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cordeliawhohung · 5 months

Note

If you are tired of doing mafia!Price than ignore this

But what if reader want to treat him good for all the things he does for her. (smut???👀)

oh hun, mafia!price is living rent free in my brain, i don't think i could be tired of him even if i tried. i hope you enjoy this 2k words worth of filth <3

warnings: smut, fem!reader, oral (m!receiving), praise, creampie, i think that's it?

more mafia!price can be found here (:

Cream colored fabric hugged your body as if you had been born with it. It melded to your body, perfectly complimenting every single one of your features. The fabric was light, perfect for the warm days that overpowered the cool end to the spring. Gathered fabric made up the sleeves that hung off your shoulders, exposing more of your chest as it was accompanied by a low, sweetheart neckline. Smiling to yourself, you couldn’t help but sway side to side and watch as the skirt of the dress twisted around your thighs.

As you admired yourself in the mirror, you caught sight of your husband behind you. He sat in a large, upholstered chair where he comfortably leaned back as he took in the sight of you wearing his latest gift. Even in his reflection you could make out that twinkle in his eyes, like he never wanted to look at anything else ever again. With a grin, you turned around to face him for real, and you watched as he tilted his head to the side while his eyes flickered to the way the fabric danced around your hips.

“Do you like it?” he asked, eyes slowly wandering up along your body until they landed on your face again.

“I love it,” you answered. You glanced down as you ran your hands along your front. It was so soft, and beautiful in its simplicity. You knew it must have cost a good amount of money, but John always removed the tags on every gift he gave to you, never wanting you to worry about finances. Besides, with his line of work, he had plenty to spend on his wife.

And you were well aware that there was rarely an expense he would spare on you. Always showering you with gifts and love; always taking care of you better than anyone else ever had. Your thumb absentmindedly played with the ring on your finger as you glided forward to sit on his lap. John welcomed you with open arms, and his hands instantly wrapped around your waist while you threw your legs over his.

“Figured you could wear it tonight,” he mused while his thumb grazed along your waist. “Got us a reservation at Firenze’s at seven.” He tugged at the skirt of your dress. “You’ll be turnin’ heads wearin’ this.”

“Firenze’s?” you repeated. “I thought they had a few weeks waiting list, at least?”

John’s mouth quirked up into a slight smirk. “Vito owed me a favor.”

You playfully rolled your eyes. “Everyone owes you a favor.”

“Everyone but you.”

Which was odd. Out of everyone in the world, you certainly should have owed him more than anyone else. He fed you, showered you with gifts, gave you a beautiful home to live in, and never once did he ask for anything in return. Always took such good care of you like he had never known any different.

Without warning, you leaned forward and planted your lips right on his. His facial hair rubbed softly against your upper lip and chin as he returned your kiss without hesitation. The faint taste of tobacco coated his lips and you devoured it as your hands started to roam around his body. You pawed at his chest as you deepened the kiss, tongue slipping into his mouth, and you allowed your hands to roam lower. When your fingers brushed against his stomach and continued to dip downwards, you felt his abdomen tense as his breath caught in his throat.

“I love you,” you whispered as you pulled away, lips still ghosting against his. Finally, your hand dipped below his belt and cupped the still hardening bulge in his pants. You reveled in the way he let out a heavy breath by giving him a small moan. “Always take such good care of me. I wanna show you how much I love you.”

“Fuck, darling,” John hissed as you pressed your hand against him. Between the confines of his pants and the pressure of you against him, he swore he was going to erupt.

Offering him relief, your hands started to tug at his belt and the zipper of his pants until there was enough room for you to pull his cock out. You had just worked him up and already his tip was puffy and red, all too eager to find solace inside of you. Wordlessly, you slipped out of his lap as your knees gently came in contact with the wood of the bedroom floor and you nestled yourself between his legs.

The sight of you on your knees with both hands wrapped around his cock had pulled a groan out of John’s chest. He was at a loss for words watching his sweet wife lean forward and place careful kisses from the base of his shaft, all the way to his tip. Your tongue lovingly licked along him, gathering the salty taste of precum in your mouth, and you moaned at the taste.

He grunted once more when your lips wrapped around the head of his length, and one of his hands instinctively gathered your hair as your mouth enveloped him. His girth had your jaw opening nearly as wide as you could manage as you pushed him deeper in your mouth until he prodded at the back of your throat.

You built up speed as you continued, lips running up and down his length. Each time you took him deeper and deeper in your mouth until you were nearly gagging, and even then you still pushed yourself. Strong muscles in his thighs tightened each time his tip reached the plushy flesh in the back of your throat, and it didn’t take long before he was muttering praises to you like a madman.

“Look at you. Beautiful girl, christ. Takin’ such good care of me, such a sweet thing, aren’t you?” he mumbled, straining to get the words out with how tense his jaw was from the sheer pleasure.

It wasn’t until his hips started bucking up into your mouth that you pulled away from him, forcing another hiss out of him. A thin string of saliva connected your mouth to the tip of his cock for only a moment before it broke and dribbled down your chin. Your lips felt puffy from the friction, and you panted slightly as you attempted to catch your breath. John’s hand let go of your hair as he swiped his thumb along your bottom lip, smearing your spit across your skin.

“I want you to sit back,” you spoke as you pushed yourself to your feet. Not even a moment later your knees were on either side of John’s hips, straddling him as you hovered over his aching and twitching length. You offered him slight relief by gently grinding your clothed cunt down on him as you leaned forward to nip at his ear. “Let me do the work.”

His breath was hot on your neck as he exhaled, hands gliding along your hips and thighs as you hovered above him. His need for you was insatiable, and it was impossible for him to hold back the growl building in his throat.

“Anything for you, darling,” he hummed, voice low.

You didn’t even bother attempting to remove your underwear in that position. Instead, you pushed the fabric to the side, exposing yourself to him as you carefully lowered down onto his length. Not even a quarter of the way inside of you and you could already feel the uncontrollable twitching of his cock. It took everything in you to not just fully fall onto him in one swift motion, to just spear yourself open on him.

Once you finally had him buried inside of you, you moaned as you gently grinded, making his hard length dance inside of you. The skirt of your dress completely covered the view of your bodies being joined together, and it was as if the two of you were just sharing a passionate kiss.

Then your hips began to buck, rocking up and down along him, cunt continually swallowing him and then spitting him back out. It took everything in John to not thrust up into you, or grab your hips and work you himself. The back of his head leaded against the plush cushion of the chair as his blue eyes focused on you like some icy fire. Distracting himself from the urge to fuck into you, he let his hands roam; grabbing at your breasts, pinching your nipples through the thin fabric of your dress, brushing his thumb along your bottom lip.

Eventually he couldn’t take it any longer. He gathered the fabric of the dress and bunched it up, revealing the way your cunt swallowed him whole. The sight left him grunting, and he noticed the way you fluttered around him at the sound. Your panties were soaked, having only been haphazardly pushed to the side, too impatient to take things slowly.

“You’re always so good to me,” you panted from exertion. A thin layer of sweat made your chest glisten, and your lips still felt puffy from sucking him off earlier. John was utterly enchanted by the way your tits bounced with your movement. “Just wanna make you feel good. I- fuck- love you s’much, baby- fuck…”

That familiar heat began to tighten in your lower stomach, and John caught on instantly in the way your hips faltered and your words grew nearly incoherent. With one hand still holding up the skirt of your dress, he snaked the other one behind your neck, making you look at him.

“Wanna make me feel good? That right, darling? Yeah?” he asked, lips brushing against yours. “Cum on this fucking cock. I want to feel it.”

It felt wrong being the first one to finish. You were doing all of this for him, to show your gratitude, your love, and yet there you were, teetering on the edge. Still, he requested it, demanded it, and a few more needy rock of your hips later and you were coming undone around him with a pitchy moan. Every muscle in your body tensed and burned, and it felt impossible to catch your breath from the blistering heat that washed over you, yet you pushed on as your walls fluttered around him.

His hands stayed firmly on the back of your neck and bunched up in your dress as you continued, hellbent on getting him off, but his grip only grew stronger as you pulled him closer to his own release. His breathing grew ragged and throaty as his legs tensed. Nothing could rip his eyes off of the sight of you taking him like a good wife.

“Please,” you spoke up, voice choked with pleasure. “Please, wanna make you feel good. I need it, need to feel you, need your cum, please baby, fuck.”

That did him in. The hand wrapped in your dress yanked you down hard, pulling your hips flush against him with no chance of escape. A rough grunt rumbled in his throat as you felt his cock twitch and pulse inside of you. Tensing around him, you milked him of everything he had to give you, and you groaned at the sensation as he filled your cunt full. Knees shaking on either side of him, your head fell forward and rested against his shoulder as he continued to fill you, and once he was finished, you felt his muscles melt.

“You know,” he said, arms loosely wrapping around you, “if you liked the dress that much, a simple thank you also would have sufficed.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” you exhaled, grinning into the side of his neck. “Besides, don’t act like you weren’t thinking about fucking me in this dress after dinner, anyway.”

John hummed at your comment, and then gently bucked his hips upwards, drawing a sharp gasp out of you. He chuckled at the way your legs clenched around his waist, and he turned his head to plant an open mouthed kiss against your cheek.

“Oh darling, I’m still thinkin’ about it.”

