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assortedseaglass · 10 months ago

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God I've missed reading you. So glad this was the first thing I did on my return.

You are a masterful writer. The way you pace your writing is utterly extraordinary, I truly feel there is no word wasted. The connection you managed to build in so few words is extraordinarily hard to do and amazingly well-executed. The way you make smut essential to the (little but important) story, incredibly sexy, tender and well described is a talent only you possess.

Magnificent, as always!!!

The Dragon and the Wolf

Summary: “...perhaps the fire of a Targaryen prince is what is needed to thaw out your heart.” Paring: Aemond Targaryen x Stark!Reader Word Count: 2700+ Warnings: Reader AFAB, kissing, oral (f receiving), loss of virginity, slight overstimulation, creampie. Author’s Note: This was the poll winner! 💜 Thank you to my lovelies @aemondsbabe and @valeskafics for helping me brainstorm the title. No beta, my mistakes are my own and I am woefully sorry for them all. This will be a series of one-shots of the moments between Prince Aemond Targaryen and his Northern bride-to-be (which I pulled from my OC!Stark x Aemond Targaryen story, but whatever). There will be fluff and there will be smut. Enjoy!

You could feel the panicked gaze from your handmaiden, her visceral exasperation spilling as she watched you pace the room, but you could not hold still.

Not tonight, not after that kiss.

She begged until you finally allowed her to help you change into your nightgown, despite how your skin felt aflame. She then took your hand to lead you to the vanity to sit, to hold still, to allow her to brush and braid your hair for bed, just as she had every night since you first arrived to the Red Keep months ago.

You had traveled from Winterfell at the behest of your brother, a promise to see through what the late King Jaehaerys failed to accomplish: to solidify the bond between the North and South kingdoms. Cregan saw no harm with the capital’s proposal, as you had already scorned all of the Northern lords who called for your hand.

“Who knows, sister,” his eyes twinkled just as your father’s had when he was still alive, “perhaps the fire of a Targaryen prince is what is needed to thaw out your heart.”

You had scoffed, but soon realized how right Cregan had been, that you were enamored from the moment you met Aemond. The rest of the Keep seemed to fade away as you watched him, his imposing severity that settled into the sharp contours of his face and in the way he held himself. He towered you; he watched you with his one eye, a lovely lavender that flitted over you, while the other was hidden beneath a leather patch with the wrathful scar that curled above and below.

You remembered the touch of his hand–his palm calloused and warm and gentle–when he took your own; you recalled the spill of silver as he leaned forward and the softness of his lips against your knuckles with his kiss. Even his low timbre soothed you as he repeated your name; the introduction left you blood rising to the surface.

Your courtship with the prince was something to be displayed–an ailing king’s desperate grasp at legacy. Aemond played the role of the perfect, regal gentlemen, but you wished to pull him away from the prying eyes of the court, to learn everything about the infamous one-eyed Targaryen prince.

There were stolen moments scattered with Aemond and you collected them piece by piece, but still you were rarely, if ever, allowed a moment to be truly alone with him.

It was not until the crowned princess returned to the capital, and the chaos that followed and ruined the family supper, that you were able to follow after Aemond, out into the gardens of the Red Keep.

You recognized his silhouette at once, and moved closer until you saw his ethereal glow from how the moon poured over him. Your tone was soft at first, a teasing kindness until you saw the upwards curl of his lips, and you dared giggle with your encouragement that he should teach you swear words that would best describe his nephews in High Valyrian.

And then something changed, something shifted. Aemond stepped closer and you felt the cool night air pull away, enveloped by his warmth, the scent of smoke and leather and sandalwood. His palm moved to cup the side of your face and then he kissed you.

This was your first truly intimate moment you shared with your betrothed. And it was also your first kiss.

You sighed sweetly in his mouth, a kindled passion that thrummed from where his hands touched your hips, his hold to pull you closer only to quickly recoil once one of the Cargyll knights finally found you both.

The White Cloak then escorted you back to your quarters, your steps lead-filled, and here you were expected to sit still as your handmaiden fret over your hair.

But you could not sit still, hence why your slippered foot tapped the stone floor, your heart pounding violent against your chest as that kiss in the garden replayed in your mind…

“Please, my lady,” your handmaiden squeaked, the ivory comb tangling in your hair.

Your hands flared out to ward off her touch, your tone cutting. “Thank you, but that is enough. You are relieved from your duties for the rest of the night,” you stood up, pushing the poor girl and sending her stumbling towards the door.

Her eyes were wide. “I–I have not finished with–”

“I have hands of my own,” you grabbed the silk robe to cover yourself, “I shall manage,” and when you turned to step towards the girl once more, she squeaked again. She moved to open the door and paused to see Prince Aemond already poise, his one arm tucked behind his back and the other lifted as if he meant to knock.

It was an eternal silence; Aemond looked startled, but his gaze eventually found yours, and you stared back, unabashed, burning from the sight of him.

Meanwhile your handmaiden, mortified, shrank to slip past the prince and leave.

Only when you heard the soft sound of the door closing behind did you find the courage to move towards Aemond, reaching for his tunic and pulling him close. You fell into him, your lips hungry for his own and he returned your passion before slowing to savor, his tongue running your bottom lip and then curling into your mouth.

It continued until your breath was an exchange between, his exhale becoming your inhale and trilling through your veins, pumping your heart. Your mind was clouded with his proximity–you felt giddy and your hands twisted into his tunic to hold yourself upright.

He hummed, his arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you flushed against his chest. A shy sigh spilled when you felt his length pressing through the fabric and against your stomach, a bolt of warmth and want curling together. But your passion was replaced with a trepidation, something that now curdled instead.

You broke the kiss, a rosiness spilling from your lips to your cheeks, to the tip of your nose: “I lost my maidenhead on horseback.” You felt your blood thicken with your confession. “But I have never been…”

The words would not come, but Aemond did not need them. Instead he closed the little space you created, his warm palms moving to cup your face and bring you back to capture your lips with a tender kiss.

