#re: crowned prince

[fjordfolk]

The national puppy mill has an open position as a kennel assistant do you think i should apply

[silverstark]

I love how both Xie Lian and Hua Cheng embody “a sword in one hand, a flower in the other.”

[greenparkin]

[galaxyspark-6e16]

i didn't say anything last it felt a little weak but damn season 5 really surpassed my expecation

and now im scared.

[notasapleasure]

op kindly only screenshotted the tags where it looks like I'm saying because the castles were not designed and built by the welsh (a reasonable interpretation of what the original post said) I don't think the welsh should get a say, even though I go on to mention that I don't think any money from them *should* be going to the parasites in westminster! But hey it's much easier, as I was inferring about nationalist takes like this on tumblr, to make me a colonialist boogie man.

In any case, the deeper thing bugging me that I didn't have the confidence to articulate (*signs tumblr death sentence in triplicate* haha silly me instead thinking it was fair to point out that op made it seem like these buildings, icons of welsh repression, were rather built by the welsh for the welsh) was that I don't know what money you think is going to the crown from this! The famously cash-loaded heritage industry, ah yes, they will surely solve all our financial problems if only we didn't have to send their vast profits to the stinking pigs in crowns...

They are doing their best to keep the buildings up. Guess what? English Heritage also manages stuff owned by the crown. Guess what? In England their public services are also fucked by nearly fifteen fucking years of tory austerity. It's not because of the castles. I'm delighted that visitor numbers are going up for Cadw and I have been to many of the sites they manage and frankly they do a better job than many of the sites in Scotland and England I've been to. I simply do not know where the idea comes from that they're rolling in profits that are being sent abroad to the crown?? If the crown owns these properties still I just rather think your petition should be aiming to bleed the fucking royals dry and make then pay for their upkeep!

Also I still think claiming the Welsh built the castles is absurd. You don't have to have built them to justify them being in Cadw's hands. That is the heart of what annoys me here I think: not the nationalist sentiment but the unnecessary distortion so many nationalist arguments indulge in, which undermines their arguments rather than supporting them, from my perspective (having already said in tags elsewhere that I am agnostic on devolution: it is a decision for the welsh to make not me. If you want my answer about a border poll in NI where I live then you'll have to prove you can be serious about things like pensions and health care provision before we talk about the effects of a snap poll and which way I would vote depending on the wording and the offers made).

MUCH more interesting and alarming from my pov is the money you're paying to the crown for the use of the seabed under your wind farms. If Chuckie boy believes so strongly in green energy why doesn't he do all he can to support the green sector in Wales and waive costs, or even maybe give Wales its own seabed back?

I am absolutely disgusted to learn that crown owns our castles and the profits are sent to Westminster. Wales is struggling, our economy is struggling, our people are struggling, our health services are struggling, and that money could go to the betterment of our lives - instead it goes to England.

despite the fact we maintain the castles and land, we don't own them. they are in OUR country. ownership should belong to us, the people who built them. we maintain them. we work in them. theyre ours and we should be able to use the profits generated by them to help welsh people, not allow the money be funnelled into the monarchy.

the fact the crown owns so much of wales is such an outdated and medieval concept and has no place in modern society.

petition here:

please sign. I am disgusted.

[acourtofquestions]

Starting a fan-fun project

I want to find art for each chapter/corresponding scenes of the Throne of Glass book series!

Including: The Assassin’s Blade; The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, The Assassin and the Healer, The Assassin and the Desert, The Assassin and the Underworld, The Assassin and the Empire. Throne of Glass; including bonus The Captain and the Prince. Crown of Midnight; including bonus The Assassin and the Princess. Heir of Fire; including the Bonus Chapter. Queen of Shadows. Empire of Storms & Tower of Dawn; including both Bonus Chapters. And Kingdom of Ash.

Please feel free to send me suggestions, favorite pieces (from any part of the series or even series as a whole), artists you love, or even your own work! I’d love to see it! And if you have a piece but don’t know who did it feel free to DM me a picture and I will see if I can find the artist & message them!

[crisicsgames]

PRINCE OF PERSIA THE LOST CROWN BOSS RE DEI RE DARIUS 🗝️ 👑 CHIAVE DEL RE 🎮 PS5 UHD 60f

[luviestarz]

lee haechan fic recs!

❤︎ I LIKE YOU (I DO) (L.DH) - @domjaehyun (stoner!haechan just wants you to know how much he likes you.)

❤︎ paperclip - @smileysuh (yandere, ex bf! hyuck)

❤︎ My Boy. - @prodbymaui (A series of failed relationships and you were this near of giving up on love. But then here comes little Donghyuck and his persistence. Maybe-- he was the one fated to you, after all.)

❤︎ kiss it better - @yeow6n (haechan gets hurt but you know that with him it’s not going to be as simple as putting a band-aid on it)

❤︎ sugar, butter, & the royal crown - L.DH - @haechwrites (prince donghyuck only has one princess on his mind, but she's not actually a princess. she's just the royal baker's granddaughter.)

❤︎ bus stop - @ooshu (haechan rides the bus. you hop on the same ride. minutes later, you two were a couple. he never questioned why.)

❤︎ strawberries & cigarettes - @hyudior (the art school's play is in two days and you're running out of time to put everything together since your known enemy lee donghyuck decided that the rehearsal day was the perfect day to release a launch party for his new album.)

❤︎ >> take my breath - @hyuckwrlds

❤︎ moles ♡‧₊˚ lee haechan - @sleeping-sirens (you read something on the internet that made you feel jealous of a person you didn’t even know but haechan knows just how to reassure you.)

❤︎ haechan — gold-skinned, eager baby - @hyuckmov (he used to be able to hide it. he used to be fine with glancing at you, habitually flicking his eyes to your chest when you would walk into the room or snuggle up to him. but now he’s totally fucked, because he thinks he’s developed some sort of addiction.)

❤︎ eyes tell - @tonicandjins (donghyuck has been trying to confess his feelings to you. third time's the charm, he thinks.)

❤︎ going below zero | l.dh - @cherryeoniis (Considering how much Haechan makes it his personal mission to antagonize you at work, it seems like a rather cruel twist of fate that the both of you have been side by side since middle school, the only consolation being that his office is a different floor from yours. But if there’s a saying about how distance makes the heart grow fonder, your attitude with him might just be the opposite, and it’ll take a family ski holiday to find out.)

❤︎ take my breath. - @sixzeroes (lee donghyuck did not believe in ‘love at first sight.’ key word: did. he does now, but only because you happened to fall into his arms on the icy road in the narrow streets. you’re going to render him breathless from the countless times your smile takes his breath away.)

❤︎ ice cream thief [ l.dh ] - @tddyhyck (someone has been eating haechan's favorite ice cream so he decides to put a hidden camera in the kitchen and living room thinking it's a shared space it shouldn't invade anyone's privacy... right?)

❤︎ tease | lee haechan - @hyuckiefluff (Playing spin the bottle definitely wasn't what you had envisioned for your first college party. And the last person you expected to see was Lee Haechan. But life has a funny way of throwing surprises at you, and this time it came in the form of the bottle landing on some drunk dude who dared you to kiss Haechan.)

❤︎ 𝟏𝟎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ¹⁸⁺ - @goldyeokki (you and lee donghyuck both get along like oil and water. if it were up to you, you would be going about your days without even breathing in his direction. unfortunately you're in the same friend group and you have to tolerate each other. as handsome or attractive as people claim him to be, you hate his guts. there's so many reasons why you hate him, so why do you get butterflies in your stomach when he's near?)

❤︎ high (with my lover) [m] – l.dh - @yeonghosins (y/n smokes up with donghyuck for the first time)

❤︎ what the puck! - @choerrypuffs (you hit the university’s star hockey player with your car. shenanigans (and maybe even a little romance) ensue.)

❤︎ double take | l.dh - @cherryeoniis (friends to lovers, highschool au, slowburn, fluff, angst)

❤︎ Your Red Lipstick || L.DH - @ihaechans (Kisses, kisses, kisses. That’s all your boyfriend wants. When you refuse to give him the one thing he craves, he won’t leave you alone, begging and begging until you give in.)

[otkuhotgirl]

─── 𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐎𝐍

# with trafalgar law.

the heir to a throne had taken a liking to you — and law takes it upon himself to mark you his.

⎰ & KINKTOBER, day eleven. smut (mdni!). hate!sex. choking. possessive!law. biting. marking. mentions of blood. shower!sex. dom!law. afab!reader. no y/n used.

WC: 2.3k.

one could mention beyond one dozen fear-stricken adjectives when it came to the surgeon of death. sadistic, ruthless, cruel. the one to rearrange your limbs, to tear your beating heart off your chest and sell to whoever paid more. strangers trembled at the mention; lower-ranks marines were advised to not engage. law was but a monstrous criminal to most, a force to be reckoned with. to his crewmates, he lost partial sharpness, for he was but cap — strict, strategical, cunning, with a preference for solitude more often than not ignored by said boisterous subordinates. to you, he was law. a passionate, yet cold, individual — as though white flame. wielder of neutral facade that hid a habit of collecting coins; an excitement over illustrated, super-hero stories. zelous glances; fleeting brushes of fingers. love explicit through palid eyes, the mirror to his soul with your name all but engraved on it.

a commonly chosen adjective, agreed regardless of those who spoke, was that trafalgar law was thoroughly unlucky. which had been shown a fair amount of times through his journey at sea, one of them right in that instance.

it was supposed to be a common, brief, re-stocking period. when considering the increasing bounty on his head, law being the one assigned to stay-at-ship, caring for it rather than venturing through the streets, was understandable — advisable, even. whenever the captain was in need of particulars, he’d write it down and entrust you with the task of buying it all for a fair price. bepo acted as both a companion and an escort, and said routine had been settled for such a prolonged period that neither of you had expected law to leave later on that day. as capable as he was, captains had first-mates for a reason, and as a result of his stubborn nature, law suffered a combined attack from the kingdom’s security force, which culminated in his capture altogether.

the promise of the marines’ arrival had the crew on edge, desperately seeking for a route to the palace’s dungeon, yet finding none. the solution, however, fell from the skies — or rather you had thrown yourself in its arms. a naive prince, wielder of a bleeding heart and with quite a haste to fall in love. it had taken neither effort nor time to sway him off his feet, a golden crown wrapped around your criminal-esque finger. the man had taken you for a sweet commoner, enlightened at the idea of meeting one who was not royal, and after proper wording you had him at your feet within the midday.

you were showered in jewelry; poems; promises. he demanded a song to be written in your honor and defended you to whoever dared meddle. by the end of the afternoon, you had managed to successfully convince him to escort you to the dungeons — oh, my brave knight! —, for you were ever-so-curious to see the terrible surgeon of death, chained and set to execution. the prince had no time to react — too busy bragging — when you knocked both him and the guard off, stealing the keys and freeing your lover within the second.

law was revolted at your recklessness, yet curious as to how you had managed to get an audience in the dungeon. regardless, the flame of rage dimmed down into an endless, dark pit of hatred when the pair of you managed to escape and run towards the polar tang ashore. as it seemed, you were far too successful in your seducing, for now the guards followed-in-suit, shouting at each other and informing that the surgeon of death kidnapped the prince’s bride. to make matters worse, a celebratory festival was arranged and thrown, exploding fireworks announcing the incoming marriage.

law grew quieter; deadlier. he sliced whichever guard dared to come in between the route of your escape, and once the tang, at last, submerged, he was in such a mood that no crewmate had enough courage to approach him, rather focusing on the urgent task of fleeing. you weren’t given the privilege of shying away from his wrath, for a room, followed-in-suit by a shambles, had you locked in his chambers the second thereafter.

he scanned your figure, face contorting in both disgust and non-contained possessiveness. you were adorned in gold from head-to-toe, courtesy of the prince. the silken dress you wore, expensive and brand new. law prided himself in the jumpsuits the others’ wore — chest embroidered with the symbol of his crew, a lingering reminder to the external that their loyalty laid with him. yet, with you — his lover —, said jumpsuit had him growing twice as territorial; twice as prideful. he used to smirk at the thought of lustful men and women alike, cowering at the sight of the symbol you proudly displayed, retreating in fear for they knew you were his. his to protect; to adore; to touch. not the bride of a prince so incompetent he could neither sway a sword nor differentiate west from east. not a queen, but a pirate — his pirate.

at last, however, law had grown envious. the submarine’s temperature was erratic, oftentimes freezing, yet prone to insufferable warmth, depending on the sea’s conditions. those jumpsuits, although unfashionable, unflattering, had a purpose — to guarantee the comfort and safety of his crew. you feigned indifference, but he never once missed your lingering glance at the outfits worn by the straw-hat’s crew during the alliance. you, too, wished for that, and the context of being a heart pirate did not allow it. there you stood, wearing a dress gifted by another man, shining with the jewelry of his family. it made law’s entire being flare with revolt, and as if that hadn’t been enough, the scent of that prince was smeared all over your skin, causing his own to itch. treacherous thoughts a haze of unwanted images, the sight of that man hugging your shoulders; hunched over you; breath fanning over your face.

perhaps that had been the price to pay for his request for discretion; for the desperate — and unnecessary — grip he had on his privacy. your skin was unmarked, untraced. he never dared bite, never thought useful to apply perfume. no wonder that royal blood believed you free for the taking. law would need to fix that.

if he were a decent man, he would have spared the time to appreciate your efforts; to thank you for going through such lengths to save his life. yet law had not an ounce of gratitude to spare, for he cared more for the claim of your life than for the maintenance of his own.

“did you have fun?” he inquired, drawing pleasure from your wariness, shrinking as though a cornered prey. law grimaced at his approach, bitter as the prince’s perfume invaded his nostrils. “was it enjoyable being pampered while i rotted in a cell?”

your eyes widened, lips parted in shock. “of course not! i was worried sick—”

“don’t interrupt me,” law snapped, struggling to control his breathing.

it was unusual for him to behave in such an angered state, logic thrown aside for the sake of raw emotion. he was not an untamed beast of uncontrollable impulses; he was the patient feline who sent his prey to the edge of despair before offering them the sweet reprieve of death. law was not some half-assed hound who pounded without appreciating what had been given; he was not the damned eustass kid. yet, perhaps the bastard had a point — not that law would ever admit that out loud.

law kicked the small trash can straight into your feet, his eyes boring into yours. “throw it away.”

your fingers wrapped themselves around the clasp of the necklace you wore, and he clicked his tongue in annoyance, gripping the cleavage of your dress. “this one first.”

you complied, scanning him through worried eyes. law drowned in the sight of silk slipping from your shoulders to the ground, fluid fabric wavering in its descent as though a cascate of liquid, pale fire. law hated it. once he was done with you, he’d set that dress aflame with not a care for the stench whatsoever. you hunched over to grab the silk and throw it in the trash as has been instructed, yet law placed a firm hand on the crown of your head when you began to rise to your feet, forcing your knees to meet the ground.

you looked at him through your eyelashes, and his cock all but throbbed at the sight. “law—”

“why are you still with those jewels on? i told you to take it off,” he interrupted, tethering his glance to your cleavage. the lingerie set had not been altered — lacy, beige — one he had gifted to you. your hand went to the bracelet at your wrist, concentrated eyes glued to the piece. “who told you to stop looking at me?”

you shivered, careful when returning your gaze up to his face. the golden band fell onto the can, the round, diamond encrusted earrings following-in-suit. your fingers struggled with the clasp of the necklace, and law grunted with delight at the sight, aroused by your frustration. the star pendant fell into your cleavage, and had it been gifted by him, law would have commanded you to retrieve it with your teeth. but there mere thought of you doing it so in that instance had him seething.

“hurry up,” he barked, revolted with his own thoughts. you were swift — borderline desperate — in the act, throwing it out with a willingness that had him grunting in approval. “on your feet.”

despite having emerged to your full height, you shrunk under the pressure of his gaze, hugging your frame with uncertainty. law wanted to caress your cheek and spread your arms; scold you for depriving him of the sight of your breasts and abdomen, while comforting you on his desire altogether. yet, the scent lingered as though the remnant of a pest on one’s skin. law refused to give in to the urges to ravage you; to touch you as your gleaming eyes begged him to. but you would not leave without a lesson learned.

law teleported the pair of you to the bathroom, pointing towards the shower. “turn it on and stand underneath it.”

a cascade of water was bestowed upon you, soaking the fabric of your lingerie until it left nothing to the imagination. two minutes were required for it to heat up, yet law had no mercy whatsoever, forcing you to withstand the freezing liquid as he stood steps further, stripping himself without haste. vapor swirled around the room, covering inches of your flesh. your trembling stopped, and though law approached with his body bare, cock slapped against his stomach, you remained with the lingerie, for he hadn’t — and wouldn’t — order you to remove it. that had been his gift to you, and law would fuck you numb in it.

his tattooed hand closed around your neck, not quite squeezing it, yet. your head was angled as in a way to have your eyes glued to his own. “where were you touched?”

“waist,” you mumbled, ashamed. “sometimes he hugged my shoulders, too, but he’d rather have his hand on my waist.”

his pupils dilated, tempers rising. you gasped at the strength of his grip, wasting your reserve of air in a single act. law felt the wild pulse of your pressure point, crescent pace beating against the palm of his hand. underneath bone and flesh and muscle, caged amidst ribs, rested a heart whose surface that prince hadn’t touched, for that inch of you was his. every breath you took, every contraction of your heart, belonged to him. those wide, lust-coated eyes were his, as were the hardened nipples, trembling legs and awaiting lips.

law smashed his mouth against yours, more an act of violence than a kiss itself. his teeth dug into flesh, drawing blood from your lower lip, allowing it to drip down your chin. law hummed to himself at the sight, before he pushed you against the wall, ignoring the echo of your head meeting the ceramic. his canines were dragged on your shoulders, nose buried in. he hummed half-approvingly, for the water had expelled the most prominent aspects of the insufferable perfume — not nearly enough. law bit on every inch of your shoulder, steel grip unmoving on your throat, with not a care for your lack of air in your lungs. if you fell unconscious, the shower and his cock would eventually bring you back.

crystalline water merged with specks of dripping blood, soothing tongue licking your fresh wounds. law pressed himself against you, rolling his hips in order to be granted an ounce of friction. your eyes were rolled, maimed waist bearing the marks of his fingers. the grip on your neck loosened, for you could neither moan nor beg without proper breathing.

the white of his smile was tainted crimson when he smirked at you, digging his nails into your waist. “were you enjoying his attention? the festival had beautiful fireworks, wouldn’t you agree?”

his taunts fell on deaf ears. your eyes were filled with tears that dared not fall, your voice rough. the golden collar wrapped around your throat had been replaced by the mark of his fingers.

“i don’t know,” you croaked out, hissing ever-so-slightly at the wound left on your lower lip. “i was staring at you the whole time.”

his anger faltered ever-so-slightly, cock twitching at the confession. for an instance, the bathroom was filled with nothing but the steady sound of the shower and your shallow breathing. until law pressed his mouth against yours with enough strength to have your head hitting the wall behind yet again, clashing teeth; tongue forcing itself inside. he swallowed your mewl, grunting as his shaft pressed itself against you; rutting hips, dragging the tip around the slick flesh.

“law, please,” you begged, choking on your words. sadistic bastard of considerable strength. he stole the air off your lungs, yet demanded you to speak. words but a meek plea, strained and pathetic. “fuck me, please.”

“who do you belong to?” he demanded, teasing your entrance with his leaking tip.

“you,” he dug his teeth into your shoulders, squeezing your neck. his eyes spoke when words failed him; narrowed slits demanding for more. “i’m yours, yours!”

he grunted, shoving his cock inside. law increased the pressure on your neck, muffled moans sending vibrations through your skin as he slid in — base to the tip; balls slapping your ass. his tip assaulted your g-spot, hardened nipples sliding onto his chest. the angle itself was odd; challenging. your back slipped, and your legs wrapped themselves around his waist, offering him a better angle and chance to support your weight. you let out a strangled, desperate moan when his tip forced itself deeper, a ruthless pace that gave neither of you enough time to form a coherent thought.

law retreated from your shoulder in order to catch a glimpse of your face. water had united some of your eyelashes; your lips were swollen where he bit it; your eyes were facing a losing battle against consciousness. he had never seen a prettier sight.

your legs trembled, muted sounds pointing out to the approach of your bliss. law threw his head back to witness it in its full glory, snapping his hips with particular strength, holding a moan at the sensation of your walls — tightening; caging him. when you came, spurs of white smeared the pool of water underneath, law picked up his pace, torturing your abused cunt as he selfishly seeked out his own bliss.

law was a doctor. he did not fall into the spectrum of irresponsible individuals who thought themselves acquitted to the effects of unprotected sex. he had a fair stash of condoms well-hidden and set for usage, and if he ever were to run out of it, either your stomach, tits or face were chosen to be smeared with his cum. however, after the previous demonstration of desire from another, law grew territorial. his cock was yet sheltered within your walls when he reached his high, smearing your insides with his essence and grunting in the process of it all — knowing that you were his; that it was your tight, demanding cunt who milked him dry. his hand raised from your throat to caress your cheeks with an affection at odds with his past behavior.

you were soaked; exhausted. with his load lodged inside, traces of his teeth on your maimed shoulder. you would be sore in the morning, and the collar of his fingers would linger for at least a week. not the bride of a prince — rather the treasure of a pirate.

— 🐈‍⬛ : i should NOT be allowed to write this man. happy kinktober friday!

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

For the jace and baela scene, reader could be a Tyrell or dornish? I saw that you liked them. I want her to be light and sweet and compassionate, but able to hold jace’s character.

When I saw this scene in the leaks, I had to re-write it...and add the cuteness the show did not

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

Jacaerys had not been present when Rhaenyra's great plan turned into a carnage. His hatred for the dragonseeds was so strong you fear he would have taken a small pleasure watching them burn. 

A shiver ran down your back at the images. 

You thought it was cruel of the Queen to block the doors when Vermithor blazed fire on the dragonseeds who tried to get inside. But you understood Rhaenyra’s decision. There were other dragons on the island. Wild ones. These people all had a drop of Valyrian blood in them. They could claim one of the wild dragons...and turn on her — as Jacaerys feared. 

By eliminating them, it lessened the chances of someone claiming a wild dragon and using it against her.

After a bearded man named Hugh finally claimed Vermithor, you went looking for your betrothed. He was not outside with Vermax, nor in his chambers. 

Noticing the frown on your brows and your pacing in the corridors, a guard informed you that he saw the prince heading to the library hours ago. You thanked him, and found Jacaerys sitting at a table with a hoard of books around him. He must have come here when he saw the dragonseeds arriving on Dragonstone. 

From your angle, you could see a pout on his lips as he rested his head on his fist. His back was to you, so he didn’t see you come in. 

‘’It does not befit a prince to pout.’’ Your tone was teasing and light, contrasting to his sulking.

‘’I’m not pouting,’’ Jacaerys denied, not moving. 

You took the stack of books from the chair next to his and set it on the table so you could sit on the chair. ‘’What would you call it, then?’’ You raised a brow and poked his pushed out lips.

It usually put his pouting to an end, but his face stayed icy. ‘’I’m reading,’’ he said, turning the page of the book before him. 

‘’While your mother waits?’’ 

He ignored your question, still upset and bitter about the bastard dragonseeds.

A part of you understood Rhaenyra's desire for wanting riders for the two unclaimed dragons. She never thought it would be possible, but Adam of Hull proved to her that the Valyrian blood in bastards was strong enough to claim Seasmoke. Having more dragons on her side will benefit her against the Greens and Vhagar.

But another was aching for Jacaerys. He was made fun of all his childhood for his non-Valyrian features, and these bastards were praised for succeeding in claiming a dragon. 

‘’You’re angry,’’ you stated, rubbing his back in an attempt to sooth him. 

You’ve been comforting him a lot lately, but nothing you knew seemed to work today. 

Jacaerys finally turned to look at you, his eyes hard from his anger. ‘’Aren’t you?’’ 

You released a breath. ‘’I don’t see what good it would do.’’

‘’They are insults to us. To what makes us Targaryen. If any common lout can ride a dragon, then—’’ 

‘’That does not make you common!’’ 

In the year and half you had known Jacaerys, it was striking to you that he had nothing of a common-born. He was raised as royalty, and educated like a prince — an heir. He was well-behaved, silver tongued, and the son of Queen Rhaenyra. He carried her royal blood. 

He glanced at you again, then turned away to stare at the table. ‘’You know what I am…’’ 

‘’I don’t care,’’ you said truly. 

In Dorne, bastards were not looked down upon the way they are in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. But they did not inherit from their parents the same as their legitimate children. They were acknowledged, cared after, but never allowed to claim a crown or title that had not been given to them. 

‘’You are the crown prince,’’ you continued, ‘’the son of the rightful Queen, and here you are sulking because you believe that if not for the dragon, or the trappings of your station, that you are nothing.’’ You took Jacaerys’ hand in yours, chuckling lightly. ‘’Do you believe you are the first noble heir who was not sired by his noble father? Such is the way of the world, Jace, and in resenting it, you only diminish yourself.’’

Jacaerys leaned his head back on the chair, still pouting. ‘’Easy enough to say. I’ve heard the whispers the whole of my life.’’ You could hear the deep rooted trauma and scars in his voice. 

‘’Then prove to them that you are worthy. Get up and take your place by your mother’s side. You and she had your differences lately, but she’ll never replace you by one of them. No one can replace a mother's first son.’’ 

He was silent for a few moments, staring at the ceiling of the dark library, and took in your words. No one can replace a mother's first son. She had him when she herself was a child. There was no one she loved more than him. 

Jacaerys turned to face you, his eyes softening. Your reassurances made him see reason. He was still upset, but he found comfort in your words. 

He gripped your hand, and pulled you close. Closeness was his way of finding comfort. When you were settled upon his lap, his hands went to your hips, holding you against him. 

Even then, you noticed he was still pouting. You thought the gesture was utterly cute, but you wouldn’t tell him that. 

You gently tilted his head to look at you and leaned down to kiss him. ‘’No more pouting.’’

—

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[honeekyuu]

photo booth strip. [kageyama tobio x f!reader]

>>Kageyama makes you smile that first day in the sandbox, and he spends the rest of his life learning what it means to make you happy.

or

You ask Kageyama to marry you, and he says yes, but you both realize over the years that it's just not that simple.<<

____________________________

tags: smut, fluff, angst, childhood best friends to lovers, childhood marriage agreement, sandbox confessions, emotionally stunted kageyama, hinata is too smart for his own good, younger yachi, lessons in growing up, college age kageyama, penetrative sex, first time

a/n: everything about kageyama in this fic makes me want to put him right in my pocket. enjoy!

[feel free to buy me a cup of coffee!]

------------------

Will you be my prince?”

The first words you ever speak to Kageyama Tobio, in the middle of the sandbox at the neighborhood park.

“I think we should get married.”

The last words you say to him, that same day, as your parents are warning you that it’s time to head home.

You’re wearing a princess costume, holding a plastic fairy wand.

He’s holding a volleyball, the crown you’d placed on his head an hour ago now lopsided.

“ Okay .” 

His response, both times. Nothing more, nothing less.

It’s enough to make you smile. Both times.

He doesn’t smile back. He doesn’t know why you’re so happy.

Only when he sees you the next day, waiting in the sandbox for him, does he realize that he doesn’t know your name.

–

You’re a year younger than him. He learns this for the first time when he mentions the elementary school he goes to, almost a week after you meet.

You tell him that you’ll be going there once the summer’s over.

He thinks nothing of it, not until he hears someone calling his name on the first day. He turns, surprised, because he doesn’t really talk to his classmates.

And then he realizes it’s the girl from the park.

You run up to him excitedly and reach for his hand. He lets you take it.

“Can I see you at lunch? Will you come find me?”

He doesn’t think that’s how it works. His teacher always lines them up and they eat lunch in a circle, out in the courtyard.

“Okay.”

He wonders if it hurts when you smile that wide.

By lunch, you’ve forgotten about his promise. You’re meeting so many new people and making friends, and your teacher is a nice lady who lines you all up and leads you down to the courtyard to eat lunch. 

You’re in the hallway, waiting for the line to move outside, when you hear the tapping of a finger on a window. You turn, finding Kageyama inside his classroom, standing on his tiptoes and tapping gently on the glass for your attention. His face is blank even when he waves.

That’s the first time you properly fall for Kageyama Tobio. Because he’d remembered, even when you hadn’t.

–

On your first day of middle school, you hover nervously around your classroom door. You check and re-check that you have everything in your bag, if only to have a reason to look busy.

This place is a lot bigger than your last school, and you haven’t been able to find your friends yet. Not everyone from your elementary school class would be here, so you’re desperate to find the few familiar faces that will.

You hear his voice in the stairwell, just beside your classroom. He sounds irritated, that harsh edge easy to identify. You peek around the corner, finding him on the stairs. He’s berating someone, telling them they need to give more energy during practice.