#mafia!price #mafia!141 #cod smut #captain john price smut #captain john price x reader #captain price x reader #john price smut #captain price smut

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simplydnp · 2 months

Text

WAD: Cover Art

dan is still working on selling the distribution rights for We're All Doomed! so i decided to make some DVD/Blu-ray disc jacket art!

this is my attempt at a traditional jacket design! none of the images used are mine, but i did create the concept and design:

as i was making the first one for myself, i was struck by the fact that 'well, it's for me, so it doesn't have to look like a stereotypical jacket cover' which led me to be more artsy in my approach for the next one:

i was really enjoying the creativity and space to explore, so i went looking for more inspiration for a third design. this led me to dan's favourite Muse album: Origin of Symmetry, which i paid homage to:

after the first Muse album, i looked at their catalogue to see if there was more inspiration there. i was just thankful dan's favourite was easy stylistically to mimic, unlike say, 2009's The Resistance...

thank you @danielhowell for the inspiration!

nerdy stuff & reference pics below the cut!

General notes

i don't know how to use photoshop! i entirely brute-forced my way through the whole project, and the only tutorial i looked up was for the gradient text in the 4th cover

this wasn't even the original project i was working on! you'll eventually get to see that though

and this one also inspired art for the disc itself so stay tuned 👀

i will do anything for authenticity so these are Full of intentional details

matching fonts is a nightmare

the traditional cover

took the longest, as it was the first.

the barcode numbers are the date of the first video he uploaded on dinof, and the last tour show date (in m/d/y)

i changed 'iceland' to 'poland' on the front cover, as he never actually went to iceland, and poland wasn't ever on the list even though he did go there

the orange may look a little off-center in the front, but these designs need to include space for a spine between the front and back cover, i promise it's right 😂

the black and white cover

inspired by the 'i want to believe' aliens poster

the cover art comes from his metal band merch shirt design

i had to manually shrink the text, line by line, and ensure it all lined up on the back!

i even made the logos on the back greyscale

the Muse: Origin of Symmetry cover

a shockingly perfect style for a WAD cover. i'm so glad i used the cubes, even if they couldn't be orange.

there's some versions of the art online where the sky is even more orange and it baffles me how i haven't seen any parallels like this before

the Muse: The Resistance cover

this cover was never supposed to see the light of day! i meant it when i said i was grateful i didn't have to try to adapt this complex design... and yet, i tried anyway.

i did all the grid lines by hand, including the jagged/broken edge parts, shading each section, and then drawing every star.

the hardest part was getting the gradient on the back text to cooperate. photoshop's gradient settings are surprisingly limited

gotta shout out @amazingphil for being the reason i knew what this cover looked like--it's the only muse album i knew the art of before embarking on this quest!

obligatory sob story:

i've been extremely and suddenly ill for 6 months. it is difficult to function moment to moment, but especially in doing little things just for me. this is the first and only art project i've been able to feel inspired to not only work on, but to finish, and despite the pain and long hours, i enjoyed every minute of it. thank you, dan, for creating this space for me to explore, and thank you, everyone here, for being wonderful support during this time 💞

#it's finally here!! i hope you all love them as much as i do #dnp #c.text #dan and phil #daniel howell #phan art #hey phil look at this #we're all doomed #wad #c.art #word

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grxmreaperx · 7 months

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TEDDY BEAR HOFFMAN OH MY GOD on lazy Sunday morning’s he just buries himself into your side. His hair is all mused and he has his whole body wrapped around you. He’s needy, he’s sleepy, I want to scream into my pillow at the thought.

AHHH this is so adorable!! teddy bear hoffman has my whole heart!!

Pairing: Mark Hoffman x (gn!) reader

Word count: 550

Warnings: none, this is super fluffy

Summary: A sleepy morning with your boyfriend <3

You slowly opened your eyes, blinking at the morning light peeking in through the blinds. You groaned softly, stretching your limbs. You made to slide out of bed, ready to make your morning coffee, when you felt a strong arm wrap around your waist, pulling you back.

“Where you going?” Mark’s sleepy voice asked.

You chuckled slightly. “Well, I was going to make us some coffee.”

He pulled you closer, your back against his chest. “Not yet.”

It was one of Mark’s few days off, one of the only days he had nothing to do. Except focus on you.

He buried his face in your neck, letting out a small sigh. You gently pulled away, just enough to turn over to face your boyfriend.

His neat hair was tousled, small pieces sticking up. His eyes, still filled with sleep, stared into your own. His arm found it’s way back to your waist, gently rubbing circles on your hip.

“Stay in bed,” he groaned, burrowing his face in the crook of your neck.

You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face. You and Mark had been together a couple of years now, and it had taken a while to get him to show this part of himself. When he first began spending the night with you, he would hold you when you asked him to, but he had preferred to stay on his side of the bed, holding you until you fell asleep before moving to his own space.

After your first year together, he became more open, more touchy. He would pull you to him, wrapping an arm around your waist when you were in public, always looking forward to lying down with you at the end of the day.

Once you moved in together, he became the biggest teddy bear you had ever met.

He always had to be touching you, even in small ways. A hand on the small of your back, holding his arm out for you to cling to. But once you were both home for the night, lying together in bed, he had to be pressed up against you. He loved pulling you close, setting your head on his chest, or wrapping his arms around you while you spooned. He loved the feeling of your chest rising and falling as he held you, knowing that you were safe and taken care of.

He placed soft kisses along your collarbone, drawing you out of your thoughts. “Just lay here a little longer.” His arms tightened around you, running his hands across your back.

Your hands found their way to the back of his neck, running your fingers through his rustled hair. He let out a soft sigh. You ran a hand across his shoulders, gently rubbing to ease the tension he held there.

“I’m staying like this all day,” he muttered.

You laughed. “All day?”

He nodded. “I’m not moving.”

“Are you going to let me move?”

He shook his head.

You let out a contented sigh. “Love you, dumbass.”

He placed a kiss on your shoulder. “Love you too, bitch.”

tag list: @bee-who-isnt-french, @enigmatic-blues, @kujofam, @aliengutzstuff, @mysunfishpeedinmyroom, @slut4hoffman, @schrodingersjigsaw, @hoffmansnightmare, @karmaswitch, @mrs-hotforhoffman, @librababe99, @returntodustsblog, @capan-deveraux2, @switchbabeeexo

(if y'all want a smutty version, let me know👀)

#saw #saw franchise #mark hoffman x reader #mark hoffman #fanfic #fanfiction #fluff

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tarjapearce · 9 months

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Lips anon! Reader gifting Miguel a nude portrait. He was expecting literally everything but that and had to double take for the first time in years. It's certainly not a bad surprise. Quite the opposite really 🤭

Straight to the beginning of his private collection, for his eyes only. He does his own commission later 🤭

🤭🤭🤭❤️ (Im adding the read more from now on to make it easier to navigate through the blurbs ✨~)

Portrait inspired by this one 👀

Sighing, you scrolled through your phone, trying to get a perfect gift for Miguel. Mugs? No. He had a little collection on his own and always ended up using the same red and blue one Gabi had given him on Father's Day, stylographic pens? He barely used them. Probably more t shirts his size since you were using them more than he was.

Giggling at the thought your fingers typed the idea. And then, it came like a revelation. That scene of the Titanic, replayed in your watch list. A drawing perhaps? No. A painting. A painting shall be. You kicked feet and squealed for yourself as Miguel only watched you curiously.

"What are you up to?"

Giggling you shook your head.

"A little secret."

-----

The studio painting was a professional one that did exactly as they had advertised, portraits and nsfw portraits for couples. Despite the initial nervousness and lack of confidence, the woman in charge of your portrait cheered you up. First, they would take pictures to capture your form. Then you'd have to decide the the theme.

Reinassance. It was impossible to not love it.

A small scenery was set up, and soon, your pictures were taken and they'd tell you that the painting would be ready in a week.

You certainly couldn't wait, but you knew that the gift was going to worth the wait.

----

The doorbell rang and you shoot up from the seat to receive the package. The painting was a medium sized canvas, carefully wrapped in a box with a bow. Your body erupted with thrill, upon seeing the portrait. You looked like you really belonged to that era and someone had taken you as a muse.

You seemed natural even, it was gorgeous. Couldn't wait for Miguel to see it. You wrapped the thing back and placed it on his office's desk. With a

"For your eyes only" a little heart at the end of it scribbled.

---

Miguel came from work, shoulders slumped with an 'I need coffee' face. You kissed him welcome but remained quiet on your little endeavor.

He disappeared into the bedroom to change and then he went to his office. Your nerves wrecked as you heard the rustling from the box. And then silence.

In fact, Miguel was a bit weirded out by the white box laced in a bright red bow in the middle of his desk. He had read the note and bit by bit unwrapped the portrait.

His eyes widened in surprise and his mouth gaped. Every curve he knew like the back of his palm was painted with such delicacy that made his heart and something else throb. His cheeks grew warmer and his breath hitched for a second. Stunning. It was erotic and artistic. So so beautiful. You peeked in from the doorframe and giggled at his reaction.

"Ven pa'cá" (C'mere)

You approached him with a bashful smile.

"You like it?" Large arms hoarded you to then sit you on his lap as he brought the portrait to his eyes once more.

"More than that. Finally someone paints you the way I see you."

Your hands covered your face in embarrassment

"Ah stop it. Just thought it was a good gift."

"The best so far." He kissed you and looked at the portrait again, "Just look at you. Toda preciosa y mía." (All precious and mines)

You hugged him and nested your head on the crook of his neck.

"Love you."

"También te amo, chaparrita."

#miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #💋 anon #atsv miguel #soccer family ⚽🕷️#t writes✨

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becca-e-barnes · 2 years

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do you have any pornstar dbf!bucky thots👀

The Video

I've had this thought in my head all damn day and I just needed to write it. I'll link this piece on both my Dad's Best Friend!Bucky master list and the Pornstar!Bucky master list because I don't want to choose.

Consider this the piece I wrote to celebrate my birthday today 💗 here’s to 23 with you lovely folks! 🥂

Pairing: Pornstar! Dad's Best Friend!Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 3K

Summary: You find out what your father’s best friend does for work.

Warnings: Age gap (reader is in her mid 20’s, Bucky is in his late 40’s), vaginal fingering, masturbation, unprotected sex, creampie, size kink, praise kink, mentions of rough pornography, dirty talk, pet names, degradation

Minors, do not interact

Avoiding Bucky had never been your plan, purely because it would’ve been a fucking stupid one. Realistically, it wouldn’t have been easy to avoid someone who probably spent more time at your house than they did their own. When he wasn’t at ‘work’, your father’s friend seemed to spend his time at your house, mowing the lawn or polishing your mom’s car or watching some pointless sports game with your dad.

You’d never really questioned what Bucky got up to for work. You imagined growing up that he must’ve practiced a trade since he was always the one your father called to fix the kitchen sink when it sprung a leak or tinker with the garage door when it became difficult to pull down.

Now that you were fully clued in however, it all made painful sense why Bucky had been so evasive when you had come right out and asked him what he did for work the year before you graduated from college.

“What do you think I do, sweetheart?” He had asked with a smirk tugging at the corners of his soft, pink lips.

“I have no idea, Buck! You seem to have as much free time as you like, I just don’t understand how you pay the bills.” You had mused, sitting in your own garage on a work bench, swinging your legs in front of you, secretly hoping that Bucky would notice just how cute and tiny those shorts you were wearing are. Unfortunately for you, he didn’t look up from under the bonnet of your dad’s jeep.

“I guess you could say I’m self-employed, angel. I pick and choose the jobs I want. I have plenty of offers.” He tried to keep it as non-descript as possible, dodging the question rather than lying about it.

“I bet you do, you seem good with your hands.” He could tell by the genuine innocence in your voice that you truly had no idea. You weren’t leading him to answer one way or another.

He huffed out a laugh as he grabbed the rag beside him, wiping the oil from his hands, muddying the white cloth with the dark residue. “Oh sweetheart, you have no idea.”

It all made perfect sense now though, scrolling through picture after picture on your phone. Every drag of your fingertip brought a fresh wave of video thumbnails, each somehow more obscene than the last. The titles certainly weren’t much better.

Pictures of beautiful young women flooded your screen. Some had their makeup thoroughly ruined, mascara tracked down their cheeks and a fucked-out look in their eyes. Some were on their knees, their hair grabbed into a rough ponytail while they rested the tip of a cock on their tongue. Some were bent over, evidently ‘trapped’ under their bed with their ass in the air.

Curiosity got the better of you, after ignoring a warning from your brain that this might be an invasion of Bucky’s privacy. It was all posted on the internet after all, it’s not like he could keep it a secret forever.

One video caught your eye, titled ‘James Barnes fucks tight brunette, HUGE cumshot’. The crude objectification made you wince a little but the short snippet of video that the thumbnail provided you with seemed a little bit gentler than the rest.

Skipping the first few minutes helped you feel like you weren’t too invested. This was research. Plain and simple nosiness. You had no intention of watching this for any purpose other than to see whether Bucky Barnes had perfected his craft or not.

“Shit, that’s it. So fuckin’ pretty like this.” The voice from your phone was familiar but so much lower than you’d ever heard it before; so deep, you could only have described it as a growl.

The girl whimpered, almost pathetically. You couldn’t blame her. Bucky wasn’t small by any stretch of the imagination and judging by the reaction of the woman he was buried inside, he managed to hit all the spots he needed to.

You’d heard fake moans before. Hell, you’d made plenty of them yourself. Enough to know that the woman you were watching wasn’t orchestrating hers for the benefit of the camera. No, those were real. Right down to the trembling thighs either side of Bucky’s narrow hips.

“You have no idea how perfect you feel. Tight and wet and warm. You take me so fuckin’ well.” You watched as he slid inside her, painfully slowly. Admittedly, her body did take him well, letting him sink in until he had nothing left to give. This poor woman was already looking somewhat blissed out, begging him to fuck her but that’s when you skipped forward to about a minute before the end. That same woman was now clawing at his muscular back, whimpering and sobbing delightfully while Bucky pounded into her. He wasn’t holding back in the slightest, letting the same filth tumble from his lips.

“Oh baby, you sound like you can’t take any more. Are you done?” He was so condescending, it made your gut tighten with lust, a dull throb settling between your legs but the woman only shook her head.

“Good girl. God, ’m so close. You’ll never get enough, will you? Just a needy fucking slut for me. Gonna have you all cock obsessed. Bet you’ll think of me every time you touch that pretty pussy of yours from now on. You’ll be begging to see me again.” Bucky sounded wrecked, finishing his sentence with a drawn out, low groan. Within a couple of seconds, he had pulled out, splashing his seed all over the woman’s tummy, pearlescent spend rolling down her sides and onto the sheets while some pooled on her heaving chest.

Over the next few days, you tried desperately to get what you had seen out of your head. You tried hard, you really did. Perhaps it didn’t help that late at night, you found yourself going back to watch more. Perhaps it also didn’t help that you found your hand drifting under your panties as you watched, taking care of that familiar throb that seemed to turn into an ache when you watched for too long without touching yourself.

Dodging Bucky was simple enough but you knew you couldn’t keep it up forever. Hiding in your room couldn’t become a hobby just because you found out your father’s best friend, the older man you had been so innocently crushing on, was a porn star.

The first time you bumped into him though, it was game over. He could tell just from the way you looked at him that something was up, or rather, the way you couldn’t look at him.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?” He asked, watching you make yourself look busy in the cereal cupboard late one afternoon after he had walked into your kitchen. You saw him coming and very obviously tried find any excuse that meant you wouldn’t have to talk to him.

“I’m fine, looking for cereal.” You replied, your head almost buried in the cupboard.

“Well, I hope you find it. If you can’t see it from there, you’ve got a problem. I bet your nose is practically touching the box, you’re so deep in there.” He sounded too damn amused and it only made you more embarrassed. This really was the last thing you needed. “Why are you avoiding me, honey?”

There it was. You were called out.

“I’m not!” You tried to sound sincere but you weren’t awfully successful; you knew even as you were saying the words that it wasn’t going to fly.

“Mhm, and the fact you saw me coming has nothing to do with how you’re buried shoulder deep in the cereal cupboard? Don’t think I’m stupid. I know you’re avoiding me.” In hindsight, you maybe could’ve handled that a little bit better but now here you were, pulling yourself back out and forcing some painfully awkward eye contact.

“I’ve seen the videos.” You mumbled, looking away and making yourself busy with your nails.

“Okay.” He dragged the word out a little, slowing it down and only adding to it’s gravity. “And? You’re an adult. You know what porn is. Things don’t need to be weird but if you’re uncomfortable having me around, I can leave you alone.”

“No, you don’t have to, I don’t have a problem with it. It’s all just very… Rough?” You weren’t really sure this was a conversation you wanted to be having, shame burning in the pit of your stomach because clearly you’d just admitted to watching more than a video or two.

He paused for a second, nodding his head, the couple of light grey hairs at the crown of his head glinting in the light. “You’re right, sweetheart. It's a little rough at times. That’s not my preference, that’s the script I’m given.”

That made sense and somehow settled you just a little. “So you just stick to the script?” You quiz, holding eye contact with him again for a few seconds before it got too intense.

“For the most part. It doesn’t tell me what to say, that’s all up to me. It just gives me direction. It’s a running order of the scenes we’ve agreed to shoot. Most of those videos certainly aren’t a representation of how I would want to fuck if I got the choice.” His lips were curled in a soft smile, watching you lap this all up.

“A-and how would you want to fuck if you got to choose?” You couldn’t quite believe you’d said it but apparently you did because the question hung in the air longer than you might have wanted it to.

“Well sweetheart, that depends. I’d treat a pretty little thing like you a bit differently. I’d have to be slow with you. Really ease you into it. I bet I’d have to spend a lot of time working you up to take me. I think I’d start by giving you my tongue until I can slip a finger into you. Then a second finger. Maybe a third if I think you can manage it.” He could see the effect this was having on you. You’d wanted to imagine it while you’d watched his videos but you couldn’t bring yourself to fall into the fantasy. Now he was dragging you into it.

“Then I’d put you on your hands and knees. I’d tell you to rub yourself while I press inside you, so slow you’ll be begging me to give you all of me. And when you’re at that point, ruined and desperate for more, I’ll fuck you nice and slow. I’ll have you just as addicted as those other girls but with a kinder pleasure. I’d tell you how beautiful you are and how badly I’ve wanted to kiss every inch of your skin I can. I’d tell you how gorgeous you look when you cum and how it’s better than I ever imagined.”

God, this was something close to a dream come true. “I-I’d like that. That sounds… Nice.” Words were really failing you, hoping this was a genuine offer and not just some hypothetical situation that would never play out.

“It does sound nice.” Bucky huffed out a laugh. “It sounds real fucking nice. I shouldn’t want my best friend’s daughter cumming around me. I know I shouldn’t. I know I think about it far too often but nothing gets me off the way you do.”

