#cat's fics

You heard the commotion before you saw him. The Targaryen encampment was a hive of activity, servants hurrying with trunks and tapestries, grooms leading horses to the picket lines, guards taking up their posts. You had arrived a day earlier, traveling with your family, separately from your husband despite his insistence. The roads are dusty, he himself had said, after all, with that faint curl of his lip that might have been concern or might have been disdain. You will arrive fresh and rested. I will not have my wife looking like a Dothraki crone at her first great tourney. So you had come ahead with a small retinue, and you had waited.

Now he was here.

You remained in your chair within the pavilion, a book open on your lap that you had not read a single word of in the past hour. Your heart was beating too fast, a traitorous thing that had never learned to be calm around him. It was not fear, not precisely. It was something more complicated, something that knotted in your belly and made your breath come shorter and your skin feel too warm.

You heard his voice outside, giving orders, and then the flap of the pavilion was thrown back and he stepped inside, bringing with him the smell of horse and leather and something else, something that was just him.

“Wine,” he said to the air, not looking at you. He shrugged off his cloak and tossed it over a chest. “I told them to bring wine. If it is not here by the time I have removed my boots, I will have someone flogged.”

You said nothing. You watched him sit on the edge of the camp bed and work at his boots, his long fingers deft on the buckles. His silver hair fell forward. He was beautiful. You had thought so the first time you saw him, standing in your father’s hall with that faint, mocking smile and those impossible violet eyes, and you thought so now, even knowing what lay beneath the beauty. Perhaps because of what lay beneath it. You had never been able to untangle that knot.

A servant appeared, breathless, bearing a silver tray with a flagon of wine and two goblets. Aerion waved a hand dismissively. “Leave it. Go.”

The servant went. Aerion poured himself a goblet of deep red wine, swirled it, inhaled, and took a long drink. Only then did he seem to notice you, though you knew he had been aware of you from the moment he stepped into the tent. He was always aware of you. It was one of the things that made him so unsettling.

His violet eyes traveled over you slowly, from the crown of your head to the tips of your slippers, and you felt the weight of that gaze like a physical touch. You wore a gown of pale blue silk, cut low enough to be pleasing but not so low as to be vulgar, your hair dressed simply but becomingly. You were not a great beauty, you knew. You were pretty enough, with good skin and kind eyes and a mouth that smiled easily, but you were no silver-haired Targaryen princess. You were just you. And he was Aerion Brightflame.

“Well,” he drawled, setting down his goblet. His smile curved slowly, lazily, like a cat stretching in the sun. “How very fortunate. A pretty wench has finally found her way to my tent.”

Your spine stiffened. Your hands tightened on the book in your lap. “Aerion.”

“I wonder,” he continued, as if you had not spoken, “what brings you here. Looking to earn some silver for your services, perhaps?” He leaned back on his hands, his legs spread slightly, his entire posture one of indolent amusement. “I am told I am generous. When the service pleases me.”

Heat flooded your cheeks. It was anger, you told yourself. Only anger. Not the other thing, the thing that made your thighs press together beneath your skirts. “You are my husband.”

“Am I?” He tilted his head, feigning surprise. “I had forgotten. You must remind me. Wives and whores are so easily confused, are they not? Both warm. Both willing.” His smile sharpened. “Both so very eager to please their prince.”

You rose from your chair, the book sliding forgotten to the cushion. “If you wish to play games, Aerion, find someone else. I am not in the mood.”

“Oh, but you are.” His voice dropped, losing some of its mocking edge and gaining something darker, something that vibrated in the air between you. “You are always in the mood for me. I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it on your skin.” He inhaled deeply, theatrically, his nostrils flaring. “Like honey. Like summer. Come here.”

Your feet carried you forward before your mind could catch up. You hated that. You hated how easily he commanded your body, how your legs moved to his voice as if pulled by strings. You stopped a few feet from him, close enough to see the small scar on his jaw from some childhood mishap, the way his pupils had swallowed the violet of his irises.

“I am your wife,” you said again, quieter this time.

“Yes.” He reached out and caught your wrist, his grip warm and firm but not painful. He tugged, gently, and you stumbled forward until you were standing between his spread knees. “You are. And yet here you are, in my tent, dressed unbefitting your station, looking at me with those eyes. What is a prince to think?”

He released your wrist and patted his thigh. The gesture was casual, but his eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your breath catch. “Come. Sit. Show me what a pretty wench does when she wants to earn her silver.”

You hesitated. The game was cruel, you knew. It was like him, to push and push until you did not know whether you wanted to slap him or kiss him, until the lines between anger and desire blurred into something indistinguishable. But beneath the cruelty, beneath the mockery, there was something else. You had learned to see it, over two years of marriage. A flicker in his eyes, a slight softening around his mouth. He wanted this game, yes, but he wanted you. He wanted you to play it with him, to meet him in this strange space he had created, where you were both more and less than husband and wife.

You lowered yourself onto his lap.

His hands came up immediately, settling on your hips, fingers pressing into the silk of your gown. “There,” he murmured, his breath warm against your throat. “That was not so difficult, was it?”

“I am not a whore,” you said, your voice steadier than you felt.

“No,” he agreed, and his lips brushed the curve of your jaw, feather-light. “You are not. A whore would know what to do. A whore would have her hands in my hair by now, or her fingers on my laces. A whore would be rocking against me, seeking her own pleasure as much as mine.” His teeth grazed your earlobe. “You, my sweet wife, are sitting on my lap like a startled doe. It is charming. It is also, I confess, somewhat frustrating.”

You turned your head and met his eyes. They were so close, those violet eyes, and they were laughing at you. But there was warmth there too, a heat that had nothing to do with mockery. “Then teach me.”

Something shifted in his expression. The lazy amusement remained, but beneath it something kindled, something hungry and intent. “Oh,” he breathed. “I intend to.”

His hands slid from your hips to the laces of your gown. He did not fumble, did not hesitate. His fingers worked the knots with practiced ease, loosening the silk until the bodice gaped and cool air kissed your skin. You shivered, and his smile widened.

“First,” he said, his voice a low murmur against your collarbone, “a whore does not sit still and wait to be undressed. She participates. She wants the business concluded quickly, so she may move on to the next customer. She is efficient.” He tugged the gown down over your shoulders, baring your breasts to the warm air of the tent. “She does not blush like a maiden on her wedding night.”

You could feel the heat spreading down your chest. But you lifted your hands and began to work at the laces of his tunic, your fingers less deft than his, trembling slightly. He let you struggle for a moment, watching your face with those intense violet eyes, before he covered your hands with his own and guided them.

“Like this,” he said, and his voice had gone rough at the edges. “Slowly. There is no rush. The customer will pay for your time regardless.”

“You are the customer,” you pointed out, your voice breathless.

“I am.” He shrugged out of his tunic, letting it fall to the floor of the tent. His chest was lean and pale, dusted with fine silver hair, the muscles shifting beneath his skin as he moved. “And I am a generous man. I will pay for every moment.”

His hands found your breasts, cupping them, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they tightened into hard peaks. You gasped, your hips jerking forward instinctively, and he laughed, a low, pleased sound.

“There,” he said. “Now you are beginning to understand. A whore knows her own pleasure. She takes it where she finds it, because the night is long and there are many customers. She does not wait for permission.”

He shifted beneath you, and you felt the hard length of him pressing against your thigh through his breeches. Your breath caught. You rocked against him, experimental, and his eyes fluttered half-closed.

“Yes,” he breathed. “Like that.”

His hands slid down your body, gathering your skirts, pushing them up until they bunched around your waist. The air was cool on your bare thighs, and you shivered again, but it was not from cold. His fingers found the waist of your smallclothes and tugged, and you lifted your hips to help him, your body moving without conscious thought now, driven by a need that had been building since the moment he stepped into the tent.

“Now,” he said, his voice a dark purr, “you will take what you want. I am merely a customer. A paying customer. Do you understand?”

You did not understand, not entirely, but you nodded anyway. His hands settled on your hips again, guiding you, positioning you. You felt the blunt head of him pressing against your entrance, and you were slick and ready, your body traitorously eager. You sank down onto him, taking him inside you in one slow motion, and the sound he made, a low, guttural groan that seemed torn from somewhere deep in his chest, made your inner muscles clench around him.

“Gods,” he muttered. His head fell back, his throat exposed. “You are...you are...”

You did not let him finish. You began to move, rocking on his lap as he had instructed, finding a rhythm that made pleasure spark up your spine. His hands tightened on your hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, but you did not care. You were watching his face, watching the way his composure cracked and crumbled, watching the mocking prince dissolve into something rawer, something more honest.

“Look at you,” he said, his voice strained. “My pretty little whore. Taking what she wants. Riding me like a...like a...”

His words broke off into a groan as you shifted your angle, finding a spot that made you both gasp. You braced your hands on his shoulders, your fingers digging into the pale skin, and moved faster. The tent was warm, filled with the scent of wine and sex and the faint sweetness that always clung to him. Outside, you could hear the distant sounds of the tourney grounds, horses, voices, the clash of practice swords, but they seemed very far away, from another world entirely.

He was watching you now, his violet eyes wide and dark, his lips parted. The mockery was gone. The game was forgotten. There was only this, the slide of your bodies together, the wet sounds of your joining, the way his hips bucked up to meet your downward strokes.

You leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed you back with equal ferocity, one hand leaving your hip to tangle in your hair, holding you close as his tongue swept into your mouth.

When you broke apart, gasping, he pressed his forehead to yours. His eyes were squeezed shut, his brow furrowed as if in pain. “I cannot...you are too...I need...”

You did not know what he needed. You were too far gone yourself, the pleasure building and building like a wave preparing to crash. Your rhythm faltered, became erratic, and you buried your face in the curve of his neck, breathing in the scent of him.

His arms came around you, crushing you against his chest. One hand splayed across your bare back, holding you close, while the other gripped your hip, guiding your movements. His mouth found your shoulder, and he kissed the skin there.

You shattered. The pleasure broke over you in waves, making you cry out against his throat, your body clenching around him rhythmically. He followed a moment later, his hips jerking up into you, a low groan tearing from his lips as he spilled inside you.

But Aerion, being Aerion, did not let up.

His grip on your hips tightened before you could catch your breath, holding you firmly in place atop him. You were still trembling, still gasping, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, when his voice came again: that same lazy, mocking drawl, as if nothing at all had happened between you.

"What a pretty girl you are," he murmured against your hair, and you could feel his lips curve into a smile. "So eager. So willing. If you please me well enough, I may take you back to Summerhall as my paramour."

You stiffened in his arms. He was still playing the game. Even now, with his seed still warm inside you, with your bodies still joined, he could not simply be your husband. He had to be this: this infuriating, impossible creature who needed to twist everything into something strange and sharp.

"Aerion..." you started, but he cut you off, his hand sliding up your spine to cup the back of your neck.

"I'll even put a babe in you," he continued. His other hand pressed against your lower belly, where his seed was taking root, if the gods willed it. "I would wager you would give me a beautiful child. Silver hair, violet eyes. A true dragon." His thumb traced a slow circle on your stomach. "A son. You would like that, would you not? To give a prince a son?"

Your breath caught. The words were part of the game, they had to be, but there was something in his voice, some thread of genuine yearning, that made your heart clench. He wanted a son. He had always wanted a son. It was the reason he had married you, or so he claimed. A wife to give him heirs. A warm body to fill with dragon seed. Nothing more.

But his hands on you were gentle now, even as his words remained cruel.

"You are so soft," he breathed, his lips brushing your temple. "So supple. I would wager you make good coin at tourneys. Rotating through tents, spreading your legs for any knight with silver in his purse." His hips shifted beneath you, a small, lazy movement that made you gasp. "But I would keep you for myself. I am a jealous man. I do not share what is mine."

You pulled back enough to look at his face. His violet eyes were half-lidded, his lips curved in that familiar mocking smile, but there was a tension around his jaw, a tightness that betrayed him. He was waiting for something. Waiting to see if you would play along, or if you would break the game and demand he be your husband instead of this strange, cruel stranger he pretended to be.

"A prince's paramour," you said slowly, finding your voice. "That is a generous offer. But I have heard the prince of Summerhall already has a wife."

Something flickered in his eyes. Satisfaction, perhaps. Or something softer.

"His wife," Aerion said, and his voice changed, the mockery falling away like a cloak dropped to the floor, "is a vexing creature who does not know her place."

There it was. The shift. You were his wife again, and he was your husband, and the game was over. Or so you thought.

"She came to Ashford days ago," he continued, and now there was a genuine edge to his voice, a sharpness that had nothing to do with play. "With her own house. Her own retinue. As if she were not a Targaryen. As if she were not mine."

You opened your mouth to protest, but he was not finished.

"I arrived today and found my wife already ensconced in my pavilion, wearing a gown of pale blue silk that any merchant's daughter might own." His fingers plucked at the fabric pooled around your waist, his lip curling. "Plain. Unadorned. No jewels. No finery. As if I had not bought her a dozen gowns finer than this. As if I had not given her rubies and sapphires and pearls enough to drown a lesser woman."

"I thought..."

"You thought wrong." His hand came up to cup your face, his thumb tracing your lower lip. His touch was gentle, but his eyes were hard. "You are a Targaryen now. My wife. When we travel, you travel with me. Not ahead, not behind, not separately. With me. At my side. Where you belong."

"I did not want to slow you down," you said quietly. "You said the roads were dusty. You said..."

"I said many things." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, brief and fierce. "I am your husband. It is my right to complain about dusty roads while you ride beside me. It is my right to be irritated by your presence and comforted by it in equal measure. You do not get to escape me so easily."

You stared at him, your heart beating too fast. He was impossible. He was infuriating. He was looking at you with those violet eyes, and beneath the irritation, beneath the princely arrogance, there was something that looked almost like hurt.

"You were lonely," you realized aloud. "You arrived and I was not with you, and you were lonely."

His jaw tightened. "I was bored. There is a difference."

"Is there?"

His hand slid from your face to your throat, not squeezing, just resting there, a reminder of his strength, of the power he held over you. "Do not presume to know my mind, wife."