“Kageyama!” You stand at the top of the stairs, clutching your bag and beaming down at him. You’re filled with relief, because at least you’d found him .

He and his teammate turn, and you can’t help but think the boy next to him resembles a turnip.

“Oh. Y/n. You made it.” Tobio’s face is blank as always, but he’d lost the edge in his voice. You giggle, skipping down the steps to meet him, and cling to his arm once you’re within reach. The unfamiliar boy watches you with wide eyes.

“Don’t tell me you have a girlfriend , Kageyama.” He stares down at your linked arms and then meets Kageyama’s eyes, dumbfounded. “There’s no way the King got himself a girl.”

You scrunch your brows together. King ? Tobio had never mentioned a nickname like that.

From the way his arm tenses under your hand, you realize that it’s one he doesn’t like very much. 

He takes the volleyball that’s in his other hand and shoves it into Turnip Boy’s chest.

“Focus on what’s important, Kindaichi. Learn to meet my sets before I find someone else.”

You’d heard him talk like that before – his tunnel vision when it comes to the sport had gotten him into trouble a few times in elementary school, too.

The boy leaves with a huff, and Kageyama turns to face you. His arm slips out of your grasp, but he says nothing when you just reach for his hand.

“Do you have practice today?”

He tilts his head.

“I have practice every day.”

You nod, expecting that. “Can we eat lunch together?” You’re not sure if he has other second-year friends that he hangs out with. But he just shrugs, putting his free hand on your elbow and moving you out of the way of a group of girls coming up the stairs.

“Okay.”

You hear your name being called, and you realize one of the girls is a friend from your last school. She giggles when she sees Kageyama and teases you.

“Oh, it’s your husband!”

He says nothing about it, watching you blush and brush your hair behind your ear. He doesn’t understand why you get so shy. You’re the one who had spent all of elementary school telling anyone who would listen that you would marry him one day.

The other girls who don’t know you yet become curious, whispering to each other when your friend says that. Your ears turn pink, and you glance at him nervously. He just blinks at you, because you’re snatching your hand out of his like you weren’t the one who’d grabbed it.

The girls disappear around the corner, and you look at him with a crease in your brow.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to tell anyone here. It’s probably embarrassing.” You’re in middle school now. It’s harder to talk about your crush so openly, and he might not want that kind of attention.

But he just glances at the spot where those girls had been and then meets your eyes.

“But they already know.”

You look him over, your face flushed.

“So… I can… talk about it?”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

He’s not really sure why you squeal and throw your arms around his neck in a hug. He’s just glad he doesn’t lose his balance on the stairs.

By the end of the day, even his own classmates are teasing him about you. He’s too busy reviewing videos from his last practice to care.

–

Both of your families know that you plan to marry him. His sister bullies him anytime he doesn’t greet you with a hug, saying he’s going to be a bad husband. Your mom calls him ‘ Son-in-law ’, and he’d decided early on to call her ‘ Mom ’, because that had seemed like the logical response at the time.

Both of your dads often try to help him practice out in your backyard, even though his sister’s the only other volleyball player and, frankly, your father never really got a grasp on the rules.

Your mother starts teaching you how to cook after you beg her to let you make a bento for Kageyama’s lunch, and your father only knocks you affectionately on the head with his newspaper when he finds you drawing hearts around Tobio’s name in your notebook instead of finishing your math homework.

Your friends don’t complain when you disappear up to the roof every day for lunch, because that’s your only real alone time with him. And by the time you graduate middle school and secure your enrollment at Karasuno, Kageyama’s waking up every day to the 20+ texts you’d send him every night while he’s sleeping.

Half of them are about wedding planning, which you both know is way too far in the future, but you have fun dreaming about the perfect wedding and he only really shuts down your ideas when you say something absurd.

What do you think about having goats bring our rings down the aisle?

Where are we going to get goats?

Oh… You’re right.

And wouldn’t the goats eat the rings?

Oh. That’s true too.

And how are we going to get the rings to balance on the goats?

Okay, I get it!

You’re not oblivious. You know that Kageyama has no interest in wedding planning. He only thinks about volleyball, and he lets you do whatever you want – not because he wants you to have everything your heart desires, but because he simply doesn’t care .

But he’s a man of few words, and he’s also quite literally incapable of lying for someone else’s sake. So if he continues to accept you and your fairytale daydreams, then you’ll continue to see him as your prince.

–

The first time you meet the Karasuno Volleyball Club, it’s with a shy bow and Kageyama’s bento hiding half of your embarrassed face. 

It’s your second week of high school, and there is an entire volleyball team of boys staring you dead in the eye in shock.

You skirt around the edge of the court toward Tobio’s bag. He’d mentioned a lunchtime practice, and you’d just wanted to drop this off so he could eat when he had time. He hasn’t noticed you yet, and you don’t mind, because this is one thing you’d rather not distract him from.

You don’t mind being second only to volleyball.

You set the lunchbox down and turn to sneak out of the gym, but there’s a boy with orange hair in your face.

“Who are you? Why are you bringing Kageyama his lunch?” His voice carries, catching the attention of everyone in the room, including Tobio.

“O-Oh, sorry, I’m just–” You fumble for your words, trying to duck around this shockingly agile shorty.

“Y/n.” Kageyama’s calling from the court, and you feel embarrassed that you’d interrupted him. He shows no irritation about it, though, his face blank as ever.

“ Sorry …” You whisper, as if you’re trying to avoid detection. As if you don’t have everyone’s eyes on you. 

You manage to dodge the small boy and make a run for it, calling back to him while you race for the door. “Make sure you eat everything and drink lots of water– Okay, bye !”

You fly off the steps of the gym and round the corner, slamming your back against the wall outside so you can catch your breath. Your head is just under the window, which is propped open. You hear his teammates grilling him as he approaches the side of the court for the bento.

“ Is that your girlfriend?! She made you lunch! ” It’s the small boy’s voice. 

You hear the rattle of chopsticks as he unpacks the containers and pops them open. His mouth is full of food when he responds, and he’s deadpan as always, not an ounce of emotion in his voice, but–

“That’s Y/n. Be nice to her. We’re going to get married.”

–that’s the first time he says it.

You fall for him all over again.

–

You’re a second year when Kageyama Tobio asks you out.

He’s napping at his desk at the beginning of the day, exhausted from morning practice. His phone keeps buzzing in his bag, the usual stream of texts from you, but he’s honestly too tired to even notice.

Hinata slams down into the seat in front of him, and Kageyama cracks his eyes open in annoyance. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima aren’t far behind, their own desks beside his.

“Could you be a little less annoying?”

Hinata just stares down at him with narrowed eyes.

“Hey, Kageyama.” 

Tobio puts his forehead back on his desk with a grunt of acknowledgement.

“How far have you and Y/n gone?”

He hears Tsukishima choke on his drink, and Yamaguchi’s scolding Hinata under his breath.

“You can’t just ask him that-”

“What do you mean?” Kageyama lifts his head, staring straight at his friend. “How far we’ve gone – what does that mean?”

Even Yamaguchi stares at him in disbelief now.

“What are you talking about?” Tsukki’s voice is judgmental as always. “He’s asking what you and your girlfriend have done together. You know…” He waits for Kageyama to get it, but it never clicks.

Tobio just looks at each of them blankly. “Y/n isn’t my girlfriend.”

He wonders if the bugs outside are buzzing louder than normal, or if it’s just really quiet in the room right now.

“But…” Yamaguchi scratches his cheek. “Did you guys decide to not get married after all?”

Kageyama tilts his head. “No…? We still are.”

The freckled boy stares back. “Then wouldn’t you have to date first?”

“Date?”

“Oh, my God-” Tsukishima leans his elbows on his desk and buries his face in his hands. Hinata grabs the front of Kageyama’s uniform roughly.

“Dude. Don’t tell me you never asked her out.” When Tobio just glares at the grip Hinata has on him, his friend gawks at him. “You have to date first, Kageyama! What if she’s been waiting all this time for you to ask her?!”

“ I think there’s something wrong with her .” Tsukishima’s voice is muffled. “ How could she possibly still be set on this guy? ”

Kageyama looks around at his friends as their classmates finally start to file into the room for the day. They all just sigh in frustration, as if this were something he should have known already.

Oh.

He reaches into his bag for his phone. He starts to type out a message, but Yamaguchi snatches the thing out of his hands. He looks appalled.

“You can’t ask her over text , Tobio.” 

Tsukishima just laughs and shakes his head. Kageyama ignores him.

“Well, how do I-”

“You ask her in person.”

Oh.

He waits until lunch, when you appear at the door to the third-year classroom. He follows you upstairs to the roof, and then he lets you excitedly explain the lunch you’d made him. He eats in silence, listening to you ramble about your classmates and the fact that your teacher had told you to start thinking about college.

“-think that maybe I should start looking at majors–”

“Hey. Y/n.”

You pause, surprised at his interruption. He’s staring down at his lunch, poking around with his chopsticks. Does he not like the food?

“What’s wro-”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

You don’t think you heard him correctly.

“What…?”

His ears turn red. He knows this moment is important, but he doesn’t know how to make it go smoother.

“Uh-” He pokes at a piece of rice. “The guys said that I-That we need to date before we get married. They said I should have asked you sooner, but I didn’t know that I was supposed to-”

“O-Oh, that’s okay!” You flap your hands at him frantically. “It’s okay, I wasn’t waiting or anything!” To be honest, you hadn’t thought this moment through at all. You’d known that you would date eventually, but you thought it would happen later. Or maybe that you’d skip that part entirely and just plan the wedding after college.

You never thought that he’d…

Is the day suddenly warmer than it was before? Did the sun come out? 

You fan yourself, pressing your cold drink to the side of your face. Dating Kageyama Tobio is… not something you considered, even after all this time.

“Hey.”

You meet his eyes, flushing when you see how nervous he is.

If even he’s nervous, then…

“You never answered me.”

You swallow.

“O-Okay.” He watches you carefully, and you can feel it even when you look away in embarrassment. “Sure… Let’s date.”

–

“What’s the difference between dating and what we were doing before?” Kageyama’s twirling his pencil around his fingers, trying and failing to focus on his homework. It’s just too boring.

You’re across from him, almost done with your own work. You’re sitting at the table in your room, just a couple days after he asks you out. In that time, nothing’s really changed.

You flush, trying to think of what to say.

“Uh… I’m not sure. I think we just go on dates…? Hold hands and… stuff…?” You don’t want to give him more information than that.

He yawns, reaching for his phone. “Okay. Let’s go on a date, then.” 

You lean forward to see what he’s doing, and you watch him type ‘ places to date’ into his search engine. You giggle to yourself and then gasp, because the local movie theater had popped up in the results.

“Ooh, a movie!”

He says nothing, clicking on the website and scrolling through the showings silently. You point to one that’s just come out.

“The trailer for that looks interesting. You might like it.”

He buys tickets without even thinking about it.

You wonder if he even wants to see it. But he doesn’t say otherwise, and he’s already paid, so you’re not sure what would change if you asked.

When he picks you up the next morning, leaning his body lazily over the fence of your house and tapping obnoxiously at the small bell that hangs from the metal bar like he always does, you’re stunned to find that he’s dressed well.

He looks effortlessly pretty, his sweater well-suited to the pair of jeans he has on – you didn’t even know he owned clothes outside of his sweats and his uniform.

You stop short just outside your door, taken aback by how good he looks. You watch his eyes trail down the length of your body, analyzing your dress, your hair, and your jewelry. You’d spent far too long deciding on it all, and your mom is currently standing behind you with a camera, squealing as she takes pictures of the two of you.

But Kageyama says nothing, about any of it. He just keeps his eyes on you as you approach the fence.

“Hi… You look nice.” You mumble the words, trying to keep your blush in check.

“Thanks…” He trails off, looking like he wants to say something else. But he doesn’t, only straightening and waiting for you to join him on the sidewalk. And then he waves blankly at your mom, his hand finding yours as you start to walk away. He gives you a simple response when you look up at him in surprise.

“What? You said we were supposed to hold hands.”

You stare down at your shoes the entire walk to the theater, your face painfully warm. 

He buys you a large popcorn and drink to share, and you sit in the crowded theater with the bucket in your lap, grateful that it’s dark. You smoothe out your dress and tuck your hair behind your ear, trying not to ruin your outfit.

He takes your hand again once the movie starts, his voice low when he mumbles something to you.

“You look nice, too.”

You don’t really know what the movie ends up being about. Your heart is beating in your ears the whole time.

–

“Hey, Kageyama. How far have you and Y/n gone?”

Kageyama glares up at Hinata through his lashes. “Why do you always ask me that?”

“Because you’re a case study in idiocy.” Tsukishima flips another page of his magazine, his back against the frame of Yamaguchi’s bed. He’s not really reading it. He just likes to roll it up and smack Hinata over the head with it when he gets distracted from his studies.

Yamaguchi pushes gently at Tsukki’s arm without looking, just writing down another answer on his worksheet as he studies at the table with Hinata and Kageyama. “Leave him be. He’s doing his best.”

Kageyama wonders if the flush to Tsukishima’s cheeks is because he’d been scolded or because it was Yamaguchi.

He texts Hinata about it discreetly.

Does Tsukishima like Yamaguchi?

And then he stills when he watches the way his best friend’s eyes flit to the screen when it lights up and then up at him like he’s stupid. Hinata never takes his deadpan stare off of him, not even as he’s reaching for the phone and typing out a response.

They’ve been dating since first year.

Oh.

Kageyama purses his lips and puts his phone down. That’s enough meddling for one day.

It buzzes again a second later.

Answer my question, Dipshit.

Kageyama scowls.

I don’t know what you want me to tell you.

You’ve been dating for six months. What’s happened?

He furrows a brow.

We go on a date every week.

Hinata looks impressed.

You hold hands?

Yeah.

Kiss?

Kageyama blinks.

Kiss what?

Hinata no longer looks impressed. He meets Kageyama’s eyes again, that deadpan starting to get on Tobio’s nerves. And then he reaches across the table to show his phone to Tsukishima without a word. Kageyama watches Tsukki’s eyes dart down the length of the conversation.

And then he’s slapping his magazine shut and rolling it up. Kageyama doesn’t have time to avoid the harsh smack to the top of his head. 

He barely gets his arms up and over his head in time to block another well-aimed swing.

“What the fuck!”

“You haven’t kissed her yet ?” Tsukishima smacks him again, and then once more, because he’s properly tired of Kageyama Tobio. And then he leans back against Yamaguchi, sighing through his nose. “I feel so bad for her, I’m considering dating her myself.”

“Hey!” It’s Yamaguchi, his pout obnoxious.

Kageyama really wonders how he hadn’t noticed their relationship before this.

Tsukishima pinches the bridge of his nose. “Someone please teach Kageyama how to be a boyfriend with feelings. I don’t have the time.”

Hinata snorts. “I don’t think we’d ask you for the time, anyway.” He doesn’t even bother avoiding the magazine smack to the side of his face. He deserved it.

Yamaguchi reaches into his bag for his laptop, nudging his boyfriend with a knee. “Go make snacks. I’ll find movies.”

Tsukki says nothing, just ruffling Yamaguchi’s hair as he stands and steps over him.

Surely, they didn’t always do things like that. Kageyama would have noticed… right?

He shakes his head, watching Yamaguchi set up his laptop at a distance where they can all see the screen. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but at least he doesn’t have to do his homework.

His friends keep him trapped in Yamaguchi’s room for the next six hours, forcing him to watch rom-coms and yelling ‘ Do that! ’ every time they see a romantic gesture, because they know Kageyama won’t think twice about it otherwise.

–

“Hey. Y/n.” He’s standing at the door to your classroom, just after 6pm on a Thursday. The sun is starting to set, but you’re both still here.

The volleyball season had ended a few weeks ago, his last time playing for Karasuno there and gone before he’d realized it. But he and Hinata had been scouted by the same school in Tokyo, so they use the now-empty gym to practice almost every day.

You’d waited for him after your student council meeting, filling out homework with a speed that he’d always envied just a little bit. You’re brighter than you realize, especially with numbers. 

He hadn’t noticed until last year, when you’d gone for fun with them to Tokyo for the annual summer training camp and met Kuroo. You’d gotten on extremely well with him, and Kageyama had watched you two talk about chemistry and math as if they were exciting TV shows he’d never heard of.

Kuroo had gotten him alone soon after, mentioning to him that Tokyo had one of the best STEM programs in the country. He hadn’t realized what the Nekoma captain had meant at the time – not until he’d first been contacted by the university and had started, unknowingly, thinking that it would be nice to keep going to school with you after graduation.

“Oh, Kags!” You finish writing something with a smile and then start packing up. “I have a packet due next week, so I wanted to finish it before you were done practicing.”

He wouldn’t have started that packet until the night before.

He watches you skip up to him, in a rush even though you’re the only two people here. You walk down the hall together, and you peer up at him while you ask him about his day.

“Did you eat well? Sorry that I couldn’t see you for lunch – my class president wanted to talk about…” You talk excitedly, and he stops listening just as you’re approaching the top of the stairs.

There’s no one around right now, just noise drifting through the open window on the first landing of the stairs — the soccer team, running laps outside. It’s almost March. The frost is finally melting off of the grass. He’ll be graduating soon.

His mind drifts to what Hinata told him as they were parting ways, not even fifteen minutes ago.

‘Don’t make her wait much longer.’

Have you been waiting? Have you been expecting him to make a move on you? It had been a week since the forced movie night, but you haven’t given him any of the so-called signs he’d been made to notice in those scenes. 

No lingering close to him, no biting your lip and looking up at him wistfully.

He’s starting to think the movies were being dramatic.

Do you even want him to kiss you?

“-yama… Kags?” 

He stops at the landing, just in front of the window. He turns, realizing you’d stopped halfway down the stairs, just examining him with lifted eyebrows. You look mildly concerned, a soft smile tugging at your lips when he mumbles ‘ Huh? ’, and you move to join him.

“Are you okay?” Your eyes flit around his face. “Are you worried about training?”

No. He’s not.

For once, he’s not.

“Yeah. I guess.”

Does he want to kiss you? 

He’s not sure. He enjoys your weekly dates – movie and cafe dates, and one amusement park date where your photo booth shots had been so funny that he’d snorted milk out through his nose. Those photos sit in his wallet now, because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to keep them and because the fact that he’d put them there had made you oddly happy.

 And he’s realized recently that he likes the feeling of your fingers interlaced with his, hands joined and shoved into the pocket of his coat to stay warm. He likes having you close like that. And when he’d ask you to remove his finger wraps for him after practice, he likes how delicate you’d be about it, how soft your fingers were against his calloused ones.

Not to mention the strand of some unplaced emotion that would sit in his chest when his teammates would complain about him having a girlfriend. They’d whine anytime you would help him – ‘ We don’t have pretty girls who do that for us, Kageyama. Stop showing off. ’ – and he’d always feel a little weird. A little too proud that you wouldn’t do that for anyone else. A little too happy that he’s special.

Still, he has no idea about kissing. He hadn’t thought about it before last week. It had never crossed his mind. But now… he feels like he should do it. Hinata told him to. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima told him to. They were sure that you’d been waiting for him to do it.

You must have been waiting, then. They would know better than he does.

“-m sure that your drills have been going okay with Hinata, right? And you have some time still, if you wanted to fix something-” You cut short, realizing he’s stepping close to you. His face is blank, but he still looks like he’s thinking hard about something.

He steps in again, and you step back to give him some space. He follows, and soon you’re backed up against the wall on the stairs. Cold air drifts in through the window, along with the sounds of a soccer practice. 

You swallow, meeting Kageyama’s eyes nervously.

“What’s… What are you…”

He looks you over. Your nose is red from the chill, and you’re looking up at him in confusion, like you have no idea what he’s doing. He realizes that, no, you hadn’t been waiting. 

You hadn’t been expecting anything from him.

For some reason, that bothers him.

He sets his hands on your elbows, stepping close and dipping his head. You don’t have time to think, and Kageyama’s leaning in before you can bring yourself to wonder what he’s doing.

There, on that set of stairs between the first and second floor, just after 6pm on a Thursday. There are people outside, with no idea what’s happening not that far away. The sun is about to set, and the bugs are starting to come out of their winter hiding, a quiet buzz filling the air. It’s almost March. He’ll be graduating soon.

That’s the first time Kageyama Tobio kisses you.

He pulls away after a moment, tilting his head away to give you space but staying close enough that his hair gets in your eyes a little bit. You don’t remember the last time you took a breath, but it doesn’t matter, because you’ve never seen Kageyama blush before. Not like that.

You swallow hard, your skin tingling where he has his hands on your elbows. Another cold breeze drifts in, but you barely feel it. Your face is warm enough, and you think the heat radiating around you might not just be you.

Eventually, he takes a small step back, his head still ducked when he releases you. His ears are ringing, and he doesn’t like the fact that he can’t feel his fingers. And when he looks up at you through his bangs, seeing the way you’re still leaning against the wall for support as you hug your arms around yourself, he finds himself wanting to do it again. 

He wants to be close to you like that again.

It’s not the same as holding your hand. It’s worse. It’s a feeling that sits in his stomach and makes his heart pound. The same feeling of adrenaline and excitement he gets when he wins a game.

He doesn’t know what to do with this feeling.

So he doesn’t move. He just stares. You stare back. Eventually, you lift off of the wall and smile shyly, crouching to grab your bag. He hadn’t even realized you’d dropped it.

You grip the strap so hard your knuckles turn white. He clears his throat.

“I’ll walk you home.” It’s soft, but it echoes loudly in this empty stairwell.

You just nod, following him down the stairs and out the front door.

It takes him ten minutes to gather the courage to hold your hand. You don’t say a word the entire way back.

–

Kageyama graduates, and you become a third year preparing for college applications. Things between you somehow return to normal with little issue, although you’d been expecting some level of awkwardness.

He doesn’t kiss you again or even give you any sign that he wants to. You don’t know what to make of that, but you choose not to push it. You think that he would probably let you kiss him if you wanted to, because he lets you do anything you want. 

But the thought of kissing him when you’re not sure if he wants it or even cares about it – that makes you feel weird.

So you just don’t.

He’d moved to Tokyo in the summer to start training, and you find that, although you miss him immensely, you’re doing just fine here in Miyagi.

You talk every day, and you take the train to see him once a month, staying the weekend in his tiny dorm room and then rushing home to prepare for class on Monday.

You still text him random thoughts about wedding planning, but they’re far fewer than before. Now, you mostly just check that he’s eating and sleeping and that he’s not failing his classes. 

You let yourself be woken up when he calls at 4:30 every day because he has to be out for his morning run by 5 and he knows he won’t be able to stay awake unless he’s talking to you while he gets ready. And then you sit at your desk, studying for your entrance exams and prepping your application materials while the sun rises outside your window.

You make an extra trip to the city whenever he has a game, rushing out of school and racing for the train station like an olympic runner, because every game means the world to him and you would never dream of missing one. And every time he wins, he holds you extra tight at night, excitedly recapping the moments of the game into the crook of your neck as if you hadn’t witnessed every second with your own eyes.

It never occurs to you to tell him about your day anymore. He doesn’t ask, and you don’t think about that enough to be upset by it. His world revolves around volleyball, just like it always had. And your world – your grades, your achievements, your future – had always just been expectations you’d set for yourself. Top of the class, student council president, stellar record. They’re all normal to you. You’d worked hard for them, but you’d never found them to be novel or exciting enough to tell Kageyama.

You just… existed.

And you never realized that maybe your priorities weren’t in the right place. That maybe making Kageyama Tobio your whole personality wasn’t the way it should be. You had slowly stopped doing that, slowly eased yourself off of him, slowly started hanging out with your friends more than you used to.

Nothing could change the way you feel about him – he’s your prince. He’d always been your prince, from the day you’d met. But you’re becoming an adult with a life and a future, and you’d never thought that that was important enough to share with him. Your whole world is still him .

Until it isn’t.

“Have you told Kageyama about your midterm grades yet?” Yachi spoons food into her mouth, eyes sparkling cutely when she asks. “I bet he was so happy for you.”

You tilt your head at her. “Oh, I didn’t think to tell him.” And you don’t think you’ve ever seen him get happy about anything other than volleyball.

Your friend’s expression dampens. “You didn’t tell him? Why?”

“It never came up.”

She looks lost. “But you worked really hard for it… And you got top of the class… You didn’t mention it at all?”

You furrow a brow, pushing food around your bento.

“I guess I just didn’t think about it.”

She hums and then claps as a thought comes to her.

“What about the school festival?” 

You’re in committee meetings for that almost every day. It’s coming in the spring.

She frowns when you just shake your head blankly.

“Y/n, you haven’t told him anything? You even got sick the other day from the stress…”

“I didn’t want to bother him with it.”

She looks entirely unsatisfied. There’s silence, one where you’re eating slowly and trying to figure out what this feeling in the pit of your stomach is. And then she’s clearing her throat softly.

“Does he… ask about you? At all?”

No. He doesn’t.

You swallow. “He’s a busy guy.” 

Now Yachi just looks mad. “And you’re a busy girl! He’s your boyfriend! He should be asking!”

You laugh sheepishly. “He’s never really been that way. It doesn’t bother me.” Right?

“That’s not the point!” She frowns deeply. “What kind of guy doesn’t want to hear about his girlfriend’s day?”

The kind of guy that only asks you out because his friends told him to.

The thought hits you like a truck, and suddenly your lunch tastes like cardboard. You swallow what’s left in your mouth, wincing as it goes down, and cover your container. You don’t feel hungry anymore.

“It’s fine, really.” You smile at her, reassuring her. “I’ll tell him about my day today, okay? I just never thought to do it, that’s all.” 

She scowls, like that should never have been an option, but she lets it go.

You call Kageyama as you walk home later, the sun low in the sky. There had been 3 back to back meetings after school, and you’re rolling your shoulders in exhaustion. You’re already dreading the mountain of homework you have to do when you get home.

He picks up after a few rings.

“ Hey .” 

You can hear the squeak of tennis shoes in the background. He’s at practice.

“Oh. Sorry, I thought you ended at 5.”

“ It’s fine. We stayed longer to prep for the game next week. I’m taking a break .” He sighs. “ I’m still not super satisfied with my jump serves. I get them right 90% of the time, but… ”

He rambles on like that, and you try to push down that lingering feeling from lunch. This is how every day goes. You’re never anything but happy to talk to him. You like hearing him ramble – it calms you down, lets you have a moment of serenity in the chaos of your day.

Now, you’re just wondering why he didn’t ask how you are.

Eventually, you clear your throat, seeing the shadow of your house in the distance.

“Hey, I should probably go – I’m home, and I don’t feel super great today, so…”

“ Oh, okay. Bye. ” He hangs up, and you stand in front of your house, staring down at your phone.

He hadn’t asked why you weren’t feeling good.

You shake your head, heading inside. After your shower, you settle down at your desk with a sigh, switching on the overhead lamp. It’s dark now, and you’re just starting on your work. It’s all due next week, so you decide to take it a little easy because you’re supposed to see Kageyama next weekend and you don’t want to get sick again.

You try one more time with him, sending a quick text.

I’m excited to see you next week <3

You put your phone down, oddly anxious, and open your math textbook. Your phone buzzes beside you, and you reach for it with a rush of nerves.

It’s just a thumbs up.

You stare down at it. 

And then you close your textbook and switch the lamp off. You get into bed and cry into your pillow.

He doesn’t ask why you sound a little down when he calls the next morning at 4:30.

–

You decide to go see him early. You’re supposed to go next weekend, but you’d spent the last two days with a pit of anxiety in your stomach, and you think that maybe if you just see him, you’ll feel better. Reassured.

You get off the train, nothing but your backpack with you. You’d come right after school, but you hadn’t packed an overnight bag because you’d had this idea literally an hour before class had ended.

You make your way to the gym with ease, used to the lay of the campus by now. Kageyama has practice until 5, so you’re right on time to see him.

You stop short when you round the corner, your heart dropping. 

He’s out front with Hinata and his teammates, all chatting excitedly about something from practice.

He’s laughing brightly at something his senior is saying, his eyes screwed up and his arms clutching his sides. Hinata puts him in a headlock with a grin, and he’s fighting back, the two roughhousing on the steps.

You’ve never seen him smile like that before.

Your bottom lip quivers against your will, your eyes filling with unshed tears. You turn to walk away.

This was a bad idea. You’ll just sit at a cafe and wait for the next train home.

“Y/n?”

It’s Hinata, calling out to you from afar. 

You freeze, unable to turn back to them. You can hear the sounds of Kageyama’s teammates as they tease him.

“ Ooh, Kageyama-”

“ -your girlfriend’s here- ”

You blink, wiping furiously at the tears that finally slide down your cheeks. And then you swallow and turn back to them, seeing that Kageyama and Hinata are jogging to meet you where you are.