“I will be gentle,” his low timbre promised. “I do not wish to hurt you.”

You believed him, as you had seen his actions that spoke far louder during your time at the capital. He had always shown you a careful consideration since the courtship began, but now you found that you could not wait another moment.

Your fingers pulled at the silk robe you had thrown on, allowing it to slip from your shoulders and puddle onto the floor. Your hands moved to the lacing that lined the front of your nightgown, but you paused, pinned under the lavender of his eye.

His chest rose and fell with his steadied breath a moment before he offered his hands, his slender fingers gentle to loosen the ties. Aemond stopped to place kisses on the slope of your shoulder, your chest, a soft tickle of his lips as more of your skin was bared to him.

You felt vibrant, ignited by his touch, and you looked up at him through half-lidded eyes, admiring the flush of rose that now stained his skin. You pulled at your skirts, grabbing the bottom hem and peeling it over, dropping it into the silk puddle already at your feet.

Lust now swallowed the lavender, but Aemond only hummed his admiration as his gaze slowly dragged from your face, following your curves and then returning to meet with your eyes again.

“Gevie,” he mused with a slight curl to his lips.

You burned, cursing your Septa for the little Valyrian she indulged to teach you, too shy to ask now for a translation, but bold enough to reach for him. Your fingers touched the buckles of his tunic. Aemond hummed again as you began to undress him, until he was bare from the waist up, and the heat that pooled from him now seeped and curled into your core.

His form was lean, taut, with a muscular definition and its decoration of silver scars scattered across his chest and his abdomen. Your fingers trailed the lines that cut into his trimmed waist, and then you stepped closer to press a soft kiss to the right side of his jaw.

Aemond caught your chin, bringing your lips to meet with his own again. His kiss was drawn out, wringing the air from your lungs but still so gentle that you could not help but melt into his chest, into the warmth that he embodied.

Your fingers reached to touch his jaw but paused, a hovering hesitation. He took your hand and brought it back to cradle against his chest, watching you. You swallowed. “Aemond, please,” you began slowly, your voice careful, “I wish to see all of you.”

His jaw steeled with your request, tense for that moment but then he reached with his other hand to remove the eyepatch. The crimson seemed bolder, brighter, cutting through from his brow and into his cheek, and you also saw that placed in his scarred socket was a sapphire stone that glittered in the amber light of the room.

You pressed to your tiptoes, your fingertips touching to tilt his jaw down and you pressed a kiss beneath, your lips careful to trail his maim before placing another against his cheek. “Ñuha zaldrīzes,” but you were slow with the only Valyrian you knew, and finished with another kiss to his lips.

My dragon.

His expression was unreadable, and for a moment you believed that you had ruined the practiced pronunciation. But then Aemond moved to wrap his arms back around your waist, his face burying into the softness of your neck and his hands grabbing into the curves of your hips. Your laughter spilled as you felt him lift you enough for your feet to not touch the stone floors, your arms wrapping around his neck, and Aemond moved with wide steps, bringing you back towards your bedside.

You fell back onto the mattress, looking up at him. His neck bobbed as his eye followed the pink hues that now spilled from your cheeks to your neck and onto your chest. Your nipples were peaked and your eyes shone bright as he stepped closer, climbing onto the bed and moving on top of you.

He tucked his head to trace the slope of your neck with his lips and your back arched with the desire to feel his chest against your bare skin, a fluttered moan spilling from you. Aemond moved lower, placing warm, open mouthed kisses that scorched your skin, with a warmth that was pouring into your core.

Aemond continued lower, his silver tresses spilling and tickling your skin as he moved between your plush thighs. You mewled with the touch of his lips to the inside, and your thighs squeezed to stop him.

You are breathless. “It tickles.”

He only hummed, reaching to press his hand onto your stomach, a comforting touch as his fingers traced abstract lines on your skin. “Let me,” and his exhale was titillating as he nestled back between.

Aemond was careful with his touch, just as he always showed himself to be. He was aware of your every sound and sigh, pacing himself with a slow rhythm that began to build until his clever tongue had you pinned to the mattress.

You blossomed with bated breath, grabbing fistfuls of the bed linen to ground yourself from falling into the trance of his ministrations. You felt a prod at your entrance, his finger curling within, and your pleasure fluttered up your spine. It was too much and you writhed from his mouth, but his other hand moved underneath your thigh, gripping into your soft flesh, halting you.

Let me.

Aemond quickened his pace, encouraged by your quiet pants, from how your heartbeat now pulsed around the digits that were knuckle deep in you. You felt Aemond pulling you towards a precipice that was consuming, a warmth that crashed against and spilled throughout. Your heart still bruised against your ribs from the cresting tremors of your fading pleasure, and only then did you notice it.

How Aemond grinned smugly against your wet cent.

You reached with boneless fingers that tangled into his silver hair, pulling him back so you could capture his mouth that now glistened with you. It was your own bittersweet taste on his lips and you felt emboldened to grab his waistband. When your fingers brushed against his heavy bulge that pressed the crotch of his slacks, a sweeping shyness returned.

He pulled back with a sly smile, removing them before he moved back on top. His arms cage you to the bed and your skin rose with how his breath fanned against your cheeks. “I do not wish to hurt you,” he repeated after a moment, but his heavy hesitation lifted as you pulled him into the cradle of your hips.

You sighed from how he molded into the softness of your body, and Aemond gave another savoring kiss. “Please, Aemond,” your eyes wet from your want, and his head dipped to watch as he grabbed the base, careful to line himself with your entrance.

Aemond paused with a new trepidation that settled along the rose hues that dusted his sharp features. You squirmed beneath him, searching for friction, to feel the blunt press of his cockhead against your silken folds.

“Aemond,” you now plead, a honeyed whisper, another kiss to encourage him, “I want you.”

