve told me– I would’ve done my best to support you.” 

His eyes are shiny, and it’s not just because of the light hitting them in just the right way. “I’m leaving.” 

You blink. “What?” 

He gives you a sad smile — and that makes you shudder, because in your entire life you’ve never ever seen Clark Kent smile like that. It’s honestly scary; he’s made for happy smiles, not for sad half-crapped ones. “I’m leaving,” he repeats gently, “I want to find out more about my biological parents — about my home planet. I think I’ve just found a way to do that, and I don’t know exactly for how long I’ll be gone.” he blinks away the tears, “And I can’t leave if I know that I’ve left you behind waiting for me.” 

“How long will you be gone?” you almost don’t hear yourself asking — it’s like that’s not even your voice. You have no idea how you still haven’t started crying. 

His voice is almost as little as yours. “I don’t know. I’d like to think it could be just a few months, but… something tells me it’ll be years.” 

You’re not sure how you get back home, but you somehow do. Jenna is on the couch, eating ice cream for breakfast, and chirps happily when she sees you. “Hey, I was getting worried! How did it go with Prince Charming?" you make it to your room before you throw yourself on the bed and start ugly crying uncontrollably. 

You don’t know life without Clark Kent. You’ve been inseparable since forever, and you always thought he’d be one of the only constants in your life — turns out, he had other plans. Yes, it’s true that you wanted to experience life in the big city without him, but that doesn’t mean you wanted him completely out of your life — you just wanted to see how well you’d do. (Ditched for unknown and dead parents, by the way? That has to be a new low.) 

Jenna tries her best to boost your morale — even buys you that one Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream that she hates with passion but that you love— but in the end, everything proves to be useless, and you end up going on with your life while trying to pretend that you have it all together. 

Class. Study. Lunch. Class. Work. Back at home. Repeat. 

Of course, you barely manage to keep it together. Every hour not spent doing the things you have to do is spent in bed contemplating your life and the exact moment where it got real shitty. Somewhere along the first week Ma Kent calls, probably alerted by your mother about the break up, but you really don’t have the heart nor the strength needed to respond to her call. You’re relieved when she avoids calling a second time — probably knowing that you need some space and that she’s not the first person you’d want to hear after something like this — because you don’t really know how you could’ve avoided to reply for a second time while watching her name grace the screen. 

Week two passes and things get even worse for you, so much so that you have to call in sick to work thanks to the sore throat that you find yourself with after crying uncontrollably for almost all night every night. You can tell Jenna’s fed up, because even with all her strength, it seems as if she can’t help you at all. 

“You know, I once broke up with an italian guy over distance,” she tries to reason, sprawled on your bed as you lie face down as if dead — you have yet to actually explain to her why you and Clark broke up, so she’s still thinking that it was because of all the miles separating you. “He has yet to tell his mother– and it’s been two years. She still sends me a whole box of Italian cheeses for every holiday.” she suddenly perks up, “Maybe I’ll be graced with some of the famous Ma Kent pie one day. I hope she sends a piece for your birthday.”

Your hiccup is muffled by the pillow. “Right, yeah, sorry. Not the best thing to say right now. You don’t need to mourn Ma Kent’s pie too. You’ll do that once you’re ready.” 

“I’ll never be ready to mourn Martha’s pie,” you groan. You could get over Clark Kent, but not his mother's pies. Your ma's still friends with her, so you doubt that you’ll never eat it again, but you’ll have no reason to come over to the Kent’s farm as much as you did before. 

Two days later, entering the third week post break up, Jenna has had enough — and she barges into your room with a plan. “We’re going out.”

As always, your reply comes out muffled, “Ion wan’ to.” 

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to,” she tears off the duvet from your body and takes a hold of your ankles, literally dragging you out of bed as you shriek, “I just said that we are going out!”

She makes sure you dress up decently before dragging you out of the house and into her car, making sure the child lock is on — wouldn’t want you to jump out of the vehicle as she’s driving — before starting the engine. “I signed you up for an audition.”

You look at her, frowning, pretty sure your ears have betrayed you and made you hear wrong. “I’m sorry, what?”

Her smile is so genuine that it would be hard to find the will to smack her. “I signed you up for an audition,” she repeats without any sign of remorse, “you know Flowers n’ Kisses? The shop uptown? They’re looking for new models to renew the brand, make it younger. And you, my dear, with your little sad eyes and red cheeks from all the crying, will be perfect.”

You stare at her, bewildered. “Are you well?”

“What? It’s true that you look your best right after crying!” 

“Are you saying I should be sad more often?”

“Of course not! I’m just saying that at least one good thing should come out of this situation — besides, don’t look at me like that, you know you’re already sad all the time. I just think that we should take advantage of your puffy, irritated, cute face. Besides, it’s just to try something new! Who knows, maybe you’ll like the lights of the camera and having to pose and all the pretty dresses they’ll put you in.” you highly doubt that, but you let it go in favour of your remaining sanity.

There’s at least twenty other people at the audition when you arrive to the location — and this is only the three PM slot, Jenna whispers to you conspiratorially — and you raise an eyebrow when you see the other girls there, because they’re gorgeous and you’re starting to wonder if there were any demands for this interview. “Jenna, are you sure there aren’t any requirements for this kind of thing?” 

“Oh, there were,” she assures you, “I had to put a couple of your pictures in the form before they gave me a time for your audition. I tried to apply too, but they rejected me.” she sighs dramatically, clinging to your arm, “But if I can’t chase my dream of marrying a ninety-year-old multi-billionaire and living the rest of my life filthy rich, then you might as well follow up for me! And don’t forget about me when you’re going on vacation to Tenerife with your boyfriend’s super expensive and huge yacht…” 

“You’re sick,” you mutter, completely fed up, “and not in the good sense. I’m sure there’s people in Arkham down on the worst levels that are much more reasonable than you.” you sigh, feeling the by-now familiar punch to the gut that follows every single thought about him, “I don’t care about yachts. I would’ve been just happy with a little apartment in Metropolis with Clark.”

She groans dramatically, “Oh, please! What was so great about this guy? Was he the genie of the lamp or something? Was he that good in bed?”

You sniffle. “You’re so cruel. He was my everything.”

“He’s a guy! An average one, at best!” 

“You take that back–” you’re about to strangle her because Clark Kent is definitely above the average male population but get conveniently stopped by the call of your name. It’s the PR manager, you assume, and he smiles kindly at you when Jenna takes your hand and raises it up like he’s a teacher making a difficult question and you’re a student eager to reply. “Please come with me, this way.” 

You find out his name is Roy and he’s better at make up than you are — you stare at his perfect eyeliner with envy as he leads you to a room with a camera set up and a table with other people quietly chatting. You already feel awkward just by standing there, and you’d be lying if you said that you were ready for this thing, so you find yourself thinking about Jenna’s dreams to force yourself to go on. Think about Tenerife and a yacht. Think about Tenerife and a yacht. Think about– 

“So, miss,” a redhead at the center of the table smiles at you, leaning her chin on her intertwined fingers, “are you ready to start?”

You'd be lying if you said that you got out of there without feeling stupid. They made you walk into a straight line with music in the background, asked you to pose, took a few pictures and then just started asking questions about your life, saying something about wanting to know the personality of the candidates. You feel so relieved when you walk out that room that suddenly being single doesn’t look as bad as staying ten minutes more in that hell hole. 

Jenna doesn’t seem to be too worried about your relief about being out of there. “So?” she asks excitedly, “How did it go?” 

“I doubt they’ll call back,” you weren’t that terrible, but you’re sure that much more qualified people auditioned for this thing — and even if they didn’t, you’d seen at least fifteen girls that look like they could rock the style of Flowers n’ Kisses way better than you, “but if they do, I’m not replying. Please don’t make me do that again, like, ever. We don’t need an ancient husband to have a yacht, we can just steal one. Seems way more doable to me.” 

Except that they actually call back. And you hadn’t put into the equation the fact that while registering you for the audition, Jenna was smart enough to put her cellphone number in it instead of yours. 

“You signed me up for another thing?”

“I had to! They were happy about your audition and wanted to schedule the day for the shoot of the campaign!”

“What campaign–”

“The one for the summer collection! Aw, c’mon, they’ll pay you eight hundred something dollars and give you some free clothes too–” 

You want to smash your forehead into the wall — but then again, she wouldn’t let you do that, because your forehead is on your face and your face will be on an ad of some kind. “I wouldn’t risk having a restful sleep if I were you,” you hiss, “because I think that one of these days I’ll become one of the many maniacs that help the violent crimes rate be so high, and rest assured that you’ll be my first victim.” 

Jenna doesn’t seem to worry about that, and as it turns out she’s right to be — because on the day pre-established you still make yourself presentable and head to the studios where the photoshoot’s supposed to be at 7 a.m. sharp like requested. 

The same PR guy you met at the audition greets you first with a smile and a hand shake, “Roy Chamler,” he introduces himself — you only notice you didn’t know his full name when he says it. You were so nervous at the audition that you barely introduced yourself, let alone asked the name of the other people there. “PR manager and guy in charge of the campaign. Is this your first time participating in something like this?”