“Hi…”

“What are you doing here?” Tobio tilts his head at you, confused. “I thought you were coming next week. And-” He looks you up and down, a brow furrowed. “-where’s your bag?”

You’re not sure what to say to any of it.

I wanted to see you .

That would have been fine before. Now you just feel clingy.

I had a bad day. I missed you .

He won’t care. He won’t ask. He’ll just accept that.

Hinata leans toward you a bit, a frown tugging at his lips.

“Are you okay? You look sad.”

Tobio looks at his friend, blinking in surprise, and then down at you.

“What happened? Why are you sad?”

You try not to let it show when your heart cracks a little.

He’d only noticed because Hinata had.

“Uh-I’m fine.” You watch him closely, watch him accept your answer at face value with a nod. Watch Hinata lean away, eyes narrowed in disbelief. You wonder why your friends can see right through you but your own boyfriend can’t.

“Could we maybe get dinner…?”

Kageyama looks back at his teammates, frowning. You wonder where that bright smile had gone and why it had left when he’d seen you.

“The team was supposed to get dinner today…”

Your heart doesn’t even drop anymore. You’d expected it, the rejection. 

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll just meet with you later.” You smile, starting to pull your phone out so you can look up some nearby restaurants. You’d shown up unannounced, anyway. Kageyama hadn’t expected to fit you into his schedule today.

Hinata nudges him hard with his elbow.

“Dude, your girlfriend came all this way to get dinner with you. You can just come along next time.”

Tobio turns to him, and then to you. He blinks.

“Oh. Okay.”

That word feels like a knife through the heart.

–

You sit silently across from him at the ramen shop, listening to him talk about the upcoming game.

“-maybe if I can just get there a little faster, I could probably-”

“Tobio…”

Kageyama freezes, noodles halfway to his mouth. You almost never say his name. It’s always Kags, or his full last name.

He looks down at you, eyes skimming over you quickly. You won’t meet his eyes, and your hand is trembling just a little. You’ve barely touched your food, and you’ve looked upset for a while now. He hasn’t wanted to push, because you always tell him when something’s up, but…

You put your chopsticks down and take a deep breath. Smile up at him. It doesn’t reach your eyes.

…he’s worried.

“I got top of the class on all my midterms.”

He blinks.

“Oh. Okay. Nice.”

Your brow furrows for just a moment before you fix your expression. 

Something’s not right.

“And I’m organizing the school festival this year…” You bite your lip and look out the window. “It would mean a lot if you could come…”

He puts his chopsticks down and reaches for his phone right away.

“Okay. When?” He opens his calendar and looks up at you expectantly.

You just stare, your eyes full of an emotion he’s never seen before. And then you whisper to him.

“Why did you ask me to be your girlfriend?”

Tobio stares. Locks his phone and puts it down without breaking eye contact. Stares some more.

He’s confused. 

“I thought that’s what I was supposed to do…”

You don’t think you can do this.

There are tears filling your eyes. Your voice cracks when you respond.

“Then I think we should break up.”

He just stares. 

What? Where is this coming from? What are you talking about? You’re supposed to date and then get married. Breaking up isn’t in the plan. 

At all.

“Oh.”

You flinch and look away. ‘ Oh ’. That’s it.

“Why?” He looks serious when he asks, like he might actually be worried about this. You’re not really sure you’ve ever seen him worry about you.

“Because I don’t want to marry someone who doesn’t want to marry me.” You smile bitterly up at him. “Because I never asked you what you wanted. I just decided what we would do.”

You’re having trouble breathing. You feel selfish and guilty. You’d decided what his life would look like, and he’d gone along with it because he’d had no complaints about the choice. He’d done everything right, exactly how you wanted him to. Exactly how he was supposed to.

“Because I don’t want you to wake up one day and realize that you wanted something different out of your life. Or for you to meet someone else and realize that you should have married for love, not obligation.”

He shakes his head, face blank. “That wouldn’t happen.”

You smile sadly. “You haven’t asked me about myself for as long as I can remember.”

He frowns. “I figured you would just tell me the things that were important.”

“And I figured you wouldn’t care because you never asked.”

Kageyama’s heart feels a bit strange. He doesn’t like the look on your face. It upsets him to see you unhappy.

“Oh.” 

“You don’t really know what I’ve been up to. And you don’t know how I’ve changed since you left. You don’t ask. And that’s okay.” You hold eye contact, willing yourself not to cry. “But can you really say that you’re marrying me because you love me?”

He just stares. You stare back. And then you make up your mind.

“Me loving you enough for the both of us still isn’t enough to build a life together.”

He doesn’t react. All he says is–

“Okay.”

–

It’s been four days.

In those four days, Kageyama Tobio has learned several things about himself.

First, that he’s entirely incapable of getting out of bed on his own. He oversleeps three of the four days and misses his morning runs, barely rolling out of bed in time to get ready for class. The fourth day, he only wakes up on time because he’d put his phone on the bathroom sink the night before so that he’s forced to get up when his alarm goes off.

Second, that the days go by in a blur. He doesn’t remember eating breakfast, and he’s certain he doesn’t go to the cafeteria for lunch like he usually does. He subsists on the protein bars he keeps in his bag, and he only remembers dinner because, by the time practice is over, he’s so hungry that he’s stealing food from Hinata’s bag, too.

The third thing is that he’s messes up at practice in things that he had perfected years ago. He screws up during drills, he somehow is off-tempo during warm-ups, and – most importantly – he’s snapping at his teammates. The stress gets to him on day three, to the point that he’s running drills by himself and pushing his own limits every time he forgets even the smallest thing. When that doesn’t work, he’s yelling at Hinata and then blaming a senior for moving too slow during a set.

He hadn’t done that since high school.

“Dude-” Hinata approaches him after practice on day four. It’s Monday, and they have a game on Friday. Tensions are already high, and he knows well enough that he’s making things worse. “-what is with you lately?”

“ What ?” Kageyama shoots him a glare, one that has Hinata’s eyebrows flying up, because his best friend hasn’t looked at him like that since their first year at Karasuno.

He doubles down, keeping up easily with Kageyama’s long legs when the setter storms out of the gym. “What’s your problem? No one asked the King to make a special guest appearance.”

Kageyama turns so fast to face him that he skids to a stop, bumping into him. And then his shirt is being balled up in Tobio’s fist, and he’s being dragged onto his tiptoes and into Kageyama’s face.

“What the fuck did you just call me?”

Hinata breathes out a sigh, recognizing the frustration in Kageyama’s eyes.

“Why are you snapping at everyone? You’ve been in a mood since Friday.”

“No, I haven’t.” 

“Did you get dumped or something?” Shouyou knows he’s right when Kageyama’s glare and furrowed brow turn into a blank slate. He’s realizing something. “Oh, my God, you did. You got dumped.”

Kageyama drops him back down, releasing him. He blinks.

“I mean… Yeah, I did. But so what?”

Hinata looks at him like he’s crazy.

“What do you mean, so what ? You’re upset!”

Kageyama only swallows. He knows he’s upset. He was upset all of Friday, after you left him sitting there in that ramen shop, claiming you needed to catch the last train home.

But has he been upset enough to disrupt his days this much?

“I…”

“You’ve been oversleeping and barely making it to class.” 

That’s true. 

“You’ve been skipping meals, which is probably why you’ve been crabby and fucking up during practice. You haven’t been eating enough.”

That’s also true. That makes sense.

“And you’ve been distracted.”

Kageyama blinks down at him.

Hinata sighs. “You’ve been checking your phone constantly, dude. You never look up from it anymore.” He points up at the man with renewed frustration. “You almost got hit by that biker when we were crossing the street on Saturday!”

That… had happened. He remembers, barely. That he’d only looked up because Hinata had yanked on the back of his hoodie, that the student on that bike had yelled at him as he’d passed them by.

That he’d been checking his phone, wondering why it had been so silent all day.

“What are you waiting for, Kageyama?”

For her to text me .

“She usually texts me… about eating and… and wedding stuff.” There’s dread in his stomach, and his nerves are twisting painfully in his chest.

Hinata sighs dejectedly, running a hand through his hair.

“What wedding, Kageyama? She broke up with you.”

‘ What wedding, Kageyama?’

Oh.

If you broke up with him, then… Then there’s no dating, and that means no wedding.

Right.

Kageyama scowls at his short friend.

No.

No, he doesn’t like this.

–

He’s waiting for you at the Karasuno gates on Tuesday afternoon. You spot him as you’re walking out of the building with Yachi. You’d spent the weekend crying in your bed, and you’d decided on Monday – after you’d opened your wallet and promptly started sobbing, because you’d had the other photo booth strip from the amusement park in there –  that you had to get yourself together.

Yachi links her arm through yours and pulls you back when you walk out of school, because she’d noticed him first. You look up, freezing when you see him lingering there. He’s out of place without a uniform, and he’s pacing back and forth in the corner, running his fingers through his hair.

What is he doing here?

You meet Yachi’s eyes anxiously, and the two of you walk to meet him. He looks up when you get close, eyes widening when he sees you. He takes a breath. You think he looks nervous.

“Can you un-dump me, please?”

Your lips part in surprise. Yachi slips her arm out of yours and walks away without a word, realizing that this is probably not something she should be present for.

You stare up at him.

“What?”

He scratches his neck. “This really sucks, Y/n. Can we date again? Please?”

“I-Kageyama-” You look around, wondering if he’s really doing this here. “Can we at least go somewhere else?”

He just blinks. “Okay.” 

You try not to sigh. You hadn’t missed that word.

You lead him past the school grounds, crossing the street and toward the park that’s nearby. There’s no one around, and you take a seat at one of the benches. He sits next to you, silent. And then he turns to you.

“So…”

“I don’t think we should get back together.” You stare down at your hands when you say it.

He shifts to face you, huffing under his breath. “Why not?”

“What’s changed, Kageyama? In the last four days, what’s changed that would make things better this time?” You run a hand through your hair. “Because, from where I’m sitting, everything’s the same.”

“Then sit closer.” He pats the empty space between you for emphasis. 

You sigh, growing frustrated.

“You don’t get it-”

“No, I don’t get it.” He cuts you off, angry. You’ve never seen him get upset with you before. “I don’t get it , Y/n. I thought we were fine. I thought I did everything I was supposed to-”

“Yeah, you did!” You stand, facing him. He stands, too, his chest heaving as he breathes harshly. “You did everything you were supposed to, Tobio. Because Hinata told you to. Because Tsukki and Yamaguchi told you to. You did everything they told you to do.”

“So what ? They were helping me figure out how to be a good boyfriend-”

“Did you even want to be my boyfriend?” You throw your hands up, annoyed. “Did you want to do those things ?”

He looks lost. Lost and frustrated that he’s lost. “Does it matter ? I was fine doing them, and they were things you wanted, and I didn’t mind-”

You fist the front of his hoodie, shaking him. Your eyes are filling with tears. “ It matters, Kageyama!” You drop your forehead to his chest, your breath shaky. “It matters . Those things mean nothing if you don’t want to do them yourself.”

You lift away from him, stepping back and covering your face with your hands. “I thought that if you didn’t have any complaints about the things I wanted, then that meant that everything was fine-”

“Everything was fine.” He’s looking at you like he’s begging you to explain this to him. “ I asked you out. I kissed you first. I did those things-”

“ Because they told you to! ” You bury your hands in your hair. It feels like you’re going insane, saying the same things over and over again. “They didn’t ask if you wanted to . They told you to.” You breathe deeply. “ I didn’t ask if you wanted to.” You drop your hands, sighing. “I just told you to.”

“And then you didn’t ask when you left me!” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, frustrated. “You just decided that what we had planned on doing was no longer the plan. You didn’t ask.”

You stare at him, processing. Realizing.

You thought you’d done wrong by pulling him in and keeping him close. So you let him go. 

But that had been wrong, too.

“I’m sorry.” You can’t tell if your apology reaches him. He’s just glaring down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, Tobio. I felt guilty that I had forced you into this relationship and this future with me, and then I realized that I had made you my whole life without ever considering you.”

He meets your eyes. He’s listening.

“And then I saw that you weren’t interested in me or what’s happening in my life. You weren’t asking about my day or asking why I was tired or seeing when I was in pain. And I thought that meant that you were just going along with my plans for our future without ever thinking about if that’s what you even wanted for yourself. And that hurt, so much.”

Kageyama knows what you’re telling him. He’d been thinking about what you’d said on Friday, your words on repeat in the back of his head through the entire weekend.

‘Me loving you enough for the both of us still isn’t enough to build a life together.’

But he had never felt that you had forced him into this. He’d never felt that he might want something else. Even when he was just going along with your ideas because he couldn’t care less, there were no ill feelings. He’d been making you happy your whole lives, without even trying. All he’d ever had to do was be there, and you were happy.

You were never upset around him, never upset because of him. 

So he didn’t know how much he hated it until it had happened.

He had never considered that you might ever need more than that from him. That you might need him to make this an equal-efforts relationship.

“Ask me.”

You just blink up at him, confused. He swallows.

“Ask me what I want.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then you’re inhaling nervously.

“What do you want, Kageyama?”

“I want-” He takes a step toward you, and then another. “-you to be where you’ve always been.” He grabs your shoulders, forcing you to come close to him, right in front on him. “Right here, Y/n. I want you right here .”

You tilt your head back to really look at him, your eyes wide. He’s meeting your gaze evenly. “I need you next to me , Y/n. I cannot function if you’re not.”

You’re confused. And extremely nervous.

“What?”

He tightens his hold on you. “I have not been doing anything right the last few days. I don’t wake up on time. I don’t eat . I am fucking everything up at practice.”

“Kageyama-”

“I keep checking my phone, waiting for you-I almost got run over on Saturday because I wasn’t paying attention-”

“What?! Kageya-”

“I miss you , Y/n.” Do you understand what he’s saying? Is he being clear enough? “I’m useless without you.” 

Butterflies swirl in your stomach, but you still furrow a brow, protesting weakly.

“I’m not your mother, Tobio… I can’t keep doing everything for you-”

“Oh, my-” He releases you, stepping away and running a hand over his face. “Okay, fine! Yes-” He looks at you, exasperated. “I will work on that. I will work on being-I don’t know-” He’s fumbling for his words, trying to figure out what he should say. What’s right. 

“-I will work on myself, okay? But-” He sighs. “-don’t break up with me. Please. Can’t I work on those things with you still here with me?”

You just stare. You’ve never seen this. You didn’t know this side of him existed. This person who is flustered and frustrated and lost. This person who is trying to communicate with you but is struggling.

He looks around, thinking hard. He rubs a finger over his brow, scowling. And then he tries again.

“Okay. When I asked you out, I was really nervous. And you had never made me nervous before. And when we went on our first date, I thought that you looked really pretty when I picked you up, but I didn’t know how to say it.”

You blink. What is he doing?

He starts pacing.

“And when I held your hand on the walk to the movie, I kept wondering if my hand was sweaty and if you could feel it. And I really liked that cafe you wanted to go to the week after, because they had that banana milk latte thing and I thought that was good. And you looked really happy with the cake I bought you, and I thought it was weird that I noticed that part specifically, because you always look happy.”

He scratches his forehead. Is he doing this right? If he’s just completely honest about everything, that would be progress, right?

“And when we went to the amusement park, you wanted me to buy you the cat ear headband, but I thought you looked really cute in the bunny ears. That’s why I bought you both.”

You didn’t know that. He never told you.

“And I look at the pictures from the photo booth thing all the time, but definitely after a bad day at practice. Because you look funny, but also because after I snorted out that milk, you laughed so hard that you cried, and I can never forget that. It makes me smile to think about it.”

He stops pacing. Turns to face you.

“And when I kissed you that day. On the stairs.” 

You flush, your ears already warm and your heart already thrumming nervously in your chest from everything he’s been saying. He sighs, shaking his head.

“I wanted to kiss you again. I should have kissed you again. Because the guys, they did tell me to kiss you. That’s why I did it.” He steps toward you, swallowing hard. “But I wanted to kiss you again. I wanted to. I didn’t, because I was nervous and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t feel my fingers. And every time after that, when I wanted to kiss you, I would start to feel that way again. And I didn’t know what to do with that, so I just wouldn’t kiss you.”

He feels it now. His fingers are numb, and his heart is beating in his ears. And his stomach kind of hurts, and he’s terrified that this still isn’t enough. He’s terrified that your silence means that he’s not doing this right.

“I would have liked that.” You purse your lips when he blinks at you in surprise. “If you had kissed me again. I would have liked that.”

He sighs in relief and looks away, putting a hand on his stomach and clutching at his hoodie, scrunching the material. He nods, his eyes shut when he responds.

“Yeah. I would have liked it, too.”

And then he looks at you, eyes examining your expression. 

“Y/n, I… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to do this. I’m bad at everything that’s not volleyball-” He cuts off to roll his eyes. “Well, now I’m bad at volleyball, too. But that’s not-” 

He sighs.

“I don’t know how to make you happy without you telling me, and I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend because I don’t know what that means . I don’t know if what I feel is love because I don’t know what that feels like, and I’m convinced that all the rom-coms the guys made me watch were full of shit.”

You don’t even want to know what that means.

“But I know now that I should try harder. That I should ask you about your day, and that I should talk less about me and more about you, and that this -” He points between the two of you. “-shouldn’t just be you doing everything.”

He steps toward you. “So I’m going to do those things. Not because you told me to and I’m just following along, but because you told me what makes you happy, and I want to make you happy.”

You can only stare, your breath shallow and shaky. He closes the distance, and then, after a beat, reaches hesitantly for your hand. You let him take it. He meets your eyes nervously.

“Can you say something, please?”

You look at him for a moment longer, and then you smile.

“Okay.”

He rolls his eyes.

You lace your fingers through his. He watches the movement, swallowing.

“I like when you do that. It makes me happy.”

Your face starts to warm. “I didn’t know that.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll work on that.”

You nod slowly, thinking. “I’ll work on… growing up, I guess. Being an independent person. Becoming successful on my own, just like you.” You smile softly up at him. He just quirks an eyebrow.

“You already are. Your grades, and your student council stuff…”

You lean forward, planting your forehead on his chest. “You’re a nationally scouted volleyball player, and you think me having good grades makes me successful?”

He puts his free hand on the back of your head, tangling his fingers in your hair. “I think I’m failing two of my classes.”

He smiles when you snort into his shirt. And then he chews on his lip, thinking.

“So… am I un-dumped?” 

You laugh, letting go of his hand so you can wrap both arms around his waist, pulling him in. “Yes, Kags. You’re un-dumped.”

His heart swells, just a little.

“And the wedding?”

You think about it. Your fairytale wedding, with the prince of your dreams. The prince, who is flawed. And you, also flawed. And the fairytale, which apparently needs a lot of work.

“We’ll see.”

You feel him huff. “But you promised me goats.”

You look up, surprised. You hadn’t brought that up since middle school. “I thought you said no.”

He pouts, sheepish. “That’s because I’m pretty sure animals don’t like me very much.”

You can’t help the smile that’s growing on your face. He looks down at you, his fingers still tangled in your hair. And then he leans down, using those fingers to angle your head so he can drop his lips to yours without a word.

You feel his grip tighten nervously, and you raise onto your tiptoes, wanting to be closer, wanting to keep feeling this nervous. Wanting to stay like this forever.

Eventually, he pulls away, but only enough to whisper to you, his lips still against yours.

“ Will you still come to my game on Friday ?” He smiles wide when you snort and nod. “ And you’ll stay with me? The whole weekend? ”

You whisper back. “ If you want me to. ”

He just kisses you again.

–

Things are different now. Even though those four days had been a blip in the radar of your lives – which haven’t changed very much – things are different because of them. Kageyama becomes a boyfriend in more than just title alone.

He sends you awkward pictures of himself at the cafeteria, showing you that he eats without you needing to remind him. He still calls at 4:30 for his morning runs, but he tells you within a few minutes that you should go back to sleep, that he can get ready even if you’re snoring on the other end, because he doesn’t want you working so early in the morning. And then he calls after practice to ask about your day, about your student council meetings, about your college applications. He asks more questions as you talk, because he wants to know more about you.

He wants to keep knowing more about you, with every part of you that changes.

He comes home for Christmas, sitting through your joint family dinner with that blank stare but with his hand firmly nestled in yours, his arms reaching after you anytime you move to do something that would separate you. And then he takes you to see the Christmas lights in town, buying you anything that catches his eye and pulling you in for a kiss under every mistletoe he sees, because there’s nothing he likes more than a free excuse to kiss you. He comes back for the school festival, even though he has a game the next day, because he know it means everything to you that he’s there. And he wants to support you the way you support him.

He slowly stops looking to you for what he should be doing as your boyfriend. He starts relying on himself, because he knows now that it’s okay if he doesn’t know everything. He just does what he wants whenever he wants to, because more often than not, it ends up being something that makes you happy.

You graduate in the spring and follow him to Tokyo after being admitted into their Chemistry program. It’s nerve-wracking, leaving home like that, but you know it’s for the best that you do. You even fight Kageyama when he tries to get you to move in with him right away.

‘ We’re going to live together forever anyway’ , he says when you tell him you decided to be assigned to a dorm instead. You tell him that that’s exactly why you should live apart now. You have forever.

You’re terrified on your first day of the program, but those fears fade away and are replaced with relief and gratitude, because Kuroo Tetsurou is waiting for you outside, already a fourth year in the same major. He takes you under his wing, introducing you to your new seniors and giving you advice about which classes to take and which professors to avoid.

You make friends with the people in your year, and you hang out with Kuroo whenever you can, because he treats you like an adult, asking for your thoughts on his thesis and giving you opportunities to network with the right people but never doing it for you. Because it’s your future, so you’re the one that has to work for it.

You and Kageyama get into fights now. There are days when he clearly isn’t listening, when he needs to be told multiple times to do something like his laundry or writing that email to that professor about that missing assignment. He asks you multiple times to remind him, and you tell him you’re not his mother and that he’s an adult, for fuck’s sake. He always grumbles when you say it, but he never needs telling twice after that.

And on the days when you feel insecure, when you worry that you’re telling him too often what you want and not giving him enough freedom to act on his own, you close off. You stop communicating, because you forget that the whole reason you feel guilty is because you’re worried he’s not communicating. He’s never gentle with you on those days, because he doesn’t know how to be. He just snaps at you, warning you that you better not get trapped in your destructive cycle, that you just need to talk to him because he’s not a mind reader. You always end up spilling your guts to him afterward, crying like a baby because of the guilt and also because you’re mad that he yelled at you. But you’re still glad that he had.

Those days when you fight are always hard, but they feel real. They feel like a relationship created by people who try for each other because they care about each other. Kageyama slowly becomes a self-sufficient adult who learns to read you better than anyone else, and you slowly let go of the anxiety that had filled you for those first few months after getting back together.

Before you even realize it, two years have gone by and you’re moving into your new apartment for the start of the semester. Kageyama is graduating this year, and he’s still unhappy that you won’t move in with him, even now, but he leaves you to your decisions, because they’re yours.

You both make passing comments about marriage, but you never feel the need anymore to think about it the way you used to. You’d found your notebook from middle school – the one with the hearts around his name – while on a trip home, and you’d almost burned the thing in embarrassment.

Marriage is no longer the fairytale wedding you’d constantly dreamed of, to the prince who could do no wrong. Now, it’s just an expected next step in your relationship, to the man of your dreams – because you’ve always loved him, and you find new ways to fall for him all the time – but there are definitely days when you want to smack him with whatever you have on hand.

Despite that, though, he’s still your prince from the sandbox. That part would never change.

Things are good.

–

“ So, Hinata asked me how far we’ve gone again .”

You sigh out deeply through your nose when you hear that.

You’re in an otherwise empty lab, just after 7pm. Your studies had gone extremely well, and you’re on track to receive Honors, but unfortunately, that had come with the added responsibility of a rather rigorous independent study project. Your third year began with a pile of journal articles and the keys to your advisor’s lab, which you now use after working hours in order to develop your thesis.

You’re prepping materials for another round of experiments that you’ll run starting tomorrow, when Kageyama calls. You’ve got your headphones in, phone in your back pocket as you run around the room organizing. You can tell by the background noise that he’s riding his bike.

“You know, he is awfully interested in our physical relationship. What does he want, a threesome or something?” There’s a long pause after you say that, one where you can feel his desire to pick a fight. “I’m guessing you didn’t find that funny.”

“ Oh, could you tell? I was trying to figure out how to make my silence angrier .”

Ever since he’d picked up the concept of sarcasm from Hinata, you often have to wonder if that’s what he’s doing or if he’s still just being blunt.

“So what did you end up telling him?” You pull a blank chart from the drawer at your desk and open your laptop to check your notes. You have to document which chemicals you plan on using so you can file the report for clearance.

“That we fuck like bunnies and often in public.”

That was certainly sarcasm.

“You’re funny.”

“He thought so, too.”

Apparently, it was not sarcasm.

You look up from your work, staring out the window in disbelief. “You actually told him that?! ”

He laughs on the other end.

“Well, he didn’t believe me anyway, so–”

“You are so annoying, Kageyama-”

“ I work hard at it .”

You just shake your head, a laugh leaving you. “So? What did he end up telling you that you need to do?”

Kageyama sighs on the other end. “ I knew you would say that .” 

He’d stopped listening blindly to the words of his high school friend group. Hinata asks every few months about your relationship because he’s painfully nosy, and Tsukishima continues to insist that it’s actually because Kageyama is a specimen worth scientific analysis and that it’s shocking that he’d managed to get you back and keep you.

Yamaguchi is the only helpful one and therefore the only one that you meet up regularly with for coffee.

Rather than just doing whatever it is that Hinata thinks you two should be doing, however, Kageyama always brings it to you, asking if you think that’s true or if he should kick his friend’s ass. Most times, it’s the latter.

This time, Kageyama surprises you.

“ He didn’t suggest anything. I didn’t give him anything for him to go off of.”

You hum with interest. “Why?”

“ Because we kiss, and we hold hands, and we spend the night at each other’s houses, and there was that one time we both drank too much and then you jumped me as soon as we were alone- ”

“Oh, my God.” You groan under your breath, wishing he would let that go already. You were drunk and he was particularly pretty that night. And, if you remember correctly – and you do – he had wasted no time slipping his hands under your shirt when you’d started kissing him, so it wasn’t exactly one-sided.

“ -so I guess there was just nothing to tell him. The only thing he would really tell me anyway is that we should have sex, but I think if he’d said that to me, I would have thrown him out a window, so… ”

You flush but say nothing, only offering him a hum of acknowledgment. You two still haven’t gone that far, because Kageyama isn’t ready.

‘It’s one thing to learn to be a good boyfriend,’ He’d said. ‘ But I feel like, if I don’t do this right, I could hurt you. If I’m not good at knowing how to treat you – if I’m selfish with this, even on accident – then something bad would happen between us. ’

You had completely understood, and you’d just thanked him for being honest with you about it. It was back when you’d first started college, back when he still couldn’t read you the way he can now. It wasn’t priority for you, not enough to feel neglected and never enough to pressure him about it.

You had both still been kids back then. You weren’t ready either, to be honest. So it had just never come up again.

Even just a few months ago, on that night when you’d both gotten drunk and ended up in his bed, his hands fumbling for places he’d never been brave enough to go while sober, you had woken up to a guilty look on his face. He’d apologized so earnestly, terrified he’d gone too far, that he hadn’t done it right. It had taken you almost an hour to bring him down, assuring him that you’d had fun and that absolutely nothing was wrong.

You’d known then that even though he can read you perfectly now, sometimes better than you realize, he’s still worried about it. But it’s not like you’re in any rush to get there. You’re both extremely busy, and you barely have time to see each other outside of Friday and Saturday nights, which you’d both decided would be the time when no one else was allowed to contact you.

Just you and him on your couch with bad takeout, your phones lying forgotten in the kitchen. No teammates, no emails from your advisor, nothing.

It’s your favorite part of the week, and you know it’s his, too, because he always gets extremely affectionate on those two nights, his hands lingering on your skin and his lips on yours any chance he gets. That’s as far as he ever goes, and you’re more than happy with that. His attention, his time, his love – it’s all more than enough.

“ -guess I was kind of thinking about it, though… Or… I don’t know, I’ve been thinking for a few months… since that night… I don’t know.”

You have an inkling of what he’s talking about, your nerves suddenly on edge as you stop writing, giving him your full attention. You twirl your pen around your fingers, leaning back in your chair and putting your work aside.

“Thinking about…?”

There’s nothing but the sound of wind in your ears for a moment. It doesn’t sound like he’s in traffic anymore, which means he’s on campus. He must be close by.

“ I don’t know… I kind of feel like I might be ready…?”