He watched you as he pressed forward, and you felt a stretch, a fullness as his hips moved against yours. You tensed from the new sensation, your nails biting and leaving red crescent marks that startled against the white of his skin.

Aemond stilled at once, allowing you a moment to adjust, his brow furrowed with his concern. You then let out a soft exhale before tilting your chin to give him a kiss, a promise that you were fine.

And only then did Aemond move, slowly, carefully, with each gentle thrust that split you further as he sheathed himself fully within you. It rekindled a deeper passion, and your eyes widened with a small gasp; he dipped his head to press his lips to your neck, decorating the column with his kisses, your pulse thrumming beneath. It began to ripple through you and your thighs tightened around his slender waist, beckoning him closer still.

“Aemond,” you gasped.

He hummed his acknowledgement, pushing himself up. He used one arm for balance while his other hand moved to press onto your hip, his palm trailing closer to your bloom above, his thumb moving in circles.

You felt raw, sensitive still from before, and something sparked with his touch. The air was thick and caught in your throat; a passion spilled from you without the same tensity from the first time, though still with a melody that played sweetly throughout your veins.

Your velvet walls clenched with your climax and it pulled Aemond after. He groaned his own release, melting against you and burying his face back into the curve of your neck. You gasped again from how he pulsed between your legs, his heart rattling through to your bones.

After a moment, Aemond rolled to the side, his chest expanding to catch his breath before he reached to pull you to curl against him, equally breathless and aglow. Your arm was thrown across, your face pressed against to feel the rhythm of his heart, his seed spilling onto your thigh; his fingers began to trace patterns on your skin.

He leaned to press another kiss to your hairline, and he whispered the same word from before. “Gevie.”

“What does that mean?” You cannot help your grin, tilting your head back to look at him.

His other hand came round, a finger pressed to your cheek to look at you. “Beautiful,” he said and then he gave you another kiss.

Tags (Tumblr kindred spirits): @aaaaaamond @annikin-im-panicin @watercolorskyy @sylasthegrim @fan-goddess @httpsdoll @theromanticegoist @assortedseaglass @theoneeyedprince @babyblue711 @girlwith-thepearlearring @theobjectofyourire @troublesomesnitch @multyfangirl @darylandbethfanforever9 @snowprincesa1 @officerbrowneyes @darylandbethfanforever9 @hb8301 @namelesslosers

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#arcie is amazing #truly one of the best.#hands. down.#fic recs #aemond hibernation is over

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arcielee · 1 year ago

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Just another amazing, heart wrenching story shared. 💜 You literally gave us nothing in the Chapter Warnings or the Selected Chapter Quote, just kept us on the edge of our seats until the absolute end. Fucking brillaint.

My only regret is that I have no way to purchase Comet Donati’s donut merch, because everyone in my household, doggo included, would be wearing it like a required uniform as soon as you crossed the threshold.

Comet Donati [Chapter 10: Through The Dark] [Series Finale]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (+18), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, pregnancy, bodily injury, death, miscarriage, AND NO OTHER CLUES, HAPPY READING!!! 🥰

Selected Chapter Quote: “What made you want to be a therapist?”

Word count: 6.4k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @heavenly1927 @echos-muses @padfooteyes @minttea07 @queenofshinigamis @juliavilu1 @amiraisgoingthruit @lauraneedstochill @wintrr13 @r0segard3n @seabasscevans @tsujifreya @helaenaluvr @hiraethrhapsody

Thank you for loving the insane and incomparable Comet fam. I hope you enjoy the series finale. 💜

Night sky, string lights, reverberating bass, warm wet verdant air like the earth the dinosaurs knew, swampy and thick with beasts. With his lazy, dreamlike smile—a kind contagious glow, pink sunburned cheeks that match the clinking Salty Dog in his hand—Aegon says: “What made you want to be a therapist?”

You won’t tell him the whole truth. But you’ll tell him part of it. “Sigmund Freud.”

Aegon is intrigued, raised eyebrows and a crooked grin. “The guy who thinks everyone wants to fuck their mom?”

“You would have liked him. He did a lot of coke.” You take a swig of your Salty Dog: rosemary, grapefruit, the singeing bite of gin. “He was the founder of talk therapy. And, yeah, some of the things he wanted to talk about were…unorthodox. Misguided. But still…”

“He just wanted to talk,” Aegon says softly, understanding now.

“This was the turn of the century, okay? This was back in the days when they were pulling people’s teeth out, locking them up in asylums, injecting them with diseases, cutting off parts of women that made them unruly, ungovernable, immoral.” You shudder. “And Freud said no, just talk to them. Just figure out what demons they have chained up in their skulls, dark dusty corners buried way down deep, and help them figure out how to move forward. It’s not about having a cure, a pill or a scalpel. I mean, how ludicrous would that be, thinking I was walking around with some failproof silver bullet to make all the pain of existence vanish? That’s insane. It’s about listening to people, and caring about people, and shining a light on what part of them already knew was there. I don’t have a cure for anybody. Not a single goddamn person on this planet. But I can help them find their own.”

Aegon watches you, contemplates you, studies you like something rare and fleeting. “You are going to be one hell of a therapist.”

“I don’t know about that. But I hope so.”

“I’ll find you. Maybe when you’re done with school you can work on me. I’d keep you busy, I guarantee it. I’m like Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Ghosts everywhere you look.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “You are never going to remember me.” He is never going to remember this place, this time, the way he shared his light with me like a long-lost comet clipping by Earth.

“I might,” Aegon says. He sips his Salty Dog with his elbows propped on the table, his blond hair whipping in the indigo wind, grains of salt on his lips, reflections of string lights like stars in his eyes. “I really think I might.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Your arms thrown around his neck, your face buried in his black t-shirt, inhaling smoke and dust and the coppery sharpness of his spilled blood. You are sobbing uncontrollably, gasping, shivering, wild prideless tears and clawing fingers. Jace’s words circle in your skull like a moon around its planet: Nobody escapes the indignity of becoming a regret. Aemond is trying to calm you, to quiet you. His hands—large and dangerous and bloodstained and careful—are on your back, in your hair. You have to explain, to repent. You have to make him understand.

