hello!!! request for jace, reader volunteers to go in rhaenyra’s place during the battle, and it’s actually jace who gets locked in the room. NO SAD ENDING, PLEASE! but maybe she can come back with a scratch or two lmao..
if you don’t want to write something like that, i would totally understand, thank u anyway <3
Jacaerys Velaryon x Reader
The door slammed shut with a deafening. Bang!
Jacaerys spun around just as the bolt slid into place from the outside. For a moment, there was only silence. Then realization struck.
He lunged for the door, rattling the handle violently. "Open this door."
Outside, you pressed your back against the heavy wood, tears already stinging her eyes. Inside, Jace's fists struck the door. "Open it."
"Apparently I can," You shot back, your voice trembling.
The chamber fell quiet for a heartbeat. Then. "You tricked me."
"I learned from the best." A humorless laugh escaped him. "You are angry because I locked my mother away, yet here you are doing the very same thing."
"Because you're being a fool." The words came sharper than intended. Inside the room, you could hear him breathing heavily.
"A fool?" he repeated. "Yes." You pressed your hand over your mouth, fighting back the tears.
"You are the heir to the Iron Throne, Jace."
"And you are my betrothed."
The reply came instantly. Fiercely. As if that settled everything. Your heart ached. "That is exactly why I should go." The silence that followed was unbearable. When Jace spoke again, his voice was lower.
The shout echoed through the corridor. You flinched. On the other side of the door came another heavy thud as he struck it. "You are not going."
"I have already decided."
"So have I." Another blow. The door groaned.
"You cannot keep me here forever."
"No," you whispered. "Only long enough." A terrible realization settled between them. He knew exactly what you meant. Long enough for the fleet to sail.
Long enough for him to be unable to follow. Long enough for you to take his place. The next words from the other side of the door were barely above a whisper.
Your eyes squeezed shut. Of all the things you had expected him to say, you had not expected that. Not the prince. Not the heir. Not the future king. Just Jace.
The boy you had loved since childhood. The man you shared these chambers with. The man who knew you better than anyone.
You rested a trembling hand against the door. Immediately you felt another hand press against the opposite side. Separated by nothing but wood.
"You promised we would face everything together." A tear slipped down your cheek.
The answer came instantly. "No, because if you leave, I cannot protect you." "You were never supposed to protect me."
His hand slammed against the door again. "Gods, listen to yourself."
The truth of that hung heavily in the air. Because he would. Without hesitation. Without question.
He would have gladly thrown himself into danger to spare you. Just as you were doing now. A broken laugh escaped you.
"Then you know why I cannot let you go." You swallowed hard. The corridor suddenly felt far too small.
Far too quiet. Inside the room, Jace's voice softened. "Stay." Your heart broke.
Stay. As though they were discussing a journey. As though the Gullet was not waiting. As though dragons and war and death were not calling.
You leaned your forehead against the door. "I love you." The silence that followed was agonizing. Then you heard him exhale shakily.
Another tear slipped free. "Which is why I'm sorry." Realization struck him instantly. "Wait." You stepped away from the door.
The panic in his voice grew. "Don't leave." You could hear him throwing himself against the door now. The wood shook violently.
"Please!" Your hand tightened around the key. Every instinct screamed at her to unlock it. To run back into his arms.
But you couldn't. Not if it meant watching him fly into the jaws of death.
The cry followed you down the corridor.
"Please!" You didn't look back. Because you knew if you did, you would never leave.
Hours passed before the lock finally turned.
Jacaerys had long since lost his voice to shouting, his throat raw and burning each time he swallowed. The room around him looked as though a storm had torn through it chairs overturned, books scattered across the floor, shattered glass glittering in the firelight.
His knuckles were bloodied from pounding against the door, and his eyes were red rimmed and swollen with equal parts rage and fear.
He had waited. Waited until the sun had dipped lower in the sky, until the silence beyond the door had become unbearable, until every terrible possibility had begun to claw its way through his mind.
Jacaerys was on his feet in an instant, breath catching sharply in his chest as the door swung open.
