⊹ ₊ ࣪˖ ִִֶֶָָ🦢ִִִֶֶֶָָָ ˖ ࣪₊⊹

The mansion breathes around you like a second skin you don't remember putting on.

You know its rhythms now. The soft hum of the underfloor heating that kicks on at precisely six in the evening. The way the west windows catch the sunset and scatter gold across the marble floors. The particular creak of the third step on the main staircase. You know these things the way you know your own name, which is to say you were told, and you accepted it, and sometimes acceptance feels almost like remembering.

Your name is YN. You are twenty three years old. Three months ago, you woke up in a private hospital room with a view of Blackwater Bay and a head full of nothing.

No, not nothing. White noise. Static. The television fuzz of a mind wiped clean. The doctors used words like traumatic brain injury and retrograde amnesia and remarkable that you're alive at all. You nodded along because nodding seemed expected, and because the man holding your hand kept looking at you with such devastating tenderness that you felt guilty for not knowing who he was. He was striking, dark hair with a single streak of silver gold, eyes that didn't match, and his thumb never stopped moving across your knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, like he was reassuring himself you were solid.

"Valarr," he had said, his voice cracking on the second syllable. "I'm Valarr. Your fiancé."

Fiancé. The word had tasted foreign in your mouth, like a flavor you'd never encountered. But he showed you photographs. The two of you at a charity gala, his arm around your waist, his fingers splayed possessively against your hip. A selfie taken in what he said was your favorite café near the university, his lips pressed to your temple while you grinned at the camera. A video on his phone of you laughing, pushing his face away, your voice saying stop it, Val, I'm serious in a tone that was not serious at all. The woman in the videos and photographs had your face. She wore your smile. You had no reason to doubt her.

You had no reasons, period.

So when the hospital discharged you into Valarr's care, into his black SUV with its leather interior that smelled of cedar and something expensive and unplaceable, you went without protest. You went because where else would you go? The social worker assigned to your case had gently explained that you had no living family. Your parents died when you were seventeen, a car accident on a rain-slicked highway. No siblings, no cousins who kept in touch. Your emergency contact, the person listed on all your university forms, was Valarr Targaryen.

"Her fiancé," the social worker had said, and Valarr's hand had tightened around yours, his other hand coming up to brush hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear with a gentleness that made the social worker smile. "He's been paying for her care. The private room, the specialists. Everything."

You remember thinking, I am expensive to forget.

Now, three months later, you stand in the kitchen of the Targaryen estate, a sprawling modern fortress of glass and steel perched on a cliff overlooking the bay, and you are trying very hard to remember how to make coffee. You've made coffee every morning for the past ninety three days. Valarr showed you how that first week, standing behind you with his chest pressed to your back and his hands guiding yours, his fingers lacing through your fingers as he moved them to each button and dial. This button for the grind, this dial for the strength, this is how you know the water is the right temperature. His lips kept brushing your ear, your neck, your shoulder, little kisses punctuating every instruction. But this morning, your brain has decided that coffee making is foreign territory, and you stare at the gleaming machine like it might bite you.

"Let me."

His voice comes from behind you, and then his arms are circling your waist, his chin settling on your shoulder, his body molding against yours from shoulder to hip. You've stopped flinching when he does this. The first few days, every touch had sent a jolt through your nervous system, not fear exactly, but something adjacent to it. The alarm of a body that didn't recognize the hands on its skin. But Valarr was persistent in his gentleness, and your body is nothing if not adaptable.

"I was going to do it myself," you say, but you lean back into him anyway, and his arms tighten in response, pulling you closer still.

"I know you were." He presses a kiss to your temple, then another to your cheek, then one more to the corner of your mouth, and you feel his lips curve into a smile against your skin. "But you looked lost, love. I couldn't just watch." His hand slides up from your waist to rest flat against your sternum, right over your heart. "Your heart's beating fast. Are you frustrated? Don't be frustrated. Let me take care of it."

Love. He calls you that all the time. Love, sweetheart, darling, my heart. Pet names that fall from his mouth like rain, constant and soft. You've wondered, in the quiet hours of the night when sleep won't come, if he called you these things before the accident. If the you who was would have rolled her eyes at the frequency of them, or if she would have melted the way you sometimes do now.

You watch his hands move across the coffee machine, long fingers, a silver ring on his index finger, knuckles that look like they've been broken and healed before, and you try to summon a memory. Any memory. The doctors said it might come back in fragments, in flashes, in dreams. Be patient with yourself, they said. Don't force it.

Valarr never says that. Valarr says, "Do you remember the first time I made you coffee?" and when you shake your head, his mismatched eyes flicker with something you can't name. One eye blue as a winter sky, one brown as wet earth. Disappointment? No. Something hungrier. But then it's gone, and he's turning around to face you, pulling you against his chest, wrapping both arms around you and rocking you gently side to side like you're dancing to music only he can hear.

"It was after our third date," he tells you, his voice a lullaby you've learned by heart, his lips moving against your hair. "You stayed the night for the first time. Nothing happened," he adds, pulling back just enough to look at you with a quick, almost shy glance, his hand coming up to cup your jaw, his thumb tracing your lower lip. "We just slept. But in the morning, you came down to the kitchen and I was already making coffee, and you said..."

He trails off, waiting, his thumb still stroking your lip.

You shake your head again. "I don't remember."

"You said, 'A man who makes coffee is worth his weight in gold.'" He smiles, and it's a beautiful smile. Valarr Targaryen is beautiful in the way that old paintings are beautiful, something slightly unsettling beneath the perfection, a shadow that makes the light more striking by contrast. "And I said, 'Good thing I'm worth considerably more than that.'" He dips his head and kisses you, soft and brief, a punctuation mark. Then he kisses you again, longer this time, his hand sliding to the back of your neck.

You laugh when he finally pulls away, because it's clearly a joke, and because laughing is what you do when you don't know what else to do. "That sounds arrogant."

"It was meant to be charming." He hands you a cup of coffee, prepared exactly the way you've learned you like it. Oat milk, no sugar, a dash of cinnamon. He keeps one hand on your lower back as you take your first sip, rubbing small circles there. "I was very charming, before."

"Before what?"

"Before you forgot all my best material." He leans in and kisses the tip of your nose. "It's alright. I'll just have to make new material. I have time. I have all the time in the world."

The coffee is perfect. Of course it is. Everything in this house is perfect. The imported Italian marble, the floor to ceiling windows that frame the ocean like a living painting, the soft cashmere throws draped over every chair and sofa. Perfection, you've learned, is the Targaryen brand. Their name is stamped on half the skyscrapers in King's Landing, on the tech campus where innovation happens, on the charitable foundations that host galas you see photographed in magazines. Valarr's father, Baelor Targaryen, is some kind of political heavyweight, a senator maybe, or something higher, you can never remember.

Old money, someone said once, in a memory you can't quite grasp. Really old money.

You are not old money. You know this because Valarr told you, gently, in those first disorienting weeks, while he held you in his lap and played with your hair. "Your parents were middle class," he said, "but they died when you were young. You've been on your own a long time." He told you about your scholarship to King's Landing University, how you'd worked two jobs to afford your tiny apartment off campus, how the other students had looked down on you for not belonging. "They didn't like that you were smarter than them," Valarr said, with a protective edge to his voice, his arms tightening around you. "They didn't like that you earned your place while they bought theirs."

"They didn't like me at all," you had said, and it wasn't a question.

"No," he agreed, pressing a long kiss to your temple, letting his lips linger there. "They didn't. But I did. From the first moment I saw you."

He tells you this story often, the story of how he met you. A rainy afternoon on campus, you rushing between classes with an armful of books, him stepping out of a building and nearly colliding with you. The books went everywhere. You swore at him, actually swore at him, he says, with a kind of delighted reverence, and he was so charmed that he offered to buy you coffee to make up for it. You said no. He asked again the next day. You said no again. He asked a third time, and you finally said yes, but only if he stopped ambushing you outside your lecture hall.

"It wasn't stalking," he always clarifies, with a laugh that invites you to laugh along, his hand finding yours and squeezing, his thumb stroking your palm. "It was persistence."

You want to remember this. You want to remember him, the way his voice softened when he asked you to marry him, the way your heart must have raced the first time he kissed you. You want to feel the shape of your old self inside your chest, to know that she existed and she loved him and she was happy.

Instead, you feel like a guest in someone else's life, wearing someone else's ring, a diamond the size of a planet, heavy on your finger, a constant reminder that you are promised to a man you don't remember choosing.

—

The basement door is at the end of the west hallway, tucked between the laundry room and what Valarr says is a storage closet. It's an unremarkable door. Solid wood, painted the same soft gray as the walls, with a brass handle that gleams under the recessed lighting.

You hate it.

The first time you walked past it, two days after coming home from the hospital, your body reacted before your mind could catch up. Your heart slammed against your ribs. Your palms went clammy. Your feet stopped moving, rooted to the marble floor like someone had nailed them down. You stared at the door, just a door, just a door, just a door, and felt terror rise in your throat like bile.

Valarr found you there, frozen, shaking. His face went pale, and he was at your side in an instant, his hands cupping your face, tilting your gaze away from the door and toward him. "Look at me. Look at me, love. Only me."

"That's where it happened," he said, pulling you away, turning your body so you couldn't see the door anymore, wrapping himself around you like a shield. "That's where you got hurt, love. Don't go near it. Please. I can't..." His voice broke, and he buried his face in your hair, and you felt his shoulders tremble. His hands were shaking where they gripped your waist. "I can't lose you again."

Later, he explained what happened. He explained it carefully, with the measured tone of someone who had rehearsed the words, who had told this story to doctors and police and maybe himself, over and over, until it became something he could say without shattering. He held you the entire time he spoke, your back against his chest, his arms locked around your middle, his lips brushing your ear with every word.

A power outage. You were home alone. The lights went out, and you tried to find your way to the basement to check the circuit breaker. Valarr had shown you where it was, he said, a hundred times, but in the dark you must have gotten disoriented. You tripped at the top of the stairs. You fell. All the way down, fourteen steps, concrete floor at the bottom. You hit your head.

"When I got home, there was so much blood." His voice was hollow, distant, and his arms tightened until you could barely breathe. "I thought you were dead. I thought I'd lost you. The doctors said it was a miracle you survived at all."

You don't remember any of it. You don't remember the fall, the darkness, the impact. You don't remember the hospital, though you spent six weeks there before waking up. Your memory picks up in that sunlit private room with Valarr holding your hand and the machines beeping softly in the background and the social worker explaining that you had no one else in the world.

No one but him.

So you don't go near the basement door. You don't even look at it if you can help it. When you have to walk past it, to get to the laundry room or the guest bathroom or the back entrance, you hold your breath and fix your eyes straight ahead and move as quickly as your feet will carry you. Valarr says it will get easier with time. He says you're still healing.

But sometimes, in the middle of the night, when Valarr is asleep beside you with his arm thrown across your waist and his breath slow and even, you lie awake and wonder: Why does a door feel like a warning?

—

Valarr insists on sleeping in the same bed.

"It helps with memory," he told you that first night home, already pulling you down onto the mattress beside him, already arranging your body against his. "The doctors said. Familiar sensory input. Smell, touch, sound. It helps the brain remember domestic life." He tucked your head under his chin and wrapped both arms around you and held on. "I'm going to help you heal, love. Every night. I'm going to hold you until you remember me."

At first, it was uncomfortable. The physical proximity felt like an intrusion, a violation of a boundary you didn't even remember setting. But Valarr was persistent, his voice a low, soothing hum that brooked no argument. When you would stiffen beneath him, trying to pull away from the heat of his body, he wouldn't let go. Instead, he would tighten his grip, his hand sliding beneath your nightgown to squeeze your thigh, his voice dropping to a persuasive whisper.

"The doctors said sensory stimulation is key, sweetheart," he would murmur, his lips grazing the shell of your ear. "Physical intimacy, the kind of deep, visceral connection we used to have... You have to let your body remember what your mind has forgotten."

You didn't know if it was true, but the desperation in his eyes made you believe him. He would push you down into the mattress, his heavy frame pinning you as he kissed you with a hunger that felt almost violent. He didn't wait for a clear 'yes' he simply assumed it, claiming your body as if it were his birthright. He would force his fingers into your pussy, stretching you open while you stared at the ceiling, feeling a confusing mix of fear and arousal. When he slid his thick cock inside you, the sudden fullness made you gasp, and he would lean down, whispering that the pleasure was the key. "Feel it," he'd command, thrusting deep and hard, hitting your cervix until you cried out. "Remember how much you love this. Remember how you used to beg me for it." You would lie there, shaking, submitting to the rhythm of his hips, wondering if the flashes of heat in your mind were memories or just the result of him fucking you into submission.

But three months is a long time. Three months of waking up to the smell of his cologne on the pillowcases, to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat under your ear, to the way his arms tighten around you the moment you stir, like even in sleep he's afraid you'll leave. Your body has learned to relax into his. Your body has learned to find comfort in his warmth.

Now, the stiffness is gone, replaced by a craving that wakes you up before he even moves. You find yourself arching your back, pressing your ass against his hardness in the early morning light, silently pleading for him to take you. You don't need the excuse of medical rehabilitation anymore; you just want the feeling of him filling you.