But you did know. Marriage had taught you to read him, to see past the barbs and the mockery to the man beneath. A man who did not know how to say I missed you without wrapping it in thorns. A man who had been raised to believe that wanting someone was a weakness, and so he pretended he wanted no one at all.

"And this gown," he continued, his thumb stroking the column of your throat. "You will not wear it again. Not in public. I have bought you silks and velvets. I have given you the jewels to wear. You will wear them. All of them. At once, if you must. I will not have the realm whispering that prince Aerion cannot care for his wife."

"No one would think that," you said.

"They would." His voice dropped, and for a moment, the mask slipped entirely. "And what if someone had seen you, dressed like this? What if some knight or lord had mistaken you for a common wench, a camp follower, and dragged you to his tent?" His grip on your throat tightened fractionally. "What would I have done then? Burned the entire tourney to ash? Killed every man who looked at you? You are mine, and you walk about looking like anyone might have you, and I cannot..."

He stopped. His breath was coming faster, his chest rising and falling beneath your hands. His eyes were wide, wild, and you realized with a start that he was genuinely afraid. Not of losing you to another man, Aerion Targaryen feared very little, but of the rage that would consume him if anyone tried. Of what he might do.

"Aerion," you said softly. You lifted your hand and touched his face, your fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. "I am sorry. I did not think."

"No," he agreed, but some of the tension bled out of him. "You did not."

He turned his face into your palm and pressed a kiss there, his lips warm and surprisingly soft. Then he kissed your wrist, the inside of your elbow, the curve of your shoulder. His hands slid down your body, over your ribs, your waist, settling once more on your hips.

"I will wear the gowns," you promised, your voice breathless as his mouth found the hollow of your throat. "And the jewels. All of them. I will look like a Targaryen princess."

"You are a Targaryen princess." His teeth grazed your collarbone. "My princess. My wife."

"And I will ride with you," you continued, your fingers tangling in his silver hair. "Always. I will not go ahead again."

"See that you do not." He lifted his head and looked at you, and the mockery was gone from his eyes, replaced by something fiercer and far more dangerous. "I will not be parted from you again. I find I do not care for it."

Before you could answer, his hands tightened on your hips and he guided you into motion again. You gasped, your body still sensitive from your first release, but he did not stop. He moved you slowly, rocking you against him in a rhythm that made pleasure spark up your spine all over again.

"Aerion," you managed, your voice unsteady. "I am...your breeches...I am drenching them..."

"Let them be drenched." His voice was rough, his breath coming in short pants against your throat. "I have other breeches. I have a hundred breeches. I will ruin them all if I must."

You could not argue. You could barely think. He was moving you faster now, his hips rising to meet yours, and the wet sounds of your joining filled the tent. His hands roamed your body: your breasts, your waist, the curve of your backside, touching you everywhere, as if he could not get enough of the feel of you.

"You are prettier than any wench," he panted, the words tumbling from his lips like a confession. "Prettier than any woman I have ever seen. My pretty wife. My sweet wife. You are always so...so warm...so perfect for me..."

His words dissolved into a groan as you clenched around him, your own pleasure building again. You buried your face in his neck and let him move you, let him take what he needed, because you needed it too. You needed this: this fierce, consuming thing between you, this fire that burned away all pretense and left only the raw truth of your wanting.

"I am going to..." he started, but he did not finish. His body arched beneath you, his hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise, and he spilled inside you with a broken cry. The sensation pushed you over the edge after him, your body milking him greedily, drawing out every last drop of his seed.

For a long moment, you simply breathed together, your bodies still joined, your hearts pounding in tandem. You expected him to release you, to let you slide off his lap and find your feet. Instead, his arms tightened around you, holding you in place.

"Aerion," you said, shifting slightly. "I should..."

"No." His voice was firm, though still roughened with pleasure. "Stay."

"But I am..."

"Stay." His hand pressed against your lower back, keeping you flush against his chest. "I like you here. Warm and soft and full of me. You will stay until I say you may move."

You squirmed, and his grip tightened. A small, cruel smile curved his lips, the first hint of the old Aerion, the one who liked to push and test and see how far you would go for him.

"Uncomfortable, my love?" he asked, his voice a lazy drawl once more. "Good. Think of it as penance. For leaving me to ride alone. For wearing that plain little gown. For making me worry."

"I did not know you worried."

"I did not know either." He said it lightly, but there was something raw beneath the words. "It was a most unpleasant discovery. I do not recommend it."

He leaned back on the camp bed, pulling you with him, so that you were sprawled across his chest. His hands roamed your back in slow, idle strokes, tracing the curve of your spine, the dip of your waist. His eyes were half-closed, his expression one of sated contentment, but there was an expectation in the set of his mouth, a silent demand.

You leaned down and pressed your lips to his throat, just below his jaw, where his pulse beat slow and strong. He made a small sound, not quite a sigh, not quite a groan, and tilted his head back, offering you more of his neck. You kissed your way along the elegant line of his throat, feeling the vibration of his hum of approval against your lips.

"That is better," he murmured, his fingers tangling in your hair. "My sweet wife. My dutiful wife."

You dragged your tongue along his skin, tasting salt and the faint sweetness that always clung to him. He shivered, and you felt a surge of power. He might command you, might order you about and mock you and play his cruel games, but here, in this, you had power too. You could make him shiver.

You kissed his jaw, the corner of his mouth, the high curve of his cheekbone. His eyes had fallen fully closed now, his lips parted, his breathing slow and deep. He looked almost peaceful. Almost gentle. You knew better than to believe it entirely, Aerion Targaryen was never entirely peaceful, never entirely gentle, but in these moments, after he had spent himself inside you, when your body was still wrapped around his, he came close.

He smiled, a real smile, not the mocking curve he showed the world, and pulled you down for a kiss. It was slow and deep and thorough, his tongue sliding against yours, his hand cradling the back of your head as if you were something precious.

When he finally released you, his eyes had sharpened again, a new hunger kindling in their violet depths.

"Now," he said, and his voice was a dark promise. "Let us see how sturdy this makeshift bed truly is."

Before you could respond, he rolled, taking you with him, and suddenly you were on your back on the camp bed, staring up at him. His silver hair fell around his face like a curtain, his eyes burning down at you, his body still joined with yours.

"Aerion..."

"Quiet," he said, but there was no cruelty in it. Only want. Only need. "You owe me. For the lonely ride. For the plain gown. For every moment I spent wondering where you were and whether you were safe."

He began to move, slow and deep, and you forgot how to speak.

The bed creaked beneath you, a rhythmic sound that matched the thrust of his hips. He braced himself on his forearms, his face inches from yours, his eyes never leaving your face. He watched every flicker of pleasure that crossed your features, every gasp, every moan, as if he were memorizing them.

You reached up and pulled him down for a kiss, and he groaned into your mouth. His rhythm faltered, became more urgent, and you wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper.

The bed creaked louder. Neither of you cared.

"Give me a son," he gasped against your lips. "Give me a son, and I will give you anything. Everything. Just...give me..."

The bed gave way with a splintering crack that echoed through the tent like a thunderclap.

One moment you were beneath him, your back pressed into the thin mattress, your legs wrapped around his waist as he drove into you with that single-minded intensity that only Aerion Targaryen possessed. The next, the wooden frame splintered and collapsed, sending you both tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and furs and broken slats.

You gasped, more from surprise than pain, your hands flying to grip his shoulders. Aerion barely paused. He grunted as the bed gave way beneath him, catching himself on his forearms before he could crush you, and then he kept moving.

"Aerion," you managed, your voice breathless and startled. "The bed..."

"I noticed." His voice was strained, his hips never slowing their relentless rhythm. The furs beneath you provided some cushion against the hard ground, but you could feel the broken slats of the bed frame pressing into your back through the layers. He shifted, adjusting his angle, and a broken moan escaped your lips.

"You are..." you started, but the words dissolved into a gasp as he hit that spot deep inside you, the one that made your vision blur.

"I am what?" His voice was a dark purr, his violet eyes gleaming down at you in the dim light of the tent. Sweat gleamed on his brow, and his silver hair hung in disheveled strands around his face. He looked wild. He looked beautiful. He looked like a dragon in human form, all fire and hunger and terrible grace. "I am your husband. I am a prince. And I am not going to let a poorly constructed camp bed prevent me from taking what is mine."

Your laughter surprised you, a breathless, slightly hysterical sound that bubbled up from somewhere deep in your chest. "The bed is in splinters."

"Then I will have lord Ashford pay for a new one." His hips snapped forward, hard and deep, and your laughter turned into a moan. "He should have provided sturdier accommodations for a prince of the realm. It is his own fault if his furniture cannot withstand proper use."

Proper use. As if this was proper. As if anything about Aerion Targaryen could ever be called proper.

Aerion did not slow. If anything, he seemed to find new vigor in the destruction, his pace increasing until you were gasping and clutching at his shoulders, your nails leaving crescents in his pale skin.

"That is it," he breathed, his forehead dropping to yours. His eyes were squeezed shut, his brow furrowed in concentration. "That is...yes...you feel..."

He did not finish the thought. His rhythm stuttered, became erratic, and then he was spilling inside you. You cried out, your back arching off the furs, your body clenching around him as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through you.

You lay there, tangled together on the ruined bed, your chests heaving, your bodies still joined. Aerion's weight pressed you into the furs, and you could feel the hard edges of broken wood beneath you, but you could not bring yourself to care.

Finally, he stirred. He lifted his head and looked down at you, and there was something soft in his violet eyes, something that only ever appeared in these private moments, when the mask slipped and the real Aerion peered through.

He pulled out of you slowly, and you winced at the loss, at the sudden emptiness. But before you could mourn it, he was moving down your body, pressing kisses to your skin as he went. Your throat. Your collarbone. The valley between your breasts. Your ribs. And then, when he reached your belly, he stopped.

His hands framed your hips, his thumbs tracing slow circles on the soft skin there. He pressed his lips to the curve of your stomach, just below your navel, the place where, if the gods were kind, a child might one day grow.

"This," he murmured against your skin, "will surely have a babe put in your body."

Your breath caught. You lifted your head to look at him, at the silver hair spilling across your stomach, at the reverence in his touch. He was not mocking now. There was no cruelty in his voice, no sharp edge of humor. Only want. Only hope.

"A son," he continued, his lips brushing your skin with each word. "A strong son. A dragon. I will fill you every night of this tourney, and every night after, until your belly swells with my child. Until the maesters confirm what I already know, that you were made for this. Made to carry my heirs."

Your hand found his hair, your fingers threading through the silver strands. He kissed your belly once more, lingering and soft, and then he lifted his head. His eyes met yours, and for a moment, you saw everything: the loneliness, the fear, the desperate need to prove himself, to leave a legacy, to be more than just a second son with a dangerous reputation. You saw the man beneath the prince, and your heart ached for him.

Then the moment passed. He sat up, stretching with the lazy grace of a cat, utterly unbothered by his nakedness or the wreckage surrounding him.

"We will sleep in lord Ashford's castle tonight anyway," he said, waving a dismissive hand at the ruined bed. "This was merely for the afternoon. A place to rest between the lists and the feast. It matters not if it is broken."

You looked at the splintered wood, the torn mattress, the furs scattered across the ground. "The servants will talk."

"Let them talk." He rose to his feet in one fluid motion, utterly unconcerned with his nakedness. His body was lean and pale, muscled in the way of a man who trained daily with sword and lance, and there was a fine sheen of sweat still glistening on his skin. He looked like something from a tapestry: a warrior, a prince, a creature of myth made flesh. "Let them whisper about the passion of prince Aerion and his lady wife. Let them wonder what we do behind closed tent flaps. I care not."

He found his breeches, miraculously intact, unlike the bed, and pulled them on. Then he turned back to you, still sprawled on the furs, and something flickered in his eyes.

"You should dress," he said. "I am going to find more wine. The servants here are incompetent, and I will not suffer dry throat because of their laziness."

He crossed to you, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to your lips, brief but thorough. Then his hand found your hip, and he pinched, just hard enough to make you yelp.

"That," he said, straightening with a smirk, "is for breaking the bed."

"I did not break the bed. You broke the bed."

"The bed broke because of your..." He gestured vaguely at your body, still disheveled from his attentions. "Your enthusiasm. Your movements. Your inability to lie still while your husband takes his pleasure."

You stared at him, incredulous. "You were the one..."

But he was already gone, sweeping out of the tent with the arrogance of a man who had never been forced to finish an argument he was losing.

You lay there for a moment longer, staring at the tent ceiling, your body still humming with the aftershocks of pleasure. Then, slowly, you sat up and began to put yourself to rights.

The gown was a lost cause, crumpled and stained and likely unwearable until it could be properly laundered. You found a simple shift in one of the trunks and pulled it on, then a robe of soft grey wool to ward off the afternoon chill. You combed your fingers through your tangled hair, doing your best to tame it without a proper brush, and splashed water on your face from the basin in the corner.

When you emerged from the tent, the afternoon sun was warm on your face. The tourney grounds sprawled before you, a sea of colorful pavilions and snapping banners, of knights and squires and smallfolk milling about. The sounds of the lists drifted on the breeze: the clash of practice swords, the shouts of men, the whinny of horses.

You found a camp chair just outside the tent flap and settled into it, careful not to stray far. Aerion's words echoed in your mind. You will not leave my side. You will stay where I can see you. You had promised, and you meant to keep that promise, even if he was not here to enforce it.

The sun was warm. The chair was comfortable. You let your eyes drift half-closed, your body still pleasantly sore from the afternoon's activities. A small, secret smile curved your lips.

Footsteps approached: heavy, hesitant footsteps, the tread of a man who was very large and trying very hard to be quiet. You opened your eyes and found yourself staring up at a veritable giant of a man.

He was tall, taller than any man you had ever seen, easily seven feet, with broad shoulders and thick arms and hands the size of dinner plates. His face was plain and honest, with a strong jaw and kind eyes and a thatch of unruly brown hair. He wore a simple tunic of green and brown, well-made but not fine, and he carried himself with the careful awkwardness of a man who had never quite grown accustomed to his own size.

