#blackwolf

At first, Jace tells himself it doesn't matter. So what if Cregan's sister doesn't like him? Plenty of people don't like him—he's a Targaryen, he comes from old money, he's got that private school polish that rubs some people the wrong way. It's fine. He doesn't need everyone to like him, he's not that pathetic.

But the thing is, he wants you to like him.

Maybe it's because you're important to Cregan, and Jace values Cregan's opinion more than almost anyone's. Maybe it's because you're smart and funny and gorgeous in this understated way that sneaks up on him. The kind of beautiful that just is, in the way you listen with your whole body or the curve of your mouth when you're trying not to smile.

Or maybe it's because the cool dismissal in your eyes when you look at him makes him feel like he's failing at something, and Jace has never been good at failing anything in his life (too much insecurity attached to it).

He starts paying attention. Noticing things.

The way you always sit as far from him as possible during group dinners. The way you answer his questions in as few words as possible before turning your attention elsewhere. Or the way you look at him sometimes. Quick, assessing glances that feel like you're cataloguing all his flaws and finding him wanting.

"Does your sister hate me?" he asks Cregan one night after you've left early from a party, citing work in the morning.

Cregan looks up from his phone. "What? No. Why?"

"She's just—she's always so cold with me. Did I do something?"

Cregan shrugs. "That's just how she is."

"It's not, though," Jace insists. "She's not like that with you. Or with Baela. Or with literally anyone else."

"Maybe you're imagining it," Cregan says, but he's already looking back at his phone, clearly not interested in psychoanalysing his sister's social behaviours.

Jace drops it. But he doesn't stop noticing.

The confrontation happens at Cregan's birthday party a few months later. A smallish gathering at his apartment, mostly close friends, too much alcohol. You're there because if there's one thing Jace doesn't doubt is how deeply you and Cregan love one another. You're wearing dark jeans and a soft sweater that somehow makes you look both comfortable and devastating, and you've been studiously avoiding Jace all night.

Which is why, three drinks in and emboldened by it more than he should be, Jace corners you in the kitchen.

"Why don't you like me?" he asks bluntly, no preamble.

You glance up from the drink you're making, and your expression is perfectly neutral. "I never said I didn't like you."

"You don't have to say it," Jace counters with a small scoff. "It's pretty obvious."

"I'm polite to you," you point out. "I say hello. I ask how you're doing."

"You say hello like I'm the mailman," Jace says, and he can hear the frustration bleeding into his voice. "You ask how I'm doing like you're reading from a script. You can't stand being in the same room as me."

You're quiet for a moment, and Jace watches something shift in your expression, some internal decision being made.

"You want honesty?" you ask.

"Yes," Jace says immediately.

"Fine." You set down your drink and look at him directly, piercing in a way that punches the oxygen from his lungs. "You're a pretty boy from an aristocrat family who changes girlfriends every few weeks. You're pleasant to look at, but there's no substance to you. You treat people like they're disposable, especially women. And I don't have time for people like that."

The words land like a punch to the gut.

Jace just stares at you, and he can feel his face tripping through different emotions: shock, anger and hurt all tangled together.

"You don't know anything about me," he finally says, and his voice has gone tight.

"I know enough," you reply coolly. "I've watched you cycle through girlfriends like they're interchangeable. I've heard the way you talk about them, or rather, the way you don't talk about them. Like they're not worth mentioning once you're done."

"That's not—" Jace starts, but you cut him off.

"And I've seen the way you operate," you continue. "The charming smile, the easy compliments, the whole Prince Charming routine. It works on most people. But I'm not most people, and I'm not interested."

"I wasn't trying—" Jace says, and he's getting frustrated now, can feel heat rising in his chest, hot and unfamiliar.

"Good," you say simply. "Because it wouldn't work anyway."

You pick up your drink and walk past him, leaving him standing in the kitchen feeling like he's been flayed open.

That should be the end of it. Jace should take the hint, should back off, should accept that you don't like him and move on with his life.

Instead, it has the exact opposite effect.

Because you're wrong. You don't know him. You've made assumptions based on surface-level observations and decided he's not worth your time, and it makes him furious. Not the hot, explosive kind of fury, but the cold, simmering kind that sits in his chest and doesn't go away.

He starts pushing back.

Little comments during group hangouts. Teasing that has just enough edge to it. Pointed questions designed to make you engage with him instead of just dismissing him.

"Leaving early again?" he asks one night when you grab your coat twenty minutes into a movie night. "Got somewhere important to be, or are you just avoiding me?"

You pause, and there's minute tick in your jaw. "Don't flatter yourself, Velaryon. Not everything is about you."

"Just most things," Jace shoots back with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

Cregan, oblivious, laughs. You don't.

It escalates after that. Slowly, over weeks, the teasing becomes more frequent. More pointed. Hungrier.

Jace starts showing up to things he knows you'll be at. Starts sitting closer to you, inserting himself into your conversations, finding excuses to talk to you even when you clearly don't want to engage. He tells himself he's trying to prove you wrong, trying to show you that you've misjudged him so you apologise.

But really, he's trying to get under your skin.

The problem is, he's only succeeding in getting under his own.

Because every time you dismiss him with that cool, unaffected tone, something in his chest burns. Every time you look at him with those assessing eyes and clearly find him lacking, he wants to grab you and make you see him. Really see him. Not the pretty boy from the aristocrat family, not the guy who dates around, but him. Jacaerys, Cregan's best friend, the person who drove an injured stray he found on the side of the road to the emergency vets and calls his little brothers every week to make sure they're okay.