You freeze, wondering if you’d heard correctly, and your phone slips and falls out of your back pocket in that stretch of silence. It clatters to the floor loudly, and you know Kageyama hears it on the other end, his voice judgmental in your headphones.

“ Hey. Alive and unharmed, please. I don’t ask for much .” 

You laugh nervously and shake your head, reaching down for your phone. That’s the first thing he’d said when he’d learned that you’d be spending 20 hours a week locked in a chemistry lab this year.

‘Try your best to stay alive and unharmed, okay?’

He’d had no idea that the chemicals are all safety locked, because of course he wouldn’t, so he thinks you’re just in a room surrounded by shelves of corrosive liquids all day.

“What, you gonna cancel the wedding if your girlfriend gets a really awful, face-altering chemical burn? That’s low, Kageyama.” You joke, checking your phone for scratches and then setting it on your desk. He jokes back with ease, his social skills having improved so much over the last few years that he can even go toe to toe with Tsukishima when he’s feeling particularly sarcastic.

“ No, I’m gonna cancel the wedding if my girlfriend manages to blow herself up, because that’s just embarrassing .” You laugh again, louder when he adds, “ -a national volleyball champion marrying someone who trips over her own feet? Pass. ”

“ Wow -” You throw your head back, your laugh echoing in the empty room. “You’ve gotten meaner over the last few years-”

“ Yeah, well, you grew up and became a mini Kuroo, which might be worse .”

You snort, letting a semi-comfortable silence settle between you as you think about what he’d said. That he might be ready. The thought of taking that step with him had always given you a little rush of butterflies, but they’d been easy enough to put in a box for another time.

Now… your hands are starting to sweat and your stomach is flipping.

You hear his bike start to slow, the wind less harsh in the mic of his headphones. He sighs quietly. 

“ Almost done with work? ”

You survey your desk. You’d gotten enough done to call it a day.

“I suppose I could schedule you in.”

“ Funny. Get down here .” He cuts the call without another word.

You grin, packing up and checking that the lab is in order as you’re heading out.

Kageyama’s sitting on a bench outside, bouncing his knee while he waits for you. He stands when he sees you, eyes a little wary.

“Hey…”

You smile wide as you run to meet him. He looks nervous. Probably because you hadn’t said anything when he’d told you he’s ready.

You can fix that.

You reach for his hoodie when you’re close, fisting the material in your hand and dragging him down to meet you. You plant your lips on his, stepping up onto your tiptoes to make things easier.

“ You sure that’s what you want? ” You whisper against his mouth, feeling the way he smiles when he hears it. 

He doesn’t answer, just taking your face in his hands and pushing his lips harder against yours.

“ Let’s go home .”

–

It doesn’t happen that night. 

You sit together on the couch in your apartment after dinner, but he must be more tired than he’d realized, because he’s asleep, head in your lap, less than ten minutes later. You just smile down at him, carding your fingers through his hair and scratching softly at his scalp for a few minutes. He eventually mumbles under his breath at the feeling, turning and burying his face in your stomach.

His quiet words, muffled in your shirt, reach you in the comfortable silence of your apartment.

“ Love you… ”

Your heart skips. He’s said it before, in the darkness of his bedroom with you wrapped in his arms. At the end of a phone call while he’s abroad for a game. In the middle of a fight, said with frustration and your cheeks squeezed between his fingers, because even when you’re not listening to him – even when he has to grab your face and make you look at him just to get you to focus on him – he still loves you.

And now this, when he’s asleep and has no idea what he’s just said. When he has no control over his thoughts and the way they take form on his tongue. When he can still feel you here with him, even when he’s not here at all.

He says it then, and you can finally see just how deep those words run for him. How engrained they are in his soul, just as they are in yours.

You fall asleep like that, fingers tangled in his hair and his words fresh in your memory.

–

You wake the next morning to the sound of rustling, the bed dipping next to you. It must be early, the sky outside your window still a bit dark. Had he carried you here?

“ Kags… ?” 

He says nothing, but there’s more shifting and then something’s hitting the mattress beside you lightly. You skim your hand along the sheet until you find it, your eyes still closed. It’s soft, and when you bring it to your face, you realize it’s his t-shirt, still warm with his body heat. 

You drape the thing over your face with a gentle smile, breathing in his scent and trying your best not to be soothed back to sleep by it.

And then you feel a hand on your waist, nimble fingers slipping under your shirt and pushing it up along your ribs. His mouth is warm on the newly exposed skin.

“‘m sorry I fell asleep…”

Your stomach flips when you realize what’s happening, and you’re suddenly wide awake. His mouth lifts off just enough that he can whisper to you, his bottom lip dragging along your skin as he moves up your torso.

“ I wanted it to be last night… ”

Your fingers start to go numb when he makes eyes contact with you, his gaze darkened with something you’ve never seen before. He climbs on top of you, caging you into the mattress with his elbows and dipping his head so he can attach his mouth to your neck, his lips hot on your skin.

You tilt your head to the side, mostly to give him better access, but also so that you can see the time flashing back at you from the alarm clock on your bedside table. It’s almost 6am.

“D-Don’t you have practice…?” It’s Saturday morning, which means practice is early, because there are no classes.

“It was cancelled.” He nips at your earlobe, and you feel him breathe a laugh into your ear when you shiver.

“I feel like you’re lying.” They have a game in two weeks. There’s no way it was cancelled. 

He just hums into your skin, nibbling on a spot under your ear and finding your hand with his, lacing your fingers together on the pillow. “They can survive a day without me. I have something more important to do.”

You can’t help the sigh that leaves you when he shifts between your legs, nudging your thighs apart so he can lay his body between them.

“And w-what would that be?” Your body feels warm, your head hot and fuzzy. You can’t focus on anything except the way his lips feel against your skin, the way he’s pressing his hips against yours, half-hard already.

“ Have to apologize to my girlfriend for making her wait .” He mumbles it against your throat, his tongue peeking out and swiping gently at your pulse point. Your thighs flex around his hips as a reflex, and he’s grinding down shallowly into you unconsciously. Your free hand trembles as you grip at his bicep.

“Wasn’t waiting… It’s okay…” You try to shake your head for emphasis, to show him that you don’t feel neglected, but your head is so heavy and foggy that you’re not really sure how successful you are. “‘s no rush…”

“No?” His lips move down your skin, hand leaving yours as he travels down to the collar of your shirt and then disappears, his mouth finding that exposed skin of your stomach again. His fingers dance along your ribs and under your shirt, stopping just under the swell of your breasts. “But I’m in a rush.”

“Huh?” You barely lift your head off the pillow, meeting his eyes shallowly. He just grins, kissing down your navel and bringing his hands down so he can tug carefully at the waistband of your shorts. He buries his face there, kissing along the marks your shorts left on you and nipping at your hip bones. His mouth starts to water as he thinks of all the skin he hasn’t touched yet. Claimed yet.

He plans to change that.

“ You’re not in a rush, but-” He leaves your navel alone, sliding down easily and pushing his hands against the hem of your shorts so he can have more access to you. So he can be closer.

He wraps his hands around your thighs, mouth finding your inner thigh easily. You’re warm, soft. His grip on you tightens.

“-now that I know what I want, and how much I want it, I want it now.” He meets your eyes, your own wide and nervous. Your thighs tremble just slightly under his touch. “So I’m in a rush. That okay?”

You just nod, your head falling back against the pillow as you breathe out an unsteady ‘ Okay… ’. You can’t help but jump when his tongue laps against your thigh, and then his voice is reaching your ears, a whisper of your name. You just hum unsteadily to let him know you’re listening.

“ I’m going to need your help… ” He just hold your thighs tight when you lift your head to look at him. “ I can’t do this without you .”

Your stomach flips at how innocently he’s looking at you, despite being in such a compromising place. It never fails to affect you, when he’s so blunt about the fact that he needs you. For a man with a face so neutral, a stare so empty, he’d always been vocal about wanting you by his side, ever since that confession in the park all those years ago.

You don’t think you’ll ever get used to it.

“ Okay… I’m here… ”

He breathes a sigh of relief, pressing his lips to your thigh one more time before letting you go, climbing over you again so he can push his mouth against yours.

His fingers curl around the hem of your shirt, and, with a nod from you at his curious tug, he pulls the thing up and over your head in one motion. You fall back against the bed, fisting the sheets in your hands as you lie there under him, chest exposed for the first time. 

He stares down at you, settling back on his knees and letting your shirt slip from his fingers and onto the floor without even realizing. He just stares, lips parted as his eyes dart between your breasts and up to your face.

“I…”

You cave when he trails off, finally bringing your arms up to your chest and hiding yourself, your face burning. Kageyama’s eyes widen, gaze flying up to meet yours firmly.

“What? What happened?” His fingers hover nervously over your arms while he watches you. “What did I do?”

You just shake your head, your ears ringing as you start to feel warm all over. “Nothing, I just… got nervous… that you wouldn’t like them…”

You watch his face, previously so vulnerable and scared that he’d screwed up, fall into a perfect deadpan. 

You know that face.

With a click of his tongue, he closes his fingers around your wrists and pulls them off of your chest, pinning them above your head.

“Stop being annoying.”

You scoff, not even slightly offended but still shocked he’d switched up on you like that.

“What the hell-”

“ Smartest fucking girl I know -” He’s mumbling to himself as he presses your wrists down into the pillow. He leans back onto his heels with a shake of his head. “- and you can still be so stupid sometimes .”

“Kag-” You jolt, cutting off, because he’s sliding his fingers up along your ribs and enveloping both of your breasts in his hands at the same time. He’d felt them over your bra before, that night that he’d gotten extra handsy, but to look down and see the way he’s got both hands cupping them, kneading gently with an excited glint in his eye – it makes you realize that you have nothing to be worried about.

Not with him.

“Can I…” He glances up at you, swallowing quickly. “Can I do what I want?”

Your stomach drops, heat building in your navel at the way he’s asking you to let him have his way.

“Yeah… Whatever you want…” You nod, and then your eyes widen, because he’s dropping his hands from your chest to your waist again, fingers hooking into your shorts. You meet his anxious glance with one of your own, but you lift your hips and let him undress you, let him explore. Let him get to know you better, because he’s always saying that that’s what he wants more than anything else.

Kageyama drops your shorts and panties to ground with your shirt, and then he’s hooking both hands behind your thighs and prying them open, letting them drape over his own. You inhale sharply at being so suddenly exposed, and your hands fly down instinctively to cover yourself, but they’re caught easily in his hold.

He sends you one withering look, daring you to try again, but he holds your wrists with the utmost care, feeling your fingers wrap nervously around his own as he stares down at you.

“You’re really pretty… You sure this is all mine?” He can’t take his eyes off of you, not even when your hips shift nervously under the weight of his stare. You whine his name, feeling vulnerable like this.

“I thought there was something you wanted to do…”

He doesn’t bother to look up at you when he responds. “I’m doing it.”

You breathe out a laugh of disbelief, shaking your head.

“Come on, you’re making me nervous again.”

Finally, he looks at you, seeing how anxious your gaze is. How your lips are pursed, how your eyes are begging him not to look so intensely.

He can’t help but smile.

Releasing your hands, he climbs back over you and lowers his lips to yours, gentle but firm. Sure that this is what he wants.

You slide your hands into his hair, anchoring yourself to him and trying not to gasp too loudly when he lowers his hips back down to yours, pressing the fabric of his sweats against your bare core. He pushes his tongue carefully against the seam of your lips, angling his head for a better fit when you part your lips for him.

You’re so focused on kissing him, on feeling the way he brushes his tongue against yours and makes your head swim, that you don’t feel one of his hands finding your breast until he’s cupping it and kneading softly.

“ This okay? ” He murmurs against your lips, growing bolder when you nod earnestly. 

“Little more is okay, too…” You feel him try again, feel his thumb pass over your nipple and then find it again when you twitch at the feeling. He focuses his attention there and flicks at it a few times, a weak moan leaving him when you dig your teeth into his bottom lip and pull it into his mouth in response.

The hands you have in his hair grip tighter, and you’re whispering his name against his lips, because he’s bucking his hips forward unconsciously again, bumping up against your core and sending a shock through your skin. 

He does it again, on purpose this time, because he likes the little shiver that runs through you, the way you lift your hips to meet his halfway. He likes how you feel under him, your skin soft under his hands and your core wet, starting to soak through his sweats and boxers the longer he touches you.

He drops his mouth to that spot under your ear that he likes, his heart pounding in his ears and his pants tight on him when you whisper into his ear, that ‘ Tobio ’ a half-moan and full of desire. Full of him and everything you want him to do to you.

And when he feels you push at his sweats with a shaky hand – when you arch your back and press your chest against his, asking him quietly to please take them off – he wants nothing more than to make you his.

With a sigh that holds everything he’s nervous about – hurting you, not being able to make you feel good, fucking this up – he leans away just enough to reach over for your bedside table, for the box that sits on top.

You had gone together to the convenience store last night, standing together in mortification and confusion by the condoms. He hadn’t known what size to get. He’d been so lost, and there had been so many options. 

You had watched him stand in the aisle with a box marked ‘Medium ’ for so long – long enough that you’d left him there to grab some snacks, to give him space – that by the time you’d come back, arms full of chips and drinks, he was still standing there, staring down at it. He’d switched it out for the large ones at the last second, and you’d tried not to blush at the implication.

Now, as you’re pushing his pants past his hips and staring down at his cock as it slaps lewdly against his navel, you’re realizing that he’d probably made the right choice in that store last night.

He fumbles for the box when he feels the cold air on his hot skin, and it falls to the floor. He swears under his breath, his voice shaky, and he reaches down for it. You watch him carefully, seeing the color of his ears and the flush of his cheeks. He meets your eyes nervously as he’s lifting back up onto the bed.

“ S-Sorry… ” He sits back on his heels, tearing into the box with shaking hands and pulling a condom out, throwing the rest onto the bed next to you. He starts to rip into the foil, but his hands are trembling so bad that he just ends up dropping the packet onto the mattress, between your legs. “Fuck, sorry-”

“Kags-” You sit up, fingers touching the back of his hand when he reaches for it again. He meets your eyes, and you can see that he’s more than nervous. He’s scared. “What is it?”

“I-” He swallows. “I just don’t want to ruin this.”

“You won’t.” You’d been so nervous this whole time, giving him that shy look while he’d been touching you. But now your gaze is firm, unyielding. “You won’t ruin this. You want this, right?”

“So much.” He nods harshly, trying to convey to you how badly he wants this. He’s just scared. “I want this so much.”

“Okay. That’s all that matters, then… Remember? What you want, and what I want. That’s what matters.” When he just blinks, nodding slowly but still unsure, you take his face in your hands and force him to meet your eyes. “It’s me, Tobio.”

Kageyama stills. 

It’s you.

The girl from the sandbox, all those years ago, with that princess costume. Asking him to be your prince. Beaming when he’d said yes.

The girl who would cheer for him at every game, screaming his name like there was no one else, like there would never be anyone else.

The girl who’d sacrificed pieces of herself to make him happy, even when he’d been clueless and stupid, too caught in himself to see everything you were giving up for someone as undeserving as him.

The girl who’d tried to leave his side. Who’d left him lost in his head when you weren’t where you were supposed to be, anywhere he would turn, searching for you.

The girl who’d forced him to grow up, loving him and caring for him in a way that he would never find again. The girl who laughs and cries for him, the girl who fights with him and for him, because you’d promised never to leave his side again, and you’d stuck firmly to that decision, no matter how impossible he can be sometimes.

The girl who had looked at him – had seen how much he struggles to understand people’s emotions, how selfish and unaware he can be – and had only ever seen a boy that she’d wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

“It’s you…” 

You smile at the dumb look on his face, empty and processing, and nod. “It’s me. I’m not going anyw– mm- ” 

Kageyama surges forward, cutting you off and pushing his lips against yours urgently. You hold tight to him as he knocks you off balance, your head meeting the pillow as he kisses you with everything he has. Finds your hand in the sheets and holds tight, like he never wants to let go. Whispers ‘I love you’ against your lips, like it’s not enough for him to say it – he needs you to feel it.

And then he leans away, leaving you to catch your breath with your hand pressed to your heart while he reaches for that forgotten packet lying between your thighs. 

He rips it open easily – still nervous, but sure of himself – and rolls the condom on carefully. He scoots his hips toward yours, laying your thighs flat over his, and meets your eyes again as he’s lining himself up at your entrance.

You smile sweetly, nervously. “You’re sure?”

He smiles back, a soft laugh leaving him on his next breath. “I thought that was supposed to be my line.”

There’s no hesitation in your voice when you respond.

“ I’ve always been sure. ”

Kageyama Tobio learns in that moment that not all heartbreak is bad.

His eyelids flutter as he looks down at you, breath caught in his throat. Your fingers find his wrist, and your smile knocks the wind right out of him.

Neither of you say a word as he nudges the tip of his cock past your entrance.

You inhale sharply at the sting, and he stops, eyes wide as he watches you. You nod after a breath, and he keeps going. 

He drops his head, feeling how tight you are, how hard it is to push into you. You bring his lips to yours, kissing him and letting him know silently that this is okay, that this is normal. That he’s not messing this up.

You cling to him, burying your head in the crook of his neck when he drops down over you with a shaky sigh. His hips finally meet yours, and all you can feel is your heart beating, everywhere. In your head, in your chest, in your ears. In the place when your body meets his, the place that almost seems to pulse with his heartbeat, too.

His lips find yours, and you kiss him with your hands buried in his hair, holding him close as you tell him everything that you don’t have the breath to say.

You stay like that for a while, and then he’s tensing, because you had clenched around him unconsciously, finally finding the stretch less painful and more pleasurable. 

He pulls his mouth away, leaning back so you can prop yourself up on your elbows and then pressing his forehead against yours. You both stare down at the junction of your bodies, breath mingling in the space between you as you fight to calm your hearts.

After a moment, you slide your gaze up to his, only to find that he’s already looking at you. His eyes are full of something – something soft, soft and warm and his – and your stomach flips harshly. You clench again without meaning to, and that look in his eye is gone, disappearing when his eyes roll back briefly, eyelids fluttering at the feeling of you around him.

“I-I’m sorry…” 

He only laughs breathily, eyes still shut, and shakes his head.

“Yeah, so am I.” He heaves out another breath, finally finding your gaze again. “This is torture.”

You blink, realizing what he means. “Oh! You can move now, Tobio, I’m fine-”

“You’re telling me that now ?” He looks distraught, and you can’t help but laugh. “Do you have any idea how much self-control it- agh- ” He shakes his head again, dropping his head to your shoulder and knocking you back onto the bed. He tangles his fingers in your hair, speaking into the crook of your neck. “You’re killing me here.”

You shift your hips, intending to apologize, but the feeling of him buried inside of you like this when you move has you gasping. He does the same, your name a half-moan in your skin. He pulls his hips back gently without removing his face from your neck, and you both breath shakily when he pushes into you again, slow but less uncertain than the first time.

The moan that tumbles out of your mouth is amplified by his own, low and harsh in your ear.

“You-” He moves again, and you start to crave the stretch he gives you when he pushes into you again. “-you feel-”

“ Kageyama… ” You cling to his arms, burying your face in his skin and wrapping an arm around his neck to keep him close like this. “It feels-” You cut off, moaning when he snaps his hips harshly.

Neither of you are able to form any coherent thoughts, and you can tell that he’s close when he reaches almost frantically for your hand, gripping so tight that his knuckles turn white.

He doesn’t last long, not when your moans are so close to his ear like this, flying straight down his spine and into a spot just under his bellybutton, shocking his system and shoving him closer and closer to something he can’t even begin to describe.

He comes with your name on his tongue, his face buried in your neck and your hand in his the only thing keeping him grounded. You mewl at the feeling, the sound forcing his hips forward one last time and drawing his name out of your mouth.

You feel full of him, your heart pounding harshly in your ears as he collapses on top of you. You keep your arm wrapped firmly around his neck, holding him against you. He catches his breath like that, his chest heaving against yours as he comes down from his high.

And then his fingers are wiggling against yours in your joined hands, and it almost aches to pry your fingers off of his when he pulls his hand away, sore from the tight grip. 

He reaches down blindly, and you think he’s going to lean away from you and pull out.

But he just skims his shaking fingers over your skin, reaching between you and brushing over your core. He stops moving when you jolt against him, and he knows he’s found your clit. He stays firmly there, his middle finger circling the spot gently and adjusting to the way your body responds, the way your back arches and you breathe in harshly at the feeling.

“W-What are you–”

“ You didn’t finish .” He mumbles against your skin. He can tell because you’re still clenching around him, your walls fluttering every time he does something you like. “ ‘m I doing okay? ”

“It’s perfect.” Your eyes start to fill with tears, your heart swelling with emotion. You hide your face in his neck. “ You’re perfect -”

“ Marry me. ” 

You almost think for a second that he hadn’t said it. His fingers never stop moving, and he pulls you closer and closer to the edge, still buried inside of you, as if he hadn’t said anything at all.

But you know he had, because he’s saying it again, even as your head is starting to fill with white static at the way he’s touching you.

“Let’s get married.” He pulls his head away from your neck, and his eyes are meeting yours. “Please. Marry me. Let me make you happy.”

His fingers swipe over your clit, and those tears that were filling your eyes are spilling over now, your chest drowning in that feeling of love that you’d become so familiar with over the years. It forces a choked sob out of you, and you’re nodding frantically as he’s nudging the tips of his fingers against that spot again.

He laughs breathily, and if you could see through your tears, you would know that he’s staring down at you like he’s never seen something so perfect. Your tears stream down your face and onto the pillow, and the feeling growing in the pit of your stomach has you reaching for his shoulders to pull him back down.

“ I love you– ”

Kageyama drops his head to your shoulder as you come undone, your body twitching and your back arching as you cry for him. He holds you tight, murmuring his love into your ear as you come down, breathing hard against his skin.

You lie there, wrapped up in him as you sob, because you can’t find your breath and because he’s holding you like you’re somehow still not close enough.

“I love you…”

His words are soft in your ears, soft against your tears. 

“I’ve loved since before I knew what that meant.”

You cry harder, squeezing your eyes shut and sobbing into him.

“I was so bad at loving you before.” He finally pulls away so he can meet your eyes. You can barely see him, vision blurry. “But I know how to love you now. You taught me how to love you. I can’t unlearn that.”

Your hands are shaking as they grip his shoulders. He waits until your breath starts to even out, until you’re blinking the tears out of your eyes and finally seeing him. Until your heartbeat can match his.

“Please let me keep loving you.”

You whisper his name, and then nod. He starts to smile, and you beam back at him, your smile watery and fragile. He combs your hair out of your face, wiping your tears away with his thumb while he talks.

“Is that a yes? You’ll marry me?”

You just nod again, leaning your face against his hand.

“Okay.”

He sighs, heated, and rolls his eyes.

“You’re annoying.”

“You love me.”

His smile gives him away.

[i-drop-level-one-loot]

You know, it would be interesting for me to read the gloomy Disney characters. By the type that the Reader accidentally enters the Disney world. Or is already in this world. For example, a man! The Evil Queen× reader. Just imagine that the mirror says that the most beautiful is the reader and the man!The evil Queen was interested.. Well, or dark! A man!A Disney princess who believes in love and believes that the reader is his true love and that the reader should belong only to him.

Sorry for the bad English

Don't apologize

You're perf, babes

Yandere!Genderbent!Evil King x GN!Reader x Yandere!Genderbent!Snow White

CW: Death, obsessive behavior

"Magic mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The vain king asked his enchanted mirror as he often did whenever his pride was wounded. King Hadewig was the envy of men and women. Cold and beautiful, his features were cut like an ethereal ice sculpture. Intelligent, talented, and ruthless, most everyone either wanted to bed him or be him. However, his power was not guaranteed for long.

Hadewig was King only by responsibility, and not by actual title. His title was, legally, Prince Consort. He married his, now deceased, wife when he was a young bachelor, and she was the only eligible bachelorette of suitable status as a widow. Being so much older than him, it was an "unfortunate", but not "unsurprising" passing of the crown when the Queen died and left her son in Hadewig's care.

The only reason the child wasn't immediately crowned king was because of Hadewig's charm and influence, convincing the court that the young Prince Snow was too irresponsible to rule the country. But it was difficult to continue that lie going, even with Hadewig purposely keeping Snow ignorant of his future kingly duties by treating him as a servant, for now the boy was twenty years of age, and truly should have not only been coronated years ago, but also wed off to the available princess of the neighboring kingdom, a woman as old as Hadewig.

But his potential loss of power wasn't the reason for his low self esteem that day.

"You are, my king. There is one who approaches, but does not yet share with you what makes you fair."

The king slumped in his seat in an uncouth like manner. "Then why does my hunter not look at me like a man?"

King Hadewig's personal hunter, an immensely talented killer that didn't just slaughter animals for the king. And the only person who simply looked at the king. Nothing Hadewig did could change the professional look on (Reader's) face during their meetings. No matter how charismatic he was with his words, how stylish his clothing was, nor the love potions he attempted to spike (Reader's) drinks with, they were seemingly immune to every one of his attempts. In their most recent meeting, the one that left Hadewig depressed, he had offered his hunter a glass of wine, which they turned down, stating that the last drink they had received from the king did not agree with them.

"I can not tell you that, my lord. I only can report what I see, so unless your hunter speaks their secrets out loud while I spy, I am blind to their feelings for you."

Hadewig groaned, upset and broken hearted.

"Show me my hunter, again."

The face in the mirror melted, dissolving into an image of (Reader) leaving the castle. Their strong frame sent shivers down the icy man's spine. His first and only marriage was one of political importance, with no love or warmth between the husband and wife. But in the presence of his Mx. Hunter, the king was set ablaze. The intense feeling of heat was dowsed when he witnessed the bastard he hated most in the world approach his hunter.

At the steps of the castle, Snow had been timidly watching the triumphant hunter from afar, gathering the courage to approach them. He had never known shame, never feeling any sort of embarrassment about the state of his dress, but in the presence of the person who always smelled faintly of iron, he was reduced to two inches tall.

Stepping lightly like a mouse, the short adult snuck up behind (Reader), still debating whether or not he was actually going to announce his presence.

His decision was made for him, however, being noticed by (Reader) almost immediately.

"Good afternoon, your highness." They said, turning sharply on their heel to face him.

The hunter was the only person to address the prince by his royal status.

"Ah- how did you know it was me?" He asked incredulously. A pink blush warmed his entire head, wrapping around the back of his neck and up to the tips of his ears.

"Because I could hear you." (Reader) offered a kind smile to the shy, younger man. They felt sympathy towards him, with the way his cold step father treated him. With what they had done to him.

Snow was impressed by how cool (Reader) was. And a small part of him wished to impress them as well. He tried to straighten out his worn out rags. "What brings you to the castle today?"

"To gift the king a wolf pelt. And also," (Reader) reached into their pouch, pulling out a pressed flower, "to gift you this."

The prince sucked in his gasp, wide eyed and lips pressed tight.

"I apologize for not finding something better for your highness."

"No!" He panicked, grabbing the flower with both hands. "It's beautiful!"

He hadn't received a gift since the passing of his mother.

"Happy Birthday, your highness." (Reader) bowed, then turned swiftly, leaving the young man hyperventilating and sweating.

Only the king and his mirror heard Snow whisper long after (Reader) left: "I love you."

Three days later, and the king was losing his mind over the interaction. Snow was visibly taller, standing straighter as he worked, singing as he cleaned the castle grounds, and it was bothering him.

Hadewig kicked over his chair in frustration. "Magic mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

"The one you fear is getting stronger, the confidence has warmed his winter, and people shall notice his spring awakening. The prince now glows more brightly than you, whose anger has etched lines of hatred into his ice like face."

King Hadewig released a scream, losing his control before quickly sharpening back up, running his hands through his messed hair.

He left his study, storming over towards a frightened servant.

"Send for my hunter."

Before (Reader), the king was disheveled, worrying (Reader) something awful.

"I can not stand for this disrespect any longer." His gaze read cold and cruel as it pierced the hunter's. "You understand that you are mine, correct?"

(Reader) thought about the flower and felt a wave of anxiety. "Yes, your highness."

"You understand that you belong to me?"

"Yes, your highness."

He sighed ever so slightly, before retrieving a wooden box from his desk. "I have another assignment for you.

Kill my son."

Nausea threatened to erupt from the seasoned murderer. "My lord?"

"Take him deep into the woods, and bring me back his heart." He held out the box. It was a test, as though (Reader) hadn't proved their loyalty to the mad man enough.

The empty box was heavy in (Reader's) hands.

"As you wish, your highness."

Prince Snow spun in the field of flowers as he searched for the most beautiful flowers for the hunter. It was the best day of his life! His father had given him a colorful outfit that fit him and the hunter had asked him out on a date! Well, they didn't call it a date, but what else could it have been?

He wove a crown for (Reader) while imaging their wedding day, becoming King and Royal Consort and having a real crown placed on their head.