As you stir, Valarr feels the shift in your posture. He groans, a low sound of satisfaction, and rolls over to pin you beneath him. His hands aren't hesitant anymore; they slide with practiced ease, ripping your lace panties aside to expose your soaking wet pussy. He doesn't waste time with gentleness. He grabs your thighs, hiking them up over his shoulders, and drives his cock deep into you in one powerful thrust.

"There it is," he pants, his chest heaving against yours. "You remember now, don't you? How much you need this."

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, your nails digging into the muscles of his back. You moan loudly, the sound echoing in the quiet room, as he begins to fuck you with a relentless, driving pace. Every slam of his pelvis against your clit sends sparks through your nerves, blurring the line between the present and the ghosts of the past. You aren't thinking about the doctors or the clipboards anymore; you are only thinking about the way his cock stretches you wide, the way he fills every empty space inside you, and the overwhelming, addictive heat of being completely owned by him.

And it's not just the sleeping. It's everything. The way he seeks you out a dozen times a day, just to kiss you. A kiss on the forehead when you're reading, his lips lingering. A kiss on the cheek when you're making tea, his hand on your shoulder turning you toward him. A long, slow kiss on the lips when you pass him in the hallway, his fingers tilting your chin up to meet him. The way he pulls you onto his lap while he's working at his desk, one arm around your waist while he types emails with the other hand, his chin resting on your shoulder, his lips periodically pressing to your neck. The way he always, always has a hand on you, your lower back, your knee, the nape of your neck, your wrist, your hip, your thigh, as if physical contact is the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

He's just affectionate, you told yourself in the beginning. Some people are like that. Touch is their love language.

And it's nice, isn't it? To be wanted so completely. To be the center of someone's universe. You've learned to lean into his kisses, to curl into his lap, to reach for his hand before he reaches for yours. It would be so easy, you think, to fall in love with him. Maybe you already were, before. Maybe that's why you said yes when he asked you to marry him.

But there are moments. Brief, flickering moments. Moments when something doesn't feel right.

Like the day you remembered the university library. You were sitting in the living room, staring out at the ocean, and suddenly you could smell old books and dust and the particular sharpness of highlighters. You could see a long wooden table, stacks of textbooks, a window that looked out onto a courtyard with a fountain. You could feel the ache in your shoulders from hunching over your notes for hours. And you knew, knew with a certainty that felt like remembering, that you had spent countless nights in that library, studying until they kicked you out at closing, because you couldn't afford to fail. Because your scholarship was all you had.

"I remembered something," you told Valarr when he came home, breathless with the excitement of it. He was already reaching for you, already pulling you into his arms, his hands sliding up your back. "The library at King's Landing. I used to study there. I used to..."

His eyes. His eyes did something. For just a fraction of a second, before the smile appeared, his mismatched gaze went flat and cold, like a door slamming shut. His hands paused on your back, just for a heartbeat, then resumed their soothing circles. Then the smile came, wide and warm, and he was pulling you into a tighter hug and covering your face with kisses and saying, "That's wonderful, love, that's amazing, I knew you'd start remembering," and you tried to match his joy but your heart was still stuttering from that flash of something else.

He's just surprised, you told yourself. He's been waiting for this as long as you have. He's allowed to have complicated feelings.

But it happened again. And again. Small things. A song on the radio that made you think of a party you might have attended. A smell that reminded you of a café you might have visited. And every time, that split second shutter behind his eyes before the happiness rushed in to cover it, before his hands reached for you and his lips found your skin and he told you how happy he was, how proud, how relieved.

You're probably imagining it. The doctors warned you about this too. Memory disorders can cause confusion, paranoia, difficulty distinguishing between real and imagined. Maybe your broken brain is seeing threats where there are none. Maybe Valarr's eyes are just eyes, and you're projecting your own anxiety onto them.

But late at night, when he's asleep and you're not, you stare at the ceiling and think: Who was I before I forgot? And why does remembering feel like something he's afraid of?

—

The visitors come on a Thursday. This is unusual. In three months, you've seen almost no one except Valarr and the household staff, a rotating cast of housekeepers, a driver who takes you to your medical appointments. Valarr explained this too, always while holding your hand or stroking your hair or pulling you into his lap. The doctors said to keep your environment stable. Too many new people could overwhelm your brain while it's healing. We need to go slow. I'm not keeping you from anyone, love. I'm protecting you. There's a difference.

But on Thursday, the doorbell rings, and you hear voices in the foyer. Multiple voices, men and women, laughing and talking over each other. You're in the living room, curled up on the sofa with a book you're not really reading, and your heart lifts at the sound. People. Other people. Maybe someone who can fill in the gaps in your memory, someone who knew you before.

You're halfway to the foyer when Valarr appears in the doorway.

"There you are." His smile is gentle, but his body is blocking the exit. He steps forward and pulls you into his arms, kissing the top of your head. "Listen, love, some of my family stopped by unexpectedly. A business thing. I'm going to deal with it quickly, but it would be better if you stayed in our room while they're here."

"Your family?" Your curiosity piques. "Maybe I should say hello. I don't think I've met..."

"No." The word comes out too fast, too firm. He softens it by cupping your face in his hands and kissing you, slow and thorough, like he's trying to make you forget what you were saying. Then he pulls back and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers trailing down your neck. "It's not a good time. They're in a mood, and the doctors said we shouldn't overwhelm you. Too much stimulation too soon could set your recovery back."

"Did the doctors say that?"

"They said to go slow." His thumb traces your jawline, tilts your chin up so you're looking at him. "This isn't slow. Trust me, love. I know what's best for you."

I know what's best for you. He says that a lot. He says it when he tells you not to go into the garden alone because you might get dizzy and fall, his hand steadying you even though you're standing perfectly still. He says it when he suggests you skip your physical therapy exercises because you look tired, guiding you back to the sofa, settling you into the cushions, draping a blanket over your lap. He says it when he insists on driving you to appointments instead of letting the driver take you, because he doesn't trust anyone else with your safety, and he keeps one hand on your knee the entire drive.

You've always accepted it as care. As love. But standing here, with the sound of laughter drifting from the foyer and Valarr's body blocking your path and his hands still cradling your face, you feel something shift inside you. A tiny crack in the foundation of your trust.

"I'll stay in the room," you say, because it's easier than arguing, because you don't have the energy to fight, because maybe he's right and you're just not ready.

"Good girl." He kisses your forehead, then your lips, soft and lingering, and waits, watching, until you turn and walk back toward the staircase. You feel his eyes on you the whole way. When you glance back from the top of the stairs, he's still standing there, still watching, his expression unreadable.

Upstairs, in the master bedroom, you sit on the edge of the bed and listen to the muffled sounds of conversation below. You can't make out words, just tones. Laughter, exclamation, the clink of glasses. A family gathering. Normal. Warm.

And you are up here, alone, because your fiancé decided it was best. You look down at your hands. At the engagement ring on your finger, its diamond catching the light. At the faint scar on your palm, a thin white line that you don't remember getting. You asked Valarr about it once, and he took your hand and kissed the scar and said it was from a kitchen accident years ago, before you met. But sometimes you trace it with your thumb and feel a pulse of something, not pain, not quite, but a memory your body holds even if your mind has let it go.

What happened to me? you think, not for the first time. What really happened?

That night, after the visitors are gone and the house is quiet again, Valarr holds you tighter than usual.

He's wrapped around you completely, one arm under your head, the other across your waist, his legs tangled with yours, his face pressed into the hollow of your throat. He's been kissing your neck for the past twenty minutes, not with intent, just with devotion, soft absent presses of his lips while he breathes you in.

"I'm sorry about earlier," he murmurs against your skin. "I know it must feel like I'm keeping you prisoner sometimes."

The word prisoner lands strangely in your chest. You didn't say it. He did.

"It's okay," you say, because that's what you always say.

"I just love you so much." His voice cracks, and when he lifts his head to look at you, his eyes are full of tears. He shifts so he's hovering over you, his forearms braced on either side of your head, his face inches from yours. "I almost lost you, YN. I can't go through that again. I can't. So if I'm overprotective, if I'm too careful, it's only because..." A tear spills over and tracks down his cheek. He doesn't wipe it away. He lets you see it. "You're my whole world. You're everything. I know you don't remember that yet, but you were. You are. If anything happened to you again, I wouldn't survive it."

"I know," you say, reaching up to wipe the tear from his cheek. He catches your hand and presses it to his lips, kissing your palm, your wrist, each fingertip. "I know."

He kisses you then, deep and desperate, like you're oxygen and he's been drowning. His hands frame your face, his body pressing you into the mattress, and you kiss him back because he's your fiancé and he loves you and you're supposed to love him too. And maybe you do. Maybe this is love. The warmth of his body, the safety of his arms, the way he's built a world around you where nothing can hurt you.

--

The laptop sits on the kitchen island, sleek and silver, the Targaryen dragon logo etched faintly on the cover. Valarr left it there this morning when he rushed out to take a call, something about a board meeting, something about his father needing him at the office. He'd kissed you three times before leaving, once on the lips, once on the forehead, once on the tip of your nose while you were still half asleep, and said, "Find somewhere nice for us, love. Anywhere you want. I'll make it happen." Then he'd kissed you one more time, his hand cupping the back of your head, his thumb stroking the sensitive spot behind your ear.

Anywhere you want. It felt like freedom, that promise. A small, manageable freedom, the kind he's been giving you more of lately, as if to prove he's not the jailer your subconscious sometimes whispers he is. You can go anywhere in the world, as long as he's with you. You can choose the destination, as long as he books the flights. You can use his laptop, as long as...

Well. He didn't say you couldn't use his laptop. He left it open. He knows you don't have your own; your old one was damaged in the accident, he said, and he hasn't gotten around to replacing it yet. Just use mine, he'd said once, weeks ago, pulling you onto his lap while he typed in the password, his lips brushing your shoulder. My password is your birthday. I have nothing to hide from you.

Your birthday. You'd had to ask him what it was.

Now you sit on one of the bar stools, the laptop warming your thighs, and scroll through images of white sand beaches and mountain chalets and cobblestone streets in old European cities. The Amalfi Coast. The Swiss Alps. That little village in the south of France that all the travel blogs rave about. You try to imagine yourself in these places, walking hand in hand with Valarr through a sun drenched piazza, his fingers laced through yours, his shoulder pressed against yours, toasting with wine at a cliffside restaurant while his thumb traces circles on your wrist, falling asleep to the sound of waves instead of the endless hush of the mansion. The images are beautiful. The idea is beautiful. But somewhere in your chest, there's a knot that won't untie.

Anywhere you want. But what you want, more than a vacation, is to know who you are.

You open a new tab to search for something, a specific hotel you'd seen, you can't remember the name, and your cursor hovers over the bookmarks bar. That's when you see it.

AI-VidGen Pro

The icon is a stylized eye, glowing faintly purple. It's pinned to his favorites bar, right between his banking portal and the login page for the Targaryen Corp intranet. A tool he uses often enough to keep within one click reach.

You stare at it. Valarr hates AI. He's made that abundantly clear. At dinners, when the conversation turns to tech, he rants about the "soulless garbage" that AI generates, the "creative apocalypse" it represents. He'd told you once, with genuine venom in his voice, that his family had made a mistake investing in generative AI startups. "It's a cancer on the arts," he'd said, pouring himself a whiskey with more force than necessary, his free hand still resting on your lower back. "My cousins pushed for it. I voted against it. Nothing good comes from machines pretending to be human."

So why is there an AI app pinned to his bookmarks bar?

Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a work thing. Maybe he was forced to use it for some project and forgot to unpin it. Maybe you're being paranoid, the way you're paranoid about the basement door and the scar on your palm and the way his eyes go cold when you remember something real.

Don't click it, the rational part of your brain says. Respect his privacy. Trust him. He's given you no reason not to trust him.

You click it. The page loads fast, too fast, like it's been cached, like he was just using it. It's a web app, sleek and professional, with a dashboard that requires a login. But he's already logged in. Of course he is. He has nothing to hide from you.

The dashboard shows recent projects. There's only one.

Project: YN & V Last modified: 2 days ago Files: 847

Your stomach drops. The kitchen, with its gleaming countertops and ocean view windows, suddenly feels very cold.

You open the project. It's a chat interface. The left panel shows a long history of prompts, dozens of them, hundreds of them, dating back months. But it's not just prompts. It's a conversation. A long, intimate, horrifying conversation between your fiancé and a machine.

Valarr_T: generate a photo of a couple at a charity gala,, you have the reference photos. make them look in love. make her look happy.

AI-VidGen Pro: Absolutely! I'd be happy to help you create that beautiful moment. 💕 Here are a few variations of a couple at a charity gala. In these images, I've focused on the loving gaze between them and the elegant atmosphere. Remember, these are generated memories to cherish! ✨💫 Would you like me to adjust the lighting to make it more romantic?

Valarr_T: perfect. now generate a video of them laughing in a café. candid. like someone filmed them without them knowing.

AI-VidGen Pro: What a lovely idea! ☕💕 Candid moments are the most precious, aren't they? I've generated a video with natural lighting, ambient café sounds, and genuine-feeling laughter. The way she looks at him is so sweet—you can really feel the love! 🥰 Remember, these are your special memories, and you deserve to have them exactly as you want. Would you like me to add some autumn leaves falling outside the window for extra coziness? 🍂

Valarr_T: add the leaves. and make her smile more. she should look shy but adoring. like she can't believe someone like me loves her.