You cringe. “Yeah, is it that obvious?” 

He shrugs, smiling at you. “I’ve made it work with worse in my hands. You were chosen in the end, weren’t you?” 

The day starts with a worryingly high stack of paperwork in need to be signed. “Your contract,” Roy explains, patting it, “the rights for your image and copyright, parties involved, payment times, everything.”

You frown, “Is it normal for employees to sign their contract on the first day of work?” 

It’s his time to cringe. “No. It’s just that… the owner of the brand — Mrs Livvie, she was at the audition — is a very demanding woman. She called me a month ago about making the campaign and I have barely a week left to organize the rest. So, please, even if the conditions of this job are weird, please bear with me.” 

You sigh. “Alright. Where will the pictures of the shoot be exposed, exactly?” 

He cringes even more. “I… it’s all in the contract. You know, before Mrs Livvie, it was her father who thought about the brand. Then it was passed down and she wanted to do a lot of things, but it’s clear that she still doesn’t really know her way around. So, the thing is, it will depend on how much her and the other owners like the shoot.” he tilts his head, “I wouldn’t say more than a couple of posters around town and maybe some internet ads, though.” 

You sign the contract while not trying to overthink too much about your face being splattered around the internet, and as soon as Roy gets his hands on the paperwork you’re dragged into a room that positively looks like a spa. A girl gets immediately around to work on your hair as another worries about your nails, and you have to admit that if submitting to this thing meant a free manicure and hairdo you’d have gotten here even earlier than needed to. The make-up is the last thing on the list, right after the clothes, and then you’re ready for the shoot.

The whole ordeal lasts about five hours — five grueling hours, during which you have to change outfit, make up and hairdo one time too many for the day to still be considered relaxing. You go back home with your hair still in the last slickback they gave you, mascara a little smudged from all the times you rubbed your eyes during the train ride, and a bag full of clothes to wear this summer. Roy tells you that the ads should be up somewhere between next week and the one after that, takes your actual phone number and promises to call you if any problem with the campaign emerges. 

Meanwhile, you're surprisingly starting to accept the fact that Clark dumped you and probably will never get back with you, that he’s now who-knows-where doing who-knows-what with who-knows-who. Actually, you’re starting to get mad — how dare he not tell you about his plans? For how long was he thinking about just disappearing? You were out there dreaming about a future with him and he just–

“Yo,” oh. Is your mental health that bad that now your dreams are angry about Clark, too? Because you’re in bed, it’s been a little over a week since the shoot and Jenna is shaking you awake. “Yo. You did not tell me the campaign was so serious.” 

Still groggy, you barely find the strength to raise your head from the pillow, “Whatcha mean?”

“The billboard,” she hisses, “you didn’t tell me they were going to put your pictures on a billboard.”

That wakes you up instantly. “They what?” 

Sure enough, there’s a big ass billboard with a picture of you in a strawberry shirt and a pair of low-rise jeans while subtly smiling at the camera from the side (under the brand’s name and motto, of course) right in the middle of Union Square — literally the most trafficked place in all of Gotham. You’re about to slap yourself in the face because there’s simply no way they actually put a whole billboard of you when they said it was gonna be just a couple of ads online and maybe some posters around town. You suddenly fear what they’ll do with the pictures of you in that one blue tankini.

“Dear God,” you utter in disbelief. 

Jenna blinks. “If it reassures you, you do look good. It’s the sad eyes, I think. They give you depth.” 

“I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face around ever again,” you’re on the verge of tears, “how will I manage to get around on campus again? No, Jenna, I’m finding a house in the Appalachians and hiding there for the rest of my life–” 

“But you can’t! This is one picture and you’re really shining in it– why can’t you embrace this? Maybe it’s a good thing! Do you know how much models make–”

“Jenna!” you shriek, “My photo is on a fucking billboard right in front of Wayne Tower! Can’t you understand I just want to bury myself in the ground and die?”

“Well, maybe it’ll make Bruce Wayne fall in love with you as he’s forced to see your face every day.” she jokes, “And then I’ll be able to get my vacation on a yacht–”

“We are not going on vacation with Bruce Wayne,” you hiss, “have you seen one footage of him with any woman? God knows what he puts in their — and his — drink to act like that.”

“I think of him as someone who’s actively drunk all the time without even drinking, and his company is surely not better than him.” she shrugs, “Besides, he’s not that older than you. You would be happier with him rather than with the ninety-year-old billionaire."

You blanch. “I’ll be happy if they both leave me alone.” 

They will, unfortunately, not leave you alone, you find out soon. Because thanks to the spike in sales, not even two weeks after the ads are made public the management of Flowers n’ Kisses organises a gala with all of its associates and investors, and you — just like the other models who do runways and are the face of previous campaigns — are contract-bound to participate, because– well. Your face is scattered all over the city while wearing their clothes — it would be weird if you didn’t show up, no? 

And guess who is one of the biggest associates of Flowers n’ Kisses? Exactly. Fucking Wayne Industries. Guess your dream of not becoming one of Bruce Wayne’s victims as the latest coming model — not that you would describe yourself as one, but you guess that his definition of model is much more wider than yours — in Gotham may be a little more difficult to achieve, since if they could talk, he would probably try to have one-night stands with walls too. 

Roy calls again to arrange for you to get a dress, one from the newest collection that you hadn’t had the chance of trying out, and thankfully he doesn’t seem too mad about the last time you called him — you had insulted him so much about the billboard that you almost discovered new curse words. “You know, I got a few calls about you,” he says, ecstatic, “people love you! I’ve got the list of a few other brands that would like a contract with you–”

You shut the idea before it gets a little too deep into his head. “No. Bye, I have an exam to study for.” 

The event’s in some fancy, fancy rented mansion’s ballroom — incredible that they still have those, by the way — and the timing’s just right, because tomorrow morning you have a test, and you’re already mumbling names and descriptions under your breath before they even get you in that evening dress. And about the dress– it’s dark blue, with little embroidered silver stars around your hips, tight where it needs to be and softer as it reaches your legs. They give you a pair of silver kitten heels to match the stars around the dress, and even if they do kill your feet a little, you have to admit that you look good. 

Getting out of the room where they dolled you up, you immediately notice another woman at the end of the hallway — probably one of the other models of the brand, hopefully one more experienced than you. She seems to notice you too, and waves a hand up to catch your attention, “Hey! You must be the new girl they told me about,” 

She’s stunning, with chocolate skin and honey eyes and a dress that — you guess — is made to be worn right next to yours, because while your gown resembles the night, hers resembles the dawn, with an embroidered red sun on her waist. She offers you her hand, which you shake without any questions, “I’m Kelly,” she introduces herself, “Roy asked me to keep an eye out for you — didn’t want you to feel lost. She knows these types of gatherings can be scary, and I’m happy to help a new recruit out.” Kelly does look a bit older and experienced than you — early thirties, at most, even if she does carry them well. 

“Thank God,” you can’t really hide your relief, “I was afraid I had to do all of this alone.” 

She giggles, “I remember being this scared too. You’re doing it well, though, from what I have seen — you came out perfect in the pictures, I really couldn’t believe it was your first shoot,” 

You feel your face get hotter at her words, “Thanks,” you manage to squeal out as she guides you into the ballroom, where the main event is held, “It’s the sad eyes, I think.” she adds. You’re one more comment about your sad eyes apart from imploding. “I don’t tend to like these events, but usually the food is pretty nice, so that’s a plus. I’d avoid any drink already served if I were you, though,”

Thankfully, you soon find out that you two were put at the same table — great thing for you, because you really don’t want to socialize more than you actually need to. The other people around the table are mostly boring investors and owners of shares, who don’t seem interested in asking anything more than what’s expected in a common conversation — your name, age, what do you do in life. One kind old lady asks you more about university and looks actually interested in hearing you repeat the subject of your exam tomorrow, until you are rudely interrupted by a voice calling out for you just as the dessert is being served. 

“Oh, there she is!” you’ve only seen her once, but you do recognize Mrs Livvie from the audition — you did not forget those striking red hair of hers. Beside her, your latest possible obstacle: in all his striking glory, Bruce Wayne. “This is our latest golden girl, miss…” it’s clear that she has forgotten your name, which you kindly suggest to her, “Right! A real sweetheart. Anyways, this is Kelly Th–”

“I know Kelly,” he interrupts her, giving her and your — hopefully — latest friend a kind smile. “I remember her from the runway for the autumn collection.” he turns his gaze to you, “I’ve never met you, though, which is really a shame because you’re stunning. You know, the billboard with one of your photos is right in front of my office, which is the motivation to get on time around the office I just needed.” well, if this isn’t your nightmare come true. 

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Mrs Livvie looks at you, “this is Mr Wayne–”

“Please,” he looks directly at you in a way that would normally have you swooning, but that from him just makes you quite worried. “Just Bruce will go.” 

You give him a tight-lipped smile, “Sure.” 

“Weird that I have never seen you before,” he continues, “usually models start young, but I’m happy that Nina found you — you’re a real jewel, miss. May I ask why you — or your parents — never thought of putting you out there?” 

“Well, I never knew about this talent of mine until now.”