He was also staring at you with an expression of profound discomfort.

"Begging your pardon, my lady," he said, and his voice was deep and rumbling, like distant thunder. "I did not mean to disturb you. I was looking for...that is, I was trying to find..."

He trailed off, his brow furrowing. He looked at the tent behind you, the black-and-crimson Targaryen pavilion, and then back at you, and something like confusion flickered across his honest face.

"You are the hedge knight," you said, because you had noticed him earlier. Everyone at Ashford had noticed him, if only for his size. He towered over every other man in the camp, a great shambling giant with a boy squire at his heels and a look of perpetual bewilderment on his plain, earnest face. "The tall one. I saw you near the lists this morning."

"I am," he confirmed, and he seemed surprised that you had noticed him at all. "Ser Duncan, if it pleases my lady. Though most call me Dunk." He hesitated. "I was looking for...there was a knight I knew once, Ser Arlan of Pennytree. I thought someone here might remember him. I have been asking at the tents, but I fear I have lost track of which ones I have visited and which I have not."

"I am sorry," you said gently. "I do not know the name."

His shoulders slumped, just slightly. "No one does. It has been many years. I thought perhaps...but it does not matter." He made to leave, then stopped, his brow furrowing again.

"My lady," he said slowly, "are you…are you well?"

You blinked. "I am perfectly well, Ser Duncan. Why do you ask?"

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his big hands opening and closing at his sides. "It is only...I saw prince Aerion enter this tent some hours ago. And I heard him say...that is, I could not help but hear..."

"I am well," you said quickly. "Truly. There is no cause for concern."

But Ser Duncan was not a man who let things go easily. His honest face was troubled, his brow deeply furrowed. He took a half-step closer, lowering his voice as if afraid of being overheard.

"Was he...did he hurt you?" The words seemed to cost him something. His jaw was tight, his eyes earnest and worried. "The prince. I know his reputation. I know what they say about him. If he was too rough with you, if he forced you..."

"Ser Duncan." You held up a hand, stopping him. Understanding was dawning, slow and strange and almost amusing. He did not know you. Aerion had most likely said something vulgar, and then he had seen you - a woman in a plain gown, no jewels, no finery, enter that same tent. And he had drawn the obvious, if incorrect, conclusion.

He thought you were a whore. He thought you were a camp follower, a woman paid for her services, and he was concerned, genuinely, deeply concerned, that the prince had been cruel to you. That he had hurt you. That you might need help.

It was so earnest. So kind. So utterly, completely mistaken.

"The prince did not hurt me," you said, and you could not quite keep the amusement from your voice. "I assure you, Ser Duncan, I am quite unharmed."

He did not look convinced. "If you are afraid to speak, my lady, I understand. Princes are...they have power. They can do things. But I would not let him harm you further. I would..."

"Ser Duncan." You leaned forward slightly, your voice gentle. "What do you think I am doing here?"

He hesitated. His face flushed a deep, ruddy red. "I...that is...it is not my place to judge, my lady. A woman must do what she must to survive. I know that. I have known many good women who..." He stopped, clearly floundering. "I only meant that if the prince was cruel, if he did not pay you what you were owed, I would speak to him. I would make it right."

You stared at him for a long moment. Then, despite yourself, you laughed.

It was not a mocking laugh, you did not have it in you to mock this earnest, well-meaning giant of a man. It was a laugh of genuine, surprised delight. He thought you were a whore awaiting payment. He thought Aerion had used you and cast you aside. And he, a poor hedge knight with nothing but his honour and his size to his name, was offering to confront a prince of the realm on your behalf.

"You are a good man, Ser Duncan," you said, wiping your eyes. "Truly."

He looked confused, and faintly wounded. "I do not understand. If you are not...then why are you..."

Before you could answer, a familiar voice cut through the afternoon air like a blade.

"What is this?"

Aerion emerged from between two neighboring pavilions, a flagon of wine in one hand and two goblets in the other. His silver hair was still disheveled, his tunic only half-laced, and his violet eyes swept over the scene before him with a sharpness that belied his casual posture. He took in you, seated in your camp chair in your plain grey robe. He took in the enormous hedge knight looming over you, his big hands raised in an awkward, abortive gesture.

"I leave my wife alone for a handful of minutes," Aerion said, his voice soft and dangerous, "and I return to find some great lumbering stranger hovering over her like a vulture over carrion. Explain yourself."

Ser Duncan went pale. He took a hasty step back, nearly tripping over his own feet, and raised his hands higher in a gesture of surrender. "Your Grace, I meant no harm. I was only...I did not realize...that is, I thought she was..."

Your mind raced. You saw the path this conversation was about to take: the hedge knight's earnest confession, Aerion's cold fury at being thought the kind of man who would pay for a whore when he had a wife, the potential for humiliation and violence that would follow. Ser Duncan did not deserve that. He had been kind. He had been concerned. He had offered to help a woman he believed to be in need.

"He was lost," you said quickly, rising from your chair and stepping between the two men. You placed a hand on Aerion's chest, feeling the tension coiled in his muscles. "He was looking for a tent, someone he knew once, a Ser Arlan of Pennytree, and he lost his way. He stopped to ask me for directions. Nothing more."

Aerion's gaze flickered from the hedge knight to you. His eyes narrowed. "Directions."

"Yes." You kept your voice light, pleasant. "He is new to tourneys of this size, I think. The camp is a maze. Anyone might lose their way."

Ser Duncan, to his credit, was not a complete fool. He latched onto the lie with the desperate gratitude of a drowning man seizing a rope. "Yes," he said quickly. "Yes, that is it exactly. I was lost. I asked the lady for directions. Nothing more, Your Grace, I swear it. I would never...I did not mean..."

"You should be grateful to even gaze upon her," Aerion interrupted, his voice dripping with bored disdain. He did not look at the hedge knight. He looked at you, and some of the tension bled from his shoulders, though his posture remained rigid with proprietary pride. "Let alone speak to her. She is a princess now, by marriage if not by birth. Her face is not for the likes of you."

"I am grateful," Ser Duncan said, and he sounded it. "Truly, my prince. The princess was most kind. Most generous with her time. I thank her. I thank you both."

"Yes, yes." Aerion waved a dismissive hand, already bored with the interaction. "You have gazed. You have spoken. You have been granted more than you deserve. Now fuck off."

Ser Duncan did not need to be told twice. He sketched a hasty bow, awkward and unpracticed, the bow of a man who had never quite learned the proper forms, and retreated with impressive speed for a man of his size. You watched him go, disappearing between the pavilions, and felt a small pang of sympathy. He had meant well. He had been kind. And you had lied to protect him from your husband's wrath.

Aerion's hand closed around your wrist. "Inside."

He did not wait for your response. He tugged you back into the tent, letting the flap fall closed behind you. The ruined bed still lay in splinters on the ground, the furs scattered, the evidence of your afternoon's activities plain for anyone to see. Aerion ignored it. He set the wine and goblets on a chest and turned to face you, his arms crossed over his chest.

"A hedge knight," he said flatly. "A great lumbering hedge knight, looming over my wife, making her laugh."

"He was lost," you said again, keeping your voice soft. "Nothing more."

"He was looking at you." Aerion's jaw tightened. "The way men look at things they want."

"Aerion." You stepped closer to him, reaching up to smooth the collar of his unlaced tunic. Your fingers brushed his throat, and you felt his pulse leap beneath your touch. "He was a poor hedge knight who lost his way. He asked for directions. I gave them. He was grateful. That is all."

"He wanted you," Aerion said again, but some of the sharpness had faded from his voice. "I saw it in his eyes."

"He wanted to know if I was well." You rose on your toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "He heard sounds from the tent. He was concerned. That is all."

Aerion's hands found your waist, pulling you closer. "Concerned. About my wife. As if I would ever harm what is mine."

"You play rough games, husband. You cannot blame a stranger for misunderstanding."

"I can blame anyone I like. I am a prince."

You laughed, and the sound seemed to ease something in him. His grip on your waist gentled, his thumbs tracing slow circles through the wool of your robe.

"This gown," he said. "This grey wool thing. You look like a septa. A very pretty septa, but a septa nonetheless. I will not have it."

"It was the first thing I found. My other gown was..."

"I know what your other gown was." His smile curved, sharp and satisfied. "I remember removing it. I remember every moment of removing it." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your throat. "But you cannot wear this to lord Ashford's castle. You cannot wear this to the feast tonight. You cannot wear this anywhere that anyone might see you and think I do not dress my wife as befits her station."

"Then take me to the castle," you said, your voice soft and coaxing. "Lord Ashford has given us chambers. Let us go there now. You can rest properly before the tourney tomorrow, on a real bed, not this splintered mess." You gestured at the ruined camp bed. "And I will try on every gown I brought. Every jewel. You can choose which one you would like to see me in for the feast."

His eyes darkened. "Choose?"

"Choose." You reached up and traced the line of his jaw with your fingertips. "I am your wife. I should dress to please you. Should I not?"

He stared at you for a long moment. Then, slowly, his lips curved into that familiar, dangerous smile. "You are playing me."

"I am pleasing you. There is a difference."

"Is there?"

You smiled and said nothing.

He kissed you and then released you. "Very well. To the castle. But if I am to rest properly, wife, you will be resting beside me. I did not travel all this way to sleep alone."

"I would expect nothing less."

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

 “A black tea.” He says bluntly, looking down towards you. “Right- I’m sorry about that.” You say, at least having enough sensibility to look embarrassed at your reaction. “That was rude of me, I’ll cover your drink for you.” You murmur, brewing the tea. 

“It’s fine,” He says, pausing briefly as if deciding whether or not to voice his thought. “Smart to be afraid- distrusting, rather.” He says, eyes watching as you place the lid onto his cup. 

“Still feels rude anyways,” You say, handing him the drink. “Enjoy.” You say, meeting his eyes for the first time. He grunts his thanks and makes his way towards a table towards the corner of the cafe. Some time between then and the lunch rush he makes his way out of the cafe, and that’s that.

He comes in the next week. And the week after. Always on Thursday. 11:40am on the dot. You’ve started to brew the tea just in time for his arrival, handing him his cup once he reaches the register. It’s nice, dependable. One of few familiar faces in a job where they constantly change and blur together.

The first time it happens is around 5 weeks into your new routine. You already have his tea brewed and he just.. doesn’t show up. You throw away the tea, figuring something must have come up. No big deal.

Until it happens again. And again. It’s not until a little over a month later that he shows up again. You glance up at the clock. 11:40am.

His balaclava is pulled over his head as usual, but it’s painfully clear that he’s exhausted. “Missed you here!” You hum. The same thing you’d tell any of your regulars, but this felt like it had more weight to it. “Was getting worried.” You admit sheepishly, wiping down the counter in preparation for the lunch rush.

“No need to worry, sweetheart.” He says, and oh. In the past month he’d been gone, it seems that you’ve forgotten the rough timbre of his voice. “A tea, please.”

You hesitate for a moment, eyes raking over him. He raises an eyebrow, your gaze assessing. “Alright.” You respond a beat later, pulling out Earl Grey instead of his usual. He hums when you hand him a London Fog, looking at you for explanation. “S’not what I ordered.” He says, no trace of irritation in his voice, just quiet curiosity.

“Actually, you asked for a tea.” You say, gesturing towards the cup. “It’s a tea.” You say, nervousness laced in your smile. A moment passes before he huffs out a laugh, shoulders imperceptibly lighter than when he walked in.

“Alright. Fair’s fair.”

“So, turns out I don’t actually know your name.” You say, passing him an iced chai. He hums in acknowledgement, taking a sip of the drink. “S’good.” He mutters, looking at the drink briefly before his eyes meet yours. “S’that a question or a statement?” He asks, rolling his eyes when you just shrug.

“It’s- I’m Simon.” He says, internally cringing at the way he stumbled over his words. “Well, Simon. It’s nice to meet you.” You smile, eyes moving towards the door when you hear its chime. “Lunch rush, shoo.” You say, swatting him away. He grumbles about rude baristas, a private smile finding its way onto his face.

The next week, he opts for a black surgical mask instead of his balaclava.

You’ve learned that Simon has a tendency to disappear sometimes. There’s never any warning, but one week he won’t stop in and that’s all the notice you need. One week always turns into more, and drags on until he comes back. He’s gone a month or two at a time, and you learn to prepare for it. 

“It’d be embarrassing to lean on a regular that heavily,” You reason, wiping down the counter. You chastise yourself under your breath when you catch yourself glancing at the clock, then the door. Embarrassing.

When he comes back, he picks up as if nothing happened. For some reason you can never place, that bothers you more than you know it should. Feels like he should be doing something, should be apologizing. You know he shouldn’t- that he doesn’t have to. He’s a customer, and faces come and go. That’s part of the job. Selfishly, you wish he would apologize anyways. Would stay longer. Existed beyond the four walls of your cafe.

It hurts more than the first time he left. You know him now. You know his name, can catch the way his shoulders shake ever so slightly at one of your jokes. His presence was a comfort in the moments before the lunch rush, someone who wanted to talk to you for more than a brief moment. You found yourself missing it more than you anticipated.

He’s gone long this time. By the fourth month, you’re convinced he’s ghosting you- go as far as to ask friends if that can even happen in real life. Secretly, you’re mad at him. Your prices aren’t even that high- and you thought you were good enough company. You have so much anger that you don’t know what to do with it until it hits you. You’re lonely.

Your routine is all thrown off, it has been for months now. It’s Tuesday, and you’re in the middle of your lunch rush.

“Jesus-” You startle, his imposing frame catching you entirely off guard. “Okay, fuck. Hi. Tea?” You choke out, already reaching for the black tea.

“Not today. Chat later?” He asks, and fuck, does it feel good. The way his voice borders on desperate, like he’d die without it. God, it felt good.

“Yeah, ‘course. Once I’m out of the shit.” You say, head nodding towards the line behind him. He takes the sign and moves, and you have to take a deep breath before pushing through the rest of the line.