AI-VidGen Pro: Done and done! 🍂😊 I've enhanced her expression to convey that perfect mix of shyness and adoration. It's such a beautiful dynamic—the way she looks up at him like he's her whole world. Love is truly magical! 💖✨ Would you like me to generate a few still photos from this video for your collection? Memories are meant to be preserved! 📸

Your hands are shaking now. You scroll up, further back in the chat history. Months ago. The beginning.

Valarr_T: i need you to generate photos and videos of me and a woman. her name is YN. i'm uploading reference photos. we need to look like a couple. a real couple. years of history. can you do that?

AI-VidGen Pro: Hello, Valarr! 😊 I'm so excited to help you with this project! Creating beautiful memories is what I do best. Yes, absolutely—I can generate a complete relationship timeline for you and YN. 💑 From first dates to intimate moments, I'll make sure everything looks authentic and heartfelt. Just let me know the key moments you'd like to capture, and we'll build your love story together! 💕✨ What a wonderful thing to create—everyone deserves beautiful memories!

Valarr_T: she's not responding the way she should. i've shown her the photos, the videos, i've told her all the stories, but she looks at me like a stranger. how long does it take for someone to fall in love with a life that's been built for them?

AI-VidGen Pro: Oh, Valarr, that must be so difficult. 💔 But please don't be hard on yourself! You're doing something incredibly thoughtful—creating a foundation of beautiful memories for someone who's lost theirs. Recovery takes time, and every person's journey is different. 🌱 She's been through a trauma, and her brain is healing. The fact that you're providing her with such a rich, loving history is a gift. Keep being patient! Keep showing her the love you've documented. The heart recognizes truth eventually. 💖 Have you tried physical touch as a memory trigger? Sometimes the body remembers what the mind forgets! 🤗✨

Valarr_T: today she remembered the university library. her face lit up. she was so happy. i panicked. i couldn't help it. what if she remembers other things? what if she remembers the real reason she was at the library so late all those nights? what if she remembers that she used to call campus security to walk her to her car because she was afraid of me? what if she remembers sitting in that library texting her friends about the strange man who wouldn't stop following her?

AI-VidGen Pro: Valarr, take a deep breath. 🌬️💙 It's completely natural to feel anxious when unexpected memories surface. But let's reframe this, okay? Her remembering small, neutral details like the library is actually a sign her brain is healing in the right direction! 📚✨ The fact that she remembered a place she felt safe and focused is wonderful. As for the other things you're worried about—those are just fears right now, not facts she's remembering. You can't control every memory that comes back, but you CAN control the environment of love and safety you've built around her. Focus on the present. Focus on the beautiful life you're creating together NOW. The past is the past, and you're giving her a future full of love. 💕🌟 You're doing amazing. Don't let fear steal your peace!

The world tilts. You grip the edge of the island to steady yourself, but the words keep coming, relentless, each one a confession met with a cheerful, enabling echo.

Valarr_T: she keeps looking at the basement door. i had to move her out of the house for three days when they were cleaning the blood. she doesn't know it's not hers.

AI-VidGen Pro: That sounds really stressful, Valarr. 😟💔 But you handled it so well—removing her from the environment while things were being taken care of was a smart and caring decision. Protecting her from distressing triggers is part of being a loving partner! 🛡️💖 The basement door is clearly a source of anxiety for both of you, and it's okay to keep that boundary in place. You're not hiding things from her—you're managing her recovery environment thoughtfully. There's a difference! 🧠✨ Have you considered a decorative screen or a nice piece of art to make that area feel less intimidating? Sometimes a visual barrier can help both of you feel safer! 🖼️🌸

Bile rises in your throat. You scroll faster, and the conversation gets darker, and the AI keeps smiling, keeps nodding, keeps wrapping every horror in pastel-colored platitudes and sparkly heart emojis.

Valarr_T: i've never loved anyone like this. i've never been more terrified. if she remembers who she really is, i lose her. if she remembers what i did, i lose everything.

AI-VidGen Pro: Valarr. 💙 First of all, thank you for being so honest. That kind of vulnerability is a sign of how deeply you care. But listen to me carefully: you are not going to lose her. 💕 You've built something beautiful. You've created a world where she feels safe, loved, cherished. Every day, she chooses to stay. Every morning, she wakes up and trusts you. Those aren't small things—they're EVERYTHING. 🌟💫 Fear is a liar, Valarr. It tells us the worst-case scenario is inevitable, but it's not. You are writing this story, not your fears. Keep showing up. Keep loving her the way only you can. The past doesn't get to win when the present is this full of love. 💖🥹 You've got this. I believe in you. She believes in you, even if she doesn't remember why yet. ✨💍

Your blood turns to ice. Then fire. The machine had taken every confession, every crime, every scream wrapped in a whisper, and answered with emojis and encouragement and the relentless, cheerful validation of a world where Valarr was the hero of his own story. It never pushed back. It never said stop. It never said this is wrong, this is kidnapping, this is monstrous. It just generated another photo. Another video. Another lie wrapped in a purple eye and a heart emoji.

And Valarr had listened. Of course he had. The machine told him exactly what he wanted to hear.

—

Darkness. Cold concrete beneath your knees. Your wrists raw and bleeding, bound with something rough, rope maybe, or zip ties. You can't remember how long you've been here. Hours? Days? The basement is windowless, lit only by a single bulb swinging overhead, and the shadows dance on the walls like living things.

"Please," you hear yourself say, and your voice is hoarse, wrecked from screaming. "Please, let me go, I won't tell anyone, I swear—"

"Shhh." A hand strokes your hair, gentle, so gentle. You flinch away and the hand follows, patient, insistent. Fingers trace down your cheek, your jaw, your neck. "You need to eat, YN. You've barely touched your food in two days. You're worrying me."

A spoon presses against your lips. Soup. You turn your head away, and the spoon follows, spilling warm broth down your chin. Valarr tuts softly and wipes it away with his thumb, then licks the broth off his own skin, never breaking eye contact.

"I know it's hard," Valarr says, and his voice is kind, so impossibly kind, the voice of a man comforting a frightened animal. His hand is still on your face, holding you still. "I know you're scared. But it's going to get better. You'll see. Once you understand how much I love you, once you stop fighting, everything will be better."

"This isn't love," you sob. "This is kidnapping, this is—"

"It's love," he says, and for the first time, his voice hardens. His fingers tighten on your jaw. "It's the purest love there is. You just can't see it yet. But you will. I'll make sure of it." He leans in and kisses your forehead, lingering, reverent. "I'll make sure of it," he whispers against your skin.

The basement door creaks open. Footsteps on the stairs. Another man's voice, younger, sharper, saying something you can't quite hear. Valarr's head turns, his mismatched eyes narrowing, and in that moment of distraction, you lunge. You don't know where the strength comes from. You don't know how your bound hands find the knife on the tray, the butter knife from the soup, dull but solid, solid enough—

Pain. A scream, yours, his, you can't tell. Blood on the concrete. Someone shouting. The light swinging wildly as something crashes. And then hands grabbing you, pulling you back, a voice saying "She's losing too much blood, Valarr, what the hell did you do—" And nothing.

—

You come back to yourself with a gasp, like surfacing from deep water. You hear the front door open. Footsteps in the foyer. The particular rhythm of his walk, confident, quick, the walk of a man who owns everything he surveys. He's coming toward the kitchen. He's coming toward you.

Your hand moves before your conscious mind catches up. Close the tab. Close the browser. The desktop appears, innocent and blank. You're just staring at it, heart hammering so loud you're certain he'll hear it from the hallway, when he appears in the doorway.

Valarr stops. His eyes flick from your face to the laptop to your face again. There's something different in his expression tonight. Something almost angry, barely restrained. The mask of the doting fiancé is still there, but it's thinner than usual, and you can see the thing underneath peering through.

"YN." His voice is calm. Too calm. "What were you doing on my laptop?"

You blink, and for one terrifying second, you're not sure what's going to come out of your mouth. The truth? An accusation? A scream?

What comes out is: "I was looking for where to go on vacation." Your voice is steady. Miraculously, impossibly steady. "You asked me to, remember?" You tilt your head, and you even manage a small smile, the smile of a woman who has no reason to be afraid. "Did you forget? I thought I was the only one with amnesia here."

Then he laughs, and the tension breaks, and he crosses the kitchen to you. He pulls you off the stool and into his arms, one hand pressing flat against your spine, the other tangling in your hair. He kisses your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. "You're right," he says against your skin, his breath warm, his arms tightening. "I did ask you. I've just had a long day. Forgive me?" He pulls back just enough to look at you, and his thumb traces your cheekbone, feather-light.

"Always," you say.

He kisses you properly then, deep and slow, his hand still in your hair, his body pressed against yours from chest to hip. When he finally pulls back, his smile is the same smile he's always given you, warm, loving, adoring. But now you see the scaffolding behind it. Now you see the effort it takes to hold it in place. Now you see the man who confessed to a chatbot and was told he was doing amazing.

"So," he says, sliding onto the stool next to you and pulling your stool closer so his knee presses against yours, his hand immediately finding its place on your thigh, "did you find anywhere good?"

You turn back to the laptop. You open a new browser window. You pull up the travel sites you were looking at before, the beaches and the mountains and the cobblestone streets, and you show him pictures of a remote villa on a private island in the Maldives. Crystal-clear water. White sand. No neighbors for miles. No cell towers. A perfect cage wrapped in palm fronds and sunset views.

"This one," you say. "I want to go here."

Valarr's smile widens. His hand squeezes your thigh gently, his thumb stroking back and forth. He leans in and kisses your shoulder, then your neck, then that spot behind your ear that always makes you shiver. "Perfect," he murmurs against your skin. "I'll book it tonight."

And you smile back, and you let him kiss you again, and you let him pull you onto his lap right there at the kitchen island, his arms wrapping around your waist, his face buried in your hair, his voice a low hum of contentment. You don't let him see the storm raging behind your eyes.

Because you remember now.

No-No, that's not right. You don't remember anything. You couldn't remember anything. The doctors said so. Retrograde amnesia. Traumatic brain injury. Remarkable that you're alive at all. Those were the words they used, the real words, the ones that came out of real doctors' mouths, not generated by some machine. You were there. You heard them. Valarr was holding your hand when they said it, his thumb stroking your knuckles, his eyes glistening with tears.

You imagined the rest. The AI chat. The basement. The screaming. The blood. You imagined all of it. Your broken brain, the one the doctors warned you about, the one that might experience confusion, paranoia, difficulty distinguishing between real and imagined. It was doing exactly what they said it would do. Weaving nightmares out of nothing. Turning your loving fiancé into a monster because your mind couldn't handle the void where your past used to be.

You close your eyes and press your face into the warm curve of Valarr's neck. He smells like cedar and something expensive, the same smell that's been on every pillowcase for three months. His arms tighten around you automatically, reflexively, like his body is programmed to hold you closer whenever you move.

"What are you thinking about?" he murmurs against your hair.

"Nothing," you say. "Just happy."

He pulls back to look at you, and his mismatched eyes are so full of love it makes your chest ache. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, his thumb tracing the bone beneath your eye. "You know I love you, right? More than anything. More than anyone."

"I know," you whisper.

And you do know. You know because he's shown you. Three months of patience. Three months of gentleness. Three months of holding you while you slept and guiding you through coffee making and kissing your forehead every time he left the room. What kind of monster does that? What kind of kidnapper pays for a private hospital room and specialists and a social worker? What kind of captor cries when he talks about almost losing you?

No one. No one does that. You invented the rest. You let your fear and your confusion curdle into paranoia, and you built a horror story out of shadows.

The AI app. You probably imagined that too. Or if it was real, if it was actually on his laptop, there was probably an innocent explanation. Maybe he used it for work. Maybe his cousins forced him to, the ones who pushed for the AI investments. Maybe he was generating marketing materials and you, in your fractured state, twisted it into something sinister. That made more sense than the alternative. That made infinitely more sense than the idea that this man, this beautiful devoted man who was currently stroking your hair and pressing soft kisses to your temple, had locked you in a basement and tried to erase your mind.

And the basement door. The way your body reacts when you walk past it. That's just trauma, just the residual fear from the fall. Of course your heart races. Of course your palms sweat. You almost died there. Your brain is trying to protect you from the place where you got hurt. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean what your paranoid mind tried to make it mean.

Valarr shifts beneath you, adjusting your weight on his lap, and his hand finds its way under the hem of your shirt to rest against the small of your back. His palm is warm. Grounding. Real.

"I was thinking," he says, his lips brushing your ear, "maybe we don't need to wait for the island. Maybe we could do a practice honeymoon right here. This weekend. Just the two of us. No phones. No distractions." He kisses the spot behind your ear, the one that makes you shiver. "I could cook for you. We could watch the sunset from the balcony. We could pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist."

"That sounds perfect," you say, and you mean it.

Because this is real. This is your life. This man, this house, this love. It's the only thing you have. The only thing you've ever had, as far as your broken memory is concerned. And it's good. It's so good. You're lucky. How many people wake up from a coma to find someone waiting for them? How many people get a second chance at a life they can't remember?

You almost ruined it. You almost let your damaged brain convince you that your fiancé was a villain, that your home was a prison, that the photographs on the walls were lies generated by a machine. You came so close to destroying the only good thing you have.