He smiles, chuckling quietly, “Well, you don’t sound like you’re from around here, either, am I right?”

You nod. “Yessir — I’m from Smallville, a little farm town a couple of hundreds of miles from here.” you hope that being the daughter of farmers will scare off a playboy that is known to socialize with rich people. It doesn’t. 

“Well, if you ever need anything,” he takes out a business card from his breast pocket with a pen and scribbles something on it, then gives it to you, “please don’t hesitate to call me. I’m at your disposal.” 

You don’t reply, getting a weird look from all the people on the table before Mrs Livvie quickly brings his attention elsewhere — hopefully away from you. Kelly looks at you, delighted, “Well, miss girl, that is the offer of a lifetime.” 

You snort, looking unamusedly at the private number scribbled on the card. “I doubt I’ll ever use it.”

Summer break comes a lot faster than you’d expected. 

You’re not sure it’s a good thing. You still haven’t exactly come to terms with what happened with Clark now almost three months ago and the thought of seeing your parent’s farm draped with pictures of you and him from when you two were kids nauseates you. Besides, you just know that your mother talked to everyone who willing to listen about your newfound talent as a model, even if you only did one shoot. It’s also your first time doing the trip from Gotham to Smallville alone, and you opt to just use the train after seeing the whopping prices for a taxi.

Your father picks you up at the Midvale train station, teary eyed and with arms wide open to hug you. “My baby,” he says trembly, once you are in his arms “oh, it seems like it’s been years since Christmas,” 

You laugh tearily. “Oh, trust me, I know.” 

The car trip is filled with conversation and love. “Oh– did your mother tell you we adopted a dog?”

You perk up. “Oh, did you, now?”

Your father nods, “Dunno what kind o’ dog he is. All I know is he’s yellow. We found him on the side of the road to the farmer’s market a coupla’ weeks ago and he won’t leave your mother's side since then. We tried to ask around, see if he was someone’s dog — nobody knew anything, so her resolve was just to take him home.” he looks at you, cracking up with laughter. “You wanna know what she called him?” 

You grin, loving to see your father so serene. “Do tell me.” 

“Batman!” his laughter gets even louder, “Batman, you get it? Said, it’s after the psycho that runs around in a Halloween costume and makes sure that my daughter’s city doesn’t burn down. I really owe him. Have you ever even seen him, or is he just some kind of urban legend?”

You crack up with laughter too, half from hearing him laugh so openly, half for the actual story, “No, no,” you wheeze, “never seen him, but I do know people that have. I just don’t get out late enough for him to be running around yet, I fear.” 

It’s with relief that, once you enter the farm, you notice that all the pictures of you and Clark have either disappeared or been replaced. You know your mother’s too much of a sentimentalist to get rid of them, so they’re probably carefully hidden in some drawer — but that doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate her gesture. She hugs you tightly and kisses you on both cheeks before calling out for the dog — which you find out is a golden retriever — to meet you. 

The next three weeks are spent helping your parents around the farm and bringing Batman — or, as your mother calls him, Battie — in the fields so that he can run as much as he likes. You gotta admit that you also do it to try to form new memories of the place — because you simply can’t spend the rest of your life brooding as soon as you go back there to visit your parents. 

You avoid the old classmates to prevent any questions about Clark. You don’t visit the Kents. You’d like to, but honestly, you are ashamed — ashamed because Martha had called back when you and Clark had just broken up, and yet you never called her back or replied. Or sent a message. Or a postcard. Did you really ghost a nice old lady? Because that has to be some kind of new low.

It’s your mom that tries to get you back to sanity. “Martha and Jon did nothing to you,” she tells you, angered, when you refuse to take the muffins she’s just baked to their farm, “and you are going to say hi to them because they’ve always been nothing but nice to you!”

That’s how you end up at the porch of the Kent’s farm, a tray of still steaming muffins in your hands as you anxiously wait for either of them to answer the door. You almost burst out in tears when it’s Martha that greets you — because, you have to admit, you’ve missed them too. And as she invites you in and calls Jon down to say hi to you too, not mentioning that call you had completely ignored — you thank the universe that at least you didn’t lose them too with Clark. 

You return to Gotham feeling shittier than ever, but, hey! At least you got some nice pie while you were in Smallville, since you can’t really say that you and Jenna cook real food when you have to eat. The University’s not back open just yet, so you spend most of your days picking more shifts at work so that people that actually go on vacation can do it without any remorse or trouble. 

You’re worrying about getting every animal at the clinic fed when the bell of the door rings out in the waiting room. “I’ll be there in a minute!” you call out, petting a cat and putting him back into his carrier as he meowles happily around the meat stick you just gave him — a good enough treat in exchange to being neutered, you hope. 

You exit the backroom and go back to the front desk, “So, how can I help–” your eyebrows raise. “Mr Wayne?” 

In all his glory, surely. He’s right in front of you, smiling, hair slicked back and sunglasses hanging from the neckline of his shirt. “I thought I asked you to call me Bruce,” he says, not unkindly. 

You try not to grimace. The last thing you wanted for him was to find out where you worked. “Yeah, sorry,” you press your lips into a thin line, “how can I help you?” 

“I was thinking about adopting a dog.” this actually surprises you, because you didn’t think billionaires had the time for animals — and even if they did find the time to get them a petsitter, you’d taken for granted that they would buy the fancy breed ones. “I was thinking about getting a german shepherd, I told your friend Kelly at last week’s Prada runway and she suggested coming here since apparently this clinic collaborates with the local shelter.” 

“We do,” you nod, “they’re running out of space and we have a decent sized backyard for them to play in and some rooms for the animals to stay in.” you open a drawer on the desk, taking out a folder with all the registered pets, “We mostly have the injured ones that are recovering, but I’m not sure about german shepherds. I do think there’s a mixed one though– there!” you stop at one of the pages and turn the folder for him to see the picture of a dog with brown fur and a star-shaped white patch on his forehead. 

“This is Ace– he’s a retired K-9, mixed german shepherd. He’s just two, but was shot during an inspection and has been limping ever since. Nobody in the police department could adopt him, so we took him in. He’s been doing well with the recovery and we’re trying to rehabilitate him to normal as to our best abilities.” 

He nods,  “Looks like a cute dog. Can I see him?”

You show him the way to the backroom with all the strays, stopping at Ace’s crate. He immediately raises his snout from his paws, tail wagging as he sees you, “Well, this is him,” you sneak a hand between the rails to give him a pet, “one of the nicest dogs we have here — if you want, you could take him on a walk today or when you want. Usually we ask for at least four outings before permitting the adoption — to see if the owner and the pet are compatible, y’know.” 

He nods, “So, I can take him out today and then come back in the next few days to later on adopt him?” 

You lean your head, “If everything goes well, yes.” 

“Perfect– I’d like to take him on a walk right away, then, if possible.”

You get a collar for Ace and a leash for Bruce after getting the dog out of its crate, then put a couple of treats in a little paper bag with some toys. You attach the leash to Ace’s collar and give it to his aspiring owner with the paper bag, “Wait a moment, I’ll tell my coworker that I’m going out and then we can go,”

Mr Wayne perks up, suddenly interested in something else rather than the dog, “You’re coming with us?” 

You raise an eyebrow at him, “Of course. The outings before adoption are always supervised.” 

You come back after alerting your coworker that you’re going out, then exit the clinic with Bruce — who's handling a definitely too excited Ace — on tow. It’s weird seeing a blue Rolls Royce parked right in front of where you work, as usually the most expensive thing that’s parked there is a FedEx van. “There’s a dog park just around the corner — we often bring customers there for supervised outings.” 

Bruce Wayne looks so out of place in such a funny way at the dog park that you barely manage to keep your laugh in; in his Armani tailored coat as Ace, finally without a leash in the dog fence at the park, looks thrilled to play with him, it’s so obvious that he’s never been in this kind of situation. “Are you sure he’s still in rehab?” he squeals, as the dog tackles him to the ground and licks his whole face clean. “He’s– aargh!– definitely in better shape than me!”

Your laugh finally blesses his ears. “That just means he likes you, Mr Wayne! Be nice to him, or he’ll think you’re friendzoning him.” 

Ace is a good dog. It’s like he’s got a sixth sense for bad people — he never barks at kind customers, only at the rude ones, so you guess that’s kinda his talent. And since it’s never betrayed you, you admit that maybe — just maybe — Bruce Wayne isn’t that bad of a person as you thought he would be. 

He comes back to the clinic for three days in a row, just what he needed to be able to adopt the retired K-9. He always suspiciously shows up during your shifts, with mysteriously not a single paparazzi on sight and always the same Rolls Royce. On the second day he got there with brand new toys — some for Ace, some in donation for the other pets awaiting a loving owner — and a new collar with a bone-shaped metal tag with a bold ACE engraved on it.

Saturday’s the last day of the supervised period, and just as the last three days, you find yourself leaning over the railing of the fence that limitates the unrestrained dog area, watching them play like they’ve known each other for years. It’s a rare connection to see forming with a guard dog — they usually need time to adapt to new people, but apparently Ace didn’t. He took one look at Bruce and thought yeah, I want to munch on his atelier shoes for the rest of my life. 