It’s nearing 1pm when people start filtering out. Ever observant, Simon takes the cue and heads to the register. “Started to think you’d tired of me.” You say bluntly, words out of your mouth before you could even think them over. Simon at least had the wherewithal to look ashamed.

“I’m sorry.” He blurts out, standing up straighter. “Well- not really.” Before you can even cut him off, he’s rambling on. “Wouldn’t have happened if it was up to me. But I am sorry that I was gone without notice for that long.” He says, the silence heavy. “I know you worry.”

“I just- can I know why?” You ask, looking up at him. And his heart aches, because the look he was expecting was so much more anger. Instead, he finds a lot of hurt- he thinks that it’s worse than anything else.

“I’m military.” He says and- well, you’re not satisfied. You know there’s more there- have a lot of prodding you want to do- but you’re aware enough to acknowledge and accept a clear boundary being set. “Oh. So this is- it’s gonna be regular? Leaving?” You ask, sounding a world more pitiful than you wanted.

“Afraid so. I figured with how much I disappear on you, might as well just give you my number.” He says bashfully, suddenly finding the mop bucket in the corner terribly interesting. “To check in. That okay?” He tacks on, finally daring to meet your eyes.

“Yeah. More than okay.” You nearly whisper, looking entirely too pleased. “Great, yeah.” He stumbled, pulling out his phone. He felt his face heating up, entirely mortified at his demeanor. The way you look at him is dangerously close to tender, and he finds himself stuck staring at you.

-

Bucky can hear Steve’s grunts through the wall.

He’s unforgivingly pounding into you, nearing breaking the headboard from how hard he’s clutching it and rocking it in time with his thrusts.

Moments like these make him wonder if the serum is a curse.

Because when he closes his eyes, if he lets himself drift, he’s back in ‘44. He’s stuck in a lopsided tent on its last legs in the backwoods of Brooklyn because “Bucky, we have to make the most out of what we have.” And even though it wasn’t much, it was enough to feel his boy in the early hours of the morning and hold him close until sunlight, knowing there might not be a tomorrow. Knowing that every single second needs to last forever because Steve was already slipping through his fingers with every passing one.

He could look his love right in the eyes, sweet and soft and suddenly bigger than him but he was still Steve and he would always need to feel his boy under him. Hot skin and sweat and groans and “Harder, Buck.”

The scratches on his back are burning but the burn is delicious and he needs to be closer.

He needs to be closer, closer to the glowing skin under him that he’s felt time and time again and he’s pulled down by the neck but it’s not him.

It’s not him. Not anymore.

He’s snapped back to reality, seeming impossibly far away but manages to focus on you again. 

“What did you say?” He’s breathless, dazed, confused. His mind is clouded from not so distant memories on the other side of the wall and the feel of you squeezing the life out of him.

“I said,” You’re breathless as well, but totally consumed with how much Bucky there really is around you, inside of you right now. You wrap your hands around his neck and kiss him, spit dripping from where your lips collide and you feel like you could swallow him whole.

“Harder, Buck.”

He gives it to you. He gives you what you need, what you want and you’re ok with being selfish because he’s not all here, and this isn’t supposed to mean anything. Not really.

It’s dirty. It’s messy. And you know it’s wrong when the distance in his eyes never leaves and you can’t help but wonder just what is going on in his mind but damn, the Bucky that is here feels good.

-

You can hear them talking about you in the next room.

It makes you nervous, being able to tell that there were underlying (or resurfacing) feelings between the soldiers from the moment you met them.

It didn’t really have anything to do with you, as you were verbally adamant to Bucky on no strings attached. Baseless, simple, easy pleasure. And damn, did James Barnes know how to deliver.

But you can’t help but think a little too hard about the way they both stare at you when they think you don’t notice, or the way they stare at each other when they think it’s not obvious.

The truth is, you can keep lying to yourself, but there’s no mistake to the feelings you get deep in your chest when Bucky’s holding you, or the feelings you get when Steve’s looking at you like your laugh is lighting up his whole world.

Feelings that don’t belong to you.

“How’s everything with Y/N going?”

You can hear Steve question Bucky about you. It’s confusing, overwhelming. This entire situation is.

You had already assumed Steve knows just about everything involving your relationship with Bucky. They’re best friends. More. But it’s easy to overanalyze and wish to know just how much he was saying when you aren’t listening. How much a “friends with benefits” situation could really warrant discussion.

“It’s alright.” You know that tone. He’s brooding. Upset about something. Or everything, it feels like sometimes. Like something is always missing.

Like the world wouldn't be enough.

“Just alright?” Steve’s ‘captain’ voice is in full effect. He’s trying to get him to talk. It doesn’t seem like it will be successful, but if anyone could pump some life into Bucky it would be Steve. Your chest aches with that thought.

You could never be enough.

You hear Bucky sigh and shuffle around. “It’s good. It’s really good.”

“But?” Steve’s smirk can be heard clearly through his words.

“How’d you know there was a but?” Bucky jokes, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. You know him well enough to be able to.

“I know you better than anyone.”

You almost want it to hurt, to be jealous because if you’re being honest there’s not much in the world you want more than to have all of Bucky Barnes, to be the one who knows him, the one who he lets in. But you can’t, because as annoying as it is, Steve Rogers is always right.

-

Bucky’s head is spinning.

Steve knows him too well to avoid his question, but his nerves are taking over and he doesn’t know how he’s going to do this, how he’s going to tell Steve everything he’s wanted to since he’s been back and everything that was never gone in the first place.

He takes a deep breath, and he thinks about you. He thinks about how he feels when he’s with you, and he thinks about how even though he knows he loves you there’s something missing.

And then he rips the 80 year old band-aid off.

“I miss you.”

It’s quiet, soft, almost imperceptible, like he’s scared of what he’s saying.

Maybe because he is.

Steve’s response sounds exactly the same.

“I’m right here, Buck.”

He scoffs at that, shaking his head and if Steve wasn’t so damn detail-oriented he wouldn’t have seen his lip quiver in quiet anticipation.

Steve knows Bucky won’t speak next, so he gulps and tries to find the words, at least the next words from the countless speeches he’s practiced in his head for this moment.

“I love her.”

Bucky looks up and locks eyes with him, and for a second Steve thinks he’s in trouble.

But Bucky smiles. He looks out towards the city through the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and sort of nods to himself at how stupid they’re all being for tip-toeing around each other.

“I know.”

Steve’s eyebrows are furrowed as he leans back a bit, waiting for something else. It doesn’t come, so he relaxes and leans further towards the man sitting across from him and stares deep into his eyes, praying he really hears his next words.

“I love you.”

Bucky smiles again.

“I know.”

He isn’t sure if he’s waiting for the right moment or just likes seeing Steve speechless, but he’s sitting on something big and it’s been far too long of almost everything he’s ever wanted.

He’s loved Steve since he was a stupid teenager. He’s been in love with Steve since the first time he punched a guy for him and swore to himself he’d never let him go.

He woke up from years of torture, not just physical but mental and emotional having to be apart for so long and never being able to forget him.

You were an accident. He didn’t mean to fall. He went along with your whole “friends with benefits” idea because he just needed to be close to you. You were entrancing, lovely, intoxicating. He needed you. He needs you. It’s been racking his brain for so long of the growing feelings he has for you and the pure need he has for Steve but he’s learning to let go and say fuck it.

I want you both. I need you both.

“Do you think we could be happy? All of us?”

Steve smiles that smile Bucky knows and loves all too much like the answer is obvious, like it always has been. He loses himself in the thought for only a moment, but long enough to miss Bucky’s face fall with worry.

“What are you scared of?”

Steve speaks as if he can read his mind, because honestly, he probably can, and Bucky looks up at the question and decides they’ve both been through too much for anymore lying or beating around the bush. It’s now, or it’s never. Life is too uncertain to waste anymore time.

“Losing you. Again.”

Steve tilts his head at this, because he’s always felt like he’s the one who lost Bucky. Watching him fall from the train took something from him and putting him back under took even more but maybe that’s not what he meant.

Maybe it never was.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Bucky laughs sadly at Steve’s words and wishes that was a promise that could be kept, that was more simple. None of this is simple. Nothing has been since the 40s.

“I’m not the same person I was in the 40s, Steve.”

“Neither am I.”

He knows this. He knows everything is different, but when he looks at Steve and he’s looking back at him the same way it’s like they never left Brooklyn.

And he finally gets to ask the question that’s been lingering in his head since Wakanda. 

“You think you could love me again?”

Without hesitation, Steve knows his answer. He’s known it since he left him to heal.

“Never stopped.”

-

You try to hurry away when you hear them coming, but they’re both way too clever to not have noticed you.

You stop and let them catch up to you, the butterflies leaving your stomach and making their way up into your throat.

Despite your nerves, you turn and lock eyes with Bucky. Even when the world’s spinning, you can never help but look at him like he hung the stars for you.

Bucky’s looking back at you the way he always does, like he has a million things running through his mind but he loves you too much to burden you with any of them. You just wish he knew he could never be a burden. That you loved him, all of him.

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I know, Buck. I love you too.”

He smiles at your return to his confession, some of his nerves leaving knowing that you feel the same. But then he remembers the man next to him and they all come rushing back. He doesn’t want to lose you, not when he just got you. But he can’t deny his boy. Not anymore.

He glances over at Steve nervously and grabs his hand, preparing himself for what he’s about to say next.

“I love Steve, too.”

You smile at him, appreciating that he’s finally letting himself feel the things you’ve always known he has.

“I know, Buck. I love him too.”

Steve looks up at you at this, questioning what you really meant. You look back at him, smile, and give him the eyes you’ve wanted to ever since you met him. He’s hesitant at first, but as if a switch hits his brain, his face lights up at the recognition of your feelings for him. And with one look from your golden boy, all of your nerves wash away and you know this is right.

Bucky, who still hasn’t seemed to catch on, is struggling to find his words. He’s stressed, and you and Steve watch him run a hand through his hair in frustration. The same smile appears on both your faces watching your boy fumble over himself trying to explain the situation, trying to make everything right not even noticing it already is.

You step forward to push his hair back so you can see his face, and you take a moment to admire just how beautiful he really is. You kick yourself for wasting so much time not telling him that, but you make a silent promise to yourself that you won’t go another day without it. Without telling both of them how amazing they are, and how they both make you feel more loved than any person could ever deserve.

With your hand still on Bucky’s cheek, you lean in close and press the lightest kiss of your life onto his lips, making him smile shyly into it. And then you lean back, grabbing Steve’s face with your other hand and giving him the hardest, most passionate kiss of your life in the same breath.

Bucky wonders why he was ever nervous at all.

You look at the pure, unadulterated happiness on his face and you know you’ve never seen him like this. For half a moment you want to be jealous, you want to be upset that you couldn’t do this for him on your own. But it all disappears when you see them looking at each other and not being sorry for it anymore. It makes you realize that maybe it’s ok you couldn’t be enough on your own. Maybe it was always supposed to take Steve and you, together, to make him whole again.

Bucky kisses Steve, hard, right as he winks your way and grabs Steve’s hand to lead him back to your room which you can catch glimpses of all three of you living in, in peace.

He runs a hand through his hair and just looks so goddamn happy that you swear your heart isn’t capable of loving him anymore.

And then Steve looks back at you and he smiles his golden boy smile and you swear your heart could collapse at how much you know you love him.

You curtsied, low and perfect, as if he were already your king.

“My prince,” you said softly. “I am honored to meet you.”

His mouth twisted. “Honored,” he repeated. “Do you know what I am?”

“A Targaryen,” you said, lifting your gaze just enough. “Of the blood of the dragon.”

That pleased him, you saw it instantly. The smallest shift in his eyes, the straightening of his shoulders.

“And you?” he pressed. “A pretty little Reach flower. Soft. Common.”

You smiled anyway. “Roses have thorns, my prince.”

He barked out a short, humorless laugh. “You will learn your place quickly. I will give you children. That is your purpose. I suppose you're pretty enough, I can imagine enjoying bedding you. But they will not be plain-featured little gardeners. I will not have it.”

You did not flinch.

“I would never wish to disappoint you,” you said. “Valyrian blood is…otherworldly. To think that my body might carry even a spark of it is more than I ever dreamed.”

That was a gamble.

It paid off.

His eyes sharpened with interest. “You’ve heard the stories.”

“Of dragons,” you said. “Of Old Valyria. Of fire made flesh.”

He turned then, abruptly, stalking down the gallery. “Come,” he ordered. “If you are to bear dragon blood, you should know what it comes from.”

He dragged you from skull to skull, gesturing with restless energy. Balerion’s massive jaws. Vhagar’s curved horns. He spoke of conquest and fear and how men had once trembled at the sound of wings.

“They forget now,” Aerion snarled. “They look at us and see only men. They should see gods.”

“They should,” you agreed quietly. “It must be…infuriating. To be born to such legacy, only to watch it fade.”

He stopped and turned to you, studying you anew. “You understand.”

You tilted your head. “I try.”

From that moment, he talked more. Too much. About dragons. About bloodlines. About how his father did not see him, how the realm did not respect him. You listened. You nodded. You validated every grievance, every simmering fury, as if they were reasonable and righteous.

When he spoke of how he had wanted a sister-wife, you did not recoil. You said, gently, “It is a tragedy, to be denied purity by fate. But perhaps the gods mean to test you. To see if your fire can burn even through lesser blood.”

He liked that.

When he spat about small lords growing bold, you said, “They forget who conquered them. It is your right to remind them.”

He liked that too.

He informed you, bluntly, that he would not be gentle on your wedding night.

You lowered your lashes and said, “Dragons are not gentle creatures.”

The courtship, if it could be called that, was a strange dance. Aerion did not bring you flowers. He did not write poetry. He prowled around you. But you made it into something else.

You let him drag you through the gardens, your skirts gathered in your hands as you laughed and ran, letting him chase you like a predator playing with prey. When he caught you, he would grip your arms, breath hot, eyes bright, and you would laugh into his shoulder and murmur, “The dragon has captured me.”

He liked that more than he should have.