(Reader), however, was weighing their options, not truly paying attention to the prince, and trying to ignore his childlike excitement.

What would the king do, if he was made a fool?

"Oh, hunter!" Snow ran over, holding out the delicate crown. "I made this for you! May I?"

And that was all it took, for (Reader) to spare his life.

They bent down, feeling the weight of the crown on their scalp. It smelled nice. Before Snow could retreat, (Reader) wrapped their arms around his thin waist. They had killed so many people before, but this was only the second time they felt unbearable guilt.

The first was after they took the life of the Queen.

"(Reader)?" Snow stuttered out, feeling weak in their strong arms.

"You must run, your highness." (Reader) whispered into his ear.

"What?"

"The king has ordered me to kill you. So please, run. Far away, into the woods." They released the prince, and it was only then that he noticed the heavy bags under their tired eyes.

"Why? I don't understand-"

"Leave. It won't be long before that witch discovers my lie."

Snow fell to his knees, holding onto the edge of (Reader's) shirt for dear life, falling apart in front of them. "Please, no! Come with me! If he would kill me, what would he do to you for sparing me? Please, run away with me!"

(Reader) bent down to release his fingers from their hem, planting a kiss on his forehead as they did so. "I hope when I meet you again you will have found a name more worthy of such a warm and kind person. For as of this moment, Prince Snow is dead."

Excitement threatened to crack the King's cool demeanor as he observed the bloody heart in his hands. (Reader) was distant, but that didn't matter to Hadewig, for now there was no competition for his hunter's affection. They would soon be his, even if he had to use force to make it so.

"Excellent work, my faithful hunter." He offered a practiced smile, unnerving (Reader) who prayed that the pig heart made a convincing decoy. At least until they could escape and hide out in the mountains, far away from the King's eyes.

(Reader) gave a deep bow. Then they left, calmly getting on their horse, and leaving, not taking a single glance behind them as they sped off, emergency bag already packed on their steed.

Back in Hadewig's room, he caressed the box affectionately, thinking about his lovely hunter. The stress had certainly caused a frown line, just as the mirror said, but he was working at reversing the damage.

"Magic Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" He dreamily asked, slightly nervous that the rage had permanently ruined his perfect face.

"Hiding deep within the woods, tending a wounded heart, the fairest in the land hides. Prince Snow still lives."

The king scoffed. "I have his heart right here, mirror."

"No, within that box lies the heart of a pig."

The box fell from Hadewig's hands. "A pig..?" His face scrunched up painfully. "(Reader) would never betray- they belong to me! ME! Guards! Where is my hunter?!"

"The hunter is flying towards the mountains, away from the woods they released the prince into."

Hadewig collapsed at his desk, screaming in agony while pawing at his chest. "No! It's all his fault! Find me that little bastard- I'll kill him myself!"

The seven dwarven women listened to the young man recall his tale of woe, his eyes full of tears but a smile still on his lips. "So, if you please, could I stay here? Just until my love returns for me."

Happy sighed dramatically, blushing and twirling her beard. "That (Reader) is so brave~"

Grumpy smacked the back of her head. "That double crosser may have saved the prince, but that doesn't mean they won't double double cross him!"

Bashful stomped a foot. "It's true love! They would never!"

"Well, they never confessed their feelings," Doc said while cleaning her glasses, "they could have saved Snow out of the goodness of their heart."

Snow smiled, trying to calm the fragments of his heart. "I have to believe, to hope, that (Reader) loves me as I love them. To risk death for me.. but, they said we would meet again. And I trust them."

It was painful, knowing that his father wanted him dead, but what was worse was hearing that (Reader) had put their life in danger for him. Despite all the pain and punishment Snow had endured, he never held it against his step father, but now..

A dark, bitter seed had been planted.

And throughout the night as the household slept, Prince Snow could feel it grow, threatening to burst forth from his chest. The dwarven women were so kind to him. So inviting, and trusting.

He wondered what else they would do for him.

The dark haired man knew that the apple was poison from the moment it was placed in his hands. What kind of elderly man would be this far out away from any sort of town, especially if they were traveling to sell produce? He didn't know who the old man was, but knew that he must have been in cahoots with the king.

"Oh, I don't have any money." Snow said quite sadly, placing his head in his hand.

"For such a lovely young man? Free of charge."

"Are you sure?"

The old man was certainly no real beggar. Nothing made sense. It was cruel, what Snow thought to do, especially if he was wrong, but in case he was right.. Snow whispered to a bird before smiling brightly at the stranger, taking the apple in both hands.

"Of course, please take it!"

Snow bit into the fruit, but did not swallow, hiding the chunk in his hand. After a few seconds of pretending to chew, he collapsed, holding his breath.

The king almost immediately dropped his disguise, snarling. His once similarly raven hair had a stripe of grey.

In a voice barely louder than a huff, he said "It serves you right, you filthy bastard. I would have let you live, if you had simply left my (Reader) alone."

He exhaled. There was no movement from the floor.

"Are you dead yet? Can you still hear me? I hope you can." The king smiled. "I hope you can hear me from beyond the grave as I finally get my happily ever after."

But as he celebrated the dwarves rushed home from work, and a small bird was rallying forces to find the hunter and lead them to Snow's body.

As he monologued to what Hadewig assumed was his son's corpse, the women returned from the mines, righteously horrified and armed with pickaxes.

Hadewig heard a woman shout "Grumpy, don't!" before a pick connected with his lower back, piercing his organs from behind.

The pain was excruciating, sending fire up his body as blood poured out of him. He imagined (Reader's) face, finally smiling for him as they cradled him in their arms, accepting his love. Hadewig wanted that to be the last thing he saw before he died.

Instead, he witnessed Snow, smiling up at him from the floor.

(Reader) arrived just a moment too late, having been closer than they had expected due to how deep into the woods Snow had traveled. They witnessed the sobbing dwarves sitting at the door, too upset to enter their own home where the young prince they tried to rescue lie dead.

The hunter pushed passed them, not wasting a second to grab the young man. He was still warm, but wasn't breathing.

Snow kept his eyes closed as he felt the worst pain he had ever known.

(Reader's) hands slammed into Prince Snow's chest. A rib cracked under their strength, but Snow refused to show it.

Then their lips pressed against his.

His nose was held shut as (Reader) forced air into his throat, trying to get him to wake up. They continued the repetitions a medicine man had taught them while blowing air into his lungs.

"God damnit, Snow, wake up!"

They leaned in, and felt him breath against their mouth. His large brown eyes fluttered open, and his face reddened.

His lips curled into a weak grin. "You came back for me.."

Guilt washed over (Reader), hugging him tightly to their chest. "I'm sorry I left, Prince Snow."

Warm hands ran through (Reader's) hair. "Please.. Call me Theros."

The regret and pain kept (Reader) still, allowing the recently "revived" prince to pull them in for a kiss.

After all that (Reader) put him through, a kiss was the least they could do.

But for the born again man, it was just the beginning.

[targaryen-dynasty]

DEPRAVITIES.

Prince Regent!Aemond Targaryen x female!Reader

When your husband feels overwhelmed reining in the stead of the severely wounded King, it is your duty as his wife to comfort him.

WARNINGS: SEXUAL CONTENT–MINORS DNI; profanity, lactation kink, lactating, pregnant reader, p in v, cuckolding, degrading, humiliating, tiddy slapping hehe, blink and you'll miss the size kink, very brief breeding kink, female Reader, Prince Regent Aemond

WORDS: 1.8 K

NOTES: Re-posting something I really enjoyed writing before going on hiatus.

Credit for the center piece goes to @justkwordme on twitter.

When the Great Hall slowly cleared, it was your turn to approach your husband, still seated on the large Iron Throne and the Conqueror‘s Crown atop his silver-blonde mane. 

His shoulders and head dropped slightly with the heavy doors falling shut behind the last person leaving, clearly displaying all the pressure that rested on them. Your lips had dropped as well, into a pout that showed the pity you held for him. 

You approached him with slow, careful steps not to startle him as if you were a hunter stalking towards its prey, not making a sound to strike in an ambush.

And when your hand eventually brushed his shoulder, he released a long sigh. 

Without either of you saying anything, you positioned yourself onto his lap, straddling his thighs with your arms wrapped around his neck and the skirts of your dress rucked up around your hips.

Ever since you got pregnant, you hadn’t touched any of your normal dresses–the fabric either too heavy or too tight for your changing body. Lighter dresses with much less embroideries and other decorations filled your closets, a new one being fitted to your growing bump and breasts at least every fortnight. 

Much to your husband’s delight, since he was utterly infatuated seeing your body swell because of him–or much more his seed.

Aemond fully embraced your advances and the position, head tipping forwards to rest his forehead against your swollen bosom, enjoying the simple proximity and comfort you brought. 

Your marriage with him hadn’t always been like that, starting cold and with him showing no emotions other than the sense of duty for your arranged marriage. 

Only after you both had learned Aemond had put a child into you, something primal in him set itself free, making him protective of you… but also obsessed. 

Your pregnancy was nearing the seventh moon, and your breasts were swollen enough for your back to ache from the weight and for your feet to hurt with each step. It was rare you even left your marital chambers, mostly laying in bed with your feet positioned atop a few pillows. 

The dowager queen had told you it was normal for a woman carrying a Targaryen offspring to experience such terrible side-effects during their pregnancy, as both she and her daughter had shared the same fate many times before. 

You believed her–but only because you didn’t have another choice. 

Your breasts were hot and tender to the touch and already swollen to the point one easily overfilled Aemond’s large hands. And just like now, they always tended to strain against the low cut necklines of your dresses, the fabric cutting into the skin and making your flesh appear to spill over it. That had earned you the curious glances of more than one man of court, much to your husband’s dismay.

The swell of your belly put some distance between your bodies, and Aemond had his hands planted on either side of it–a habit he had picked up rather quickly with your unborn babe starting to kick just mere nights ago.

When he pressed his chiseled lips to the exposed and flushed skin over your breasts in a soft kiss, the familiar warmth spread throughout your body, settling at the apex between your legs. It was a subtle movement as you ground your hips down on his, but still enough for Aemond to groan against your body. 

A dark-blown pupil gazed up at you with his eye widened slightly, the lilac almost completely eclipsed by black, not having to say anything for you to know what he wanted. 

You gave him a reassuring nod, and in no time, he had pushed the neckline of your dress down enough to free not one, but both your breasts out of their confines. 

From the heavy sigh you released it was clear you felt relieved already, more so when his lips wrapped around one of your hardened buds. But the familiar stimulation of his fingers around the other one was missing–until you eventually felt his hand eagerly undoing the laces in the front of his breeches. 

It was difficult for him to do so with you sitting on top, so you slightly raised your hips, allowing him to pull out his hard and throbbing cock. 

You were surprised he went that far, especially because you were in the Throne Room with the possibility of someone barging into the room–but you also were excited. 

“Aemond,” you spoke softly. “We cannot.”

Though your words were a weak attempt to protest, there did not really come any objection from you as he fisted himself between your bodies, yours already craving what your mind still needed to process. 

He pulled back from you with a lewd pop, just a bit of your milk resting in the corners of his mouth. It was obscene, but in your eyes he had never looked so good. “We can,” he all but barked. “I will have the head of anyone that chooses to interrupt us right now–regardless of who it is.”

With that, he tugged the center of your smallclothes aside enough for his digits to tease your entrance, positively surprised you were already soaked for him and whining at the contact. 

“I did not know I have married a whore,” he teased shamelessly, bringing the fingers covered with your arousal up to smear it around the areola of your right breast. “Are you certain my brother did not fetch you from the Street of Silk or Flea Bottom even? Or is everyone in the Reach just as depraved as you are, sweet wife?”

The profanity of his words sent a shiver down your spine, and if there even was a sense of restraint still left in your body, it vanished with your hand entangling into his silver mane to tug his head towards your bosom, clearly wanting to silence him.

“Enough,” you scolded teasingly, biting the tip of your tongue to suppress a smirk from taking over your features. 

When you eventually sank down on his throbbing length in one swift movement, you shuddered, and Aemond and you both released a contented moan. 

His lips locked around the bud that was covered in your arousal, sucking it in the rhythm your core clenched around him. There was no need for you to move–no, you didn’t even want to–fully satisfied with the way his member was just buried inside of you. 

Your head tipped back in pleasure, and you tried your best to stifle your moans, only quiet whines and whimpers leaving your lips at the stimulation. 

As the pressure in your breast slowly subsided, you were finally able to feel him suckle, and when you looked down, you were blessed with a sight that was truly created by the Seven. 

Aemond’s chiseled lips were wrapped around your little bud, his eye half closed and his cheeks dimpled from the suction, amplified each time he swallowed the bits of your milk. 

His tongue flickered over your hardened bud, eliciting a soft moan from the depths of your chest. You were able to feel him throbbing inside of you at the sound, followed by a growl that vibrated through your whole body. 

You not-so-gently tugged on his hair again, seeming to spur him on even more, and whined a ‘you will have to do the other as well.’ 

As he pulled back once again, you couldn’t stop yourself from pouting, which was mended by the sight of him licking over your bud to gather the remnants of your milk–all while he kept his eye locked with yours. No matter how badly you wanted not to moan, you couldn’t stop the sound from spilling past your lips. It was certainly getting a reaction out of you. The possibility of being caught long forgotten.

“Stop being greedy,” Aemond panted, and you just bowed your head in submission and nodded. “You should be grateful.” As if it was not him asking for permission to suck your breasts in the first place. 

“Y-Yes,” you mumbled in feigned humility, choosing to play into his game.

“Yes, what?” Aemond asked, serving a slap to your sensitive breast that had you wincing. 

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Better.” 

And with that, he locked his lips around your other bud, but not without groping your rear to pull you closer towards him and deeper onto his cock–at least as close as possible with your swollen belly between your bodies. 

You sat just right with the hem of his tunic rubbing against your pearl, every lap of his tongue and squeeze of his fingers around your other breast sending a bolt of pleasure straight down between your legs. 

But then your hips started to move on their own accord, grinding down on him, riding him while he sucked every last drop of milk from you. 

The aching of your back and breasts was long forgotten as you chased your pleasure. 

A couple of moments passed until you felt Aemond’s breathing growing labored, his chest almost heaving with more and more muffled grunts and groans escaping his throat. He was loud–much to your surprise–but your body seemed to keen at that, the knot in the pit of your belly tightening at a rapid pace.

And then, you toppled over the edge of your peak with a loud cry of his name. 

Your body crouched forward while both arms just wrapped around the back of his neck to pull him closer into your bosom, the coldness of the crown pushing against your collar bone a stark contrast to the heat soaring within your body. 

You were trembling astride him, whining when you felt how your peak’s contractions were practically forcing the spend out of your husband’s cock. 

Just like he was sucking you dry, you were milking him for every last drop of his spill, too. 

And as he spilled inside of you, he released your breast to curse your name and bury his face between your now soft and tender breasts. 

There was silence between you safe for your heavy breathing, before you leaned back enough to look down at Aemond. His lips were red and swollen, a soft flush covered his cheeks and neck, and the lilac of his eye was still completely drowned out by black. 

Your head bowed forwards to capture his lips in a kiss that was shy of gentleness, the remnants of your milk on his tongue and lips spreading over to yours. 

When he pulled back, a sly smirk was draped over his lips–a smirk that couldn’t mean any good. 

“Let us retreat to our chambers, wife. I am not yet full.”

Aemond was insatiable, you had learned that very early into your marriage. And that meant you were in for yet another sleepless night, preparing you for what was to come once the babe was born.

[houseofhyde]

iv. another man's pain

pairing. aemond targaryen x fem!reader synopsis. a visit to dorne goes awry as an unexpected visitor arrives, tensions between in-laws come to ahead at last. chapter warnings. no use of y/n, brother-in-law!aemond, stark!reader, infidelity, purity culture, lady stark is having a brat summer ( sunbathing and arguing with her situationship ), male infertility, canon-accurate misogyny, mentions of pregnancy + marital s/a + war crimes + death, a little angst, a little fluff, a little smut ( unprotected piv, breast/nipple play, oral- f receiving, aemond is the verbal consent king ) please kindly notify me of any warning i may have missed. word count. 19.4k (for my pwp girlies: they fuck at the end, i swear 😭) hyde’s input. this chapter is extremely yap-centric, i'm so sorry. i could not get these bitches to shut the fuck up. please ignore any typos, i've driven myself mad re-reading this over and over :( another man's series. feast. comfort. pleasure. pain. legacy. jealousy. ( coming october) read on ao3. listen to the playlist.

The heat in Dorne is sticky.

Stifling, overwhelming, heavy. Upon inhale, it slides through the nose, yet, in exhale, it weighs heavy on the chest. It leaves one panting like a dog, with sweat that soaks through linen, and a longing for the forgiving breeze that sweeps its way through the Red Keep. Already, you await the day the carriage arrives to shuttle you off on your journey back to the capital, if only to move an inch without leaving a river of your own perspiration behind.

Six days and five nights into your moon-long stay in the southern lands of sand and your trunk remains fairly untouched, filled to the brim with clothes too heavy to face the heat. Helaena promises it’ll pass, that soon you will acclimatise and find yourself basking in the kiss of sunlight upon your skin. “Until then,” she’d assured you, a gentle squeeze at your hand across the vanity’s table. “You’re more than welcome to make use of my old dresses. With my body in recovery and two children in need of my care, I no longer make up the same shape I once did.”

At first, the proposal was to host you in Sunspear. A written invitation, extended by none other than Prince Qoren himself, hand delivered to you by one of the King’s squires as you shared a morning under the shade of the godswoods alongside the Dowager Queen. The pair of you had read over it in tandem, a silence overtaking, before you promptly announced your need for rest, scrambling the letter as close as possible to your chest as you raced off to the safety of your quarters. By evening, your husband had been informed, his own mother encouraging him to accept the invitation.

“It will serve the girl well,” she’d insisted, clutching at the arms of her chair within the hall of the small council, meeting long over and naught but the mother and son occupying the tension filled room. “There’s been little joy for her here as of late. The burdens of politics have begun to take toll on her, for certain. It will serve your wife well to take a much needed break.”

“The only burden politics brings her is the difficult decision of which gown to wear to dinner with Lord Up-Himself and his Lady wife of House Prissy-Cunt. Meanwhile, it is I, her husband, who bears the true difficulties of the crown!” Woe is he, the king who never wanted to be, trapped eternally in a life of decadence and obedience, a war raised in his name, and half a bloodline destroyed in his wake. Otto Hightower had warned his daughter, before the dragons had truly begun to dance, of how Aegon’s self-inflicted victimhood would one day be his downfall. With every passing day, the King’s mother sees this destruction growing closer. “My wife is of no use to me building sandcastles down South. She needs to make me an heir, not run off to take care of my sister’s.”

“A visit to Dorne may prove to be more fruitful than you believe, Aegon.”

And, so, it was settled. Three moons after the birth of Prince Qoren and Helaena’s second child — a moon-eyed boy, with his father’s raven locks and his mother’s smile, awarded the name of Jaehaerys — you would depart the city gates, with a small travelling band of knights upon saddles and a carriage large enough to sleep two, yourself and your dearest lady-in-waiting.

Only days before your arrival, however, tragedy struck. An assassin of the Free Cities, infiltrated within the walls of the Martell’s seat of power, made an attempt on Princess Helaena’s life. A half-failure, the assassin claimed a life but mistook a sleeping maid for the dragon girl. The premises were vacated, with Prince Qoren demanding his family find shelter someplace safe, someplace private. 

Three leagues to the west, buried away from curious eyes and beached by the waves of the Summer Sea, the Water Gardens sit. With a decadent, lavish palace leading out into a garden of rare beauty where palm trees stand taller than dragons, and water lilies float upon crystal-clear ponds, and rose buds burst into perfect bloom. Raised in honour of his darling wife, it is a vision of Prince Qoren’s that stands not yet completed, the beginning structures of what will one day be a private sanctuary to the dornish royals, a home to grow their own in, far away from the intruding eyes of court and capital.

Welcomed with open arms — that very soon wrapped around you in a tight squeeze — thus began your peaceful getaway.

Where days in the Keep are spent hiding in shadows, and exchanging pleasantries filled with discomfort, and sitting rigidly at a family dinner table, your days in the Water Gardens are full of glee. The laughter of the many Martell children, running rampant down hallways and through bushes, dirtying their knees with the green of grass and the rough of sand. Afternoons splayed out on beds, hand-fanned with the fallen leaves of palm trees, a soothing battle against the burning heat. A table foreign to silence, with Prince Qoren’s ever present queries into your day, and Helaena’s ecstatic chatter over the recent stitching patterns you’ve taught her, and the many other welcoming faces of the Martell bloodline, each smile warmer than the last.

By far, however, the thing you enjoy most is this: watching over your niece.

Day by day, at an hour when the newborn babe lays his head down to sleep, be it morning, or noon, or evening, you have taken it upon yourself to relieve poor Helaena of the tougher parts of motherhood, gifting her with the blessing of uninterrupted rest as you take her firstborn by the hand and let her guide you around the dornish grounds.

More often than not, she brings you here, to the shallow waters of a pond, with a sweet aroma of surrounding blood-orange trees and the calming sounds of water flowing out a central fountain enough to ease even the most troubled of minds.

Right now, your young niece stands soaked to the bone, dancing around as you sit close by, feet dipped within the very same cooling waters with the occasional splash coming your way from the toddler. In the few days you have been here, she seems to have grown so quickly, doubling in size before your very eyes, and finding a more steady manner in which to stand upon her feet, and learning to babble more syllables, each sounding less like nonsense than the last.

“Aliandra,” at the call of her name, those violet eyes are upon you. They carry the signature twinkle of a mind yet unmarred by life shining bright in your direction. “What is this called?”

You extend your hand towards her, a freshly peeled chunk of orange plucked between two fingers, and await the acceptance from her smaller hands.

“Fruit!” You believe is what she means to say, though her r is hardly pronounced and you’re certain she’s added an extra vowel at the end.

Still, you give her the win, departing with the sweet slice and delighting at the mess made as she bites into it, a spray of juice splashing down her tiny palms. It is incentive enough to move closer, wading through the shallow waters and leaving the lower fabric of your dress to soak itself as it trails behind you. At the height of the young princess, you sink down onto your knees, a much needed refreshment as the water settles over your waist.

“Here, sweet girl,” with a voice as gentle as your touch, you guide her to dip her juice stained hands under the water, the whole of your thumb wiping at the inside of her palm. “We ladies mustn’t dirty our hands.”

In lieu of a reply, the small child merely giggles and surrenders herself fully into your hold, her tiny limbs relaxing so suddenly, you have no choice but to let her rest within your lap, a head of white blonde hair finding respite upon your shoulder.

There is a strange emotion that only the presence of your niece seems to conjure. One of desperation, one of tenderness, one of an all-consuming need to hold her as close as possible and shelter her from all harm that may befall her in the cruelness of this life.

As a child, you’d never truly known the experience of being the elder sibling, the one looked at to lead, and guard, and tend to any other youngling alongside your parents. That job had always been Cregan’s and, for better or for worse, he had made a point of truly stepping into this protective role when it came to you, watching over you from cradle, to courtyard, to the carriage that dragged you down to your fated marriage.

It is half a wonder if this feeling she gives you is owed to the Mother and her instincts at last taking root within your heart, a seed watered slowly into a sapling that promises to grow and spread its branches from limb to limb. An emotional catch-up to the rest of your body, cursed by the moon’s blood for almost a decade, only now do you feel fit to step into the role of care-giver, nurturer, mother.

As if reading your thoughts, Aliandra nuzzles deeper into you, a tiny fist clasping a mighty hold of the yellow silks you wear.

“Are you tired, little darling?” Though she shakes her head in denial, you hear and feel the way she yawns against you, no doubt tired out by the blaze of the sun’s warmth.

You choose to stay like this a little longer, swaying slowly back and forth as you clutch your niece against you, small ripples in the water left in the wake of your movement. They seem to grow larger with each sway, the tremor upon the liquid’s surface lasting longer, the ripples rising higher and dipping lower.

A squawk of birds steals your attention in time to catch how the small flock fly away from a palm tree. You can’t help yourself from pointing at the tree, nor the whispered inquisition you throw at the girl: “Ali, what is that called?”

You watch her head raise off your shoulder, her whole body shifting to look at the tree, her head comically tilting straight up at the sky. The wind picks up, the palm leaves beginning to shake back and forth as the girl lets out an excited squeal. “Zaldrīzes !”

A cloud seems to swallow the sun whole, a cast of darkness coming across the gardens and greying the world around you. In your arms, the child’s excited chant continues, both hands pointing at the sky as a tiny voice calls out syllables you can’t make meaning of, over and over.

“Zaldrīzes ! Zaldrīzes ! Zaldrīzes !”

Craning your neck back, you point your eyes up to the sky and find a mass of flesh.

Aged, large, green.

Claws, tail, wings.

A dragon.

The dragon.

Vhagar.

As a child, you begged your mother to visit the beach.

The request came no more than a day after Cregan had returned from a voyage to the Iron Islands, the first of many politically motivated visits he’d make with your father before his passing. You had been young at the time, no larger than a child of seven years, and so full of wide-eyed belief and childlike wonder that it wasn’t difficult for your older brother to enchant you with stories of sand made of specs of gold, and crystal blue waters warm enough to melt away centuries of snow, and a horizon that knows no limit, stretching onward into an eternity of undiscovered lands, where not even the fiercest of dragons dared venture towards. You’d decided, then and there, that you would be the one to go discover such lands, man your own ship and set off along the perfect waters.

This dream would die, of course, many moons later, as you boarded your first ship and a great fear of it took grip of you.

Your mother hadn’t the heart to tell you the truth of the matter. Of how the beach Cregan had visited had been naught but a warsight, sand made of the dust of bones ground down by time, and water so violent it sweeps away anyone fool enough to dip their feet in, and the sea-creatures dwelling at the bottom of it, with more tentacles than eyes, and more teeth to ever dare count. She instead nodded, brushed the hair out of your eyes and promised you, one day, she would take you to the beach.

It isn’t quite what you expect it to be.

Toes buried in the sand, eyes watching as the tide rolls in only to roll back out. Unforgiving heat burning away at your corneas, the subtle blush of salt in the air. The constant rise and fall of waves collapsing into one another, the overwhelming loneliness that settles in as you realise it is only you here, no sight of your mother, her bones now long gone and buried beneath the walls of Winterfell alongside your father.

The dream of a child is wasted on the pitiful adult.

“Typically, people choose to bathe in the sea, not stare at it from the shore,” a voice calls on you from behind.

Across the beach, the prince strides, kicking up a storm of sand in his wake. A whole four days have come and gone since his arrival upon dragon’s back and, still, he has made no accommodations to his attire, the ever-present shades of Targaryen black and Hightower green sitting snug along his limbs. Without a doubt, the clothing of his house is out of place in this garden of blooming colour, yet the thought of him wearing anything but his leathers would be wrong. It wouldn’t be Aemond.

“I find I much prefer the view from here,” you remark, letting your eyes wander as far down as the length of his torso before you’re forcing them to look onward, back to the constant flow of the water. Something magnetic seems to tug at your soul, willing your feet to shuffle two steps closer to his incoming figure, drawn to close the space between. You dig your heels in the sand and will no further movement from yourself. “This is the first time I’ve stood upon a beach like this. It is… not what I’d expected. I feel no siren’s call towards the sea, no desire to soak myself within its merciless waters, no matter how tranquil and forgiving it may seem.”

The sun hovers low on the horizon, a hair’s breadth away from sinking beneath the line that separates sky from sea and taking with it what remains of the day, plundering the world into the darkness of night. There is a part of you that knows you should find your way back out of the alcove, through the rocky tunnel that feeds straight from the Martell’s summer home out onto the sandy beach, the call for supper soon encroaching on you and demanding your presence. 

But if to know is to care, then perhaps you are not so aware of what mannerly duties are expected of you, for you harbour no desire to attempt any movement that even dares remove you from the one-eyed prince’s presence. For too long, you’ve waited to be in it. 

“Surely you cannot truly claim to prefer standing here, if you do not yet know what it means to let the sea wash over you,” it’s hard to resist temptation, your eyes cast upon him once more. The same well-kept hair, the same brown patch covering his tarnished eye, the same ever-present pout upon his perfectly bowed lips — his time at Dragonstone has changed little of him. You wonder if he notices the changes in you. The lonely spark in your eyes, the threat of an incoming frown line, the sorrow that has rained down over your once positive mind, dampening you into nothing but a mirror of duty, set to obey the status quo laid out by the queens who came before you. “Declaring favour without so much as attempting another option, is that not so similar to settling?”