“You know, I think it really was love at first sight,” you tell him as you walk back to the clinic.

Bruce looks at you like for a second he forgot you were talking about his dog. “You really think so?”

You laugh, “Yeah, I mean, have you seen him? He’s wagging his tail like crazy and he met you three days ago. It’s like he knows you’re taking him home today.” 

His shoulders deflate a little as he understands that you’re talking about him and Ace. “Yeah, well, I’m happy that he’s happy.” 

“Why do you want a dog, by the way?” you realise just now that you hadn’t asked, having taken for granted that he just wanted one for show, but now it’s clear that it isn’t. 

He shrugs, “To keep me company. I guess I just want someone other than my butler greeting me at the door when I get home. Besides, I liked playing with him — it’s a win-win: I get to destress about work and he gets to play catch.” he pets Ace’s head as you reach the clinic, “Don’t you, boy?” 

You go behind the desk and immediately get to work, preparing the paperwork for the adoption, “So– here, fill out this form and this one. There’s a ten dollar fee on every adoption, but I guess it shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

He chuckles. “I should have a fifty dollar bill in my wallet — you can keep the change.” he coughs a bit as he starts to fill out the paperwork, “You know, I, uh… I didn’t come here just because I wanted a dog. I wanted to talk to you.”

You square him up and down. “Yeah. We talked the last three days.”

“Oh, no, I mean–” he looks honestly embarrassed, “I was… I was wondering why you didn’t call me back after the event.”

You blink — you had completely forgotten about the business card rotting in your bedside drawer with his private number written on it. You must be the first girl that doesn’t call him back after receiving such an opportunity. “Well, you told me to call if I needed anything, and I have yet to be in need of anything.” 

“I–” he sighs, “I was hoping I’d see you at the following Flowers n’ Kisses event, but you weren’t there.” 

You raise an eyebrow in the politest way you can muster up. “Yeah. It was a lunch on a Monday. I had an exam.” you actually started ghosting Roy as soon as he started suggesting coming to events not included in your contract, but that’s a story for another time. 

It seems you aren’t really getting what he’s trying to say, Bruce understands. He takes a deep breath, “What I meant to say is… that I was wondering if you wanted to grab a coffee one of these days.” 

You stare at him, bewildered, then point to yourself. “Me?” 

He looks even more bewildered than you. “…Yeah. Would… would you like that?”

“I mean, I,” you aren’t really understanding if he’s interested you in a romantic sense — which would be absolute bonkers, by the way — or if the conversations of the last few days just made him want another friend. “Sure. As… as friends, right?” 

He winces. “Yeah, of course.” he’s losing count of how many awkward yeahs he’s mumbling. Alfred’s right; he, terrifyingly so, has a crush. 

“Wouldn’t, like, paparazzi follow us?” you really don’t want your face splattered all over the news again. 

“I honestly doubt it.” he wouldn’t waste his little chance because of a couple of gossip-hungry journalists. “When I don’t want to be noticed I use my butler’s car, so that if anyone passes by they think it’s him around rather than me, and the staff of the places I frequent can be very discreet.” he looks down to Ace, “Besides, could you really say no to seeing this cute face again?” 

No, you couldn’t. You do raise an eyebrow, though, “Your butler… owns a Rolls Royce?” 

He nods like it’s the most common thing in the world, “Yeah, it was my gift for his fiftieth birthday.” 

And that’s how you end up having coffee with Bruce Wayne in some high-end uptown cafè two days later. Then two days later after that. Then, someway, somehow— fucking everyday. And thank God that he’s the one paying, because you doubt you can even afford one of the smallest macarons they have on the menu. 

You have to give it to the man — he’s trying really hard to be nice. It’s clear he’s not good at courting — not the kind that doesn’t let him bring a woman into his bed an hour after he met her, at least — but he’s doing that while also doing his best to respect your boundaries. 

“I don’t think it’s really a great time for a new relationship as of now for me,” you explain, a little embarrassed, over the first coffee you share. “I just got out of… one of the most important connections I’ll ever have in my entire life.” 

Bruce isn’t one to give up easily, and surely not on the first person he’s actually interested in since years. Even if it will take decades — and he’ll be just as happy being just a friend during those — he won’t give up. Even if he has to be just a friend for all eternity — you and your accent really did a number on him. 

Just as he promised, no articles come out about you two, even if a couple of curious waiters do ask if you’re that one girl from the billboard in Union Square — much to Bruce’s sincere delight, because it’s probably the first time in his life that he gets overlooked in favour of his date. What’s so special about your ads to overlook a billionaire, you’ll never really understand. 

It goes on for months, and before you can really assimilate it, It’s November and it’s been eight months since Clark broke up with you, seven since the terrific Flowers n’ Kisses campaign and four since you started seeing (you’re not sure how to actually describe it, because you’re kinda warming up to him despite everything) Bruce. 

You cave in to Kelly’s constant nagging, and finally accept her invitation to go out for dinner, just the two of you, to her favourite Thai restaurant down the street from her apartment — even after almost a year in Gotham, you’re reluctant about going out at night, still a bit scared after Jenna’s horror stories about her outings during the evening. 

It’s a fun night — you chit chat about anything and everything and she makes sure you’re updated about the latest rumors going around in the modeling world (apparently, Linda Reynolds is pregnant, and the father is supposedly the son of the sixty-year-old CEO she should be marrying in a few months). You both laugh as a teenager from one of the other tables comes over and asks you if you’re the girl from that one Flowers n' Kisses photoshoot, and you almost forget about the dangers of going out at night as you exit the restaurant because — c’mon, you’re with Kelly, her car’s just a few feet away from you two and she’s Kelly, she just knows how to deal with things. That is, until–

There’s a man. He’s in front of you. He has a gun. You barely even register all that happens next. 

She pushes you behind her as he screams to give him all the valuables you have, gun trembling in his hands — is he drunk or just a schizo? — and just as she reaches for her purse — to take out her wallet, she says as she feels around for her taser — he panics and pulls the trigger. 

You don’t know when you start screaming, nor register your hands pressing on her bloody shoulder, nor the cashier from the Thai restaurant going out in the street after hearing the shot and calling the police. You barely feel Commissioner Gordon’s hands around your shoulders as he gently pulls you away from Kelly and gets you to his car while two paramedics get a stretcher ready and lift her into the ambulance, nor notice when he pulls a blanket over your shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate into your hands at the police station. “You’re trembling, kid.” you think you started when the man took out the gun, but it could be when he shot Kelly. You’re not sure. 

“Can I call anyone?” 

You snap out of your trance, looking at Commissioner Gordon with eyes that could only be described as haunted. “Huh?”

He presses his lips into a thin line like he’s been in this situation one too many times. “Can I call anyone?” he asks again, not unkindly. “To come and pick you up and stay with you for the night? It would be better for you not to be alone.” 

You blink. “Is Kelly okay?” 

Gordon sighs. “The paramedics said she should recover without any trouble. You can go visit her tomorrow, if you want.” he leans forward, putting a gentle hand on your shoulder, “Can I call someone for you?” he asks for the third time. 

You sniff — you hadn’t even realized you’d been crying. You can’t call your parents — you know they’d drop everything and come here, but you don’t want them to worry. Jenna’s out of the city for a week, having gone to visit a cousin in Blüdhaven, and terrifyingly so the only person who comes into your mind is Clark Kent– wherever he is, he does know how to fly, and if he wanted to he could just zap here. You manage to scribble his number in the post-it that Gordon hands you, and then he’s off to make the call — only to return defeated ten minutes later. 

“I’m sorry, nobody’s replying. Can I call someone else for you or would you like to try to make the call yourself?” 

You try to swallow the lump in your throat, “Can I try? With my phone?” Clark’s never ignored your calls. And, sure, you haven’t heard from him in months, but you don’t think he’d actively avoid you — he has to know that you wouldn’t call unless it was strictly necessary. Besides, he’s never turned you down in the time of need. 

Gordon nods, “Sure. I think I left your bag in the car, though, so I’ll be right back,” 

He brings your purse, and as soon as your phone’s in your hands you press onto Clark’s number and try to reach him. The Commissioner leaves you in his office, probably to try to give you a bit of privacy, and you’re quite thankful he’s not there to witness you start crying as Clark not only doesn’t reply to the first call, but also to the next five you make. 

“Clark, I know that maybe you don’t want to hear from me but — could you just please, take up the phone?” you try not to sob as you leave what must be the third message in a row, “I wouldn’t call unless I really needed you and– and I’m trying my best not to sound hysteric but please, just pick up the fucking phone.” 

You try and try and try, but lo and behold, it always goes straight to voicemail. Gordon knocks on the door of his office, opening it hesitantly when you don’t reply, “I– it’s been twenty minutes.” 

“I,” you huff tearily, slamming your phone on your thigh, “he just won’t reply.” 

You don’t want to look Gordon in the eye, because even now you can feel the pity in this voice. “Is there anyone else you can call? If… if there isn't, I could have an agent escort you home,”

“No, I–” you really don’t want to cry in front of him, even if your cheeks are already tear-streaked and your eyes are puffy, “I guess I could call someone else.” 