The pleasant warmth he's felt with other women—the easy, comfortable attraction that fades after a few months—is an inferno with you. And he's never felt greedier, never felt more Targaryen, never felt more like a dragon than when you dismiss him.

Like there's fire in his veins and you're the only thing that can either extinguish it or make it consume him entirely.

The worst part is that you're not even trying to wind him up. You're just... existing. Being yourself. And somehow that makes it worse.

Like when you show up to Cregan's place in workout clothes, no makeup, and you're somehow more devastating than any of the girls Jace has dated who spent hours getting ready.

Or when you're curled up on the couch reading and he can see the concentration on your face, the way you bite your lower lip slightly when you're thinking. Or when you laugh at something Cregan says and your whole face lights up and Jace wants to know what it would take to make you laugh like that at something he said.

He finds himself watching you obsessively. Noting small details. The way you drink your coffee. The way you tap your fingers when you're nervous. The way you go quiet and watchful when you're in a new situation, assessing before you engage.

And he starts to realise: you're not cool and dismissive because you're icy or unfeeling. You're careful. You don't let people in easily. You protect yourself.

Which makes him want to be let in even more.

It comes to a head at another party. Someone's birthday, Jace doesn't even remember whose. Too many people, too much noise, and he's been drinking just enough to make his already-thin filter non-existent.

He finds you on the balcony, alone, looking out at the city.

"Hiding?" he asks.

You don't turn around. "Thinking."

"About what?"

"Nothing that concerns you."

Jace moves to stand beside you, close enough that your arms almost touch. "Everything about you concerns me lately."

That makes you turn, and there's something sharp in your expression. "Why? Looking for a new challenge now that your latest girlfriend dumped you?"

"She didn't dump me," Jace says, a little more defensive than he would like. "It was mutual."

"It's always mutual with you," you observe. "Funny how that works."

He bristles, feeling that familiar heat prickling at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you don't let anyone get close," you say, and your voice has gone hard now, knowing. "You date these women for a few weeks, maybe a couple months, and then you move on before they can actually matter. Before you have to matter. It's safer that way, isn't it?"

Jace feels a crack in his chest, then, because how the fuck do you see that?

"You don't know what you're talking about," he says, but it sounds weak even to his own ears.

"Don't I?" You turn to face him fully now, and there's something almost angry in your expression. "I've been watching you for years, Jace. I've seen the pattern. And I'm not interested in being another name on the list."

"I never asked you to be," Jace shoots back.

"Good," you say. "Because I wouldn't—"

"But I want you to be," Jace cuts you off, and the words are out before he can stop them. "I want you to be on the list, and I want you to be the last name on it, and I want to stop feeling like I'm losing my fucking mind every time you look at me like I'm nothing."

You go still, your expression carefully blank.

"I know you think I'm shallow," Jace continues, and he's on a roll now, can't stop. "I know you think I'm some pretty boy with no substance. But you're wrong. And I've spent months trying to prove it to you, trying to make you see me, and all you do is dismiss me like I'm not even worth your time."

"Jace—"

"And the worst part," he keeps going, "is that I can't stop thinking about you. Can't stop wanting you to like me. Can't stop imagining what it would be like if you looked at me the way you look at Cregan... like I actually matter."

The silence that follows is deafening.

You're staring at him, and Jace can't read your expression, and he's suddenly acutely aware that he's just laid himself completely bare to someone who has made it very clear she doesn't want anything to do with him.

"You're drunk," you finally say, but your voice sounds uncertain.

"I'm not," Jace says. "I'm just done pretending I don't—" He stops, swallows. "I'm done pretending you don't affect me."

You're quiet for a long moment. Then, "You don't even know me."

"I know you're fiercely protective of the people you love," Jace says. "I know you're funny when you let your guard down. I know you bite your lip when you're thinking and you drink your coffee a specific way and you leave parties early because too many people exhaust you. I know you're careful about who you let in, and I know I'm not one of those people, and it's killing me."

Another silence. Your expression has shifted into something less composed now. Surprise, maybe, or confusion, or something else he can't name.

"I should go," you say quietly.

"Don't," Jace says, and he reaches for your arm before he can think better of it. "Please. Just—talk to me. Tell me what I have to do to make you see me as something other than what you think I am."

You gaze down at where his hand is wrapped around your forearm, and for a moment, Jace thinks you're going to pull away. But you don't.

"I don't know," you admit softly. "I don't know if you can."

"Let me try," Jace says, and his voice has gone rough. "Just give me a chance. Let me prove you wrong."

You look up at him, and your eyes are searching, assessing, and Jace has never wanted anything more than he wants you to say yes right now.

"One chance," you finally say. "But if you fuck it up, we're done. And I mean actually done. No more teasing, no more showing up places you know I'll be, no more trying to get under my skin. You leave me alone. Understood?"

"Understood," Jace says immediately.

You pull your arm from his grasp, and Jace tries not to feel bereft at the loss of contact.

"This doesn't mean I like you," you tell him.

"I know."

"And it doesn't mean I'm going to make this easy for you."

"I wouldn't want you to," Jace says, and he means it.

You study him for another moment, and then something shifts in your expression. It might be amusement, or approval, or interest.

"We'll see," you say thoughtfully. And then you walk back inside, leaving Jace on the balcony with his heart pounding and the certain knowledge that he's fucked.

Because he's spent months telling himself he just wanted you to like him, wanted you to see him as more than surface-level pretty. But standing here, watching you walk away, he realises: he doesn't just want you to like him.