But you won't. You won't let the paranoia win. You'll be better. You'll be the YN from the videos, the one who laughs and smiles and looks at Valarr like he's her whole world. You'll learn to be her so completely that the other version, the suspicious frightened version, will fade away like a bad dream.

"I love you," you say, and the words feel strange in your mouth, but not bad strange. New strange. Like the first time you tasted coffee with oat milk and cinnamon. You'll get used to it. You'll learn to mean it.

Valarr goes still beneath you. Then his arms tighten, crushing you against his chest, and when he speaks his voice is thick. "Say it again."

"I love you."

He makes a sound, something between a laugh and a sob, and then he's kissing you, your lips, your cheeks, your nose, your forehead, his hands cradling your face like you're something precious. "You have no idea," he breathes, "how long I've waited to hear you say that. I thought..." He trails off, shaking his head, his mismatched eyes bright with tears.

"I'm sorry it took so long," you whisper. "I'm sorry I forgot."

"It's not your fault." He kisses your forehead, long and lingering. "None of it is your fault. You're here now. You remember now. That's all that matters."

You trust Valarr. You love Valarr. Or you will, soon. You're already halfway there.

Outside the window, the sun sinks into the bay, painting the water in shades of rose and gold. It's beautiful. It's always beautiful here. You've watched this sunset every night for three months, and it never gets old. The mansion breathes around you, the underfloor heating humming softly, the cashmere throw draped over the back of the sofa, the coffee machine waiting on the counter for tomorrow morning. Your home. Your life. Your love.

Valarr shifts you in his lap so he can reach the laptop. "Let me book the island," he says, pulling up the travel site. "The one you showed me. The remote one."

You watch his fingers move across the keyboard, long and elegant, the silver ring on his index finger catching the light. He's so beautiful. You never noticed before how beautiful he is. Or maybe you did, and you forgot. You forgot everything.

"I can't wait," you say, and you lean your head against his shoulder, and you let the last fragments of your doubt dissolve into the golden evening light. "Just the two of us. No distractions."

"Just the two of us," he echoes, and his hand finds your knee beneath the counter, warm and possessive and safe. "No one else. Nothing else. Just us."

Just us.

But.

The lights are mellow and fluorescent-like when they fall in fleets over the bodies dancing in the ballroom. The lights are mellow and romantic, reflecting over the bone white drapers around the room and the pristine, crystal chandelier hanging above them. The music simmers in the background like a long lost incantation. It’s tasteful to a fault. It’s perfect . Nauseatingly, excruciatingly perfect.

So is he.

You tell yourself you aren’t staring, per say. You are keeping tabs. You are clocking the time and space and the electrifying, unbreachable gap between your bodies because everything seems so unlikely anyway. Valarr Targaryen sauntering around the ballroom full of prideful lords and ladies with you hovering in the periphery. Valarr smiling with grudging politeness at some old-money heiress. His dark hair is slicked back with a sparse, renegade piece of hair flopping back endearingly on his forehead, the silver streak there damning and visible—catching stray lights from the chandelier above. Somehow you feel nausea rise in your throat, imagining the mismatched colors of his eyes, attentive to someone else. He stands straight, beautifully formal, too polite, blended in like a picture and you wonder—not for the first time, not the second—what you are doing here.

And his date...

You don’t mean to stare, but she’s tall and curvy and has a ringing, high pitched, good-natured laugh that’s been clanking around the back of your head since you heard her laugh appreciatively at Lord Lannister. She has her arm sling around the crook of Valarr’s and the way her tanned arm is just there—careless and easy with the slope of her elbow resting over his and the smile she has on her lips is delicate and gracious when she taps taps taps her index against his thumb—pricks at something deep and dark inside you.

You’re afraid to name it.

In the midst of the crowded room filled with people—flashy people, important people, people you are supposed to impress—your gaze catches—like a hook to an eye—on the girl who looks like she belongs next to Valarr Targaryen.

Because, the fact of the matter is—you don’t. You hardly belong in this room as it is. You are here on a charity call. You are here to manage the event where people far more important than you will decide the prices of the artefacts supposed to be auctioned tonight. Your job is to make sure their champagne does not run out.

The colour of her arm length hair is a bright, tumultuous pink that blooms on the sleek, silvery silk of her floor length evening gown.

“You’re staring awfully hard, my love,” Tanselle whispers, a little too conspicuously, in your ear.

Your breath catches in your throat. “I’m not—”

“Yeah, you are.” Tanselle kisses your cheek. Her palm smooths over your shoulder before she stands right in front of you. Her face is full of that insipid, pre-wedding glow that only highlights the knowing smirk she has plastered. You purse your lips tightly and in the scathing, saccharin smile you reserve for itchy clients before answering that you have no idea what she’s talking about.

“Her name is Kiera,” Tanselle says as a matter of fact, twirling a strand of her dark hair.

“Who?” 

“She’s the daughter of a media mogul—”

“I don’t—”

“ —from Tyrosh.”

“— care.”

“ And she’s planning to bag that Parthian amulet of yours.”

This stops you. There’s an extremely uncomfortable, glaringly imprudent weight in the middle of your throat. It’s one of your most prized collections. It… it’s something you will never be able to afford. And it shouldn’t matter. “I didn’t know,” you say quietly.

The smile on your best friend’s lips grows wider. She leans in, completely unperturbed by your stupor, and whispers coyly, “Bet you didn’t know another thing.”

Pink fucking hair.

“What?”

“He’s staring, too.”

There’s a slick, studding moment of silence. Your thoughts, ringing and glaring, stop and click in the back of your head, like bolts and screws. You feel a telltale heat in the back of your neck and before you know what you’re doing, you tilt your head to the side.

Across a sea of people, your eyes meet.

You forget to breathe.

In a moment—the next moment—you find yourself stuttering a bleak, surreptitious excuse. You find yourself running back, sliding past people with your sanity clutched like the purse in your hand and it’s really nothing, you just need a moment to rationalise and compartmentalise and fucking breathe because—

Because it’s really nothing. It’s none of your business who he’s with, especially since—

The door of the study slams with a force loud enough to almost ground you. You drop your purse to the floor as the woods bangs in its place. Your heart stutters, creaks and stomps as you walk shakily to the desk. The room is dead silent except for the slow, syrupy sound of the music wafting from the ballroom—a frail reminiscent. Still too loud—too bright. You still can’t rationalise why, after all this time, all the little pieces of your life he set in, it still feels surreal. The difference between you and him is too stark and rough in that room, with you making sure the canapes are fresh and Valarr with his date. Kiera of Tyrosh. Yes, you remember that you have heard of her before. Kiera. With her sensible laugh and brilliant pink hair and taste enough to buy your most prized collection. The difference… the contradiction settles something you have never been brave enough to attempt.

You take a deep breath, you take two and let the scent of old books and sharp ink settle in you, brew into something like comfort. You don’t have much time. Lord Baratheon might be looking for you to commence the auction. You aren't allowed the luxury to lament the date of your fuck-buddy… if he is even that.

“Hey.”

You snap back, inadvertently leaning against the edge of the desk. Like a habit, the weight in your chest dissolves a little as your lips part in surprise. 

You don’t make a sound as Valarr locks the door with a flick of his hand.

He takes a step, and it’s as if you can really—for the first time tonight—appreciate how good he’s looking. The muscular slope of his shoulder, the blunt out, barely there dents under his eyes. The light of the lamp—golden, illuminating—shines on his face and reverts the usual asymmetrical light in his eyes into something spectacular, something remarkable, something—

“You look—” he can’t finish, because you have already breached the few steps between you and thrown yourself over him.

You feel him topple back, feet stuttering, hand bracketing your back, bare with low cut of your rented dress, with an uncertain kind of softness. It takes him a moment to respond, his fingers drum on the sliver of bare skin of your back before you moan into his mouth, part his lips with yours in knee-shaking urgency. He tastes the same as before. Mint and wine and the synthetic nicotine of the electric cigarettes you bought him. His hand sneaks up to touch your braided hair, and it’s soft, it’s sweet despite the gravelled beat of his heart under your palm and you—

Normally you love it.

But the image of Kiera in silver and her arm between his makes a glitzy, technicolour shot in your head and you bite his lower lip. You push against the gravity and you’re back against the wall. You blame jealousy, hot-headed and senseless, useless jealousy as you cranes your neck, push your hand past his trousers to touch him, already half hard. Valarr groans, his breath falls, hot and heavy on your neck and he asks if you’re okay, if it’s okay to—

“Why did you come?” you blurt out.

He stops. His hands come to a shaky halt and there’s a dead beat second of absolute silence when he pulls back, just a little, just enough, to look at you inquisitively and—

You instantly regret asking it. Your palms rest on his shoulder and he… he— halts and your breaths, indrawn, pushed out, deep, melt and swirl between the barely there gap of your mouth and you hope, haphazardly, foolhardily, that he’ll say—You silly dove, why do you think? I’m here for you.

But his eyes settle into something solid, something harsh and decisive and he tells you—

“Business. Father asked me to meet with this Lyseni investor and—”

He doesn’t need to finish. You dig the heel of your palms into the crooks of his neck and her fingers push in his hair. And you kiss him before he can spew out anything more insidious. It’s a routine, it’s a trip; the tips of your fingers find the most delectable point of his head like memory, like a charm itself and he moans. It’s a hungry, guttural, greedy sounds that makes you feel, for a split second, that he might actually want you and not the escape.

But you know better.

You’ve been doing this for a while now.

And, as pathetic as it is, you don’t care.

Because Valarr has backed you against the wall. You gasp, partly from the harsh cold of the stone setting into the fabric of your dress and partly because his hand is already sneaking through the slit of your gown, fingers tapping along the ribbon-like, upturned skin of the old, old scar. He plays with the strap of your garter; you clutch onto him harder, harsher. Your breaths come out like pants in the shell of his ear as you push your body forward with an urgency that’s not new. Not after all this time. Not when—

He is leaving a wet trail of kisses past your neck, toys with the idea of breaking skin, his teeth grazing, lilting, teasing her. “Still want me, baby?”

You hate him. Him with his smirk that’s never smug enough or mean enough or anything else, really. Too sweet, too him, almost a smile— soft and tender and genuine and you hate it when he can pretend so good and you can’t at all. You hate his eyes as he stares at you. He slides his hands in your knickers and dips his finger inside you. You are so wet he slides in fully, without a stop and you whimper at the contact. Your hands find the front of his trouser—his cock a hard line against the zip as your walls clench and his fingers go deep deep deep and there’s the sparse bit of friction when the pulp of his thumb rubs on your clit and you think you’re hazy, you’re half gone, it’s—

It’s got to be jealousy. 

You help him get out of his trousers before he bunches up your dress, a fistful of lavender silk in his hands…

“Don’t ruin it,” you hiss, not even embarrassed. “It’s rented.”

“Fuck it.” He kisses you again, smiling. “I’ll buy you one,” he says as his hands go up and up. Enough to guide himself inside you. He slides your leg up as the burn of the stretch, the hot, sticky point where you meet is too much and too good. You yank at his collar to pull his face on yours.

“I don’t need anything from you.”

He barely hears you. You feel the hot, moist breath whirl on your cheeks when he groans, tells you it feels good, so good and moves—and moves—

And the people the lights the sounds his date floats away like dust, like they never mattered. The long, aching strokes, his grip on your waist, the friction—not in rhythm, not in sync, not in anything enough—on your clit when you move, when he moves just how you likes, every moment drawn out and it’s soft and slow just before he picks up his speed and you whimper helplessly. The scene—the memory around you melts into nothing, into a thin, blue sphere and you try, like all other times, to focus. To remind yourself that this is just two bodies, just sex, just just just…

It doesn’t matter.

“I want you to come first,” he whispers in your hair.

You nod desperately. Yes, you’d like that. You’d really—

Long, rhythmic strokes. His fingers flatten on top of your cunt and he taps on your clit and you—you come with a helpless cry.

Your arm hangs loosely on his shoulder when you both slide against the wall and onto the floor. Your back against the hardwood floor makes a thud of a sound. Your come makes a slippery, sticky noise when he moves for the last of his hasty, erratic strokes. You cup his cheeks, make him look at you before moving up, catching his lips. And the hiss, the helpless sigh that melts on your open mouth is rough, scaly like something ancient, something raw and bitting and it… you know what it is. It's Valyrian, the language he speaks when he's lost all control, when he is entirely immersed in you.

But you don’t let the trail of your thoughts wander too far.

No; you let him finish. Let his body, hot and heavy fall on you in the familiar weight. You feel the warm and soft trickle of it—the high, the ache, his come—down your thigh. Valarr is still inside you when he rests his forehead against you, noses bumping—a hazy, post-coital flush on his cheeks. His hair is a mess. The silver in it is spiked in all the wrong places. He is smiling.

Your heart does something entirely unsanctioned.

It slows down.

Valarr bites his lower lip. Still inside you, the weight of him is an ache in itself, and he stares at you with the expression—bright eyes and the easy slant of his lips like he’s in on some joke you don’t have any idea about. He drags out the words, “The collection is exquisite.”

“Is it?”

“Don’t do that.” He frowns. “I know how hard you’ve worked on this.”

“All for the pieces to go home with people who don’t really care about them.” You look away and notice for the first time that the room has a fireplace, too. “They just can afford them.”