You hadn’t even thought about calling Bruce, having taken for granted that Clark would have replied and knowing about the late hour, but it’s not like you have any other choice. Besides, he did say to call him if you ever needed anything. You dial his phone number and have to hold back a sob as he replies in two rings, voice hoarse, “Hello?” 

“Hi, um, I…” you stumble over the words, not managing to hold the tears at bay anymore as your voice breaks. “Hi, Bruce, could you…” a hiccup interrupts you. 

“Hey,” his voice is alarmed even if it’s clear that he either just woke up or is hungover from the roughness of his voice, “is everything okay? Did something happen?” 

“I…” your throat betrays you again as you let out an embarrassingly loud sob. You hear Bruce’s worried questions on the other side of the line, but you aren’t really able to respond to any of his questions, and Commissioner Gordon holds his hand out for you in a way that says ‘If you want, I can talk to him for you,’. You don’t ask many questions and just pass him the phone. 

“Hello, this is Commissioner Gordon from the GCPD…” 

Not even twenty minutes later Bruce rushes into the office, accompanied by Gordon, and holds you tight as you rise from your chair and crash into his arms. You’ve never hugged before, but that doesn’t really matter as of now, because he’s rubbing your back and pressing his cheek on the top of your head and suddenly you feel safe. “I was so scared,”

“It’s okay,” he whispers, and something on the back of your mind whispers that it’s not fair to cry to him about your friend getting shot but surviving when he had to watch his parents die when he was just a kid, but he doesn’t say anything. He just holds you tighter, thanking Gordon and leading you to his — his butler’s, technically, as it’s still the blue Rolls Royce he came here with — car. Well, if the media didn’t know you two were seeing each other before, now they probably know, because Gotham’s cops are the most gossip hungry people in the city. 

He helps you get into the car as you sniffle, making sure your seatbelt is on before jumping on the driver’s seat and going back to look at you. “Are you okay?”

You nod. “He shot Kelly on the shoulder. Looked crazy, like a schizo maniac on drugs.” 

He sighs, a bit disheartened, “I mean, does a schizo maniac need drugs to look crazy?”

“I guess he doesn’t.” a beat passes before he reaches over to your side, opening the glovebox and reaching for wet wipes — the kind you use for babies’ butts. “Here,” he murmurs softly, “you might want to get the blood off your face.”

You didn’t even know you had blood on your face. You look at the picture of the newborn on the wipes pack, puzzled, “Is there anything you might want to tell me?”

He chuckles and starts the car. “I told you this was my butler’s car. He carries a pack of those anywhere.” 

You look at yourself in the sun visor mirror, acknowledging the fact that you look like absolute crap and definitely have splatters of blood as well as smudged make up all over your face. “Sorry I made you come all the way here so late,” you mumble, trying to wipe the now dried blood off of your face. 

“Nonsense,” he assures, “Commissioner Gordon said it would be best for you not to be alone tonight — would that be okay for you?”

You nod. “Yeah, my place’s a bit cramped but I can sleep on the couch.”

He frowns, “That’s not a problem, I’ll take it. You need a good night’s sleep. We could always go to the Manor if you want.”

You shake your head, “I need a shower and to eat the leftover ice cream in my freezer.”

Bruce smiles the tiniest bit. “Okay. Where to, then?” 

You wouldn’t say the apartment’s cluttered, but you weren’t expecting any guests over so it’s a given that it’s not tidy either — if Bruce notices it, he doesn’t mention it, something you’re grateful for. Instead, he puts a hand on your shoulder, smiling softly, “You should go take that shower. Don’t worry, I’ll be right here.” 

You take a good look at yourself in the mirror and almost start crying again. You had seen that you were covered in blood, but you also didn’t think it was so much blood — the cardigan your poor mother had hand-stitched for you is awaiting a brilliant future in the trashbin, because there’s no way that the stain will ever wash out. 

The water is soothing, even if it takes you a good half-hour to scrub away all the dried blood from your hair and neck — so much so that the skin is left red and sore. It’s your first time witnessing one of the violent crimes Gotham’s so famous for, and you gotta say, it’s even worse than you thought. 

You put on an old ratty sweater — that after a year of living together neither you nor Jenna are too sure of who it belongs to anymore — and a pair of cozy sweatpants that are definitely Jenna’s, because you would never buy such a thing as yellow pants with the bat signal print on them. 

You exit the bathroom with your damp hair still wrapped in a towel, eyes barely managing to stay open thanks to the aftermath of the shock you had been in. You find Bruce sitting on the sofa, maybe a little too interested in the news broadcast playing on the TV. “And it’s game over for Harvey Dent, also known as Two Face, who was arrested just yesterday by the GCPD thanks to an ambush coordinated by none other than Batman…”

“Wasn’t Dent the district attorney?” you’d lie if you said you were informed about the latest coming criminals of Gotham City. “Man, in Smallville the craziest guy we’ve had was Samuel Comell and that’s just because he ate nothing but corn. We’ve got clinical psychos guiding the law here.” it actually would’ve been Clark if anyone knew he was an alien, but you avoid talking about that. You aim for the refrigerator and take out the ice cream, bringing it and two spoons with you to the couch. “Ice cream?”

Bruce grimaces as he takes one of the spoons, “You couldn’t be more right about madmen in Gotham, but Harvey wasn’t one of them until less than a year ago.” 

You raise an eyebrow at his soft tone. “You knew him?”

“We grew up together.” his face falters, “He was my friend– still is.” 

You blink. “Man, the universe must be laughing really hard right now, because the boy I grew up with is also kinda weird.” sure, not a mass-murderer type of weird, but a little weird still. 

He leans to take a spoonful of ice cream from the tub you’re holding, “What do you mean, kinda weird?” 

“Oh, you can’t even imagine,” you can’t even tell him — you swore to Clark that you wouldn’t have told anyone his secret, and you don’t plan on breaking that promise now. “Remember the guy I told you I was trying to get over?”

“It was him?” 

“Yeah,” you try to laugh it off, “Clark was… pretty much everything for me. Then he dumped me to, I don’t know, disappear to find himself or something like that.” it’s much more complicated than that, but you can’t just tell him that your ex-boyfriend is an alien — he’d freak. 

Bruce’s eyes soften a bit. “Well, it’s always more complicated than that, isn’t it?” this time you can’t exactly handle your emotions well, and sputter as your eyes widen. Did he just read your mind? He laughs, “What? I know a thing or two about relationships. Well, about how they end, at least. You know, uh…” he rubs the back of his neck, “I haven’t really said this to anyone, really, but me and Harvey… let’s say we were more like you and your old friend rather than simple friends.” 

You squint, then force the ice cream tub in his hands. “Here. You probably need it more than me.” 

He stares at the tub. “It’s been years. I’m sure you need it more than me.” 

“Well, my ex hasn’t just been arrested,” your face drops, “for what I know, at least.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow at you. “He really just disappeared?” 

You shrug. “Could be in Alaska right now and I wouldn’t know about it.” 

The night starts off easy. You finish the ice cream, then put away the towel you had around your hair and get a blanket because it’s getting a bit chilly, then one thing leads to another and suddenly your cheek is resting on his shoulder as Criminal Minds is playing on the TV. 

“You know,” you mutter at some point, almost half-asleep and too cozy to muster an actual, coherent thought. “You should be detestable. You’re ugly rich, live in a mansion up on the hill and have a butler that has a car that’s probably worth more than my parent’s farm.” you poke his cheek as he turns his head to look at you properly, his arm going around your shoulder, “And instead, you’re nice — and worst of all, relatable.” you raise a hand to curl a lock of his hair around your finger, and he makes that face that men do when they’re about to kiss you — the blank stare that makes them look dumb in the head. “Now, one evil ex’s down. Do I have to defeat the other six or can we just get this over with?”

His lips slosh over yours with unexplainable easiness, like they’ve wanted nothing but to do this their whole life, and maybe you should feel a little guilty about eating Bruce Wayne’s face in your little beat-down couch, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. It’s the first time your mind finally manages to shut down — to stop worrying about anything and everything, and think about just one thing: Bruce. 

Tomorrow, he’ll worry about catching the guy that shot Kelly, he says to himself. Tonight, he worries about you and tries to make sure you’ll be alright. And he does. 

You wake up the next morning with an absolute sight — infamous Bruce Wayne, untouchable playboy and known for his one night stands, standing in your small ass kitchen in a pair of hot pink pajamas — the only thing you had that vaguely fit him — trying to cook pancakes. Key word: trying, because you weren’t woken up by the birdies singing outside of the window, but by the smell of burnt food. Badly burnt food. 

You come up from behind him, hugging his back, “Have you ever even made pancakes?”

He purses his lips like a kid. “No. What is so terrible about wanting to try?” 

You chuckle. “Nothing, nothing,” you tug him down to kiss his cheek, “I just think it’s really funny of you to try to cook when you’ve clearly had problems just with getting the stove on.” 

He rolls his eyes, “Okay, okay, I wasn’t that stunted.” 