He liked when you watched him train. You sat in the shade with your ladies, clapping softly when he struck true, praising his strength, his form, his speed. Other knights noticed. So did he.

He liked that smallfolk began to recognize you. You made certain of that.

You had bread and coins handed out. You stopped to listen to old women’s stories. You let children touch the embroidery on your sleeves. Soon, whispers followed you through Flea Bottom and the markets.

The Golden Rose. The Dragon’s Lady.

When people spotted you, they bowed and blessed you, and Aerion noticed.

“They love you,” he said one evening, watching a group of women murmur prayers as you passed.

“They love House Targaryen,” you corrected lightly. “Through me.”

That pleased him immensely.

You prayed in the Sept, if only briefly. You never tried to bring him. You knew better. Instead, you let word spread that you were devout enough to soothe the Faith, but not so devout as to shame a dragon prince.

You made friends with your ladies, learning what they heard, what they whispered. You learned which courtiers feared Aerion, which resented him, which flattered him. You stored it all away like weapons hidden in silk.

In private, he began to call you his little rose. At first it was mocking. Then it was possessive. Then it was almost fond.

“You will give me sons,” he told you one night, pacing as you sat at a small table with embroidery you did not truly need. “Strong ones. Silver-haired. Violet-eyed. The gods favor giving your line sons, don't they?.”

“So they say of Tyrell women,” you replied smoothly. “We give the realm sons. They grow strong and healthy.”

He stopped pacing. “Good.”

He stood too close then, invading your space, eyes scanning your face, your mouth, your throat, your waist, your hips.

“At least you are well-proportioned,” he added bluntly. “Your body has merits.”

You smiled sweetly, as if it were a compliment. “I am glad to be of use to you, my prince.”

He did not touch you then but his eyes lingered.

At night, alone in your chambers, fear crept in. You had heard enough. You knew enough. Aerion was cruel. He was unpredictable. You suspected he would not be gentle. You suspected he would not be kind.

So you prepared in the only way you could. You made yourself indispensable.

You became the one person who did not flinch from his talk of dragons and fire. The one who agreed that the world had wronged him. The one who looked at him not with fear, but with admiration carefully measured. You laughed at his jokes, even when they were sharp. You praised his lineage, even when it edged into madness. You let him feel powerful in your presence.

And slowly, he began to seek it.

He would send for you. He would ask where you were. He would grow irritated if you were with your ladies too long.

“My rose,” he said one afternoon, fingers tapping against the hilt of his sword. “Come walk with me.”

You rose at once. “Of course.”

As you walked, he spoke of the wedding. Of the feast. Of the bedding.

“They will cheer,” he said. “They will watch. They will see that the dragon has taken his bride.”

Your heart leapt to your throat, but you kept your smile soft. “It will be a night to remember.”

He glanced at you sideways, eyes dark. “For you.”

You did not look away. “I hope to make you proud, my prince.”

Something in his expression shifted. Not softened but sharpened with intent. Ownership. You saw it. You felt it. You also knew you had no choice now but to keep playing.

Three moons later...

It is the hour of the owl. The fire has burned low. His chambers smell of burnt wood, iron and wine.

Cold is beginning to creep in. Or perhaps it is merely your nerves.

Aerion stands near the hearth, his back to you, silver hair catching the low light. He's downing another goblet of wine. You had forgotten to keep count. Foolish of you, usually you were aware when to coax it out of his hand.

“Ten days,” he says, not looking at you.

You still.

“Ten days late,” Aerion continues, voice controlled in that way that means it isn’t. “You let me think.” His hand tightens slowly into a fist at his side. “You let me hope.”

You swallow. “My prince...”

“Don’t.” He turns then, violet eyes bright with fury and something far more dangerous beneath it. “For ten days, I counted. I imagined. I told myself it had finally taken.” His mouth twists. “I thought you were carrying my child.”

The words land heavy between you.

“And now,” he goes on, stepping closer, each stride eating away at your space, “your moon blood comes. As if to mock me.”

You keep your face soft. Careful. “These things...”

“Spare me septa nonsense,” Aerion snaps. “We have been wed for months. You promised me an heir, precious rose.” The endearment is sharp now, almost cruel. “You swore Tyrell women give sons easily.”

His gaze drags over you, taking in your face, your body beneath thin silk. Ownership. Disappointment. Hunger, all tangled together.

“I wanted to bury my head in your lap tonight,” he admits bitterly. “Let you stroke my hair and tell me it will come, like you always do.” His jaw tightens. “But I am tired of being soothed, wife.”

Wife.

The word is not gentle.

“I am tired of waiting.”

His hand comes up, catching your jaw, tilting your face up. His grip is warm, firm, inescapable.

“You will make it right,” he says quietly. “You will remind my body, and yours, what it is for.”

You don’t pull away.

You never do.

“My precious rose,” he murmurs, and then his voice hardens. “My wife. My only whore.”

The words hit different when he’s like this. When frustration twists them into something darker.

“You were late,” he says again, quieter now. “You let me believe. I was patient as a priest. I was faithful as a knight. I didn't let another get my cock wet, not wanting to waste a single drop of my seed.”

“I didn’t mean to...”

He cuts you off by unlacing your robe, fingers rough, impatient. Silk slides from your shoulders and pools at your feet.

“On the bed,” he orders. “On your back.”

You obey.

He strips quickly, efficiently. When he’s naked, his cock is already hard, thick and flushed, anger and need driving it.

He kneels between your legs, grips your thighs, spreads you wide. His gaze is unflinching.

“This is how you make it right,” Aerion says. “You take me. You take all of me. Until your body remembers its purpose.”

His fingers stroke through you without ceremony. One finger, then two, stretching you open. You gasp despite yourself, hips shifting, seeking friction.

He watches your face closely, smirking faintly when you can’t stop the sound that escapes you.

He withdraws his fingers, brings them to his mouth, tasting you while holding your gaze.

Then he positions himself, hooking your legs up, folding you open.

He pushes inside you in one long, brutal thrust.

You cry out, the stretch sharp, the depth overwhelming. He doesn’t pause. He pulls back and drives in again, setting a deep, punishing rhythm.

His hands grip your thighs hard enough to bruise. The wet, obscene sounds fill the chamber as he uses you, thrust after thrust, deep and hard.

“You’ll take it,” he grits. “You’ll take my seed until it takes root. I will not be denied.”

Your body betrays you, growing slick, opening for him. The pressure builds low in your belly, tight and relentless.

His hand slides between you, thumb finding your most sensitive place, circling rough and insistent.

“Come,” he commands. “If you’re going to fail me, you’ll at least come properly.”

Your body obeys. The release tears through you, clenching around him, and he hisses, thrusts turning harder, erratic.

He buries himself deep and stills, spilling inside you with a choked sound.

He doesn’t pull out.

He keeps you there, shifting you onto your side, holding you tight.

“Don’t move,” he orders. “Every drop stays where it belongs.”

His hand splays over your lower belly.

“We will try again,” he says. “And again. Until it works.”

He hardens again sooner than you expect.

“Stay laying on your back, you spoiled, soft petal. You can't even lean on your arms and knees long enough for me,” he murmurs darkly.

He drags your hips up and enters you again, deeper, rougher. Your cry is muffled by his fingers in your mouth as he grips your hip with the other. You bite down. He never minds.

“You will carry my child,” he pants. “I don’t care what your blood did tonight. Your body will learn.”

Then he is filling you again, fingers shoving his spend back inside you when it spills.

“Can’t waste it,” he growls. “Not when you’ve already disappointed me once.”

He props your hips up afterward, keeps you still, keeps you full, watching you like you’re something fragile and infuriating all at once.

“Stay,” he orders. “Let it settle.”

Aerion lies on his side behind you, his chest pressed to your back. His arm is draped over your waist, hand warm and heavy against your belly. His breathing is slower now, deeper, the edge taken off by exhaustion.

His palm moves in slow, absent circles over your stomach, almost tender. Almost thoughtful. As if he’s trying to imagine something there by force of will alone.

“There,” he murmurs, half to you, half to himself. “That’s where they’ll be. That’s where my heirs will grow. Inside my precious rose.” His thumb presses gently. “You feel warm there. Like fire under skin.”

You say nothing.

His nose brushes your hair. He exhales against your temple, eyes already heavy.

“They’ll have my hair,” he goes on quietly. “My eyes. They’ll be unmistakable. No one will ever doubt them.” His fingers spread. “And you’ll be their mother. You. Not some courtly fool, not some empty pretty thing. You’re the only one worthy to raise my children.”

It almost sounds like love. Almost.

“I won’t abandon you,” Aerion says, sudden intensity sharpening his voice even through the sleepiness. “Even if your body fails me. Even if you never give me what you promised.” His hand tightens briefly on your waist. “I won’t take another wife. I won’t replace you. You’re mine.”

His lips brush your knuckles when you shift your hand near his.

“I would keep you,” he continues, words drifting, unguarded in a way they never are in daylight. “I would keep you with me, always. You’d raise my children. You’d teach them. They’d call you mother.”

Then, like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world, he adds:

“If you can’t give them to me yourself…I’ll take a whore with Valyrian blood. Some bastard girl from Flea Bottom. Silver hair, violet eyes. They’re there, if you know where to look.”

Your stomach turns, but you keep your face still in the dark.

“I’d take her somewhere quiet,” Aerion murmurs, almost thoughtfully. “Somewhere no one watches. I’d breed her. Just long enough to get what I need. I'd have to send you away somewhere as well, around that time.”

His thumb resumes its slow, idle stroke over your belly.

“And when she gives me a child,” he says, voice soft, almost fond, “I’ll kill her.”

The words settle into the room like ash.

“Then you and I will raise the child as our own,” he finishes. “No one will ever question it. No one will ever know.”

Your face twists in a way you’re grateful he can’t see in the darkness.

Aerion brings your hand to his mouth and kisses your knuckles, gentle as a lover, tender as a husband.

“So,” he murmurs against your skin, “give me an heir, petal. Save us both the trouble.”

His grip loosens slightly, fatigue finally winning.

“Sleep now,” he says. “You’ll need your strength. I’ll start again in the morning.”

Full series: Growing Strong, Married Life, Growing Familiar , Deep in the Meadow and Dragon Dreams, Perzys ānogār. Can be read as a oneshots.

"Shh," he breathed, his hips rocking in a slow, steady rhythm. "There you are. My sweet wife. My soft, warm, perfect wife. Just let me take what I need. You do not have to do anything."

And you did not. You lay there, drowsy and pliant, while he chased his pleasure in your body. His hands gripped your hips, tilting you to the angle he preferred, and his violet eyes were fixed on your face, watching every flicker of expression that crossed your features. When he finished, spilling inside you with a low groan, he pulled out slowly and pressed a kiss to your belly.

"A son," he murmured against your skin. "Give me a son, my sweet rose."

Then he gathered you against his chest, pulled the furs over you both, and fell asleep with his face buried in your hair.

This became your routine. Every night, without fail, Aerion took his pleasure from your body. And every night, you fell asleep immediately afterward, your body spent and satisfied, sleeping through until morning like a babe in a cradle.

He had to wake you each day by smacking your arse. A sharp, stinging slap that jolted you from sleep with a yelp and a flurry of tangled limbs.

"Aerion!" you protested, rubbing the smarting flesh. "That is not a proper way to wake one's wife."

"You do not wake to gentle words," he pointed out, already dressed and immaculate, his silver hair pulled back from his face. "I have tried. I have whispered endearments. I have kissed your brow. I have called your name a dozen times. You sleep like the dead, wife. Only pain rouses you."

"It is not pain. It is...surprise. And indecency."

"Call it what you like." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead, brief and almost tender. "You are awake now. The day awaits. I have duties, and you have whatever it is you do when I am not bedding you."

You restrained yourself from glaring at him. He could only tolerate so many complaints until he turned insufferable in return. You had learnt to pick your battles. You had also learnt that if you slipped out of the role of the charming wife, the lovely lady Tyrell, instead of figuring out you had never wanted to play the part of his wife in the first place, he'd think you were deeply upset about this one particular thing and he'd fixate on it. So you rose, and you dressed, and you went about your day, and at night he came to you again.

Nothing deterred him. Not your moon blood, you had been mortified the first time, stammering apologies and trying to push him away, but he had only laughed.

"The wetness is different," he had said, his voice dark with fascination. "Hotter. Slicker. I like it." And he had taken you anyway, slower than usual, watching the evidence of your body paint his length with each withdrawal. Afterward, he had kissed your belly and wished for a son, same as always, utterly unbothered by the blood that stained the sheets.

Not even your fights deterred him. If anything, they made him more ravenous. The night you quarreled over some petty thing, you could not even remember what, some slight or sharp word that had spiraled into shouted accusations, you had retreated to your chambers expecting a night of cold silence. Instead, he had come to you with fire in his violet eyes, spun you around, bent you over the bed, and taken you from behind with a ferocity that left you gasping.

"You are all the more delicious when I am angry," he had panted against your ear, his hips slamming into you with bruising force. "My sweet rose. My infuriating, stubborn, impossible wife. I should hate you. I should cast you aside. Instead, I cannot stop wanting you. Cannot stop needing you. What have you done to me?"

You had no answer. You could barely form words, too consumed by the pleasure and pain of his possession. When he finished, he had pulled you upright against his chest, his arms wrapped around you, his face buried in your neck.

"I do not wish to fight," he had whispered, so quiet you almost did not hear. "I do not know how to stop. But I do not wish to fight with you."

And then, because he was Aerion and could not let tenderness stand unadorned, he had smacked your arse and sent you stumbling toward the bed. "Sleep. I will wake you in the morning."

You had fallen asleep within moments, as always, and slept through until his hand connected with your rear at dawn.

That was simply how things were for some time.

You began to build stamina. Your body, accustomed to his nightly attentions, no longer collapsed into exhausted slumber the moment he spent himself inside you. You still fell asleep before him, Aerion had always been a restless sleeper, prone to lying awake and staring at the canopy while his mind churned, but you no longer passed out like a candle snuffed.

One night, however, Aerion woke in the small hours of the morn and found the space beside him empty.