Your breath caught in your throat, an embarrassing arousal throbbing its way around your body, settling in the pit of your stomach. Heat blossomed in your chest, hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t some sick joke.

“I want that. But I don’t want you to be too gentle. I want you to fuck me the way you want to fuck. Not what you think I need.” Your confidence almost caught him off guard and he didn’t expect to find it as sexy as he did.

“God, you’re a tease.” He muttered under his breath, crossing the short space between you both to crash your lips against his. You could feel the heat of his body against yours, the difference in size almost making you shudder because you’d never felt this small against a partner.

His lips were soft, his hands wandering seemingly everywhere at once and it was so much to take in. Fuck, it was perfect. Intense and hungry but not overwhelming.

“Bed, Buck.” You pant between fervent kisses before he’s grabbed you by the back of the thighs, helping you wrap your legs around his waist so he could carry you to your room.

You both had your clothes stripped off in a frenzy, not giving much thought to anything other than the way your lips slotted together. Your bottom lip felt perfectly at home between his teeth, the slight pain of his bite only making you moan.

“You’re such a good girl.” He whispers, tugging your panties off and groaning when he realises how slick they are already. “Fuck, I should’ve known how bad you’d need this. It’s always the ones you least expect.”

His breath feels so hot on your neck, littering the skin with kisses and gentle nibbles, panting tiny groans against you while his fingers slide over your core.

You’re wet and messy, aching with a need you didn’t know you were capable of. “Oh sweetheart, I could slip right into you. You’re soaking wet for me. God, you’re a dream.”

“Buck, please. I want your tongue later. P-please just fuck me first.” You could hardly manage a conhesive thought with the way his fingertips played with your body ever so gently, alternating between rubbing little circles on your clit and teasing your hole with the tips of two fingers, pressing them in just to the first knuckle.

“This is wrong, sweetheart. So fucking wrong. I shouldn’t get this fuckin’ excited hearing you beg for my dick but it’s all I’ve wanted for months.” His voice is just as low as you heard in those videos, dripping with arousal.

“The only thing ‘wrong’ here is the fact you’re not inside me yet.” You giggle quietly, rolling over and presenting your ass to him, exactly how he had described earlier.

Whatever self-control he had was gone. Long gone. The sight of you offering your slick, hot core was more than enough to ruin him but the way you watched him over your shoulder with an excited smile almost had him trembling with need.

“This is wrong.” He whispered, lining the tip of his dick up with your entrance, grunting at the feeling of the wet heat.

“So wrong.” You repeated quietly. “S-so fucking wrong. We shouldn’t be doing this.” You were breathless already, pressing yourself back until his tip had just slipped inside you. “We shouldn’t need this as badly as we do.”

Bucky’s groan was beautiful, watching as you shifted yourself back to allow the rest of his length to slide slowly into you.

“You know damn well what you’re doing to me.” He sighed, looking away from the sight of his thick length gliding home. “Play with yourself. I won’t last long this time sweetheart but trust me, I’ve got all night with you.”

You’d never seen him this wrecked so early on in any of his videos so you did as you were told, letting two fingers circle your clit the way you often did when you watched him slide into those other women.

You heard him take a deep breath, pulling back out as far as possible without slipping out before pressing back in again, dragging a soft groan from both of you. This was everything you’d both longed for and more.

His huge hands squeezed the cheeks of your ass, admiring the how soft and plush it felt under his touch, dragging himself back out only to press back in, earning another groan.

You could’ve taken this forever, enjoying the way his tip nudged that delicate spot inside you while your fingers worked exactly how you like them to. This was bliss in its truest form. This was the passion you had craved, the gentle touches and soft praises but accompanied by an all-consuming pleasure.

“Faster Bucky, please.” You whined and hell, you looked like a goddess, fallen forward onto the bed, so consumed by sensations that you wanted to have no control over and he could recognise that so clearly.

“Tell me you need me.” He panted, speeding up his thrusts, letting each one land beautifully before forcing himself momentarily from the heat of your body once more.

“Oh God, I need you. I need you, Bucky. I need you to fuck me faster. Fuck me harder. It feels so good. I’m gonna cum for you, I just need more.” You couldn’t help but sob, drowning in the litany of groans and curses falling from the older man lips.

Your fingers worked faster, in time with the thrusts you were receiving until it all come crumbling down around you. The knot in your tummy tightened unbearably, your heart pounding as the sensation took over entirely. It was a perfect release, your body clenching and tightening rhythmically while you sobbed the ecstasy into the pillow under your head.

“Oh good girl, that’s it. Cum nice ‘n hard. O-oh God.” You vaguely registered Bucky coaching you through your orgasm before reaching his own but unlike any of his videos, he didn’t pull out. He stayed buried inside you, pressed as deep as he could go. You felt the weight of his seed inside you, the position allowing it to drip deeper, pooling at your cervix and the thought alone made you shudder.

“My God, that was…. Wow.” He laughed, kissing down your spine before pulling out and flopping onto the bed beside you.

“Yeah… Wow.” You giggled, kissing his cheek and curling up against him, not really worried that you were both a little sweaty.

“I meant it though. I’ll be gentle with you later. I’ll take my time with you. I just needed that.” He kissed your forehead, running a hand down your back and damn, he certainly wouldn’t hear you complaining.

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 7 months

Text

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 9: We’re Friends When You’re On Your Knees]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Y'all, you are not ready for this one. Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, sexual content (18+), murder, Aemond "there are other Targaryens" Targaryen having feelings again (good ones?? not good ones?? both?? who knows bestie, not me!), an unexpected family reunion, must be the season of the witch... 👀

Series title is a lyrics from: "7 Minutes In Heaven" by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: "Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued" by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 8.4k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

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You watch her from the shadows of the dungeons, rusted iron, phantom echoes of falling water, chilling drafts that come from nowhere and everywhere. She has not yet noticed you. She is beautiful, regal, arrogant, even as she sits gnawing on crusts of bread and the gristle of chicken bones, scraps that Lord Larys throws to her like she’s a pig nosing its way through a trough, an animal that is clever and yet condemned. And if she is livestock, then what are you? A creature of darkness, of nightfall, lethal and treacherous, a wolf or a bat or a spider. You step forward and into a ray of light that cuts across the stones like the path of a comet.

Baela gasps and drops the tibia she’d been working on, cracking it in two, sucking out the dead-blood marrow. Her wide-set, almond-shaped eyes catch on you. She is not afraid; you have never known Daemon Targaryen’s eldest daughter to be afraid of anything. She is fascinated.

“I’m sorry,” she says, crawling across the floor of her cell. She grips the metal bars and peers out at you, kneeling there like she’s praying. You suspect Baela has never prayed to anyone or anything. “I didn’t mean to almost burn you. I didn’t realize you were standing on the steps with him until after I’d given Moondancer the order. It all happened so quickly.”

You cannot appear to be angry. You have no reason to be angry if you are Aegon’s captive. “I take no offense. I wasn’t harmed.”

“No one had any idea the Usurper was here,” Baela says. Still her eyes are bright, entranced. “We believed Dragonstone to be vacant.”

Good. You give her a dismal smirk. “No. Not so vacant after all.”

“Are you with child yet?”

A bolt shoots down your spine like cold lightning. “What?”

“That’s what he’s trying to do, isn’t it?” Baela says. “He wants an heir from you. His wife is dead, his sons are dead. He couldn’t get his claws on me or Rhaena. But you can give him a Valyrian-blooded prince.”

Aegon has never mentioned having children with you. You don’t know if this means he doesn’t want them, or if he does not wish to place demands upon you, or if he is indifferent, or if he believes it to be impossible. “I have nothing to show for his efforts.”

“Has it been unspeakably awful?” And if Baela seeks to console, this is secondary to her personal interest; she is curious, she is absorbed. Her fingers close more tightly around the iron bars. “He’s a drunk, a degenerate. He’s vile. He’s deformed. Has he tortured you? Has he violated you in a hundred different ways? Does he tie you down, does he strike you, does he cut and bruise you?”

And this is the Blacks’ story, one they could never begin to suspect might be fiction: that you are a martyr, that Aegon is a monster. In place of an answer, you give Baela the treasures you have brought her. You pass them through the gaps between the bars: a bottle of ink, parchment, a quill with a point like a blade.

Baela takes these objects, amazed. “You can help me send a letter back to Harrenhal?”

“I don’t know if I will be able to get to the rookery. But I’ll try.”

“The Usurper allows you this much free rein?”

He trusts me. He loves me. He’s bedbound and in agony. “He’s rather distracted at the moment.”

“He’s dying, hopefully,” Baela says. She has already begun to write. And there’s a reptilian sort of coldness that is snaking deeper into you, constricting around your bones, gliding through the blood-slick chambers of your heart, too much a part of you to ever rip out. But now Baela’s face softens. She looks up dolefully. “Moondancer, she’s…she’s gone, isn’t she?”

You bow your head as if this is something tragic. “She did not survive Sunfyre’s attack.”

“Fucking beasts,” she seethes, resuming her writing. “When my father learns of this, he and Caraxes will come to rescue us. And he will burn the Usurper alive.” She finishes her letter, rolls up the parchment, and hands it back to you.

“How will Daemon know that you authored this and under no duress?”

“My signature,” Baela says, grinning. “I end all of my correspondence to him with Your ever-obedient daughter. It is a joke between us. If it was absent, he would notice. His suspicions would be aroused. That is how I would signal if I was ever forced to write to him against my will.”