He turns to take a good look at you — and apparently, notices your pants just now. “What’s with you and Batman?” he asks, amused. You shrug, ”More like, what’s with Jenna and Batman. When I tell you she’s obsessed with him, dude. She keeps a med kit in the bathroom just in case he falls on our balcony and we have to stitch him up.”

He shudders. “That does sound a bit manic.” 

After a definitely too cheesy breakfast and quickly getting dressed, Bruce accompanies you to the hospital — not before going to the flower shop, of course, to get the biggest bouquet you’ve ever seen and a couple of Get well soon! balloons. 

“What?” he asks. You’re not saying anything, but still clearly judging him, “I thought Kelly was your friend. She has to enjoy the flowers, especially since they’re from you.” 

“Technically, they’re from your wallet,” you retort. He shrugs, “Same thing.” 

Kelly’s still a bit pale, but happy to see you and Bruce. She gives you a look as you apologise for what happened, eyes teary as you remember that she got shot while protecting you. She swats a hand in your way, laugh full of not suggestion but knowledge — absolute certainty. “Honey, if what you two needed to get it on with was me getting shot, I’ll get shot another hundred of times.” she lowers her voice as your face burns red, “Besides, you might want to raise a little that scarf you’ve got — a hickey’s still showing. Just remember me when you’ll go on vacation with his big-ass yacht.” 

What is it with your friends and yachts? You really need to make Jenna and Kelly meet — just kidding, you take that back, the consequences of their team up for your psyche would be devastating.

Time passes quickly when you’ve got one exam after another, and suddenly — before you can actually register it — it’s December, you and Bruce have been together for a month and it’s time for the Christmas holidays. While Jenna goes as soon as she can back to her parents in Chinatown, you, of course, need to go back to Smallville — without Bruce, as it’s still too early in the relationship to meet the parents. He doesn’t look too beaten up about it — just before you told him you wanted to go visit your parents, he had suggested a skiing trip in the Alps in an all-paid-for resort. Poor him, having to go on an exclusive resort with all the comforts in the world all alone! How will he manage without you, you wonder? How will he thrive? 

(Just kidding, of course. You’re pretty sure it’ll take all of his restraint not to go back to his old playboy ways and try to seduce the first female that approaches him. He’ll be just fine.)

There’s two trains for Metropolis on the 22nd of December: you plan to take the first one, the one that leaves Gotham’s station at 8 a.m. sharp — and so you tell Bruce, who unfortunately has a plane to catch and can’t give you a ride — and of course, you just had to miss it. You wake up twenty minutes too late, and by the time you’re at the station the train has just left. 

You go back home to take a nap while waiting for it to be time for the 4 p.m. train, and wake up just two hours later with an emergency broadcast for all Gothamites going off on your phone — God forbid you have a happy holiday in the arms of your loved ones, because the corridor that connects the prison’s main structure to Arkham’s left wing — the one holding captive the major crazed maniacs — has just blown up, and now years and years of captures and police operations have ended up in a massive breakout that will probably pulverize the city in a matter of two days. You’ve never been happier to not be a police officer than now. 

The downside is that the whole city’s on lockdown. Commissioner Gordon appears on TV, warning all citizens to remain home unless strictly necessary and inevitable. A quick call to your parents later you’re fuming about your own stupidity while laying on the couch, wondering why you didn’t just wake up earlier — because now you’re condemned to a Christmas and probably New Years all alone, as all trains and planes are canceled to avoid the passengers turning into hostages or worse, victims. 

Later that night you receive a call from Bruce, voice unusually rough, who says that he’s grateful that you’re already back at home in Smallville and not in Gotham because, if you hadn’t heard, a massive breakout happened. You really don’t want him to worry, so you lie and tell him that you’re relieved too that you took the 8 a.m. train — that your parents say hi and hang up. 

The following days are weird. There’s barely anyone but cops in the streets — you wonder why — and your only interactions with a human are the ones with Nelson, the guy that works at the 7/11 right beside your apartment, and you both try your best to ignore the shotgun he’s keeping behind the counter as he scans your items and wishes you a happy Christmas. 

You spend Christmas Eve eating instant noodles and watching the old Harry Potter DVDs that Jenna left behind — Ron’s just been dragged into the Whomping Willow by Sirius when your phone starts ringing. 

You pause the movie and frown — because you’ve already heard both your parents and Jenna, who could be the only people calling at such an hour. It could also be Bruce, you guess, but you haven’t heard much from him considering the six hour difference between Gotham and wherever he’s staying in the Switzerland Alps. Except when you take your phone, you see an unknown number on the screen. 

“Hello?” you reply tentatively — you really don’t want to be blackmailed by the Penguin or one of his friends on Christmas Eve. No one responds to your hesitant greeting, so you try again, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

You’re about to close the call when you hear it — barely there, the whisper of your name by a voice you know too well. You put the phone back against your ear, eyes already twitching, “Clark?” 

“Hey,” his voice is the tiniest you’ve ever heard from him, “I, uh… wanted to know how you were holding up.”

Your hand starts trembling — if in anger or disbelief, you’re not sure. “You know, you’ve got some fucking audacity calling me now,” you manage to keep your voice steady only by some weird miracle, “when just a month ago I called you about twenty times and cried in the voice messages begging for you to come and get me.” 

He doesn’t reply, but you can almost see him grimacing. “I… I got busy. I’m sorry about that.” 

You pinch the slope of your nose, “Clark, I get it. You need to find yourself and all that but– but I needed you. Like, really needed you. Even if we broke up, I thought you would’ve always been there for me.” a grumble escapes from your throat, “I would’ve always been there for you. But you weren’t there, even with your flying abilities and supersonic speed.” 

He sniffles. God, is he crying? “I just… I thought you would’ve been able to handle it alone. I know you’re strong enough to.” 

“Well, if I call you at an ungodly hour an ungodly number of times then maybe I’m not able to handle it alone. Where are you, anyways?” 

You hear a shuffle on the other end, “Somewhere in the Arctic. Not sure I can exactly tell you where.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure your dead parents would be really offended if you did.”

Ouch. That was a low blow. He says your name as if to try to calm you down, but you shake your head even if he can’t see you, “Why exactly did you call, Clark?”

“I told you, I wanted to see how you were doing–” “Please, we both know that’s just an excuse you invented right here and now. Why did you call me, Clark?”

Silence meets you on the other end. “I… it’s Christmas. We’ve never spent a Christmas apart.” 

You check the hour on your phone, and it’s true — it is Christmas. Has been for only a few minutes, but still. “So what, Clark? It’s not like it was me who decided to break it off between us.”

Another sniffle on his end. “I guess I… I just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas.” 

You sigh. “Merry Christmas, Clark. I loved you, and I’ll always love you– but I’m trying to get over you, and you need to understand that. I can’t do that if you call me just now after ghosting twenty of my calls and voicemails. I’m sure we’ll find a balance in some years when you get back — maybe even be friends again — but please… don’t call.” 

You press the red END CALL button almost as soon as a crash comes from your balcony. You shriek and jump up from the couch, running from your purse and the Bat-taser — finally, his moment to shine. Jenna’s hard earned ten bucks will serve their purpose, maybe. You also eye the metal baseball bat sitting beside the entrance in case you’ll need it, but choose against it in case your opponent is way too strong for you to kick him out. 

You try to peek outside and see nothing but darkness. So, you do the only thing you can think of: hold the Bat-taser in front of you like it’s a gun, slowly open the door to the balcony and yell (probably sounding more shrill than you’d intended to): “GoawayorIswearI’llcallthepolice!” 

A pained groan comes from the ground, “Please don’t.” 

You have to hold onto all the self control you have not to shriek again, “Batman? Is that really you?”

Another pained groan — from the dim light, you notice him holding onto his side and trying to get back up– and also that he crashed one of Jenna’s beloved flower pots while falling here. “The one and only.” 

Now, Jenna had told you about him ending up on civilian’s balconies, but you didn’t actually think he did it. You let the taser fall from your hand and rush to his side, helping him up and then inside the apartment. “What the hell, dude? You scared the shit out of me.” 

He slips from your grip pretty easily — he’s built like a tank, of course he does — and maybe you should worry about getting him back up to his feet, but rather think about closing the balcony door behind you. “Well, my guy, I sure hope you haven’t dragged one of your nemesis right here in my poor little apartment — because I might just lose it.”

He just groans — again. He must be a real sweet talker. “You don’t happen to have something to stitch me up, do you?” 

And that’s how you end up hunched over Batman’s limp body on the tiles of your bathroom floor — you had begged him to at least get there before the living room’s carpet was ruined without any means to salvage it — with an All That You Need If Batman Crashes Through Your Window! medical kit — a wonder that they make these and that Jenna paid a whopping thirty bucks to have it — while watching the shortest video you found on Youtube teaching how to stitch an open wound. Because while you’re a vet student, you still haven’t exactly gotten to this part of the practice just yet. 

“It’s scary that you haven’t even flinched since I started sewing your side close,” you murmur — the first thing you say to him after managing to get him laid down decently. You say it just to try to break the ice, feeling kinda pressured by the awkward silence. “Sorry, man, I’ll have to cut your suit open again. You’ve got a nasty cut on your ribs.” 