“I didn’t get pregnant on purpose,” you moan into him, a jagged rush like a hemorrhage. “I swear to God I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wasn’t trying to trap you or fix you or use you. I’m in love with you, Aemond, I wanted you, and I still want you, and I thought you would hate me and I was terrified and I didn’t know how to tell you—”

“I don’t hate you, I could never hate you,” he’s saying, and more that you can’t catch; his words are a tide, flowing in and fading out. Now there is pain, deep and sharp and collapsing. Aegon is standing a few yards away, tears flooding down his sunburned face; they clear tracks in the dust that coats him, that coats everyone, that sticks to the blood on your legs. Cregan has pushed the others back, but still, you can hear their incorporeal voices: Jace asking what’s going on, Rhaena explaining, Baela shrieking, Criston shouting orders. Now Aegon has a rough hand on Aemond’s shoulder and is telling him something—insisting upon something—but you don’t know what. Language escapes you; language abandons you.

There are sirens and flashing lights the color of rubies, roses, tangled arteries. Aemond scoops you up and carries you towards them. There is only enough room for one person to ride in the ambulance with you; there is no discussion of who it will be. The rest of Comet has to wait for the Escalades to arrive at your parents’ farm. You do not try to steal a glimpse of the damage, felled trees and scattered fence posts, dead cattle and pillaged earth. You are filled with enough wreckage already; you are built of it, bones made out of bent nails, nerves of barbed wire.

Needles into your arms, chemicals into your bloodstream: something that deadens the pain and muddies your thoughts, makes them slow and heavy and unpanicked, like you are watching this happen to somebody else. In an exam room, nurses strip your clothes away and wipe the red from your skin, routinely, absentmindedly, as if it is of no consequence, as if the future you had taken for granted has not just been drowned, immolated, eradicated from existence like a dying star. They give you underwear fitted with a bulky postpartum pad—the same used by mothers of living children—and a hospital gown that Aemond marks with bloody fingerprints when he touches you. Then the nurses leave you to wait for the doctor with your IVs and your fogbank mind and your glazed eyes that stare blankly at the sterile white walls.

Aemond is smoothing back your hair from your face, and you are reminded of how he held Aegon when he was dying on your bedroom floor in the MGM Grand. You remember once thinking that Aemond is like storms and rogue waves, and that’s true; he turns lethal and then goes kind again, strikes and then soothes. He says once you are alone, each word painstakingly chosen: “I’m sorry that because of how I’ve acted, you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry I lost the baby.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I must have. I’m bleeding too much.” You can feel it, blood and clots that ooze, gush, drain away leaving you cold and hollow.

The exam room door opens, not a nurse or a doctor but a man in khaki cargo shorts and a filthy neon green tank top and matching Crocs, clop clop clop. “Hey, Stargirl,” Aegon says, sad and gentle. He holds up a venti-sized plastic cup. “I brought you a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino.”

You blink groggily, not knowing what to do with it. Aegon puts the clear cup in your hands, the green straw between your lips. It’s sugary, cold, rich, topped with a swirl of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It brings you back a little bit, a few unsteady steps towards the real world.

“Where the fuck is the doctor?” Aemond asks him.

“The nurse said she’s on her way. They’re understaffed.” Aegon shrugs apologetically: Missouri bullshit.

“You get somebody in here, right now.”

“What do you want me to do, threaten to stab medical professionals?! How about you punch some of their teeth out, I bet that would help.” Then Aegon sighs shakily and covers his own face with his hands. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t mine, you know?” Wasn’t, isn’t, will never be. “We haven’t…not since…it’s not…” He looks at Aemond with large, shining, ocean-blue eyes. “It’s not possible. You have to know that. You can’t be the way that you are sometimes. You don’t get a few weeks to come around to doing the decent thing. You have to believe her.”

And Aemond says softly: “I do.”

The door opens again and a doctor steps through it, mid-forties, thick black-rimmed glasses, dark hair secured in a businesslike low bun. Aegon ducks out of the room; the doctor gives him a brief quizzical glance before introducing herself to you. You can’t seem to latch onto her name. You answer the questions she asks you as she readies the ultrasound machine: ten weeks along, blunt force trauma to your back, where and how it hurt before the pain was drugged out of you. She unfastens a tie on the side of your hospital gown and opens it just enough to spread the cool gel across your belly and then glide the transducer through it. She peers at the grainy screen. She’s checking for a heartbeat; she’s checking to see if you’ll need a D&C to help expel a partial miscarriage so you don’t go septic.

“I lost it,” you sob, breaking down again. “Aemond, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t. Please don’t.” He kisses your temple and then rests his forehead against yours, tears glittering in his river-clear right eye.

“Well,” the doctor says with practiced, vaguely sympathetic composure. “You lost one of them.”

You look to her, not understanding. “One of…?”

She angles the monitor so you and Aemond can see. “Fraternal twins often have separate amniotic sacs and placentas. So depending on the positioning of the fetuses, it is possible to miscarry one but not the other. This one on the left here…” She indicates it with her index finger. “It’s…it’s no longer viable, unfortunately. You’ve already passed most of it. But this one on the right…” She squints at the screen, repositioning the transducer. “From what I can tell, it seems to be holding on. Let me see if I can…” She moves the transducer around, pressing it into the yielding flesh of your belly. And then you hear it: a fierce defiant drumming, a whistling like wind through leaves. “I thought so,” the doctor pronounces, smiling. “There’s the heartbeat. The pulse is approximately 155 beats per minute, which is typical.”

One of them? I didn’t lose one of them? “Aemond…?”