There is dark satisfaction like a spell shimmering in your arteries, nerves, the void-black pupils of your eyes. You return her smile. “Perfect.”

“Don’t fear,” Baela tells you, and reaches through the rusted iron bars to clasp your hand. You fight the reflex to tear away from her, this woman who certainly maimed Aegon and might have killed him. You find yourself studying her, measuring her height and weight, calculating how much milk of the poppy it would take to end her life. “Cregan Stark is south of the Neck now. He will move heaven and earth to possess you, everyone knows that. Soon we will have Northmen marching through the Riverlands with Caraxes and Sheepstealer safeguarding them from above. And after the Riverlands they will be in the Reach, and then finally King’s Landing to stabilize the capital. The Usurper and Sunfyre cannot fight. Daeron is scarcely more than a boy. The Betrayers are avaricious, overconfident drunks. The Greens will be vanquished before winter.”

“And what about Vhagar?”

“Together, Caraxes and Sheepstealer can bring her down.” But there is doubt in Baela’s voice, yes, a vacillation that is rarely heard from her.

“I hope so,” you reply, one of countless lies.

You take Baela’s letter to the rookery, open it, examine it carefully for the subtleties of her handwriting: slopes and dots and lines. Then you get a fresh piece of parchment and painstakingly draft a very different message. Not a plea for help, but an assurance that all is well; not a summons to Dragonstone, but a confirmation that the castle was found to be unoccupied and is now held firmly by Baela and Moondancer.

And you end the letter before tying it to a leg of the raven trained to fly to Harrenhal:

Your ever-obedient daughter, Baela Targaryen

~~~~~~~~~~

“Please eat something, Your Grace. I beg you.” Lord Larys Strong’s face is creased with servile, attentive worry. On the plate before you is fresh, warm bread and a dish of salted butter. In your bowl is a crab soup thick with vegetables, the broth tomato-based and red like Autumn’s hair, like blood.

“I can’t.”

“Would you like me to bring you something else? I could have the chefs prepare roast chicken, or duck, or boar…”

“No.” You push the bowl of soup away. You and Larys are alone in the Great Hall, seated at the high table which presides over a silent, vacuous chamber. The room was built to resemble a dragon lying on its belly; the entranceway is its mouth, two massive doors edged with stone teeth. There are dragons everywhere, these talismans of Aegon’s house, these creatures that are monsters to some and saviors to others.

Larys studies you closely. His voice is tender. “Your Grace, please. Can I do anything for you?”

You consider him, an enigma that is useful and subtle and dogged in his loyalty. “What is it that binds you so faithfully to Alicent and her children, Lord Larys? House Strong was so favored by Rhaenyra. Her heirs were your blood, no matter how much she tried to deny it. You could have risen high in the Black Council. Make no mistake, I am very thankful for your service to the Greens. I am glad to count you among the greatest of our fortunes. But what inspired you to turn your coat?”

Larys smiles at you. He has eyes like rain, the wavy abundant brown hair of his spurned family. His hands rest on the handle of his cane. “Your eldest brother is an acclaimed swordsman.”

“Yes,” you agree, caught off-guard.

“And so was mine,” Larys says. “House Strong, is it any wonder what we valued most? My father loved Harwin. He was so fiercely proud of him. He was interested in him, he understood him. They would whisper to each other all through feasts, all through tourneys, conspiring, chortling, enmeshed in this synergy that left no air for anyone else to breathe.”

“And your father never understood you.” Just like Bartimos Celtigar overlooks Everett, a son gifted with books and quills instead of horses and swords. “Never even tried to.”

“It is a terrible thing to be in the midst of your family and yet feel alone.”

“It is,” you say, remembering the Blacks’ festivities in King’s Landing.

“Now Lyonel and Harwin Strong whisper to no one,” Larys says, his smile widening into a dark, victorious grin. “And I am the Master of Whisperers.”

You remember the words that Otto Hightower spoke to you as he waited for his execution in the dungeons of the Red Keep: These dark, contagious facets of life change us all. They ruins us. Time, heartache, violence. You become capable of inconceivable things. You would scheme and deceive. You would murder. “Do you ever regret it?” you ask Larys softly. Becoming a sinner, a killer, a kinslayer.

“Never,” he replies. “Dowager Queen Alicent was the first person to ever truly listen to me. To make me feel worth something. Worth anything. To advance her interests in every way possible…that cannot be an injustice. It is the cleanest kind of loyalty. And I have no doubt my sacrifices will be repaid. If the Greens triumph, that is. When this war is over, Alicent’s son must sit the Iron Throne.”

“You mean Aegon.”

“Yes, of course.” But something mournful passes over Larys’ face like a shadow; he peers down at his hands to hide this from you.

He doubts Aegon will live. He foresees Aemond or Daeron inheriting the throne instead. You stand from the table, your chair squealing shrilly against the stone floor. “We should bring the king his supper,” you tell Larys. “He needs his strength.”

Aegon does not like you to be there when the maesters prod at him, scrub his wounds, rebandage his shattered legs. You were once his healer, yes, but now he believes you to be his wife. He does not want to be your patient. He does not want you to see him as a wounded man writhing in bed, as someone helpless, pathetic, weak, doomed.

The maesters are just finishing when you arrive with a tray of buttered bread and fresh soup, steam rising from the bowl of red like entrails that litter the earth once a battle has ended. The maesters are gathering up bloody strips of linen to be burned. Aegon is sobbing; his silver hair hangs in chaotic waves, both hands cover his face.

Your voice is hushed and heartbroken. “Aegon…”

“No, I’m okay,” he says, sniffling, mopping the tears from his cheeks with his bare palms. Then he reaches out to you. “Come here, come here, come here.”

You go to him, sliding the tray onto his bedside table until it clinks against the glass bottles there: rose oil, red wine, milk of the poppy. You climb onto the bed and Aegon’s arms circle around your waist, pulling you in closer as he buries his face in the warmth of your chest, your throat, covering you in hurried, imprecise kisses. Dimly, you wonder what he tastes when he breathes you in; you wonder what colors bloom in the sunless passages of his lungs.

“I missed you,” he murmurs. You can feel the dampness of his tears on your bare skin, the roughness of his scars.

“I was only gone for a few hours.”

“Too long,” he says. “Far too long. How’s Sunfyre?”

“He’s down on the beach, Your Grace,” Larys answers from the doorway where he has materialized like stars at dusk.

“Is he eating? Ambulatory? Wading in the water?”

“He’s…” Lord Larys hesitates. “He seems to be in a great deal of discomfort.” And yes, you know this to be true: Sunfyre the Golden’s wings hang in shreds, his wounds are inflamed with infection, and there is something wrong with him inside as well, a wheezing when he inhales, blood that seeps from his nostrils and his jaws. There’s nothing anybody can do for him. No one can touch him but Aegon, and Aegon can’t leave his bed.

Aegon says to Larys, low and sinister: “I want Baela dead. I want her burned.”

“She is far more valuable to you alive, Your Grace.”

“I am the king and I wish her to die.”

“Corlys Velaryon is her grandsire,” Larys implores. “If he discovers you executed Baela, he may recommit himself to Rhaenyra’s side. He may launch his own rebellion even after Rhaenyra is defeated. If you wish to win and keep the Iron Throne, I advise you to spare her.”

Aegon sighs and glares out the window that overlooks the Narrow Sea, his arms still linked around your waist. You begin to weave his braid for him. “Aegon,” you say gently. “We’ve brought you supper. Please eat it.”

“I’m afraid I’m too nauseated by my own inadequacy. Perhaps later.”

“You want to be well again. And you will be. But you have to eat.”

“I really don’t think I can.”

“Aegon, please.”

“Well…” He glances over at the bowl of soup and then gives you a mischievous smirk. “I suppose nothing tastes better than a crab, does it? Particularly when it is served in bed.”

“Or on the floor of a library.” You smile and kiss him: his pale face, his trembling lips. You finish his tiny braid like a silver chain and tuck it behind his ear. Then you pour him a cup of milk of the poppy, just one pearl-white splash, just enough to sand the serrated edges off his anguish.

“No.” He stops you, a hand on your wrist. “I don’t want to be useless again. I don’t want to be swimming in dreams. I want to be here with you.”

You shake your head. There are tears stinging in your eyes. “But you’re in pain.”

He grins, brushing your hair back from your face. “I’ve been in pain my whole life, Angel.”

And he manages to force down half the soup and two brimming goblets of wine before he sinks beneath the sea of his consciousness, while outside waves crack open against the rocks and Sunfyre leaks viscous threads the color of crimson, roses, flames.

~~~~~~~~~~

“You sent that raven a week ago,” Baela tells you when you bring her your offering, your clandestine kindness: apple cake, black tea. “More than enough time has passed for it to be received at Harrenhal and acted upon.”

You fill a porcelain cup with tea from the kettle and give it to her through the iron bars of her cell. “Perhaps the raven went astray.”

Baela ponders this as she alternates between unladylike chomps on a wedge of apple cake and slurps from the cup. “Maybe my father has been away from the castle. Maybe he’s out on the battlefield with the Stark men.”