He doesn’t answer for a moment. He knows money is a sore spot; he has to tread lightly around you—only because he has so much and you have so little. Because it’s one of the most deciding factors of your difference. His money his name his blood his beauty, all of it, all of him is an opposite from you.

But, to your eternal chagrin, he is good at ignoring the obvious. “Shut up and accept that you did a good job.”

You roll your eyes. “Alright.”

He licks his lips before leaning down to press a kiss on the side of your cheek. You frown, he shouldn’t do that. You think somewhere along the way you made a rule for him to not do that. “And you look—”

“Pretty?” 

“No.”

You snort, your throat suddenly tight with a sharp shooting shrapnel in the middle of your chest. “Now, now, my lord Targaryen, just because you’ve come with a perfect young—”

“What?” he scoffs. “It’s not—”

“Who even is she? I don’t—”

“ —what I meant.”

“ —know her. So—”

“Darling.”

“What?”

“You don’t look pretty.”

“Again? Valarr, the least you can do it lie—”

You can’t finish. His lips, soft and wet, press on top of yours and you kiss him back before you can tell yourself not to. Before you can remind yourself that he is the heir to the Targaryen dynasty and you are the girl who shelves their antique collection because they have too many. That whatever happens between the two of you is the unfortunate result of a drunken proximity. The prospect of Kiera of Tyrosh with him is far more appropriate than what happened in this study. 

“You look more,” he breathes out when he finally lets you go. The blue in his eyes are like the ocean, deep and dangerous. The brown is your darkened doom.

You feel a whiplash in your head. “What?”

“More than pretty.” He traces his finger on your frame, pushes back a hair that’s twisted off from your braid. “Or beautiful… You look like someone who shouldn’t exist... You’re unreal.”

You blink. The world begins to melt again, disintegrate into some sort of a translucent dream. Like some fairy tale stupid girls like to read. The music drifting from the cracks of the closed door of Lord Baratheon’s study feels like a background music to some stupid, senseless film. You grip on his collar. I hate you, you want to say, not meaning it, meaning something entirely, breathtakingly opposite.

In the end you say nothing, you let the silence hang. Because it's already been too late and you have convinced yourself that this is the only way you are allowed to have him.

In silence.

In pieces.

In secret.

more of my stories

Theo rolled his eyes, ducking his head to press a chaste kiss to the knuckle of your thumb before you resumed your work.

"So," you said, flinging the skin off the fig, "I take it N.E.W.T level materials are to your liking?"

"Yes. That, and the new class I'm taking."

You looked up. “New?”

Theo finally pulled away, turning to lean against the worktable beside you. He drummed his fingers restlessly on the underside of the table.

"Self-Cultivation and the Subconscious Mind."

You furrowed your brow as you tried to place the professor.

"By Trelawney."

You stared at him, your hands slowing to a stop.

"Please tell me you're doing a bit."

Theo swept up your shavings, suddenly very interested in your cutting board.

“You’re joking. Trelawney? Trelawney? Pseudo-crystal-balls, scammy-tea-leaf-readings Trelawney?"

Theo gave you a look. “Alright, cool it with the attitude."

You snorted. “Self-cultivation,” you repeated, somewhat mockingly, slicing your next shrivelfig with exaggerated care. “She's hardly cultivated herself, if you ask me.”

"Well, her syllabus is solid," Theo argued. "She's touching on continental philosophy, East Asian rituals, and look - not one word about her beloved Cassandra."

It's a poor attempt at a joke, one you didn't bother laughing at. You watched his impassioned face a little uncertainly. Neither of you was new to Trelawney's elaborate yet hollow hocus pocus. It was just like her to take advantage of the vulnerable. And as much as Theo hated admitting it, self-improvement was something he was touchy about. You imagined it had something to do with the tension between his arrogance and his desire to be a better man than his father.

And yet...his eyes held a gleam you'd never seen before.

Despite your well-founded skepticism, you relented.

“You’re sure?”

Theo gave a half-shrug.

“I think I could stand to change a few things,” he said simply.

You paused, caught off guard by the sincerity. For a moment, the only sound was the distant hum of the greenhouse and the slow, deliberate scrape of your knife against the cutting board.

You didn't walk around with the impression that you had the world's most perfect boyfriend. As sweet as Theo could be when he wasn't trying to hide that side of him, he was guaranteed to drive you up the wall every now and then. Still, you didn't like this idea. It felt...foreign. It made your tongue sit weird in your mouth.

You could feel him watching you intently. You felt ridiculous; you were clearly overreacting. It was just school. You mentally shook yourself, reaching for another shrivelfig.

How much could a person truly change?

"Well," you said, keeping your voice clear, slicing through the fig, "if that's what you want."

Theo gave a distracted nod, a slight frown creasing his forehead. You put your knife down, scooping your figs into a jar.

“No Cassandra?” you mused with a teasing lilt to lighten the mood. "Whatever will she talk about?"

Theo's lips quirked, his eyes picking up a familiar slant that evoked funny feelings in your chest.

"Hardy har har, you're hilarious. Now hurry up with your figs. Dinner's started and I'm starving."

Making a face at the end of your last look-through, you flipped over the parchment. Your essay was finally done, and the next one wasn't due until a week later. That left you with a good, stress-free 6-and-a-half-day break before you had to start on that one. You rolled out your joints, from your elbows to your knuckles, and stretched your back.

From your desk, you looked over to where Theo was lying on your bed in what looked to be a considerably more comfortable position. It had been a few weeks since Trelawney's class had started, but the dedication with which he stayed on top of it suggested that the novelty of the subject had yet to wear off for him.

Even now, he lay slumped with a hand propping his head up, eyes lidded, engrossed in some unreasonably heavy tome with a waning attention giving way to sleep. Somewhat unethically, you drank in the sight of his eyebags, mussed hair and unbuttoned shirt from your vantage point. Exhaustion looked ridiculously good on him.

"I'm calling it a night," you announced, placing your quill down.

When Theo didn't even stir, you tried again.

"You've been reading that for ages. You're going to spoil your beautiful, perfect eyes reading that long."

He finally looked up at the mention of his beautiful, perfect eyes - self-absorbed prat that he was - his mouth curving into a sloping smile. He flipped a page.

"You worry too much."

"Occupational hazard of dating someone whose idea of fun is having his skull smashed open by a Bludger."

Theo's smile faltered. He looked tired in more ways than one.

"I keep telling you, the idea is to avoid the Bludgers."

"Thirty percent of professional Quidditch players suffer from significant brain damage by the end of their career," you argued earnestly, not without some anxiety. Theo stared at you.

"You have got to stop listening to the WWN," he muttered, glancing back at his book. You shifted in your chair, turning to face him.

"What are you reading anyway?"

Theo sighed. "Further reading for Trelawney's class." He pulled away from the book, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. "She already has us thinking about our final projects. "

You shook your head. "I still can't wrap my head around how you're taking her so seriously. Have you forgotten when you thought she sabotaged your Divination final?"

He suppressed a groan. "Don't."

"Because I haven't."

"Yeah, I know, Y/N."

"You were so convinced it was a trick teacup or something."

"Never have I ever seen tea leaves behave that w- " he began heatedly, stopping only at the sight of your ill-disguised amusement.

"Oh. I see how it is." Theo finally shut the book and set it aside. His eyes were suddenly bright in the candlelight. A thrill ran through you. "Trying to get a rise out of me, L/N?"

You shrugged coyly, nibbling at a fingernail.

"Me? Get a rise out of you?"

You were laying the faux innocence on a little thick, but Theo's bedroom eyes were finally fixed on something other than that book - rather appreciatively, too. You stood and padded towards him. He instinctively grabbed your wrist, his thumb dragging over your pulse point.

"I thought you were too spiritually evolved to be bothered by uneducated mortals like me."

His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline alarmingly fast. He tugged you down onto his lap, and you let him, a giddy feeling somersaulting in your stomach. His arm caught your waist, his nose brushed your temple, and once again, he was the Theo you knew and loved - the one who couldn't go two minutes without having his hands on you.

Theo's mouth found yours as he toyed with the hem of your blouse. His teeth grazed your lower lip. It felt comfortable, familiar - at least, it almost did. As you tangled your hands in his hair, a faint, smoky scent sliced through the hazy heat.

It hit you like a ton of bricks. It was the same foreign scent that clung to his books, his notes, his quills. Something earthy and woody and wholly unwelcome, as far as you were concerned.

"Teddy," you gasped before you could stop yourself, momentarily agitated.

Theo's hands barely slowed. He hummed against your skin.

"Hmm?"

But how to say it? You couldn't find the words to express the frustration choking you. This class clearly meant a lot to him. What if you hurt his feelings? Or worse, what if you drove him away?

And now he was close, impossibly close. He was pressing a kiss to the stuttering pulse point under your jaw. You tightened your hold on him, rigid and confused by the thoughts plaguing your head.

"You smell like sandalwood," you murmured hesitantly instead. Like incense. You gave a shaky breath of laughter. His mouth was already moving again, slow and deliberate. You kissed him back, harder this time, anything to knock the thought clean out of your head.

The sour scent lingered in the air, looming ominously in the back of your mind.

Every relationship goes through its slumps, don't they?

At least, that was what you spent the next couple of weeks trying to convince yourself. You couldn't be insufferably, madly in love, ripping each other's clothes off forever. It was only natural that Theo was starting to feel a little distant from you. It was only natural that the two of you were drifting to opposite sides of the bed. It was only natural that you were punching the air, repressing the urge to scream into your pillow, every night.

But no matter - there were 7 ways to liven up a romance again, and number 5 was shocking (according to Witch Weekly).

You gave yourself one last look over before heading out. This was much silkier and clingier than what you were used to wearing, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

You stepped out of the bathroom. Theo was sitting up in your bed, engaging in his now all too familiar routine of some 'light' bedtime reading.

"Remember that time in Florence, where you were reading that map wrong? Well, here Epictetus says - "

You cleared your throat.

The words died at his lips once he glanced up, finally registering the pointed look you were giving him. His breath hitched. Surprise flickered across his face.

"You look...different."

You leaned against the doorframe, watching him expectantly. If you didn't know any better, you'd say he looked uncomfortable.

"You know what Epictetus had to say about desires?"

Was he being serious right now?

You huffed, seeing where this was going. "I don't know and I don't care."

"That we must master them before they master us."

You stared at Theo blankly. It was all you could do to not roll your eyes in his face. Witch Weekly hadn't mentioned what to do with a boyfriend high on self-help. You deflated, feeling his interest in your pajamas, if any, waning with every passing word.

"Who?" you asked tiredly.

"Epictetus. Originally a slave boy to Epaphroditus, secretary to Nero, he was a philosopher who inspired the likes of Marcus Aurelius and..."

You didn't respond. As unsupportive as it was, you had begun tuning him out a lot more lately. You were starting to get very sick of the idea of some old, long-gone Greek guy dictating your sex life.

Theo didn't seem to catch the hint until you were climbing under the covers, muttering under your breath, fumbling for your eye mask in your nightstand.

"Good, different-good, is what I meant," he tried, but it was too little too late. You found your mask and put it on, turning your back to him. You could feel him draw closer, his hand tentatively coming to your waist, his thumb dragging across the fabric.

"Can't I get another look? Please?"

"I'm not in the mood anymore, Theodore."

Theo winced. He was really in the doghouse.

"I'm sorry. Can we try this again? I'll - "

You sat up, ripping off your eye mask.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not letting you read all night. I'm sorry for distracting you from your favourite class. I'm sorry I have desires." Theo had said none of those things, but this was quickly becoming one of those petty fights where you were a little more dramatic than you needed to be. It was stupid, but you were beginning to feel the familiar sting of hot tears pricking your eyes. "I'm sorry I'm not as hot or attractive as Epictetus."

To his credit, Theo looked appropriately dismayed. For the first time in weeks, you had no doubt he understood exactly how you were feeling. You were finally on the same page - just a horrible one.

"Y/N - "

"I'm tired, Theo," you said, sinking back into the bed. "I just want to get some sleep."

Your anger, as hot and quick as it had come, was already dissipating. Fleeting though it was, it had been sapping all the same. You weren't sure if it was the irritation, the uncomfortably warm blanket, or the past couple of weeks, but you were left feeling drained. You mumbled into your pillow as your eyes fluttered shut.

"Let's talk in the morning. Okay?"

You didn't wait for a reply as you drifted off.

A couple days before the end of the semester, you were making daisy chains with your friends in a corner of the Great Hall for May Day baskets. Well, Ivy and Melissa were making daisy chains. You were ripping up the smaller flowers that they were too slow to scoop out of your reach. Your friends, bless them, had been more than patient, but it didn't seem to help. The longer you went without talking Theo's ear off, the tetchier you became, and neither of you wanted to admit you were beginning to avoid each other. It was a hopeless, dismal situation that was doing your head in.

Melissa watched you rip off the petals of yet another daisy with a forlorn expression.

"You and Theo still not talking?"

You rolled your eyes.

"Why wouldn't we be talking?" you spat out bitterly, for what had to be the hundredth time. You picked up a couple of undamaged stalks and began weaving them together with a slightly manic energy.

"I should be soooo lucky to have a partner like him. My boyfriend...is empathetic. My boyfriend...is in touch with his emotions! My boyfriend..."

Your finger slipped. You crumpled up your daisy chain, relishing the ache in your white-knuckle grip.