And one look at her face made his stomach drop.
Her hair had come loose from its braid, her cheeks were flushed, and there was something frantic in her expression that sent cold dread racing down his spine. For one horrible heartbeat, she said nothing and in that silence, Jace’s mind leapt immediately to the worst.
“No,” he rasped, the word leaving him before she had even opened her mouth. He took a step toward her, then another, his face already crumpling with panic.
“No Baela, no. Don’t don’t look at me like that. Just tell me where she is.”
Baela’s lips parted, and for one awful second Jace thought he saw pity there. His hands were shaking now, breath coming too fast as he reached her and seized her by the shoulders.
“Where are they?” he choked out. “Baela where is my wife?”
Baela grabbed his wrists, steadying him before he could shake apart entirely. “They’re alive.”
The words hit him so abruptly he went still. Jace just stared at her, uncomprehending, as though his mind had failed to make sense of what he’d heard.
Baela’s voice softened, though her own eyes were glassy with emotion. “They’re alive, Jace.” He blinked once, hard. “What?”
“They were pulled from the sea after the battle.” Baela swallowed, squeezing his wrists tighter. “They’re hurt their dragon is dead, and they took a bad wound to their neck, but the maesters are with them now. They’re alive.”
For a moment, Jace could only stare.
Not dead. Not gone. Not lost to the sea or fire or the madness of battle.
The breath left him in a shudder so violent it nearly folded him in half. He staggered back a step, one hand flying to his mouth as his knees threatened to give out beneath him. His eyes squeezed shut, and a broken, breathless laugh escaped him half sob, half disbelief.
“Alive,” he repeated hoarsely, like he needed to hear the word in his own voice to believe it.
Jace did not wait to hear anything more.
He tore past her and into the corridor, boots pounding hard against the stone as he ran through Dragonstone’s halls. Servants leapt out of his way as he rushed by, his pulse roaring in his ears so loudly it drowned out everything else. His chest ached from how hard his heart was pounding, his throat still raw from screaming, but none of it mattered.
When he reached the maester’s chambers, he shoved the door open so quickly it slammed into the wall. The room smelled of herbs, seawater, and blood.
His wife lay in the bed beneath a heap of blankets, pale and still, their [h/c] hair damp against the pillow. A clean bandage had been wrapped around their neck, another over their shoulder, and bruises bloomed dark beneath the collar of the fresh shift they had dressed them in. One of the maesters was murmuring quietly to another as they worked, but Jace heard none of it.
He stopped dead at the bedside, staring at her as though afraid they might vanish if he blinked.
They looked so small laid out there, so terribly fragile after the violence of the day. There was dried blood beneath their nails, soot smudged faintly along their wrist, and the rise and fall of their breathing was slow but steady beneath the blankets.
Jace’s knees nearly gave out with the force of the relief that crashed through him. One of the maesters turned. “My prince ”
“How bad?” Jace cut in, his voice hoarse and frayed, never taking his eyes off them.
The older maester inclined his head. “A wound to the neck, though not deep enough to do lasting harm if the gods are kind. Bruised ribs, cuts and scrapes from the fall, and exhaustion from the sea. They have lost a lot of blood, but they live, my prince.”
Jace closed his eyes for one brief moment, his head bowing as relief hit him all over again, so sharp it was almost painful.
Then he moved to their side and sat heavily in the chair beside the bed, reaching for their hand with fingers that still trembled. The moment he felt the warmth of their skin, his expression crumpled.
He brought their hand to his lips, pressing a desperate kiss to their knuckles before lowering his forehead against them, shoulders shaking with the force of everything he’d been holding in.
“You’re so foolish and reckless,” he whispered, voice splintering around the words. “You were supposed to stay.”
A tear slipped free, then another, hot against their skin as he clung to their hand like it was the only thing anchoring him to the earth.
“I thought…” His breath hitched violently. “Gods, I thought I’d lost you.”
And there, at their bedside, with the maesters quietly stepping away to give him space, Jacaerys finally let himself break not from grief this time, but from the crushing, overwhelming relief of finding them still alive.