Or maybe he believes you and Moondancer to be perfectly well and presiding unopposed over Dragonstone, and therefore not in need of his attention. What a welcome delusion to live under. I’m sure he’d rather be fucking Nettles anyway. You take the empty cup when Baela has drained it and refill it with tea. Baela accepts the nearly overflowing cup gratefully. She has had nothing to drink since she was taken captive except muddy rainwater that pools in one corner of each cell, guided by stone gutters that run along the outside of the castle. The tea is cloudy with cream and laced with sugar; still, her nose wrinkles a bit when she swallows it down.

“Bitter,” she notes distractedly.

“It’s made from leaves grown here on Dragonstone. Formidable, but not very sweet.”

Baela cackles; it echoes through the dungeon. This is the same voice that commanded Moondancer to brutalize Sunfyre, to send Aegon plummeting to the sand. Are her eyes already losing their viperish sharpness, is her heartbeat slowing? “Just like me!” She finishes her cup of tea and eagerly holds it out to you through the bars. You pour it full of the earth-colored brew once again.

You ask her as she licks apple cake crumbs from her fingers: “Why is Cregan Stark so determined to wed me?”

“He wants you. He considers you worthy of him.”

“But he doesn’t understand me. He doesn’t really know who I am.”

Baela shrugs indifferently. “None of us love anyone because of who they are. We love them because of who they make us believe we are.” She sips her tea and blinks groggily. “In any case, he will be your honorable savior, and you will be his illustrious damsel, and when the traitor dragons are dead he will spirit you away to Winterfell to bear his wolf pups. It’s not so bad a fate, I think. Not for someone like you. You aren’t ill-suited to matrimony. You are docile enough. A caretaker, a healer. You seem like the sort of woman who would be content with just one man.”

Yes. If he was Aegon. As you watch her kneeling on the stone floor of her cell, Baela sways and almost nods off, seemingly unaware that she is doing it.

“Burning might be too swift a death for the Usurper,” Baela says, smiling dazedly. “Cregan should have some of the Boltons flay him. They can all take turns wearing his hideous scars.”

“Yes. Skins shed, skins regrown, some of us change them over and over again.”

Baela stares at you inanely. She is beyond comprehension. Then she collapses to the stone floor, the porcelain tea cup spilling from her grasp and breaking into jagged white shards.

You take the key to the cell off the hook out in the corridor and unlock the door of iron bars. You step inside, still holding the tea kettle in one hand. You set the kettle down and drag Baela until she is propped upright against a wall. Her pulse is slow, but still present; she moans feebly as you position her. But it is all for a good cause; you must ensure she drinks the rest of the tea, the witches’ brew of leaves and cream and sugar and a fatal dose of milk of the poppy. Outside you hear a deep, prehistoric rumble as Vhagar flies over Dragonstone and scouts for a landing spot large enough to host her. Aemond is back again.

You angle the spout of the tea kettle between Baela’s paling lips and ply her with a small amount, less than a mouthful, then you rub her throat in just the right place to trigger her reflex to swallow. You know this trick well; you have used it on grievously wounded soldiers. You used it on Aegon after he was burned. You repeat the steps until the kettle is empty. Then you lay Baela flat again and watch her chest rise and fall slower, slower, slower until it stops. But still, you leave nothing to chance. You nick Baela’s wrist with a paring knife from the castle kitchens, until now tucked away in a pocket of your gown, emerald green silk to match the side of this war that you are pledged to. Her blood, unpropelled by the rhythm of a heart, dribbles sluggishly rather than spurts. She’s gone; she’s with her mother and Luke and Jace and the young sickly Viserys and Rhaenys, Otto and Helaena and Jaehaerys and Maelor and Autumn’s silver-haired son that she never had the chance to name. You wonder if the struggle goes on in the afterlife. Perhaps presently Otto and Baela are scratching and yowling at each other in a castle made of clouds.

Upstairs, Aemond is already in Aegon’s bedchamber. They are speaking in whispers when you enter, and you catch only pieces of the exchange: capital, Cregan, marriage, Daemon, crown. Larys stands in the corner of the room, his hands laced atop the handle of his cane. He gives you a reverent bow in greeting. He might not be so pleased to see you once he learns what you’ve done.

Aegon stops talking abruptly when he spots you and gestures for Aemond to go quiet as well, a commanding sweep of his hand. Aemond follows his brother’s gaze to the doorway. His lone blue eye climbs up and down you like a man on the rungs of a ladder. His hair is in one thick braid from his flight; stray white-blond strands that have been ripped free hang in disarray around his stoic, unreadable face. Aemond does not bow to you and never will. He only leers, a silver-haired wolf, a hawk with unhollow bones.

“Hello, Angel,” Aegon says, beaming or at least attempting to. He is frail and pallid and too thin and dripping sweat. There are indigo rings around his eyes like bruises. His legs are swollen, grotesque mountain ranges beneath the blankets. You rush to him and sit on the edge of the bed, feeling his forehead for fever and combing your fingers fondly through his hair.

Aemond sighs irritably. “Anyway, I’d like to torture her.”

“My prince…” Larys urges.

Aegon holds up a palm. “Now now, Lord Larys, let’s hear his proposal. Exactly how much do you intend to torture Baela?”

“Quite a bit,” Aemond says.

“To death?” Aegon asks hopefully.

“I don’t see why not.”

“My prince!” Larys says again. “Please, consider the possible ramifications, she is a prisoner of substantial strategic value, if your mother was here she would caution—”

“I’m afraid that Baela can no longer be interrogated,” you confess, and they all turn to you. There is a long, laden pause.

“And why is that?” Aemond says.

“Because she is dead of poisoning.”

“What?!”

“In her cell. Her body is there now. Feed her to Vhagar or Sunfyre, throw her in the sea, do whatever you wish with her. But she has paid her debt for the harm she inflicted upon us.”

Slowly, a grin splits across Aemond’s face. Larys shakes off his shock and resigns himself to it. But Aegon is neither proud nor reconciled. “You did that?” he says softly.

“You wanted Baela dead.”

“Yes, I did. But you don’t take life,” Aegon says, remembering what you once told him in King’s Landing. His oceanic eyes are stunned and fearful; not because Baela is was murdered, but because you were the one to end her. Because until now he was still able to tell himself that you could somehow escape this war unscarred, unruined. “You preserve it.”

“I preserve yours,” you reply. And when you offer him milk of the poppy—with no fear, for you know precisely how much it takes to kill a man—Aegon refuses it again, taking his suffering pure and sharp like the glass of a mirror.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What will happen to him?” Aemond asks you. You’re sitting on the stone staircase together under overcast midday skies, sipping wine and watching Sunfyre amble lethargically up and down the beach. You aren’t sure what’s made him so restless: his own dire injuries, Aegon in torment within the castle walls, something else entirely, some premonition that only beasts of ancient magic know. At last, Sunfyre seems to have exhausted himself and crumples onto the sand.

“I think Aegon will walk again. Eventually.”

“But he won’t be able to fight.”

You shake your head. “No.”

“Fuck,” Aemond hisses caustically, glowering out over the ocean.

You look at Aemond, needing to ask but terrified of the answer. “Can you win without him?”

“Can we win, you mean?” He smiles faintly, then sobers again. “I think so. Just before I left the Riverlands to come here, I received reports that Daemon had sent his lowborn little child bride away with Sheepstealer. He is trying to protect her from Rhaenyra’s assassins. My bitch of a half-sister has thus done us a remarkable favor. If Daemon is alone, I have no doubt that Vhagar can slay Caraxes. They say Daemon has fled Harrenhal. He’s hiding from me. I will find him, and I will burn him. I will end this war.”

“You need to be with Criston when his army faces the Northmen.”

“Of course,” Aemond says; but something in his face worries you.

There is a high-pitched shriek overhead, a glimmering flash of vivid gemstone blue. You startle and Aemond’s hand juts out, grabs you by the forearm, yanks you closer to him; then he relaxes when he recognizes who it is.

Aemond sighs loudly. “Why the fuck can’t he stay where he’s supposed to be?!” Then he stands, helps you to your feet while he’s at it, and heads down to the shoreline to meet Daeron and Tessarion.

The Blue Queen circles the beach several times, Daeron peering down as if struggling to understand something, his long white-blond hair whipping in the wind. At last Tessarion lands, her claws sinking into the wet sand, ocean froth bubbling around legs. Her long, swanlike neck stretches out towards Sunfyre, soft inquisitive squeals emanating from her jaws. Daeron leaps down from the saddle and strides to where Sunfyre is sprawled helplessly on the beach.

Alicent’s youngest child is clad in mint green—including a cape that billows out behind him in the seaside breeze—and glinting gold accents everywhere, buckles on his boots and the clasp of his cape and even a freckling of studs in his ears. He props both hands on his waist as he scrutinizes the crippled dragon. “Well, you’re not Moondancer.”

“He ripped Moondancer’s throat out,” Aemond says. “And then he ate her.”

Daeron whistles and gazes at Sunfyre admiringly. “I heard that Baela and Moondancer had taken possession of Dragonstone. I came to murder them. But now I see my services are unnecessary.”

“Baela is dead.” Then Aemond adds, nodding to you: “Here is the executioner.”

Daeron considers you, then laughs and assails you with a spirited embrace that nearly knocks you off your feet. “Welcome to the family, Lady Celtigar.”

“She’s the queen now.”

“Is she?” Daeron asks, eyebrows raised. “I was not under the impression that our brother was in any particular hurry to marry again.”

“His priorities seem to have shifted,” Aemond says.

“Can I see him?” Daeron looks around the beach and then up at the castle, shielding his eyes from the greyscale daylight. “Is he not outside with you? What is he doing in there? Not reciting prayers and composing poetry, I’d imagine.”