“What’s scary is that you’ve got all these Batman themed things,” he replies curtly. “The Bat-taser? The Bat-signal pants? This… abomination of a medical kit? I didn’t even know they made those.” 

You would’ve laughed loudly if you weren’t trying to make the stitches as even as possible. “That’s not on me– that’s on my roommate Jenna. She’s a big fan of yours. I’ll need you to sign her limited edition iridescent Bat-popcorn-bucket before you go, by the way.”

He blinks. “A Bat… what?”

“Bat-popcorn-bucket. It’s iridescent. It makes it look like you’re wearing a rainbow and she keeps it in a display box in her room just in case.” 

You take the scissors and cut away some more fabric, only to stop and squint at his abs. Now, don’t they look familiar… “So, Batsy… how are you holding up in these fantastic days of freedom for all the Arkham prisoners?”

He grunts — does this man know how to start a phrase without an animalistic sound? “Just what I needed for Christmas.” 

You hum, scanning his abdomen as if to understand how to better close the rib wound while you try to understand if your mind’s playing some trick on you or not. “It was just so nice of them to ruin Christmas for everyone, wasn’t it?” 

You dab some hydrogen peroxide on the cut on his ribs, “Don’t you have someone to spend Christmas with, anyway?” his response is kinda quipped, and if your suspicions are true, you might just know why — after all, Bruce does think you’re in Smallville as of now. Who knows what he’s thinking right now. 

You decide to test your theory. “Oh, yeah. My boyfriend’s in the bedroom, he was so tired from cooking all day that he just collapsed after dinner.”

His entire body freezes, and as he tries to sit up, you get your answers. “I have to go,” he mumbles hurriedly, “Scarecrow’s still out there–”

You place a firm hand on his chest, smirking as you inch closer to his face. “Huh-huh,” you tut, his eyebrows twisting in confusion, “where do you think you’re going, Bruce? I just started stitching this cut right here, and you’re not getting out of here unless you take a good nap.”

He raises an eyebrow, “I don’t know what you’re talking about–”

“Please,” you push him back onto the floor, “I would recognise these abs anywhere. By the way, the only thing sleeping in the next room is Jenna’s elderly hamster. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t even have the social skills needed to cheat on someone if I wanted to.”

He sighs, then presses a hand to his forehead and decides to drop the act. “What gave me away?”

“I told you,” you tap his abdomen, “those abs don’t lie. Besides, the way you reacted when I told you my boyfriend was in the bedroom sleeping? Whoof, you slipped right into my trap. Now, can I look into your baby blues or will I have to converse all night while looking at those ugly white lenses?”

He rips off his cowl, rising to his elbows  — and there he is, your handsome, so-tired looking loverboy. “I’m mad at you, by the way,” he says while glaring in your direction, “you told me you were in Smallville. I thought you were safe, and here you are — do you know how many home invasions I had to stop just these last two days in this area?” 

You blanch. “I’d prefer not to, thanks.” but you also raise an eyebrow, because you’re not about to lose an argument to a guy that outed his real identity because of abs and jealousy, “You told me you were in the Alps, by the way. In Switzerland. About… what, four-thousand miles away?” 

Bruce sighs, resigned. “I received word of the breakout just as I was flying above the Atlantic.” 

You tie the last stitch and cut the excess string, pressing a kiss on the wounded skin. “Well, I lost the 8 a.m. train but was too embarrassed about it to tell you. I guess we’re even.” 

You lean down to his level as he holds out an arm to brush your hair off your shoulder, “Oh, sweetheart, we’re always even.” his hand rests on the back of your neck as you two kiss hard, all spit and tongue — so much so that you lose yourself in the moment and press your side a little too hard on his cuts. 

He jumps, yelping in pain as you stare bemused. “Oh, so you do feel pain,” 

He raises an eyebrow, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Thought you were some kind of robot programmed not to feel soreness for a second.” 

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “I’m still mad at you. You could’ve gotten hurt.”

“Thank goodness then that the guy crashing on my balcony wasn’t one of the Joker’s henchmen, no?” you frown, “Besides, why did you come here? For all you knew I wasn’t home.” 

“Well, missy, I wasn’t looking for you,” you feign a gasp of disbelief, “I was hoping to find that horrendous medical kid you told me about.”

You pinch his side — one of the parts not wounded, at least. “You were thinking about breaking in? What are you, a criminal?” 

He purses his lips. “I would’ve forced the lock, but I would have repaired it before you got back.” 

“Is that how you spend your fortune?” you murmur, defeated. “Fighting bad guys in your free time? That’s a pretty expensive hobby.” you suddenly remember something you had said to Clark — I don’t want you to be the man lying half-dead in a dark alley while I wonder why you’re so late to dinner. Would you look at that — you ended up with the same guy you told your ex to please not be. You’re not even too surprised about it — because sometimes, it does feel like Bruce is faking being dumber than he actually is. 

You let him go as soon as the sun peeks out from the horizon with a kiss on the lips and the promise of coming back later in the day, to autograph Jenna’s popcorn bucket, and while he later on keeps his promise, he makes sure to make you another Christmas gift other than the too-expensive necklace he already got you — and somehow manages to get all the criminals back in their cells by the time New Year’s Eve comes around. 

The lockdown ends, but all means of transportation are still off-limits thanks to a few well-placed explosions that went off in the last few days. That’s why you’re confused when Bruce tells you to pack a bag and come with him to the Archie Goodwill International Airport. “I mean, Bruce, we should be somewhere opening champagne bottles — not in a completely deserted airport looking for– what exactly are we looking for?” 

He chuckles, going for one of the hangars present at the launch track, the number 18 plastered on it. “Have you ever flown on a helicopter?”

You frown, “I’ve never flown like, ever.” you don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s because your ex-boyfriend knew how to fly and you’d always hoped he would be the first one to take you flying. 

He takes out a key and opens the sliding door of the hangar — revealing, surprise surprise, a helicopter. “Well, get ready for your first flight, then.”

Flying is much more scary than you would’ve thought — especially because you really don’t know if you should trust Bruce at the wheel. All you know is that you’re holding onto the armrest for your life, hoping that he actually got the licence for flying and didn’t randomly purchase it one day. “Wh– where are we going?” you ask him, trembling, not even managing to look down from the window. 

He sends you a look, “Don’t worry, I would never crash the helicopter with you in it. About the place where we’re going, however– it’s a surprise.”

Barely an hour up in the air later you look out the window to see the helicopter landing in a familiar — too familiar — field, with the grass cut weirdly low. “Bruce, are we–?”

“In Smallville? Yeah, we are.”

Your whole face lights up. “No, you didn’t,” you jump on him, kissing everywhere you can reach, “oh, Bruce, thank you, thank you, thank you– mwah! You’re a real sweetheart, I don’t know how I ever managed to think that you were any less of a person than you are–” 

Needless to say, your parents are elated to see you — they did know about Bruce’s plan, hence why the grass was cut so short where you landed: they were his accomplices and made sure the soil was decent to land on. You’re so happy when you take a bite out of your mother’s pie that you could cry, and your boyfriend — is he? You still haven’t really talked about labels and such — looks not too far away from tears either. 

You spend at least two hours chatting away happily with your parents before Bruce coughs, taking his coat back from the hanger at the entrance. “Well, I think it’s time for me to go.”

Your mother raises an eyebrow, “Oh, but you can’t go! I’ve just put the sweet potatoes in the oven– besides, it’s already dark out there, you seriously wouldn’t want to fly that thing in complete darkness!”

Bruce looks at you, waiting for your approval — well, it was you who said that spending the holidays together at your parents’ was a step a little too big for just a month-long relationship — but you nod, smiling. “You were the one who brought me here, Bruce. C’mon, you gave Alfred the week off– surely you don’t want to be all alone during New Years’ Eve?” 

He relents, “Well, if you say so,” 

That’s how he ends up staying at your parent’s house against all predictions — and you won’t forget the kiss he gives you when the clock strikes midnight for a long, long time, that’s for sure. 

You two spend one week at the farm and another one in the Alps’ resort Bruce had planned to spend Christmas in, spending your time either skiing — tripping over the snow, in your case — or, an activity you appreciate much more, cozied up in the jacuzzi of your private suite. It’s also during this vacation that your relationship gets leaked, but surprisingly — apart from a call from an absolutely fuming Jenna (you had somehow managed to keep the relationship a secret from her) and one from a triumphant Kelly — you take the new wave of publicity suspiciously well. 

Because for the first time in months, you’re truly happy.

It’s the summer of the year later when he appears again. 

You’re on one of the Wayne's biggest yachts in Tenerife with Bruce, Kelly and Jenna — just as the prophecies predicted!, the latter had shrieked when you’d shared Bruce’s invite with her — sunbathing on the boat’s deck as your friends play mermaids in the water when you notice an unusual silence from the upper deck. 

You get up from your sunbed, raising your sunglasses up to your hair as you look for your boyfriend. “Bruce? Honey, is everything alright?” 

You find him seated on the plush couch of the lounge room, staring intently at the TV; you hug him from behind, leaving a kiss on his temple, “Did something happen in Gotham?”

He takes the remote and raises the volume, turning to look at you with a puzzled face. “Not exactly in Gotham.”