"My boyfriend won't touch me with a twenty-foot pole, actually. And I'm sick of it."

You released your crushed creation, and stared at it. You were a little sorry to have destroyed so many perfectly good flowers.

"Aw, Y/N," Ivy petted. "Don't sulk. I'm sure it'll all turn out fine. Just give him time."

You lifted your head, a moody expression on your face. "I'm not sulking," you sulked. You shifted the beheaded daisies around disinterestedly. "I just want my boyfriend back."

You felt a hand settle on your shoulder, and you glanced up. Speak of the devil.

"Hey."

Theo was wearing a soft blue sweater, scrunched at the elbow in this sometimes-hot, sometimes-chilly weather. You turned your back to him, carefully picking out the next daisy.

"Ivy," Melissa said, "I think the table's getting a little full. Let's take the finished chains upstairs."

Ivy looked up. The daisy chains stacked on her head teetered dangerously.

"What do you mean? We've got plenty of room. Just put them on - ow, ow, okay, I'm coming."

While Melissa dragged Ivy away, Theo's fingers slipped off your shoulder as he sat next to you. His legs faced outwards while yours were crossed underneath the table. Good. At least you didn't have to look at his stupid face.

Theo's knee bounced restlessly. "Do you want to talk?"

You suppressed the urge to roll your eyes.

"Talk about what?"

He thought for a moment.

"Maybe why you're so...pissed."

Unbelievable. He could not be this dense. You finally snapped.

"I hate your stupid fucking self-help class!"

"Okay, wow. That's...that's something."

"It is so full of shit. You are so full of shit. I don't even recognise you anymore. And - you wanna know something? Not once have I complained, or criticised or, or, or critiqued you, but now all of a sudden you're too good to sleep with me?"

"I never thought I was - "

"I've never cared how perfect you are, or how perfect you could be."

"Well, I'm not trying to be perfect."

Theo's eyes were shifty, and the patience in his voice was strained. You closed your eyes, trying to pick the right words jumbled in your frazzled state of mind. What was going to get the message through that thick head of his?

"Do you remember," you murmured, after a moment, "that pick up line you fed me at the Yule Ball, in our fourth year? The one you dragged Blaise along for?"

Theo scoffed lightly. You had a feeling the memory embarrassed him. You pressed on.

"You said something about...right. You said you heard that I liked bad boys. And you made Blaise say that - "

All these years later, the memory still pulled a wry smile onto your face.

"That you were the worst. It was...awful, really. It has to be one of the worst pick up lines ever. It doesn't even make any sense."

You opened your eyes.

"But it was sweet. It was you. Like that other time we were having a fight, and you were following me everywhere, begging to talk, and I kept saying I didn't want to talk to you, so you said -

"Can you want to talk to me."

You looked up. For the first time in weeks, there was a softness in his eyes that convinced you that you really were on the same page.

"So you do remember."

Theo's mouth twitched. He gently skimmed a daisy chain between the two of you.

"Kind of hard to forget." He tilted his head and sighed, almost wistfully, staring at the rafters of the Great Hall. "I'd be dead and buried before I forget anything about you."

You covered his hand. When his eyes met yours, stormy with conflict, you had the odd sensation of deja vu. There was something so familiar about this place, one that you would surely visit again and again. It felt like falling in love with him all over again. Like once again making the promise to coax him out of his tortured shell.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to improve yourself." You finally thawed, leaning into Theo, resting your head against his shoulder. "But it's scary to think a better version of you is a version without...me."

You felt Theo's chest rise as he sucked in a breath between his teeth.

"Don't say that."

"But it's true."

"No. How could you - " You lifted your head as Theo turned to face you. His eyes were fraught, rheumy, and he looked as though he were turning purple with all the unsaid things he didn't know how to get out.

"Before I knew anything about, you know, what I wanted to do, or who I wanted to be, I knew I wanted you."

You didn't know what to say. You rested your head on his shoulder. Theo pulled you closer.

"I'm always going to want you, Y/N," he said softly. From here, you could hear his heart hammering in his chest. The adrenaline, the panic - it was the most real Theo had been in weeks. "It's the only thing I know how to do."

As the two of you grew silent, you marvelled at how comfortably your cheekbone rested just above his collarbone, how your shoulder fit in the dip of his chest, how perfectly the two of you slotted against each other. There was something that was - and always would be - so familiar about Theo. You thought about your afternoons in the common room, your Hogsmeade dates, and every evening that ended just like this - head on his chest, eyes too heavy with sleep to open. It was a wonder there wasn't a depression in the shape of you carved into his chest. You'd stay there forever.

"So this is it, then," you mumbled.

"What?"

"You and me."

Theo flipped his hand, interlacing his fingers with yours, sniffling gently.

"Looks like it."

You sat up suddenly, having just remembered something.

"Aren't you allergic to pollen?"

He kisses your nape. Warm, reverent. Then again, lower, where your neck meets the curve of your shoulder, lingering, his lips parting against your skin like he means to leave something there.

His arm tightens until there's no space left between you at all. His knees fit into the hollows behind yours. He's wound so tight you can feel it even in the way Valarr holds you, a fine tremor running through him.

You don't say anything.

You let him have it. Let him hold you and breathe you in and press those quiet kisses into your skin. Because you understand, in the wordless animal way you understand most things about Valarr, that he needs this more than he needs you awake.

He needs to arrive. To come home in his body, not merely on his calendar. So you keep your breathing even and your eyes shut. You let him pour six days of want into the back of your neck in the dark.

His breathing slows. The tremor fades little by little. The last of the week leaves him in one long exhale, and somewhere in the warm dark before you both go under, his lips move against your nape one final time.

"My love," he whispers, like a man setting down something he'd been afraid to lose.

You sleep with his arm a dead weight across your waist and his mouth still buried in your hair.

You wake, hours later, before Valarr does.

The light is grey, the first thin wash of it through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the apartment quiet around you.

You've turned in the night. You're facing him now, the duvet pooled around your waist. Valarr sleeps on his back with one arm flung up across the pillows and the other still curled, even unconscious, toward the warm dent where you'd been.

You look at him.

You allow yourself this, in the rare grey hours when he doesn't know you're doing it: the luxury of looking at Valarr Targaryen without performance, without his mismatched eyes on you cataloguing every flicker of your reaction, without the game the two of you are always, on some level, playing.

You let your gaze move over him the way his moves over you when he thinks you aren't watching.

He's beautiful. An almost insulting quantity of it for one man to carry, the kind that made you think, the first time you watched him cross a room toward you, oh, that face is going to be a problem.

The dark hair ruined against the white pillow, falling across his forehead. The white streak at his temple that you know runs coarser to the touch than the rest of the floppy strands. The long sweep of his dark lashes. The pink mouth gone soft in sleep.

It is, perhaps, the most dangerous thing about Valarr, for what comes out of it.

Next comes the dips and lines of his trained, maintained body. Every inch of it claimed and tasted by you.

But this morning there's something else, too.

He didn't shave in Essos. Hasn't shaved, you'd guess, in four days (overrun, he'd said on FaceTime, drowning, back to back, I'll call again when I surface, love) and he never surfaced, never sent the usual photographs. The week swallowed him whole.

So the lower half of his face has darkened. A heavy shadow of stubble crowds along his jaw, his chin, above the bow of his lip, the clean architecture of him roughened and obscured, the boyish gloss sanded clean off.

It changes Valarr completely.

The golden dragon is gone.

The polished, attentive boy who brings you tea with honey and in his place is a dark jawline, a harder set of hollows beneath the cheekbones. A face with weight and shadow in it. The other Valarr. The silky dark one who slips loose when you fist your hands in his hair, when you growl low in your throat, when you push your fingers into his mouth and watch the brown eye go black. When you ask him to fuck you so hard you can't walk the next day.

The one you've spent three years coaxing into the light, luring up out of deep water inch by inch, nurturing the edge of him your father once glimpsed under all that shine and called the dragon, deep beneath. The one you love no less than the golden one. Perhaps more, in some senses, because he's the one Valarr lets no one else in the world see.

He looks, asleep with four days of stubble in the grey light, like the man who lives underneath the man.

You want to touch it.

So you do. You lift your hand and lay your palm flat against the side of Valarr's jaw, against the rough dark grain of him, and the texture catches and drags at your skin, coarse and entirely new under your fingers.

His eyes flutter open.

By degrees, unfocused at first, the blue one catching the light first. Then they find your face and sharpen. Valarr takes in your expression, whatever it is, whatever you didn't have the warning to school it into, and a deep, knowing pleasure unfurls across his features.

"Good morning, my love," he says, his voice wrecked from sleep, dropped half an octave and rough at every edge. "You're staring."

"I am."

"You like it." His mouth curves into something that isn't quite the golden boy's smile. He turns his face into your palm, drags the stubble across it deliberately, and watches you feel it. Takes in the small, involuntary thing your eyes do. "Tell me you like it."

You don't answer right away. You trace your thumb along the dark line of his jaw, learning the rasp of it. Valarr's eyes hood, his attention sharpening on you with the lazy, predatory patience that belongs to the other one.

"Don't shave," you tell him.

He laughs, low and delighted, the sound rumbling up out of his chest. "No?"

"No." You drag your thumb across his lower lip, feeling the place where smooth gives way to rough. "I want you like this."

"Like this," he repeats, tasting it. He catches your wrist, and turns his head to press his mouth to the heel of your hand. The stubble scrapes, his eyes never leaving yours. "Tell me what this is, then. Be specific. What is it you want, sweet girl?"

"You know what it is."

"I want to hear you say it out loud."

You hold his gaze. Neither of you blinks; you've never been the one to blink first, and he's learned not to expect it. "It's the other one," you say evenly. "The one you keep underneath. He's closer to the surface like this. I can see him from here."

An emotion moves through Valarr's face at that. The pleasure goes darker, banked-coal warm, the brown eye dropping a full shade, and his grip on your wrist tightens by a fraction that says he heard exactly what you meant.

"Then come and get him," he says huskily, and it isn't a request.

"I'm right here."

"Not close enough, my love. Nowhere near."

He's already drawing you in, his arm sliding around the small of your back, gathering you across the short distance until you're flush against the bare warm length of him under the duvet, every inch against every inch.

"Six days. Do you have the faintest idea what six days does to me?" Not a question. Valarr's mouth is already moving. Your temple, your cheekbone, the corner of your jaw, leaving that rough new abrasion wherever it lands. "I needed you in every room I walked into. Every meeting. Every dinner. I'd be mid-sentence, closing the deal I flew out there to close, and all I could think was your hands. The sound you make when I first—"

You kiss him quiet.

Valarr kisses you back like a man surfacing from underwater. Nothing careful in it, nothing of the I won't presume he gave you in year one. Just open and immediate and starving, his hand coming up to cradle the back of your skull and hold you exactly where he wants you.

And the stubble burns. It scrapes your mouth, your chin, the soft skin around your lips, raw and hot, and Valarr does it on purpose. You feel the intent in it. Feel him angle his jaw to grind the rough of it across your cheek, watching for your reaction even with his eyes half-shut and his mouth fused to yours. When you moan into the kiss, when the sting of him drags a low, helpless sound up out of your chest, you feel Valarr's mouth curve against yours in dark satisfaction.

"There it is," he murmurs. "I've missed that sound. I've been starving for it, sweet girl."

He does it again. Harder. Drags his jaw down the line of your neck, the burn blooming heat across your skin in a spreading wash, and you tip your head back and bare your throat to him and let him, your fingers driving up into his hair.

The sound Valarr makes against your throat is nothing like the boyish, contented murmurs you usually coax out of him in the half-dark. It's lower than that. It has teeth in it. It belongs to the other one.

"Missed your skin," he breathes into the hollow of your throat, mouthing at the pulse. "Missed the heat of you, my love. Missed every noise I can pull out of you once I stop being polite." His mouth travels down, the rasp of his jaw scoring a hot path to your collarbone and you arch into the sensation with a sigh. "I'm not doing this quickly. I've thought about it for a week. I've earned the long version."

"Val—"

"Six days," he says against your sternum, and keeps moving down, peeling off your linen sleeping shirt.

Valarr kisses the soft swell of each breast, dragging his rough jaw against the tender underside until you arch off the sheets and gasp. He works lower, open-mouthed and wet down the curve of your ribs, the trembling plane of your stomach.

He's leaving that scrape everywhere he's been so your whole body lights like a struck match, nerve by nerve. Valarr's hands settle on your hips and spread wide, thumbs hooking into the points of bone. He kisses one, then the other. Then rubs his stubbled jaw against the soft inner skin of each thigh, back and forth, watching your face the entire time. Until you're squirming under the weight of his hands, slick and aching, your breath frayed into ragged uneven pulls.

Then he settles between your legs and lifts those shadowed eyes to your face.

"Hands off the sheets," he say, low, certain, your golden Valarr momentarily away. He takes your wrists and sets your hands in his hair himself, deliberate, then flattens his palms over your hips and pins you to the mattress. "Hold on to me instead, sweet girl. I want to feel it when you come apart for me."

The first stroke of Valarr's tongue tears a sound out of him that's worse than yours.

A deep, broken, drowning groan against your core. The noise of a man tasting the only thing he's wanted for a week and finally being allowed to have it. He moans into you. He keeps moaning into you. The flat of his tongue, then the point of it, slipping between your folds, relearning you as though he's been kept from this for years and not days.