When you turn back to him, he’s staring at the flickering black-and-white whirls of bones and blood flow on the ultrasound screen. And the expression on his face is one that you’ve never seen from him before, serene like when he’s with animals, awed like when he studies the galaxy, and something else too, a great shifting, a clicking into place, tectonic plates and ocean currents and storm clouds unraveling into clear skies. “It’s alright?” he says, not taking his eye from the screen.

“It is,” the doctor confirms. “Measuring a little bit small for ten weeks, but that’s to be expected for a twin. I don’t think you’ll be able to tell the sex for another month, but it’s alive and well.” She freezes the image on the screen, sets the transducer aside, and cleans the gel from your belly. “Based on my experience, in cases like this, I’d say there’s a better than 50/50 chance the surviving fetus can be carried to term.”

You say: “What can I do…? I mean…there must be something I can do to help it…to help it live…”

“We’ll give you medication to stop any residual uterine contractions and antibiotics to prevent infection. I’d like to admit you for observation, just for a day or two. And I would recommend bed rest for several weeks. Until you’ve reached your second trimester, at least.”

“Yes. Anything. I’ll do anything.”

“And sir, you’re…” The doctor peers at Aemond through her glasses, really scrutinizing him for the first time, his brutal scar and his blind left eye and his stillness and his wonder. “You’re the father?”

Aemond nods, still gazing at the screen like a constellation in the night sky, like a comet only glimpsed once in a lifetime. “I am.”

The doctor beams. “Congratulations,” she tells both of you. And then she leaves to arrange for you to be admitted to the hospital.

“I’ll stay,” Aemond says. “When the band flies to New Orleans tomorrow, I’ll stay here with you.”

“No, Aemond.”

“I’m staying. I’m not going to leave you. You need me, the baby needs me.”

“No,” you say again. “What we have now is wrong. It’s painful and volatile and doomed.” You lay your palm against his scarred face, and he doesn’t finch away. “You have to figure out who you are after Comet. And so do I.” Tears in your eyes, tears on your cheeks; but on your lips is a soft, patient smile. “Aemond, I don’t want me and the baby to be a distraction from the work that you still desperately need to do. I don’t want to be a temporary fix. I don’t want to be your life raft. I want to be…if I’m going to be anything to you…” Your thumbprint ghosts across his cheekbone, tender, reverent. “I want to be your home.”

He shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak; drops like rain spill down his right cheek, dyed pink by blood from the fresh lacerations that riddle him, new scars and ancient pain.

“What are you thinking?” you say.

“I’m thinking that you’re right. I fucking hate it, but you are.” He swipes away tears with one bloodstained hand, then he settles it on your not-yet-showing belly, a place of ruin, a place of hope. “When can I come back?”

“When you’re ready. And only you’ll know when that is.”

The exam room door opens again, and your parents rush in like water through a cracked dam. They are frantic and fretting, peering around bewilderedly.

“Lord almighty, what the hell happened?!” your dad booms; and your mom doesn’t even think to chastise him.

“I’m okay, Daddy.”

“You got hit by somethin’? Are they gonna do an x-ray? Your mother and I finally made it back home from church, trees and power lines down all over the place, and that boy was waitin’ on the front porch to tell us where you were. You know, the big one. The one with the godawful ponytail.”

“Cregan,” your mom offers.

“Cregan,” your dad says.

“It’s a man bun, Daddy. How’s the farm?”

“We ain’t too bad off. A couple cows dead, half the herd out wanderin’ since the pasture fence blew away. Me and the dogs gotta bring ‘em on back, but your mother and I had to see you first. Did they check you over good? Can you come home today?”

“Sweetheart, there’s…” Your mom’s voice is alarmed. “There’s blood on your gown, on your face, what happened?”

“Well, I, um, the thing is…” You try to tell them. You begin crying again instead. As you sniffle and avert your eyes—afraid, ashamed—Aemond stands and extends one large, scarlet-streaked hand. Your dad shakes it tentatively. And then Aemond explains for you: the child you’ve lost, the child you’ve kept, what has to happen next.

“I am responsible,” Aemond says as they gape at him, half-ecstatic and half-horrified. “And I know that this didn’t exactly happen in the traditional way, and I know that there is a lot of work left for me to do to prove myself worthy of your daughter. But I hope in time you’ll be able to forgive me. Because it seems that we’re going to be family.”

Your mom squeals and hugs Aemond. Your dad hugs you. They stay until you are settled in your own private room—small bed and clean sheets, drugs trickling into your veins—and only then do they listen to your insistence that you’ll be okay until morning, that they need to go home to take care of the farm. They leave with their arms around each other, exchanging murmurs like vows. Then Aemond asks if you feel well enough to see the band. They want to say goodbye.

“You’ll miss me,” Jace says confidently, then swoops in to smack a kiss on your forehead before anyone can stop him, bouncing dark curls and smirking mouth. Aegon jabs him in the ribs, Criston rolls his eyes, Aemond glowers like he’d enjoy putting Jace in need of another 28 dental implants. “If you ever get sick of mentally ill blonds, just let me know. The kid doesn’t change anything. I dig MILFs.”

“Thanks, Jace. I guess.”

“We’ll still see you around, right? You’ll visit us, we’ll visit you?”

“Yeah. I won’t disappear.”

“Good.” And then again, more somberly: “Good.”

Rhaena is dabbing at her gentle, doe-like eyes with a Kleenex, leaning into Luke for support. Criston is gallant. Daeron is optimistic. Baela is exasperated that you told Rhaena you were pregnant but not her.

“I didn’t tell Rhaena,” you counter. “She just happened to be the person who accompanied me on my ill-fated adventure to procure Plan B in Tokyo at like 2 a.m.”

“Which did not work,” Rhaena adds, sniffling into her Kleenex.

“A cautionary tale,” Jace says to everyone. “You hear that, fellas? When in doubt, wrap it before you tap it.”