“You fail to consider that perhaps I am afraid to take the plunge,” an answer you fire with far too much haste, a chord struck within you, a conspiratorial mind that digs for deeper meaning than what the prince offers at base level. “Treading into sea from land is no safer than flinging one’s self off the sails of any ship. I am the queen, after all. I cannot be so reckless as to risk getting caught within waves and ripped beneath the surface by unforeseen currents. I have no desires to meet the Drowned God. Not all of us may rely on the luxury of deserting upon a dragon's back at the first spark of danger.”

Silence settles in between you like fog.

There is a call to anger that brews deep within you, one that has endured far too many moons of being trampled down under the weight of your own exhaustion, freed alas by the crashing of waves and the heat of the sun. 

In the days following the prince’s departure from court, you’d grieved. First had come the sadness, nights spent weeping into the smell of your own sheets, arms curled around your own self as you bathed away whatever lingering touch of his remained on you. Tears gave way to desperation. You picked up a quill, put ink to paper, wrote out the words he’d not given you the time to say, only to falter when the time came to send it off to Dragonstone and, instead, choose to burn it in the flames of your chambers’ hearth.

For a moment, watching how the fire ate up your fragile pleadings for answers from the prince, you’d felt that first flicker of anger. A warm, inviting temptress, blooming in the guts of your body, whispering riddles in your ear of how the prince had no right to play you for a fool, to plunder you both down into the pits of seduction, only to disappear in the night, leaving you stranded with no way back.

As quickly as the feeling arose, you shut it out, choosing instead the easier, more acceptable approach: you denied his very existence. When his name was mentioned at the dinner table, you ducked your head down, kept your focus on stabbing at the next piece of food with your fork. When dragons flew above the skies, weaving through the towers of the Keep, you refused to glance up. With time, it all grew easier, new duties thrust upon you as you and Aegon embarked on your first royal progress throughout the Westerlands, and less hours spent trapped within the walls of the very home in which he’d fled from you. It became as though the Prince had never even existed, much less the complications that came along with him.

Yet now, standing face to face once more, that temptress has returned, an iron fist of anger clasped around your heart.

The prince dares to call your name, gently, as though he’s yet to feel the burn of your glare piercing through his skull.

“Eight moons since you left court and not once have you returned,” your tone has more bite than even you are used to. Words that possess fangs, sinking deep into the prince and drawing blood with one foul swoop. He, of course, doesn’t show this, face as stoic as it's ever been. That singular eye, however, can’t hide the truth, widening slightly and wavering in its powerful stare as your ire rips a wound right through him. “When your dragon flew overhead, I thought this was it, at last you were here to see me. That perhaps you had caught wind of my travels and were no longer capable of denying yourself the need to come to me. Yet four times the sun has risen and you have made no effort to seek me out, you barely glance my way as we break bread at the same table, and you cut through corners to avoid crossing paths with me throughout the palace walls. Now you call upon me, after all this time, with the intention of… What? Sharing false small talk? What a fool you must take me for.”

“My departure was nothing personal, you should not take such offence,” whether he intended it or not, his answer almost seems to goad you, tossing more oil into an already raging fire. The condescension, the thoughtlessness, the implications of his words, dismissing the rightful irritation his actions have brought upon you and denouncing them as naught more than the silly fancies of a self-obsessed mind. It reminds you of Aegon, demeaning you without sparing it so much as a second thought. “I had no other choice but to leave.”

It hits you like a bucket of ice water, tossed upon the raging anger, not enough to scare it away yet enough to tamper it down, have it willing to at least listen to what possible reasons the prince may have had, and condemn him from there onwards. So, you enquire, “why?”

“What grows— Grew between us was dangerous. Deadly. It was not safe within the Keep, knowing our paths would keep crossing and feelings would complica-”

“Then you shut them out!” A step you take forward, the stomp of your foot kicking sand upon your ankles. You wish to invade his space, get him uncomfortable with the tangible closeness of your bodies, united upon common ground and beneath turbulent skies, yet with little remains of the interest you once possessed for the one-eyed prince, diluted by his abandonment in court. “Whatever those feelings are, you push them down until they no longer make noise within you, and you try to feel something else, for someone else, and you move along.” Much to your chagrin, the prince is turning his back on you, literally this time, twisting on both feet and seemingly attempting to flee the field of fire. You can not grace him with such sanctuary, hand darting out and catching a steady grasp on his forearm. “You do not simply take off at dawn’s first light!”

“Do you not think I have tried?” Aemond turns too quickly for you to process, stumbling backwards only to remain caught by his own hands, blunt nails pinching into the skin of your wrists as he presses them tight against his chest, his face so close to your own, you could commence counting his every eyelash. The sound of his voice, a musical combination of exasperation and desperation, holds priority over your attention. “For moons I would keep my distance, keep myself at bay. Only to lay it all to waste, time and time again, at the first sign of you needing me. No one has ever-” The prince pulls in a deep breath, a subtle shake of his head as he lets it free. His eye slips shut, only to reopen and stare upon you once more with a false promise of calm. “I have tried to lay this to rest, do not rob me of this fact. But, you see, it is hard to make a scar out of a wound you keep reopening.”

“You speak as though it were not you who made the first cut!” Try as he might, his peaceful tone of voice can not sway you to relax, your frustration doubling as the words burst out of you, hand fighting its way out of his hold and jabbing a finger at his solid chest. “Or was it not you who welcomed himself into my bed? Was it not you who offered to be my tutor? Was it not you who held me close, only to keep your distance and act as though nothing happened for weeks to come afterwards? But at least then you were still present in court. I mean, you could not even grace me with goodbye. Would it truly be so bad, Aemond, to feel something? So bad that you had to cross sea and mountain just to escape it?”

“When that something is for my brother’s wife, yes.”

“Oh, as though he cares!”

“He does! He would! What is it that you do not understand, Lady Stark?” It is fortunate no others are present to witness the way you and the prince stand so close, nose to nose, chests heaving every breath as though they may be your last, voices raising louder with each exclaim you throw each other's way. “Aegon would have my head on a spike if he knew the thoughts of you it conjures.”

“That is not true. I would not allow him,” both of you know it is a meaningless mutter. You have no control over Aegon, you never have. That doesn’t stop you from denying truths, an attempt at filling both your minds with fallacies of a future. “We could find a way. We have to at least try rid ourselves of the troubles he causes-”

“What would you have me do, woman? Kill my own brother?”

“You are hardly the one to play outrage at the thought of killing your own kin,” you don’t mean to say it. You know this because, the moment you do, your stomach drops and there’s the fear that you may in fact spill your guts up any second now. A mind both stubborn and still ruled by an anger conceived in sadness, you give yourself no choice but to push onward with your cruelty, no chance to apologise or take it all back, and do the one thing you’ve wanted to do since the prince first strolled into the halls of the Martell home: throw yourself at his feet and beg he never leave again. “What is it the smallfolk call you? Ah, yes, Prince Aemond the Kinslayer.”

For a moment, time ceases to be and the world no longer moves.

The waves do not crash, the birds do not sing, the air does not reach your lungs. A background that fades to grey, until all that is in focus is Aemond and the disbelief you strike within him. It’s a gentle progression, like ink staining paper, the way his teeth grind under a clenched jaw, and the way his nose flares almost defensively as though he’s trying to make himself appear as big as possible, and the way his eye moves through shock to anger to nothing. Two steps back, a pause, followed by another step back the moment your feet dare move an inch closer. A deep breath followed by a huff of anger, before at last he speaks again and the world falls back into view, full focus, full motion.

“My sister sent me to fetch you,” over the horizon, the sun is nearly gone and, with it, it’s warmth. You feel a chill run down your spine, a first since you arrived in Dorne. “She awaits you in the nursery.”

The prince has already turned and began to stride back from whence he came before you can even put thought to word, feet frozen in the sand as the rift between you opens wider.

Aemond disappears.

An act he is growing familiar with, a complete removal in the middle of the night, flying off on his war beast. And while you do your best to avoid glancing at the empty seats around the breakfast table, and feign disinterest at the mention of his name as it is spoken, you come to learn it is not Dragonstone he has fled towards, and it is not a journey he made alone.

In the fallout of the attempt on Helaena’s life, Sunspear had remained desolate. Men and women armed with metal and spears the only souls to move within the home, with rat catchers and maids welcomed on every third day of the week to maintain the home's upkeep. Even those who inhabit the city had retreated to the mountains, homes abandoned in fears and whispers of another Dornish war on the horizon, a new enemy yet to be unmasked.

It is Qoren Martell that decides enough is enough. Mounted upon his trusted steed, backed by a flock of his most trusted advisors and fiercest swordsmen, and with the protection of a dragonlord patrolling from the skies, he returned at last to the seat of his house. A letter reached Helaena’s hands, a reassurance of her husband and her brother’s safe arrival, followed by a promise to ensure the safety of both her and her children, a husband's devotion to bringing punishment to whomever orchestrated such a cowardly attack.

You receive your own letter, too. Penned by Aegon, the parchment informs you of his own travels, accompanied by his mother, to the riverlands. A show of good faith, he calls it, an attempt to mend what fragile loyalty remains after Aemond’s fire-filled rampage. You can’t imagine it is so easily fixed, with their lands scorched beyond use and half the riverlords struck down dead amidst their support towards Rhaenyra’s claim. Before you can dwell too long on the ghosts of recent history, Aegon closes off his writings with a request. Perhaps, it is a demand.

I believe we are overdue a talk, wife. Upon your return from Dorne, I do hope that you will find time to at last discuss the shadow that looms over our union. In the meantime, enjoy what remains of your stay with my sister, I am sure your company during this frightening time is much appreciated. I hear my brother has at last flown from his nest on Dragonstone. Perhaps he has more interest than I give him credit for in keeping this family safe.

You have yet to respond.

Trust this: it is not from a lack of trying. You have sat before parchment, quill clasped in hand, more times you can recall, and attempted to construct an appropriate reply. The first carried a stench of guilt, an involuntary admittance to something the king has yet to even accuse you of. The second, third, and fourth edition had been a stream of consciousness, in which nothing made sense and the letters all crashed into one another, written with shaky hands. The truth of the matter is that you’re not entirely sure what is expected of you, what kind of reply is desired.

On one hand, you could assume his words are a warning. A scarlet letter, branding itself upon your skin. He may know of Aemond’s presence and, with it, the possible scenarios that may play out between you two, meaning he knows of what has already transpired between his wife and brother. On the other hand, Aegon’s request could be about something as simple as the need to both agree on a redesign of tapestries within the throne room. Meaning it could be nothing of importance, nor danger, nor threat.

It does not make your hand sit any steadier as you make yet another attempt at conjuring your response.

“The Triarchy?” Helaena’s voice will never fail to soothe an unnamed ailment within you, so soft and welcoming you hardly believe she was raised in the same home as someone as brash as your husband.

“Hmm,” or as him. He returned this morning, at an hour one would hardly call appropriate, the screech of a dragon flying overhead your wake-up call, half falling out of your bed in shock. “It seems they’ve come to claim more than they were offered. Apparently the events at the Gullet were more bloody than they were promised, and now the Stepstones are not a good enough reward to compensate for the nameless men they lost. One must wonder how they did not expect the presence of dragons in a feud between dragonlords.”

The Targaryen siblings sit at the opposite end of the communal balcony from you, a crystal table adorned with golds and bronzes between them and two cups of wine — Helena’s remains untouched, Aemond has reached for his thrice. The view ahead is one of tranquil beauty, where children are playing in the fountains, leaves are rustling in the wind, and a sleeping she-dragon is sighted over the stretch of the Gardens’ walls. You almost wish to tell them to take their chatter of warfare and betrayals elsewhere.

You opt, instead, to continue staring down at the page in front of you, no more than three words cursed out in ink.

My King husband.

“My husband has not returned,” Helaena remarks on what you’d silently noted. Not only his absence, but the entirety of the fleet of Dornishmen who departed by his side, too.

“He remains at the seat of his house, sister. The people of Dorne need to know their so-called prince has not abandoned the city to savages,” in the corner of your eye, you see him, sat with his back perfectly straight and his hair impeccably done, one arm outstretched upon the table in front of him, the other plucking a grape off a vine and delivering it past his pouting lips. The image of him, relaxed and confident, angers you more than it would typically, your wound still unlicked from the incident down at the beach. “In the meantime, I am to fly to the Stepstones and remind them of the dangers of making enemies with a dragon. Should these pirates dare not retreat, then myself and the Lord Martell will begin talking war strategies, deliver an attack so brutal, they’ve neither the will nor the ability to strike back.” Let the history books know that you do not mean to laugh. It simply escapes you, too quickly heard by the siblings before you can even dare hide it. “Am I amusing you, Lady Stark?”

Four eyes, focused solely on you. Six, truly, if you factor in the cupbearer who’s feigning minding her own business, the watering-can she hovers over a bush of nearby roses long ago emptied and free of any liquid. Helaena’s stare is one of curiosity, a million unspoken questions flashing behind them as she bares witness to the tense atmosphere between you and the prince. Aemond’s own gaze is a challenge, a novel of unfinished business, the sour tone with which your last interaction ended still very much present, even if he tries to hide it behind a snide smile.

“Apologies, good-brother, I do not mean offence,” it is tempting to cast your eyes down onto the still blank page before you, will yourself to continue on with your task at hand — giving response to the Targaryen man who you truly owe it to by marriage — but that would mean breaking the intense stare that exists between you and Aemond. That would mean defeat. “Please, continue as you were. Do not let me distract you.”

It seems he too has no desire to forfeit in this war of eyes. There’s a brief squeak that plays as he slides his chair back, the arm that rests upon the table now bent at the elbow and serving as support to his weight as his frame leans closer in your direction. The smile on his lips only grows, rousing a deeper shade of unease in you. “If you’ve something to add, I insist. You are the queen after all, are you not? Who better to comment on the wars that ravage our lands than you, a lady who has never tasted blood.”

It strikes you, hot as fire, strong as iron.

You know in which way he means it, that you’ve never drawn blood from another, never pressed blade into flesh, never drained the life out of a man’s eyes. True intentions don’t stop you from being thrust back into that room, on that night. The sound of rain crashing down on the city, the stench of the two men in your chambers, the taste of your own blood on your tongue. Fighting, screaming, crying. Pleading for your life, running through the halls of the Keep for someplace safe to hide, someplace the rats couldn’t find you.

“Very well, if you insist,” you manage, as you always do, to shove the memory behind, lock it back in the cage of Unwanted Trinkets. May it play out only in your sleeping mind, where no one can witness the weakness it casts over you. Besides, there are more pressing matters at hand currently, such as matching wits with the Crown Prince. “If you cut the head off the serpent, ten more will grow in its place.”

“Sister, your patterns of speech seem to have influenced Aegon’s lady wife,” Helaena meets his words with a gentle smile, one that doesn’t quite match the glazed over look in her eyes. “Speak plainly.”

“Apologies, I believed your skills were at a level to understand such a simple riddle.” A frown bends, momentarily, at the skin of the prince’s forehead, as the cupbearer chokes back a  snort of laughter. You would be lying if you said it doesn’t bring a sick kind of satisfaction, even if it’s immediately followed by a guilty kind of remorse, echoes of your true self, one who would never wish to place the handsome prince within such a public humiliation. “You are rushing into another war, after what will perhaps go down as the bloodiest one our lifetime will ever know. Have you considered that threatening them with the very cause of their ire is only bound to guarantee more backlash? Yes, there is a certain chance that you and Vhaghar will strike fear as you fly above. Maybe you will even burn a few pirates to make a point. But for every one you kill, countless more will take their place. Your viciousness will unite their armies.”

“Then how exactly do you suggest I answer those who would have my family killed? To those who would see our lands ravaged, and our women raped, and our men slain? Should we perhaps host a feast in their honour, open the gates to King’s Landing, lay down our swords and-”

“Give them what they want.”

“My sister’s head?”

“Repentance, apology. Tell them of your failings to protect them at the Gullet, mourn their losses. Mention how fortunate they were that at least the Lys fleet had not been sent into a bloody rampage,” you speak as though you have no reason to waiver in your idea. It is a testament to the years you’ve endured within the Keep, catching the tail-ends of conversations amidst the Council, and attempting to soothe Aegon’s insecurity driven rants of his lacking position among all those who would advise him. It had been your own duty, as his wife, to hold your tongue and speak no part of your mind, serving as nothing but a vessel of agreement to his own warped ideals on how his kingdom should be run. But Aegon is not here and the prince truly had insisted you speak. “Once you’ve made yourself the remorseful council, you must hire an assassin. There are plenty of them within the Free Cities. Whispers sing of tensions brewing amongst Tyrosh and Myr, the wives of their fallen men claim Sharako Lohar led them to their deaths. A Tyroshi killing a Myrish holds more threat to their cause than the great Prince Aemond Targaryen mounted upon his dragon. It will divide them, long enough for you to rinse your hands and let the infighting begin. They’ll be too busy killing one another to unite forces against you.”

Echoes of the children’s laughter fills the air. Glancing through the marble railing, you spy a few raven haired babes — cousins to Helaena’s own — scuttle around in the waters, splashing any who dares step in their line of sight. It carries a certain innocence, one you fear the day they lose.

The creak of leather, a crack of palm striking palm. Aemond sits further back in his chair, smirking as he lets his clapping come to a slow stop. “My my, with such advice, I do wonder why my brother has you here, instead of seated at his council.”

His words do not strike you as earnest, a syrupy kind of distaste laced throughout them. You meet him with a reinforced amicability, doe eyes and sweet mouth. “The King believes it is of more priority that I be here.”

“How curious,” what you wouldn’t give to wipe that smug look off of his face.  “Surely not because of Helaena’s attack. That happened days after you already set off.”

“You speak the truth, good-brother. The ravens upon Dragonstone must truly be put to work for you to be so clued in on my royal plans.” Let it be his turn, you think, to wear the consequence of his own embarrassment upon his face, a rosy tint creeping over the tips of his ears and a hitch in his otherwise calm breathing. “If you must know, the King sent me here to visit my niece and nephew. He believes time with your sister’s children will serve me well. An old folk tale has the maester convinced there is correlation between the presence of children and a woman’s fertility,” you seem to strike a chord within him, for the composure cracks a second time, long enough to let a chortle break through. “Am I amusing you, Prince Aemond?”

It feels good to throw back his own words in his face. So good, in fact, you feel a throb between your legs, a warmth buried only beneath a thin layer of pale cotton. Helaena at last takes a hold of her wine, swallowing down two heavy cups. There is trouble upon her face, one that almost makes you regret the conflict that plays out between her brother and you. As though she senses your eyes on her, she meets your gaze and shakes her head slowly, mouthing a series of words you can’t decipher.

“Apologies, Lady Stark,” Aemond, none the wiser, steals you back over to his side of the table, a fresh layer of amusement painted over his features. “I just find it curious that my brother sends you here, yet there is no sight of him. Forgive me if I am wrong, but don't both the man and woman have to be fertile if they wish to conceive a child?”

For a moment, there is only panic.

Panic that he knows of the private dwellings between yourself and the maester. Panic that he’s read through the lines, with that sharp mind of his, and joined the dots on why your marriage to Aegon is yet to prove fruitful. Panic that he knows of the conspiracies you yourself have yet to even pose against the King, the questions of his fertility disputed only between you, the maester, and your reflection.

You can not let him steal your leverage, not when it is one you’ve clutched so dearly against your chest, all in anticipation for the right moment to present it to Aegon.

The fear must not be too loud, too noticeable, and so you right yourself, reassure yourself that his words are no more the product of a sharp tongue aiming to cut, not of a mind meaning to threaten.

Gathering your paper and your ink, you rise from your seat at your own table and give the Targaryen pair a curt nod, dismissing yourself before you may linger too long on the true intentions of Aemond’s questioning of the King’s fertility.

“The Crown commands my King husband to deal with more pressing matters. It is a burden you should feel lucky you will never bare, Prince Aemond.”

Days pass with little of note.

The monotonous routine you’ve carved within the Water Gardens brings far more joy than the one you live, day in and day out, within the Keep. You do not tire of it so easily, and instead find beauty in the tranquillity, and comfort in the quiet rustling of the household. Qoren and his men remain absent, and the skeleton crew of guards that stay behind keep mostly to themselves, polite yet brief greetings exchanged when paths cross within the walls. Vhagar and her rider also hang nearby, a threat large enough you almost think the need for guards unnecessary. The Martell women keep close quarters, mothers and grandmothers who watch over their blooming children, indulging in their cups and sharing tales from their marital lives the women of the court would no doubt turn their noses up at. They have no shame, and it is frequent they encourage you and Helaena to do the same.

“We are the true keepers of power in our houses. We are the ones who give life through our cunts.”

You have yet to convince yourself this isn’t all part of a dream. A paradise, hidden amidst deserts of sand, where women claim the power of the land, and there is no reason to live if not to graze on freshly picked fruit and sleep the day away under the shades of palm trees. For some reason or another, you find yourself thinking of your good-mother, Alicent, and how deeply she deserves a life like this, free to rest alongside her darling daughter, away from the stresses of the courts, her temperamental sons, and her oligarch father.

The babe in your arms lets out a gentle coo.

At last he’s fallen asleep, no more tears running down his cheeks nor snot bubbling out of his nose. Wiped clean, tear free, he nestles easily into the arms of his aunt, comfort so aplenty his eyes threaten to fall into sleep with every blink he takes, those striking lilac eyes stubborn in their endeavour to look upon you a little longer.

You’d found him crying in his cot as you entered the nursery and had been quick to aid his poor wet-nurse, teats exposed and struggling to get the protesting child to drink. She, too, herself wore fallen tears, a great relief coming over her face as you gently took the babe out of her arms and insisted she go rest. Not a moment too soon, she departed out the room, leaving you alone with your nephew.

Of both of Helaena’s children, you’ve yet to spend much time with him. Moons old, he clings closely to his mother and his wet-nurse. His father too, when he sits present. He is a sweet boy, quick to smile at the simplest of things. The dark of his hair clashes against the blonde of his sister’s, and yet they both make up the perfect mix of their parents. The pair of them are everything your good-sister deserves.

Sinking into a rocking chair, you let the babe snuggle himself against your chest, the picture of innocence held safely in your hands. You peel one away from cradling him, too tempted to ignore your desire to run your pointer finger over the gentle slope of his button nose. The boy’s eyes slip shut a few moments, and you nearly believe you’ve succeeded, until they spring back open and he stretches a stubby arm out to capture your finger in his mighty claps, his entire fist covering no more than one of your knuckles. All the while, he’s smiling up at you, speaking in a language of coos you’ll never understand.

It doesn’t stop you from giggling, enamoured by his very existence as you let your feet begin to rock the seat ever so softly.

“You are a natural,” the prince’s voice is an intrusion that nearly leaves you jumping out of your bones. Dressed in his riding leathers, armed with his swords, he is every piece of the Aemond you have always known. And, yet, somehow he feels distant, different, changed. For a moment, you nearly convince yourself there is a longing in his eye, only to quickly remind yourself of the fraction that stands between you, a rift that remains divided, much as it may pain you. “I imagine you must be desperate for motherhood.”

“I must,” you agree, because that is what is expected of you. Then you recall you are far from the Keep, and it’s master of whispers, and circle of spies, free to speak upon a doubt you’ve never shared. It isn’t hard to convince yourself it holds no meaning that it is him you choose to share it with, he is merely the fool unlucky enough to have presented you with the opportunity to talk. “Must I? In truth, it scares me.”

A weight lifts off your shoulders, the deep breath that follows easier to achieve than ever before. A lady should only ever dream of motherhood, not cower from it. Yet, you find no judgement in the prince, only silence, the kind that implores you to continue speaking your mind.

“This fear, it is not for myself, but for any child I may have. Aegon, he is… a difficult man but I often wonder how much that crown upon his head is to blame. I ask myself, would he have turned out different, were he not groomed to sit upon that cursed throne? I do not want to bring a child into a world where it is no more than a chess-piece. To live a life where its only purpose is to fulfil the role of heir and wait around for its father to either die or grow so weak he must renounce his crown,” like river to sea, the fear flows out of you, spilling itself down your entire being, a cold chill striking at your heart. The boy in your arms tightens his hold upon your finger and attempts to pull it towards his gaping mouth. You try to picture the conqueror’s crown — your husband’s crow — upon its head, and grow fearsome at the image of it encased around the babe’s neck, his tiny face turned black and blue under the choke it holds him in. A blink of the eye and the babe is all rosy cheeks and golden skin once more, smiling with success as he suckles at the tip of your finger. “And that is only the curse of the eldest. I do not even wish to begin thinking of what would come to be of any other child I birthed, the spare to the Iron Throne, the hatred they’d cast my way for not having birthed them first. I do not want it, any of it. I do not want my children to experience the same childhood as Aegon and you-”

You feel more than you hear the way Aemond flinches at your choice of words. Where days ago you thrived in poking metaphorical needles at his frayed edges, now you wish you could swallow the words back in and erase them from existence. Dead and buried lays the anger that had so consumed you, the ghost it leaves behind wearing the name of acceptance.

The prince had claimed no other choice but to leave the Keep and, your own agreement to the side, you believed him.

“It was not so bad,” his voice comes out in that breathy tone you’ve come to know over the years, a feat he cannot help when emotion wells too high within him and clogs up the space in his throat. He moves in search of where you sit, a repeated clink ringing as the hilt of his sword meets the buckle on his green, leather jerkin with every step he takes. “There were good moments. A few with our father, most with our mother.” When Aemond at last stands before you, that singular eye glances down at how you never falter in your rocking of the child. The babe takes interest in him, too, sacrificing the grip on your finger to stretch out in search of some piece of the prince. “Your children will not know a childhood of my kind. They will be loved, nurtured, protected.”

“You speak as though it is a law, not simply a hope,” you say, a furrow brandishing itself across your brows as your eyes flick up to meet his face, momentarily, before quickly glancing back down to where the prince lays his hand out for his nephew to take, a delighted laugh shaking out of Helaena’s boy. “How can you be so certain?”

With his free hand, the prince bridges the gap between you, the warmth of his palm finding rest upon the side of your face, robbing you of any sight but his well-angled, sharply-defined features. “Because they will have you as a mother, Lady Stark,” it is barely a whisper, yet the heartbreak laced within it leaves behind a hole in your chest, vacant and bleeding. The pad of his thumb smooths over your cheek slowly, as though it moves at a will not controlled by the prince, pure instinct commanding it to comfort, to soothe. It would be easy, you think, to slip your eyes shut and sink into a fantasy where this is your life. A babe in your arms, Aemond at your side, that fluttery feeling in your chest swelling so large, it threatens to explode out of you. But the prince clears his throat and you are back in the real world, your nephew in your arms, your good-brother standing too close. “You must allow me to apolo-”

“Brother!” At the intrusion of Helaena’s voice, both of you jump back, his hand ripped from your cheek and the babe’s grip gone from his fingers. Your good-sister seems none the wiser to the scene played out before her, an earnest joy upon her face and her daughter’s legs dangling from where she sits propped on her mother’s hips.  “I did not think I’d find you here.”

It feels like an accusation, an imaginaged query that bites and snarls at your mind, threatening to strike you if you do not lay all your sins at her feet. Reminiscent of Aegon’s ominous letter, paranoia makes home once more within your bones.

The prince, on the other hand, appears as composed as ever. A memory plays on in your mind. His chamber walls, his taste fresh on your tongue, his mother stood across the room. Even then, inches away from being caught, he’d not even broken a sweat.

“I came only to announce my leave,” words you loathe to hear.  “Your husband and I have some matters to converse, arranging a meeting with the Triarchy being one of many.”

Helaena seems relit by a flame of excitement as she shuffles over to a nearby table, rifling through the many papers strewn across it, scribbles of figures and etchings of jumbled words stained on them. The parchment she settles on seems to be the only one folded over neatly, not a single wrinkle to be found as she holds it out towards her brother. “Please, see that this reaches my husband!”

He can only nod in agreement, slender fingers plucking the parchment from her own before tucking it safely within an inner-pocket of his jerkin. Though his back is facing you and his attention remains on his dear sister, the words that follow out his mouth feel as though they’re meant for your ears only. “I will return in five days.”

Your eyes seem to linger on the door long after he’s walked out of it, Helaena talking away in your ear while a desire to sleep what remains of the day away takes root within you.

The prince turns out to be a liar.

Five agonising days come and go, each more tortuous than the last. The hours seem to crawl, slower than Helaena’s newborn, and the greatest curse known to woman befalls you, a stain of red between your thighs and an agonising pain stabbing at your abdomen. At the very least, you try to console yourself, it falls here, under sun and sand, and not in the stone cold walls of the Keep. You won’t have to face Aegon’s snide comments as you announce the repeated failing of your couplings, just this once.

A sixth day dawns, and no sign of a prince nor a dragon shadows over you. A fact you pretend not to notice, a promise of disinterest upon your face as Helaena comments on her brother’s absence seven days after his departure.