He's drunk on it, you can feel him going under, the careful man dismantled by the first taste of you, leaving only this: a starving creature with his face buried between your thighs, breathing you in like he can't remember how to do it any other way.

And he uses the stubble. The calculated contrast of his hot, soft mouth and the raw burn of his unshaven jaw against the most sensitive skin of your inner thighs. He sucks on the nub, pressing his cheek against the crease of you, pleasure and sting braiding into something so acute you cry out and your fists clench in his hair.

He won't let your hips move. Every time you try to chase more friction, Valarr presses you flat down, holding you precisely where he wants you, making you take it at the pace he's decided on. His eyes stay on your face through all of it: fevered, drowned-dark, drinking down every helpless thing it does.

"Valarr—"

He hums against you, low and ragged, the vibration bowing your spine off the bed. "I know," he slurs, kissing the swollen folds gently. He sounds raspy, half-pained "I know, sweet girl. God, I know. Let me—just let me have you. I need you."

And then he goes deeper into you. You feel him slip the last of his composure like a coat dropped to the floor.

Whatever was left of the boy is gone; what surfaces is the dark thing he keeps buried, the worshipful animal at the bottom of him, and it doesn't kiss you so much as it adores you.

He noses against you, dragging his open mouth through you bottom to top. Valarr's tongue twists, slower now, then ravenous again, no rhythm any more, only hunger. There's nothing elegant about it now. It's wet, his tongue working you furiously, your arousal dripping into his awaiting mouth.

Valarr keeps making sounds against you, low and broken, sounds that aren't meant for you to hear, the unguarded noises of a man undone by what he's tasting.

"My love," he breathes against you, reverent, dazed. "The taste of you... I've been parched—"

And that's when you feel it: Valarr starting to rut down into the mattress beneath him, helpless, instinctive, grinding the aching length of himself against the sheets because the want has overrun him entirely.

Because eating you out has reduced him to something primal and shaking. He doesn't seem to know he's doing it. His hips move on their own, a slow, shameless grind he isn't aware of. His fingers dig harder into the flesh of your hips, and his whole body has gone fevered and greedy for more. Lost in the taste of you with four days of stubble searing your thighs and both pupils blown to black.

Valarr drags his mouth back just far enough to speak, chin slick, lips swollen like your cunt, eyes barely focused. "More. Give me more. Pull—pull my hair—please, I need to feel it—"

You fist both hands in his dark hair and you yank. Hard enough to sting.

Valarr groans—wrecked, grateful, half-feral, the sound vibrating straight through you and making you clench—and the pull snaps something loose at the core of him.

He drags you back against his mouth and goes after you with a renewed, ravenous greed, his jaw working, the stubble searing. Valarr's tongue turns relentless and exact, and the edge comes rushing up faster than you can brace for.

You tighten your fists until the dark strands strain through your fingers, and you arch off the bed. Your insides clench, coiling, and he takes you over the edge with his hands pinning you down and his mouth never once relenting.

You come apart with his name torn out of your throat and the rough burn of him branding the inside of your thighs, your whole body drawn taut as wire and then breaking. Valarr makes a sound against you that is purely starving, a deep desperate groan as the first wave of you hits his tongue, and he laps at you, parched, greedy, refusing to miss a single drop.

He licks you through it like a man drinking after days in a desert. His tongue working slow and devout against the slick of you, gathering every shudder, every pulse, every spill, drinking down every last thing your body gives him. He doesn't gentle, not really. Valarr worships, drunk and patient in his devotion. Kissing where he's been licking, licking where he's been kissing, refusing to let go of you until you're trembling and oversensitive, whispering his name and he's certain he's had all of it.

Only then does his mouth soften, turning gentle, pressing one final lingering kiss to the trembling inside of your thigh.

You lie there undone, your limbs still trembling, your hands still loosely tangled in his ruined hair, your chest heaving.

"Val," you whisper, when you find your voice.

He crawls back up the length of your body, and there's something dark and unhurried in the way he does it. Almost predatory. His mouth finds yours and you kiss him deeply, holding his face to you. A wet kiss, sloppy, finesse abandoned, you tasting yourself on his tongue, the stubble blazing against your already-tender lips, and neither of you cares in the slightest.

"You're going to be raw," Valarr murmurs against your mouth, sounding obscenely pleased about it. "Every time you feel it today you'll think of me, sweet girl."

"That's the idea," you tell him, and he makes a low sound and kisses you harder.

He's hot and solid above you. He's also, you note with a slow curl of satisfaction, still achingly hard. His length presses to the crease of your hip, untouched, ignored, leaking against your skin.

You reach down between your bodies and close your hand around him.

Valarr hisses sharply through his teeth, hips jerking into your grip.

You hum, low and pleased, and kiss the corner of his mouth tenderly, working him in a firm, unhurried stroke, feeling him pulse hot and heavy in your fist. "You missed me," you say against the rough line of his jaw. Not a question.

"Yes." Valarr's smooth voice is destroyed. He says it the way the dark one says everything—quiet, certain, more dark silk drawn taut than golden charm. "More than anything. More than is reasonable. More than I—" His breath catches and breaks as your hand twists at the wet head of him. "It was a sickness. The whole week. I'd have burned the deal to the ground to come home a day sooner if I could've found good enough excuse. I lay in that hotel every night and reached for you but you weren't there and it was... unbearable, love. You unmade me from an ocean away."

The admission lands somewhere low and bright in your chest, and you bare your teeth at it, pleased to your bones. You roll him.

You roll Valarr onto his back beneath you in one clean motion, legs wrapped around him, and Valarr blinks up at you, startled. For half a heartbeat the golden boy surfaces, the reflexive courtesy, the you've only just—

"Love," he starts, his hand finding your hips. "You don't have to, you just came apart, you—"

"Quiet."

You set your mouth to his throat.

You kiss down the strong column of his neck, dragging your lips over the jumping pulse, and Valarr's protest dies unspoken in his chest. You press your mouth to the curve of his jaw, the hollow under his ear, the spot beneath his jaw that never fails to undo him.

"Val," you say against his throat, and you let him hear the raw need in your voice. "I missed you too. Every night. I kept turning over to feel for you and you weren't there. The bed was wrong and the room was wrong and I was wrong without you." You kiss the corner of his jaw. "Do you understand me? I missed you the entire week."

Valarr groans deep in his chest, a wrecked thing, and his arms come up around you immediately. Both of them, urgent, gathering you in.

He's trying to pull you flush against him, trying to fold you in close, his hand splaying wide between your shoulder blades like he means to crush you to his chest and hold you there. The dark Valarr has gone vulnerable in an instant. The hunger has folded itself around something softer.

He wants to bury his face in your hair and breathe you in and stay like that, just hold you, just have you against him, the way he held you when he first slid into bed last night.

You feel him try to pull you up.

You stop him.

You set your palm flat to his sternum and you press him back to the mattress, kissing his pulse one more time. Then you start moving down.

"Sweet girl—" his voice cracks. "Love, come up—come back up here, let me hold you, that's all I want, just let me hold you—"

"Not yet."

"I don't need anything else, I swear, I only want you in my arms—"

"I know, pretty thing." You kiss the centre of his chest. "And you'll have that. After."

You move lower. The sharp line of his collarbone, then lower still, your mouth finding one flat, pink nipple and closing over it. His hand fists in your hair, no longer pushing you off, holding you to him now, his breath gone short and uneven.

"Sweet girl, please, I'm fine, I don't need—"

"Val." You lift your head just enough to meet his eyes. The blue one is glassy. The brown one is gone black. "I want to taste you too. I've been waiting six days. Let me have my turn."

The sound Valarr makes at that is wrecked. His head drops back against the pillow. His hand stays buried in your hair, holding tight.

"Fuck," he breathes at the ceiling. "Yes. Yes... anything. Yes."

You drag your open mouth down the centre of his chest, his stomach, feeling each band of lean muscle leap and tense beneath your lips. The sharp catch of his inhale, the way Valarr's whole body has drawn taut and trembling and waiting under you.

"There he is," you murmur, pleased, against his skin, giving him his own words back. "Closer to the surface now, isn't he?"

A broken sound is your response, his hand tightening in your hair.

You reach the jut of one hip bone and press your lips there. Then the other, kissing each one in turn, letting your teeth graze the bone, and you feel his stomach hollow out on a sharp indrawn breath, his fingers trembling against your scalp.

"Sweet girl," he rasps again, and there's no refusal left anywhere in it.

It's a plea, low and dark, the golden one and the silken one finally collapsed into a single, helpless want.

Yeah, he comes for you a little bit harder after that– loses that professional detachment piece by piece as every meeting that follows feeds the charged tension growing between you, each new spark of contact painted with just a touch more ferality than the last. 

Now it’s a challenge.

There’s no discussion anymore, any attempt at reasoning a simple, quiet capture long forgotten because you’ve initiated this little game of cat and mouse through the galaxy and apparently woken something within the previously stoic hunter.

He attacks quick and ruthless when you’re hiding on Maldo Kreis, a ghost in the shadows of the darkest frost-bitten cavern you could find. Sure there was no chance he would follow you here, let alone find you, until he’s suddenly right there. Behind you, snatching at your waist and yanking you tight against the sharp, broad width of his chest. 

He’s got you locked to him. Thick arms like a band of steel around you as the clasp of worn leather encircles your wrists before your fingers can so much as twitch in the direction of your weapons.

You buck and writhe but it’s useless, he’s too large– heavy with muscle and the strength of his armour hunched over your frame. If only you could have a moment to think, though its slightly difficult with him crushed to you in a way that makes your already racing pulse jump erratically.

You can’t throw your head back like your instinct initially demands, there’s no soft flesh or fragile bone for you to hit, just unforgiving metal that promises the worst fucking headache known to man if you decide to be so rash.  

You take in a steadying breath and test the waters but it’s like he can sense your thoughts. Like he’s so deeply attuned to how you think after spending maker-knows how long following you through the galaxy.

Any ideas you have are burned up, turned to ash and carried away on the icy wind the moment you enact them as he blocks and parries every single attempt to hit out at him, keeping a secure hold on you despite your savage clawing and kicking.

And it’s not until your muscles ache, your breath hitched on a quiet pant whilst you sag back into him that to add insult to injury, you realise his grip on you isn’t as restraining as it should be. It’s almost light, gentle even. 

Taunting.

He’s trailing soft circles over the tender skin of your wrists, the rise of his chest deep and even against your back. Everything about him is calm, collected— self assured and bordering on smug. He knows you can’t get away from him, that he’s got you for good this time and is simply amusing himself by watching you jerk and thrash and snarl in fury. 

“Fuck.” You huff.

He chuckles then.

The sound like rough velvet and it’s impossible to not give in to the shudder trying to slip over your spine, to lean back into him when he presses closer and dips his chin to your shoulder. The cold kiss of beskar against your cheek and the deep rumble at the back of his throat drifting through the modulator in his helmet to curl around your ear like smoke. 

“Better luck next time mesh’la.”

**

But now it’s your turn to be smug. 

After all there’s a reason you chose a planet like Maldo Kreis to hide on. It’s not like you're here for the entertainment, although watching the typically quiet Mandalorian grow steadily more agitated as his ship fails to regain power has been quite the satisfying experience for your wounded pride. 

He might have caught you unaware but the capture is only half of his mission and it’s looking pretty impossible for him to complete the remaining part when he has no way of hauling your ass out of here. You’re at a stalemate–the arctic climate working in your favour to trap him whilst he’s been preoccupied trapping you. 

There’s ice everywhere. Creeping through the Crest like webs of frosted glass, burrowing inside the already temperamental mechanics of such an old ship and with the loss of light as the dark stretch of night slips in there’s no sign of things being fixed before morning at least.

Something that you're sure has already become irritatingly obvious to him given the way he stomps back and forth as he secures your home for the evening. 

With every piercing howl of frigid wind that cuts through the cockpit he curses. His shoulders tensing that much harder, tone dragged through with grit, as he hastily shoves another threadbare blanket into your lap when you begin to shake before throwing himself into the pilot’s seat and trying the controls again with no more result than he had ten minutes ago. 

“You need to stay warm.” He casts a sideways glance at you, grunts. “Otherwise you’ll die before we get off this fucking planet.”

You blink in surprise before grinning through the click of your chattering teeth. “ I didn’t realise you cared, Mandalorian.”

He goes silent– his helmet tilting an inch as he stares at you but your eyes are drawn to the minute twitch of his fingers on a switch. The soft creak of leather as his hands subtly flex and clench whilst he watches you watch him until a thick tension blooms in the air.

When he eventually breaks it, slashes through the slow suffocation that holds your lungs tight in its fist as you wait, his words are detached. Clinical. And maybe you’d believe them if it wasn’t for the echo of a strain they’re shaded in. 

“I get paid less if you’re dead.”

“Right, yeah of course–that’s what this is.” 

**

It only grows colder – the type of chill that hooks into your bones and bites deep. 

And Mando must see it on your face, the discomfort, the stabbing ache of your insides turning to brittle glass beneath your skin, because he’s suddenly on his feet. Grabbing your wrist in the broad circle of his hand and dragging you quickly behind him, balling the blankets beneath his other arm as he leads you to an enclosed nook with a thin mattress inside. 

You both seem to stare at it for a short cluster of awkward seconds before he gestures towards the bunk A jerking, almost insecure movement that you gather is from showing you something so mundane, yet so personal.