In Aegon’s bedchamber, Daeron cannot conceal his shock, his dismay; he gawks at the king like he is a three-legged dog, a blinded orphan. He stands thunderstruck at the end of the bed, taking in the vague yet horrifying outlines of Aegon’s shattered legs, the gauntness of his face, the fact that he is incapable of playing any meaningful role in the war for the foreseeable future. You sit on the bed beside Aegon, Aemond lurks by a window, Larys observes intently from a respectful distance, his eyes following every word as they flit through the air.

When Daeron recovers somewhat, he says: “I need to know what to do about Hammer and Ulf.”

“Why?” Aegon replies wearily. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Apparently, Mother once offered them the seats of House Costayne and House Merryweather as compensation for their efforts on behalf of the Greens, and they accepted. But now that’s suddenly not good enough. They’re asking me for the Riverlands and the Vale.”

Aegon turns to Aemond. “Is there anything left of the Riverlands these days? Should we find a new name for them? The Smolderlands, perhaps? The Everything-Is-Dead-Here-Now-Lands?”

“This is serious,” Aemond says flatly.

“I’m entirely serious.”

“Should I just tell them they can have whatever they want?” Daeron asks. “And then when the war is over and we’ve won…you know…pretend not to remember that conversation?”

“They can’t be given territory of any importance,” Aemond says. “They aren’t nobility.”

Daeron amends: “More relevantly, they are devoid of accountability and self-discipline. They drink all day and whore all night, and…oh, I mean no offense, Your Grace.”

“Fine,” Aegon says, preoccupied. There are fat beads of sweat on his bloodless face, glistening misery in his eyes. He gazes sorrowfully down at his left hand where he once wore his golden dragon ring before he lost it the same day he destroyed his legs. You pour him a cup of red wine and he drains it in seconds. You fill another.

“My point is that Hammer and Ulf are increasingly unreliable. I am only halfway convinced they could even show up for a battle before it was over. And yet we need them. Especially if Sunfyre cannot fight.”

“Agree to their requests,” Aemond says. “And if they survive the war, we will deal with them then. Rhaenyra’s faction is the greater enemy. We cannot risk the Dragonseeds racing back into her arms.”

“Lord Larys?” Aegon prompts dimly

“I could not agree more, Your Grace.”

“And on the subject of Rhaenyra,” Daeron continues. “Tessarion and I can take King’s Landing. Syrax is the only dragon in the city now, and Rhaenyra has never ridden her into combat.”

“No,” Aegon says. “We cannot risk setting the capital ablaze and turning the people against us. And Mother is there. Everett is there.”

“Everett?” Daeron looks around, baffled. “Who the fuck is Everett?”

“Angel’s brother. Not the firstborn son. The other one.” And as Aegon explains this, his chest is heaving and his eyes are glazed over. He tries to reposition himself in bed and has to bite down on his lower lip to keep from crying out, hard enough to draw blood.

“Is there anything else?” you ask Daeron and Aemond, a warning in your face. He needs rest. He needs to sleep, to heal.

“No,” Aemond says. He paces towards the door and snatches Daeron’s cape as he passes by him, hauling him out into the hallway. You follow after them.

As soon as he is out of earshot of Aegon’s room, Daeron tells Aemond: “He doesn’t look good.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Aemond, I think you should prepare to—”

“He’ll be fine!” Aemond snaps.

“You don’t think I’m losing something too?” Daeron demands furiously. “You don’t think I want him to be well again? Of course I want that. But if wishing people to live made it possible, the world would be a very different place.”

“You are needed in the Reach,” Aemond says, and that’s all.

Daeron glares up at him, incredulous, defiant. “This will be over soon. I hope you’re ready for what comes next.”