Baela nods at you. “Luckily, she doesn’t seem too disappointed.” Her eyes flick reticently to Aemond where he sits in the chair closest to your bed, a presence in the room like skies that could turn in an instant, quiet, preoccupied, protective, dazed. “And neither does he.”

“I’m not,” Aemond confesses. He laces one hand through yours and brings his lips to your knuckles, willing the baby to live, willing himself to be better for you both.

“We’re going to talk later,” Cregan tells him sternly. Talk about what it means to be a father.

“Yes,” Aemond agrees.

And then Cregan says goodbye to you too, his cool greyish eyes growing peculiarly warm, his steely exterior chipping away like flecks of old paint.

Aegon is last, the only person left in the room with you and Aemond. Grinning beneath sad eyes, he presses a hand to his heart, and then to yours, and then to your belly. Starboy, Stargirl, Starbaby. Then he says: “Do you want me to hide under your bed so they can’t kick me out when visiting hours end?”

You smile tiredly, exhausted and in pain, pain of the body and pain of the soul. “You have to go, Aegon. Thousands of screaming fangirls will be waiting for you at Arrowhead Stadium.”

He is stunned. “I can’t perform tonight, obviously.”

“Yes you can.”

“No, I definitely can’t.”

“You can,” you say. “You have to. And more than that, you want to. You’ll regret it if you don’t. You live for being Comet’s disaster playboy. I’m not going to take that away from you.”

And then Aegon whimpers: “You can’t leave me.”

“You’re leaving me first.” You beam up at him, caressing his sunburned face, threading your fingers through his disheveled hair. Aemond observes this with curiosity but no suspicion. “This isn’t goodbye, Aegon. I’ll see you again. You can add me to the long list of girls you FaceTime.”

He laughs. “Okay, Stargirl. Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“For more than a day, right?”

“For all of them. Forever.”

And then he’s gone, riding that elliptical orbit out into all the corners of the world that he will glow for: New Orleans, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Buenos Ares, Lima, Santiago.

Aemond swears to you: “I’m coming back.”

“I hope so.”

And he tilts up your chin and kisses you, tasting like smoke and dust and blood and desire, and it takes every atom of you, every string of muscle and rusty speck of bone marrow, not to crumble and beg him to stay. You are still at war with the part of you that wants to surrender as he stands and walks out of the room. He does not look back; he can’t without losing his nerve.

In the night, he returns to you, long after visiting hours have ended. Perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars have a way of making formalities disappear. He is only a silhouette in shadows like dawn, dusk, midnight. Aemond climbs into the hospital bed and catches you as you fold into him, whispering to you that everything will be alright, telling you how sorry he is, lulling you into a fitful sleep against his chest, his warmth, his heartbeat. And in the morning when you wake up alone, you wonder if any of it was real.

Did I dream that he was here? Did I dream that I ever met him at all?

But no, he has left you proof, something tangible, permanent. On the nightstand is Aemond’s small square vintage lighter; Targaryen is etched into one side. And there is something else too, a single piece of black paper with two sentences of starlight-colored ink:

I’m coming back.

I love you.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s October, and the leaves are turning from emerald to topaz, garnet, tiger’s eye. You carve pumpkins with your parents on their front porch. You bake apple crisps and sweet potato pies. You feed the pigs, brush the Australian cattle dogs, buy baby supplies with Aegon’s Amex Black Card. You decide to let the grad student and her Giant Flemish rabbit keep your apartment downtown until your lease is up in the spring. You’d rather be here on the farm, even when you’re not on bed rest anymore. You’d rather be home.

You listen to Comet Donati, The Script, Coldplay, One Direction. Rhaena and Baela mail you boxes of crochet comets and stars and planets for the baby’s room. Aegon mails you boxes of Comet’s new donut-themed merch. Now your dad sometimes tends to the beef cattle in boy band t-shirts. Aegon FaceTimes you two or three times a week, sends WhatsApp messages nearly every day. But you rarely talk about Aemond. It’s too painful, it’s too much of a temptation. You cannot imagine others seeing him, hearing him, speaking to him without needing to do it yourself in the same way that you need oxygen and gravity.

The week before Halloween, you begin spotting. You sob hysterically as your mom drives you to the hospital, convinced that you’re losing this baby too, that everything you touch is damaged and defenseless and doomed. You’re fine, as it turns out, and the baby’s fine too, but even after you’re back at the farm you can’t stop shaking, can’t stop imaging the wet heat of blood on your thighs.

You break down and call Aemond. And you talk for five hours until the sun rises, you in a rocking chair on your parents’ front porch, Aemond on a hotel balcony in Santiago, Chile in the shadow of the Andes Mountains. He says he’s working on something, but he’ll come back now if you ask him to, he’ll board the jet and land in Kansas City in time for supper at the farm, and you can hear the backsliding desperation in his voice: Please ask me to come back. Please just fucking ask me.

But it’s not time yet. He’s not ready, and you both know it. You agree not to call each other again until Aemond returns to you. If he returns to me. Neither of you can sleep for days afterwards. Neither of you can open the door a crack without the other rushing through.

One morning you shuffle downstairs in your Cookie Monster pajama pants and oversized NSYNC t-shirt to find your dad eating a heap of homemade pumpkin waffles in front of the television in the den. All five Australian cattle dogs are perched expectantly at his feet. “Them boys of yours are on Good Morning America.”

“What? Really?”

Yes, they are; they’re celebrating the conclusion of their record-breaking world tour and teasing a new album with an interview and two songs. You catch the end of the first one, their new single called Magic, during which the boys run haphazardly around the neon-lit studio, Jace tears off his donut-themed tank top in protest, and Aegon flubs no less than three lyrics.

Robin Roberts is saying: “Now stay tuned for a very special performance coming up next after a commercial break. We’ll be moving to our outdoor stage in Times Square where a sizeable crowd has formed, and we’ve been told that Comet has a surprise in store for us! What do you think it could be, George?”