He assumed you had returned to your own chambers. It was not unusual, you kept your own rooms, as was proper for a lady of your station, though you spent nights in his bed. Perhaps you had needed something. A different gown. A book. A ribbon for your hair. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

But it happened again. And again. And again.

The third time, he mentioned it over breakfast. "You left last night."

You looked up from your plate, your brow furrowed. "Did I?"

"You did. I woke and you were gone. Did you need something from your chambers?"

You blinked, clearly confused. "I...do not recall. I must have been half-asleep. I am sorry if I disturbed you, husband."

He let it go. But the fourth time, and the fifth, and the sixth, he began to wonder.

"You left again," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "Three nights this week. Where do you go?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about." Your eyes were guileless, your expression genuinely bewildered. "I sleep through the night, my love. You know this. You are the one who complains about having to smack me awake each morning."

He studied your face for any sign of deception. He found none. But Aerion Targaryen had been raised in the Red Keep before Summerhall, had survived the viper's pit of court politics, had learned to see lies even when they wore the most innocent of faces. His wife was a Tyrell. She had been trained in deception since birth. If anyone could lie to him convincingly, it was her.

The suspicions only began to grow, curling through his mind like poison ivy. She was leaving his bed in the night. She claimed not to remember. Where was she going? What was she doing?

His mind, ever prone to darkness, supplied answers that made his stomach clench.

A lover. She was sneaking off to meet a lover. Some handsome knight, perhaps, or a lord's son with a pretty face and gentle manners. Someone who was not cruel and sharp and difficult. Someone who could give her soft words and tender touches instead of games and barbs and rough handling. He could not think about it without murderous rage. He could only imagine all the painful ways he would kill the man.

Not a lover, mayhaps, but conspirators. She was a Tyrell. The Tyrells had been loyal to the Targaryens during the Blackfyre Rebellion. Leo Tyrell won notable victories in the Reach against Daemon Blackfyre's supporters, though his forces were unable to gather quickly enough to arrive in time for the battle of the Redgrass field. But loyalties shifted with every harvest in the Reach. Perhaps she was meeting with agents of her house, passing along secrets, plotting against him. Perhaps their entire marriage had been a scheme from the beginning, a way to place a Tyrell close to the throne, close to Summerhall, close to his father Maekar.

Perhaps, and this thought hurt most of all, she simply did not truly love him. Perhaps she left his bed because she could not bear to lie beside him. Perhaps she waited until she thought he was asleep and then fled to her own chambers, where she could breathe freely without his suffocating presence.

Aerion did not sleep that night. He lay beside her, listening to her soft breathing, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. She looked peaceful in sleep. Innocent. Beautiful. When he finally drifted off, his dreams were troubled.

The next morning, he smacked her arse to wake her, same as always. She yelped and swatted at him, same as always. But when she smiled at him over breakfast, he found himself searching her face for signs of guilt, for evidence of betrayal. He found nothing. She was either innocent or a very, very good liar.

That night, he decided he would catch her.

He feigned normalcy. He unlaced her gown with practiced ease, as he always did. He kissed her throat and her breasts and the soft curve of her belly, as he always did. He took her slowly at first, then with increasing urgency, until she was gasping and clutching at his shoulders and crying out his name. Afterwards, he pressed his lips to her belly, just below her navel.

"A son," he murmured against her skin. A tradition by now, a ritual, his way of sayinga prayer. "Give me a son, my sweet rose. A strong son. A dragon."

He paused. Something caught in his throat, words he had rarely spoke aloud, words that terrified him more than any battle or tourney ever could.

"I love you," he whispered, so quiet that he was not sure she heard. "Even if it causes me pain to say it. Even if I cannot admit it when you are awake to hear. I love you, and I cannot...I cannot lose you. I cannot bear the thought of you slipping away in the night, going somewhere I cannot follow, seeking something I cannot give."

He fell silent. She did not stir. Her breathing was slow and even, her face peaceful in sleep.

He pretended to sleep. Hours passed. The candle burned down to a stub. The fire in the hearth faded to embers. Aerion lay still, his breathing deliberately slow, his eyes cracked open just enough to see the room in shades of grey and shadow.

In the deepest part of the night, she moved.

He watched through squinted eyes as she sat up slowly, her movements strangely fluid, almost mechanical. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a long moment, utterly still. Then she rose, her bare feet silent on the stone floor. She found her slippers, felted wool, soft and quiet, and slid them on. She found her robe, a heavy thing of green velvet, and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She did not look at him. She left the bedchamber.

Aerion counted to ten, his heart pounding. Then he threw back the furs and followed.

He kept to the shadows. He had learned to move silently through corridors patrolled by guards and servants and spies. Trailing his wife through Summerhall was child's play.

She went first to her own chambers. Aerion's heart seized, this was it. She was meeting someone. A lover hidden in her rooms. A conspirator waiting in the dark.

But she did not stop. She passed through her chambers without pausing, movements unhurried, and continued through a side door that led to the gardens.

The gardens. Of course. A secret meeting among the roses. How fitting for a Tyrell.

Aerion followed, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. The night air was cool and sweet, heavy with the scent of night-blooming flowers. Moonlight silvered the paths and the fountains and the carefully tended beds of roses, red and gold, the colors of his house and hers intertwined.

She walked. And walked. And walked.

No one met her. No shadow detached itself from the hedges. No whisper greeted her from the darkness. She simply walked. Around the fountain. Down the rose path. Past the marble bench where they sometimes sat together in the afternoons. Her steps were slow and aimless, her arms loose at her sides.

Aerion watched her for what felt like an eternity, his confusion mounting. What was she doing? Where was she going? Why was she... She turned a corner and nearly walked directly into a rose bush, its thorns gleaming in the moonlight. Aerion moved before he could think. He strode forward, caught her arm, and pulled her back from the thorns. She did not resist. She did not react at all.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, his voice too loud in the quiet garden. "Where are you going? Who are you meeting? Tell me now, wife, and I may yet show mercy..."

She did not answer. She did not even look at him. Her eyes were closed.

Aerion's words died in his throat. He stared at her face: peaceful, serene, utterly unaware of his presence. Her lips were moving, forming words too soft to hear. He leaned closer, his heart pounding for an entirely different reason now.

"...roses need pruning," she was mumbling, her voice distant and dreamy. "The red ones first. Grandmother always said red roses first. Then gold. Then the path to the fountain..."

She was not meeting a lover. She was not conspiring against him. She was not fleeing his bed because she could not bear to lie beside him. His poor, sweet wife was sleepwalking.

Relief crashed over him like a wave, so intense it left him dizzy. He stood there in the moonlit garden, holding his sleeping wife's arm, and laughed: a shaky, breathless sound that was half-sob.

But the relief faded quickly, replaced by a new and different fear.

She could have walked into that rose bush. She could have torn her skin on the thorns, could have bled into the garden soil while he lay sleeping in their bed, oblivious. She could have fallen into the fountain and drowned. She could have wandered out of the gardens entirely, into the darkness beyond, where anything might have happened to her.

She could have been hurt. She could have died. And he would have woken in the morning to an empty bed and no explanation.

His grip on her arm gentled. He stepped closer, sliding his hand down to clasp hers.

"Come," he said softly, though she could not hear him. "Come back to bed, my sweet rose. You are safe. I have you."

She did not respond, but she did not resist when he turned her gently and began to lead her back toward the castle. Her feet moved automatically, following his guidance, her face still peaceful and blank.

As they walked, Aerion's mind raced with plans.

He would have to lock the bedchamber doors at night to keep her safe. He would put the key somewhere she could not find while asleep. Under his pillow, perhaps. Or around his neck on a cord.

He would have to put away all sharp things. The letter opener on his desk. The small knife he used for cutting fruit. Her sewing scissors. Anything she might stumble upon in her dreaming wanderings.

He had heard, somewhere, that a wet cloth placed on the floor beside the bed could help wake sleepwalkers. The shock of cold on bare feet, jarring them from their dreams before they could wander far. He would have the servants place one on her side of the bed each night. He would check it himself before they slept.

He would protect her. He would keep her safe. He would not lose her to something as absurd as a sleepwalking accident.

They reached his bedchamber. He guided her inside, closed the door behind them, and made a mental note to have a new lock installed in the morning. A sturdy one. One she could not open without a key.

He led her to the bed and eased her down onto the bed. She went willingly, her body limp and pliant, already sinking back into deeper sleep. He lifted her legs onto the bed, arranged the furs over her, and stood looking down at her for a long moment.

Her face was peaceful. Beautiful. Utterly unaware of the terror she had put him through. He climbed into bed beside her and pulled her against his chest. She mumbled something unintelligible and burrowed closer, her hand fisting loosely in his nightshirt.

"I will keep you safe," he whispered into her hair. "I will do whatever I must. You will not wander where I cannot follow. You will not come to harm."

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

a/n: This was a random fic but I missed Growing Strong!Aerion hehe. I had the last chapter of the series, named Valyrian Legacy, typed up. Then I realised it sucked so now I'm going to do it in a completely different format. I now understand how George R. R. Martin feels about finishing his book.

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You opened the door and she walked in ahead of you like she owned the place, which was probably how she walked into every room she’d ever entered. The lobby was empty. You expected her to head for one of the apartment doors on the ground floor, to indicate somehow where she lived, but instead she sat down in the exact center of the lobby and began grooming her flank with the meticulous disdain of someone who had been terribly inconvenienced.

“Right,” you said. “Not helpful.”

You waited. The cat groomed. The elevator went up and came back down empty. Someone’s mail was sticking out of box 3B. The radiators clanked.

“Okay,” you said finally. “I have to go up. If you’re still here tomorrow, we’ll figure something out.”

She paused mid-lick to give you a look that said she had never been dismissed in her life and wasn’t about to start now.

She was still there when you got back from work the next day. Not in the lobby, outside again, on the same patch of concrete, curled into the exact same shape as if she’d never moved. The November dark had settled in thick and cold, her fur was beaded with the beginnings of frost, it made your chest clench.

“Absolutely not,” you told her, scooping her up before you could think better of it. She was heavier than she looked, a dense warm weight in your arms, and she made a sound like a creaking door as you carried her inside. “You’re coming upstairs. You’re eating something. We’re figuring out who you belong to.”

She didn’t struggle. She settled against your shoulder like she’d been doing this for a thousand years, her purr starting up low and rough like a motor that hadn’t been run in a while. Her claws kneaded gently into your coat, catching on the wool.

Your apartment was small. One bedroom, a galley kitchen, a living room that doubled as a dining room that doubled as an office. The cat surveyed it from the threshold with an expression you could only describe as politely appalled.

“It’s not much,” you said defensively, setting her down. “But it’s warm.”

She sniffed the baseboard. She investigated the corner where the radiator met the wall. She walked into the kitchen and sat down in front of the refrigerator with the clear expectation that it would open for her.

“What do you even eat?” you muttered, opening the fridge and scanning your meager contents. You didn’t have cat food. You didn’t have anything that seemed cat-appropriate. But you did have milk, and you did have a package of those cheap hot dogs from a supermarket.

“This is probably terrible for you,” you said, boiling one anyway and cutting it into small pieces, pouring a bowl of milk. “But you look like you’ve survived worse.”

She ate like she’d never seen food before. She drank the milk in laps. She looked up at you with a milk-white mustache on her gray muzzle and made a sound that resembled approval.

“You’re welcome,” you said, and sat down on the floor beside her.

You put up posters in the neighborhood: FOUND CAT, with a photo that didn’t do her justice and your phone number at the bottom. You posted in the local lost pet groups. You took her to a vet to check for a microchip, but there was nothing, which the vet found strange given the obvious quality of her collar.

“This is full-grain Italian leather,” the vet said, turning the collar over in her hands. “And the hardware is eighteen-karat gold plated. Someone spent a lot of money on this cat.”

“But no tag,” you said.

“But no tag,” the vet agreed. “Some people just assume their animals will never get out. Especially indoor cats. How’s she been eating?”

“Everything,” you said. “Anything. I gave her the crusts from my grilled cheese yesterday and she acted like it was a five-star meal.”

The vet laughed. “At her age, that’s a good sign. She’s healthy, just old. Very old. Probably fifteen, maybe older. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

So you did. You bought proper cat food eventually, the decent mid-range kind from the grocery store, and she ate it with the same enthusiasm she’d shown for the hot dogs and the milk and the leftover tuna salad. She slept on your bed every night. She sat in the window and watched the street below. You started calling her Lady, for lack of anything better, she ignored it with the same regal indifference she showed to everything else.

“You’re someone’s, aren’t you?” you said one evening, scratching under her chin while she purred like a broken generator. “Someone filthy rich.”

She closed her eyes and leaned into your hand, offering no answers.

You found the flyer on a Tuesday morning in early December, taped to a lamppost two blocks from your work office. The paper was thick and slightly glossy, the kind of paper that cost money, and the photo printed on it was clearly professional, the same gray cat, the same yellow-green eyes, but photographed against a dark background with studio lighting that made her look like a painting.

MISSING: VHAGAR, the flyer read. $7,000 REWARD FOR SAFE RETURN.

There was a phone number. That was all. No name. Just the cat’s name, the reward, and a number.

Vhagar. You tested the name in your mouth as you walked home, the flyer clutched in your cold hand. It sounded ancient. Mythological. Exactly the kind of name someone would give a cat who wore eighteen-karat gold on her collar and had professional photographs taken of her.

“Your name is Vhagar,” you told the cat when you got home. She was sprawled across your pillow in a pose of magnificent indolence, one paw draped over her eyes. At the sound of the name, her tail twitched. “That’s you, isn’t it? Vhagar.”

She lifted her head and looked at you, and for the first time since you’d found her, she let out a proper meow, short and declarative, as if to say finally, you’ve figured it out.

You sat down on the edge of your bed. Seven thousand dollars. That was two months of rent. That was the dental work you’d been putting off. That was breathing room, actual breathing room, the kind you hadn’t had since you’d moved to this city with its brutal rents and its casual cruelties and its complete indifference to whether you sank or swam.