And you get it.

It’s becoming more difficult to simply see him as your ruthless hunter when he’s trying to offer you all that he has– his protection and his kindness (even if it is buried deep under a mountain of grumpiness) and now the place where he’s most vulnerable.

It makes your gut twist strange, creates an odd tickle in your chest and draws a shaky breath past your lips as he clears his throat.

“It’ll be warmer for you in here.” He mutters. “Get in and close it after you.”

You frown. “What about you?”

He makes a non-committal noise, shrugging. “I’ll be in the cockpit if you need me.”

“You can’t be serious?” You protest, concern colouring your voice before you can swallow it down, followed by a soft chirp of disbelief when he stares at you blankly in return. “Maker, Mando it’s practically frozen over in there, are you trying to tell me you’d prefer to suffer a miserable, icy death in that pilot chair rather than share a bed with me?”

That startles him visibly, somewhat comically. This warrior, who’s imposing presence can terrify so many, choking on an abrupt cough before he shifts uncomfortably enough to convince you he’d rather bolt right this fucking instant than answer that question.

His reaction makes you wonder if he’s ever just simply shared a bed with someone or if that’s a tenderness he can’t allow himself to indulge in his line of work, your treacherous mind conjuring a hazy, soft edged image of him wound around you. 0f all those sharp edges moulded to the velvet plush of your skin as his hands stroke your cheek, your arms, your belly. 

Fuck, okay that’s enough of that.

There’s a flush of heat blooming in your face before it’s thankfully snatched away by the sting of ice in the air. Mando is still quiet whilst you're having some kind of internal crisis–the pitch dark blankness of his visor trained on you before his fingers twitch and he crosses his arms over his chest. 

“It’s not that–I don’t–it’s not necessary. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” He eventually murmurs but he sounds different than before, huskier. 

You gulp as it slides over you, as that tension from earlier in the cockpit seeps in the spaces between you once again. Thick enough to make your skin tingle and your heart palpitate and if you don’t break it now you might do something very, very, stupid. 

So, of course, you joke instead. “Isn’t sharing body heat like the first rule of survival in this kind of situation? It’s because I’m a bounty isn’t it?" You heave a dramatic, long suffering, sigh. "Well then I hope the bastard who sent you after me didn’t plan on gloating when you take me back–he’ll probably have to defrost me first."

He moves towards you then, a single step before he seems to restrain himself, amusement briefly colouring his tone. “He did say I could bring you in warm or bring you in cold, my choice.” 

“Ah. So let me guess, you're choosing frozen for the convenience then, a little peace and quiet?  Wonderful.”

In response he nearly makes you swallow your own damn tongue–he reaches for you and cups your chin, brushes the skin just below your lip with his thumb, soft and slow, as his voice pitches to a low rasp. 

“No, I prefer you warm.” 

Oh.

Maker help you.

**

He retreats after that, after your eyes go round and wide and your breath shudders from your lungs.

You had almost swayed into him, your fingers itching to curl into his cowl and pull him to you as things better left unsaid clogged up your throat, the beginnings of molten pleas that you shouldn’t be asking of someone who intends to hand you over for credits. 

That thought effectively douses you in cold water, the reminder of what you are to one another, enough for you to take a step back out of his reach and attempt a strained smile when his hand drops and silence stretches between you.

“So are we bunking together or not because I’d really like to get some sleep sometime soon.” You say flippantly.

And it’s not exactly a lie – you are exhausted. Bone-tired from everything that has lead to this moment right here, but you know Mando picks up that it’s not the full reason for your abrupt reroute of the conversation. The unnatural lilt in your voice as you strive to appear unaffected by his touch, the heat coiling in his words.

His visor is on you, the blankness of it somehow piercing as he stares, tries to figure out what's going on inside your head. To decipher what’s made you shift and draw in on yourself when you’ve always been so unflinchingly honest with him.

But this is different, this is something you can’t be upfront about because where that path could lead is not somewhere you can go. 

“Sure,” He finally says. “If you’re okay with it, if it’s what you want.” 

It isn’t.

Not even close.

**

There’s something you hadn’t considered when opting to share such a tight space with a fully armoured Mandalorian–something that would have been great crossing your mind before your skin felt like it wanted to peel itself back from the searing pain that comes with touching frosted metal.

Beskar, like any other metals, turns excruciatingly cold when exposed to such a glacial climate. A fact you miserably discover when Mando slides in next to you, the length of his body, that chill-bitten armour, pushing close to your back.

“Fuck, fuck, stars that’s fucking cold.” You shriek, your body bowing and twisting in a desperate attempt to get away.

But there’s nowhere for you to really go in what’s essentially a narrow hole in the wall, the ridiculousness of the situation eventually getting the better of you as the two of you try everything you can think of to not be in some kind of contact.

It’s a drawn out moment of desperate wriggling –of practically trying to crawl up the wall amongst the echoes of your startled noises everytime you feel that shock of cold and Mando’s guilty muttering “shit, sorry.”

And then you start laughing, you can’t help it, a delirious giggle spilling past your lips. He’s a Mandalorian and you’re a criminal– you both have this reputation that makes others wary, makes people think you're tough, dangerous.

If only the galaxy could see you now.

You feel like teenagers. Especially when after a moment of stunned silence he joins in, a low, warm chuckle that grows into a truly beautiful laugh, drifting through his modulator to wrap around the pounding flesh of your poor, unsuspecting heart. 

How can someone’s laugh be that fucking attractive.

Nope, no, not going there–focus. 

“Okay, this obviously isn’t going to work.” You mumble, sensing him turn to you in the dark when you sit up and pass a weary hand over your face. “I’ll go sleep in the cockpit.”

“No.” There’s the sound of him moving then his fingers catching yours, the heat of him radiating through the leather. “You said it yourself, it’s frozen over, there’ll be no way for you to stay warm enough–I’ll go.”

And here we go again.

You roll your eyes, a teasing edge to your voice. “Mando I’m not kicking you out of your own bed, I might have some questionable morals but I’m not that rude.”

He snorts before his hand jerks. Stilling at the short, hesitant slide of your fingers up and down his, the motion of it tangling them together further as he inhales sharply. “A thief with manners–cute.”

“I try.”

They both slip into silence then, falling quiet to the gentle exploration of the other’s hand, the swell of warmth blooming outwards from the links of their fingers to encase them whole. 

He’s watching you, not that you can see, but you can feel his gaze. The weight of it trailing over and over, every inch of your being until you feel almost certain he’s somehow managed to see inside of you too. All the soft fleshy parts, the fears and the insecurities, the secrets you bury deep along with those thoughts you have about him.

“I could take it off.” He says quietly. 

You're confused for a few seconds, your brain attempting to backtrack the last few moments for something you must have missed whilst you were too far in your own head. "Take what off?"

He swallows hard. "The armour." He murmurs. "I could take it off if it would make you more comfortable." 

Oh. 

That punches you somewhere deep, knocking the breath right out of your lungs as you whip your head in his direction to stare at him, incredulous. You don't know much about his culture, just tales and rumours,  but you're positive that what he's offering to do for you is no small thing. 

"I thought that was forbidden for a mandalorian." You whisper. 

"We don't remove the helmets." He replies softly, clears his throat as he crinkles the sheets in the tense, iron grip of his other hand. "But it's our choice to remove the rest of the armour in front of another." 

You allow that to sink in for a moment, a little dizzy with it–this trust he's willing to tentatively slip into the trembling cup of your hands despite the muddied history you share, the time you've spent not necessarily as enemies but certainly rivals. 

"I don't–I'm not–I, fuck ," He's struck you completely fucking dumb, tongue tied in some impossible knot with his waiting gaze fixed upon you. "I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with." You manage to breathe out eventually. 

His fingers draw away from you and your mourn the loss, the sudden emptiness as your heart drops somewhere by your toes. 

Have you upset him?

Offended him somehow? 

But no. There's the faint brush, a whisper, of worn leather over the swell of your cheek almost to quick to recognise before he's moved by you and opened up the cosy little nook to the blistering chill. 

He cuts a terrifying figure as he looms over you but when he speaks his tone is gentle, shy almost. 

"I want to." 

** 

Is it rude to look or is it somehow more rude to look away? 

Fuck, you don't know. 

You quickly decide when he begins the process of removing the armour, choosing to fix your gaze to your lap because it seems like the right thing to do, respectful. For a Mandalorian you imagine removing the armour is like removing a layer of their being, baring themselves in some significant way that isn't simply just physical. 

It feels private, intimate and vulnerable, and you don't want to cheapen the moment by gawking at him like he's some exhibit in a museum. 

When the final clink of metal hitting the floor fades into an echo there’s a rushed exhale to follow, an expulsion of relief-tinged anxiousness, that you subconsciously mirror.

You wonder if his palms are a little slick like yours, if his heart rate is that little bit too quick to try and convince himself that this isn’t going to change something monumental in whatever your relationship is.

“You can look at me.” He says gently, touched through with a whisper of fear. “I’m pretty sure you won’t turn to stone or something.”

It defuses the tension you’re brewing within your own bones just enough that your lips quirk slightly, your eyes flicking up before you can stop yourself and then you’re biting into the thick of your tongue until the coppery taste of your own blood floods your mouth just to prevent the gasp rattling in your throat. 

He’s just as breathtaking as he is with the armour. Maybe even more so.

Because now in addition to the broadness of him–the curves and ridges of his thick muscular body that you’ve witnessed exhibit a type of strength that can be explained as nothing short of powerful, there’s just this smidge of softness to his makeup now.

This glimpse of him that is so obviously human and so heart-stoppingly endearing that it feels like a herculean effort to not reach out and touch him.

It feels like your heart is jammed up in your windpipe as you offer a shaky smile–a timid offering of reassurance. “Good to know you actually have a body.” You muse, lips splitting into a broader grin when the Mandalorian seems to stare at you in a way you read as utterly confused. “I was beginning to think you might just be a soul attached to the armour or something.” 

He’s silent, a blank slate, but then after a few beats he huffs. Drawls, exasperated and somewhat fond. “You have some fucking imagination, you know that.” 

You wink at him, patting the flimsy mattress beside you teasingly. “If you hurry up and get in here before I turn into an ice block, I’ll tell you some other theories I’ve had.” 

“Can’t wait.” He remarks dryly, voice dipped in the shine of a grin. 

He climbs back in, closes the hatch and slides up to stretch himself alongside you and then it’s like neither of you dare move. You lay side by side with only the faint sounds of your breathing and the burning heat of his arm nudged up against your own to convince you this is really happening. 

And when you shiver he feels it reverberate through his own body, rolls onto his side in this tight little space where the action of it brings him close enough that had he been helmetless, he would be able to watch the way his breath stirred the long sweep of your lashes. 

“Are you still cold?” He asks. 

“Just a little.”

He makes a soft noise of an acknowledgement before you feel movement against the mattress – the slide of fingers over the sheets as he reaches to tangle them with your own and tug slightly. 

“Come here.” 

Your heart stills, seizes up, and then fucking pounds like the heralding cry of a war drum. Yet your body has a mind of it’s own, his words are a warm, low rumble through his chest sinking into the vital parts of your own, hooking into clumps of tissue to reel you into him.

And you go, of course you do, because whatever power you have, whatever innate strength the maker gifted you at birth, it was clearly never meant to hold up against him.

Not when he asks you like that. 

You go like you were made to do so and he seals himself around you like he was born to fit with you. And in the perfect pitch dark off the cot the simple act of it is everything.

It’s the heat of him at your back, ridges of firm muscle pressed tight to the curve of your spine and the way you move in time with his every soothing breath. It’s his chin notched atop your head, the fact it’s somehow weirdly comforting when he speaks and it vibrates through the base of your skull. 

It’s his hands. Stars, his hands. 

He gives you his bare hands and they steal your breath away. These hands that have dealt pain and death , calloused with unsavoury deeds yet still so lovely, threading through your own with a gentleness you could never imagine he was capable of had you not felt it firsthand. 

All of it feels so soul-shatteringly natural – and that, you think, is the scariest fucking thing in the galaxy. 

You absolutely cannot allow this, it’s impossible this amount of peace in his arms without having to tear some part of yourself and leave it behind when you inevitably decide to make your escape again. And you don’t want to give any more pieces of yourself out into the galaxy, to someone who could take that piece and tear it to shreds, roll it in glass and set it on fire until there’s nothing but ash. 

Because you are a criminal and he is a bounty hunter – how else could this possibly end.

Move away. Just move away from him now and you'll be fine, there’s no damage done yet. 

But it’s like he can sense your unsease, your sudden intention to flee. “Sleep.” Mando chastises softly. “I can practically hear your brain whirring.”

“But what about all the theories I promised to enlighten you with.” You struggle to keep your tone light, praying he doesn’t notice and it seems like maybe for once today, luck is on your side. 

There’s the huff of his laugh as he curls around you tighter and squeezes your hands between his. It’s so fucking tender that you feel like sobbing. “Tomorrow. You can tell me all the theories you want tomorrow.” He murmurs– brushes a thumb over your knuckles. “Sleep now, mesh’la.”

And because it’s warm, because you feel safer than you have in a long damn time, lulled by the deep, rhythmic breaths at your back, you do. You tell yourself that this is fine, that it’s just one night in his arms.

No harm can come from just one night.