Then he storms out of the castle, soars down the long stone staircase, meets Tessarion on the windswept beach and takes flight into the southwest where the earth is green but the nights are an inescapable, dreamless black.

~~~~~~~~~~

Aegon is weeping again; you hear him from the hallway. It is after nightfall, and the castle is illuminated only by firelight. Candles flicker; the hearth crackles and pops. In the shadows, Aegon lies with his dragonfire scars and his fractured legs and his useless hereditary magic, tears streaming down his face. You have a vision of what he will look like when he’s dead; you imagine the Stranger reaching up from underneath the bed to seize him with claws like a raven’s talons and drag him out of existence.

“I need it,” Aegon sobs when he sees you, grasping for the glass bottle of milk of the poppy. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to need it, but I do.”

“I’m here, Aegon. It’s alright. Let me help.” You pour him a cup of the bitter remedy, a strange gleaming white like pearl, opal, moonstone. Then you tilt the cup against his lips. Aegon gulps down the milk of the poppy and then falls back into his sea of pillows.

He murmurs, eyes closed as you graze the backs of your fingers feather-lightly over his unmarred cheek: “I wanted to start over with you.”

“You’ll still get the chance.”

“No,” he whimpers miserably. “I ruin everyone. Everyone I’m given, everyone I touch. Helaena, Jaehaerys, Maelor. We don’t even know where Jaehaera is, in Storm’s End, lost on the road, taken captive, dead. Otto, Autumn, Aemond, Mother, Sunfyre. And now I’m ruining you too.”

“You’re not,” you plead with him in a whisper. And not for the first time, you think: What do you require from me, Aegon? Wrath, compassion, healing, children? What can I do to give you hope again? Tell me and it’s yours. I’d do anything. I’d become anyone. “Aegon?” you begin, trying to ask him; but he is already unconscious. He’ll likely be out until sunrise.

You drink cup after cup of red wine and sit in the flame-lit shadows with him, in the quiet, in the liminal space between decisions, envisioned sins and prospective virtues. Then you leave the bedchamber like a ghost, a creak here and a tap there and no other trace. You wander down long, twisting corridors framed by dragons of iron and stone. And at the other end of the castle beyond a door you’ve never opened before is the lair of a very different breed of dragon: tall and lean and ambitious, his eyepatch removed and stowed away for the evening, his long silver hair hanging freely to his waist.

He is wearing cotton sleeping trousers but nothing else. He is seated at his writing desk and scrawling something onto parchment in black ink, a list or a diagram or a design for a new crown upon his ascension to the throne, you don’t know and you have no intention of asking. You have far too many things on your mind already. You feel nauseous and unsteady, you feel like you can’t possibly go through with this. You can’t imagine it. You can’t fathom what he would feel like, taste like.

Aemond steals a nonchalant glimpse of you, having no sense of your inner turmoil. “Can I assist you with something?”

“Yes,” you say simply, sipping your wine under the stone arch of the doorway.

He looks up at you again, his quill suddenly still in his hand. His two eyes are on you, one wide and river-blue, the other a soulless glittering sapphire in a tangle of ruined flesh. And now he understands. There are other Targaryens, he had said. “Take off your clothes. Sit down on the bed.”

You step inside his bedchamber and close the door behind you, setting your empty cup on the edge of his writing desk. You walk to his bed—dark green blankets, gold thread—and shed each piece of clothing you have on, a black gown and everything under it, not looking to see if Aemond is watching you, too anxious, trembling wildly. But you know his gaze is on you when you—standing naked and shivering in the firelight—begin to pull back the blankets and hear the sharp reprove in his voice.

“I did not tell you to hide yourself from me,” Aemond says. “Sit at the edge. Yes, there. Good.”

You perch on the bed and wait for him, your ankles linked, legs swinging restlessly, arms crossed over your chest. Aemond is staring at you from the opposite end of the room. You can’t look at him; you look elsewhere, at the tapestries of dragons hanging from the drafty stone walls, at the thick candles that drip white wax. And this won’t be like lying with a stranger, but it won’t be like lying with someone you want either, because you are profoundly uneasy and monstrously ashamed and perhaps even afraid.

Aemond is approaching now, firelight skating over his smooth, unsinged skin. He is undoing the tie at the waist of his trousers. He yanks them off, revealing himself to you. He is already hard, and he is massive, vast in length and width. The panic hits you like a breaking wave.

“Oh,” you gasp in alarm, unable to stop yourself. Then you explain so he won’t be offended: “I’m not going to be able to take you if I’m not ready.” You rest a hand on your bare thigh, slip it between your legs, begin to stroke yourself the way Aegon does, trying to relax, trying to think of him…

“No,” Aemond says, moving your hand aside. “Let me.”

Obediently, you rest your palms just behind you on the mattress, open your thighs for him, inhale sharpy as Aemond’s long, artful fingers touch you somewhere only one other man ever has. And you’re a traitor, the worst kind of traitor, because it’s working: you can feel yourself opening for him, hungering for him, coating his hand in slick warm wetness.

Aemond isn’t looking at your face. His eye is fixed on the place where his fingers are circling, where he is now pushing two inside of you, and while it happens abruptly and roughly enough to startle you it is not quite painful, or maybe it is, just the tiniest bit, but the pleasure eclipses the pain, the pleasure is a current you are powerless to swim against.

“You can tell me to stop,” Aemond says as he strokes you from the inside with his fingers buried to the knuckles, his breathing labored. “I don’t want you to. But if you tell me to stop, I’ll listen. Okay?”

You nod, and instead of an answer you give him a moan, stifled but unmistakable, dark treasonous forbidden ecstasy. And this snaps something in Aemond, it unleashes a part of him he’d been keeping tied up like an untrustworthy animal, one that could maul or maim or kill. He drops to his knees, hooks his arms beneath your thighs, drags you to him until his lips and tongue are on you with dizzyingly blissful pressure. You fall back onto the bed, one hand twisting into the blankets, the other in his waterfall of unruly silver hair, pushing him even harder against you as he licks ravenously. Aemond doesn’t seem to mind; with each roll of your hips and bitten-back plea his enthusiasm blooms, hums and triumphant chuckles spilling from his mouth as he swallows down the proof of your desire. It’s starting, that swift climb towards a high like nothing else on earth, something Aegon once taught you was possible. You are a betrayer, but with the very best of intentions; you are making a sacrifice, but it feels so much like a gift.

“Aemond, I’m ready,” you pant, your fingers hopelessly knotted in his hair. “You can do it now, you can…” And then you lose your words because instead of rising to his feet, Aemond stays right where he is, his tongue insatiable, his face drenched in your wetness.

He’s going to make me…I’m so close…

“Aemond, what are you waiting for…?”

His lips close around the spot where you are most sensitive and he sucks forcefully, and that feeling like a shuddering, irresistible unravelling strikes you harder and faster than it ever has before, so intense it is almost painful, sharp and commanding, not something he is doing with you but to you, and you know even in the golden haze of the climax that this is not about love but about power, pride, control, worthiness.

He doesn’t stop. He is licking you again, opening your folds with one hand, thrusting two fingers inside of you with the other. You are still feeling the pulsing, involuntary aftershocks of one high when the next begins building, building, building, and when you close your eyes all you can see are waves on the ocean in a storm, swelling to impossible heights and ungoverned by anything except the dubious mercy of nature.

“Aemond please,” you beg in a frayed whisper, bathed in sweat and guilt and frenzied lust. “I’m ready. Just do it, please…”

And then he wrenches you into another vortex and it takes everything in you not to scream, not to jolt awake the skeleton crew that tends to Dragonstone and its surreptitious guests. You are beyond complete thoughts, beyond sentences. You are boneless, your muscles have turned to mist and air, you are entirely under Aemond’s control and that’s where he has wanted you all along.

“Aemond, please, please, please…”

Unable to resist any longer, he stands—wiping the glistening, dripping sheen from his face with the back of one hand—and forces his cock inside you to the hilt. He does not slow down when he meets resistance, and you don’t tell him to. You moan in shock at the disorienting fullness, you cannot help it; it is a feeling on the knife’s edge between ripping agony and euphoric pleasure. It is something you would gratefully die of. He moves within you, deep and quick, his hands clasping your hips. Emotionally, you feel nothing but a razored, perilous, impersonal intensity; in your body, it is paradise.

Again? Again…?!

“Are you going to come for me one more time, Angel?” Aemond taunts you as he thrusts; and that’s Aegon’s name for you that he’s using, and it’s wrong, and Aemond knows that, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to break the spell he’s got you under, you can’t tell him to stop, you don’t have the will to, and if this is about power then you know who’s won out of the three of you, you know who has steel in his bones and lightning cracking in his veins.

It’s different this time, pleasure rising like the tide in your whole body, a peak that is not concentrated so clearly between your legs but everywhere: fingertips, spine, belly, heart.

“Come for me, Angel. I know you can do it.” And then for the first time Aemond leans in close to you, his pristine scarless chest pressed to yours, his lips traveling from your throat to the curve of your jaw, his tongue darting into your mouth before you can turn away, and he tastes like pure, mineral lust, and maybe that’s not just because of what he’s done to you, maybe that’s all he is all the way down, hunger that is never satisfied, a need to consume like fire burns flesh.

You whimper, a desperate vulnerable sound, a pleading for him to finish what he’s started and give you this one last high, just one more, just one, please, please, you’ll do anything.

“I’m better than him, aren’t I?” Aemond demands as he fucks you, and there’s no other word for it. This isn’t making love, this isn’t a meeting of souls, it is using someone else’s body to patch up all your hollows, all the pinprick voids you’ve been walking around with for years, losing yourself one blooddrop at a time until you pass by a mirror one day and think who the hell is that? “I know how to take care of you. I know what you want. I can do things Aegon never could. I’ll make you come again. I’ll give you a prince.”

And he coaxes it out of you like the memory of a dream, more like an ether than something you could name: a shimmering elation all over, a cry you can only muffle by biting down on Aemond’s neck as he pounds into you, and then he at last he surrenders what you came here for, but only after all the rest of it. He fills you with himself, so much of it that you can feel it pouring out onto the blankets, immense flooding wet warmth that gives you no satisfaction whatsoever.

I’m a traitor, you think, and for all the times you’ve changed your skin this is the very worst of them. I shouldn’t have done this. I wish I hadn’t done this.

Aemond lifts himself off of you and rolls onto his back, panting alongside you as you both stare up at the ceiling, drenched in each other’s salt and knowing things that were once so unthinkable. Aemond is gazing over at you. His clear blue eye is tracing your lips, your breasts, your hips, your folds that are soaked with his sweat and seed. You don’t want him watching you. You feel sick knowing he’s watching you. You get up from the bed and begin putting on your gown.

Aemond says: “We should probably try again tomorrow.”

You shake your head. “I can’t,” you reply quietly.

He sits up on the bed, his lone eye narrowed and suspicious. His hair is damp and now flows over his shoulders in disheveled silvery waves. “What?”

“I can’t do this again. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“So that’s it,” Aemond flings. “Just this once and never again. Never again in our whole goddamn lives.”

“It feels like betraying him. It is betraying him.”

“And what if he can’t father any more children?!”

“Then I’ll be barren.”

Aemond glares, petulant, affronted. “I thought you wanted to help this family.”

“You didn’t do this for your family. You did it for you.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m a fucking monster.” He tears off the bed, tugs on his trousers, ties the knot with swift furious hands.

“Aemond, I didn’t say that, I don’t think—”

“You’ve done enough,” he seethes, pawing through a chest of clothing. He finds a shirt and pulls it on, gathers up his things, rages to the bedchamber door. He whips it open and disappears into the nightscape corridor.

“Aemond!” you call after him in a fierce whisper, as loudly as you dare to. “Aemond, where are you going?!”

“To take Harrenhal,” he pitches over his shoulder. And then he’s gone, and maybe it’s your fault, and maybe it isn’t, but either way you are wholly convinced that it is.

You bathe in one of the massive tubs heated by the lava that runs deep beneath the rocky earth of the island, scouring away every trace of Aemond, lathering yourself with soap scented with pine, rinsing, lathering again. Still, you can feel the way he moved inside you with such battering, rapturous force. Still, you miss him, you miss being able to talk to him and look to him and trust that he will protect Aegon in every way he can, for no matter how much envy Aemond is built of you believe his love for his king is stronger.

You return to Aegon’s bed, always so careful now not to jostle his legs, his shattered bones that are only just beginning to mend. You are petrified that he will know somehow—that he will see it on your face, smell it sweating from your pores—but Aegon has nothing for you but seeking hands and contented, drowsy sighs.

“Where’d you go?” he mumbles, still half-asleep, drawing you in closer. “I missed you. I keep dreaming that everyone’s gone. I watch you walk through the doorway and I’m left here in bed all alone.”

“Aegon?”

“Yes, wife.”

“Do you need children with me to be happy?”

He waits a long time before he answers. When at last he does, he chooses each word carefully. “I have never felt a calling to be a father. I’ve never been any good at it. Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, Maelor…they were mine, but they also weren’t, and I can’t explain it. I felt nothing for them except a vague sort of sympathy that they had the misfortune of being born to me. Now, did a lot of that have to do with my relationship with Helaena? Probably. And do I think things would be different if I had children with you? Yes, I believe they would be, to some extent at least. But I don’t need children to be happy. I just need you.”

You say with tears in your eyes and your voice splintering: “I’m so sorry, Aegon.”

He is mystified. “For what?”

“For not being a better person for you. For not being able to cure or protect you. For not being able to end the war.”

“Angel, nobody can,” Aegon says, fingers snarled in your hair, lips to your forehead. Then he smiles; you can feel the warm, playful curl of it against your skin. “Well, except Aemond, of course.”

~~~~~~~~~~

She is there to greet him when he arrives. She creeps out of the shadows like a spider, long limbs and volcanic-glass eyes, whispers like wind in brittle fall leaves and flesh that will never refuse him. She wears black, not for one night like you did but always; she has long dark hair that she never cuts or braids or ties back. Sometimes there are raven feathers in it, sometimes herbs or powders from spells, sometimes twigs and petals, sometimes blood. It all washes out in the cold cryptic currents of the Gods Eye. Once Daemon Targaryen was here, but he did not have a wound in the shape that she could fill, could walk into like a doorway and stitch herself into the velvet-gore lining of his lungs, his liver, his heart. But now Daemon is gone. And Harrenhal has a new king to reign over the city of bones and ashes.

She meets him under the starlight that trickles in through the ruins of Harrenhal, less a castle than an architectural graveyard, less a place of beginnings than of calamitous ends. Her fingernails trace his scar and she tells him it is the mark of a hero. She touches her lips to his sapphire eye and tells him it reminds her of a god. And thus the doorway opens, and Alys drifts through it, silent and resistless like smoke, like a plague.

Perpetual Resurrection, Aemond thinks. He knows they are the words of House Celtigar. He has studied the mottos of every noble house in Westeros; but none speak to him more than these.

She touches him and he sees everything he could be. He tastes her lips and drinks down the smooth intoxicating fire that burns the boy he once was away.

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