But it wasn’t the money that made you pull out your phone. It was the way she’d been shivering on the concrete. The way someone had loved her enough to buy her that collar and take those photos and offer seven thousand dollars no questions asked, but not enough to put a tag on her. Not enough to think she might ever leave.

You typed the number into your phone before you could talk yourself out of it.

He answered on the second ring.

“Yes.”

Not hello. Not who is this. Just yes, flat and dry as old paper, a voice that expected the world to get to the point and not waste his time.

“Hi,” you said, suddenly aware that you hadn’t planned what to say. “I’m calling about the cat. The flyer. Vhagar. I think I have her.”

A pause. Just long enough to make you check if the call had dropped.

“Proof,” the voice said. “Send me proof.”

“What kind of...“

“A video that shows she’s alive and unharmed and actually in your possession.”

The demand was clipped, almost cold, and you felt a spike of irritation. You were doing him a favor. You could have kept the cat. You could have ignored the flyer entirely. But you swallowed your pride because seven thousand dollars was seven thousand dollars, and you’d already decided.

“Do you have Whatsapp or something with this number?” you asked, “I’ll send a video.”

He said yes and hung up without saying goodbye.

“Charming,” you muttered to the cat. Vhagar yawned, showing a pink mouth.

You recorded a thirty-second video of Vhagar on your bed, demonstrating that she was indeed alive and unharmed and being gently scratched behind the ears by someone who was not a cat thief. You sent it to the number. Thirty seconds later, your phone buzzed.

That’s her. Where can we meet?

You looked up the name attached to the number, of course. You weren’t stupid. You were about to meet a stranger from the internet to return a cat worth seven thousand dollars, and you wanted to know what you were walking into.

His name was Aemond Targaryen. The social media profile that came up was locked down tight: private, no profile picture, just the name and a cover photo of what looked like a dragon from some fantasy series. You scrolled anyway, finding nothing, until you thought to try LinkedIn.

His LinkedIn profile was not private.

The photo hit you first: a man in his twenties, maybe, with sharp cheekbones and jawlines like cut glass and hair so pale it was almost silver, pulled back from his face. He was wearing a dark suit and looking slightly to the left of the camera with an expression of controlled impatience, like he’d been forced to sit for the photograph and was counting the seconds until he could leave.

Below the photo was a wall of text. Degrees. Certifications. Projects. Internships at companies you’d seen on the news. A master’s degree. A bachelor’s from some private university in Oldtown. Fluent in four languages. Currently serving as Vice President of Strategic Operations at Targaryen Industries, which a quick search revealed to be a multinational conglomerate dealing in everything from real estate to renewable energy to defense contracting.

Old money. Very, very old money. The kind of money that had its own Wikipedia page and several unflattering investigative journalism pieces.

“You belong to him?” you asked Vhagar, who had climbed onto your laptop keyboard and was slowly erasing several paragraphs of an email you’d been drafting. “You belong to a billionaire’s son with a dragon fixation and cheekbones that could cut glass?”

Vhagar purred smugly and stepped on the delete key.

The meeting place was outside a high-rise in city center that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated poor people. All black glass and angular steel, a lobby visible through the ground-floor windows that contained more marble than the average museum. A doorman in a uniform stood at attention by the revolving doors.

Aemond Targaryen was waiting on the sidewalk.

He looked exactly like his LinkedIn photo and nothing like it at all. The photo had captured his bone structure but missed everything else: the way he held himself like a blade, the way his one visible eye tracked movement with unsettling precision, the way the left side of his face bore a long, pale scar that cut through his eyebrow and disappeared into his hairline. He was wearing a long black coat that probably cost as much as the cat’s reward, and he was looking at the cat carrier in your hands with an expression you couldn’t quite read.

“Vhagar,” he said, and his voice was different now, still dry, still clipped, but with something underneath it that you recognized. You’d made that sound yourself, sometimes, when you came home to find Lady waiting for you on the pillow. Relief, maybe. Or something close to it.

“She’s fine,” you said, setting the carrier down. “She’s been eating well. Sleeping a lot. She’s very…opinionated.”

He crouched down, actually crouched, in his thousand-dollar coat on the sidewalk, and opened the carrier door. Vhagar emerged with the slow dignity of a dowager queen descending from her carriage, and when she saw him, she made a sound that was almost a chirp. She headbutted his hand. She allowed him to pick her up, tucking her massive gray body against his chest like she’d been doing it all her life. Which, you supposed, she had.

“Where did you find her?” he asked, not looking at you. His attention was entirely on the cat, his long fingers stroking through her fur with a gentleness that seemed at odds with everything else about him.

“Outside my building. She was sleeping on the concrete.”

His jaw tightened. “How long?”

“About three weeks ago.”

He didn’t say anything. His hand stilled on Vhagar’s back. Then he pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and your own phone buzzed in your pocket.

“The reward,” he said. “Thank you for returning her.”

You checked your banking app. Seven thousand dollars, transferred and pending.

“Right,” you said. “Well. Take care of her. And maybe…put a tag on her collar next time.”

He looked at you then. Actually looked at you, his single visible eye, the other was covered by a swoop of hair but seemed to be a glass prosthetic, you weren’t sure, fixing on your face with an intensity that made you want to step backward. His eye was violet. A pale, impossible shade of purple that you had assumed was contacts until you were standing three feet away from him and could see the way the light hit it.

“She has never run away before,” he said, and it sounded almost like an accusation. As if you had somehow lured his ancient cat away from her penthouse and convinced her to live on hot dogs and milk.

“Well,” you said again, because his stare was unnerving, “she’s home now.”

He didn’t thank you again. He turned and walked into the building, Vhagar draped over his shoulder like a fur stole, the doorman holding the door for him with a murmured “Mr. Targaryen” that you caught on the wind.

You stood on the sidewalk for a moment longer, the December cold seeping through your coat, and then you went home.

You assumed that was the end of it. You had your money, he had his cat, and your worlds had brushed against each other for exactly long enough to complete a transaction. You unfollowed the lost pet groups. You washed Vhagar’s fur off your pillowcases. You tried to ignore the way your apartment felt quieter now, emptier, the absence of her rumbling purr leaving a gap in the dark that you hadn’t expected to miss.

Four days later, your phone buzzed with a message from an unsaved number.

What did you do to my cat?

You stared at the screen. You had not saved his number but you had not deleted the chat.

Sorry?, you typed back.

The response came immediately. Vhagar. She won’t eat. She refuses her food. What were you feeding her?

You tried to remember. Milk? Boiled sausages? Some tuna. The vet said she was healthy.

The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then your phone started ringing.

“Milk,” Aemond Targaryen said when you answered, his voice flat with barely contained outrage. “You fed a fifteen-year-old purebred Persian cat milk and boiled sausages?”

“She liked them,” you said defensively. “She ate them right up. What’s the problem?”

“The problem,” he said, “is that Vhagar’s normal diet consists of sustainably sourced Beluga caviar, free-range quail eggs, and a fish broth reduction that my family’s private chef prepares fresh every three days. She has never eaten processed meat in her life. She has certainly never consumed grocery store milk. And now she is sitting in front of her bowl looking at me as if I have personally betrayed her by serving her the same food she has happily eaten for fifteen years.”

You sat down on your bed. “She ate Beluga caviar? Like, the stuff that costs hundreds of dollars an ounce?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It kind of feels like the point.”

He made a sound of pure frustration, not quite a growl, not quite a sigh. “The point is that she’s refusing to eat. She’s refusing to eat and she’s refusing to come when I call her and she spent the entire morning glaring at me from the top of her custom-built cat tower, which, I might add, has three separate levels and a water feature.”

You tried to picture Vhagar, your Lady, who had slept on a spare pillow and eaten crusts off your plate, in a climate-controlled cat tower with a water feature. The image wouldn’t resolve.

“Have you tried…playing with her?” you asked.

“She doesn’t play,” Aemond said, as if you’d suggested she do her own taxes. “I throw her the toy mouse from Hermès and she demolishes it. That’s not playing. That’s destruction.”

“What about cardboard boxes?”

Silence. Long, profound silence, broken only by the faint sound of Vhagar yowling in the background.

“Cardboard boxes,” he repeated, his voice dangerously quiet.

“Yeah. You know. The things stuff gets shipped in? Cats love them. She went absolutely feral for the box my Amazon order came in. I put an old towel in it and she slept there for three days.”

“You want me,” Aemond Targaryen said, each word precise and clipped, “to give a member of my family, a cat who has been passed down through three generations, who has her own room in our estate, who has been photographed for Architectural Digest, a cardboard box?”

“I mean, it can’t hurt?”

Another long pause. The background yowling grew louder.

“This is absurd,” he said, and hung up.

The cardboard box apparently worked, because two days later he messaged you again. Not a call this time, a text, long and oddly formal, like a business proposal that had been written through gritted teeth.

Vhagar has been eating again. The box was…effective. However, she seems to have developed an attachment to your presence during her time away. She has been restless. The veterinarian suggested she may benefit from continued exposure to you as a source of environmental enrichment, which is a phrase I cannot believe I am typing. I am prepared to offer you a weekly retainer to visit and spend time with her. The compensation would be commensurate with your trouble.

Attached was a number that made your eyes water.

You read the message three times. You thought about the seven thousand dollars already sitting in your savings account. You thought about the way Vhagar had looked at you when you handed her over, that yellow-green stare that had seemed to say this isn’t over. You thought about Aemond Targaryen’s voice on the phone, dry and furious and somehow, despite everything, deeply concerned about a fifteen-year-old cat who missed you.

“This is insane,” you said to your empty apartment.

But you typed back: When do I start?

The first visit was awkward. Aemond’s apartment, if you could call a space that occupied nearly an entire floor of a high-rise an apartment, was a cathedral of minimalist wealth, all pale wood and pale stone and pale furniture that looked like it had never been sat on. Vhagar greeted you at the door with a yowl that seemed to say finally, you’ve arrived, and immediately led you to her custom cat tower, which was indeed three stories tall and featured a tiny chandelier.

“She’s been waiting by the door since this morning,” Aemond said. He was standing in the doorway of what appeared to be a library, dressed in a dark sweater that did nothing to soften the angles of his face. “I don’t understand why.”

“She’s a cat,” you said, sitting cross-legged on the heated marble floor while Vhagar climbed into your lap. “They’re mysterious.”

“She’s never sat in anyone’s lap but mine. And my mother’s. And occasionally my sister’s, though that ended badly.”

“What happened?”

“My sister is allergic. She found out when Vhagar sat on her face.”

You laughed. You couldn’t help it. Aemond was watching you with an expression that wasn’t quite a smile but wasn’t not one either, a slight softening around his mouth, a tilt to his head that made him look more like a person.

“Tea?” he asked, and it sounded almost reluctant, like the offer had escaped without his permission.

“Sure,” you said. “Tea would be great.”

Every Saturday, you took the train and spent the afternoon in Aemond Targaryen’s penthouse, ostensibly to entertain a cat who spent most of her time ignoring you in favor of her cardboard box. But Aemond was always there, hovering, appearing with cups of tea that grew progressively more elaborate, then plates of food that started as simple snacks and evolved into full meals.

“You said you’ve been eating bread and cheese for dinner,” he said one evening, setting a plate of something that looked like it belonged in a Michelin-starred restaurant on the coffee table in front of you. “That’s not nutritious.”

“I’m aware,” you said, but you ate it anyway, and it was the best thing you’d ever tasted.

He started finding reasons to extend your visits. A new toy for Vhagar to try. A documentary about Chartreux cats he thought you should watch. An outing to a cat café that he claimed was for research purposes but that mostly involved him standing in the corner looking deeply uncomfortable while cats climbed all over you.

“You’re not a cat person,” you observed, as a calico tried to scale his leg.

“I’m a Vhagar person,” he corrected, gently removing the calico and placing it on the floor. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“I’m beginning to think there might be,” he said, and then he turned away before you could ask what he meant.

Winter turned into spring. Your Saturday visits turned into Saturday visits plus occasional Wednesday dinners plus a standing invitation to a Sunday morning walk in a park, which Aemond claimed was for Vhagar’s benefit even though Vhagar never actually walked. He texted you articles about cat behavior and screenshots of Vhagar doing mundane things with captions like She sat in the box again. I don’t understand and The chef wants to know if she can have the sausage recipe.

“There’s no recipe,” you told him. “You boil them.”

“I told him that. He didn’t believe me.”

He started asking about your life. Your job. Your family. The things you cared about and the things you were afraid of and the things you wanted but had never let yourself reach for. He listened carefully, his pale eye fixed on your face, his sharp features softening in increments so small you almost didn’t notice them until one day you looked at him and realized you couldn’t remember why you’d ever found him cold.

Vhagar, for her part, seemed entirely unimpressed with the whole arrangement. She spent most of your visits asleep in her cardboard box, a new one now, because Aemond had his assistant procure them weekly, and only occasionally deigned to acknowledge your presence with a slow blink or a rumbling purr.

“She likes you,” Aemond said one evening, watching the cat knead her claws into an old towel.

“She tolerates me.”

“No.” He shook his head, his gaze still fixed on Vhagar. “She likes you. She’s particular. She doesn’t tolerate anyone she doesn’t like. She bit my brother once. Drew blood.”

“What did your brother do?”

“Breathed too loudly, I think.”

You laughed, Aemond glanced at you, and the expression on his face was something you’d never seen before, open, almost unguarded, his mouth curved into the ghost of a smile that transformed his severe features into startlingly beautiful.

“I’m glad you found her,” he said quietly. “The cat. I’m glad you found her.”

“Me too,” you said, and you weren’t entirely sure you were talking about the cat anymore.

Vhagar yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep, indifferent to everything but the warmth of the room and the comfort of her box.

You learned the layout of his penthouse the way you'd once learned the streets of your neighborhood, by heart, by instinct, by the slow accretion of familiarity that turns the unfamiliar into home.