On the eighth day, a letter arrives, your name branded upon it. It carries word from your brother. One part heartbreak, the other part intent on mending it. The death of your Septa, taken in her sleep as peacefully as many may only dream of, and the birth of a new Stark. His only daughter, seven years her brother’s junior and, yet, already the apple of his eye. Cregan writes of how the instant he held her in his arms, he was brought back to the first time he’d held you as a babe, all squirming limbs and sniffling tears, and thought there was no better name for such a child than your own, in honour of her Queen aunt.

The news makes your heart ache, a longing for a home that no longer exists — at least not in the way you remember it — that crashes over you and spills out of you, tears staining your cheeks as you lay restless in your bed, the ceiling above blurred by your own sorrow. You should be there, in Winterfell, warmed by furs and surrounded by family. True family, not the disfigured image of it the Targaryen house tries to uphold.

Were your father alive, you would be where the wolves belong. In the north, wife to a Karstark, or a Mormont, or any other house that bears its sigil and bends the knee to the Warden of the North. You no doubt would be happy, whether there be love in your marriage or not, with a handful of children to occupy your time and your childhood home no more than a few days ride away at all times. Perhaps you would live an entire life never casting sight upon the King, or the Crown Prince. They’d be only names in a history book, royalty out of reach. Would life have been easier this way?

A door slams.

A fact you’d dare not take note of, were it not for the late hour, the outside world already enveloped by darkness hours before. You rise slowly from the mattress, the sheets pool around the naked skin of your waist. Sitting patiently, you await another disturbance to the quiet, pray for something familiar, like the gentle pitter patter of mischievous children running down halls, or Helaena’s voice calling out your name, awaiting entrance to your chambers. It wouldn’t be the first of her midnight visits, a comfort you’ve both come to seek in each other when the night is dark, and the palace is silent, and no greater time exists to exchange laughter like the young girls you’d both wished to have been, free of duty, free of pressure, free to live.

But there’s no calling of your name this evening, and so you settle with the silence that remains. With no sleep on the horizon, and no sign of Helaena’s company, you decide you must at least try to induce your own rest. Covering your naked skin with a dress that lays discarded at your bedside, you inch your way over to the unlit hearth and work at starting up a fire. When a spark lights and the crimson flames begin to dance among themselves, you secure a pot of water over it. Your mother always swore there was nothing that could not be fixed with the sacred remedy of her herbal tea, not even insomnia. And though you’ve not quite her mother’s touch, you’d sat by her side plenty a times as a child to give the recipe a try.

Another bang rings out.

Your heart seems to still, as do your hands. With only a blink of the eye, your head fills with visions of a massacre. An intruder, who’s sat idly by and waited until now, when only women, children and a handful of guards inhabit the home, to enact their butchering. Perhaps it is an opportunistic attack, a nameless nobody, with no real idea who sits inside the lavish walls of the Gardens, stumbling across the residency and deciding to try their luck at breaching the unguarded walls. The more horrors you envision, the louder the voice in your head grows as it commands you to move, take action. At odds with your own self, your body seems to move on account of some other force, rushing over to the chamber’s vanity. Searching for something to do harm with, you find it in the shape of a letter opener. Thin, delicate yet razor sharp, a silver knife you clutch within your palm.

The chamber door creaks as you open it, much to your dismay. You pause, awaiting a terrible discovery from someone, faceless among the shadows of darkness. There is only silence, again, until another noise plays out.

The sound is human, you have no doubt, a sharp inhale or a pained hiss between clenched teeth. Your fingers curl tighter around your weapon of choice. The sound repeats and plays out longer than the last. Your eyes flicker to a door. A little down the hall from your own, it sits ajar, a light within it bleeds out into the darkness. Another hiss sings out into the night through the crack between the door and its frame.

You steal your breath, tread only on the tips of your feet. Inch closer, and closer, and closer to the door. With your free hand grasping at the handle, the other gripping even tighter at the envelope opener, you pull the door open and raise your weapon, preparing to at last strike the danger, the threat, the intruder, the… “Aemond?”

The prince stands across the room, his back facing you. A looking glass before him, the image he reflects within it is fickle, forever morphing under the flickering light of several low burning candles. If not for the signature starlight silver tresses, he’d be scarcely recognisable.

“My apologies,” at the sound of his familiar voice, you feel your shoulders slouch and your nails retract out of the skin of your palm as the grip on your weapon loosens, your hand lowering back down to your side. There is no intruder, no attacker, no danger. There is only Aemond, a man who only steals away any fear of harm you may possess. Perhaps that is why it is easy to let yourself give into the temptation to inch closer into the chamber, even if he gives you no leave to do so. The two steps you take announce themselves with an echo. “I did not mean to wake you.”

“It has been nine days,” it is a pathetic proclamation made in desperation, yet it is spoken all the same, a tremble in your voice that matches the one in your chest.

The prince makes no move to face you, his focus stuck on the mirror in front of him. You squint your eyes, and try to make sense of the image he paints in his reflection, but it is a useless action. What you do manage to see is the lack of a leather strap fastened around the back of his head. The eyepatch sits disregarded by his feet, as though ripped off with haste.

“I had duties to attend in King’s Landing,” his hands ball into fists as your stomach twists with knots. The movement calls upon your attention and only then do you notice it, the stain of blood upon his fingers. “My mother requested my presence.” 

It is unnerving to picture him in the Keep, the threat of Aegon’s letter still weighing heavy on your mind. Had the two ran into each other, crossed paths within a hall? Is that why blood now drips from between his knuckles onto the cold floor below? Impossible, you try to reason with your own mind, for surely Aegon would not let him walk away with his life if he knew of your betrayal. But perhaps it is the King who met a certain fate and the blood on the prince’s skin belongs to him. Aemond has always been more skilled in battle, after all. The remnants of dinner turn in your stomach as bile swells up the canal of your throat, an acidic burn that makes a nest for itself at the back of your mouth.

“Are you hurt?” Another hiss slips past his teeth as you question his state, as if the gods mean to rob him of any right to deny it.

“The hour is late, Lady Stark,” the fist squeezes tighter by his side, a second drop of blood splashing to the floor. You step closer and search for a better view, the face in the mirror still obscured. “Return to your chambers.”

“Aemond,” you give a silent prayer, inching closer, eyes stuck on the width of his leather-clad back. The stench of dragon still reeks off them. He must have just arrived. You reach a hand out, so close to touching him, yet far enough that you feel no reprieve of feeling the man you’ve long now missed. “My prince, something brings you pain. Let me help you-”

“Do not come any closer.”

“You cannot expect me to rest, knowing you are injured!”

“It is for your own good,” the mirror gives away his frown and how it shadows over the rest of his face, a mass of darkness haloed by burning light. Were the timing more suited, you’d take note of how angelic the image is, one of pure divinity, a man so infused with beauty, the Gods grant you no grace to gaze upon him. A third drop of blood hits the floor, though this one does not fall from his hand. “This is not a sight suitable for a lady.”

“Gods be good! Aemond, be quiet,” you say, louder than you intended. In a fear of waking anybody else, you clear your throat and compose your nerves. “You do not get to decide what sights are suitable for me. I do.”

By some miracle, the prince puts no effort into halting you from twisting him around to face you. At the curl of your fingers around his forearm, he’s already turning into your touch, feet smudging the red blood across the floor as they move to point towards you. Once your eyes dance up the length of him, scanning for the first sign of a bleeding wound, and settle upon his face, you come to realise what reaction he expects of you.

A disgusted grimace, or a terrified scream, or a heartless laugh. Whatever it is the prince sits awaiting, he does not receive it. You do not even flinch as you take in the sight of his left eye, no leather to hide it, no sapphire that fills it. An empty socket, marred by scar tissue, a bleeding gash reopened atop his eyebrow. A river made of pain and the essence of his life, that flows down the length of his face and drips off the razor sharp edge of his jaw.

“I warned you,” the prince speaks with false pride, one you do not fail to see right through, even as his intact eye stares you down in a challenge, daring you to give him the disgust he thinks he deserves.

“Come,” you plead instead, hand slipping down to grip at his wrist. “Let me see you in a better light.”

He gives no fight against you as you begin to lead him away from the looking glass, grip tightening and pulling further away as you watch him attempt to grasp at the sapphire sphere he leaves behind. As the two of you slip through the chamber doorway, out into the dark hall, your sweating palm loses its hold on the leather. The prince’s hand catches yours, denying it retrieval back down to your side, an effortless lacing of fingers that serves only to make your journey all that easier, pulling him along behind you, hand in hand, to your chambers.

“Sit,” a poor attempt at commanding, finger pointing over at the chair that lives in front of your vanity. The prince makes no move towards it, hand gripping firmly at your own as you go to move away, eyeing the steaming pot atop your hearth. “Sit.”

He listens, at last, and you are free to move onwards with your goals, lighting a few more candles within the chambers before dashing over to collect the warmed water. By the vanity, the prince sits, head tipped to the ground, those blonde locks curtaining him out of sight as you make your way over. Delicate with each movement, you rest the boiled pot atop the dresser and grab at the first piece of fabric you can find. Your own smallclothes, freshly washed and folded only hours ago. 

The slosh of water within the pot as you submerge the fabric seems to snap him out of his daze, regaining his voice if only to speak words you’ve already grown tired of hearing.“This fuss is not necess-”

“Hush now,” the stubborn voice within you can not allow him to finish his sentence. Busy hands ring the soaked smallclothes. Most droplets of water rain back into the pot, while a few dance their own paths down your forearms. “What happened?”

“I insist, Lady Stark.”

“As do I,” cloth meets skin at last, a gentle swipe over the length of the prince’s jaw. Briefly, you feel the weight of the prince’s stare upon you, only for it to return to the floor the instant you try to catch it with your eyes.

You drag the linen over his skin a second time, inching a little further up. There’s a horrible tug at your heart as you smell that metallic haze blood carries. The pain only grows more intense as you watch how quickly harsh red makes home for itself in soft linen, a stain that promises to remain forever engraved.

In new light, the brightness that envelops your chambers, you’re given a better view of the damage he occults beneath that eyepatch. Some may call it a warrior's mark, a sacrifice given in exchange for the glory of claiming the last of the Conquerors’ dragons, but all you see is a blade that ripped out a child’s eye.

You do not feel disgust, not even an ounce. The gouge is a gruesome sight, that no one can deny, yet you feel oddly drawn to it. It is as though you at last see Prince Aemond, instead of the One-Eyed Prince that so fearsomely struts his way through the realm. Vulnerable, naked, whole, beautiful. Never have you felt so drawn to reach for him, draw him closer.

“It appears worse than it truly is,” at last the prince answers. “It is a flight wound. The air over Dorne is riddled with sand, it must have tore at some of the scarring.”

“Does it happen often?” You inch a little closer, till his knee bumps against your leg, and tell yourself it’s to get a better view, keep your hand more steady as it swipes further up his face, washing away at the blood upon it.

“Not so much, anymore,” you dunk the makeshift rag back into the water, the bile burning harsher at your throat as you watch how the crimson hue washes out into the clear of the bowl. You ring it out, soak it once more, only to ring it out again before you deliver it back to his face, the pathway of blood diminished to naught but the reopened skin of his brow. “Long flights are always unpredictable. Some I fair just fine, others I dismount to find my sapphire causes me pain, the skin beneath dried by the cold sky.”

The prince grimaces as you drag the smallclothes over the tear in his face, yet he dismisses your apology, reassures you that he is fine. You pretend you believe him, even if the frown remains indented upon his forehead as you finish cleaning the wound. 

With the promise of being gentle, and a hand pressed against your own heart as you vouch for your skills with the needle and your experience at dressing your brother’s wounds, the prince agrees to let you thread his skin shut. You’re quick to heat a needle under flame, and even quicker to hastily rip a loose thread off one of the untouched gowns in your trunk, returning to the vanity with the speed of a dragon’s wings.

As if hearing your thoughts, a rumbled screech echoes out into the night, just past the gates of the Martell home. You’ve half the mind to think it is Vhagar voicing her rider’s pain on behalf of him, as he sits quiet while you pierce the needle into him at last.

“It is unfair,” you mutter, much before you can stop yourself, as you thread a second loop, watching how the skin reunites with skin once more. “What happened to you, Aemond.”

“It made me the man I am today,” Rehearsed, empty of feeling, you wonder how used to those words the man has grown. Does he truly believe himself? “I am better for it.”

“I’m sorry,” a third loop, and then a fourth. The dark thread stands out against the pale of his flesh, you’re almost certain it will be visible even with the cover of his eyepatch. “For what I said to you on the beach. I was unnecessarily cruel.”

“You owe no apology, most certainly not to me,” a pained hiss flies out of him as you stab a little too harshly, a hand grips around the back of your thigh, as if to stabilise your shaking limbs. It carries the opposite effect, the tremble creeping up to reach your fingertips, the needle threatening to fall under your own nerves. Still, the prince does not verbalise his pain, never tells you to stop. The hand upon your clothed thigh squeezes a single pulse, a quiet command to continue stitching his brow. “You spoke only the truth, I have slayed my own kin,” his voice infects the room with an emotionless air, a murder stated as simply as a fact bringing a chill down your spine. You loop a fifth and final stitch. “It is I who owe you an apology. I should not have taken advantage of you that evening, in my chambers. Nor on the boat, nor your own chambers before that. Neither of us were acting in our right minds.”

“Take advantage of me? You speak such nonsense,” you do not like the way his eye returns to looking past you, nor the emptiness in his voice. “Do you ever… Regret it?” You ask, before you realise you are not quite ready for his answer, nor willing to have what remains of the illusion between you shattered. You cannot bear to be just another warm body to a second Targaryen man, and so you scramble to redirect the question. “Storm’s End, I mean.”

“No.” Heavy, powerful, punctuated. Aemond does not hesitate, even for a moment, to negate it. Still, his gaze will not meet your own. “Given the chance, I’d do it all the very same.”

“I do not believe you,” you speak, only after silence tries to creep its way back between you. The emptiness of your palm calls for the heat of his skin. You ball your hand into a fist, resist the urge to let it find rest upon the scarred side of his face. “You are not so heartless.”

“You do not know me as well as you think, Lady Stark.”

“That is of no cause of my own. I am here, idle and waiting, wishing to know more of you,” denial is futile, your hand makes its own way onto his face, forcing his focus back onto you.  "You are not the heartless monster of some bedtime story, Aemond,” you can only pray to the Seven he can hear how much you mean it. The thumb that rests against his cheek moves absent-midedly, a soothing rhythm against the soft of his skin. “No matter how much you may try to play the part, you feel. There’s no inch of you that scares me, it is fruitless to even try. I may not know you, but I see you. All of you. Man, myth, and heart.”

The wood that burns in the hearth cracks.

The birds outside the window flap their wings.

The dragon by the gates screeches.

But no sound follows from the prince.

There is only his eye, set on you and unblinking, frozen with a quiet that unnerves you. For an instant, you fear you’ve angered him. Struck a chord, made him feel weak. Played so far into your fantasies that you have cast a false identity onto him and, now, he means only to show just how wrong you are, just how little you truly see of him.

He rises out of the seat as slow as the sun does over the horizon, long limbs that stretch to stand tall and stable, and threaten to cast a shadow over even the largest of men. Your hand slips from his cheek and you take a cautious step back, an apology on the tip of your tongue.

An apology you don’t get to speak, as the prince envelops your lips with his own.

Startled, you cry out against his mouth, and it is enough to send him stumbling his own step back, eye wide with shock and his chest heaving with deep breaths.

“Lady Stark,” he starts, only a whisper of that earlier false confidence remains. “I am sor-”

“Shut up,” you don’t let him finish. Can’t let him finish, surging towards him and dragging his mouth to meet your own once more.

It is everything a younger version of yourself had thought a kiss would be.

Hands that seek the warmth of skin, lips that move with the grace of water. The two of you melt into each other, a burning desire that’s been left too long unattended at last burst into raging fires.

His arms wrap around your waist, as easily as yours grapple at his shoulders, frantic in their aim to pull him closer. His lips are soft, pink rosebuds that mean no harm as they attempt to consume you whole, his tongue a viper, striking hot venom with each lave it delivers.

There is no time for thinking. Of the dangers, and the possibilities, and the downright wrongness of your actions. Of the courts, and the spiders, and the King. Of the blood ties, and the marital vows, and the eyes of the Seven looking down. There is only Aemond, strong, and sweet, and present, pressed against you and, still, begging for less distance as he stumbles forward into you, your own feet making new space for him as you shuffle idly backwards.

Lungs that scream for air, lips that struggle to part. You make the first move, a hand on his cheek as you turn your face. His lips chase your own through the darkness of closed eyes, delivering a pleading of three pecks upon them before, at last, he gives you respite.

For a moment, there is only the repeated intake of air and heart beats that run off with the wind, forever to be lost to the wild.

“Being near you, all these days,” there’s an edge to his voice, a rasp he whispers over and stumbles on. The press of his forehead into your own, as mouths rest inches apart, lips that brush against one another as the prince continues to speak. “Watching you sweat under the sun, and care for the children,” the hands upon your body grab at the thin fabric of your dress, balling it into fists that squeeze and tug at orange cotton. “And move in these pathetic excuses for dresses,” he speaks with the desperation you feel, a warmth stirring in your loins as Aemond — consciously or not — slowly inches the hem of the dress further up your calf. “You do not understand the torment it has brought me to keep myself at bay.”

As though having spoken all he deems necessary, the prince’s kiss returns to you. For only a moment, it lingers on your lips before his focus redirects itself elsewhere and he’s chasing a pathway only he can see down the side of your jaw, his lips running off with his own kisses.

“Yet you instead chose to spend all that time at my neck,” you somehow find the ability to think, even as he melts your mind like a dragon’s breath melts armour, one clear swoop and you are at his mercy, hand tangled amidst the hair at the back of his head and holding him secure in his place against you.

Aemond smirks against your skin, trailing kisses over the expanse of your throat and dragging his lips up to the shell of your ear, the perfect excuse to whisper into it how, “some would say I am more at your neck now than I have ever been, Lady Stark.”

There is a collision between where his mouth lies and where his hands wander that leads to a peaceful departure of his kisses, a far more pressing matter at hand: undressing you. The prince seems to do so without giving it much thought, only for the gravity of his action to strike him, ice cold water and melted iron, as he takes in the sight of you, bare as the day you were brought into the world.

It does not matter that he lacks an eye, for the one he possesses carries the weight of a thousand men’s stares. A slow, agonising pause falls over his frantic need, as the prince falls into a trance, tracing over what feels to be every bump and every blemish that marks and shapes your body.

Never have you felt so exposed, not even the harrowing events of your bedding ceremony dare compare. You mean to find modesty, fruitless as it may seem, crossing one leg over the other while your arms do the same over your breasts. He can’t let that be, his own hands shooting out to gently grasp at your wrists and tug at them. Like the prince let you guide him to your chambers, you let him bare you to his eyes once more as your hands fall back to your side.

The intense stare continues, as does the silence, but, alas, he puts his skin to yours once more, a single finger that dances over the expanse of your clavicle, a teasing waltz that dips slowly between the valley of your breasts only to rise again. It takes interest in your left breast, skimming over the swell of it and, as it reaches the nipple, a second finger joins the cause. Together, they clamp round the soft flesh, a gentle pinch that pulls at an invisible string connected to your cunt, the start of an itch that demands to be scratched.

“This is wrong,” Aemond whispers, as if the words are not even meant to reach your ears. 

“So wrong,” you can’t help but echo back. There is a shake in your breath you don’t expect.

“I should not be touching you,” yet he makes no attempt to stop touching you, feet inching closer and his forehead resting against your own. “Only hours ago, I broke bread at the same table as your husband.”

The weight of his gaze lands on your lips. You await the reunion of his mouth and your own, but it never comes. Instead, his head dips down and the very same lips he uses to scowl delicately envelope the peak of your right breast. His mouth is warm, his tongue is curious, and his teeth give a gentle nibble to your right breast, in tandem with the pinch of his fingers on your left breast.

“Aemond,” a futile plea of his name. Your body calls to him, the way it only does for the prince, a subconscious squeeze of your thighs bringing a sweet drop of relief in the desert of desire.

He forces himself off of you, a sign of desperation between his kiss-swollen lips, pink, and plump, and shining with the wet of his own mouth, a perfect match to the residue of saliva he has stained upon your breast. 

“Tell me to leave,” he demands, yet makes no attempt to flee as your hand clasps at the top buckle of his jerkin, nor as you undone it and move down to the second buckle. “Before I lose any modicum of composure I still possess.”

You do no such thing.

You do not even speak.

Both eyes glued to his one, you inch your way backwards blindly, until your legs hit the edge of the bed. You let yourself fall back, unable to hold back a giggle as the mattress bounces you several times. The prince still stands a foot away, top buckles undone and the two that remain strain against the heaving of each breath that enters his chest.

“You stare too much, Prince One-Eye,” an unexplored part of you seems to take the reigns, a version of you that teases, and mocks, and feels no shame as you bend your legs at the knee, plant your feet flat against the bed, and slowly let your thighs part, baring your naked centre in a quiet offering. “Do you never tire of observing instead of participating?”

His footsteps echo, a slow approach towards the bed. He makes no sound, yet his face speaks a thousand words of longing, hunger, lust, all framed in a tightly bound brow, a pointed nose, sharply carved cheekbones, and lips that hover apart, drifting further from one another to make way for a rosy tongue that wets the lower lip. Like treacle slips down the tree or honey drips from its comb, the prince sinks slowly to his knees at the edge of the bed.

The image of a man at prayer, so buried in his worship that the caps of his knees bruise a pretty purple, made into a sin by the tugging at ankles, and the grabbing of naked thighs, and the hoisting of a single leg over a shoulder. He turns his face, closes his eye, and delivers a whisper of a kiss against the lower calf that rests upon him. It is a slow advance down into the well of madness, both the journey his lips make along your skin and the longing that it awakens in you, a heat that rises, and rises, and rises between your legs, melting away into a wetness of sin that dribbles its own path out the eye of your cunt and down the swell of your rump.

“Aemond,” it has become something more of a plea than a name. A call for something, anything, so long as it soothes your ache and laves your burning skin back to health, back to sanity. The prince protests with a tight squeeze around the meat of your thighs, his mouth paused above your knee. The eye reopens, blinks at you twice, before it shuts once more and he continues his descent down the length of you, growing closer to the apex of your legs with each fleeting kiss. 

When he strikes, he strikes hot. Like dragon’s breath, the prince’s mouth melts you beneath its kiss, open-mouthed upon the slickened lips of your cunt. Another kiss follows close behind as the prince continues a short journey higher, lips enveloping the hardened pearl that rests atop your centre. The leg on his shoulders jerks inwards, delivering a harsh kick of your heel against his back, yet Aemond barely seems to notice, too lost in the feast he sets himself between your legs.

He delves into you with reckless abandon, open mouth and curious tongue. They are a fearsome pair, who move over the length of your cunt with the grace of any great waltz. Lips pull the tongue in, and explore the pleasures of suckling at your pearl like a babe does its mothers teat. They descend further in their dance, twisting and twirling, parted lips and dipping tongue. You are rendered speechless, unable to speak much other than his Valyrian name and a cacophony of wanton moans, and shivered gasps, and back-arching whines, your head thrown back and your eyes feeling the need to shut. You cannot let the sight escape you, too far and too dark does the memory of the night in your chambers now live, more of a picture book than a motion play-by-play of the ways in which the prince had ravaged you between your thighs, the original sin of kin-by-law, kin by king. 

You’re barreling towards your own undoing, mouth barely finding time to breathe between each coo, and whimper, and cry it gifts the prince in honour of his efforts. Where he calls, you seem to follow, hips moving on their own accord to meet the breaching of his tongue between the warmth of your walls. He welcomes the movement, a groan of approval and the reopening of his eye, if only to stare at you intensely before returning his focus to what matters: delving in between your thighs.

“Ah,” he nods at your pitiful proclaim, and you swear you feel him draw out each letter of his own name upon your skin, branding you with his tongue and forsaking you to a life you already lead where the dragon prince is the only man to master the skill of pleasing you, of bringing you to a peak so thrilling it is hot white, burning, and blinding, and, unfortunately, fleeting, a beauty the gods gift you only a moment in time with, rather than the eternity you long for. 

With your good-brother’s tongue burrowed as deep as it may reach within your cunt, and his hands grasping your flailing legs tightly by the thigh, and his nose swiping back and forth at your pearl as your hips bend and rise to meet the strokes of his mouth, you at last take a tumble off the mountain of desire, rolling directly into a river of your own peak that stains the prince’s mouth. He answers it with open lips and delighted grunts, a gentleman who dares not leave a single drop of his prize go to waste.

It takes you time to regain your composure, and even longer to regain your breath, mind floating out your own head and drifting somewhere among the clouds, leaving the puddle of limbs that becomes your body. The prince, however, takes no pause, no break, no reprieve, the lips you stain with your own pleasure travelling a new path up the slope of your gut, the dip of your belly-button, the valley sloped by your heaving breast, the clavicle that shakes under the beat of a racing heart, the length of your neck that begs to be turned purple and blue by possessive lips, all the way to your ringing ears.

“Tell me you want this,” his command is but a whisper beneath the rush of your own heartbeat, so quiet you fear you mishear him. As if to reassure that your ears do not deceive you, he repeats the very same words, louder.

You nod, wordlessly, though your mind lies leagues away from rationality and you’ve little to no idea what the prince means by this. All you know is that if Aemond is willing to give, you are happy to take, no matter the nature of his gift.

No clothes live between you any longer, the prince undressed in your moments of delirium, leaving you both bare bod against bare bod, warm to touch and eager to explore and be explored, conquer and be conquered. The leg that sat upon his shoulder now clings onto it only by the ankle, the knee of it bent and sitting firmly between both your chests. The stretch of the angle brings a sweet pain to the back of your thigh, the muscle pulled taught like a bow ready to be released and shoot an arrow out into the night.

There is something hard, heavy, and warm that rests against your lower stomach, and it takes you glancing down to notice the familiar length of his cock, pink-tipped and spilling a tease of what seed lives within it against your skin, a liquid that shines under the flickering candlelight. The fire in the hearth has already lost its flame, yet you feel no chill while laying naked against the night. Though you’ve no doubt anybody feels a chill in the dornish air this evening, you prefer to credit this phenomenon to the blanket of muscle that hovers over you, four limbs, two hands and one eye that warms you beneath its stare, greater than any sun or hearth may dare.

“Tell me. Say it,” he grows desperate in his words, a hand slipping up between your bodies to grasp at your face and pull you back down to earth, eyes on him and mind back in the safety of your own head. When he catches you looking at him, at last, he seems incapable of stopping himself, bringing his mouth down against your own, a desperate parting of lips and the curious exploration of a tongue eager to taste yourself from upon his lips. Your essence tastes sweeter than you imagined, yet simultaneously more tart. Like a raspberry, freshly picked, you needn’t wonder why he feasted upon you with such delight. “Tell me I am not taking that which you are not willing to give.”

It’s not clear who out of the two of you moves, but the action gives way to friction between you, a buzz of pleasure that shoots down both your spines as you grind, body to body, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.

You realise then what he’s asking of you, the tension that has lay, building stronger and fortifying its defences over the course of an unspoken number of years, from the first moment you lay eyes on him and the night you married his own brother under his own watchful eye, to the nights of pleasantries exchange at feasts and indiscretions exchanged thrice in the privacy of each other’s company, all leading to this, right now, both of you as bare as the Mother delivered you into this world and desperate to let the fever of lust at last break between you.

So you nod your head, and quickly realise that’s not enough.

“A man cannot take what is already his,” the prince between your thighs seems to approve of your words, the hand upon your face reaching down to grasp at the length of his manhood as he aligns his hips with your own, before dragging the tip of himself between the mouth of your cunt, all the way up against the hardened nub that lives above it. “Aemond, I want this. I want you.”

“Yeah?” He croons against your mouth, tongue dipping down to brush against your own, lips parted as a single breath of air passes back and forth between you.

You nod your head for a third time this evening, curl an arm around his neck as you pull his mouth fully against your own, losing yourselves once more in a kiss of tangled limbs and racing hearts, neither mind thinking of the risks that lay on the road ahead. There are no vows that bind you by law, no customs that dictate how you should interact with each other. There are only two bodies, bare upon a bed, losing themselves in one another.

His lips are the first to drift away, while your own continue to press against the sharp line of his jaw. The weight of his forehead presses into your own, the heat of his breath warms your ear, and the tips of his fingers drag over your thigh as he takes hold of his cock once more.

“Then it is decided,” he mutters, half distracted, it seems, as the mushroomed tip of his prick at last breaches the opening of your weeping slit. “I’m going to defile you, Lady Stark.”