“I don’t know, Robin,” George Stephanopoulos replies gamely. “But no matter what it is, I’m sure it will have all those young ladies out there screaming!”

Lara Spencer chuckles. “And not just the young ladies either. I’ve been known to attend Comet concerts on occasion.”

Robin says: “Oh no, Lara, are you a Cregan girlie?”

“Okay, yes, I confess, I am kind of a Cregan girlie…”

You get yourself a plate of pumpkin waffles and return just in time to see the camera panning over the crowd outside: shouting, cheering, waving posters and showcasing their homemade t-shirts.

Robin Roberts announces: “And now, with a cover of One Direction’s Through The Dark, here is the illustrious, incomparable, incredible Comet Donati!”

“No way,” you murmur, staring rapturously at the screen.

“You like that one?” your dad asks, tossing pieces of waffles to the dogs.

“It’s my favorite.” And Aemond knows that. I told him in Singapore.

The stage is empty as the first acoustic notes ring out. Then Daeron trots into view—radiant and cheerful in his donut merch—to sing the first lines:

“You tell me that you’re sad and lost your way

You tell me that your tears are here to stay,

But I know you’re only hiding

And I just wanna see you…”

Aegon appears next, clopping in his sparkly pink Crocs. He flips his hair around and winks mischieviously into the camera as he sings:

“You tell me that you’re hurt and you’re in pain

And I can see your head is held in shame,

But I just wanna see you smile again

See you smile again…”

And now the crowd is not just loud but deafening, and you’re so shocked the plate of pumpkin waffles tumbles out of your hands and onto the floor for the Australian cattle dogs to devour, because who bolts out onto the stage next is not Cregan or Luke or Jace but Aemond Targaryen, wearing Aegon’s beloved donut merch and his Adidas sneakers and his scar and blind eye bare for the world to witness. They don’t seem to take any notice of his maiming at all. They screech and hyperventilate and reach for him, awed, ecstatic, touching his outstretched fingertips and his sneakers like the relics of a saint. He is focused, perhaps nervous, but he is smiling. His voice is velvet-smooth and pitch-perfect.

“But don’t burn out

Even if you scream and shout,

It’ll come back to you

And I’ll be here for you…”

The others arrive, and now all six of them are singing the chorus in harmony as they traverse the stage, dodging each other’s chaotic spins and leaps, waving to the crowd, checking on Aemond with encouraging furtive grins and squeezes of his shoulders. Luke is beaming. Jace shoves Aemond playfully and almost gets flung off the stage in return.

“Oh I will carry you over

Fire and water for your love,

And I will hold you closer

Hope your heart is strong enough,

When the night is coming down on you

We will find a way through the dark.”

“Huh,” your dad says. “They ain’t no Johnny Cash, but they’re pretty good, I reckon. I thought Aemond wasn’t on stage much anymore.”

“He’s not.” And you smile wistfully as you watch him, right here with you and yet a world away, real and yet intangible, facts and myths and faith. “But now he knows he has a choice.”

On warm nights, you sit on the wraparound front porch and flick Aemond’s square metal lighter to life, shut it, ignite it again, a lonely golden spark in an ocean of darkness, a star in the night sky. And voices circle in your mind like satellites:

I think history is important.

Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know?

I’ve never met anyone like you.

Aemond would want to be involved.

What the hell do I know about being a decent father?

Our father never cared about us.

It’s not just for me. It’s never been just for me.

“Please come back,” you whisper to the infinite emptiness of the universe, so softly you can barely hear yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s November, and you are finally showing more than you can hide beneath hoodies and sweaters. The attendees of your parents’ Southern Baptist church—who glimpse you at Walmart or McDonald’s or Freddy’s Frozen Custard or 7-Eleven—gossip about you ceaselessly, venomously, with pity but no compassion. And your parents, who have been politely ignoring jibes about you for a decade, do more than just ignore it this time. They clear out their church mailbox and walk out the front door together and never go back. They’ve been shopping around for a new place of worship. Your mom says they might get really experimental and try out the Methodists.

Rhaena sends you pictures from her and Luke’s trip to the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. Baela has you on speakerphone when she tells Jace she wants to take a break. She’s completed two ballet school auditions already, and has scheduled two more; at least one acceptance seems imminent. You call Cregan to ask him how to prepare for parenthood. You call Criston to ask if he’d be willing to serve as a reference. He writes you a five-page recommendation letter and tells you prospective employers can contact him any time, day or night. You are hired as a therapist by the University of Missouri. For now, to accommodate your high-risk pregnancy and copious doctor’s appointments, it is a part-time remote position. Your parents are at last forced to get internet for the farmhouse. Your dad starts watching beef cattle raising tutorials on YouTube. And oddly, when you begin taking appointments with college students struggling with breakups or parental pressure or substance abuse, you don’t feel nervous at all. You feel like you’re doing exactly what you were made for.

One morning, you receive a WhatsApp message from Aegon: I wonder if bumblefuck Kansas has the Rolling Stone…

Missouri, you reply, and then you go to Walmart to check. Sure enough, there are numerous copies in the magazine aisle, and that’s a good thing, because a plethora of teenage girls are scrambling for them. Aemond is on the front cover, smiling faintly; his scar and cloudy blind eye are neither centered nor hidden. And he isn’t wearing black. His suit is a deep, lush green like jade, summer grass, ivy. The title reads: Aemond Targaryen is Out of Hiding.

You begin reading. He talks about exactly what happened at the Budokan. He talks about the label’s unilateral decision to excise him from the band. He talks about feeling lost, humiliated, pitied, ignored, unlovable. And then he shares what changed him. He says that he met with other survivors of facial trauma: soldiers, professional athletes, people involved in car and motorcycle accidents. He says that he sat down with half a dozen different therapists until he found one that he really liked. He chronicles the process of finding purpose again in a way that is truthful and inspirational and yet—to you, anyway—conspicuously vague. He is still somewhat involved with Comet’s songwriting and will likely perform with them once or twice per year, he wants to advocate for people living with disabilities like his…but what else? What else?