Looking up at the screen, you frown when you see the broadcaster. “DPN? Isn’t that the Daily Planet News channel?” 

“And things apparently just keep getting weirder in Metropolis, because after scarce apparitions and helping for some minor crimes the man that the citizens have lovingly dubbed as ‘Superman’ has just shown the public what he’s really capable of by preventing a building from falling onto the passers-by after an explosion cut the structure in half…”

Your heart skips a beat, and suddenly you begin to wonder what you must have done wrong in your life to end up not only with a vigilante boyfriend, but also a vigilante ex-boyfriend. You have to hold back not to slap your forehead in disbelief — really, Clark, and the glasses should be your mask? It’s the stupidest disguise you’ve ever seen, and you have no idea how no one connected Clark Kent — just starting his career as a reporter in the Daily Planet — and Superman — just starting his career as… you don’t know what he’s trying to be. 

You seem to have a magnet for too good-hearted guys, apparently. Bruce presses a kiss on your cheek, “I’ll worry about it when we get back. Don’t think too much about it, okay?”

You’re not ready to tell him your ex-boyfriend is the guy saving old ladies from having to carry their groceries alone — that would be a conversation for almost six months later, when the Justice League is formed — so you just smile at him and pretend to your best abilities that you don’t know anything.

The first time you see Clark Kent again after that morning at the cafè is five years after the start of his crusade as Superman. 

He’s one of the six reporters who were granted permission to be inside of Wayne Manor during the engagement party, briefly interviewing anyone he can talk to and taking notes of everything he thinks valuable on his little notepad. 

You? You’re the one who’s getting engaged. 

You’re wearing a silky white dress that fits you like a glove as you stand next to Bruce, talking to some WE associates, Dick patiently waiting for the conversation to end as he stays glued to your side, hugging your waist and pressing his cheek into your hip as you gently run your hands through his hair. Clark is expecting a one-of-a-kind rock on your ring finger, but is instead surprised with a simple white pearl adorned with two smaller ones on its sides — he did hear something about Bruce proposing with his mother’s ring, now that he thinks about it. 

Lois’ gone off to interview Lucius Fox when you notice him standing awkwardly to the side, scrambling with his notebook and looking around. You excuse yourself from the conversation, giving a little smile to Bruce, nudging Dick with a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to come and meet an old friend of mine, bubba?” he nods, eager to please, and lets your waist go in favour of your hand. 

You approach Clark with the confidence of someone who doesn’t hold any grudges when they should. “Hi, Clark,” you greet him like you two are old friends that meet again — and even if you technically are, you’re also so much more than that. You hold out your hand — again, like you were just good old friends catching up — and he has to force himself to shake it instead of tackling you into a hug. “Have you seen my parents? I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you– it’s been a while.” 

You nudge Dick from behind you, gently holding him by the shoulders in front of you, “Dick, this is Clark, the old friend I was telling you about. Clark, this is Dick, my son.” 

As the child holds out a hand and excitedly says “Hullo!”, Clark tries not to think about how weird it is that he’s still trying to figure out his life while you just have a whole ass kid — adopted, but still. It’s clear how much you have taken into the role of mother. “Hi, Dick,” he says as kindly as possible, not really believing that the Robin who beats up criminals during the night beside the fearsome Batman is the same kid who hides behind his mother during formal events. 

Said kid raises his eyebrows in curiosity, looking up at you, “What kind of friends are you, anyways?” he asks, knowing all too well about your distaste for reporters and journalists alike. 

“The kind that goes way back,” you reply easily with a chuckle, “me and Clark grew up together, bubba.”  

“Oooh,” he ushers, “does that mean you also know nana and gramps?”

Guessing that he’s talking about your parents, Clark chuckles a bit before nodding, “That I do, champ.” 

“Aren’t they the coolest people you know?” Dick rambles excitedly, “last time gramps took me a ride on his tractor and it was so fun! Besides, they have this dog–” he turns to look at you, “Batman’s here, isn’t he?”

Clark’s eyebrows shoot up to his airline. He knew the kid was talkative, but he didn’t think he would be able to out Bruce like that. You laugh, “Yeah, I think I saw him earlier somewhere in the garden with Ace. It’s a miracle the both of them still have their tuxedo collars.” you then look at your old flame, a playful smirk on your face, “Don’t worry, Batman’s my parents' golden retriever.” 

“Ooh,” he sighs in relief, “for a moment there I wondered why Gotham’s most famous vigilante was playing with Bruce Wayne’s dog, and how exactly to phrase it in my article,” a terribly awkward silence follows. 

You shift your gaze to Dick, “Hey, Dickie, why don’t you–”

“Hello! Good evening!” a man with blazing red hair and a whole lot of freckles on his face runs up to the two of you, nudging Clark with an elbow as if clearly saying, please please pleaseeeee introduce me. He’s one of the reporters, you notice, with the press pass and a Canon slung over his neck. He kinda looks like a kid in a candy shop — eyes shining with excitement and almost jumping up and down on his feet. 

Clark sighs, “This is Jimmy Olsen, one of my coworkers from the Daily Planet,” 

The guy grins and holds out his hand, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” his fingers are a bit sweaty, “I’m a great fan.”

You have to bite the inside of your cheek to avoid bursting out in laughter, “Oh, I’m flattered,”

“May I take a picture of the two of you?” it’s clear it was what he had wanted to ask since he saw you and Dick talking to Clark. You look at your son, and he grins up at you with glee. You smile, “Of course,”

You lower yourself a bit and cross your arms over his chest while pressing your chin to the top of his head, smiling widely — and you don’t doubt that he’s smiling with all he’s got too, hands holding your forearms, showing the window his last canine that fell out left. Jimmy snaps a little more than one pictures, but gets interrupted by a voice from behind you, “I hope you aren’t hogging the missus too much, boys,” 

It’s Bruce — of course it is, he’s been staring since you got out of that conversation twenty minutes ago — and he slings an arm around your waist as you rise from your position. Jimmy sits up straighter like his drill sergeant just entered the room — you’re surprised he doesn’t do the salute. “Sir,” he starts, “it is an honor–”

“Clark,” Bruce casually shakes the man’s hand, to his coworker’s utter disbelief. Technically, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne don’t know each other, but it’s another story for Batman and Superman. “A pleasure to meet you — this pretty girl right here told me a lot of stories about the two of you growing up together."

Jimmy’s mouth falls open. His gaze turns to his coworker with an accusation that could only be described as treacherous. Clark smiles awkwardly, “Yeah, well–”

“You’re a photographer, aren’t you?” the Brucie Wayne persona isn’t trained to hold his attention on just one person at once, so he immediately switches his charming smile to Jimmy, “Why don’t you take a few photos of us? We’re a real nice picture to see,” he draws you closer to him by the waist, “Especially my soon-to-be wife.” 

Jimmy doesn’t let him repeat that, snapping a couple — more like a dozen — of pictures of Bruce holding you close to him while his other hand is as occupied as yours, sitting on Dick’s shoulder as he stands between the two of you, grinning ear to ear. 

“So, Clark,” you start when Jimmy stops snapping pictures, eyeing the other reporter from the Daily Planet — was it Lane? — from the other side of the room, “is that your girlfriend? You two looked pretty close earlier.” 

It’s meant to be a friendly remark, said with nothing but a happy tone, but Clark almost chokes on his saliva. “Oh, I mean–”

You raise an eyebrow, “Please,” you laugh out, “Don’t tell me she’s just a friend, because I’d be nearly as devastated as she would.”

He huffs with a little smile. “I’m… working on it.” 

You smirk. “That’s a good thing. Bruce here has got something for you that could help in your romantic quest.” you nudge your fianceè with your elbow as Dick snickers, “Don’t you, honey?”

He grumbles, looking with a frown at Clark — it’s not that their relationship isn’t good, it’s just that… he wasn’t really the happiest with your decision. “I do, actually,” he takes out an envelope and passes it to Clark with gritted teeth. “I’m… delighted… to invite you to our wedding.”

“As a friend, and with the possibility to bring a plus one,” you add, hand squeezing Bruce’s bicep, “not as press– there won’t be any, by the way.” you roll your eyes towards your boyfriend, “He’ll insist on making you sign an NDA, but I’m sure that you wouldn’t write anything about it nonetheless.” 

He blushes deep red, “Oh, no, no, I would never–”

“Clark.” you giggle as you interrupt him, “It was a joke. Nobody’s going to make you sign an NDA,”

“Yet,” Bruce grumbles. 

You ignore him. “It was a joke between friends,” you aren’t implying anything in your words — you’re sincere. After all these years, that’s what you see Clark as, and it would be sad not having him or his family at the wedding. You’ve already sent the invites to the Kents: only Clark was missing. 

You hold your hand out to him, hopeful. “We are friends, aren’t we?” 

I loved you, and I’ll always love you– but I’m trying to get over you, and you need to understand that. I can’t do that if you call me just now after ghosting twenty of my calls and voicemails. I’m sure we’ll find a balance in some years when you get back — maybe even be friends again — but please… don’t call.

He takes your hand and shakes it with a soft smile. “Friends.”

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