The first thrust is shallow. You welcome him with a delighted gasp and a tight grasp at his blonde locks. It’s not long after that he gives a second push and, lastly, a third, till the base of his cock kisses against your soaked lower lips and his stones rest against the swell of your arse.

With Aegon, the process of your couplings is ritualistic. Him, drunk out of his wits, you staring blankly at some blurry horizon. You’d cried at the beginning, till war had come and taking your husband between your legs was no longer the scariest threat that loomed in the shadows. There is always that initial pain that fades into mute pleasure, teasing you with the thought of enjoyment, only for it to be snatched away all too soon as your husband spends his seed and takes his leave, a sardonic voice that calls over his shoulder, “let’s hope you make yourself useful and spare us the need of repeating this come the next moon.”

There is a pain now, as the walls of your cunt spread and mould themselves tightly around the shape of another man’s cock, yet it doesn’t deter you. It awakens you, makes you crave a greater dose of the toe-curling pain as the prince stills himself, fully sheathed within you, mouth dancing across the skin of your neck, the length of your jaw, the dip of your clavicle. He’s everywhere upon you, a blanket of Aemond, and still it is not enough. 

The prince grasps at your ankle, yielding it down from the pedestal it took upon his shoulder. In an act of pure instinct, you choose not to lay it rest on the bed but, instead, find yourself hooking it over the slender frame of his waist. You fight back a wanton whine as it drives him closer to you, deeper in you. He takes it as his command to move at last.

It starts off slow. A testing of waters, a low burning ember. His hips retreat from your own, only to undulate back down against you, smooth as a hot blade cuts through butter. Your body reacts with ease, legs begging to spread further than they can dare go, a display of how willing it is to offer you, whole and hole, to the prince. It makes it easy to drag your mind away from your husband, and the many misdeeds of your marital bed, and the anger that begs to be called upon when you think of the years you’ve spent being bowed and broken-in by a man who knows no pleasure but his own.

You find yourself turning Aemond’s face away from your neck and up to your parted lips, need to connect with every part of him that you can as your other hand lays splayed across his muscled back, delighting as it tightens and loosens beneath your fingertips, a pattern that only doubles in speed with each passing moment, a testament to the prince finding his footing, setting a pace with which to ruck himself into your opening.

The room fills with whispers of moans, cries of each other’s names, and the squelch of his manhood spearing into you. Over, and over, and over again, till your toes curl in on themselves, and your back arches off the bed, and his mouth trails wonders down the expanse of your neck down to the valley of your chest once more, that warm mouth claiming ownerships of one of your breasts and the other is engulfed by his hand.

“Gods,” you cry out, a blasphemous act amid this display of naked sin upon the goose-feather mattress.

“No, no gods,” the prince answers, voice ragged and breath hot against skin that shines with his spit and your sweat. “Just you and me.”

The leg thrown over his waist clutches tighter, holds him close. Some part of you fears it has all been an illusion — the visit to Dorne, the return of the prince, the thrill of at last tasting the sting of his cock slipping between your lips — and that soon you will waken with a gasp to find yourself back in the Queen’s apartments at the Red Keep.

The only gasp you give is one born of pure pleasure, the gentle grind of his pelvis against the hardened pearl between your legs. It sets off butterflies that flutter in your gut and fly from there, ripples of pleasure down your thighs, and up your spine, and through your chest. 

He kisses your name against your skin, as his hands clamp down tighter and his hips fuck into you harder, faster, more desperate and out of rhythm with themselves as the moments drag on, and on, and on, a force that’s driving you both closer to the edge of pleasure and certain to throw you off it, down into the pits of blinding ecstasy.

“Aemond,” it is a warning, one you needn’t even speak, one you would not be able to put into words if you even tried. And try you do. “I’m- Ah! I can’t-”

“I know,” the prince cuts you off and, despite his ability to speak without his own vocalised enjoyment interrupting him, he is in no better state than you are, hair sticking to his sweated skin, and eye struggling to keep itself open, and hips stuttering with every few trusts they give, as though he’s actively fighting off the inevitable release his body begs of him. “I know, I know.”

A hiss blown out into the night, through gritted teeth and followed by a pathetic noise that crawls itself out the prince, the growing intensity in his grip upon your thighs, your hips, any part of you he dares touch becomes a reflection of your walls tightening around the swell of his cock and the lips kiss the base of him, praying that he never dare leave.

You feel your peak hovering right over you, as if you need only stretch out your hand and grasp at it. Instead you grasp at his hair, fingers curling around the tresses and tugging them at the roots. The moan that follows the prince is one of approval. As the world around you melts away under warmth, and light, and sweat, you stumble at last and crash straight into a blinding pleasure, a cry of ecstasy infused with his name.

“Don’t leave,” you beg, and he listens.

He takes his own leap, no warning, mouth at your ear, hands on your thighs, cock in your cunt. The pair of you are a mess of panting breaths, and ill-delivered kisses upon sweaty skin, and fluids that stain you in each other’s lust. Together you stay for what feels like an eternity, limbs entwined and air shared between you, until the prince rolls off of you and lets himself crash, back first, against the mattress. Coolness kisses at the sweat that lines your body, the wetness in your thighs one you’d usually find uncomfortable, yet you welcome it now, even as a trail of his seed slips out your slit.

This is treason, of the highest order. The Queen and the Prince, bare for the world to see, bodies sated and shaking in the aftershocks of coupling as they lay side by side, one bed that holds two hearts. His seed has stained your insides, an act that threatens you both, yet neither of you care to speak of it.

Because right now, you are not the Queen, nor is Aemond the Prince.

It is just him, and you.

No gods, no duty, no family, no honour. 

Just you and me, his words echo in your mind.

“It was an accident,” he whispers. You shift on your side, all at once, elbow digging into the bed as you scan your eyes over the length of his body, waiting for him to inflict more pain, waiting for him to scramble away from you in a hurry, redress himself and walk out the door, fleeing on his mount and plundering you into another drought of pretending his is not the company you long for. But his voice starts up once more, and the prince does no such thing. “What I did to Lucerys. I think.” Under a sigh of relief, your shoulders sag and the exhaustion that alluded you hours ago creeps up on your bones, forcing you to surrender yourself against the prince, laying your head to rest upon his shoulder, your arm across his beating chest, and your legs entwining with his once more.

“I did not give the command…” The prince continues to speak, barely acknowledging you with his eyes as his own arm secures itself over you, dragging you closer, as if there’s any space left between you to be crossed. “It was Vhagar who struck. I do not know what I set out to do that night when I took to the skies in pursuit of my nephew. Perhaps I meant only to scare him. Maybe I truly wanted to strike him at that moment, and Vhagar was merely my vessel to do harm.”

You watch the apple of his throat bob as the prince swallows back words you will never hear. Despite your curious nature, you find yourself at peace with this, no part of you wishing to learn of things he wishes to not share, events he can barely recall without a shake making nest within his voice.

“I do not know the full answer, if I regret it or not,” comfort in your silence, Aemond finds it in himself to continue recounting, letting his mind spill to the floor and his mouth collect it as coherently as it can. “All I know is that repentance is not my path to take, my role in history has already been written. Kinslayer, that is to be my legacy. What kind of man can outrun such a thing as legacy?”

You, you wish to say.

But fear you would not even believe yourself. The maesters gather in Oldtown already, putting quill to paper and weaving tales from the dragon war into the history books, binding rumours, and facts, and treason, and falsehoods into its pages. History favours the victor, that much is known, yet you wonder what the books will read and what the songs will sing of Aemond Targaryen and the acts he committed, from the lead up to the Dance, to the recapturing of King’s Landing. A trail of blood taints the path he walked, but is it any more than your husband’s? Or Ser Criston Cole’s? Or your good-mother, the instigator of Aegon’s coronation and accused usurping?

Perhaps the trails of blood all lead back to one man, Viserys Targaryen, dead and gone before the dragons took the sky, and fire and blood became not just the words of House Targaryen but the death of it.

“Promise me, Aemond,” the candlelight has burnt out, the room encased in the darkness of the moonlight, a pale blue hue that blankets over the shapes and shadows of the chambers.

“Anything,” his voice is gentle yet firm all at once, soothing in its own assurance of the word it speaks.

“Leave before morning dawns,” you feel the hand that had begun trailing patterns over the naked skin of your back freeze, unexpectant to your request. You, too, can hardly believe it. Moons you had spent in court, wishing and hoping for a moment of his company, if only to scream in his face and lament your own lonesome days in the Keep. Now, you have him bare beneath you and it is more terrifying than you ever dared consider. “I do not wish to be burdened with the memory of how it feels to lay by your side all through the night, nor do I wish to know the sweetness of your face being the first view that greets my waking eyes.”

You glance up at him, head lifting off his shoulder to fully gaze upon his naked face for one last time this evening, wishing he could understand how much you truly mean it. He gives you no response and so you take upon yourself to end the conversation, a gentle kiss delivered against the scarred tissue of his cheek, one last gaze at the part of himself he’s haunted by.

As you feel your eyes slip shut, head back upon the safety of the prince’s shoulder, it is unclear what rings louder in your ear: the beat of his heart or the final cry of his dragon gives from outside the walls.

You wake at dawn’s first light.

It creeps in through a crack between curtains, the gentle breeze of early morning air billowing them further apart with each passing moment. Disorienting, for half a moment you’ve forgotten where you are, eyes blurred by sleep that scan over a room that holds no familiarity to your apartments in the Keep. 

The bowl of water upon the vanity reminds you of where you are, and everything that transpired hours before.

A stifled yawn, a stretch of limbs. You reach a hand up to wipe the sleep out of your eyes, but on its journey it gets caught against something else. It is soft, and warm, and wrapped tightly around you. The image of the prince, head nestled against the naked skin of your chest, sleeping soundly as the world passes by and daytime steps forth into the sky.

He has broken his promise, yet you cannot even fool yourself into feeling angered.

Not when the sight is one of beauty, a rare peacefulness on his ever-weary face. He looks his age, a man no more than a couple years past his second decade. You brush your hand over his messed hair, trail over the freshly made stitches that live temporarily above his brow, and sigh in utter defeat.

Not a day will come where you will not wake and long for this sight.

And not a day will come again where you will see it.

The moon has almost completed its cycle once more, and your return to the Keep crawls closer by the day. You will soon trade your time of respite and warmth with duty and court, by your husband’s side once more. And far, far away from the one-eyed prince.

A longing to watch the sun’s light rise over the horizon calls you away from the prince, and the bed, and the chambers. You leave him there, sleeping peacefully as he tangles himself amidst your sheets, and slip out the door with no more than your wits and the very same dress Aemond had pulled off of you during the night.

You make your way quietly through the halls, your bare feet padding carefully over the floor, careful to attract no wandering guard or waken any curious child. Solitude is a virtue you have so little of, and so you want to reach for it while it sits in front of you. You almost believe you’ve achieved it, stepping out onto the communal balcony that overlooks the gardens and stares right out to the rolling tide of the Summer Sea.

Until, for a second time in so few hours, you find yourself faced with the back of a Targaryen.

“Helaena,” you call out to her gently, apologising with a smile as the hand you lay on her arm causes her to flinch. “I wasn’t expecting for anyone else to be awake at this hour. Are you well?”

You both stand before the marble bannister of the balcony, shoulder to shoulder, and as her face turns to you, you find a shell of the girl you’ve come to know.

Eyes rimmed with red, and wide with panic, and brimmed with unfallen tears. Her hair is a mess, and not in the usual careless fashion that it seems to live in, but dishevelled, distressed, as though pulled at and tugged on. She’s pale. Pale as the days she lived in King’s Landing, hiding from the world with her critters and her bugs, before she travelled south and found the joy of sunlight warming one’s skin. 

The sight of her is most unnerving.

“I used to wish for a sister,” her voice is hollow, like the rest of her, emptied of its joy. “I had Rhaenyra by blood, but she was gone by the time I reached an age where those things matter. All I had was my brothers, each one equal parts awful and wonderful in his own way.”

“I, too, knew only brothers growing up,” you hope the worry she’s birthed within you goes unnoticed as you smile her way, appeasing the strange conversation she sparks up and praying it does not head in the direction that you fear it may: Aemond. “I used to force Cregan to sit at my feet and let me paint his lips and cheeks with rouge, and braid his hair. I think he began to wish a sister for us both, if only to take my affections off of him!”

Your laughter is met only with more troubled looks from Helaena.

“Then you should understand why I am so grateful to have you now, as my sister. Not by blood, but law, but a sister all the same,” you nod in agreement to her words, place your hand upon the one she rests against the bannister and deliver a comforting squeeze to it. “Then you should understand that I worry about you.”

Ice runs through your veins, in place of blood. You begin to fear the worst, images of Helaena knocking at your door and you replying in only sounds of pleasure. Of her twisting the handle and finding the sight of you in bed with her brother, her other brother instead of the one you’re bound to by law. 

You swallow back a ball of anxious energy that lodges up your breathing pipes.

“Helaena, sister, you do not seem yourself,” you keep your voice hushed, hoping she’ll do the same if she dares speak of the events transpired between you and Aemond. You were wrong to be so reckless, to think you were safe to step where you like because you sit far from the Red Keep. Nowhere is safe enough, nowhere will ever be safe enough. “What worries you so deeply?”

“I see him,” she hisses the words, like she cannot bring herself to speak any louder, forcing it out of herself in a breath. “In my dreams. It frightens me.”

“Who?” You pray for her to tell, try to think what defence you could possibly have for yourself and the prince under the accusation of her mind’s eye, a gift you’ve heard much of and seen little, the curse of the Targaryen dreamers.

“You’re there, too, in a bed soaked by tears, and sweat, and blood,” the more she speaks, the more the fear rises within you. The fear feels bigger than yourself, bigger than the affairs between you and Aemond. “He is there, at your bedside, a hand on your shoulder. He means no harm, but death is his nature, he cannot help it. He’s there to take you.”

“Who, Helaena? You must tell me!” You wipe away the single tear the streaks down her face and cup at her face with both hands, a gentle comfort that seems mute against her fear stricken features.

“The Stranger.”

+ extra hyde !

we're finally getting into the meat of the plot, beyond these two horn-dogs trying to bang in a world that hates to see a bad bitch thrive. from here on out, expect more drama, and mystery, and death (but who's?).

i really hope the length of the chapters makes up for the slow, once a month, roll out. the series' masterlist has been edited, with 2 new chapters added to the timeline.

a quick apology to anyone who may have felt the smut is a little lacklustre in this chapter. i tried to write a much wilder, kinkier, mouthier version of the scene and, in all honesty, it did not feel true to the context under which they at last wind up smashing. writing smut and using medieval language is surprinsingly hard (no pun intended), so this is honestly a journey we're all going on together (aka me trying to navigate not being able to use the typical language of modern sex scenes).

thank you for reading, see you next month!

[meiieiri]

water’s edge | concept dump

₊˚.༄ pairing: crown prince!gojo satoru x f!reader | setting: modern royal au

₊˚.༄ summary: in a world where titles define their fates, gojo satoru, the crown prince of japan, and his wife-to-be, face a tempestuous court of deception and schadenfreude. as they waltz on the edge of ruin, can their love endure the treacherous waters that threaten to pull them apart, or will the whims of the enigmatic chrysanthemum throne prove strong enough to drown them both?

₊˚.༄ warnings: mean!gojo (but that’s not even the worst of it oh my god what monstrosity have i created), arranged marriage, illness, allusions to criminal activity that may include reckless homicide, physical battery and attempted murder. mentions of depression, cheating, physical and emotional abuse, trauma, adultery. fictional depiction of the japanese imperial family, etc.

LINK TO FULL FIC MASTERLIST HERE!

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who is the only son of the emperor and empress of Japan, the beloved and long-awaited child of his parents. As a child, he had been showered with endless praise and veneration as the one, true, legitimate heir to the chrysanthemum throne. The entire imperial household had expected the prince to inherit an unwavering sense of duty to the crown and to his people much like his fore-bearers, only to be severely disappointed when the prince turns out to be a pathological card shark with ambiguous morals, and a serial womanizer who has slept with countless women from aristocratic backgrounds during the height of his bachelor years.

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who finally incurs his father’s wrath after a nasty bar brawl that leads to him getting unceremoniously arrested and is stripped of his title and properties as crown prince, favoring his half-brother, Prince Suguru Geto, who had been born of the emperor’s affair with one of the empress’s ladies-in-waiting. This incident has prompted his mother, the empress, to help in ratifying his public image by arranging Satoru to marry a commoner with an impeccable standing in Japanese society in a bid to re-portray Satoru as a responsible, married man. The empress, in turn, offers to grant you, Satoru’s future wife-to-be, anything your heart could ever desire.

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who engages in a pantomime act of being a loving husband to you during a state banquet by showering you with endless praise in his speech addressed to all the world leaders in the Akasaka Palace’s reception hall. When he was asked to introduce you, his new wife, the honeyed words came so easily to him. “You see, the princess (Y/N) is no ordinary woman,” he chuckles into the microphone causing the guests to giggle at the sight of what looks to be a bashful newlywed.

“Other than being the first breath of fresh air our family has ever had the pleasure of knowing in so long, and the most active member in our family when it comes to supporting the many royal charities and foundations, she is…” he trails off. You dared to follow the wandering gaze of your husband, who seems to be searching for another pair of eyes in the room. His eyes eventually stop their search, softening at the sight of the one he loved. For a second, you think he is looking at you, and your heart naively skips a beat in your chest as if all these months of inattention and animosity were finally coming to an end.

“…My better half, the keeper of my own heart.”

Many of the ambassador’s wives who sat beside you nudged you in congratulations for being so blessed with such a devoted husband. You crane your head back to smile warmly at them for the kind words only to have ice coat your veins instantly when you see his Chief-of-Staff, Himiko Zenin, sitting about two seats behind you, staring directly at your husband with a wistful look in her eyes, exchanging words of love in a silent oath — one that is far more certain than the rising and the setting of the sun as each day passes with your husband hating you a tad bit more than yesterday, and one that is far more truthful than the wedding vows you shared.

Of course, writing this godforsaken death march-like speech was easy for Satoru, simply because these words of devotion and love were never intended for you anyway; this poetic spiel was written with another woman ensnaring his mind.

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who sneaks out of bed during your wedding night, sparing one last cold glance at your sleeping form before he saunters out the imperial villa to meet his girlfriend in a nearby mountain resort, about half a mile away from the villa. His personal chauffeur had been sworn to secrecy, else, he would incur the wrath of the crown prince.

“I thought you couldn’t get away,” Himiko moans wantonly into his mouth as he roughly takes her from behind, the lewd wet sounds of their lovemaking echoing through the room. He had taken the liberty of secretly bringing Himiko along to your honeymoon, by booking the most expensive suite in the resort for her under another name.

“The bitch is too fucked out to even notice I’m gone— mmph—“ he throws his head back, releasing a pleasured groan when Himiko meets his sharp thrusts, grinding teasingly on his cock as she does so. He grips her hips tightly, readjusting his hips to pound into her from another angle, the muscles on his abs tightening as he gets lost in the feeling of her tight, luscious walls. “Sh-shit, ‘m-m gonna cum—“

“—Ah! S-Satoru,” she was close too, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as the fat tip of his member roughly prods at her cervix.

He half-expected Himiko to be angry with him for engaging in intimate acts with you, but she simply acts like she didn’t hear him. And even if she was upset, why should he, of all people, apologize? She should have known that becoming his mistress entailed having to endure these kinds of things as these were simply Satoru’s marital duties, and by extension, his duty to the crown.

His high washes over him like a tidal wave crashing into the rock shore, grunting as he involuntarily thrusts as he releases inside her, Himiko collapsing onto the pillows as he does. “O-oh, haaa- agh,” his deep tenor moans into her long black hair as his seed paints her walls, holding her close to his form, their heartbeats racing a million miles an hour.

He pulls out his flaccid cock, plopping down next to her, pulling her small frame for her head to rest on his chest. “I just need to have father reinstate me as heir apparent and return all my estates, then,” he kisses her once, his lips moving in sync with her soft ones.

“…We’ll get rid of her.”

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who blatantly and publicly humiliates you by bringing along Himiko Zenin to a state visit to the imperial family’s counterpart in Monaco rather than you, his rightful wife. And when asked of your whereabouts, Satoru simply replies with a casual shrug, his hand squeezing Himiko’s smaller ones as she usurps the banquet thrown in your honor by the Monacan royal family while you watch the horrific scene unfold on your television screen, your heart shattering into a million pieces as Himiko and Satoru uncaringly waltz with one another in front of the watchful eyes of the entire world throughout the evening.

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who crucifies you for your acts of sincere charity, believing you to be actively humiliating Himiko despite having no intentions whatsoever resembling his baseless accusation. “Did you honestly think your little publicity antics would go unpunished? I bet you were just itching for the attention, weren’t you?” he snarls at you the second you come back from a visit to one of the hospitals you had commissioned for the treatment of children with rare diseases, a compassionate act which had been heavily televised by national broadcasting stations and even international news agencies. “If you wish to compete with Himiko, wife, then, by all means. But I swear to you, I will do everything — everything I can — to make the entire world know just how much of an opportunistic whore you are—”

You gaze up at your husband with fear in your eyes. “…I was not competing with Himiko, can I not care for our people — your people? I’m sure they need someone to promote their interests when their own prince couldn’t be bothered to do so!” you retaliate but are quickly shot down when he throws his scotch glass at the wall, causing you to flinch when it shatters on impact.

“I will make sure this humiliation you dealt to Himiko will return to you tenfold, (Y/N),” he dangerously seethes, coming to the aid of his mistress. “Celebrate your victory all you want, wife, but make no mistake, this is far from over.”

₊˚.༄ Crown Prince!Gojo who indifferently scoffs when you crumble into a sobbing mess after yet another argument with him. “W-what can I do to make you not hate me so much? P-please tell me, Satoru.” The only response you receive is your husband dangerously moving closer to you, his eyes, dark with pure loathing. Instinctively, you step backward, only to be met by the cold wall of your shared bedroom. “S-Satoru—“

“—Here’s what you can do: do exactly as I say, without question,” he traps you between his arms, his breath hot on your skin, his lips dangerously close to yours, his voice dripping with the venom that could turn every silver thread in your heart into a hue that resembled charcoal black. “If I tell you to kiss me, you kiss me. If I tell you to get out, you get out. If I tell you to shut up, you sew your mouth shut or rip your tongue out, I really don’t give a damn. If I tell you to die…”

…

…

“…You drop dead.”

a/n: meh, just wrote this at the top of my head to get rid of this stupid writer’s block since hehe i have like eighteen drafts of jjk smut and drabbles in my tumblr folder rn help :’)

might turn this into a multi-chapter fic depending on how it is received. so lemme know your thoughts by reblogging, liking or commenting on this post!

[thelovelylolly]

Hi. I have a request for a loki x female reader. I love his character so much. I would like it too be a short fluffy one.

Can you write a fic about loki and a reader who likes him but is afraid to tell him that, so she avoids him but he realizes that she likes him because he can read her like an open book. And it ending with them kissing for the first time.

Sorry if this sounds confusing. If you can't write this that is fine.

--sam w

Avoiding

Summary : you're a goddess on Asgard, and you've fallen in love with Loki. Warnings: fem! reader, r has long hair but texture and color isn't desc., some self doubt but it's very brief, let me know if i missed anything! Word count: 1.3k (not proofread) Notes: this is so cute! i did give them some more backstory so i hope you enjoy! (also dividers by @saradika-graphics !!)

You loved Loki.

It was plain and simple. You were a goddess on Asgard and had grown up with him while Frigga taught you how to harness your magic. You and Loki clicked instantly, sometimes getting into trouble together or spending quiet afternoons between lessons together. You helped him with his pranks against his brother, he helped you try new things with your magic.

You had a crush on him when you were both children, but you thought it was just a silly childhood crush.

Then, you grew up and it didn't go away.

If anything, your feelings grew stronger and deeper.

You didn't want to ruin the friendship you had with him and he was a prince. You held no title other than 'goddess' and you had heard about all the suitors his father had set up for him. Loki didn't want any of them and always said he'd rather spend his life with you or no one at all.

Surely, he didn't mean that he wanted to court and marry you, right?

He always went straight to you after meeting with suitors, which is where he found you one late afternoon. You were lounging around in the library, re-reading one of your favorite books, when he slipped through the large library doors. He closed them behind him and let out a sigh as he leaned against them.

You looked up from your book with a soft smile. "How'd it go?" You asked, even though you knew the answer.

"Terrible," Loki answered, walking over to you and sitting on the opposite end of the couch you were on. "I don't think my father understands that I'm not interested in these spoiled princes and princesses."

"Aww, you poor thing," you said teasingly, putting your book aside and scooting closer to him. "You have all these perfect options to choose from-"

"You know I don't want any of them," he quickly cut you off, smiling over at you. "But at least this one brought me a present."

"Oh, did they? What was it?"

Loki held his hand up and used his magic to make the gift appear. It was a delicate, gold crown that looked like a vine full of leafs.

"It's beautiful," you quietly said, leaning closer to get a better look.

"I was nice about it, but I knew it would look better on you than me," he replied, taking the crown between his hands and turning to face you. He gently placed it on top of your head, gently pulling a few pieces of your hair out to frame your face.

Your smile fell when you noticed how close the two of you were, your lips slightly parted as your heart raced. His soft smile made your insides melt and all you wanted to do lean forward and kiss him.

"I was right," he whispered, just loud enough for you to hear, "it does look better on you. You look like a queen."

Your gaze fell to his lips. All you had to do was say three little words and lean forward. But that could ruin everything.

Instead, you pulled away and stood up, clearing your throat awkwardly. You grabbed your book and turned towards him as you walked backwards to the doors. "I-I'm sorry, I have to go..." You quickly said before turning and leaving.

Loki watched the doors close behind you, leaving him alone in the library. His smile fell and he leaned against the back of the couch, letting out a sigh.

Something was up with you, and he was going to figure out what it was.

A few days had passed since what happened in the library and you had done your best to avoid Loki. You felt embarrassed and you didn't want to face him. You started to avoid the places the two of you usually frequented and found a nice beach area to escape to. It was hidden by different types of flora from the palace gardens.

However, you kept the crown he gave you. You only took it off to sleep or do your hair, which was always in a style that let you wear the crown. You had gotten compliments from others around the castle and when they asked where it had come from, you simply said it was a gift.

But it was more than a gift to you. It was a slight bit of hope that Loki requited your feelings.

Yet, you were too afraid to tell him and decided that avoiding him would help. Even with your peaceful beach and your favorite books, Loki still took up most, if not all, of your thoughts. Maybe he did know you had feelings for him because he knew you so well.

He knew you well enough to eventually find you on the beach. The sun was just starting to set and it caused the clear, blue waves to sparkle in the late afternoon light. The sun also shined off of the crown on your head, making you easy to spot for Loki.

When he called your name, your heart skipped a beat. You stood up from where you were sitting and reading before turning to him, watching him as he jogged over to you.

"There you are!" He said with a large smile. "I've been looking for you everywhere the past few days, why have you been avoiding me, dear?"

Dear. Gods, you loved him.

"I...I just needed some space, I guess," you replied softly, looking out at the waves next to you two.

"Space to think about your feelings for me?" He asked with a hint of teasing in his tone.

Your head whipped around and you looked at him with wide eyes. "W-what do you mean? What feelings-"

"Darling, we've been friends since we were children, I know you," he reached for your hands, taking them in his, "I figured out you had feelings for me only recently, so don't think I've been leading you on or anything. I've been trying to figure out how to tell you that I love you."

"You...what?" You were still surprised he found out, but now he admitted he loved you? Your mind was racing and so was your heart as you stepped closer to him. "You love me, too?"

"Of course I do, darling," he said, trailing his hands up your arms to hold your waist as he pulled you closer. "Why else do you think I've rejected all the suitors my father set up for me? Why do you think I gave you that crown?"

He leaned closer, pressing his forehead against yours before saying, "why do you think I spend every second I can with you?"

You took a deep breath, letting out a relieved sigh. "I was scared I was going to ruin what we have," you whispered.

He reached one hand up and cupped your cheek, running his thumb across your skin gently. "You could never ruin it, darling."

You slowly started to lean closer, the gap between you and him closing. He met you half way and pressed his lips to yours.

You had imagined his kiss many times, but none of it compared to real life. He was soft and gently, but still held you tight and close. He knew where to place his hands, how to move his lips against yours, and when to pull away.

It wasn't a short kiss, nor was it long, but you immediately missed the feeling of his lips on yours. However, the look he gave you silently told you that more were to come.

"Would you allow me to court you, darling?" He asked softly, still holding you close to him.

"Of course, Loki," you answered, smiling up at him, "but does your father know?"

He laughed. "No, but I don't care if he approves or not. I want you, I choose you, and he'll have to be okay with that because I'm never going to change my mind."