I think what I want people to know is that progress isn’t instant, and that nobody can do it alone, Aemond writes. I’m only where I am today because of the support of a lot of extraordinary people. I want to thank Comet Donati—Luke, Cregan, Aegon, Daeron, and Jace—as well as our tour manager Criston Cole, who is like a father us. I am immensely grateful to my mother Alicent and my sister Helaena. I am indebted to the fans for the unconditional love they have shown me.

But most of all, I owe my recovery to a therapist from the American Midwest. She can be a little pretentious sometimes, but we don’t fault her for that. She’s earned it. Thank you, Stargirl. I hope this planet is treating you well.

Smiling, glowing, you close the magazine, take it to the checkout counter, purchase it along with five KitKat bars. The baby can’t seem to get enough of them.

Two days later, you have another ultrasound done—your fourth—and at last you are able to give Aegon the answer he’s been zealously hounding you for. You message him on WhatsApp: You’re going to have a niece!

!!!!! he replies almost immediately. And then: Name her Aegonella.

Probably not!

As if you have any better ideas??

You share a few from your list: Celeste, Luna, Aurora, Halley…

Aemond literally just said Halley, Aegon types back. Like right before you did. And then: He’s very excited, omg, omggggggg it’s so cute. Thirty seconds later: Wish you were here :(

“Me too, Starboy,” you murmur as you sit on the couch in the den with Belmont sprawled across your lap. Then you send: I’m scared he’s not coming back.

He is, Aegon replies. He’s working on something. You’ll like it.

And you have to believe this, blindly, faithfully, trusting that something is real even when you can’t see it. You have no other choice.

You beg your dad not to slaughter any of the pigs for ham, and he reluctantly agrees. At Thanksgiving dinner, half the dishes on the table are vegan. You’re trying out new recipes. You jot down the ones you like best in a notebook Luke sent you: black pages, white ink.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s December, and there are stockings hung by the fireplace and a blanket of snow on the ground. You and your parents pick out a Christmas tree at a local farm, and your dad chops it down and throws it in the back of the Ford F-150. Inside your mom’s CD player in the kitchen spins David Archuleta’s Christmas album. As your bump grows, you keep running out of clothes that fit; Aegon is always happy to mail you more donut-themed merch. Thanks to his persistence, they stock nearly every size known to humans. Baela gets her acceptance letters. Aegon gets to make out with Taylor Swift in the Colosseum. They are photographed together in Rome by paparazzi one day and then never again. A week later he’s with Selena Gomez in Ibiza. A week after that he’s spotted with Camila Cabello in New York City. The wheel keeps turning, his route through the solar system long and meandering.

Emergency! Aegon texts you one afternoon as you’re sipping hot apple cider at the dining room table and assembling a 500-piece puzzle depicting the sinking of the Titanic.

You know better than to take him too seriously. You reply, in no hurry: ?

Aemond says I can’t hang out with Starbaby unless I stop taking so many drugs?!!?! Fascist?!??!?!?!

Hang out. Like they’ll be going to clubs and Crocs stores together. You grin and reply: I mean yeah, that sounds accurate.

Well fuck, Aegon says. Guess I better start doing those substance abuse education modules again!

On Christmas Eve morning, your parents are at their slightly-less-judgmental replacement church. You are trying out a new recipe in the kitchen: vegan snickerdoodles. The whole house smells like cinnamon and vanilla. Beyond the window over the sink, snow falls in fluffy white bundles like rumpled bedsheets, like clouds. The Australian cattle dogs follow you around hoping for dropped cookies, their claws clicking on the hardwood floor. David Archuleta is singing O Come, All Ye Faithful. You keep bumping into things; you forget how big you are. Your belly seems to grow by the day.

Your iPhone buzzes. It’s a WhatsApp message from Aegon that puzzles you: Hey, I promised I wouldn’t bother you guys for the first few days but I really need the Netflix password and he’s not answering my texts, rude, so could you ask him for it please??? And then a few seconds later: Please. I just really want to watch Grey’s Anatomy.

You stare at his message, not understanding. You reply: Ask who…?

After a moment, Aegon sends back: …Never mind :)

“Really?” you gasp to yourself in the hushed peace of the kitchen, not wanting to believe, not wanting to be disappointed. You peek out the window. Nothing.

You open Google and search Aemond Targaryen. One of the first results is an article from the Kansas City Star published one hour ago. The headline reads: Comet Donati Heartthrob Opens Farm Animal Rescue Outside of Kansas City.

“Oh my God.” You scroll madly, skimming the text. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

One of Aemond’s quotes reads: I wanted to go where the need is. A sanctuary like this in San Francisco or Boston wouldn’t be anything special, wouldn’t be as necessary. But here in Missouri, at the epicenter of industrial animal agriculture in the United States? There’s a lot of important work to be done here. There are a lot of lives I hope to be able to save. We’ve been purchasing animals from auctions and taking in others that have been seized from situations where they were abused or neglected. In addition to our own efforts, I’d like to help launch similar rescues throughout the Midwest, and increase public access to vegan alternatives…

There are photos of him posing with animals: a towering, scarred, ancient mule named Vhagar, a three-legged goat called Sunfyre. In all the pictures, Aemond is smiling. And here in the kitchen of your parents’ farmhouse, so are you. Without thinking, you reach back to touch your fingertips to the black-ink words beneath your Comet Donati crewneck sweatshirt. You hear the lyrics— I’ll come back for you if it kills me, Comets clip by again after eros and so can I—and you know them to be true like space, time, gravity, love.

You look out the window again and he’s here, speeding down the winding path of the driveway, snow dust streaming out behind his Gold Star like the tail of a comet.

#☆ arcie's library #reblogging my favorites #this was fucking amazing #stargirl stan #what will i do now on sundays??

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