You learned other things, too. That Aemond took his coffee black but would drink tea if you made it. That he read three books a month and annotated them in a spidery, elegant script. That he had a brother he never mentioned and a sister he mentioned only in passing and a mother who called him every Sunday at precisely eleven in the morning, which he answered without fail even if he was in the middle of a sentence. That his left eye, the one always covered, the one the scar bisected, was a wound he carried with him everywhere, a quiet grief he never spoke about directly but that shaped the way he moved through rooms, always keeping his right side to the door.

You learned about Alys by accident.

It was a Saturday in late March, the kind of day that pretends to be spring but still bites with winter's teeth, and you had arrived at the penthouse to find Aemond already pulling on his coat.

"Something's come up," he said, and his voice had that clipped quality it got when he was trying not to show frustration. "I have to go out of town. I'll be back Monday."

"Okay," you said, hanging your own coat on the hook he'd cleared for you weeks ago. "Do you want me to come back then, or..."

"No." He paused, his hands stilling on his scarf. "I was hoping you could stay with Vhagar. She gets…unsettled when I'm gone too long."

The last time he'd gone out of town, a business trip to Westerlands, three days, he'd called you twice a day with updates on Vhagar's mood and appetite. You hadn't minded. The money was good, and honestly, you'd grown fond of the old cat's cranky companionship.

"Sure," you said. "Where are you going?"

"Riverlands."

You waited for elaboration. None came.

"That's…specific."

He didn't meet your eyes. "Alys lives there. She doesn't like the city."

The name landed in your chest like a stone hurled. Alys. A woman's name, spoken with a familiarity that suggested it had been in his mouth many times before. You realized, with a strange hollow feeling, that he'd never mentioned her. Not once. In all those afternoons and evenings and Sunday walks, he'd never said a word about a girlfriend waiting for him in some small town hours away.

"I didn't know you were seeing someone," you said, and you were proud of how neutral your voice came out.

"It's complicated." He adjusted his scarf, still not looking at you. "We've been together for a while. She prefers her independence. I prefer…" He trailed off, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "It works."

"Right," you said. "Well. Go. Vhagar and I will be fine."

He finally looked at you then, something unreadable flickering across his features. "Thank you," he said, and left.

The penthouse felt different without him. Larger, certainly, all those minimalist rooms spreading out around you like a museum after hours. But also quieter in a way that felt less peaceful and more hollow. Vhagar seemed to sense it too; she followed you from room to room with more persistence than usual, her ragged meow punctuating the silence.

You did what you always did when you were catsitting: you sat on the heated floor with Vhagar in your lap, you watched your shows that Aemond pretended to disdain but always ended up commenting on, you ate from the refrigerator that his private chef kept stocked with things you couldn't pronounce. But your mind kept circling back to the name. Alys. The way he'd said it: flat, contained, like a fact he'd long since stopped examining.

On Sunday morning, the house phone rang at half past eleven. You let it ring. The answering machine beeped. A woman's voice which you assumed belonged to his mother, given the time, came through:

Aemond, I've spoken with the surgeon. He has an opening in April. Answer your phone.

Surgeon. April. Cold settled in your stomach.

When Aemond returned on Monday evening, he looked tired in a way that went beyond travel fatigue. His coat was rumpled, his hair escaping its usual careful restraint, his mouth set in a thin line that softened only slightly when Vhagar waddled over to greet him.

"Good trip?" you asked, gathering your things.

"Fine."

"How's Alys?"

The pause was a beat too long. "Fine."

"She must be something," you said carefully, "to keep you driving hours every time you have a free weekend."

He didn't take the bait. He just bent down to scratch Vhagar's chin, his expression shuttered. "She's very busy. Her practice takes up most of her time."

"Practice?"

"Traditional medicine. Herbalism. Holistic healing." He said it without irony, without skepticism, as if a woman who made her living selling tinctures and salves was the most natural thing in the world for a man with multiple advanced degrees and a vice presidency at a multinational corporation. "She's very skilled."

"I'm sure she is," you said, and left before you could say something you'd regret.

After that, you started noticing things.

The way Aemond's phone would buzz and he'd check it immediately, his expression flickering. The way he'd disappear into his study for hours, his voice a low murmur behind the closed door, emerging with that same tired look he'd worn coming back from Riverlands. The way he never texted Alys, or if he did, she never texted back, because every communication seemed to require a phone call, a ritual, a set-aside block of time he guarded fiercely.

"She doesn't like texting," he explained once, when you'd commented on the absurdity of him scheduling a two-hour call in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. "She finds it impersonal."

You thought about the string of unanswered texts on your own phone: friends from college, coworkers, the guy you'd gone on two dates with last month before he'd ghosted you, and wondered what it would be like to have someone so devoted to you that they'd carve out hours of their day just to hear your voice, while you couldn't be bothered to send a single line of text back.

"She must be very special," you said.

"She is." But he said it the way someone might recite a fact they'd memorized rather than a truth they felt in their bones.

The pieces assembled themselves slowly over weeks. Alys was older than him. Alys had a practice in a small town hours from the city. Alys refused to move, refused to visit, refused to integrate herself into his life in any way that required effort on her part. Alys gave him just enough to keep him coming back: a phone call, a weekend, a jar of something homemade that he'd place on his kitchen counter and stare at with an expression that made your chest ache.

He was too smart for this. That was the thing that got you, the thing that lodged under your ribs like a splinter. Aemond Targaryen, with his degrees and his four languages and his portfolio of accomplishments that would have been impressive for a man twice his age, was being strung along by someone who couldn't even be bothered to answer a text message. And he accepted it. He accepted it like it was all he deserved, like affection was a currency that could only be earned through suffering, like love was something you had to bleed for. You suspected he was taught to fish out flirts and gold diggers easily, but he hadn't been taught to examine his emotinal needs.

You saw it in the way he was with Vhagar, too. The cat tolerated him at best: she allowed his attention, accepted his offerings of caviar and quail eggs, but rarely sought him out the way she sought you. And yet he adored her. He planned his schedule around her meals. He commissioned custom furniture for her comfort. He spoke about her like she was a revered ancestor, which, in his family, she practically was.

And you. You, who had been hired as a catsitter and somehow become something more: a fixture in his home, a recipient of his cooking, his concern and his increasingly frequent glances that lingered just a moment too long. You, who he'd started looking at like you were precious, unexpected, something he hadn't known he was allowed to want.

The pattern was right there, written in the architecture of his life: Aemond Targaryen attached himself to people who barely tolerated him, and he called it love because he didn't know what else to call it.

The call came on a Thursday in late April.

"I need you to take Vhagar," Aemond said, his voice strained in a way you'd never heard before. "For several days. A week, maybe. Can you do that?"

You were at work, hunched over your desk with a spreadsheet blurring in front of your eyes. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just...I have a procedure tomorrow, and I won't be able to care for her."

"Procedure?" Your stomach dropped. "What kind of procedure?"

A pause. You could hear him breathing, slow and controlled, the way he breathed when he was trying to keep himself together. "My eye. My mother found a surgeon. Another one. He thinks there's a chance."

The word another hit you like a punch. How many surgeries had there been? How many times had he gone under the knife, hoping for something that never came?

"I'll come to pick her up," you asnwered.

When you arrived at the penthouse, the doorman let you up without question, you were on the permanent access list now, a fact that still felt surreal every time you thought about it, and Aemond was waiting at the door.

He looked terrible.

His face was pale. His left eye, the one that was always covered, was visible now, hair finally brushed back. He was holding himself very still, very straight, the posture of someone who had learned long ago to carry pain without showing it.

"Before you say anything," he said, "I'm fine."

"You're having surgery."

"Another surgery. They're all the same." He stepped aside to let you in. "My mother is optimistic. She's always optimistic. The surgeon says there's a thirty percent chance of partial vision restoration, which means there's a seventy percent chance of nothing at all. I've made my peace with it. She hasn't."

You followed him into the living room, where Vhagar was sprawled in her cardboard box, a new one, large and rectangular, with a towel that had been arranged just so. She blinked at you slowly and didn't get up.

"When is it?" you asked.

"Tomorrow morning. Early. I have a car picking me up at five."

"You're going alone?"

The question seemed to confuse him. "Yes. Who else would go with me?"

You thought about Alys, somewhere in Riverlands, mixing her herbs and ignoring her phone. You thought about his mother, who had arranged the surgery but apparently not her schedule to be there for it. You thought about his siblings, who he never spoke about.

"I could go with you," you said, before you could stop yourself.

Surprise flickered across his face. "That's not necessary. You're here for Vhagar."

"Vhagar can come. She's a cat. She'll sleep through the whole thing."

"Vhagar in a hospital waiting room?"

"Fine, not in the waiting room. But I can still go. You shouldn't be alone."

He looked at you for a long moment, his good eye searching your face. "Why?" he asked finally. The question sounded genuine, as if he truly couldn't fathom why anyone would offer him comfort without being asked.

"Because that's what people do," you said. "They show up for each other."

"Ah." He turned away, busying himself with a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. "I appreciate the offer. Truly. But I've been doing this alone for a long time. I know how to handle my own treatment. Take Vhagar. I'll call you when I'm home."

You took Vhagar. You packed her into her carrier, which was, of course, custom-made leather with a monogrammed cushion, and you carried her down to the lobby and out to the street, and you stood there on the sidewalk for a full minute before you turned around and went back inside.

Aemond was still in the kitchen when you walked back in, Vhagar's carrier swinging from your hand. He looked up, his expression shifting from surprise to confusion to what that looked almost like relief before he shut it down.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm staying," you set the carrier down and opened it. Vhagar emerged with an indignant yowl and immediately headed for her cardboard box. "You shouldn't be alone, and I'm not letting you send me home just because you're too stubborn to admit you need help."

"The guest room is made up," he said, his voice was very quiet.

"Good. I'm ordering takeout. What do you want?"

"I have a list of approved restaurants in the drawer."

"Of course you do."

The surgery happened. You didn't go with him, he insisted, and you could tell it was important to him, this one last bastion of self-sufficiency, but you were there when he came back, pale and shaking and trying very hard to pretend he wasn't. The bandage was fresh, the swelling worse, and he walked through the door like a soldier returning from a battle he'd already known he would lose.

"Thirty percent," he said, lowering himself onto the couch carefully. "We'll know in a few weeks."

"The guest room is very nice," you said. "Also I made breakfast."

"You made breakfast?"

"Don't sound so surprised. I can cook some things. Eggs. Toast. Coffee. The basics."

He ate the eggs and the toast. He drank the coffee. Then he fell asleep on the couch, his head tilted back against the cushions, his bandaged eye turned toward the ceiling, and you covered him with a blanket and sat in the armchair across from him and watched the afternoon light move across his face.

Vhagar jumped onto his lap and settled there, a warm gray weight, he didn't wake up.

You stayed longer. Aemond was supposed to be resting, but resting turned out to mean pacing the penthouse at odd hours, staring out the windows, picking at the meals you ordered from his list of approved restaurants because apparently your culinary skills didn't extend past breakfast.

"I can make pasta," you offered on the third day, when he was eyeing a container of takeout Thai with the expression of someone who had eaten too much takeout Thai. "It won't be good pasta, but it'll be pasta."

"I don't trust your definition of pasta."

"It comes from a box. You boil it. You put sauce on it."

"Sauce from a jar?"

"Sauce from a jar," you confirmed.

He looked genuinely pained. "Order from the place on 57th. The one with the green awning. They know my order."

"Of course they do."

That evening, as you were eating pasta that had definitely never seen the inside of a jar, you decided to ask the question that had been sitting in your throat for days.

"Does Alys know you had surgery?"

Aemond's fork paused halfway to his mouth. "I mentioned it."

"You mentioned it."

"We talked last night. She's sending a jar of her salve. For the inflammation." He said it matter-of-factly, as if this were a perfectly normal response to your partner undergoing eye surgery. "She says it's very effective. Arnica, mostly, with some other herbs. She grows them herself."

"She's not coming to visit?"

He set his fork down. "She doesn't like the city. I told you."

"She doesn't like the city enough to visit her boyfriend after surgery?"

"It's not that simple."

"It seems pretty simple from where I'm sitting."

His jaw tightened, the familiar muscle jumping beneath his skin. "Alys is…she's not like other people. She has her own life, her own practice, her own way of doing things. I knew that when we started this. I accepted it."

"What does she accept about you?"

The question landed harder than you'd intended. His good eye fixed on your face, sharp and suddenly very violet, and for a moment you thought he was going to snap at you, tell you to leave, remind you that you were just the catsitter and this was none of your business.

Instead, he muttered, "I don't know."

You ate in silence after that. Vhagar, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, climbed onto the table and tried to stick her face in Aemond's pasta, and he let her.

At three in the morning, you found him in the living room, sitting in the dark with Vhagar in his lap and the lights of the city spread out below him like a carpet of stars. His bandage glowed white in the dimness, he didn't turn when you came in, just kept staring out the window with an expression that made something twist painfully in your chest.

"Can't sleep?" you asked, settling into the armchair beside him.

"The pain medication wears off around two. I'm used to it."

"That's not what I asked."

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "I keep thinking about what you said. At dinner."

"I said a lot of things at dinner."

"About what she accepts." He turned to look at you, even in the darkness, even with half his face covered in gauze, the intensity of his gaze made it hard to breathe. "I don't think she accepts anything about me. I think she tolerates me. And I've spent so long thinking that was the same thing."

"It's not," you said.

"No. It's not." He looked back out the window. "Vhagar tolerates me. But she chose you. When she ran away, she found you, and she stayed. She doesn't do that for anyone."

"She stayed for the hot dogs."

"She stayed for you." His voice was barely above a whisper. "I think I understand why now."

Vhagar purred in his lap. The distance between your chair and the couch felt impossibly vast and impossibly small all at once, a gap that could be crossed in two steps or two years depending on whether either of you had the courage to move.

"She's not coming," Aemond said. "Alys. She's not coming, and I don't think I mind as much as I should."

"How do you feel about it?"

He was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, scraped raw, the voice of someone admitting the truth against his will.

"Relieved," he said. "I feel relieved."

You sat in silence, keeping him company in the small hours of the morning until the sky began to pale and Vhagar yawned and stretched and demanded her breakfast.

Part 2: see here

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